Marathons, Motivation, and the Positive Power of Identity

Lately, I have been thinking about the concept of identity.

Identity is an extremely powerful force. For good and ill. Things we associate with our identity are the things that we hold most core to who we are. Recently, it seems like most of the discussion around identity has been negativing. It is looked at as a source for partisanship and tribalism.

But we shouldn’t underestimate identity potential as a force for good either.

Britney Runs a Marathon

I watched Britney Runs a Marathon a few days ago. The movie is a true story about a woman trying to get their life together and using the New York City Marathon as their motivating goal. After many ups and downs along the way, Brittney achieves her goal (I feel comfortable sharing this spoiler since it is literally the title of the movie). Watching the movie it struck me that the key to her success was how she changed her identity. At the beginning of the movie, she accepted being overweight as simply “who she was”. She was never going to achieve anything and would just coast through life because she was a lazy screw-up.

After being faced with some hard truths she decided to take action by starting to run. This was the keystone habit that helped her get other aspects of her life in order like getting a new job, investing in healthy friendships, and being open to positive romantic relationships. It all revolved around her habit of running. I love that the movie didn’t glamorize her taking the initial step to get going. She didn’t listen to pump up music or watch a motivational youtube video before she got started. She didn’t buy herself brand new workout clothes or running shoes agreeing that she would get started once she looked the part.

She took action.

She put on a ratty sweater and was able to run just 1 block.

But she stuck with it. She put one foot in front of the other and eventually she started seeing progress.

The movie perfectly mirrors Jeff Haden’s framework for motivation (great explainer video).

Motivation is not a spark that ignites the fires of your genius. It is the outcome of taking action.

As Brittney started to make progress her identity changed. She wasn’t someone who went out all the time and got wasted. She was someone who ate healthily and exercised. This was her new self-identity and it was what gave her the motivation to keep going.

My Marathon

This movie really resonates with me and some of my personal journey.

I have always struggled with my weight. Psychologically as much as physically.

I’ve been some level of short and stout for the entirety of my teenage and adult life. I played sports and exercised growing up, but I was always on the heavier side of things. Sometimes in a healthy way, but often in a very unhealthy way. There have been stretches where I made really good progress on my weight/health, but I never really built long-term sustainable habits and so I would inevitably back slide.

This time is different though.

The Last Year

Instead of going 0 to 100 on some unsustainable diet or workout plan, I have slowly been building up healthy habit on top of healthy habit over the past year. I have been focused on sustainable lifestyle change and falling in love with the process of being healthy instead of being overly focused on the goals/outcomes I am working towards.

And most of all I have been consciously working on changing how I think of myself.

How I view my identity.

It started last year at a summer reunion with my college buddies. We rented out a lake house for a long weekend where the usual debauchery, hilarity, and fun times ensued. One of the big surprises for the trip was seeing a friend I hadn’t seen in years who had gotten in really good shape and lost a bunch of weight. He looked great and I found myself thinking “if he can do it why can’t I?’

The first thing I started doing when I got back was trying to establish a good workout routine (I wrote about it last labor day). Instead of trying to do something that didn’t come naturally and that I didn’t enjoy (running) I refocused my efforts on doing something that I did enjoy more (weight lifting). (Side note: Since quarantine struck I have since started running more and even started to enjoy it. A bit). Over time, I was able to get in a really great workout habit where I now work out every day before work. Just like Brittney, motivation came from action and not the other way around. I used an app called Fitbod as an AI Personal Trainer. This allowed me to track my progress on all of my weights. The more I worked out, the more progress I would see, and the more I was motivated to continue working out.

Over the course of six months, I built a really solid workout habit but I wasn’t losing any weight. I was building muscle, but I was still eating as terribly as ever. Around the holidays I decided to make a change and started trying to eat healthier. I didn’t want to do a diet that wouldn’t work. I just wanted to focus on eating simple meals with lots of greens and minimal carbs/processed food.

Instead of just hoping that it would work I put some structure around it to measure my progress.

I started weighing myself every day (This scale makes it a breeze to track). Once a week I would also measure my waist, stomach, chest, and arms so I could track my progress in those areas as well. This really paid off because of how weird any progress journey is.

On the weeks where I had plateaued a bit on my weight, I was often able to see progress on my measurements and visa versa.

Weighing myself also had the benefit of shortening the feedback loop on my eating. The hard part about eating healthy is that eating something bad for you feels good immediately and you only see the negative results over time. The inverse is true for healthy eating.

By weighing myself every day I had a much quicker feedback loop. If I ate like crap, I would see it on the scale and I could make sure to eat better the next day.

This ability to recalibrate and adjust daily had a hugely beneficial impact. Without going on a diet or changing my exercise routine I was able to lose 15 lbs over the course of 3 months. Just by weighing myself every morning.

