Loneliness in Entrepreneurship: Piyush Patel, Ph.D.

Summary

In this conversation, Dr. Piyush Patel shares his journey through the PhD process, discussing the challenges and insights gained along the way. He delves into the importance of research validity, the intersection of business and academia, and the impact of attachment theory on relationships and entrepreneurship. 

The discussion highlights the loneliness often felt by entrepreneurs, the role of financial secrets, and the coping mechanisms that arise in high-stress environments. Dr. Patel emphasizes the need for healing within the entrepreneurial spirit and the emotional weight of business decisions, ultimately encouraging a deeper understanding of oneself in the context of business.

Takeaways

• The PhD journey is challenging but rewarding.
• Research validity is crucial in understanding studies.
• Peer review is essential for credible research.
• Loneliness is a significant issue for entrepreneurs.
• Attachment styles affect personal and professional relationships.
• Financial secrets can lead to isolation in entrepreneurship.
• Coping mechanisms often manifest as overworking.
• Consultants may not address underlying issues.
• Healing the entrepreneur can lead to business growth.
• Emotional decisions in business are often tied to childhood experiences.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01.07)
Welcome to another edition of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, Dr. Pesh Patel. Dr. Patel, thanks for coming back. Thank you. When we, I think you may have been the first, but certainly one of the first five episodes on this show, you were not in fact Dr. Patel. since we- Freshly minted. Since we last left our intrepid hero, fill us in.

for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:30.434)
Yeah, so I finished my dissertation and defended it and got that entire process. It took me three years, it was a challenging but fruitful process.

Would you recommend the process?

If you're a masochist, absolutely sign up for it.

Is it what you thought it would be like?

It was more than I thought it would be and very different than what I thought it would be. Mm-hmm. Well, it's just a journey, you know, you you learn research methods in undergrad you learn statistics in grad school you you learn all those things so when you get to this level There's no hand-holding. There's no like, let me show you how to do this research They're like this is your journey you go figure it out So there was you know of the three years if I add it all up, there's probably a year of just go figure it out

Speaker 1 (00:56.984)
Also.

Speaker 1 (01:19.736)
Right.

And so had to teach myself statistical software. had to teach myself how to structure surveys and verify that they're valid. just a lot of stuff I had to go learn. That's outside of my topic area.

So it was a significant intellectual challenge.

It was. It was. I have a lot of respect for the people who have earned PhDs.

You know, just in general, this just thought came to me. In general, I read a lot about scientific studies and they're being peer reviewed and like a consensus thinking. And then you'll have the divergent thinkers that say, well, no, the research was structured wrong like they're not.

Speaker 1 (02:10.348)
looking at the right variables, blah, blah, blah. So from a layman's perspective, if someone says, they're referencing this study, for instance, as like a basis for their argument, how much credence should we give to studies in general? Or what should we look for to see whether those are truly

worthwhile and valid. I guess my thought is that there's a lot of bias in the way things are structured so that you get to the conclusion that you want to get to.

Yes, and no, I mean if your goal is just for publication there's this drive to like I've got to match up my Hypothesis to my outcomes, right? But at the at the research level at the dissertation even if your hypothesis is completely wrong That's still good information in that. it didn't match what my thoughts were. Here's what the actual truth is All research I believe has some inherent bias already built in because the researcher has bias, right?

And so how do you recognize that? How do you account for that? You know, that's all part of the process as well.

Did that change the way you look at information? Like when you see people referencing studies, do you look at it differently now?

Speaker 2 (03:42.4)
I do, I do. I actually go look them up. And so it's like, wait a minute, there is no study that you're referencing. you cherry picked one number, you forgot the critical number, which was this data point. But that's part of research as well, right? Because you don't have to disclose every bit of data from another study in your study. You may just say, hey, this one sentence supports what I'm thinking. And so whoever wrote that sentence, they have the owners

ownership of like, hey, you got to make sure it's all of its right. And that's the whole peer review process, right? So a bunch of your peers who are experts in that area are going to go triple check all your stuff and they go, OK, I think we can stand behind this at its current state. But really, we're all adding one little brick onto this wall of research. I got lucky. I got to start a whole new wall, right? Because the population group that I studied had never been studied before.

