Arvid Kahl: Hello everyone and welcome to The Bootstrapped
Founder. Today, I'm talking to Dr. Julie Gurner. She's a
performance coach and a doctor of Psychology. We'll talk about
dealing with imposter syndrome, burnout, how to deal with the
avalanche of advice on Twitter and why it's so hard for
founders to cope with stress. Here's Julie.
Our first interaction on Twitter was a pretty interesting one, I
feel. I said that imposter syndrome will never go away and
you vehemently disagree. And I immediately thought, I liked
this person. And here we are having a chat. So let's start
with the ever so controversial imposter syndrome and in the
context of founders and creators, what is it and how
common do you think it really is?
Dr. Julie Gurner: I think that imposter syndrome can be common,
but I don't think that everyone suffers from it. So when you do
say that, you know, you see on the internet, it's very common
that people will say things like, nobody knows what they're
doing. Everybody is just, you know, and I don't really feel
like that's an accurate representation of everyone. I
mean, I hope that your surgeon knows what he's doing. I really
hope that your attorney knows what he's doing or she and I
really do feel as though people understand their seat of
expertise. And that it is, it's fun to say, but most of the
individuals that I would say that I work with, they do
understand their seat of confidence. And the thing that's
fascinating about impostor syndrome to me is that it
requires confidence to exist, right? If you actually don't
know what you're doing, you're a novice and that's perfectly
okay. If you're someone who is intentionally deceptive, then
you perhaps are an imposter. But imposter syndrome really
requires that you have the seat of expertise. And that, you
know, you are somehow misaligned with understanding or seeing
that seed of expertise. So, I mean, I do believe that it
exists and that it is fairly common, especially as people are
working their way forward when you're talking about
entrepreneurs and creators and, you know, early stage founders.
But as things move forward, people begin to discover more
and more about what they can do, about who they are, about what
their potential is. And you know, from taking small risks,
they begin to develop a lot more confidence. So I do think it
exists. I think it exists more in earlier stages or with new
ventures or with new leaps. But I don't think that it can never
go away. And I certainly don't believe that, you know,
everybody suffers from it. So that's my general take. And I'm
glad that we had that exchange on Twitter because I think it
really gives opportunity for a deeper dive and discussion on
this.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, what I found very interesting in researching
this topic a bit more in preparation for this. And
generally, because I wanted to understand it better, is it's
not a recognized disorder, right? It's not a disease. It's
not something that is diagnoseable. But a lot of
people self diagnose it and consider it as something that
they are afflicted by. And I always wonder, is it just like,
a version of self doubt? Or is it something that an extension
of that that goes deeper?
Dr. Julie Gurner: That's a great question. I do think that there
are a lot of different possible routes, right? I do think that
for some people, it is around self doubt and confidence. I
think for other people, it can be around things like, you know,
anxiety, stress, feeling and being kind of hypersensitive to
you know, social judgment, awareness and things like that.
I think also, at its core, for most, it's around, it involves
some type of thinking pattern that tends to be off of it that
they have an evaluation of what an expert looks like. And it
varies from who they see themselves being. So for
example, if you're a new founder, you look around and you
say, oh, you know, this person just raised their A or you know,
they're really successful, they have really great traction. And
so we make these assumptions about that person, that like,
oh, they knew exactly the path. They, you know, had it all
mapped out in advance. So they have some secret expertise and
that somehow they are falling short of what their perception
of other people are, when in fact, you know, most people,
whether on social media or otherwise are presenting their
very best self. They're not saying hi, my name is Tim and I
struggle with X, Y and Z. And I really almost made a big mistake
last week and you should have heard about that, you know, so
nobody starts off that way. We all lead with our best foot
forward. And so it also creates this mismatch between what we
perceive reality to be and what it actually is.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, I always consider social media to be the
place where other people present their highlight reel, only the
best thing, right? And you compare it to your full lived
experience, which is there's obviously a discrepancy there
because you're missing the part that they don't show unless they
are actively trying to balance these things. A lot of people
who are building in public and I really wish more people would do
this building their business in public. They share the
vulnerability as well. They share the losses, the failures
too in a kind of ex post facto situation where they talk about
it as it has, like shown some sort of consequence. And then
they deal with that, right? It's not like in the trenches, often,
hopefully, people are busy on actually doing the thing that
they want to do even if they're failing.
Dr. Julie Gurner: Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting, you
and I would probably disagree on building in public because I
feel as though building in public is something that opens
you up to come more second guessing, more hesitancy, more
social feedback. I think that that is a double edged sword. I
think you can gain a lot of support. But I also think that
it opens you up. I remember when I was first beginning, people
would make all sorts of comments about the types of work that I
was involved in. And, you know, if I would have gone deep into
that or I would have kind of put myself out there, I think that
you know, people smell blood in the water and they love, love to
dive in. And it's a way of feeling, I don't know if it's a
way of feeling superior. I mean, or it is a way of kind of
asserting some type of power. But on social media, I think
that you face a lot of individuals who feel they know
best but have never built anything in their life. And so
we listen to unreliable reporters about what our product
should look like, what our company should look like, how we
should operate. And I think we do that all the time, sometimes
because they have a large following, sometimes because you
know, they just say it with great assertion and authority.
But I often feel like building in public can be really
challenging for certain types of people. And I also feel as
though when you do that, you have to be very cautious about
how you do it, right? So sharing the general like, this is what
I'm up to, this is what I'm doing, very cool. But you will
rarely see people who are kind of larger operators saying,
well, you know, I'm working on this deal. And we're having this
conversation. And this is how I'm approaching the negotiation.
And you know, the minutia and the details are where people I
think can face incredible criticism, start developing
hesitation. And ultimately, it can be something that ends up
taking them in the wrong direction.
