Alex Auerbach explains why startup founders face constant stress: ambiguity and uncertainty are inherent to building companies. Stress itself isn't the problem, he says, but recovery is. He recommends seven to eight hours of sleep, twenty minutes in nature to lower cortisol, and reframing stress as enhancing rather than threatening, like Navy SEALs do.
Questions this video answers
Consistent seven to eight hours per night.
20 minutes in nature.
Research done with Navy SEALs.
Chapters
Foreign. I think founders are experiencing this kind of high level of stress and these other sort of symptoms of stress, in large part because starting a company is rife with ambiguity and uncertainty, which are two of the things that are most taxing for our minds to handle. So our brains are generating predictions constantly about the world and. And in a more ambiguous or uncertain place, it's incredibly challenging to form an accurate model of what's going to happen, which is what you need to make really good predictions. And so ultimately, starting a company is sort of a balancing act and finding a new way of helping your brain make better decisions. And since there's so many points where you just don't know, it's likely that this is playing a big part of people being stressed out. All stress isn't bad for you. So stress at its core is just your body and brain preparing to do something effortful. And really, stress becomes problematic in a couple of scenarios. One is if we think of stress as bad or threatening, we tend to respond less adaptively to the stress we're experiencing. And second is to not do any form of recovery. Right? So at its most basic level, stress with some recovery can lead to pretty consistent growth and development. Stress without recovery is going to lead to ultimately what we call allostatic overload, which is what people think of as. There are several options people can leverage to optimize their rest and recovery. So the most obvious one is something like sleep, right? So that's quick naps during the day or trying to get a consistent seven to eight hours of sleep each night. I know that that can be challenging, but we know that sleep improves things like emotion regulation, stress management, decision making, quality of relationships, all of these things which are critical for founders to be maximally successful. But if you can't sleep or it's not time to sleep, there are other things you can do that enhance rest and recovery. So one is simply closing your eyes and doing some breathing. You might do something like mindfulness meditation or breath work. 20 minutes in nature is enough to reduce your cortisol levels and help you get back to baseline. I'd encourage people to do things like yoga or exercise. These are also great ways to manage stress. So there's a lot of opportunities to engage in rest and recovery. Ultimately, the thing that's most important is that you're stepping away from the work for a little bit and allowing yourself to be fully present with the recovery activity so that you can return to work refreshed and rejuvenated. I think it's important to Understand that, like I said, stress itself is not inherently harmful. And we actually have the opportunity to leverage what's called the stress as enhancing mindset. This comes from research done with Navy seals that found that seals who view the stress as a challenge, whether that's an opportunity to demonstrate a strength, to learn a new skill, to show what they've developed. These people who experience stress as enhancing end up performing better over the long term than people who view stress as debilitating or who view stress as something they just need to will their way through. It also turns out that people who view stress as enhancing our better teammates. And they're more encouraging of the other SEALs who are trying to figure out how to get through something challenging, too. And so, for a founder who's leading a team, seeing the stress as enhancing is one really important way to sort of tilt your psychology and physiology to work a little bit more in your favor. But there are a couple other things that you can do beyond seeing stress as enhancing and leveraging what we call a challenge appraisal. Right. Seeing it as an opportunity. The other things are to set a really clear, focused goal. This can often activate a higher sense of focus and let us channel that energy really effectively into the task at hand. And then the third is to consciously make a decision to increase your effort. So oftentimes, when we feel a little bit stressed, our natural instinct is to withdraw or slow down because it's stressful. Right. It's something that can feel a little bit overwhelming or challenging. And if you can slow yourself down just a little bit and recognize that this is an opportunity to just use this energy to increase your effort and give a little bit more, that can actually enhance your performance in the long run. And over time, what we find is that people who view stress and use stress in this way end up performing better. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the things that NBA players do remarkably well, that I think other founders and other performers can leverage are things like finding moments to rest in between bouts of work. You know, so often NBA players come to the bench after being out on the court for eight, 10 minutes. And there's a reason for that. It's because they need time to rest and recover. And often they do things like put a towel over their head and do some breathing. Now, obviously, if you're a founder, it might seem a little bit weird in between meetings to put a towel over your head, but you can still do the breathing part. Right? You can leave yourself five minutes in between things to just reset and refocus Athletes also do things like exercise regularly and spend time with their friends. Right? So again, these same principles go into helping Founders perform their best. And then the final thing I'd suggest is coming up with some high performance routines. So athletes have very consistent ways that they get ready for a game or get ready for practice. Right? No one just walks into the gym and and immediately starts performing. They all do a set of things to help themselves be in the optimal psychological and physiological state to perform. And fatters can do the same thing. You can come up with a routine to help you get ready for work. Whether that's taking a shower and then 10 minutes of meditation and then listening to your favorite song or exercising and talking to your partner and then getting ready to work. You know, there's no right or wrong way. It's just about getting into the right psychological state. And similarly, athletes have a wind down routine, right? We don't just walk off the court and now we're done and we go home. Right? And there's a time to take a shower, there's time to breathe, there's time to talk to your friends. And so Founders can also think about transitioning out of the workday. What can you do to leave work behind so you can be fully present with your family and loved ones?
