Business vs Sex, Or Why So Many Fail

“Rockets are a tricky business. I wish it was easier.” -Elon Musk

LET'S TALK ABOUT...CHALLENGES
You should read this if you’re facing challenges in your life right now. This will be most helpful if your challenges are about building or running a business, but you’ll also get plenty of value out of learning a little bit more about why anything worth doing is so damn difficult.

I’ll start with a question: Why do we have so many humans on the world but so few successful businesses?

AN OCEAN OF CHEMICALS
When you set out to build a business, your brain and body are setting sail on an ocean of chemicals you create (dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, histamine, and serotonin) over which, without self awareness, you have very little control. Storms of anger, blissful sunsets of incredible profit, winds that don’t blow your way and zephyrs that do.

THE NAVIGATOR
You are the navigator, but you’re not totally in control. Just as on the ocean you can’t order up a storm or a sunset, most of us don’t have the ability to generate these on command. It doesn’t mean you can never do it, but it bears thought.

None of those chemical concoctions which will cause you such turbulence were brewed with the idea of building a business.

We humans have evolved over a few million years to do three things really well: Stay alive, procreate, and learn how to do both of those better. It’s that last one that creates most of our opportunities and crises.

When you do anything other than your evolutionary mandate, you are stepping away from the fundamental pressures that shaped you and into an exciting world full of rapture and rupture. Both will be experienced along with most other emotional states in between those two. The trick lies in knowing to expect all of it, not just the nice bits.

BIG DECISIONS, NOT ENOUGH INFO
We didn’t evolve to build businesses. The emotions you will experience while you build, nurture, and maintain a business are “bolt-on” emotions. Anger and fear and happiness and joy, yes, and even ecstasy did not evolve specifically to help you make great decisions in the types of business-building stresses you’ll encounter: Letting an employee go, making “brand” decisions, making payroll, whether or not to embark on additional revenue streams, what to focus on…

All those are decisions you’ll face in the life of your business. None of those decisions are backed by evolution in anything other than the broadest sense. When you face despair in business, know that it's both temporary, inevitable, and a passing stage.

SEX LIKE A ROBOT
When you set out to have sex, you are walking (usually running) down a path that has been pre-wired into you from, literally, the very beginning. Every turn of the evolutionary screw has hinged upon your ancestors successfully having sex and passing on to you that incredible drive to do the same.

I have yet to meet a businesswoman or man who says their business is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to them. I have yet to meet a parent who doesn’t say that about their child, usually multiple times.

KNOW THYSELF
All this doesn’t mean that you can’t have a successful business. There are plenty, and they each offer a possible guidebook for you in your businesses. A big part of being successful in anything, not just business, is being self-aware.

Just knowing that you DO have to navigate is the main step in becoming more likely to succeed.

When you wonder why so many businesses fail (and why overpopulation is one of the chief problems facing humanity) take some comfort in knowing at least one probable explanation for that.

*Train Yourself To See The Good
*Why You Should Avoid Hacking Life
*Maybe You ARE A Robot: On Free Will