How a Venture Capitalist Changed the way I think.

I remember thinking that to be a very successful person all I have to do is work hard in school. That I need to quietly listen to everything my teachers say, raise my hand to speak, and that I needed good grades to make a change in the world and be successful.

Well, I was wrong, but that was kinda obvious.

To be as successful as many CEOs, to be as creative and brilliant as these people, it requires a different mindset, and that’s exactly what Chamath taught me. I remember when I first watched one of his interviews and not knowing what a venture capitalist firm was, but his authenticity and personality captivated me. The things he said actually made sense (unlike math class) and I wanted to implement a lot of things he talked about.

But before moving on who is Chamath Palihapitiya? He’s the founder and CEO of Social Capital, one of the biggest VC firms in the world. He’s a super cool guy who went to Waterloo and watching some of his interviews made me realize a few things. Here are some things he said that really stuck with me.

Self-worth and keeping balanced

All your decision making is grounded in self-worth.

Think about it. Read it over again, still doesn’t make sense?

In one interview Chamath emphasizes how being in a good and happy mindset versus a negative mindset drastically affects your decision making. Beating yourself up, and feeling inadequate all contribute to putting us in a negative mindset and a lot of the time it comes back to self-worth.

If you look down upon yourself, you’re going to be unhappy, it’s that simple. And when you’re unhappy or in a bad mindset, it will lead to bad decision making. So essentially the actions you take are dictated by the mindset you have which is grounded in self-worth.

But what else contributes to the mindsets we have? It’s different for everyone and you need to take the time to understand what it is for you, but for Chamath, it was 3 main things: his professional accomplishments, the sense of social capital, and having meaningful relationships. Whenever he feels as though he is in a bad mindset or is “unbalanced” it’s because one of these 3 things that are important to him, is off.

The problem is if you don’t catch yourself in an “unbalanced” or simply unhappy state of mind, that you project the mentality onto others without meaning to. It ends up looping endlessly if you don’t catch yourself and the only way to fix your mindset is through changing something.

This could be anything ranging from doing things that help you gain more of a feeling of self-worth to changing something that feels off, such as cutting someone off if you value relationships a lot.

To work on hard problems it requires a mindset and no one can give you or teach you how exactly to be in a good mindset. People like Chamath can only guide and recommend how to get in such a mindset, and as he said “working on yourself is a really meaningful way of working on your intelligence.”

So what I started doing to be in a better mindset every day is to think about how I’m feeling. Not in a shallow way, but things like how am I feeling about myself, do I feel imbalanced? If I catch myself answering negatively to either of these questions I think about how to fix it and I do it that day.

Being wrong is important

Let’s take a walk down memory lane.

When was the last time someone applauded you on your failures? Never?

How about the last time someone celebrated working hard on something? Maybe once or twice?

Exactly. Working, being in the grind, failing, they’re all essential to succeeding but are never celebrated. Instead, we’re taught not to fail, to do things with minimal impact because you have barely any chance to fail. But it’s not just failure, we don’t celebrate the process of putting work into getting successful.

Chamath highlighted in an interview how being wrong is overrated in society, how you can’t be wrong sometimes and there’s too much of a complex around being right. He then explains how being wrong is necessary if your working on something hard. That you have to be failing a lot to get it right, and if you’re doing something with minimal risk the chances are that it will have minimal impact too.

So learn how to get comfortable with failing because if you want to make a huge impact on this planet, you’ll have to fail a few times.

What this meant for me is that I started looking at failing in a different way. It was no longer a disappointment but rather a step towards succeeding in the end. If I’m failing a lot, it’s a sign that I’m getting there.

Having a vision, and determination

One of the things I admire most in Chamath is his sense of determination and his vision.

Most traditional VC companies rely upon many limited partners to invest in them, and startups are given a 7–10 year frame to return profits. Social Capital since 2018 has stopped accepting investments from outside limited partners and that they would provide startups with money without expecting returns from them on a specified timeline. Out of those returns, he will now invest it back into the company rather than venture capitalists that would normally otherwise get the money.

Chamath is someone who will do what he wants to do if he has a vision. His actions from this past year demonstrate the determination he has and if he has a vision he’ll commit to making it happen.

Another example of this is when he left his position at Facebook as a senior exec. Chamath was making a great salary and was able to support his family but he left because he said if he was staying it was only for the money. He talks about if he has an instinct to do something, no matter how chaotic it may seem to others, he should pursue it because it’s most likely the best decision.

I learned through this that being able to know what you want to do is a powerful thing, and following through with determination can make me a very successful person. I learned that being able to listen to what your gut says, even if everyone else thinks its crazy, can get you where you want to be.

Takeaway:

• self-worth and keeping balanced in your mindset is so crucial to being successful
• being wrong is important if you’re working on something that is important and hard, you’ll fail a lot, don’t be afraid of it
• having a vision and following through with determination can make you one of the most successful people in the world

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