Loneliness in Entrepreneurship: Piyush Patel, Ph.D.
29 Aug 2025 · 44 min
In this episode of The Chris Project, host Christian Brim interviews Dr. Piyush Patel, Ph.D., about his recently defended dissertation examining how attachment styles influence loneliness and sexual satisfaction among married entrepreneurs with businesses generating over $1 million in revenue. Patel describes the three‑year research journey, including self‑teaching statistical software, designing a survey that attracted 260 qualified respondents (≈15% attrition) and employing the validated UCLA Loneliness Scale. He explains attachment theory’s four styles—secure, anxious, avoidant, and insecure—and reports that avoidant attachment is linked to higher loneliness and lower marital/sexual satisfaction, while anxious attachment shows less loneliness due to hyper‑awareness. The primary driver of entrepreneurial loneliness, contrary to expectations, is financial secret‑keeping, which spills over into personal relationships. Patel hypothesized that co‑entrepreneur couples (copreneurs) would experience lower loneliness and higher sexual satisfaction, but the data showed no statistical effect. He discusses how avoidant attachment manifests in business as a hub‑and‑spoke, control‑oriented structure, fostering chaotic work environments and reinforcing isolation. The conversation expands to broader themes: the bias inherent in academic research and peer review, the pitfalls of pay‑to‑play journals, the difficulty entrepreneurs have recognizing they are part of the problem, the therapeutic role of sex therapy and couples counseling, and the value of peer networks versus consultants. Patel also shares anecdotes from an Oxford Business School exercise illustrating how childhood chaos predicts entrepreneurial stress. The interview concludes with reflections on the intertwining of business identity with personal ego, the challenges of separating self‑worth from business outcomes, and the upcoming publication of Patel’s dissertation.
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This is the Chris Project, where we discuss mental wellness, self-awareness, and mindset with entrepreneurs and experts. Set your perceived ideas and biases aside and let's go on our journey for yourself, for your family, for the world.
Welcome to another edition of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, Dr. Piyush Patel. Dr. Patel, thanks for coming back.
Thank you for having me.
When we, I think you may have been the first, but certainly one of the first 5 episodes on this show, you were not in fact Dr. Patel. Nope. So since we—
That's a minted.
Since we last left our intrepid hero, fill us in.
Yeah, so I finished my dissertation and defended it and got that entire process. It took me 3 years, but it was a challenging but fruitful process.
Would you recommend the process?
If you're a masochist, absolutely sign up for it.
Is it what you thought it would be?
It was more than I thought it would be and very different than what I thought it would be.
Mm-hmm. How so?
Well, it's just a journey. You know, you learn research methods in undergrad, you learn statistics in grad school, you learn all those things. So when you get to this level, there's no handholding. There's no like, oh, let me show you how to do this research. They're like, this is your journey. You go figure it out. So there was, you know, of the 3 years, If I add it all up, there's probably a year of just go figure it out.
Right.
And so I had to teach myself statistical software. I had to teach myself how to structure surveys and verify that they're valid. There's just a lot of stuff I had to go learn that's outside of my topic area.
So it was a significant intellectual challenge.
It was. It was. I have a lot of respect for the people who have earned PhDs.
You know, I, I, Just in general, this just thought came to me. In general, I read a lot about scientific studies. And they're being peer-reviewed and consensus thinking. And then you'll have the divergent thinkers that say, well, no, the research was structured wrong. Like they're not looking at the right variables, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, from a layman's perspective, if someone says, well, they're referencing this study, for instance, as like a basis for their argument, how much credence should we give to studies in general? Or what should we look for to see whether those are truly worthwhile and valid. I guess my thought is that there's a lot of bias in the way things are structured so that you get to the conclusion that you want to get to.
Yes and no. I mean, if your goal is just for publication, there is this drive to like, I've got to match up my hypothesis to my outcomes, right? But at the research level, at the dissertation, even if your hypothesis is completely wrong, that's still good information in that, oh, it didn't match what my thoughts were. Here's what the actual truth is. All research, I believe, has some inherent bias already built in because the researcher has bias.