Arvid Kahl: I actually fully agree with you on this, like,
the idea of building in public to me and many people are quite
naive. They think like, I have to share everything. It's like
oversharing in many ways, right? What you could do in social
media. What is also quite harmful in many ways to the ego,
obviously, if you share everything, people will always
find something to latch on to and destroy, which is, I guess,
why we have to teach our children to use social media
responsibly, right? To understand the implication of
oversharing. But I think founders, they have a sense of
what is too detailed. And it's funny to actually see this in
the data. Because if you track companies, over time as they
share, you will see that at a certain point around $20,000 of
monthly recurring revenue, that seems to be the switch, they
turn off the details. They share only general direction at this
point because now all of a sudden and that's something you
just alluded to, the details are the potential points of
interference. Like if you share the deal with that company,
somebody might just sweep in and offer a better price, right? It
doesn't really matter if it's just yet one more customer that
pays 10 bucks a month or something people won't go into
that much of an effort to snatch up customer. But if it's a five
figure deal, whoo, yeah, that's not something you share until
after you actually close the deal.
Dr. Julie Gurner: Absolutely!
Arvid Kahl: So there's a kind of a modal change. People approach
building in public differently after it actually is a risk to
the business to share. And I would say that it is very
important to understand that vulnerability is not just like a
means of just sharing everything negative at the same time,
right? It can be an intentional choice to be vulnerable with
this one thing and still not disclose the other things that
you also struggle with, right? It's not a one size fits all
approach.
Dr. Julie Gurner: I love that. It's very tactical and it's
very, you know, you approach it with a lot of intention. And I
think maybe that's the real difference between sometimes
what you hear people saying and what you see kind of people
doing which can sometimes be very disruptive or challenging
for them.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, generally I think, you have to understand if
you are on social media as a consumer, that what you see is
put there intentionally everything, right? Even people
who share whatever comes to mind do that with the intention of
building a brand that a person that shares everything that
comes to mind, right? There's a meta layer on top of this. Yeah,
I love the idea of making it very clear that building in
public is yet another strategy of talking to your audience to
your potential customers or your founder peers or whatever. It's
something that I really think is interesting because it gives
people the chance to get feedback loops, right? You set
that yourself, you get feedback. I can share a story here because
I wanted to, I almost wanted to share interrupt you earlier with
it. But I don't do that. So here's that story. I wrote my
second book in public. And it was a very interesting thing
because I invited 500 people as a beta reader for that book and
managing the feedback of 500 individuals that read your book
and comment on every section that they may like or not like
or think needs a tiny little change. There was like the worst
herding of cats that I ever had to do in my life. It was
bizarrely complicated to just understand is this something
that matters to me? But it certainly matters to them, but
doesn't matter to me that they thought this phrasing is a
little bit off. And the good thing in this egard was that
quantity informed me as well. So I used a tool called
helpthisbook.com, which was written by Rob Fitzpatrick, the
author behind the Mom Test, which is an interesting book in
itself for customer feedback and customer conversations. But he
built this tool because he wanted to write other books. And
then he essentially you put your manuscript and you invite people
into the tool. And they can mark certain passages and say what
they didn't like about them. And as an author, you see all of
this overlaid on top of each other. So if you have 500
people, you see people like 10 people said this section is too
so. 100 people said, I don't understand the section. You
really see the quantitative data of what people think. And I
think that's the most interesting part about building
in public, not the individual feedback. But the quantitative,
like, how many people do talk about this? Is this something
that really matters?
Dr. Julie Gurner: What I absolutely love about that and
why is that nice is that it's an incredible experiment. It's a
kind of, for somebody as yourself who does talk about
this, you know, kind of upfront and all the time, I found, you
know, I released that newsletter Ultra Successful on substack.
And so when people give feedback on that, I'm always fascinated
to know what resonates, what doesn't, what do people want
more of, what do they want less of? And oftentimes, I'll run it
by other people that I know and say, hey, what do you think of
this? But the thing that has been most challenging for me is
that I would love to have a heat map. I would love to know where
do people spend the most time. What are the areas that they are
really kind of absorbing? And so with your books and kind of
putting things out in public, I wonder also, you know, getting
500 people for feedback, if you were able to expand sections, if
you were able to really kind of go deep into some areas really
kind of bring them more of the content that they wanted. And it
ended up kind of making the entire thing better at the end
of the day.
Arvid Kahl: That's kind of why I did it. And that's how it worked
as well. So the first script was, I think, a quarter of the
size of the final version of the book just because I was still
writing. It was the whole idea like to have people involved in
the process. But the areas where people said, great, this is
something I care about, those were the areas that I spent way
more time on than the others. And the consequence of this was
just, it's obvious in retrospect but I wrote the book for the
people who wanted to read it the way that they actually wanted to
read it. Like that was something that I never considered as an
author, like you think, okay, I have all these thoughts and I
can put them into this shape and I deliver it to the people, but
that's really not what it is. Like, you asked me what do you
want to know? They tell you like, here are the three things
I really care about and then you write about them. And then of
course, they will buy the book like it's very much an audience
centric or a customer centric approach to the conveying
information. It's weird that this is not the norm. I feel
like when I look at fiction, which is probably different, but
I read a lot of Brandon Sanderson like the fiction books
that he writes a lot of fantasy novels. And he has a beta reader
squad of like 20 people. And then or yeah, probably less than
that and a couple of alpha readers and then some obviously
editors and proofreaders. He has a continuity team, which is
interesting, but doesn't matter. You know, like, he doesn't have
that many people to read his fantasy books. So I think if one
of the most prolific authors that is selling millions of
books has a team of beta readers this small, are we under
utilizing the capacity of your audience to tell you what they
like and don't like before they buy your book?
