[DoreenMichele]

It seems to me we are doing something really wrong if people have so very much emotional baggage from their success.

I saw some TV show where some guy said he flew more than a hundred missions in the Air Force and was shot at in all of them. He went into commercial real estate after he left the Air Force. He figured it would be less nerve wracking than that.

With nerves of steel, he made a killing.

I've spent plenty of time in therapy and journaling and what not to deal with serious trauma in my life. It's a valuable skill to have.

But I have some trouble imagining that business success is something I would deem to be some heavy emotional burden to bear.

I'm not trying to be dismissive. I'm trying hard to avoid saying something like "First World Problems." But I will suggest that if you are finding it hugely emotionally burdensome, you should make an effort to get some perspective because these really are good problems to have overall and many people live with much worse and absolutely didn't choose it.

[BeetleB]

> I saw some TV show where some guy said he flew more than a hundred missions in the Air Force and was shot at in all of them. He went into commercial real estate after he left the Air Force. He figured it would be less nerve wracking than that.

> With nerves of steel, he made a killing.

I think the trouble with anecdotes is there is always a counter anecdote.

In our state there has been a spate of doctors committing suicides. A doctor, when interviewed about the phenomenon, had a similar story to yours, but with a different outcome. Someone who had spent a fair amount of time in the military, including combat, decided to become a doctor later in life. He found the work environment so toxic he couldn't handle it. Nothing in the military/combat prepared him for this. In the military, you are surrounded by people who will give their lives for you, whereas in the work environment he was in there was always a sense of "no one has your back".

I don't know how common this sentiment is in the medical industry, but I do remember a medical student friend of mine talking about how in smaller cities, surgeons work hard to make the lives of other surgeons difficult, in the hopes that they will leave and they can thus charge hospitals more to perform surgeries (even though the need for more surgeons existed).

Anyway, I don't see this as a "first world problem" or a "good problem to have". You can have these exact same problems while failing - it's fairly orthogonal to success.

[DoreenMichele]

I spent years homeless and I have an incurable medical condition. I'm quite confident that being able to get VC money for your startup idea makes you one of the elite few in the world and puts your logistical problems concerning how to make the business a wild success squarely in the camp of "first world problems" and trying to figure out how to get rich following your dreams squarely in the camp of "one of the better problems for a human on Earth to have to wrestle with."

That doesn't mean there are no real challenges. But to some extent, perspective is a matter of choice.

You can choose to freak out every minute of every day about the latest supply chain snafu or whatever or you can look out your window at the homeless bum on the corner, realize he probably has very intractable and nightmarish personal problems or he wouldn't be a homeless bum and get a grip on your big emotional reaction.

Please note the guy in my story went into business, not medicine. This is a forum about business, not medicine.

Medicine is a whole other ball game and not comparable to the sorts of problems you run into as a founder of a business.

[BeetleB]

I'm not saying the person is not part of an elite. I'm saying his problem is quite common, and has little to do with him being part of an elite. Yes, he could realize that he is in a good position, and it's not a big deal if his startup fails, and he can always get a decent paying job.

But he may well have the same problems in that job (not always as severe, but sometimes it can be). He may well have the same problems in a crappy job. That's why it's not a first world problem. It's convenient to believe that he causes his own problems by chasing wealth, but it's a flawed to think he would avoid them had he not gone that path. Not processing emotions well is not something unique to people who are in the elite. And not trying to get filthy rich will not cure your problem.

I view it very similar to physical ailments. It's a problem, and one needs a cure/salve. I don't couple it with one's behavior/motives/aspirations.

[DoreenMichele]

It's convenient to believe that he causes his own problems by chasing wealth

That's not at all what I said by any stretch of the imagination. I said "These are good problems to have. Having some perspective on that fact can help you face them more calmly."

not trying to get filthy rich will not cure your problem.

There are actually loads of people who report otherwise. There are myriad books by people who chose to walk away from the rat race and report gleefully that life is better now because they made that choice.

"How to survive without a salary" by Charles Long is one such book. He paid cash for a house in the country so he could grow his own food and have low taxes and damn little need for actual cash.

There are many such stories.

That doesn't mean no one should ever try to pursue their dreams or seek to strike it rich. But it's a completely valid choice to say "I find this too stressful and would rather do anything else. What are my options for just refusing to play this game?"

[BeetleB]

I agree that not chasing wealth will prevent some problems that people who do chase wealth have. I merely disagree that it will prevent this problem. There are plenty of people who are not chasing wealth and are not crazy busy but have similar problems as he does.

[DoreenMichele]

I will note that the author of this piece apparently now makes his money helping wealthy people recover from the so-called emotional debt they incurred while getting rich. So he has zero reason to tell people how to avoid incurring it to begin with and every reason to claim that it's entirely unavoidable.

I, on the other hand, give most of my wisdom away for free, which is one of the reasons I remain poor.

I'm poor in part because I find it morally objectionable to tell people to keep shooting themselves in the foot and to come hire me when the pain and bleeding get bad enough and I will bandage them back up and kiss their boo-boos for a steep fee. I have a bad habit of saying things like "the emperor has no clothes" and "not shooting yourself in the foot is an option here."

On the upside, I've avoided an estimated $9 million dollars in medical expenses. So it's not all downside.

In the interest of not looking like I just must get in the last word (or similar), I will likely step away from this conversation at this point in time.

Have a great (whatever time of day in your part of the world).

[rconti]

One of my favorite sayings is "first world problems are still problems".

The reality is, if it's difficult for you to handle/process, that's worth honoring. Just because you're really hardcore in dealing with one kind of situation doesn't mean that you're prepared for a different kind of stress, even if it seems much 'easier'.

When your coworker just getting into fitness starts walking regularly, then jogging, then trains for a bit and runs their first 5k, you congratulate them, you don't tell them "that's nothing, I ran a marathon last weekend".

[fatbird]

With all due respect, I think you're missing the point. It's not about whether one is, or should be, tough enough, or is overly sensitive. As with technical debt, there's necessarily going to be a certain amount of emotion that needs to be discharged; and as with technical debt (or financial debt), there's nothing wrong with incurring it and paying it off, if that's part of your plan to succeed.

The only mistake is not recognizing that you're incurring debt, and not having a plan or means to deal with it. Unacknowledged debt of any kind compounds and eventually destroys.

I would guess that your pilot example was less about nerves of steel than about someone who had learned to handle (i.e., process) a lot of stress effectively--which is just a way of saying that nerves of steel is more about efficiently incurring and discharging debt than about withstanding cumulative effects.

[_curious_]

"The only mistake is not recognizing that you're incurring debt, and not having a plan or means to deal with it. Unacknowledged debt of any kind compounds and eventually destroys." True story!

"I would guess that your pilot example was less about nerves of steel than about someone who had learned to handle (i.e., process) a lot of stress effectively--which is just a way of saying that nerves of steel is more about efficiently incurring and discharging debt than about withstanding cumulative effects."

In your view, how does withstanding cumulative effects and efficiently incurring differ?

[fatbird]

Efficiently incurring is like having a high volume credit card that you constantly pay off: lots of cash moving through, but debt isn't building up.

Withstanding cumulative effects is like continually re-financing your home to pull more equity out: at some point you can't keep up, and the failure mode is catastrophic.

[grantsch]

do you have a link or know the name of the show? i'd be very interested in watching that

[DoreenMichele]

It was some HGTV show, possibly "What's with that house?" My recollection: He had some huge, sprawling, insane house in the desert with his own indoor shooting range. It took seven years to build it. The host of the show pointed out that the Empire State Building only took two years, iirc.