I want to get into that but my my follow-up question on it so so peer review is Like the gold standard like if something's been peer reviewed, that's

Well, let's go back a step. Peer reviewed in really good journals. OK. OK. There's this brand new, hey, I can make money opening a journal. So I'm going to start a journal today. And hey, who wants to peer review? and by the way, Christian, for you to be published in this journal, it's going to cost you a few bucks. You know, we have printing costs and things. So once that happens, that's called a pay to play. Once you're in the pay to play field, the journals are a little murky.

You know, they're not as prestigious. And prestigious can come with a lot of gatekeeping, a lot of, you don't have its own biases. So it's got, I mean, look, at the end of the day, you as the researcher need to verify, this a good source, bad source? Much like anything, especially in business, right? You're not going to just sign up for something. You're going to go do your homework. And is this a valid resource for my organization?

Speaker 1 (05:29.922)
virus.

Speaker 2 (05:50.382)
will support the goals that I have.

Yes. I think what is often missing, I this is not where I wanted the conversation to go. We'll steer back. from other researchers that I've talked to in the scientific community, they talk about how there's a fundamental lack of business understanding, like in a university environment, for instance.

what the economics, how the economics drive the research and like the whole model, the whole system. Did you encounter that in your journey? I mean, obviously you understood business, but your peers and colleagues that you were working with.

yeah, I think when I originally, you know, suggested my title for the dissertation, you know, the very specific population that I wanted to study are business owners that have a business over 1 million in revenue. So that is a very tiny percentage of the overall business community. And I remember pitching this in my proposal, you know, early on days where you have to get the okays and the approvals. And they were like, wow, peach, I don't know. don't.

think you're going to get many people to fill out your survey. And I needed at least 100 to make it a statistically valid or statistically relevant study. they said, you know, look, maybe you might find 30 people in the United States that could fit this criteria. And if you can find those 30, we'll call this a pilot study. And maybe somewhere, somewhere down the line, somebody will pick it up and finish your study.

Speaker 2 (07:41.87)
And I was like, OK, I'm going to go get more than 100 people. So I actually got 260 people to fill out the survey that qualified.

So they just really had no idea about what the population that you were, the people that you were studying.

And I think that is also an exposure to academic researchers are not going to be invited into certain circles. And so then those circles don't get researched. So I had, you know, being a former entrepreneur and I guess are you ever a former entrepreneur?

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:15.978)
No, recovering, recovering maybe.

And so that allowed me to have access into these kind of smaller niche networks where I just put it out there and said, would you please fill this out? And if you've got a peer that also owns a business, will you send it to them? And then people were like, yeah, I'll help you out. Let's fill it out.

Yeah, I'm curious the start to finish ratio on your survey because I knew I was going to complete it. as I answering these questions on the survey, I'm like, huh, these are kind of intimate questions that I don't know who's going to be comfortable answering that. So any idea of what percentage started it that didn't finish it?

Off the top of my head, I want to say about 15 % did not finish. Oh, well that's Which was tiny. I think the way, I wanted to address that initially as well, so I made it very clear that there's no identifiable information, we're not collecting your name, your email, there's no prize or gift for filling it out. And so that in itself, like no prize, right? So it's kind of a standard, give a $10 gift card.

Right. They're like, can't give more than $50 for this. And I thought, you know, millionaires are not going to be motivated by a $10 gift card. No. And so I'm just going to ask for the altruistic, hey, will you help me? I'm your peer. Will you help me? Ultimately, this is to help you and the community. And they all showed up.

Speaker 1 (09:42.358)
I love it. what? Okay, let's let's talk about this new wall you started. So did you set out to start a new

Well, no, I was told don't get ambitious. Add one brick to the wall of research. You know, this is when I approached the dissertation, here's my mindset and this is my end all be all I've got to make this thing perfect. And I had a great advisor who kind of sat me down and said, this is a school project. Don't don't get your head too big. It's have you have you put on the walls, all of your other essays and

Research papers from school? No. It's just another one. So let's just do it. Do the exercise, learn from the process. And so, yeah, that was really an interesting mindset for me because part of the journey is also evolving yourself and the way you think. And so for me, not finishing something or not finishing it at an excellence level, that's tough for me. Like my brain will just freeze on it.

And I'll ponder and ponder and it's probably another 12 months we're eating up and just, don't know, how can I make it better? Let me go back and rewrite. And they were like, look, this is part of the growth process where you have to understand what is done, what is good enough. How do you overcome that need to like, no, it's gotta be perfect.

Right. Well, that's a huge life lesson that I'm still trying to learn. I'm not going to go down that road. OK. So what is the new wall of research?

