Improving your communication and teamwork should be the top priority for your startup.
Cofounder therapy is an emerging category nested between traditional couple’s counseling and high-performance executive coaching. It addresses a primary need within every startup: Improving the communication, teamwork, and alignment between the founders.
While most founders working to build their company into a successful business benefit from working with a startup therapist, three types of founders reap the greatest benefits these services have to offer.
Read the list below to discover who benefits the most (and why).
1. Cofounders who just closed a seed round and are entering high-growth.
Transitioning between stages of growth is taxing on cofounders, who often react differently to changing stressors and may not have the same perspective for…
Learning these small tricks can go a long way to helping business owners improve their conversations and get back on the same page.
Business relationships are challenging and often complicated due to the personal / professional intersection.
Whether your work relationships turn personal or your personal relationships turn professional, both are riddled with complexities that lead most partners into recurring disagreements.
Previous research shows 65% of high-growth startups fail due to cofounder-related issues, and consistent disagreements among business partners likely contributes to an even higher percentage of stress, burnout, and exhaustion.
As a business psychologist, I specialize in working with founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs who want to improve their relationships with themselves and their business partners. …
Why small business owners benefit from relationship counseling
Couple’s therapy for business partners is the easiest way to preserve your company’s most important relationship.
Previous research shows 65% of high-growth startups fail due to cofounder-related issues, and disagreements among business associates likely contributes to far higher numbers of stress, burnout, and work-related frustration.
As a psychologist specializing in working with cofounders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, I’ve seen many leaders invest time, energy, and effort into improving their relationships. But many partners who would benefit from improving their communication and teamwork have yet to enroll.
Why?
Because most people: 1) Underestimate the remarkable effectiveness of couple’s therapy, 2)…
Learn how to cultivate sustainable success by optimizing your mental, physical, and emotional health.
Startup founders face unique challenges. Building and scaling a successful business is more complicated than merely designing a great product or service that people love, optimizing product-market fit, and maximizing TAM.
It’s also a race against your tendencies, limitations, and habits.
Stress is ubiquitous. Burnout is abundant. And the non-stop pressure to hit KPI’s takes its tole on your physical and mental health, straining your relationships and contributing to an unsustainable lifestyle.
Given these complexities, the most successful founders are the ones who learn how to structure each day in a way that enhances sustainability.
Here are three ways for…
The shadow of ambition leaves you feeling empty and driven by an inner tyrant attempting to achieve the impossible — perfection.
Ambition is one of the best assets an entrepreneur can possess. The motivation to achieve one’s dreams and resilient, resourceful attitude are requirements of building a profitable company, but most people fail to realize the shadow — or dark side — of this mindset.
The shadow of ambition is chronic unhappiness.
When people are so focused on their future goals and aspirations that they prevent themselves from being fully present — focusing on their lofty exit, their next business, or their $100 million mansion in the hills — they create a negative inner climate that inevitably detracts from all aspects of their lives, including workplace performance.
Working…
Here’s what psychologists implement to improve team cohesion and maximize productivity.
Leaders want more efficient workplaces, and founders are in the unique position to set the cultural tone of their organization.
When founders invest in their team, it results in greater cohesion, performance, and a more supportive atmosphere. Employees, too, benefit from an inclusive environment that uses cutting-edge psychological tools to empower each person to make a meaningful contribution to the group.
But it’s often not that easy.
Most founders fail to recognize that the culture of their company is created not just through their explicit communication and the values they promote, but also through unintentional messages employees receive as part…
Entrepreneur therapy helps ambitious founders outgrow the self-criticism that reduces productivity and contributes to burnout.
Many ambitious individuals engage in self-criticism that reduces their leadership potential and productivity.
While you may justify negative internal dialogue as part of the motivation you need to achieve, critical statements detract from energy that could otherwise be focused in the same direction.
They create internal tension between different parts of yourself that feel out of alignment: The perfectionist executor and the incompetent weakling you hide from others.
Without addressing this form of internal bullying, you’re unable to reach your full potential as a leader of your organization, and your perfectionist tendencies may sabotage progress before you’ve achieved your goals.
Learn how to create a physical, mental, and emotional environment that cultivates long-term success.
Motivation is important. Most successful people have the drive necessary to continue their journey of personal and professional growth. However, even the most achievement-oriented people come to a point when their motivation levels are depleted.
In order to sustain high levels of motivation for long periods of time, you need to understand the nature of motivation.
The Nature of Motivation
The best source of motivation is intrinsic, meaning that it comes from within yourself. If you’re looking to external factors — response from market, customers, competitors, etc. — then you’re motivation shifts along with those outside variables.
But if you’re driven by internal factors…
Teaching yourself how to enter a state of flow will have a lasting positive impact on all areas of your life.
Developing the ability to enter a state of flow is life-changing.
When you come into full contact with the present moment and lose track of the world around you, time flies, productivity skyrockets, and you experience a deep sense of fulfillment.
Positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote, spoke, and intensively studied the state of flow. He said:
“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Optimal experience is thus something we make happen” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 3).
Here are five ways to find your flow every single day:
1. Select an appropriate task and make it challenging.
If you want to enter a…
If you want to unlock the next level of achievement, you need to invest in yourself.
Despite its shine in pop culture, there’s nothing glamorous about being an entrepreneur. In fact, of all professions, it may be one of the more difficult paths to success.
Instead of working eight years to climb the org chart in a conventional corporation, entrepreneurs cram those eight years into two or three hoping for a lofty exit that’s far from guaranteed.
The risks of evolving markets add to the immense responsibility founders feel for their company and employees. And if you’re not bootstrapped, there’s additional pressure from investors to demonstrate consistent growth.
This mixture leads to immense stress, difficulty sleeping…
Dr. Matthew Jones
Depth-Oriented Cofounder Psychologist | https://cofounderclarity.com/ | https://drmatthewjones.com/ | NEW BOOK! Slow Down, Wake Up: https://rb.gy/gqupa6