Right.
And so how do you recognize that? How do you account for that? That's all part of the process as well.
Did that change the way you look at information? Like when you see people referencing studies, do you look at it differently now?
I do. I do. I actually go look them up. And so it's like, oh, oh, wait a minute, there is no study that you're referencing. Or, oh, you cherry-picked one number. You forgot the critical number, which was this data point. But that's part of research as well, right? Because You don't have to disclose every bit of data from another study in your study. You may just say, hey, this one sentence supports what I'm thinking. And so whoever wrote that sentence, they have the owner's, you know, ownership of like, hey, you got to make sure it's right. It's all of it's right.
Yeah.
And that's the whole peer review process, right? So a bunch of your peers who are experts in that area are going to go triple check all your stuff and go, Okay, I think we can stand behind this at its current state. But really, we're all adding one little brick onto this wall of research. I got lucky. I got to start a whole new wall, right? Because the population group that I studied had never been studied before.
I want to get into that, but my follow-up question on it. So peer review is like the gold standard. Like if something's been peer reviewed, that's Well, let's, let's go back a step.
Peer-reviewed in really good journals.
Okay.
Okay. There's this brand new, hey, I can make money opening a journal, so I'm going to start a journal today. And hey, who wants to peer-review? Oh, and by the way, Christian, for you to be published in this journal, it's going to cost you a few bucks. You know, we have printing costs and things. So once that happens, that's called a pay-to-play. Once you're in the pay-to-play field, The journals are a little murky, you know, they're not as prestigious, and prestigious can come with a lot of gatekeeping, a lot of, hey, you don't have— its own biases. So it's got, I mean, look, at the end of the day, you as the researcher need to verify, is this a good source, bad source? Much like anything, especially in business, right? You're not going to just sign up for something. You're going to go do your homework and Is this a valid resource for my organization, and will it support the goals that I have?
Yes. And I think what is often missing— I mean, this is not where I wanted the conversation to go, and we'll steer back, but from other researchers that I've talked to in the scientific community, They talk about how there's a fundamental lack of business understanding or the— like in a university environment, for instance, like what the economics— how the economics drive the research and like the whole model, the whole system. Did you encounter that in your journey? I mean, obviously you understood business, but your peers and colleagues that you were working with.
Yeah, I think when I had originally suggested my title for the dissertation, the very specific population that I wanted to study are business owners that have a business over $1 million in revenue. So that is a very tiny percentage of the overall business community. And I remember pitching this in my proposal, early on days where you have to get the OKs and the approvals. And they were like, wow, Pish, I don't know. I don't think you're gonna get many people to fill out your survey. And I needed at least 100 to make it a statistically valid or statistically relevant study. And they said, look, maybe you might find 30 people in the United States could fit this criteria. And if you can find those 30, you know, we'll call this a pilot study and maybe somewhere, somewhere down the line, somebody will pick it up and finish your study. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go get more than 100 people. So I actually got 260 people to fill out the survey that qualified.
So they just really had no idea about what the population that you were, the people that you were studying.
Right.
Yeah.
And I think that is also an exposure to academic researchers are not going to be invited into certain circles. Yeah. And so then those circles don't get researched.
Yeah.
So I had, you know, being a former entrepreneur and I guess, are you ever a former entrepreneur?
No, no.
Recovering.
Recovering maybe, yes.
And so that allowed me to have access into these kind of smaller niche networks where where I just put it out there and said, would you please fill this out? And if you've got a peer that also owns a business, will you send it to them? And then people were like, yeah, I'll help you out. Let's fill it out.
Yeah. I'm curious, the start to finish ratio on your survey, because I knew I was gonna complete it, but as I'm answering these questions on the survey, I'm like, huh, these are kind of intimate questions that I don't know who's gonna be comfortable answering that. So any idea of what percentage started it that didn't finish it?