Speaker 2 (11:19.894)
Right. So my topic was the influence of attachment theory, which just happens at early, early stages of life. Attachment theory, entrepreneurial loneliness, and its effect on the sexual satisfaction of married entrepreneurs with a business over a million in revenue. over a million in revenue, that's a brand new wall. And in terms of

Loneliness, attachment, sexual satisfaction, those three things together have never been studied on that group.

And now you've got to dumb it down for us. What were the findings?

So some really interesting things here, Obviously, loneliness is a key factor for the entrepreneurial community. it showed up, loneliness comes out in the entrepreneurial community, not for the reasons I thought, right? I just thought, well, you know, it's a lonely job, right? You're at the top of the mountain and everybody works for you, so they're all yes people and okay, that's a lonely thing. Turns out the number one cause of loneliness

for entrepreneurs is financial secret keeping. And so that shows up with, my gosh, how am gonna make payroll Friday? And people ask, how are we doing financially? we're doing great, we're doing great. We really need to close some sales immediately if possible, but we're doing great. Well, you bring that home and if your spouse doesn't work with you, well now you've kind of gotten used to keeping a few secrets at work.

Speaker 2 (12:59.67)
start to keep some secrets at home, and that starts to create some isolation. So you're always feeling this isolation feel. Now a lot of entrepreneurs, I'm not gonna say all, but a lot of entrepreneurs have an avoidant attachment style. Meaning, it shows up like this. And your listeners are probably like, this is me, this is me. It's like, hey, Christian, can you help me set up the, you know what, nevermind.

I'll just go do it. It'll be easier than explaining it to you. Right? That's a very subtle tell of my attachment style, which is I really can't trust you as an adult because I never could trust the adults when I was a young person. So I'll just do it myself. I can trust myself. That sounds like an entrepreneur, right? can't work for you because I can't trust you'll even pay me on time. So I'll trust myself and I'm going to build this.

Yes.

Speaker 1 (13:53.805)
Yes.

I'm approved to others. there's, I would love to do this research, side note. There's an interesting arc in business, right? So you start off with this fire in your belly and I'm going to prove to the world. And here's what you end up doing. You end up hiring people, paying those people, taking care of customers, solving other people's needs, being on time.

all the things that you wish you had when you were a child. You start to do that for others and strangers often. And over time, entrepreneurs wake up and go, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm, quote, bored with it. Or I feel like it's ran its cycle. Or I've grown it as big as I want. I don't want to do this anymore. What that all is translating to, I think I healed my childhood attachment wounds. And I feel OK now.

This is no longer fixing it for me.

Right. Without realization that they had a problem even to fix.

Speaker 2 (14:58.99)
That's right. That's right. Which is really unique. Now, it could also go the other way, which is if it doesn't get healed in that timeline that is kind of the natural evolution of a business, then it's, I'm a failure. I really can't trust other. It just reinforces that attachment wound.

Okay, so let's go back a step and lay some fundamental terms down here that I'm familiar with, you obviously are familiar with, maybe our listeners aren't. What is attachment disorder?

really a disorder. Let's look at it as styles. Right. So there's four styles. Bowlby discovered these early in his research. What they did is they took a little baby and a mom, put him in an observation room and gave him some toys. And they told the baby, you know, they were letting the baby play and they had an earpiece in the mom and they told the mom, up and walk out of the room and we're to watch what happens. And the baby was kind of look.

Cry hey, where's mom and then kind of go back to playing toys and then they was okay mom go back in the room Let's see what happens right most babies, you know, you know hug how you were gone. Where'd you go? Okay, and back to playing toys, That's a very secure. Hey mom leaves. I am where's mom. Okay, I'll play Mom comes back. mom's back. Okay back to that's a very secure. They can trust adult They're gonna leave and come back gonna do what they say, right? Mm-hmm

Where it starts to get murky is when mom leaves and the baby just starts balling and balling. And then mom comes back and the baby won't stop balling. Now they're going to hold on, my God, where have you been? I don't want to play with these toys. Don't ever leave me. These become anxious, attached adults. This is like, please don't leave. It really gets me anxious when I'm talking to you and you're on your phone. You're not paying attention to me.

Speaker 1 (16:51.81)
Yes.

Speaker 1 (16:57.88)
Yes.

