I’ve been talking to business owners about addictions lately. My filing cabinet of client notes reveals some interesting trends amongst business luminaries and addiction is a big one.
If you’re a business owner reading this blog, I’ll take a bet that you’ve struggled with an addiction. It might not have been the exciting kind of drugs (after all, we’re entrepreneurs not politicians) – maybe it’s food or my personal favorite, caffeine.
Whatever it is, entrepreneurs have a disposition to addictive and compulsive behavior. Left unchecked, these habits can ruin lives and businesses, derailing your goals of freedom, wealth and impact.
By understanding what drives the entrepreneurial mind to addiction, you can master your thinking and behavior, ensuring phenomenal success with no nasty Charlie-Sheen meltdown.
Eating, drinking, smoking, drugs. These are the uncomfortably common addictions that get between us and our health and success. There are some less conventional addictions that are just as problematic though. Addiction to whining, to exercising (beyond what’s healthy/useful), to television or to shopping… are addictions nonetheless.
Every human being suffers from a compulsive need, usually several times a day, to change their state. At the heart of any and every addiction is our need to make ourselves feel something different.
When an entrepreneur is burning the midnight oil, developing the project and shooting for the deadline, her brain starts to turn to fluff. She begins to feel overwhelmed. When she pops outside for a quick cigarette (or IN, to the fridge and that slice of pizza) she’s resting worn out neural networks and injecting some happy chemicals into her brain.
In other words, she’s changing her emotional state. Eating and smoking does that. She’s clicked the mental “refresh” button and has bought herself another thirty minutes or so of focused work… before another brain chemistry shake up is needed.
We all do this, to some extent, even if we’re not scrambling to ship an important project out the door. Even if we’re not smokers or chronic over-eaters.
You’re drifting through different chemical states throughout the day. Occasionally, you enter into that magical “zone” where good stuff just happens, time vanishes and you do fantastic creative work. Then your state changes and you’re flighty and distracted. Later, you’re drowsy and bored.
Everyday, we traverse a multitude of different states of mind. The explanation for why this happens is too complex to be really useful – it has a lot to do with what we’re working on, what we believe (really) and what we’re putting into our bodies (blood sugar etc).
Addictions have been present amongst all humans, entrepreneurs especially, ever since we learnt how to use external stimulus to artificially change our state.
Feeling bored? Watch TV. State changed. Check.
Feeling stressed? Smoke tobacco (or other herbs). State changed. Check.
Feeling procrastinate-y? Eat something delicious. State changed. Check
Sure, it may be terribly temporary, but it works.
We all have several strategies for changing our state, each one suited to the different situations we have to deal with in our lives. In times where extreme state change is required, we tend to defer to the fastest working state change tactics we know. This is why cigarettes are so damn addictive by the way – they produce excellent state change in record time!
Even the healthiest person you know is addicted to state change. They have a yoga habit.
There lies my point. My biggest message to the people who ask me “How do I eat/drink/smoke less?” is to focus on and surrender to your need to change state.
It’s something you’ll never escape.
People with addictions they don’t like try to “quit” by removing the behavior from their lives. Quitting cold turkey. The problem with this is that the (valid, healthy) need for state change goes unfulfilled – creating a shit-storm of emotional (and often physical) turmoil that is no fun at all. This is sometimes known as “withdrawal symptoms”.
Once you’ve surrendered to your need to change state, the next step is to honor it. If you want to eat less crap or stop taking drugs (of any kind), success will be yours only when you figure out how to give yourself that same state change – through healthy, sustainable and accessible behaviors.
Cigarettes may be fantastic at instant state change, but it comes at an enormous price. Kind of like getting a 60 inch plasma TV on hire purchase – you feel fantastic about it when you plug it in today but start crying when the bill arrives. Yoga, on the other hand feels miserable tomorrow morning at six am but transcendental in six years.
You can’t quit anything cold turkey. You can only swap one addiction for another.
The health and success of an entrepreneur can be measured by the effectiveness of the state-change behaviors they choose to be addicted to.
I’m curious. What behaviors do you use to change your state? Are there any habits you’d rather swap for healthier ones?
I use a few. Music and video games, eating junk (a pizza right now in fact), and showering (the white noise effect clears my mind).
Some are good, some are not so good.
The only really ‘bad’ one is eating junk. The other ones are definitely ‘bad’ if left to roll out uncontrolled, and it’s a problem I used to have in my early 20’s (except for showering being a problem, that is).