At this point, I started to plateau a bit more. In an effort to jumpstart my progress again I started using an app called Noom. Since starting that app I have lost another 15ish lbs and am really feeling good about my progress again.

Noom has helped me in a few ways.

1. It gives me skin in the game. Noom isn’t free. It costs something like $30 a month. This act of paying for it has really helped me commit to using it. If I don’t I feel like I am wasting money.

2. The app is focused on the psychology of building healthy sustainable habits. It is not a dieting app. No foods are off-limits. It is about building self-awareness to understand why you act in certain ways and to shine a light on the thought distortions we have. Things like telling ourselves that we will never be in good shape. Or throwing up our arms and saying what is the point if we have one stumble eating something we shouldn't.

3. Most importantly the app has made tracking my food easy. This has been something I have tried before but have never been able to stick with. Noom makes it super easy to use and it really helps me to be accountable for what I am eating. It helps me be aware of what is healthy and what isn’t (when you start tracking your food you quickly learn how many foods that are marketed as being healthy are actually anything but!). So far I have been tracking my food after the fact, but I am working on trying to track my food before I eat a single bite to increase my awareness of what I am about to put into my body (instead of learning about it after the fact).

The Power of Identity

I know this has been a bit of a long-and-winding-road of a post. Talking about my weight is pretty personal and I wanted to provide a window into the journey. So how does this bring us back to identity?

I am feeling really good about the progress I have made so far, but I know that I have a long way to go. I want to keep building on the healthy habits that I have nurtured and continue to design a sustainable and healthy lifestyle for myself.

I think the biggest part of this going forward will be changing aspects of my self-identity. Just like Brittney, I used to think that I would never be in good shape. That I was lazy and that my body was something out of my control. Now I am healthier than I have been in almost a decade. And let me tell you, I am loving stomping around in my old arsenal jerseys that I haven’t fit into since freshman year of college.

In addition to relying on the Action -> Progress -> Motivation loop to help solidify identity change, I have written out some affirmations of how I view myself. Some of these are aspects of my identity that have always been there. Others are new. Others are a bit more aspirational and things that I am actively working towards.

Here they are.

My chosen identity:

• I am a life-long learner

• I eat healthily and enjoy eating simple meals

• I exercise regularly. I love being active and I am at my best only after I have exercised

• I love being outdoors and doing fun things outside

• I have value not because of what I do or achieve but because of who I am. I am a child of God created in his image and as such my value is infinite. Just like everyone else's.

• I enjoy being spontaneous and trying new things

• I prioritize my family over my career

• I am process-oriented and focused on internalizing my goals by trying my best and surrendering the outcomes

• I am slow to anger and don't let things get to me. I take life as it comes and don't sweat things that are out of my control

• I am a writer and enjoy honing my craft by writing weekly through my blog

• I am a bridge builder and I seek to find commonalities instead of differences

• I am encouraging and empathetic towards others

• I am humble and low-ego. I am as at home talking to a janitor or a CEO

• I am confident and willing to fight for what I believe is right

• I am a master of staying in touch with people and I am happy to go the extra mile to maintain a relationship that is important to me

• I go first. I introduce myself first and invite people first. I am open and I break down awkwardness and barriers.

• I work hard and productively on things I care about

• I happily do nice things for Caitlyn and help her out around the house as a way of showing her how much I care

• I act ethically in all things I do. I don't take shortcuts and I don't compromise on my morals

Our identity has so much power.

It has the power to propel us forward and the power to hold us back. The power to divide us and the power to bring us together. What is often missed in discussions about identity is that our identity is malleable. For most of us, it is the outcome of our life’s circumstances.

But it doesn’t have to be.

As with most things in life, at the heart of our identity lies a choice.

So what identity will you choose for yourself?

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What is your North Star?

My dad is from Norway.

The traditions and norms he grew up with are different than those of our country. He has spent more time living in the USA than in Norway, so, for the most part, it is hard to tell the difference, but there are some times where it is a bit more obvious.

One of those times was when it came to me receiving my driver’s license.

In Norway, you become an adult at 18. You can drink, smoke, drive and join the army. I appreciate the logic. If you are old enough to go and fight in a war, you should be able to drive yourself home from the airport and have a drink and a smoke when you get home.

With this policy as a framework, it’s easy to see why the USA’s policies on adulthood might seem strange. It is much more gradual and staggered than in Norway. You can drive at 16, join the army at 18, smoke at 18, and you have to wait until you are 21 to drink.

All of this was weird to my dad, but he was especially skeptical of the whole driving-at-16 thing.