Because my mom would do this and I just can't handle it. That's one style. The other style we just talked about was you're avoidant. Mom comes back and the baby's like, I don't want to look at you. I'm going to play with my toys. I don't like you. I can't trust you. And when you have both, they call that an insecure attachment style. And that's really hard on relationships.

So to clarify, so you had the baseline. So everybody has an attachment style. OK. What percentage of the population in general have a normal attachment style versus

Pretty much.

Speaker 2 (17:43.63)
We'll call it secure. It's really fascinating. It's like almost a quarter, quarter, quarter in the research group that I study. So it's really hard to say normal, right? Because profession adds a play, your childhood, two parent, one parent, siblings, no siblings. All these things have little micro factors in your attachment style. So everybody is like a fingerprint, but it's interesting how it folds out like a bell curve, like there's a fourth, fourth.

interesting.

Speaker 1 (18:12.362)
Okay. All right. So let's define loneliness. Was that self-defined in the survey? Like I just feel

lonely? No, I used a UCLA loneliness score instrument that was a validated scale that said, yeah, this actually measures loneliness with these handful of questions that then measures, puts you on a scale, high loneliness, low loneliness. Okay. And so then that was laid on top of their attachment style. So as you can imagine, the more

avoidant you are, the higher loneliness you experience, which also has a decrease in marital and sexual satisfaction.

What about anxious or insecure? Is there a relationship to the loneliness there?

Not as much as anxious because they're usually very hyper aware. Anxious, yeah. So avoidant folks have a higher level of loneliness. Anxious did not have a higher level of loneliness, I think because they're more hyper aware. Hey, why are you on your phone? You looked at me funny. What does that mean? So I'm a little more hyper aware versus I'm just gonna pull away. And that pulling away reinforces the loneliness in that relationship.

Speaker 1 (19:32.206)
Okay, what about insecure?

Insecure was a really tough group because they exhibit both characteristics. And as you can imagine, if you're insecure, your hypothesis would be you're going to have high loneliness and that matched up as well.

Okay, all right. I had been familiar with the attachment concept based upon a book that was recommended to me a couple of years ago, Secure Love, which I think I referenced for you. And I realized, this is self-diagnosis now, that I think I actually...

am insecure and demonstrate both. When I had gone to marriage therapy, the counselor said that I was avoidant and my wife was anxious. Now, it's possible, I don't know, that my wife is insecure as well and demonstrates both, but living with her for 32 years, she's definitely avoidant, right? How...

Hard is it to self-identify or to be clinically categorized? mean, is that a hard diagnosis to make?

Speaker 2 (20:59.906)
No, there's a number of online tools that your listeners can jump onto that you just type in, know, measure my attachment style or tell me my attachment style. A bunch of surveys will pop up and you can just fill them out. And what it does is it kind of gives you a range of like, here's your number and this is what category you fit into. Can you exhibit behaviors of different attachment styles?

Absolutely, we call those defense mechanisms or coping mechanisms. Your partner, if your partner is highly anxious and you're avoidant, you will start to learn how to communicate with them in their language, so to speak, Within the clinical world, I'm a big fan of imago therapy. And the precipice of that, which really ties back to attachment, is you're attracted to a partner that represents your childhood

Wounds with the hope that you will be able to heal those childhood wounds through your partner Unfortunately, they don't know that's what they're signing up for right and they're signing you up for the same deal, right? Right. So this is a very subconscious process and that's really the arc of love right you kind of go from this early love limerence, you know a new relationship energy You're so in love that you can not detect all the little, you know red flags that are firing off, right?

And then after that wears off, which is, you know, can ask any counselor, marriage counselor, and they'll say, well, it wears off between nine days and nine months or nine years, who knows? Somewhere in there it starts to wear off. And then all the things that actually attracted you to that person start to irritate you, mainly because it's a reflection back to those childhood hurts. And what, you know, through a MAGO therapy, what you do is you learn to say, you know, I'm not...

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:54.83)
I should not use you to heal those wounds. And the person says, yeah, my job is not to heal those wounds for you. My job is to go on the journey while you heal those wounds.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I find it fascinating kind of looking at it more from a Metaphysical or spiritual I've had this conversation with several guests is that What you learn is what you were looking for You know from from your father your mother your spouse like that that

They at the end of the day did not have it to give like at the end of the day what you were looking for they didn't have And I think when you have that realization that what you're looking for is not outside of you. That really kind of changes the whole dynamic Yeah, okay, so Because your specialty is is it sexual dysfunction? Is that how you would classify?