Music and video games used to take up way too much of my time, but I’ve since harnessed them for good. The influence for this avatar is actually the ‘duellist’ class icon for Dragon Age 2. So geeky… but hey, video game companies know a ton about branding. I’ll borrow that expertise.
The main thing to keep things under control is to have a greater reason for wanting to do something good. These days I find it very difficult to just sit on my butt, because I want something else – a profitable business. That tends to keep potentially harmful behaviours in moderation, and allows me to extract the good from them.
Hey Patrick! Awesome – you made the point that I totally needed to: Music.
Music is a HELL of a state-change tool, with little to no negative side effects. Unless your like heavy metal… in which case your neighbors suffer the side effects!
My problem was always I used to listen to music and… not do anything during it.
Now I try to match up the music to what I want to feel. For some reason I always want to write in my brand after listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack.
As you and I both know, I’m addicted to that pause-the-world break and use smoking as my excuse to get it. Feeling fed up from work? Smoke. Overwhelmed by people? Time for a smoke break. Need a chat with a friend? Grab the phone and a smoke. Tough conversation? “S’cuse me – I gotta smoke.”
At just six smokes a day, I don’t need the damned nicotine. I just need the lets-step-out-on-the-porch-to-breathe-a-bit-in-silence-and-empty-my-brain.
One way I’ve managed to shed ONE of those smoke breaks (still got a few to go) is cuddling my non-smoking partner. Smoke = embarrassed non-cuddling. No smoking = I get happy times with a loved one.
So I guess you could say I traded off my “take a break from the world” moment for something that makes me feel way better than solitary silence. 🙂
I worked for a biotech company for a while looking into the genetics of smoking/smoking-related disease/addiction. Although never a smoker myself, everything I learnt pointed out how smoking is 1000x more a psychological addiction than a physiological one – as I’m sure Peter will agree!
Too bad there’s not a patch for over-checking emails.
Invent that email patch Chris and you’ll be able to retire to your super yacht, drink champagne and smoking cuban cigars til the end of your days.
… wait a minute… 😉
The internet, unfortunately. When I’m having a day that just gets to be too much, I retreat into facebook, online newspapers/blogs/journals — anything to distract me. I *know* how good I feel when I have a great day + I crank through what I need to do…but sometimes in the moment, I just “avoid.”
Haha yes, this is a common (and growing) addiction. Although I find that the internet is actually pretty sucky as a state-change tool…. unless you read Cyanide and Happiness, in which case it works great!
Okay, my addiction is checking my email. Getting my email fix.
It’s generally what I yearn for most when coming out of an intense focuses period of software writing.
It is a great un-focuser.
Will
See, it’s funny how different perceptions of the same behaviors can be. For me, email isn’t an un-focuser at all because my inbox is full of messages from clients – it’s work! I have to take a break from email to un-focus. 😉
Hi Peter, I’m a big fan from California and enjoy your blog posts. I liked what you wrote about addiction but I wanted to bring up a point that you made about yoga. I’ve been a student of yoga for 10 plus years. The statements that you made about yoga come from a very Western viewpoint and I wanted to clarify. If anyone is pushing their body to the point of pain during a yoga class then they have missed the point completely when it comes to yoga. Yoga is really a state of being and a way of life. The Sanskrit translation of yoga means to ‘yoke’ – unite body, mind and spirit. If interested I wrote yoga articles for an alternative health website https://www.altmedweb.com/experts/yoga/yoga-myths-misconceptions-behind-yoga) if you’d like to learn more about yoga. I do agree that people can take exercise to the extreme (and I understood the point you were trying to make), but yoga is more about exercising just the physical body and for me, it’s quite opposite of an ‘addiction’. As a business owner, it helps ground me and keeps me focused during stressful moments and keeps me from reaching for unhealthy food and other temporary crutches. I have my weak moments – we all do as we’re human. I practice ‘yoga’ on a daily basis via meditation and by how I interact with others and I live my life – being present in each moment and showing gratitude for all the abundance in my life (both personally and professionally).
Just wanted to share my personal experiences with yoga and how it’s helped and continues to help me. Thanks for your great posts.
Hey Therese, thanks for stopping by to comment, I appreciate your views on this.