You know, off the top of my head, I want to say about 15% did not finish. Oh, well, that's pretty high. Which is tiny. I think the way I wanted to address that initially as well. So I made it very clear that there's no identifiable information. We're not collecting your name, your email. There's no prize or gift for filling it out. And so that in itself, like, no prize, right? So it's kind of a standard, give a $10 gift card.
Right.
They're like, you can't give more than $50 for this. And I thought, you know, millionaires are not gonna be motivated by a $10 gift card.
No.
And so I'm just gonna ask for the, you know, altruistic, hey, will you help me? I'm your peer. Will you help me? Ultimately, this is to help you and the community. And they all showed up.
I love it. So what, okay, let's, let's talk about this new wall. You started. So did you set out to start a new wall?
No, I was told, don't get ambitious. Add one brick to the wall of research. You know, this is— when I approached the dissertation, here's my mindset. And this is my end-all be-all. I've got to make this thing perfect. And I had a great advisor who kind of sat me down and said, this is a school project. Don't, don't get your head too big. It's just, have you put on the walls all of your other essays and research papers from school?
No.
No, can't find them. It's just another one. So let's just do it. Do the exercise, learn from the process. And so, yeah, that was really an interesting mindset for me because part of the journey is also evolving yourself and the way you think. And so for me, not finishing something or not finishing it at an excellence level, that's tough for me. Like my brain will just freeze on it and I'll ponder and ponder. And it's probably another 12 months we're eating up and just, I don't know, how can I make it better? Let me go back and rewrite. And they were like, look, this is part of the growth process where you have to understand what is done. What is good enough? How do you overcome that need to like, no, it's gotta be perfect.
Right. Well, that's a huge life lesson that I'm still trying to learn. I'm not going to go down that road. Okay, so what is the new wall of research?
Right. So my topic was the influence of attachment theory, which happens at early, early stages of life. Attachment theory entrepreneurial loneliness and its effect on the sexual satisfaction of married entrepreneurs with a business over a million in revenue. So over a million in revenue, that's a brand new wall. And in terms of loneliness, attachment, sexual satisfaction, those three things together have never been studied on that group of people.
And now you're going to dumb it down for us. Mm-hmm. Um, what were the findings?
So some really interesting things here, right? Um, obviously loneliness is a key factor for the entrepreneurial community and it showed up. Loneliness comes out in the entrepreneurial community, not for the reasons I thought, right? I just thought, oh, well, you know, it's a lonely job, right? You're at the top of the mountain and everybody works for you. So they're all yes people and okay, that's a lonely thing. Turns out the number one cause of loneliness for entrepreneurs is financial secret keeping. Hmm. And so that shows up with, oh my gosh, how am I going to make payroll Friday? And people ask, how are we doing financially? Oh, we're doing great. We're doing great. We really need to close some sales, uh, immediately if possible, but we're doing great. Well, you bring that home. And if your spouse doesn't work with you, well, now you've kind of gotten used to keeping a few secrets at work. So you start to keep some secrets at home and that starts to create some isolation, right? So you're always feeling this isolation feel. Now, a lot of entrepreneurs, I'm not gonna say all, but a lot of entrepreneurs have an avoidant attachment style, meaning it shows up like this. And your listeners are probably like, this is me, this is me. It's like, hey Christian, can you help me set up the, you know what, nevermind. I'll just go do it. It'll be easier than explaining it to you.
Right? Right?
That's a very subtle tell of my attachment style, which is I really can't trust you as an adult because I never could trust the adults when I was a young person.
Right.
I'll just do it myself. I can trust myself. That sounds like an entrepreneur, right?
Yeah.
Yes. I can't work for you cuz I can't trust you'll even pay me on time. So I'll trust myself. Yes. And I'm gonna build this and I'm gonna prove to others. And there's, I would love to do this research side note. There's an interesting arc in business, right? Yes. So you start off with this fire in your belly and I'm gonna prove to the world and But here's what you end up doing. You end up hiring people, paying those people, taking care of customers, solving other people's needs, being on time. All the things that you wish you had when you were a child. Mm-hmm. You start to do that for others and strangers often.
