A Tricky Trap Of Success
Why do successful entrepreneurs sometimes fail?
Strategy — map it our yourself
Why do successful entrepreneurs sometimes fail?
Once I was a CEO of a large retail company. I was invited by the founder, who decided to withdraw from the business. But if one decides to “withdraw from the business,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ready to leave it altogether (we could observe a similar situation in Disney a week ago). The founder continued to visit the office, and he tried (maybe, without realizing it) to influence the course I led the company. We had several arguments, and he always repeated that he was right — on the sole ground that he had already built a successful business and this, from his point of view, meant that he couldn’t be wrong.
When we are born, our brain is clear and empty. Then we start to learn to interact with the world, and nature helps us by employing the rewards and punishments system. If we do something wrong (e.g., touch a hot oven), it signals that it’s a bad idea via pain. If our nature wants to reward us for the right deeds, it injects a dose of happy hormones into our brains.
Pain is unpleasant, so we try not to repeat this action. On the other hand, pleasure is nice, so we want to do what brings it again and again. That’s why pleasure is a much more powerful source of knowledge than pain.
But when we follow the path of success for too long, it creates a false feeling of infallibility.
That’s what happened to that founder. I left the company because I wanted to devote more time to managing the firm and less to arguing with him. I know he stayed in the CEO chair, and his company is much less successful than he wanted it to be. It is not malevolence from my side; it is an excellent lesson to learn.
No matter how successful we are, we need to question our skills and decisions at least once in a while. Otherwise, one day we’ll find ourselves looking like bronze monuments in an abandoned part of a city. We were successful once, but today nobody cares.