Dr. Julie Gurner: What I think is fascinating is I read a lot
of philosophy. So we're very, I was a philosophy minor in
college. And so I think about, like there was an educational
philosopher called Paulo Freire and his philosophy was, you
know, we all come in as teachers thinking that people are empty
vessels to be filled. And that, you know, that's how we approach
it right here I am to impart my wisdom upon you. But in truth
every person sitting in your audience brings their own unique
lens, experiences and you know, into play. And so for me, when I
hear you tell that story, it makes me think about all of the
people in your sphere or in the sphere of the science fiction
writer who, you know, they are coming together over this one
variable, but they're bringing such diversity of perspectives
and interests and people to the table that have unique
histories. And so where there is overlap there, clearly, I think
he would assume would be large scale overlap. And then, you
know, kind of where things are not resonating may be very
individual. But I do see even on social media, people have the
belief that, you know, I'm gonna put something out there because
everyone's an empty vessel willing to be filled. But if
you're able to see your audience and other people out there as
unique as you are, you understand that they have, you
know, criticisms and things that they like and don't like and
things that resonate and don't resonate. So I love the fact
that you think about that so deliberately.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's also why I'm such a big fan of
building in public because that's essentially the
formalized version of that, right? It's sharing your story
with each other with your peers who have definitely overlap.
Like, the whole thing about the imposter syndrome thing that got
us talking was that this is, in some capacity, a commonly shared
experience. People have self doubt, right? No matter what you
call it, people particularly founders doing a thing that has
never been done before in this particular way, they will
wonder, am I the right person to do this? And, oh, I feel like
this is too much or am I a fraud, fraudulent? Like, is this
something that I'm just acting like I'm doing this and I
shouldn't be? Like this kind of talking about it in public in
the community, I feel is enabling people to find common
ground to see other people experiencing similar things and
thereby not feeling as bad about their own emotional upheaval in
that moment, so.
Dr. Julie Gurner: It's interesting because I think we
have to parse out moments of doubt from imposter syndrome,
right? A syndrome is something that is all encompasses a lot of
things. Whereas a moment of self doubt, I think that people can
experience you know, you even have a very large scale, you
know, person who has this moment of self doubt before they sign
the contract, before they do a particular adventure. But you
know, when you talk about impostor syndrome, the thing
that is so damaging about it is that it often prevents taking
the risk to begin with. It prevents asking for the raise if
there's someone who works within a startup. It prevents, you
know, kind of asking for more equity. It prevents effective
negotiation. It prevents them from being effective, I mean,
even in their own relationships, right? So imposter syndrome,
when I think about that it's a syndrome is really kind of much
more all encompassing than those brief moments where someone
goes, yeah, I doubted myself for a second there. And then I was
really back on pace. I mean, that's how I would think about
healthy and effective functioning is that people do
have moments of self doubt. But then they kind of push at their
edges. They have a positive experience and then they gain
increasing confidence. People who have imposter syndrome often
will not take the chance to push it that edge then they hesitate.
And you know, the thing about hesitation is that it creates an
increasing lack of confidence, right? It completely erodes your
ability to trust yourself. Because then as you are
hesitating and not moving forward, you watch your peers
moving forward and taking those chances. And then they look even
more effective and you look even less effective. So there are
kind of even if you aren't comparing outward, you see
yourself stuck in the same place. And sometimes, you know,
literally years will pass and you have the same idea that you
wish you could bring to fruition or the things that you wish you
could share and you're not doing it. And then eventually, those
are the individuals who will, you know, stuff that down into
the side and just kind of never kind of move forward on that.
And that's an incredibly challenging burden to bear and a
way of seeing yourself that will impact many other things in your
life.
Arvid Kahl: It's quite a vicious circle, right? Like this kind of
self denigration, what I found in many people who I've talked
to many, many founders who experienced something like this,
they feel isolated. They isolate themselves from their peers who
are so much smarter, so much better, so much faster than they
are. And then as a consequence of that, they then feel unable
to accept praise and recognition either because they feel like
they're not deserving of that because compared to all these
other people, they don't make the progress that they would
like to make. And that then feeds back into this loop. Like
what would be a good way for a founder to either completely
avoid falling into this thinking loop or at least find a way out
of it? Do you have any suggestions?
Dr. Julie Gurner: I think that when I think about that, I think
about people you know they're I'm not a big fan of push. I
talked about this a lot. I'm not a big fan of push. I'm a really
big fan of pole. So I think that there are only certain times
that you should really push yourself. But I do think that if
you're in a situation where, you know, kind of you're in the
loop, I think there are a couple of things to do. One is to
challenge your assumptions because often they are not based
in reality, right? Like, a lot of times when a founder will
tell me something like, you know, they are having these
sorts of doubts about themselves that are more all encompassing,
I'll say, well, can you get and usually they'll make self
statements that are somewhat derogatory. And I'll say, well,
can you give me the evidence for that? You know, I would love to
hear the evidence for that. So somebody who is, for example,
absolutely incredible in their technical skills telling me that
they cannot do X, Y, or Z or they don't feel they're capable
of doing X, Y, and Z when they've done something that is
far more complex. So, you know, like, forcing yourself to look
at the evidence is sometimes I think, really interesting. I
think limiting comparison is also incredibly important, that
everybody's journey is going to be different. And I know that's
a really cliche and terrible thing to say, but it's true,
right? I mean, we see that. And I think also the media gives us
a very false picture of what success looks like. In fact, you
know, with founders, they always look at the outliers. So they
look at people who are 20 and 30 years old, when in truth, you
know, the majority of founders we know, statistically find
success in their 40s, right? So you have a lot of time. And, you
know, you gather a lot of expertise in that time. So I
would say you know, a few things, challenge your thinking,
see if it's factually true evidence, is this actually
accurate? Limiting comparisons, I think is really important. And
also, this is one of those times that I would say, push yourself
to do something that's at the boundaries of what you think is
in your purview. You know, if it feels like you're doubting
yourself a little bit, do it anyway. And if it's at that edge
and you end up with a win, that's going to start to build
your confidence a little bit. It'll start to disprove some of
these theories you have about yourself, but if you never take
the chance to disprove the theory, you hold the theory. And
so you know, like, that's a very challenging place to be because
then you you're locked, you don't move. So oftentimes, you
know, set up a challenge for yourself. You know, I'm going to
make this one call. I'm going to get in front of this one person.