It's sex therapy. So I work as a clinician and have a focus on sex therapy couples, viewers.

Okay, so because that was your specialty, you had to throw sex in there. to. Well, mean, had to. What is the correlation there? I mean, you know, I think I have not read your study. I need to read your study. I should have read it before the show. I would suppose my hypothesis would be that

Speaker 2 (24:15.177)
So

Speaker 1 (24:39.022)
there would be a strong correlation to dissatisfaction in sex and loneliness.

Chicken dinner. got it. Okay. Yeah.

So you assumed that, the data.

Yeah. Here's where my assumption got broken and I was completely surprised by the outcome, which was this concept of copreners. So two partners, let's call them husband and wife, husband, husband, it doesn't matter, right? Right, wife, doesn't matter. Two people who are in a relationship bond also own a business together. Both of them work in the business.

So let's think about this, all of a sudden you can't have financial secrets. And you both are kind of on the same journey. So I thought, okay, this is gonna be interesting. If you're co-preneurs, if you have that designation, then your loneliness will be low and your sexual satisfaction will be higher. That was my hypothesis. Being a co-preneur had no effect.

Speaker 1 (25:27.81)
gets a lot harder.

Speaker 1 (25:46.072)
Really.

Zero. Zero statistical. I think the same thing that shows up at your home relationship just shows up at the office. if you are avoidantly attached at home, guess what? You're still avoidantly attached at work and you're going to isolate yourself. You're going to work on your own projects. You're not going to discuss certain things that may be vulnerable to you. And you're not going to bring those home either.

Why do you think that is?

Speaker 1 (26:15.798)
Yeah. And to reiterate what you said, that the loneliness, let's see if I've got this right, that the loneliness manifested itself in financial secrecy.

That's one of the primary ways that it shows up. It's also a level of entrepreneurial loneliness in terms of isolation. Being around people who want something from you. Nobody's going to go hang out at your happy hour after work if you stop paying them. That's true.

I haven't tried that, but I'm sure it works.

At some point, it's going to wear off, And so you come to this realization like, wow, I'm surrounded by people who only want to be around me because I pay them. And you and I are fortunate to have a peer group and a network that supports us. I can't tell you how valuable that is in terms of so many entrepreneurs who do not have that peer group. They're just literally on this island by themselves.

Yes.

Speaker 1 (27:19.586)
Yeah, you know, it's funny, my... I didn't understand. I mean, I guess if someone had had the conversation with me, I would have agreed with it cognitively. But at some emotional level, I didn't understand that the people that worked for me were there and...

Engaged with me only because I paid them right right I I Wouldn't have said yeah, if you if I don't pay them they're gonna stick around I yes, that's true, but on some level I I Thought I Felt it wasn't thought I felt like they were there because they wanted to be with me right and You know that that

I didn't want yes people. I didn't want people that just told me what I wanted to hear. But because of my psychological dysfunctions, that's what ended up happening.

Well, they have a vested interest in not rocking the boat.

And and you know be being able to tell somebody something they don't want to hear In in the context of business, especially as a support in it Is is an extremely high level of trust, right? And that just doesn't happen I mean and even if you like I I want that now in my organization and I finally have gotten to the point where

Speaker 1 (29:06.798)
people will call me on my bullshit, right? But it's still tenuous. mean, like underlying it is, is that I control their livelihood. And that, you know, changes the paradigm.

That's right.

Speaker 2 (29:21.432)
There's a power dynamic clearly in place and often times over time entrepreneurs, it just gets blurred. They're like, no, there's no power dynamic. One of the team members, no, you own the team. And there's a clear power dynamic. You're the only one who has forgotten about that. And the trust comes by not weaponizing that fact.

I'm-

Speaker 1 (29:43.214)
Yes, right. Yes. Yes. Yes.

So yeah, it was an interesting journey to go down, which has now led me to, I would say three fourths of my client load are business owners, entrepreneurs, couples. So a fourth of my work is sex related. A lot of my work is just the rigor moror of owning a business and the pressure and stress that comes with that. But I was gonna share with you, I had a chance to go to the Oxford Business School.

And it was fascinating. So this professor gave everybody in the room this survey. So there were 50 of us, right? All entrepreneurs, all successful, 19 different countries. And he said, okay, I've got four questions for you and you're gonna score them zero to five. Zero being low, five being high. So the max you're gonna make on this is a 20. And if you score a 20, your business is on like,

off to the moon. You can be gone for a month long vacation, never check your email. You come back home, the business has even grown more than you expected. A zero is like you have a dumpster fire. You don't even know what the hell's going on in your business.

