Limiting Beliefs That Kept Me Stuck For A Long Time
I’ve come to learn that the difference between really successful people and not-so-successful people simply comes down to what they believe about themselves and the world around them.
People love to criticize billionaires and claim they came from wealth or had opportunities nobody else had, and while that may be true, nobody builds a successful business and becomes a billionaire by accident.
There are plenty of rich kids who inherit their wealth but are not able to build really successful businesses themselves (The HBO series, Succession, demonstrates this well).
So what beliefs will keep you stuck?
There’s probably a whole lot more than I have written down here, but these are the beliefs that I’ve come to find within myself and actively work on changing. Maybe as you read them you’ll see a few of them in yourself.
Everyone in my company needs to like me
This one is hard for most founders I know. We all like to be liked.
When you're the CEO, it’s easy to become blind to reality and believe you really are the smartest, funniest, most amazing person in the company. The emperor may not, in fact, be wearing clothes.
The reality is that most of your employees are nervous when you’re in the room because of the three letters that come after your name, and they’ll work hard to impress you and show that they’re a team player. We are hierarchical creatures who worry about impressing the boss.
Founders who love the attention and adoration they receive get caught in the trap of trying to please everyone at the expense of the business.
But the most successful CEOs who run billion-dollar companies know that you can’t make everyone happy all the time, and are ok with upsetting people sometimes.
If you know anything about Steve Jobs, you’ll know he was not known for being kind or empathetic. I imagine that a lot of people at Apple who worked under him thought he was an asshole and were afraid of him. But many admired him because he always fought for his vision. He pushed people and made them better. Could have been nicer about it? Sure, but we can’t argue with the results he was able to achieve at Apple, not once, but twice during his tenure as CEO.
Your belief needs to change to “I need to make sure I have the best people and am getting the best out of everyone, and it’s ok if some people get upset or don’t like me”
Opportunities are finite
Companies don’t die of starvation, they die of indigestion.
What does that mean? It means that most companies lack focus. They take on too much, aren’t truly world-class at any one thing, and burn through too much cash as a result.
This comes from entrepreneurial FOMO. Entrepreneurs worry that if they let an opportunity pass them by it will be gone forever and there are only so many to go around.
Success comes from saying no to most things and saying yes to very few things.
As a general rule, if it isn’t a “fuck yes” it’s a “no thanks”.
Your belief must change to “Opportunities are like buses. There will be another one in seven minutes.”
Ignore a problem and it will resolve itself
Every business has problems, but there will be gnarly ones that are deep-seated, hard to pin down a root cause, and hard to fix.
But fix it you must, because it will never go away on its own.
Founders tend to put off hard conversations for too long thinking things will resolve themselves eventually. They won’t, and they’ll only get worse until you finally attack them head-on.
The belief has to change to “Deep, systemic problems in my business will not get better unless I do the hard thing and work on solving it immediately.”
Everyone understands my vision
A CEO’s main job is to set the vision and direction of the company. But it takes experience to get good at communicating that vision.
Many CEOs assume people around them know the vision and then get frustrated when their employees make decisions that are not at all aligned with where they want to take the company.
When Alan Mulally was CEO of Ford, he would start every weekly meeting with the words, “I’m Alan Mulally. I’m the CEO of Ford Motor Company. Our mission is to…”.
It may seem redundant, but it’s one of the most important ways CEOs can ensure their people are aligned.
The belief has to change to “Nobody understands the vision unless I communicate it in every interaction.”
Growth will continue forever
We are sometimes victims of our own success. If things are going really well at your company, growth, and profitability is good, and culture and morale are high, the worst thing you can do is take your foot off the gas pedal.
Entrepreneurs unconsciously sabotage their businesses. They get complacent in peacetime.
I made this assumption before, thinking that our growth rate would continue along the same trajectory, only to fall short and it severely affected my investor relations.
Andy Grove wrote a book called “Only the paranoid survive” and he’s right.
Your belief needs to change to “Things are going well right now. What problems am I not seeing? How might things go sideways? I need to keep pushing.”
I am the smartest person in the company
Founders who believe they are the smartest person in the room are either right or wrong, and both are bad.
If you’re right, your not hiring people smarter than you and you’ll be surrounded by idiots.
If you’re wrong, which you probably are, it means YOU are the bottleneck in your business. Your need to approve every idea, to be the one with the winning idea, to be the hero.
You should believe that great ideas come from everywhere, and the best idea wins. You need to be careful to not be the one dominating every conversation. Hire people smarter than you and give them the autonomy to make changes as they see fit.
Only hold them accountable to the outcomes you’ve both agreed upon. Don’t worry about the how.
The belief becomes: “Every problem is a “who” not a “how”. The right person can figure it out. It’s not on ME to figure it out for them.”
Everyone cares as much as I do
Entrepreneurs get frustrated when employees act like… well, employees.
They want their employees to be as committed to the company as they are. They want them to just do whatever it takes to make the company win. They want them to focus on the goal and work around any obstacles to make it happen.
You can certainly find people like this, and if you’re building a startup you need your first ten employees to resemble entrepreneurs. They are, after all, taking a risk to work for you. They’re probably being paid below-market salaries, but with stock options to capture the upside if the company succeeds.
But you’ll find as your company grows, the people will change, and the vast majority of employees aren’t as invested in the company’s long-term success.
They care about being paid what they think they’re worth.
They care about doing great work with people they like.
They care about perks and stipends.
They care about health and dental benefits and retirement savings.
They care about consistent work hours and plenty of vacation time.
They care about titles and promotions.
They care about office politics and hierarchy and pleasing their boss and making sure their team is happy.
Sure, they don’t want the business to fail, and they want to make an impact on the mission, but this will mostly just be a job to them.
For you, it’s your baby, your passion. You’ve sacrificed everything for it, and the company’s success means the world to you.
But if you expect your employees to feel the same as you do you’re setting yourself up for a lot of pain and frustration.
Most people aren’t entrepreneurs. If they were, they would start their own business, not work for you.
Your belief needs to change to: “I need great people to build my company, but I know this is just a job and they will come and go. That’s ok. Just try to keep the great ones as long as I can.”
Conclusion
This isn’t an exhaustive list of limiting beliefs, but the ones that I’ve encountered over the years.
Changing your beliefs has the biggest impact on your success. Beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.