And it actually fulfill that promise, it can be something
very small, but just move the needle a little bit and prove
something different to yourself because that begins to fuel
other motion.
Arvid Kahl: I like that, incremental steps forwards. And
Dr. Julie Gurner: Oh, no.
then yeah, what I've noticed I do the same way, I don't do big
Arvid Kahl: But I don't mean this, like in a lazy way. I just
feel like I have more control over small steps along the way,
things. I don't try not to do big things because they, too
much work.
right? Small steps, cumulatively building the bigger thing over
time. And it's always easier to look back and see like the steps
from which you've come. And like if you had only the big thing
and you look back and you see nothing happened. I'm still
trying to work on this big thing, right? It's kind of a
self sustaining way of small iterative steps. That's how I
approach my work, too. But this is apparently and I'm super glad
you mentioned that, like this glorification of the outliers in
the space. I don't think that's the only thing that is
glorified. Because if there is one word in our community that I
detest, it's grind set. It's this approach, like this hustle,
kind of 80 hour workweek glorification that we see like
people who work, work, work, work, work all the time. It's
like the work hard, not smart kind of approach, which is super
strange. How can we prevent ourselves from comparing
ourselves to these people that glorify this and try to throw
yet one more hour at the project instead of one more thought to
make it cost us 10 hours less? How can we get there?
Dr. Julie Gurner: I think the baseline I look at, well, what's
Arvid Kahl: I guess a lot of people, a lot of founders would
effective, right? If you are not sleeping, if you are in it, like
you're going to work. It's funny because if you approach your
work when you are tired and I'm sure many people in your
audience have done this, right? You're so tired, you're trying
to pull in these longer hours. And it literally takes you if
you have to even respond to an email, it will take you 15
minutes to respond to an email that if you were well rested,
well fed and on your game, that email is three minutes max,
right? So by working tired, you are literally extending your
working time. So the more you can be well rested and kind of
take care of yourself, the more effective your working hours
are. So the shorter they can become in some ways, but I think
we have to be realistic. You're not going to build a business.
There are like a lot of ways in which I think it's important to
look at the realistic demands of what a business requires. And
also know that you are the most important asset of your
business. And you have to treat it that way. If this was your
top engineer, you would treat that person like gold or at
least most people do. So you mean you are the driver of all
things. If you want to make the most effective decisions, have
the most productive workday be able to operate the fastest,
make the best kind of calls moving ahead, you've got to be
in a certain zone. And so it benefits you and your company to
operate within that zone. So that's why I kind of I look at
things like I mean, I understand people have to put in longer
hours than they'd like. And I understand that it's going to
take more from you than you probably want. And that
like to really optimize many things in their business but are
sometimes it's going to be boring and sometimes it will be
dry. But at the same time, being able to say okay, I'm going to
make sure that I get at least between seven and nine hours of
sleep. I'm going to make sure I move my body at some point
throughout the day, go for a walk, do something that you will
be able to respond to your emails quicker. You'll be able
to get back to people faster. You'll have better ideas about
strategies moving ahead. You'll have a clearer head. We know
that when people are sleep deprived, for example, at some
points, they can operate similarly to intoxication. Like,
that's not how you build an effective company. So you do I
mean, you want to give yourself every single advantage you can
so why not leverage biology? I think that that's an important
way to think about it and to think about yourself too around,
you know, just being the most important asset of your business
and how you want to care for that.
too stressed with recurring things that are going on in the
business. Again, another vicious cycle, right? But people are so
in so deep that they can't even detach and look at the bird's
eye view for an hour because they're always in the trenches.
I experienced that with my last business with Feedback Panda,
that I fortunately sold right at that point, right? It was great
that we had built a business to the point where it was valuable
enough for people to want to buy it. And I was the sole technical
founder in the business, we were just, my girlfriend and I
essentially ran the business and that we had 1000s of customers
and I was the technical person. It was a anxiety inducing just
to wake up in the morning because what might happen today.
Is it gonna break, right? And at the same time we had the other
stress level of this is the only valuable thing we have because
we both didn't have much money. So all our essential wealth was
locked into this business that if I didn't perform, might just
break away. And that was incredibly stressful. And I
wonder, do you have any strategies, actionable, tactical
strategies for people to get distress and anxiety under
control, so they can zoom out and start optimizing?
Dr. Julie Gurner: I think that you have to build in time for
what is important, right? So you know, they say that, you know,
your calendar reflects your priorities. So what are the top
priorities in your business? And I think sometimes what I ended
up seeing are that people spend so much time in the fires that
they aren't doing the things that actually push the business
forward. And it's because you feel like, you know, I'll do
that later. I don't have the time, you know. So you know, Kim
Scott talks about this as well, she's great, who wrote Radical
Candor. You know, she talked about, you know, building in
strategy time or think time. And I'm a really big fan of that,
that like, if you are a founder, part of your job is really
thinking about the strategy moving ahead and building
processes so that things begin to operate more smoothly if you
can do it. And so, you know, along with funding and all these
other things that are also your responsibility, but you will
never have time to see a clear path forward if you do not
create the time to do that strategizing, to do that type of
work. So I will always advise people to say, look, give
yourself if you can 30 minutes to an hour to just work on
strategy, work on the things that will push the levers that
will push the business forward. And to make that sacred time
you're not responding to messages, you are not on email,
you do not have 40 tabs open, you know, like you actually kind
of shut down those notifications. And you say, all
right and you put something in that slot, right? Like, I'm
gonna think about customer acquisition strategies and I'm
gonna put that on my Tuesday hour slot. On Wednesday, I'm
going to think about, I don't know, building something with
onboarding or whatever wherever stage you're at and you know,
depending. So it is really important that you spend that
time and that you make it deliberate and that you make it
planful and that you take it so that you can push things
forward, whatever stage that you're at. And if you're
somebody who is, you know, kind of further along, making sure
that you're finding ways of, you know, I think about founders as
a journey of pulling yourself away from these kind of roll up
your sleeves aspects of the business increasingly so as you
move forward. And so to me, I see founders who every six
months, their job looks different. You know, it always
looks different as they move forward. And finally, you know,
you get people who now they're finally at the point where
they're making, just making the large scale strategic decisions
and worrying about funding and you know, some of the very
30,000 foot view places and you finally get to a point where it
feels a lot better. You deal with problems and other things.