Because of this skepticism, the bar for me getting my license was not just doing enough driving to pass the test proving to the government I could drive safely.

I had to prove it to my father.

We spent many, many, many hours driving together before I finally reached this bar. I must have doubled or tripled the required amount of driving time in order to finally satisfy his European skepticism.

My dad would always find excuses for us to go on long drives (even for the most pointless things). We must have driven up to our cabin in the mountains and back three or four times that summer because he left his sunglasses or a pair of socks he liked.

At the time, I thought all this additional driving was somewhat annoying. All my friends barely needed to drive at all (a fact which now scares the living daylight out of me), and here I was crisscrossing the great state of Colorado in my spare time.

I now look at these drives incredibly fondly.

My favorite part was the great conversations we would have as I drove up curving mountain passes while my dad lounged with his feed up on the dash.

Ok Erik, where are you going with this?

Getting there.

On one such trip, my dad and I were talking about work. What his career had been like. The highs and the lows. My dad came to the United States as a college student and spent some time in consulting before starting his own private equity firm where he has worked ever since.

I was at the stage where I was starting to contemplate what I wanted to do with my life and it was the first time I can really remember talking about his career in some detail.

He told me that the proudest moment of his career was when he purchased a company with 600 employees and sold it a short time later with 1,000 employees. This was a good financial outcome for him, but that’s not why it was his best moment.

He said that he got the most pride, not from the sales multiple, but from the feeling that he had built something. That he had provided 400 people with jobs that they could be proud of. Jobs in which they could find dignity and fulfillment, and most importantly, jobs that they could support their family with.

This conversation stands out as one of the most seminal moments of my entire life.

In some ways, you can divide my life into two chapters. Before this car ride, and after.

Before, I was aimless. I didn’t have a specific path or idea of what I wanted to do. I coasted through life and school without really working towards anything.

Ever since that day, I have had a North Star.

Like my father was before me, I want to be a company builder.

I believe that the highest good that you can do for someone is to give them a job where they can find pride, dignity, and fulfillment, all while being able to provide a good life for themselves and their family.

This has been my guiding North Star and has informed every decision I have made so far in my career.

It is why I wanted to become an investor. So that I could become a partner in the company growth process and provide the capital that companies need to support this growth.

It is why I joined The Carlyle Group out of college. To learn from the best in the world how companies are built and run.

It is why I transitioned from private equity into venture capital. To be able to get involved with companies from the earliest stages where I could be a true partner in the building process as opposed to working with companies once they have matured. In venture capital, I could hop into the trenches and work shoulder to shoulder with entrepreneurs trying to change the world. Where I could invest in tech companies that provide some of the highest quality jobs that you can find.

Venture capital is the absolute highest point of leverage I have found in the pursuit of my North Star.

I aspire to be a builder of great companies. Companies that are providing products or services that the world needs. Companies that delight their customers by building something meaningful.

Building companies is my North Star.

It’s what matters most to me.

It has defined every decision I have made in my career so far and I know that it will continue to serve as a guiding light in the future.

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Why?

In our day and age there is a lot of airtime and energy spent on the “What”. What people are doing in their career. What is going on with the weather (hint: if its early March in Columbus it probably sucks). What movie won the Oscar. What outrageous remarks politicians made yesterday. What is important. What has its place, but I want to use this post to talk about the “Why”.

Because I think Why is very important.

Why is what gets you through the cold nights when your back is up against the wall. Why sets successful people apart from unsuccessful people. And Why sets world-changing people apart from successful people.

Why is important, but it is often overlooked.

Your Why is what motivates you. It’s the reason you are doing or acting the way you are. Too often we stop at the What and never ask about the Why.

There are two instances I see regularly where I think that people need to take some time to figure out their Why.

The first is people trying to break into venture capital. Believe my, I get it. It is a cool job. You don’t have to tell me twice. But there are a lot of cool jobs out there. I think people too often get sucked in by the glitz and glam of working with big name brands in cutting edge industries. As awesome as working in venture is, I can assure you that it is not as glamorous as it appears from the outside looking in (most things aren’t). Behind the scenes, things are complicated, messy, and every deal is closed with blood, sweat, and LOTS AND LOTS of paperwork. There are also better (and easier) ways to make money (especially in finance) if that is what motivates you.

The one thing I can tell you about getting in to venture is that it is hard. Trust me. Firms are often top-heavy and rarely hire outside of fund cycles. And there is always an abundance of people looking to get in to the industry. It can be done, but it isn’t easy to get a job, and once you do, it isn’t as glamorous as it looks on tv. Who is a good fit for VC?

If your Why is that you obsess over being a part of building things that will change the world, venture might be a fit for you.

If your Why is a deep desire to learn by constantly diving headlong into industries you didn’t even know existed the day before, venture might be a fit for you.

