Dave Kashen explores why founders fear vulnerability and being truly known by others. He describes a five-hour appreciation session at a Sun Valley Founders Retreat where experiencing genuine recognition from peers shifted how founders saw themselves.
And so it's going to be really powerful when someone else is like, wow, I appreciate you for how loving and confident and kind and passionate and powerful you are. Right. What? Like, you, like, those are the ways I wish I was. You see that in me? And it's like the way we see each other can allow us to rise our own sense of self to meet, you know, that appreciation and that the way that others see us. I think one of the most powerful experiences you can have is to feel fully seen, like, and loved at the same time. And I think most people are just like terrified to feel fully seen because they think they won't be loved because there's all this shame and all these stories of the, oh, vulnerable, that's bad, right? Polished visionary, that's good. Andrew, right? So I just want you to see the polished visionary, and I just want to focus on that, and let's hide away the vulnerable part where I don't know what I'm doing, or I have negative doubt or thoughts. And I think to be fully revealed, like, in all of you, and loved at the same time, is deeply healing. And I just came off of this, the first annual Sun Valley Founders Retreat last Wednesday through Sunday. It was extraordinary. We had a dozen founders flying to Sun Valley and did like deep inner work and skied and played together. And we ended on Saturday night with 5 hours of appreciation.
