I help awesome humans build game-changing companies. In my previous life, I was a 4x founder (with 2 exits), angel investor, PhD neuroentrepreneurship researcher, and professional whitewater athlete. Today my primary job title is husband and father, though I also moonlight as a writer and a podcaster.
I’ve been coaching founders for over a decade. And almost every one of them, when asked, has told me they’re happy. Yet in their explanations, they would often include some sort of caveat. I’m really busy, but I love what I do. I’m super stressed out, but I’m chasing my dream. I’m exhausted, but we’re gonna change the world. If you’ve also spent time around entrepreneurs, you’ve probably heard similar statements. That’s because entrepreneurs tend to focus on the bigger picture, betting on a future benefit that they believe will exceed that of the short-term. It’s a challenging and often long road toward an uncertain destination, fueled by a belief that their efforts and abilities can create a better future. While this future-focused mindset is central to what entrepreneurs do, it also carries an emotional downside. Because when we think about the future, we unconsciously set expectations for what we desire that future to be. These expectations, as compared to our lived experiences, are at the roots of what makes us happy. The Happiness EquationWhat is happiness? Think about it for a moment. If you’re having trouble articulating a clear answer, that’s because happiness is a complex emotion with many subjective inputs experienced differently across people and domains. For example, the happiness you feel while relaxing on a holiday is different from the happiness you feel when hanging out with good friends. It’s different from the happiness I feel when surfing a wave or the happiness someone else feels when accomplishing a big career goal. And although many models have been created to define universal happiness (e.g. Seligman’s PERMA, Deci & Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, Frederickson’s Broaden-and-Build, Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow), none are particularly easy-to-consume frameworks for busy, everyday people. That’s why I use the simplest, most actionable definition I know when I work with founders. It’s called the Happiness Equation. Coined by Mo Gawdat - engineer, former Chief Business Officer of GoogleX, and author of Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy - the equation is about as simple as it gets. Happiness = Experiences ≥ ExpectationsWhen our experiences meet or exceed our expectations of them, we find happiness. Let’s take the example of rain. If you have a garden and your plants are withering, you’ll be happy to see the rain. But if you planned a day at the beach to sunbathe, you’ll be unhappy if it rains. So your happiness is determined by your expectations (getting a tan vs. growing a garden) and your lived experience (the rain). As Gawdat explains, happiness is not some complex, elusive state determined solely by external factors outside of our control. Rather it’s how our brain processes our experiences compared to our expectations of what they should be – meaning it’s about our perceptions. Let’s break this down. What are Experiences?Experiences aren’t objective. They’re defined by how we interpret what happens to us and are influenced by our thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and past experiences. By altering our perception of an experience, we’re able to change our emotional and psychological responses to it, thus impacting our happiness. Think about how much perception influences the way we process an experience. Let’s say you’re on a hike that’s particularly long and steep. You’re sweating, out of breath, and your legs are burning. Your brain may tell you that the hike is too difficult and uncomfortable, causing you great displeasure. Or it may tell you that the hike will make you stronger and healthier and that the views are beautiful, causing you great enjoyment in it. These dichotomous experiences are possible because our perceptions are deeply embedded in cognitive frameworks that filter, interpret, and integrate sensory information with our pre-existing knowledge, beliefs, and expectations. Central to our perceptions of experiences are attention and memory. Our attention to specific aspects of an experience and our subsequent encoding of it into memory are both selective processes influenced by emotional states, past experiences, and future expectations. This selective attention and memory encoding plays a key role in how we construct the narrative of our experiences, often emphasizing certain details while overlooking others. This way we perceive experiences is rooted in a complex interplay of regions within our brains. The sensory cortices process incoming sensory information. The amygdala assigns emotional value to our experiences. And the hippocampus guides memory formation and retrieval. Together these brain regions integrate the sensory, emotional, and cognitive to form a rich, multidimensional perception of experiences. Neurochemically, our perception of experiences is modulated predominantly by the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol. Dopamine drives motivation and helps to reinforce behaviors by providing sensory experiences of pleasure and satisfaction. Serotonin is linked to a spectrum of cognitive and emotional processes related to emotion regulation, creating more positive moods and relaxed states that positively influence how we perceive experiences. Oxytocin plays a critical role in how we process social interactions, reducing anxiety in social situations and making them seem less threatening and more rewarding. And cortisol dictates our physiological responses