What if Being a Founder Didn’t Have to be “Brutal”?

This weekend I finally watched “The Brutalist.”

Among other things, the movie is about an architect who sacrifices a great deal for the sake of his vision. And one of the points that the movie seems to make, to even revel in, is that suffering is necessary for excellence.

That suffering should be celebrated.

That brilliance emerges from trauma.

I don’t buy it.

Not that it doesn’t happen. Nearly all my overachieving clients have some form of it. A deep need to achieve in the world, if only to show to themselves that they actually are enough.

I, too, suffered with this idea. For decades.

The Problems with Self-Brutality

Brutalism is a twentieth century school of architecture, but the word and term work on several levels in the movie.

The lead character, architect László Tóth, both experiences and delivers brutality, as does his patron, industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren.

“The Brutalist” can be a tough watch, and it has an often brutal view on the suffering that it proposes is necessary to achieve.

But I want to challenge this view, from several perspectives.

It’s Hard to Turn Off

When achieving in a brutalist way, there is no level of achievement that relieves the hatred, whether of self or other. In fact, I have had founders tell me that they are afraid to let go of it, lest they “lose their edge.”

I’ve seen another founder whose work I admire, Anastasia Koroleva , talk about the “chip on your shoulder” phenomenon, the continued and ongoing desire to prove oneself, even after one has sold multiple companies

Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, and Michael Jordan are great examples of this in the sports world. But the problem with never being satisfied is that you end up never satisfied. If you’re an athlete, even at Brady’s late retirement age of 45, that leaves decades of self-dug holes to fill.

While each Super Bowl can bring a moment of satisfaction, it will never get these athletes what they actually need.

Because it starts from a premise that isn’t true.

It Starts from a Faulty Premise

Every one of these overachievers, including the fictional Tóth, experienced something that taught them that they were not enough.

Every founder that I have worked with has had some version of it.

And it has brought them everything they have gotten in their lives. The desire to prove themselves, to show the world (and more importantly, themselves), that they are enough.

To silence the voices in their heads telling them otherwise.

What they don’t see is that they have always been powerful. So powerful that they created voices in their head that they believed. They created an illusion of insufficiency that they have spent their whole lives trying to overcome, when instead, they could see through it.

It Works (but not as Well as Something Else)

If you are convinced that you are not enough, doing more and more can work for a while.

You will do things that others will give you a lot of attention for, like getting good grades or winning a championship or selling your company.

It can feel really good. At first.

With each goal achieved, there is a temporary satisfaction, but the underlying problem, the not-enoughness, remains. In fact, founders can actively seek out the next slight, the next version of someone else thinking they are not enough, the next thing they need to prove to the world.

There is no end to that path, no matter how much the founder achieves.

Adding a zero to the next exit will not make you any happier until you actually see how you are keeping yourself from that happiness.

What Actually Works (and it’s Easier than you Think)

I can point you to what works in only a line or two. But for you to get it you have to experience it.

The place where you can embrace both how far you’ve come AND how far you have to go.

Would you like a taste, with a group of other founders who are struggling with the same thing?

Would you like to get a sense of how you can create anything you want without your whole sense of self worth riding on the outcome?

Would you like to learn how easy and joyful creation can be?

I’m restarting my founder calls to explore this, and would love to include you.

DM me to be included.

Jeff