Mm-hmm.
And over time, entrepreneurs wake up and go, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm, quote, bored with it, or I feel like it's ran its cycle, or I've grown it as big as I want. I don't want to do this anymore. What that all is translating to, I think I healed my childhood attachment wounds and I feel okay now. This is no longer fixing it for me.
Right. Without realization that they had a problem even to fix.
That's right. That's right. Which is really unique. Now, it could also go the other way, which is if it doesn't get healed in that timeline, that is kind of the natural evolution of a business, then it's, I'm a failure. I really can't trust others. It just reinforces that attachment wound.
Okay, so let's go back a step and lay some fundamental terms down here that I'm familiar with. You obviously are familiar with. Maybe our listeners aren't. What is attachment disorder?
Not really a disorder. Let's look at it as styles.
Okay.
Right? So there's 4 styles. Bowlby discovered these early in his research. What they did is they took a little baby and a mom, put them in an observation room and gave them some toys. And they told the baby, they were letting the baby play and they had an earpiece in the mom and they told the mom, get up and walk out of the room and we're gonna watch what happens. And the baby would kind of look, okay, cry, hey, where's mom? And then kind of go back to playing toys. And then they would say, okay, mom, go back in the room. Let's see what happens. Most babies, you know, oh, mom's back. You know, hug. Oh, you were gone. Where'd you go? Okay. And back to playing toys. That's a very secure, hey, mom leaves. Like, ah, where's mom? Okay, I'll play. Mom comes back, "Oh, Mom's back." Right. Okay. Back to normal. That's a very secure, they can trust adult. They're gonna leave and come back. They're gonna do what they say, right? Mm-hmm. Where it starts to get murky is when Mom leaves and the baby just starts bawling and bawling. And then Mom comes back and the baby won't stop bawling. Now they're gonna hold on, "Oh my God, where have you been? I don't wanna play with these toys." Right. "Don't ever leave me." right? He's become an anxious attached adult. This is like, please don't leave, right?
Yes.
It really gets me anxious when you're— when I'm talking to you and you're on my— on your phone, you're not paying attention to me. Yes. Because my mom would do this and, and I just can't handle it. Yes. So that's one style. The other style we just talked about was you're avoidant, right? This is, you know, mom comes back and the baby's like, I don't want to look at you, I'm going to play with my toys, I don't— I don't like you, I can't trust you. And when you have both, they call that an insecure attachment style. And that's really hard on relationships.
Right. So to clarify, so you had the baseline. So everybody has an attachment style? Pretty much. Okay. What percentage of the population in general have a normal attachment style versus—
Yeah, we'll call it secure. Yeah, right. Um, it's really fascinating. It's like almost a quarter, quarter, quarter in the research group that I studied. Interesting. Yeah. So it's really hard to say normal, right? Because profession adds a play, your childhood, two-parent, one-parent, um, siblings, no siblings. All these things have little micro factors in your attachment style. So everybody is like a fingerprint, but It's interesting how it folds out like a bell curve, like there's a fourth, fourth, and a fourth.
Okay. All right, so let's define loneliness. Was that self-defined in the survey? Like, I just feel lonely?
No, I used a UCLA loneliness score instrument that was a validated scale that said, yeah, this actually measures loneliness with these handful of questions that then measures, puts you on a scale high loneliness, low loneliness.
Okay.
And so then that was laid on top of their attachment style. So as you can imagine, the more avoidant you are, the higher loneliness you experience, which also has a decrease in marital and sexual satisfaction.
What about anxious or insecure? Is there a relationship to the loneliness there?
Not as much as anxious because they're usually very hyper-aware.
Or avoidant.
Anxious. Yeah. So avoidant folks have a higher level of loneliness.
Okay.
Anxious did not have a higher level of loneliness, I think because they're more hyper-aware. Hey, why are you on your phone? You looked at me funny. What does that mean? Right. So I'm a little more hyper-aware versus I'm just going to pull away. And that pulling away reinforces the loneliness in that relationship.