to stress, triggering our fight-or-flight response and heightening our negative perceptions of experiences. The interplay of these neurochemicals can dramatically affect the emotional tone and subjective significance we assign to our experiences. So when an experience is perceived under high dopamine levels, it can be imbued with pleasure and reward, while high levels of cortisol may leave us feeling fear and discomfort. The 6 Grand Illusions of ExperiencesNow it still might sound cliché to say that happiness is rooted in our perceptions of our experiences. Sure, if we perceive a rainy day as nourishment for our garden we might be happier. But what happens when our experience is far more impactful than a single rainy day? How do we shift our expectations and perceptions of experiences that simply don’t have a bright side? According to Gawdat, who lost his teenage son to a routine surgical procedure, even the most unimaginable of tragedies can offer a path back to happiness. To manage our perceptions of experiences, Gawdat offers The 6 Grand Illusions – a set of deeply ingrained misconceptions that act as obstacles to our happiness.
By confronting these illusions head-on, we can be rewarded with clearer perspectives on our experiences, reducing unnecessary suffering, and cultivating a deeper sense of happiness within ourselves. How Entrepreneurs Overcome These IllusionsEntrepreneurs are particularly susceptible to perceptions that distort reality. Steve Jobs called this his reality distortion field. But this is simply a myth, as we certainly can’t change reality. We can only change our perceptions of it. But by unmasking our perceptions, we can begin to liberate ourselves from the experiences that impede our happiness. This requires us to deeply challenge our illusions toward more grounded and effective decision-making. The Illusion of Thought: Entrepreneurs must recognize that they are not defined by their thoughts, which can often be hijacked by the high-stress environments rife with uncertainty and doubt in which they operate. To overcome this illusion of thought:
The Illusion of Self: Entrepreneurs mustn’t cling too tightly to superficial identifiers that reduce them to nothing other than what they do for work. To overcome this illusion of self:
The Illusion of Knowledge: Entrepreneurs need to find an intrinsic desire to continue learning and growing, even when they feel trapped in the hamster wheel of high-stakes execution. To overcome this illusion of knowledge:
The Illusion of Time: Entrepreneurs too often worry about the future or ruminate on mistakes of the past. To overcome this illusion of time:
The Illusion of Control: Entrepreneurs want to control their environments, even when there are forces at play outside of their locus of control. This leads to anxiety and frustration. To overcome this illusion of control:
The Illusion of Fear: Entrepreneurs sometimes make decisions based on unfounded or irrational fears, which trigger cortisol spikes that might lead to mistakes or missed opportunities. To overcome the illusion of fear:
Through a greater awareness of and reflection on these seven illusions of experiences, entrepreneurs can develop a more balanced, resilient approach to both their personal and professional lives, leading to both greater satisfaction and success. What are Expectations?Expectations are beliefs that are centered on the future. They are our preconceived notions about life, people, and ourselves, and they’re defined by society, culture, our past, and our desires. When expectations are unrealistic and not aligned with reality, they can lead to feelings of disappointment and unhappiness. Think about how expectations permeate our existence. When we’re awaiting expectations, we call it anticipation. When we have expectations of how others should behave, we call them social norms. When expectations aren’t met, we call it disappointment. When something unexpected happens we call it a surprise. And when expectations are met or surpassed, we call it happiness. Expectations are deeply rooted in our brain's predictive coding capacity, its ability to generate and update models of the world that predict future events based on past experiences. When our sensory inputs match these predictions, our brain reinforces its models. When they don't, our brain updates its predictions. This process of prediction and correction is fundamental to how we innately learn and adapt. Expectations are predominantly modulated by dopamine, the neurotransmitter that drives motivational salience – or the cognitive process that motivates behaviors towards or away from an object, event, or outcome. One particular dopamine pathway - the sets of neuronal fibers that drive certain cognitions and behaviors – is the Mesolimbic pathway. This is the route by which dopamine travels from its origin in the ventral tegmental area to the ventral striatum – the brain region responsible for the coordination of cognitive processes like planning, decision-making, motivation, reinforcement, and reward perception. Due to its central role in our brain's reward system, dopamine greatly influences how rewarding we perceive experiences compared to our expectations of them. So when expectations are not met, we see a decrease in dopamine that drives feelings of disappointment. And when our expectations are met or exceeded, dopamine levels increase to create feelings of pleasure. This neurochemical response to our expectations and experiences is central to our motivational drive, which has an enormous influence on the ways we behave and make decisions. The 7 Blind Spots of ExpectationsTo manage how we set expectations, Gadawt defines The 7 Blind Spots – a set of cognitive biases and emotional responses that can lead to unhappiness.
