Want to start a Successful Career as a Venture Capitalist?
This essay is brought to you by GoingVC. Apply to our 16-week program to improve your skills, network, and experience to get a job in Venture Capital.
In my work as an executive coach, it’s common to hear founders share something along the lines of, “My emotions get in the way of my ability to make good decisions.” There’s a pervasive myth—particularly in the tech industry—that listening to our rational, logic-oriented left brain is superior to acting in response to fluctuating emotions.
Life might be simpler if this were the case. Emotions are messy, and in some circumstances they cloud our judgment. Even the neuroscientists studying them have struggled to understand how they work.
But it turns out that without our “irrational” emotions, we would be unable to make even basic day-to-day choices. Research in recent decades has shown that emotions are a crucial component of our decision-making process. And running a startup requires making constant choices.
In this article, I unpack the recent neuroscience on the topic and share an emotion processing tool I use with clients.
We can’t make decisions without emotions
The caricature of a stoic Spock-like creature making perfectly rational decisions is—as we now know from the science—absurd. Famed neuroscientist Antonio Damasio was one of the first to figure this out in the late twentieth century. He studied a patient with a tumor that compressed the frontal lobe tissue in his brain and had to be removed.
In the months following, the patient, Elliot—who previously had a good corporate job—saw his life fall apart. Even though his IQ was high and his language and mathematical abilities seemed intact, his emotional capacity had been severely limited to the extent that he was unable to make basic decisions, like prioritization of tasks and scheduling.
Free Venture Capital Investment Thesis and Guides
Unlock the power of creating investment theses to shine among peers and secure your next VC gig. Get a Free Investment Thesis Creation Guide and 3 Top thesis on Generative AI, FemTech, and Private Market Liquidity.
Apply to our 16-week Education program for Free to receive the content, If you end up choosing to join the program you have a full 30 day money back guarantee.
Apply by July 17th to receive the guide and the theses.
GoingVC equips you with the skills, network, and experience to get a job in VC or launch your own fund. Elevate your VC journey with us.
This and other similar cases became the foundation for Damasio’s so-called “somatic marker” hypothesis. It posits that emotion registers in the body through phenomena like a racing heart, frowning forehead, butterflies in the stomach, etc. These sensations help us consciously and subconsciously filter data sets of information.