And give this a sample question. What was one of questions?

Speaker 2 (31:06.446)
My employees can make decisions without asking leadership.

So the average score, and he posted this in front of everybody. Of the 50. Of the 50. Take a wild guess. What do you think is the average?

I you shared this with me so I know it was low, 12.

Five. okay. So that's pretty close to dumpster fire. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so the hands go up. hey, how do I increase my score? First of all, I think that's the wrong question to ask, but let's go with it. And the professor who is esteemed and like super knowledgeable, right? Like been there, done that goes, it's really easy. Clarify your mission. Clarify your values.

write job descriptions so everybody knows what's going on, clean up your org chart so they know who to ask for help. And I was like, okay, yeah, three years ago before I started this journey, I would have been like, sign me up for that plan, where do I buy the book, and can you come and consult? I would, right, because that makes total sense. So I raised my hand and I said, can I ask a question? And the guy's like, yeah. I said, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:26.616)
I don't think you ever asked, what was their childhood like? Like all the people in here, did you grow up in chaos? Cause five is chaos. And if you grew up in chaos, and chaos could be a single parent, mom had to work two jobs, an alcoholic parent, a sibling that beat you up all the time, being bullied in school, like you name it. Chaos can be all over the place, right? Living in an unsafe neighborhood. You pick your, pick your.

capital T or lower keys traumas, right? And I said, if you grew up in chaos, you know what? Five feels really good. It feels real comfortable. Normal. You know what sounds real scary? 10. You know what sounds impossibly scary? A 20. A 20, what do I even do? I am the chaos master. Hell, I lit my house on fire before I left, so I can put it out when I get home. So, you you add all that up and you're like, I thought,

normal.

Speaker 1 (33:19.81)
Right.

Speaker 2 (33:24.3)
Wow, there's a real opportunity here that if we heal the entrepreneur, they can grow their business.

Yes.

The healing is not clarify your mission. That's table stakes. Right. Right. You got to do that. Right. But just because you do that doesn't mean the chaos is going to stop or the comfort of being in chaos.

No.

No, mean, you know the the question you asked like Can your can your employees essentially be independent of you? That that that's easy to replicate on paper But it's easy to sabotage as an entrepreneur in a way that you don't even realize it or or the employee realizes it, right?

Speaker 2 (34:07.47)
That's right. That's right. And if you have an avoidant attachment style, it looks like this hub and spoke type small business where it's just bring everything to me and I need to okay it. Right? I need to approve everything because I can't trust anybody. I want to trust you and I've hired you and I want you to be independent at the same time. my gosh, if something goes wrong, then it's going to make me feel like I don't have control. So I'm going to keep

perpetuating this chaotic work environment so I can come and save the day and have some level of control of my life.

And in a lot of ways, you you and I have had this conversation, it's very similar to addiction in the sense that I view addiction like I go, I can't control any of the variables in my life. I feel powerless. I don't like the situation, but I can control that I can drink a glass of bourbon, right? And that's gonna make me feel a predictable way. And I think that's...

I don't know if that's the clinical definition, but to me that's like the basis of addiction. Like I can control this. And in a lot of ways, I think businesses are the addiction for entrepreneurs.

Yeah, it's a coping mechanism. So as opposed to like a chemical addiction, you know, we would call that a process addiction, right? So you're using some behavior to help you cope with something else. And for a lot of people, the escape of, know, I need this, this business needs me. I've got to hurry up and get there. I got to be the first one to set the example, right? These are all stories that we start to tell ourselves to justify coping with that.

Speaker 2 (36:00.076)
whatever behavior and in this case it's usually overworking. You know, I've got to set the example. I've got to be the one. I've got to save the day.

I mean, you work with entrepreneurs in therapy.

I'm assuming that none of them come to you with the understanding that they're the problem. Like, or... No. No. Some do?

Yeah, I would say a majority of them have. mean, it takes a lot of bravery to go to therapy, I think. So to take the first step and to be like, hey, I kind of want to work on this. I can't tell you how many people sit on that couch and say, you know, I'm here for some business advice. And I'm like, well, I'm not in the advice business. And they'll say, yeah, but you know, I'm looking for a coach. And I'll say, there's a lot of coaches out there. I didn't go down this path.

