Dave Kashen explains how founders organize their lives around avoiding shame and heartbreak, particularly the fear of losing investors' money. The feelings you're running from, not toward, end up controlling your decisions and relationships.
And I had the founders really reflect and they're like, yeah, I think I'm most scared of feeling disappointed and ashamed. That's not necessarily universal, but I think it's pretty common. So first there's the fear that we don't want to feel. And then the thing that we're most fearing, because if you really go through like the scenario in your mind, imagine your startup failing, right? Imagine losing— someone's talking about raising friends and family money. And it's like, imagine losing your friends and family's money.
Yeah.
Like, what's the real thing you don't want to experience? It's the feeling of shame or the fear of heartbreak, of losing relationships. So what's, what's wild, if you really, really examine, I think our whole lives, at least for most people, are organized to feel certain feelings and avoid other feelings, right?
And at the heart of that, like, I think— I thought you were going to say that is approval and acceptance of other human beings, essentially. Like, it's if you really drill it all down, it's like, I don't want— I either want to be loved by people or not, not, not loved by them.
Yes, and like, you know, there's kind of safety, freedom, and worthiness, approval. But, but the yes, and is even those at some level, it's really the heartbreak or the shame. It's like some actual emotion you most don't want to feel because like, what's so bad about being rejected, let's say, or having people not like you? Like the thing you're actually most wanting to avoid is, oh, I'll feel ashamed, or I'll feel lonely, or I'll feel sad. And I think that's kind of— I don't know, I find it fascinating when you really face that. Like, that's actually how most of us are living our lives. It's just, I want to feel this, I don't want to feel that.