If your Why is building relationships with people doing exciting things and providing them with value without any strings attached or expectation of return, venture might be a fit for you.

If you want to work in a sexy industry and become rich, I’d look elsewhere.

The second area where I think the importance of Why is severely understated is when evaluating founders. I have talked about founder motivation before, but I really believe its importance cannot be overstated. If you thought venture capital was hard, wait until you see entrepreneurship. I like Brent Beshore’s description of entrepreneurship as a “daily knife fight”.

I, like many others, watched movies like The Social Network and read books about the great tech titans and thought to myself “hey I could do that.”

After almost a year working as a venture capital investor, my tune has changed to “hey with a great idea and a lot of super smart people around me, I could do that. But would I ever want to?”

I have seen first hand how hard company building is. And I sit in the privileged seats. I get to grab my 6-1/4” 7.5oz heavy duty utility knife (I spent a summer as a knife salesmen before college and still geek out about kitchen cutlery) and hop into the trenches every day. But when my day is done, I climb back out and get to set my knife in a regulation bamboo knife block (a well sheathed knife is a safe knife).

Entrepreneurs are not so lucky.

Their whole life is the trenches. If their company is successful, they could spend more than 10 years down there before they get a real breather. If they aren’t so lucky, their stay will likely be much shorter.

Kitchen cutlery brawl metaphors aside, building something out of nothing is never easy. It requires 100% commitment. There are going to be times where nothing is working. There are going to be times where things are working but a seemingly “better” opportunity comes along.

A lot of entrepreneurs like being entrepreneurs more than they like being founders.

They like the accolades and admiration more than the accountability and the brutal decisions.

They like the business cards more than the business.

Rare is the entrepreneur that is able to see it through to the finish line.

And every single one of them has a Why that gives them a fire to preserver. Whenever I meet an entrepreneur, I am looking for that Why. I want to see a founder starting a business because they think that if they don’t build this company, no one else will.

And the world needs this company too much to risk that happening.

Would you rather get rich or change the world?

As part of my entrepreneurship concentration in college I took a few classes on entrepreneurship and venture capital with a professor that had been both a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist. I thoroughly enjoyed his brusque and brutally honest style (he was known to carry around a yellow football penalty flag that he called his “Bullshit Flag” and was he did not hesitate to throw it whenever people got a little too fresh with the truth). One of the common questions he would ask us to ponder is would you rather invest in an entrepreneur interested in getting rich or changing the world. Invariably whenever he asked this he would then have us raise our hands depending on our answer.

I was always in the minority (or sometimes the only one) that said they would rather invest in an entrepreneur that was trying to change the world.

His argument is that the world of venture capital is tough and that only the fittest companies survive. If an entrepreneur isn’t dead set on getting rich, they won’t prioritize growth the way that you, as an investor, need them too. A focus on changing the world to stop short of the best financial outcome when it is just over the horizon. My response was always that there are a ton of ways to accrue wealth in this life and that only entrepreneurs that are truly passionate about solving a problem in the world will succeed. I believed that the wealth would come from the offshoot of that success, just not as its primary driver.

Of all the things I learned in this class, it was this conversation that always stuck with me the most (though I doubt I will ever forget his bullshit flag either!).

Would you rather get rich or change the world?

This is a question that I have been pondering and discussing a lot recently as I have had the opportunity to work with founders that clearly come from both camps. There are a lot of strong arguments people make for supporting the team trying to get rich. They will act in alignment with our goals as investors. They won’t settle for a less than excellent outcome. They won’t get pulled in different directions by their altruistic goals.

And at the end of the day, I have to admit I agree with a lot of the get rich argument. It makes sense from the perspective as an investor with a fiduciary responsibility to their LPs. And anyone who knows me will tell you that I am as much of a free-market capitalism loving libertarian as the next guy.

But I can’t help believing that the best investments are made in founding teams that truly believe that it is up to them to change the world. Teams that have experienced the problem they are fixing personally and who genuinely think that if they don’t solve this issue, no one else will.

I want to invest in the next Elon Musk, who thinks that it is his personal responsibility to make mankind an interplanetary species, rather than the next Jeff Bezos, who saw the online trend before anyone else and took advantage of it to build one of the world’s most dominant businesses. Now obviously investing in either the next Musk or Bezos would be an incredible investment, but the choice is clear to me.

I want to invest in the dreamers that have a mission and a purpose permeating everything they do. I want to invest in the builders that believe that tomorrow will be better than yesterday and that no problem is insurmountable. I want to invest in the founders that will never give up because they can’t stand the thought of letting the problem they are trying to solve effect one more person.

I want to invest in people trying to change the world.

If they win, we all win.