The 4 disciplines that I have noticed that more or less defines a winning team and/or founders are:
- Discipline to delay gratification
- Discipline to accept responsibility
- Dedication to the truth or reality
- Discipline to Balance
These 4 disciplines were defined by Dr.Scott Peck in his bestselling book “The Road Less Travelled“. I have written a lot about Psychology of Entrepreneurship. I more or less stumbled up the connection between Psychotherapy and Entrepreneurship. There have been many startup founders who have succumbed to the terrible disease of depression. I will not devel on the dark side but there are a number of great books again by Dr.Scott Peck that talk about depression, evil and challenges we face individually and how to deal with it. I attempted to write a blog post about depression, I have personally had to deal with many of these challenges and I encourage anyone facing these challenges to reach out for help.
The above 4 disciplines are tools that help in problem solving. Entrepreneurship is nothing but a manifestation of a number of problems. With total discipline all problems can be solved. These disciplines are not earth shattering, most children learn this by the time they are 12 years old, but as Dr.Scott Peck says in his book, Kings and Presidents fail to act with these disciplines when they need to deal with personal issues. Why is it so hard? to quote Dr.Peck from the book
The problem lies not in the complexity of these tools but in the will to use them. For they are tools with which pain is confronted rather than avoided, and if one seeks to avoid legitimate suffering, then one will avoid the use of these tools. Therefore, after analyzing each of these tools, we shall in the next section examine the will to use them, which is love.
well, problem solving involves pain, letting go of ego, control, power, facing reality, laziness, narcissism, neurosis etc. Those who have the strong will or love for the startup that they are building will have the courage to sacrifice to go through the pain and solve the problems. I highly recommend the book to all startup founders, entrepreneurs or anyone really. These disciplines have served me well and I am sure will be useful to anyone who really commits and works on it.
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