Just to clarify though, when I called yoga and “addiction” I didn’t mean to imply that it was a harmful one… quite the opposite actually. My point was that some people are able to ritualize and habitual-ize yoga to the extent that it becomes their go-to, default state change technique. This is an “addiction” that fulfills the same basic need we all have (to change our state for the better) … it just does it in a far healthier, more “ecological” way.
Does that make sense?
Hi Peter, Thanks for clarifying. I understand the point you’re trying to make about yoga being a healthy “addiction.” However, I don’t feel that yoga and addiction should be used in the same sentence. For me, addiction has a negative connotation and in the clinical/psychological sense, an addiction is categorized as an abnormal, unhealthy dependency. I don’t see my practice of yoga as abnormal or unhealthy, and I also don’t think of my yoga practice as a “habit.” The definition of habit is: “an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.” During my yoga practice, the opposite is true. It’s not an involuntary action on my part. I wouldn’t bother if that were the case. I’m very conscious and aware when I practice yoga (on all levels – spiritually, physically, mentally, etc).
I know it sounds like I’m splitting hairs, but I often feel yoga is often misunderstood by the Western world. I personally feel that the practice of yoga should not be oversimplified and lumped into clinical terminology such as ‘addiction’ and ‘habit’.
We can agree to disagree. 🙂
I can definitely agree that we’re splitting hairs – I’m more than aware that the clinical definitions of these psychological phenomena don’t match up.
My intention here is to highlight the significance of behaviors (including Yoga practice and… heroin use, to pick radical examples) that fulfill our need for “state change”. The point here is that we’re only addicted to state-change and can sate our addiction for that via any number of behaviors, ranging from destructive to enlightening.
Thanks for adding your opinions here – I agree that Yoga is often misunderstood and it’s great to get the perspective of another person who practices 🙂
Earlier today, before I read this post, I tweeted this:
“This still gets me every time. I watch it to break state & it cracks me up. https://j.mp/h5bcg0 #ducklings”
When I need a break from reading or writing, I find a way to laugh. I also like to put on some music and sing LOUD, really belt it out, which might be as annoying to my neighbors as listening to heavy metal. Singing and laughing are both free, and good for your immune system and well-being.
Sometimes I watch TV shows to take a bit of a longer “break” – but that’s usually bad news for me because I end up getting sucked in and watch for hours. o_O
Hey Molly – love the focus on laughter. Great goal to aim for, if you know state-change is what you need. This is why I watch a lot of stand up comedy videos etc…. the state-change is profound and it feels great!
Behaviors I have used: swing, tango or club dancing; Hot bath with quiet music; driving with windows open and some really inappropriate music coming out of the speakers; Wii boxing or hula-hooping; power vacuuming; doing anything against a timer set on 2 minutes or 5 minutes; calling my best friend; smashing anything made of glass; really brisk walk;
What I want to swap out? compulsive eating … and falling into the rabbit hole called the internet!
Hey Cory, if I had to analyze any of these my feedback would be that all your very healthy, fun state-change techniques take a large amount of time. The eating is always going to be tough until you find a tactic that is just as (if not more so) gratifying in as short amount of time.
Takes seconds to feel the good (delicious) vibes of cookies… a night out dancing requires pre-meditation and preparation!
hmmmm….yes, I see what you’re saying…well that explains a lot. not sure what makes a preferential activity in that time…but I can see how food would then become the default esp i felt like a really had no time for myself to start off with, then the food take on an innocent “time saving pick me up and keep me going” quality that few things (outside of cigarettes) can do. You won’t be surprised then to know that I DID smoke once for the same reasons.
I use music – loud and dance around my kitchen. Get my brain reset and my exercise all at once. Sometimes it does take longer than I’d like to fully shake out my brain so I can get back to work, but if I try to power through and not take that movement break, my output is mush. I also think that these brain shifts are so we can use different parts of our brain. The music part and the other pleasure centers that light up when we eat, smoke, drink/drug are different than the frontal lobes where we do all of our thinking/writing/logic processing.
So using auditory and other sensory areas are important to give the ‘business’ part of our brains a much needed rest.
Hey Susan – great tactic and an elegant explanation. You’re spot on 🙂
Peter,
New to your blog, but luvin the content.
Me…well its all about food. In fact I think food took over where smoking left off. Does that say something about me? Good job there’s not a wine bottle close by, I’d be into that too.
