> Glad to see this kind of stuff coming out into the mainstream.
I was debating saying the following, for fear that the HN crowd will not like to hear it:
This is not just "coming out into the mainstream". This is mainstream, and has been for longer than the tech industry has existed. Many adults have always known this - it's not something unique to founders or startups. When someone outside of the tech world reads this, it merely reinforces their view that tech folks are less emotionally mature.
Take a look at the comments on this thread (about NVC):
Search the comments for the words "emotion" and "feeling". Note how often the commentor pushes back on having a discussion about them.
And now note what this submission says:
> Regular peer-coaching sessions with other CEOs/founders (most helpful if both or one of the people has some knowledge of how emotional integration works, through NVC, therapy experience, etc.)
I am not talking about emotional intelligence becoming mainstream. In that, I agree with you.
Instead, I am talking about how the methods to work through emotional debt becoming mainstream.
I am speaking as a long-time meditator. I have worked through a number of really intense issues. The most recent relating to my wife's miscarriage a couple months ago. I was fortunate in that my manager gave me some space with that ... but believe me, the guilt from not being able to keep up with the team would come up.
The methods I have used are certainly not mainstream, and draws from a wide variety of traditions. From where I look, a lot of people are just rediscovering those methods, but are still scratching the surface.
While people know there is something off -- it leaks into a search for "work life balance", or a growing realization of the overwork culture in the name of productivity -- actually employing the therapeutic methods is not really mainstream.
The reaction to the pandemic is a great example. I see a lot of people getting caught by their existential anguish, what the Hindu and Buddhists call dukkha. I see this not just from people inside tech, but also the people outside of tech. I sensed it and saw it in the first few days when people were panick buying things at the grocery store. Making runs to buy up all the chickens they can. I see it in the reports as parents have to homeschool their kids for the first time. I see it in folks as the boredom settles in with the confinement.
I don't just see it in the mainstream. The folks who dabble in the alternative spirituality got caught up in this too.
It is clear to me that this author has faced his own dukkha. That's a journey that is ... no backyard picnic. There is an deep-seated aversion to this work. That is at the root of carrying the emotional traumas.
What is brilliant about the author is that, he is speaking about this as a leader. He is turning these methods our modern society have abandoned, and reintroducing them.
So yeah, he talks about "emotional debt". That isn't what I was talking about becoming mainstream. It is facing existential crises and the dukkha that he is slipping in there. Once you start on this kind of work, it goes into the rabbit hole, and surfaces up a lot of things.
I was debating saying the following, for fear that the HN crowd will not like to hear it:
This is not just "coming out into the mainstream". This is mainstream, and has been for longer than the tech industry has existed. Many adults have always known this - it's not something unique to founders or startups. When someone outside of the tech world reads this, it merely reinforces their view that tech folks are less emotionally mature.
Take a look at the comments on this thread (about NVC):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22746830
Search the comments for the words "emotion" and "feeling". Note how often the commentor pushes back on having a discussion about them.
And now note what this submission says:
> Regular peer-coaching sessions with other CEOs/founders (most helpful if both or one of the people has some knowledge of how emotional integration works, through NVC, therapy experience, etc.)