Okay. What about insecure?
Insecure was a really tough group because they exhibit both characteristics. Right. And as you can imagine, if you're insecure, your hypothesis would be you're going to have high loneliness. And that matched up as well.
Okay. All right. I had been familiar with the attachment concept. Based upon a book that was recommended to me a couple of years ago, Secure Love, which I think I referenced for you. And I realized, this is self-diagnosis now, that I think I actually am insecure and demonstrate both. When I had gone to marriage therapy, The counselor said that I was avoidant and my wife was anxious. Now, it's possible, I don't know, that my wife is insecure as well and demonstrates both, but living with her for 32 years, she's definitely avoidant. Right. How hard is it to self-identify or to be clinically categorized? I mean, is that a hard diagnosis to make?
No, there's, I believe it's, there's a number of online tools that your listeners can jump onto that you can just type in, measure my attachment style or tell me my attachment style, and a bunch of surveys will pop up and you can just fill them out. And what it does is it kind of gives you a range of Here's your number and this is what category you fit into. Um, can you exhibit behaviors of different attachment styles? Absolutely. We call those defense mechanisms or coping mechanisms. Uh, your, your partner, if your partner is highly anxious and you're avoidant, you will start to learn how to communicate with them in their language, so to speak, right? Um, within the clinical world, I'm a big fan of Imago therapy. And the precipice of that, which really ties back to attachment, is you're attracted to a partner that represents your childhood wounds with the hope that you will be able to heal those childhood wounds through your partner. Unfortunately, they don't know that's what they're signing up for.
Right.
And they're signing you up for the same deal.
Right.
Right. So this is a very subconscious process. Yeah. And that's really the arc of love, right? You kind of go from this, early love, limerence, you know, new relationship energy. You're so in love that you cannot detect all the little, you know, red flags that are firing off.
Right.
And then after that wears off, which is, you know, you can ask any counselor, marriage counselor, and they'll say, well, it wears off between 9 days and 9 months or 9 years, who knows?
Right.
Somewhere in there it starts to wear off. And then all the things that actually attracted you to that person start to irritate you mainly because it's a reflection back to those childhood hurts.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah. And what, you know, through Imago therapy, what you do is you learn to say, you know, I'm not, I should not use you to heal those wounds. And the person says, yeah, my job is not to heal those wounds for you. My job is to go on the journey while you heal those wounds.
Yeah, I find it fascinating, kind of looking at it more from a metaphysical or spiritual— I've had this conversation with several guests— is that what you learn is what you were looking for from your father, your mother, your spouse. That they, at the end of the day, did not have it to give. Like, at the end of the day, what you were looking for, they didn't have. That's right. And I think when you have that realization that what you're looking for is not outside of you, that really kind of changes the whole dynamic. That's right. Yeah. Okay. So because your specialty is Is it sexual dysfunction? Is that how you would classify?
It's sex therapy. So I work as a clinician and have a focus in sex therapy, couples.
Okay. So because that was your specialty, you had to throw sex in there. Had to. So, well, I mean, you had to. What is the correlation there? I mean, I think I have not read your study. I need to read your study. I should have read it before the show. I would suppose my hypothesis would be that there would be a strong correlation to dissatisfaction in sex and loneliness.
Is that accurate? Chicken dinner. You got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you assumed that the data— Yeah. Yeah.
Here's where my assumption got broken and I was completely surprised by the outcome, which was this concept of copreneurs. So two partners, let's call 'em husband and wife, husband, husband, it doesn't matter, right? Wife, wife, it doesn't matter. Two people who are in a relationship bond also own a business together. Both of them work in the business. Okay. They're both, so let's think about this. All of a sudden you can't have financial secrets, right?
It gets a lot harder.
Yeah. And you both are kind of on the same journey. So I thought, okay, this is gonna be interesting. If you're copreneurs, if you have that designation, then your loneliness will be low and your sexual satisfaction will be higher. That was my hypothesis.
Okay.