But I mean, that's a nice place to be at and it's earned. So I
think in the earlier stages building in that time is
incredibly important.
Arvid Kahl: Do you see a lot of mindfulness and self reflection
routines and founders who are tackling these things? Because
I've been journaling for quite a while, particularly in those
moments where it was very stressful. I took 30 minutes,
just train of thought journaling. And that really
helped me just like clearing my mind allowing for, you know, my
thoughts to figure out their place. Is this something that
you see?
Dr. Julie Gurner: It's not something that I see commonly. I
wish I saw it more. So I think that you have, that was a great
practice that you incorporated. I do encourage people as they're
moving along, I call it like, just like playing tape. Like,
you know, if you're playing a sport, you always look back on
the plays, whether they're successful or they're not so
successful. And you say, okay, what did I do right here? And
how can I repeat that? And what did I do that wasn't really so
fantastic? How could I run this better? How could I have done
that in a better way? Not that you sit in it. I never want
anyone sitting in problems or, you know all of those things,
but to kind of notice it and to be intentional so that you're
not repeating the same mistake over and over again. But at the
same time, also looking at the great things and saying, like,
hey, why did that meeting with so and so go so well, this time?
And it was because oh, it's because I asked about this or I
connected with, you know, this person around that. And it
really like changed how we interacted with each other or
positioning. Whatever it happens to be, I wish people were a bit
more intentional. I think that, you know, your example is a
really good one. If you have that kind of awareness and
you're able to say, okay, this has been a really stressful
moment. I'm going to kind of map that out and write that down.
But I don't see it as often as one might anticipate. I think
they're so busy. They don't think I can stop for a moment.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's exactly the problem, right? Because it's
a matter of priorities, like people, I feel any kind of self
care for the longest time before I met Danielle, my co founder
and partner which she's the best person I've ever met.
Fortunately, she introduced me to what I would have described
as esoteric stuff at some point, right? I would like anything
that was written with spirituality or self reflection
meditation, I was like, yeah, yeah, that's for those other
people. And I'm not a regular practitioner of this at all. I
situationally, I use it, but I found it to be an actual tool.
And that like understanding that it is a tool for the mind that
all of a sudden fit the concept well into my engineering brain,
right? Because I'm thinking of tools and algorithms and
strategies. And understanding that a meditation state can be a
reflection tool or journaling is essentially the Empty Trash
button of your mind. Like, putting it into a way of
understanding it from an engineer's perspective, all of a
sudden open it up to me. And that reprioritize it in my mind
because I understood that if I take care of this, my mind, then
what my fingers type becomes better, right? And what comes
out of this, the code, the product, the relationship with
the customers, the amount of money that we make, whatever the
goal of the business might be, that is a direct consequence of
me spending time on the very first thing, which is the brain.
So it's this reframing issue for many people. They don't
understand what it actually means and in which context they
can integrate it into their busy founder lives.
Dr. Julie Gurner: No, you're right. And I think that people
have to kind of approach this in ways that resonate for them. You
know, a client that I had, who was incredibly hard driving
incredibly, like, successful guy would always take an hour every
day to walk around New York City with a cup of coffee, right?
Like that was his ritual. That was how he meditated, you know,
if you're gonna say meditation, but he would just, you know,
take that moment, take that walk, walk around the city,
think, not be attached to his phone in it like that was the
way in which he grounded himself and really, like kind of got rid
of all the other stressors. So I think people have to find a way
that works for them and not everyone's going to connect with
everything. I think sometimes we try to do that, like people will
say, oh, this is my morning routine and it's like, meditate
and I do this and I do that and it's like this five step morning
routine. If it works for you to just have a cup of coffee, take
a break, read the paper, if it works for you to just go for a
walk, whatever works for you. You know, do that thing because
I can guarantee you that you know a lot of people who reached
these really high levels don't have those morning routines.
They really don't. They do what works for them. Some of them are
not getting up early at all, you know, because they don't have to
anymore. And maybe other people on their behalf are getting up
early. And that's really a nice place to be at. So I do think
that sometimes we were trying so hard to find the things that
work that we're trying to fit into a box, that isn't the right
box for us. And we have to really create our own that's
going to work for us, that's going to make us feel great and
is going to put us in our best place. Because when you're
trying to fit into these other people's boxes and it doesn't
feel right and it doesn't feel good, that's another way of
making yourself feel terrible about yourself, right? Like, oh,
you know, all these people are talking about cold baths. And I
hate that. And personally, I hate that, honestly. I don't
really think that it's a test of mental strength to stand in an
uncomfortable shower. I mean, I can't do uncomfortable things.
