Gena Gorlin: Psychology, founders and the nature of ambition
Jun 28, 2021
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Professor and psychologist, Gena Gorlin, discusses how individuals can overcome psychological obstacles to achieve goals. Topics covered include the nature of ambition, common challenges faced by founders, parenting's role, and the intersection of psychology and mental health within the ambitious population.
Understanding and overcoming psychological challenges is key to achieving goals as an ambitious innovator.
Parenting plays a crucial role in nurturing ambition by providing challenging problems for children to solve and fostering empowerment.
Founders must navigate the tension between conforming to expectations and following their own judgment, while maintaining discipline and aligning goals with reality.
Deep dives
The Importance of Overcoming Psychological Obstacles
The podcast episode focuses on how individuals can overcome psychological obstacles to achieve their goals. The guest, Gina Galwin, a professor and practicing psychologist, discusses her work with ambitious innovators, particularly startup founders, and the value of attending to the challenges faced by these individuals.
The Nature of Ambition
The conversation explores the nature of ambition and the common psychological challenges that founders face, including the trade-off between ambition and sources of comfort or motivation. The importance of understanding one's authentic desires and motivations is emphasized.
The Role of Parenting in Entrepreneurship
The podcast episode touches on the role of parenting in cultivating ambition and entrepreneurship. It highlights the need for parents to create an environment where children have challenging, interesting, and solvable problems to work on, fostering a sense of empowerment and self-efficacy.
The Tension Between Box-Checking and Independent Judgment
The episode addresses the tension between founders feeling the need to check boxes and conform to expectations, and the importance of following their own independent judgment. It discusses the challenge of overcoming preconceived notions and stereotypes, particularly for female founders.
The Power of Self-Deception and the Importance of Reality
The podcast explores the concept of self-deception and its role in ambition and entrepreneurship. It emphasizes the importance of having a disciplined relationship with reality and questioning one's own assumptions and biases. The need for founders to align their goals with the realities of their ventures is underscored.
Gena Gorlin is a professor and practicing psychologist. Both her academic and her clinical work focuses on how individuals can overcome psychological obstacles to achieve goals. She’s become especially interested in working with ambitious innovators, particularly startup founders. Over the last few months, I’ve been lucky to work with Gena on a major project in my day job at Entrepreneur First and I thought that her observations would be interesting to a broader audience. In this conversation we discuss the nature of ambition, the most common psychological challenges founders face, the role of parenting, and much more.
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Thanks to Cofruition for consulting on and producing the show. You can learn more about Entrepreneur First at www.joinef.com and subscribe to my weekly newsletter at tib.matthewclifford.com
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