Being a copreneur had no effect. Really? Zero. Why? Zero statistical.
Why do you think that is?
I think, um, I think the same thing that shows up at your home relationship just shows up at the office.
Okay.
So if you are, you know, avoidantly attached at home, well, guess what? You're still avoidantly attached at work and you're going to isolate yourself. You're going to, you know, work on your own projects. You're not going to discuss certain things that maybe vulnerable to you, and you're not going to bring those home either.
Yeah. And to reiterate what you said, that the loneliness— let's see if I've got this right— that the loneliness manifested itself in financial secrecy.
That's one of the primary ways that it shows up. It's also a level of entrepreneurial loneliness. In terms of like isolation, you know, being around people who want something from you. Like nobody's gonna go hang out at your happy hour after work if you stop paying them.
That's true.
And there's a—
I haven't tried that, but I'm sure.
At some point it's gonna wear off, right? Right. And so you come to this realization like, wow, I'm surrounded by people who only wanna be around me 'cause I pay them.
Yes.
Yes. You know, you and I are fortunate to have a peer group and a network that supports us. I can't tell you how valuable that is in terms of so many entrepreneurs who do not have that peer group. They're just literally on this island by themselves.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, it's funny. My— I didn't understand. I mean, I guess if someone had had the conversation with me, I would have agreed with it cognitively, but at some emotional level, I didn't understand that the people that worked for me were there and engaged with me only because I paid them. Right. Right. I wouldn't have said, yeah, if I don't pay them, they're going to stick around. Yes, that's true. But on some level, I thought, I felt, it wasn't thought, I felt like they were there because they wanted to be with me. And I didn't want yes people. I didn't want people that just told me what I wanted to hear. But because of my psychological dysfunctions, that's what ended up happening.
Well, they have a vested interest in not rocking the boat.
Right. And being able to tell somebody something they don't want to hear in the context of business, especially as a subordinate, is an extremely high level of trust. Right. And that just doesn't happen. I mean, and even if you— like, I want that now in my organization, and I finally have gotten to the point where people will call me on my bullshit. Good. Right? Yeah. But it's still tenuous. I mean, like, underlying it is that I control their livelihood.
That's right.
And that changes the paradigm.
Yeah, there's a power dynamic clearly in place. And oftentimes over time entrepreneurs, it just gets blurred. They're like, no, no, there's no power dynamic. I'm one of the team members. No, you own the team. And there's a clear power dynamic, right? You're the only one who has forgotten about that. Not that, you know, and the trust comes by not weaponizing that fact.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes. So yeah, it was an interesting journey to go down, which has now led me to, you know, I would say 3/4 of my client load are business owners, entrepreneurs, couples. So a 1/4 of my work is sex-related. A lot of my work is, you know, just the rigmarole of owning a business and the pressure and stress that comes with that. Um, but I was going to share with you, I had a chance to go to the Oxford Business School.
Yes.
And it was fascinating. So this professor gave everybody in the room this survey. So there were 50 of us, right? All entrepreneurs, all successful, 19 different countries. And he said, okay, I've got 4 questions for you and you're going to score them 0 to 5, 0 being low, 5 being high. So the max you're gonna make on this is a 20. And if you score a 20, your business is on, like, off to the moon. You can be gone for a month-long vacation, never check your email. You come back home, the business has even grown more than you expected.
Right.
Okay. A zero, he's like, you have a dumpster fire. You don't even know what the hell's going on in your business.
Give us a sample question. What was one of the questions?
My employees can make decisions without asking leadership.
Okay.
Something like that.
Okay.
So the average score, and he posted this in front of everybody.
Of the 50?
Of the 50. Okay. Take a wild guess. What do you think is the average score?
I think you shared this with me, so I know it was low.
12. 5.
Oh, even worse, okay.
