The Psychology of Entrepreneurship
Mar 27 2008

Entrepreneurs are all just a little bit crazy and add motherhood on top of that and you get a whole new experience!  Entrepreneurs see the world differently, yet we still want to fit in, maybe more so if you are a woman and mother, for the sake of our children. 

I’m sure there have been books written about the psychology of entrepreneurship, but I don’t have time to seek them out.  I figure one will fall in my lap as I need it.  And interestingly Liz Pabon, who wrote The MavHERick Mind, recently reached out to me and will be doing a guest post on my blog soon.  I just began reading her book and so far it’s a fascinating read on how and why women entrepreneurs in particular hold themselves back from achieving the success that they are capable of.

A post also recently fell in my lap in-box written by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape and Ning, called The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment.  It is an excellent read where he puts modern language around observations made by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s long time partner and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.  Here are the themes and you’ll have to head on over to Marc’s blog to read the rest:

One: Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency
Two: Liking/Loving Tendency
Three: Disliking/Hating Tendency
Four: Doubt-Avoidance Tendency
Five: Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency
Six: Curiosity Tendency

The Doubt-Avoidance Tendency is the one that resonated with me the most.  It’s true that “You’d better not have a lot of doubts about what you are doing because everyone else will, and if you do too, you’ll probably give up.” But it’s darn hard not to have doubts when the stakes can be so high.  I would add that if you don’t have any doubts at all, then you might just run over a cliff without knowing it.  But if you need a quick answer, you can always ask the Magic 8 Ball (thanks to Scott Allen of The Virtual Handshake for the link).  I only had to ask my question 3 different ways to get the answers I wanted. 🙂

        

One thing I remember from Marc’s past blog posts is that there is a direct correlation between success and how many times you get up to bat.  Many inventors had a string of things that didn’t work out before they found the few that did, and the chances of finding something that does work increases when you try more things.  So Babble Soft is my second at bat.  I believe we barely slid into 2^nd base with our first company, which is still operating, so I’m swinging for the fences on this one!

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Author: Aruni | Filed under: babble soft, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, marc andreessen | Tags: Berkshier Hathaway, charlie munger, Curiosity Tendency, Doubt-Avoidance Tendency, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Liz Pabon, magic 8 ball, marc andreessen, Netscape, Ning, psychology, self doubt, The MavHERick Mind, warren buffet | 8 Comments »

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