By recognizing these blind spots, we can work towards more realistic and grounded expectations, enhancing our overall well-being and happiness. How Entrepreneurs Overcome These Blind SpotsEntrepreneurs are visionaries who tend to view the world through lenses tinted by optimistic and ambitious expectations. However, these same lenses can also introduce blind spots. By recognizing blind spots, entrepreneurs can gain greater clarity to aid in setting more reasonable and achievable expectations. Here are some actionable examples of how it can be done. Filters formed through our past experiences can distort entrepreneur’s expectations. To illuminate this blind spot:
Assumptions, or the expectations we set based on incomplete information, are common pitfalls entrepreneurs face. To illuminate this blind spot:
Entrepreneurs, like everyone, make predictions that are rooted in biases and past experiences, potentially leading to misplaced expectations. To illuminate this blind spot:
Memories of past events aren’t always accurate representations of our experiences as entrepreneurs and are often skewed by emotions and biases. To illuminate this blind spot:
Labels are used to define ourselves and others. And entrepreneurs run the risk of forming them without fully considering the other roles that make people whole. To illuminate this blind spot:
Emotions tend to cloud judgment and exaggerate expectations, which can lead entrepreneurs toward poor decision-making. To illuminate this blindspot they can:
Exaggeration warps expectations, which can make entrepreneurs either overly confident or unnecessarily fearful of a potential outcome. To illuminate this blindspot:
By actively considering and addressing these seven blind spots, entrepreneurs can better enhance decision-making, foster innovation, and more effectively create models that improve their well-being. The Entrepreneur's Path to HappinessIn the ever-changing and unpredictable world of starting and running businesses, happiness is both intricate and deeply personal. It's influenced by what we expect and what we experience. And it's about more than just reaching our goals. It's also about valuing the process of getting there. This kind of happiness comes from being mindful and self-aware, clearly understanding how our expectations and experiences affect each other. That’s why entrepreneurs need to actively work on not being misled by temporary successes or lasting setbacks; instead focusing on finding joy in the relationships we build, the obstacles we overcome, and the impacts we create. Ultimately, entrepreneurial happiness can be fostered through continuously learning, adapting, and evolving. But as we navigate our entrepreneurial journeys, we must understand that happiness is not a destination, but rather a constant presence within us. By embracing this understanding with open hearts, clear minds, and resilient spirits, we may even find joy while we chase our most challenging of ambitions. After all, happiness is probably the most invaluable entrepreneurial superpower of them all. Thanks for reading...this longer-than-usual piece. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Did it resonate? Do you agree? Feel free to reply and share your thoughts. One more thing…Next week, I'll be publicly announcing my new Startup Neuroscience & Entrepreneurial Flow course. This 16-week online course consists of 8 modules designed to help you level up your game through science. We're only accepting eight participants this time around and are making it available to subscribers before anyone else. If you'd like to learn more, just reply to this newsletter with a simple message that says "More Info". Stay flowy my friends, Gerrit
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I help awesome humans build game-changing companies. In my previous life, I was a 4x founder (with 2 exits), angel investor, PhD neuroentrepreneurship researcher, and professional whitewater athlete. Today my primary job title is husband and father, though I also moonlight as a writer and a podcaster.