So that's pretty close to dumpster fire, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And so the hands go up, oh, hey, how do I increase my score? First of all, I think that's the wrong question to ask, but let's go with it. And the professor who is esteemed and like super knowledgeable, right? Like been there, done that, goes, oh, it's really easy. Clarify your mission, clarify your values, Write job descriptions so everybody knows what's going on. Clean up your org chart so they know who to ask for help. Right. And I was like, okay, yeah, 3 years ago before I started this journey, I would've been like, sign me up for that plan. Where do I buy the book? And can you come and consult?
Right.
I would, right? Because that makes total sense. Mm-hmm. So I raised my hand and I said, I, can I ask a question? And the guy's like, "Yeah." I said, "You know, I don't think you ever asked what was their childhood like, the foul, like all the people in here. Did you grow up in chaos?" 'Cause 5 is chaos. And if you grew up in chaos, and chaos could be a single parent, mom had to work 2 jobs, an alcoholic parent, a sibling that beats you up all the time, being bullied in school, like you name it. Chaos can be all over the place, right? Living in an unsafe neighborhood. You pick your— pick your capital T or lowercase traumas, right? And I said, if you grew up in chaos, you know what? 5 feels really good. It feels real comfortable.
Normal.
Normal. You know what sounds real scary? 10. You know what sounds impossibly scary? A 20. A 20. What do I even do? I am the chaos master. Hell, I lit my house on fire before I left so I could put it out when I get home.
Right.
So, you know, you, you add all that up and you're like, I thought, wow, there's a real opportunity here that if we heal the entrepreneur, they can grow their business, right?
Yes.
The healing is not clarify your mission. That's table stakes.
Right.
Right. You gotta do that.
Right.
But just 'cause you do that doesn't mean the chaos is gonna stop.
No.
Or the comfort of being in chaos.
No. I mean, the question you asked, like, can your employees essentially be independent of you? That's easy to replicate on paper, but it's easy to sabotage as an entrepreneur in a way that you don't even realize it, or the employee realizes it.
Right? That's right.
That's right.
And if you have an avoidant attachment style, it looks like this hub and spoke type small business where it's just bring everything to me and I need to okay it. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. I need to approve everything because I can't trust anybody.
Mm-hmm.
I want to trust you and I've hired you and I want you to be independent, but at the same time, oh my gosh, if something goes wrong, then it's going to make me feel like I don't have control. So I'm gonna keep perpetuating this chaotic work environment so I can come and save the day and have some level of control of my life.
Yeah. And in a lot of ways, you and I have had this conversation, it's very similar to addiction in the sense that I view addiction like I go, I can't control any of the variables in my life. I feel powerless. I don't like the situation, but I can control that I can drink a glass of bourbon, right? And that's going to make me feel a predictable way. Yeah. And I think that's— I don't know if that's the clinical definition, but to me, that's like the basis of addiction. Like, I can control this, right? And in a lot of ways, I think businesses are the addiction for entrepreneurs.
Yeah, it's a coping mechanism. So as opposed to like a chemical addiction, you know, we would call that a process addiction, right? So you're using some behavior to help you cope with something else. And for a lot of people, the escape of, you know, I need this, this business needs me, I've got to hurry up and get there. I got to be the first one to set the example. These are all stories that we start to tell ourselves to justify coping with that whatever behavior. And in this case, it's usually overworking. I've got to set the example. I've got to be the one. I got to save the day.
I mean, you work with entrepreneurs in therapy. I'm assuming that none of them come to you with the understanding that they're the problem.
Or— No, no.
Some do?
Yeah, I would say a majority of them have. I mean, it takes a lot of bravery to go to therapy, I think. So to take the first step and to be like, hey, I kind of want to work on this. I can't tell you how many people sit on that couch and say, you know, I'm here for some business advice. And I'm like, well, I'm not in the advice business.
Yes.
And they'll say, yeah, but you know, I'm looking for a coach. And I would say, there's a lot of coaches out there. I didn't go down this path to be a coach because there's A, a lot of good coaches, and there's a lot of bad coaches, but there's a lot of out there. And over the course of having my businesses, I probably spent millions of dollars on consultants. And when things worked out great that they told me to do, it's because they told me what to do. And when it didn't work out, they would say, well, you just didn't listen correctly. So either way they got paid.