So I mean, there's a lot of things that you can choose to
do. But to not put that kind of pressure on yourself to do the
things that work for you. And you know, everyone's going to
find their own way. When you look at people, whether it's
Steve Jobs or anyone else that people tend to idolize, the
thing they all have in common is that they are, you know, kind of
relentlessly themselves. I mean, they don't fit in other people's
boxes and that's what makes them stand out. So if you want to be
that kind of person in the future and maybe not your family
life, but if you want to be that kind of person in your future,
you know, an innovator, a kind of a large scale, successful
founder, recognize that all of them do it by being themselves
and really like drilling down in that. And I hope that people
feel free to do that, too.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that would be wonderful if people would
understand that it's not the exact thing that these idolized
celebrities are doing. But the fact that they found a thing for
themselves that works and then they made a process out of it.
That's the thing you should imitate. When we're thinking of
Steve Jobs, that is a great example, I feel. Like his whole
turtleneck and jeans thing. Obviously, you're not going to
be a better founder if you wear a turtleneck and jeans. You
might because it might be almost a meme at this point. But the
fact that he found such a productivity shortcut in his
life that this is good enough for me. I can now take care of
other things. That's the thing to imitate, right? And it starts
with meal prep, that's the thing that people do, right? Or just
having a routine that involves something that you would like to
do enjoy anyway, which I do a lot of thinking while I walk my
little puppy dog. And every morning, she needs to get up for
some reason. And then at seven, we need to go out because
otherwise she's gonna yell at me, might just as well. And then
on the wall, I get to think about what my day is going to be
like, what are the things that I would like to talk about today?
What am I writing about, right? Like, am I having a
conversation? And what would I like to bring up? So that is the
routine that just comes out of my own reality that is very
subjective. And I don't think somebody else should get a dog
and take a walk with her or him just to come up with things,
right? It's the unique situation out of which these processes
arise. And that's the thing, the quantifiable stuff is what
people want to see, right? They want to see, oh, I need to do
this to get this result. And that is already dangerous with
productivity advice on Twitter, but it gets extremely dangerous
with mental health advice, which is why again, harkening back to
our initial conversation, these topics, they are so potentially
destructive to what people experienced in their own lives
and how they deal with it. And I think it's really because all
advice is essentially anecdotal, right? Like what we have in our
lives is what we experience. And we come up with all kinds of
justifications and reasoning for why this happened and how it
happened. And then we share that and other people think, okay,
that's the truth out there. So maybe let's talk about advice a
little bit, maybe in the mental health space. Is it dangerous to
even talk about this stuff at all? Like, do you have this
feeling too because sometimes it's just like, oh, should I
talk about this?
Dr. Julie Gurner: How so are you thinking about that? Could you
give me more detail?
Arvid Kahl: Well, let's just say I talk about dealing with
burnout, which is something that I have been experiencing twice
in my life. Once, while I was working for a venture capital
funded business in San Francisco, great work, like
super enjoyable. We had a ping pong table and everything. But
it was kind of work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. And that
got me to a point where I stood outside the building that we
were in talking to people crying on the street. That was where I
was. And I felt, huh, that may be a bit too much. In that
moment, it's like wait, am I just doing my job and crying at
the same time? Is that where I want to be? And then I
experienced again, like during Feedback Panda at the end of it
because I was the only person all the responsibility and we
had a lot of integration problems with all the providers
that we were trying to support. There was a lot of stress there,
but I noticed it that I was getting into that state again
and then I took the necessary steps to help facilitate the
sale of the business, let's just say that. So now I could talk a
lot about burnouts from my perspective. But all I could
talk about was, again, my perspective, my two instances of
this particular event. So I'm asking you as an expert, should
I talk about this? Is it something that helps people? Or
is me talking about my unique perspective actually dangerous
to what they might be experiencing right now?
Dr. Julie Gurner: I think there's two parts to your your
question, really, to me. And one is that I think that sharing
that is as beneficial as I think it's beneficial in that people
will understand that it's not just them, right? When I'm
feeling some of these things. I think also in burnout,
specifically, a lot of people don't recognize it's happening
until it's already at a very advanced place. So you're
standing outside crying and you recognize like, this is not a
healthy thing. This is really not where I want to be. You
know, the early symptoms are kind of stages of burnout is
like, first, you start to get more cynical, right? Your
attitude changes about your work. So like, there's all these
like little tweak things that like, you start to, if you can
be aware of them, you can notice, but I think it's helpful
for people to periodically be open and candid about the things
that they've experienced if they're at a place. And this is
a terrible qualifier. But if they're at a place where they
can be vulnerable with their experiences, right? I mean,
vulnerability is really only accepted once you've gotten to a
certain place, you know and that's a terrible truth. But to
me, it's something that I see is that, hey, if you are a
interviewing for a tech job and you talk about all the times
you've been burned out, it's not going to work out well for you.
It may be true, it may be vulnerable. But if you're a
founder and you've had an exit and you're somebody who is in a
place where you can now talk about that and it doesn't, you
know, there's no kind of negative blowback to that, I
think the sad thing about some of these discussions is that
oftentimes, it's positioned by the wrong people as weakness.
And that can hurt you in areas. Like if your whole, I feel like
you've talked a lot about some of these mental health struggles
and then you go to raise funding, for example, you know,
that isn't, I mean, as much as people will say the right words,
oftentimes, that does impact how people perceive you. And it does
impact some of those things. So I try not to be unrealistic
about that and say, well, the world should just change. And
while I believe that that may be true, the world hasn't changed
and you have to operate within it. So thinking about how you do
talk about that is important, what position you're in to be
able to discuss these things. And I think that can be useful.
