525: A Founders Guide to Feeling Feelings

Everybody. This is Steli Efti. And this is Heaton Shah. And today on the Solid Chip, we're gonna figure out if founders know how to feel their feelings if they're just thinking them. I think we like talking about more than just sales and marketing. We just wanna bullshit and chat about business and life. And hopefully, while we're doing that, provide a lot of value to people. The world's best business podcast. Oh. Shit. Oh, shit. We've done it. For people trying to get shit done. Yeah. We don't wanna give you feedback that's bullshit. Yeah. We want you to do your best. So here's what I wanted to quickly talk to you about this. Anybody that's been listening to the startup chat for a long time knows we have talked a lot about the inner game of being a founder. Like and we've talked a lot about it. We have a good amount of episodes around managing your emotions, managing your states, managing other people's emotions because it's an emotional game. And if you don't control your feelings, they might lead you astray and into, you know, problematic situations. One thing that I recently kind of discovered about myself and I wanted to quickly unpack with you for founders because I thought this might be useful to people that listen to us, is this realization that I had about myself that, you know, I think at some point at a young age, I started realizing that I can't quite fully trust my feelings. And if I just act on my emotions, I wreak havoc, you know, and I and I create all kinds of problems. And so I started focusing more on controlling my feelings through my mind and through thinking things through and not acting immediately and slowing it down and de intensifying my feelings and analyzing them first. And over a long period of time, very subconsciously over decades, I think that I mastered like, I kind of overdid this to the point where over the last many, many years, I think I thought most of my feelings, especially the negative ones. Right? So I could tell you, here's a situation that I think I was hesitant in and probably was driven by some kind of a fear, but I didn't know I didn't feel fear, or I didn't feel hesitant, or I didn't feel nervous. I just thought, I'm probably nervous in this situation, but it didn't have a a physical sensation. And for many, many reasons, I think that that's not a good idea. It's not a good idea to just think your feelings. I think it's a much better idea to actually feel them, be present for them, not let them overwhelm you or run away with you, but not run away from them either. But actually being fully present for the feeling, and then you can still decide to think things through at times before you act. But I you know, as …