Right.
And you know, now I'm like, let's ask a different question.
Right.
Okay. Why do you need a consultant? Why are you afraid of not being able to make that decision?
Yeah. Yes. Because, because I'm thinking about my own personal situation and my experience, and I think if you hire a consultant, whether it's McKinsey or Joe Blow CPA, it doesn't matter. You're asking them to solve a technical problem, right? But how many times do you actually know all the technical information you need to answer that question.
Exactly.
Most of the time. I mean, maybe if you're just a brand new entrepreneur and don't know what you don't know. But in my case, it wasn't that I didn't know the technical answer, but it was easy for me to say, well, that's not my area of expertise. I'm not good at numbers or I'm not good at marketing or whatever the business problem is. Right. So, well, but it's almost like you said, you're not asking the right question. The question is, why are you afraid to make the decision?
Right.
Yeah.
And so if you need a consultant that brings a specialized skill set to your business, That's one thing. If you are afraid of making a decision and it's easier if the consultant said to do it.
Yeah.
Where does that come from?
Yes.
Right?
Yes.
Which voice from your childhood is telling you, you are not good enough for this.
Yes.
You're way over your skis. Get in place and sit down. Okay, you know what? I'm gonna go find somebody really experienced and they're gonna tell everybody it's okay to do this.
Yeah.
Mind you, I hired them and I asked them exactly what I want them to solve.
Right.
But I want you to tell everybody it's okay. Not because I can't. I want to help them overcome things like that.
Yeah. And if you end up doing the wrong thing, making the wrong decision, you know, I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it becomes an existential thing. Absolutely. It's not just— I was talking to a coach recently on the show, and he grew up in Poland and he moved to the UK. And he said he asked somebody in the UK, how many entrepreneurs do you think are in the UK? And he said, I don't know, 3 million, 5 million, whatever. And he said, well, 'You know how many are in Poland?' And they said no. And he said, 'There's 40 million. Everybody's an entrepreneur because they're all solving problems, right? Like there's nobody coming to save them, to fix it.' And it's this— he equated it to being a game, business being a game in the sense that, you know, we've all played games and lost. And what do you do? Well, you just start the game over, right? But an entrepreneur that says, well, if I fail, I go bankrupt, you know, the business goes away, these employees lose their job and blah, blah, blah, it takes on a completely different tone. And I'm not suggesting that to be flippant about the decisions we make as entrepreneurs, but I think a lot of times we're paralyzed because it goes back to like, It's not the business that failed. It's me that failed. I'm a failure. I, I blah, blah, blah. Yeah. What, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, there's an incredible study. I can get a copy. I think I gave you a copy.
Yes, we discussed it on the show last time.
Yeah. So, you know, it does live in our brains. The business lives in part of the brain where children, that your own children live. And so Good luck separating yourself from that. Yeah. It is a part of us. It's a part, that's why it hurts when it fails and it feels so good when it's successful, right? And things are working.
So you're suggesting that you really shouldn't try to separate those two.
It's hard to.
Yeah.
Right? And I think the ones who are easy, they can easily do that, we would say, man, they're really cold business owners. They just make decisions off the numbers and move on with life. And so I feel like you lose a little bit of the soul. So how do you kind of marry the two and have some symbiotic relationship between what you need, what the business needs? How does it fuel your ego, your personality? What's it do for you?
Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, at the end of the day, the business is agnostic. It can be used for good or it can be used for bad.
Sure.
How you, the entrepreneur, are framing it.
That's right. That's right.
Dr. Patel, this has been a fascinating interview. I will get a copy and link it to your study in the show notes.
Sounds good. Well, it's not been published yet.
Oh, it hasn't? So we can't share it?
The school goes through its review process and then puts it up, I think, on either pub— PubMed, or they'll put it up on— ProQuest probably does the dissertation. So it's not out yet. It hasn't gone through all the whole process.
Okay, so you can't share it?
Yeah, I don't have the ability to share it.
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