And the kind of on the back end of that, the thing that I do
find can be very destructive are people with zero expertise who
give advice about how to manage this or deal with it. You find
people who have absolutely no training, absolutely no kind of
and they speak with great authority about you know, just
do these two things and you'll be fine. And so someone will
again, look at that and say, well, I'm doing those things and
like, I still feel terrible. What's wrong with me? You know,
like, so there's a dynamic that I think we have to manage a
little bit around that and who you see as an authority. It's
wild because in the world today, everyone believes they're an
authority on everything. And that's a challenge. But at the
same time, people take it seriously. And I'm always
surprised that they do, right? Like, one week, you're an
epidemiologist. The next week, you're an economist. The next
week, you know, you can treat burnout and you know all about
psychology and the next week, you're a, you know, markets
expert. So it's wonderful. But you know, be careful about who
you trust for information and look to see if that person
actually has the expertise to be giving you advice.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, the last years have been wild. Yeah, that's
interesting. Expertise also seems to be something that has
kind of lost some of its actual value and strength as a word,
right? Like and that's in one way is actually quite nice that
you can follow people's journey towards expertise as they are
building it, right? It doesn't make them an expert yet, but
it's kind of an expert in the making. But you still need to,
you know, have some and you initially when we talked about
imposter syndrome, you said you want your surgeon to be able to
operate well, right? You want the driver of your car to be
able to know the rules of traffic, like there's certain
jobs where you need this baseline level of expertise or
otherwise it becomes dangerous, like obviously, 100% agreed
there. But yeah, you're right. People shift their expertise a
lot. And this might be related to the whole T shaped kind of
person thing as well, right? Where it's, you now have to both
have a very, a skill set in one particular issue, but you also
have to be a generalist and others. And I think there's some
kind of, it's probably not a Dunning-Kruger like effect, but
something where people over estimate their ability in the
fields they're not an expert in because they have some ability
in their field of expertise.
Dr. Julie Gurner: There is something called the halo
effect, right?
Arvid Kahl: Yes
Dr. Julie Gurner: You know, like, which is fantastic, where
you know, you have someone, a great example, to me that always
makes me chuckle is to see, you know, people who, you know, are
actors who now are social policy experts, right? Like you play
pretend for a living and you are now an expert in social policy,
which is, I think it's, you know, it's amazing because the
leverage works because of the people's willingness to follow
them into that space. And, you know, I tweeted the other day,
you know, the interesting thing and I think the great thing
about confidence is that people will follow your lead. You know,
if you appear confident and you speak confidently, most people
will buy it 100%. And that can work for you and against you,
depending on if you're legitimate in your space. But
that works with actors, you know, in Congress, sometimes
they are not as capable as maybe others could be in those
particular areas. It works for, you know, people who are signal
authority on Twitter oftentimes, and some people do have genuine
expertise that you want to follow. I mean, there's some
incredible VCs that share their wisdom on Twitter. There are
incredible founders on Twitter and credible people in their
space there. I think it's a real, it's an incredible
platform that I'm excited to be a part of. But I think we also
see this odd effect where, you know, somebody is a thought
leader. And if you really think about, you know, where is their
expertise, it's challenging to find, but they do say things in
very light kind of ways that get social engagement. And you know,
good for them. I'm glad that they're able to kind of build
from that people recognize the gifts that they have. But in
general, in psychology, one thing we know is that people
overestimate their attractiveness and they
overestimate their intelligence. And both things help our self
esteem. And so I'm all for it. I would rather people be a bit
more confident and feel a bit better about themselves than go
the other direction because I think the other direction is
where it really begins to impact our lives negatively. If you
feel that you're smarter than you actually are, that's only
going to benefit you for the most part. I mean, there are
probably things here and there where it doesn't. But the
general rule is it would trend more positively than feeling
that you're less than you actually are almost across the
board.
Arvid Kahl: I guess a little bit of confidence certainly is
helpful, particularly when you're tackling things like
entrepreneurship, right? Like you can be, I guess, neutrally
confident and go do the job that somebody pays you to do and
you'll figure it out. But if you're throwing yourself into a
field, an industry that you may not have the most experience in
just yet, but you're trying to figure it out, you have to be
confident that you can at least handle it, right?
Dr. Julie Gurner: Yes, that is the key. I think to a lot of
entrepreneurship is not the confidence in your particular
area of operation. But the confidence that no matter what
comes you can figure it out. That is absolutely locked,
solid, essential. I think also being like a self learner being
autodidactic, right? Like being willing to teach yourself what
you need to know. You are on your own. And I think that the
confidence to figure it out is just a foundational element of
the best people who end up moving forward. It's fantastic.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, it's definitely something that I
think I develop this early because I'm an only child and I
got a lot of positive reinforcement in my life, right?
It's one of those things where my family, my parents, my
grandparents, they were always like pushing me towards
challenges because they knew that would help me not only get
better at what I was doing, but also learning how to deal with
failure and rejection and build up self esteem and resilience in
spite of failing and being rejected, right? That always has
helped me. And it's kind of it's almost sad to think that this is
not a universal experience in childhood, right?
Dr. Julie Gurner: Well, I do think that one of the things I
know that people like to kind of have negative conversations
about education or schooling but one thing that I really like
about schooling is it does show you what you're good at and what
you're not. And you get that comparison point very quickly.
You know, if you are really, really solid at one thing,
you're gonna notice it even if and you'll see where you're
outstanding compared to your peers. Sometimes that's an
athletics. Sometimes it's in a certain subject matter. You'll
also be able to be sparked in things that you love. And so I
do think that there's great benefit to it. I think, you
know, sometimes education is what you make it and the
individuals who sit in that classroom, for some people, it
will be their first exposure to certain ideas. And those ideas I
think are important. You know, we were talking about Steve Jobs
and I believe he was talking about going to a calligraphy
class. And that's how he ended up bringing the fonts into
development in his own company. So there are things about even
the arts and others that we don't really think about that
can inform how we work. And it's why it's one of the reasons for
example, why I recommend if you are a founder, if you are
someone in business, follow people who are not like you.