To be a coach because there's a lot of good coaches and there's a lot of bad coaches, but there's a lot of out there and you know over the course of having my businesses I probably spent millions of dollars on consultants and When things worked out great that they told me to do it's because they told me what to do and When it didn't work out they would say well, you just didn't listen correctly. So either way they got paid right and you know now I'm like

Speaker 2 (37:24.13)
Let's ask a different question, right? Why do you need a consultant? Why are you afraid of not being able to make that decision?

Yeah, yes. Because, you know, I'm thinking about my own personal situation and my experience. And I think, you know, if you hire a consultant, whether it's McKinsey or Joe Blow CPA, it doesn't matter. Like, you're asking them to solve a technical problem, right?

But how many times do you actually know all the technical information you need to answer that question? Most of the time. I mean, maybe if you're just a brand new entrepreneur and don't know what you don't know, but in my case, it wasn't that I didn't know the technical answer. But it was easy for me to say, well, that's not my area of expertise.

Exactly.

Speaker 1 (38:33.41)
You know, like, I'm not good at numbers, or I'm not good at marketing, or whatever the business problem is, right? But it's almost like you said you're not asking the right question. The question is, why are you afraid to make the decision? Yeah.

And so if you need a consultant that brings a specialized skill set to your business, that's one thing. If you are afraid of making a decision and it's easier if the consultant said to do it, where does that come from? Right? Which voice from your childhood is telling you, are not good enough for this, you're way over your skis, get in place and sit down?

Yes.

Speaker 2 (39:21.568)
Okay, you know what? I'm gonna go find somebody really experienced and they're gonna tell everybody it's okay to do this. Mind you, I hired them and I asked them exactly what I want them to solve. But I want you to tell everybody it's okay, because I can't. I wanna help them overcome things like this.

Yeah, and if you end up doing the wrong thing, making the wrong decision, I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it becomes an existential thing. I was talking to a coach recently on the show, he grew up in Poland, and he moved to the UK.

And he said, you know, he asked somebody in the UK, how many entrepreneurs do you think are in the UK? he said, you know, don't know, three million, five million, whatever. And he said, well, you know, how many are in Poland? And they said, no. And he said, there's 40 million. Everybody's an entrepreneur because they're all solving problems, right? Like, there's nobody coming to save them to fix it. it's this, he equated it to,

being a game, business being a game in the sense that, you know, we've all played games and lost. And what do you do? Well, you just start the game over. Right. But but an entrepreneur that says, well, if I fail, I go bankrupt. You know, you know, the business goes away. These employees lose their job and, you know, blah, blah, blah. It takes on a completely different tone.

And I'm not suggesting that to be flippant about the decisions we make as entrepreneurs, but I think a lot of times we're paralyzed because it goes back to like, it's not the business that failed, it's me that failed. I'm a failure. blah, blah, blah. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (41:22.05)
Yeah, there's an incredible study. can get a copy. I think I gave you a copy last time. Yeah, you know, it does live in our brains. The business lives in part of the brain where children, that your own children live. so good luck separating yourself from that. Yeah. You it is a part of us. It's a part. That's why it hurts when it fails and it feels so good when it's successful. Right. And things are working.

We discussed it on the show last

Speaker 1 (41:38.698)
know,

Speaker 1 (41:51.234)
So you're suggesting that you really shouldn't try to separate those two.

It's hard to. And I think the ones who are easy, they can easily do that. We would say, I they're really cold business owners. just make decisions off the numbers and move on with life. And so feel like you lose a little bit of the soul. So how do you kind of marry the two and have some symbiotic relationship between what you need, what the business needs, how does it fuel your ego, your personality, what's it do for you?

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:25.324)
Yeah, mean, I guess, yeah, at the end of the day, the business is agnostic. It can be used for good or it can be used for bad. It's just how you, the entrepreneur, are framing it.

That's right. That's right.

Dr. Patel, this has been a fascinating interview. I will get a copy and link it to your study in the show notes. it hasn't. So we can't share it?

Sounds good. Well, it's not been published yet.

The school goes through its review process and then puts it up on, think on either pub.

Speaker 2 (43:03.086)
a bed or they'll put it up on ProQuest probably does the dissertation. it's not out. Yeah. It hasn't gone through all the whole process. Yeah. I don't have the ability to share things.

Okay, so you can't share it.

Speaker 1 (43:15.734)
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