Dave Kashen breaks down victim mode for founders: when you blame hard circumstances like workload, financing, or team problems, you're stuck. Real power comes from neither victim nor hero mode, but taking responsibility for what you can actually control.
So many founders are like, I'm stressed, I'm stressed out, I'm so stressed out, right? And they're typically experiencing that they're a victim to their workload or to their financing round or to their goals. Right. Or their team. So any, any, or to their team or to, yeah, just the macro environment or how it's so hard, right? Anytime you hear yourself saying, oh, it's hard. Or, you know, essentially that energy of poor me, um, that's a good sign you're in victim mode. I mean, really anytime you're seeing your experience as, um, conditional, as at the effect of something outside of you, you're seeing yourself as a victim. And then again, the hero, the most obvious is typically like, um, I don't want them to feel bad. I don't want that. There's some way you're trying to manage or control how other people feel. Um, again, usually really because we're trying to manage how we feel. Like, I don't want to feel what I'd have to feel if they feel angry or sad. Right. Um, that's to me, that's the, the, it's subtle, but that's usually the most clear way. But yeah, if you're stepping in and saving the day, you know, like literally, like you're You know, micromanagement is often a form of like hero moves. If you feel like you have a pattern, like a repeated pattern of like you're stepping in to do the work, you're probably in hero mode.