Follow artists, follow people who are in real estate, follow
people who are doing all these things because there is
something about ambitious people and their ideas and how they
approach the world that you can ingest that may make you think
differently and will make you better. And if you're only
surrounded by this small ecosystem of founders or the
small ecosystem in your particular profession or world,
it's very detrimental. And it will keep you small, I think, in
some ways because it's hard to do something different when
you're surrounded by the same.
Arvid Kahl: Yep! Oh, 100%. I've incorporated that into my own
life because I felt that I'm strongest where I'm
intersectional between the things that I'm good at and
other things that are slightly adjacent, some a little bit of
overlap, right? But then as needs to be there can be
completely alien. But it has to be just a little bit. And at
that point, I find something that I didn't realize is mind
blowing in many ways. Examples would be probably, I have a lot
of newsletters in my inbox. And not all of them. A few of them
really are about entrepreneurship or software
engineering. Most of them are about pasta. I'm a fan. Cooking,
like professional cooking with all that kind of stuff,
historical financial system analysis and I think aerospace
engineering. Like I'm trying to find fields where my technical
interests, my intellectual interests, and my culinary
interests, they all are kind of intersecting with what I already
know something about, right? Content creation and software
engineering and entrepreneurship. And it is
often in tiny little phrases and tiny little thoughts that come
in, in these completely different kinds of information
channels that I find thoughts. Oh, wow, here's something that I
can take from my own experience into this other field and help
people there right now. It's these sometimes really nice
little things. Practical example would be people in the culinary
field, they have problems like keeping an inventory of their I
don't know, spices or something, right? And here I am having
built inventory software systems and having understood like
optimization algorithms and I can tell them, well, if you
really want to stack them efficiently, here is the
knapsack problem, a mathematical problem that is optimizing for
space in any given container, right? I can transfer my
knowledge from one field that is totally normal here, completely
unheard of over there. And I can give people a way to improve
their own lives just by being in two fields at the same time.
Dr. Julie Gurner: It's amazing! I think cross pollination to me
is, it's just, it's brilliant. It's thought provoking. It's
often where you get ideas that catapult you above your peers
because you don't like there's nothing kind of I think more sad
sometimes, like, let's just say that you're in marketing and all
you do is you know, you're on marketing forums, talking to
marketing people, go to marketing conferences. Like,
yeah, there are some skills and tactical things that you might
learn. But if you really want to think about marketing
differently, like what about looking at, I don't know, Lil
Nas, the rap artist to like blew up and, you know, is known as
being an incredible self promoter. What can you learn
from that? What can you learn from, you know, Melissa Hobley,
who's a great marketer works at, I think, Tinder now, CMO is
incredible, but has campaigns that are really, you know, get
people talking and are kind of controversial and like, where
can you pull in like things from dating apps, things from
artists, things from you know? You really, I think, if you
stick into tech too deeply and that's one thing I love about
New York City, for example, is that so many different people
doing so many different things are everywhere. It is not an
echo chamber. Aside from about New York City, I think
everybody's kind of an echo chamber in that way. But you
know, you get to capitalize on people who are creative and
people who are very engaged and deeply passionate about what
they do. And you can always pull lessons from that if you listen
and if you're open. And to me, I think that sometimes those are
the most interesting, challenging areas where you walk
away from those conversations and you think, how can I
integrate this into what I do? It's also why I think philosophy
has been so beneficial, you know, to my own work and why,
you know, the history of kind of things that I've done have been
so informative to my own work. We often draw from things that
are not necessarily things others might anticipate.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, definitely. It's the reason why we are
talking right now, right? We had a disagreement and I thought,
this is awesome. I'm going to follow this person. And I need
people who don't just agree with me in my life. Otherwise, how
could I grow, right? It's a very selfish thought. But in that, it
allows me to expose myself and through whatever I'm talking
about other people to thoughts that they might not have had
before, right? That they might not have access to because their
little bubble might also keep them from getting access to
those kinds of people and you are one of these people for me.
I am extremely fortunate to have met you and to now be able to
follow you, have this wonderful conversation with you. And I
think more people should follow you as well. So where would you
like people to go if they wanted to follow you and interact?
Dr. Julie Gurner: That's a great lead in. Thank you so much.
People can follow me on Twitter @drgurner and certainly
subscribe to my newsletter at Ultra Successful at
Arvid Kahl: That is a good choice. Well, I think people
substack.com.
should definitely do that. And I am very, very fortunate to have
had this conversation with you. Thank you for sharing all your
insights and your knowledge and these wonderful thoughts on just
how people can be their better selves and stay, you know,
healthy and part of their communities in ways that are
empowering all of us at the same time. So thank you so much for
being on today. That was a wonderful, wonderful
Dr. Julie Gurner: Thank you so much for having me. I really
appreciate it. You know, it was a fantastic exchange for me as
well. I think that on Twitter, sometimes we are so quick to
dismiss other people if they disagree. And you and I had
like, we just went back and forth a few times just kind of
saying, well, how do you think about this? How do you think
about this? And we really, I left the conversation with a lot
conversation.
of respect for your openness and for your candor and for the fact
that you know, we don't always have to disagree. And that's all
right. So I look forward to learning more from you as we
continue to both use the platform. So thanks for having
Arvid Kahl: Thanks so much. I very much respect that and you
me on.
as well. Thank you.
Dr. Julie Gurner: Thank you!
Arvid Kahl: And that's it for today. Thank you for listening
to The Bootstrapped Founder. You can find me on Twitter
@arvidkahl. You'll find my books, my Twitter course there
as well. If you want to support me and the show, please
subscribe to my YouTube channel, get to the podcast in your
podcast player of choice and leave a rating and a review by
going to (http://ratethispodcast.com/founder).
Any of this, will help the show. So thank you very much for
listening and have a wonderful day. Bye bye.