Adictive personalities you say…..Nooo Never 😉
Hey Jackie, welcome! Good to have you here.
This is exactly why so many people struggle with their weight immediately after quitting smoking – the experience a substitution of state-change tactics and opt for the next easiest, more instantly gratifying thing…. FOOD!
The question is, what makes you feel good that is actually good for you too? Might be time to find a really really good massage therapist 🙂
Hi Peter,
Bit disheartening to realise what you say applies personally!
I definitely have an “addictive” personality. I used to smoke but quit because I know it’s so stupid and unhealthy.
My current addiction is running. I took it up to lose weight and of course wasn’t satisfied with a 5km trot so had to run a marathon – which I did last year.
As for unhealthy addictions…I definitely comfort eat and drink about 5 cups of tea a day. I’d say these are controlled addictions though.
I was getting to the point of being unable to go for more than 5 minutes without checking Twitter and Facebook. I was able to break that habit by setting myself times and limits, scheduling tweets and focusing on output. I found it much more satisfying to get to the end of the day and feel like I’d made progress in my business in ways other than “socialising” on Twitter and FB.
Do you think social networking is the addiction of the noughties that shrinks will be treating future generations for?
I think it *could* be a problem – although I think excessive social networking is more of a symptom than a problem in and of itself. It’s a symptom of *not having something better to do* 😛
I do know a lot of therapists are starting to see enormous numbers of Gen I and Gen Y folks with addictions to online multiplayer games – the immersive role playing ones like World of Warcraft.
The children of tomorrow are gonna live in one hell of a different world!
Peter,
Really interesting article. I loved the headline and it caught my attention so I had to see what it was all about. To answer your question I used to use lots of external things to change my state that fall in the unhealthy category. Today my addiction as you know is riding waves (sometimes to a fault). But what I feel like when I get out of the water is exactly why I do what I do. I think we easily shift our addictions to something that benefits us. For me the addiction to riding waves has transformed the quality of my life in ways that I never predicted it would. I think it beats the hell out of cigarettes, booze and all the other potential addictions.
Hey Srinivas thanks for stopping by pal. I totally agree – it isn’t HARD to shift one’s lifestyle around to create addictions that are positive.
It’s important to point out though that you’ve had to take a whole bunch of actions to build a life that ALLOWS you to surf regularly enough that it can fulfill the role of a state-change addiction.
Which just brings me back to: wealth, FREEDOM and sanity 🙂
Peter, you seem to read my mind with your posts some times. Every time I need a state change, I watch movies (romantic comedies/animations) online or read trashy literature. Guaranteed happy endings. That’s what I go after when I need a state change.
Only problem is, watching a movie or finishing a book (Can’t put a book till I’ve finished it) both take a couple of hours!
Hey Samar!
That’s quite a major state-change strategy… but if it works, it works! I’d recommend getting into 20min episodes of a great TV series – and just watch one at a time.
Reminds me of how most smokers agree that all the “goodness” (stress relief etc) is in the first two puffs of the cigarette… and the rest is just smoked because it’s there! You’re probably the same with your movies and books – refreshed after a few minutes break but stuck watching just because you need that “closure”.
Shouldn’t be tough to fix at all 🙂
Hey Peter,
As always..another great thought provoking post!
To try to keep my productivity and focus maintained when I have a lot of various tasks to be done I try to frequently switch between them. Whether at work or at home, if I can maybe do something for about 30-60 minutes and then switch to something else, it keeps the monotony to a minimum thus keeping me focused and also allows me to say “hey, I have gotten a lot of different things done”.
Then there are those times when I’m feeling “procrastinate-y” and that’s when I usually feell the need to check if there’s anything important on Facebook (because we all know life just won’t function without multiple check-ups a day!) and then i get sucked into that black hole.
Coffee is the addiction of choice however…a good hot cup of joe is like a hug for the inside and makes everything seem more tolerable!
Hey Darin – good to see you here again 🙂
Tell me about the coffee! It’s one addiction I’ve struggled to overcome – as my twitter followers will know 😉
I’ve noticed that, personally, the quality of the work that I do drops off AND the frequency at which I need state-changes INCREASES when I try to multi task a whole bunch. Seems like it just burns more mental fuel – sounds like you could be experiencing a similar drain.
Hey Peter,
As a designer, I find I suffer from either being fully on or fully off creatively. When fully on, I can sit in total silence for 10, 12, 15 hours straight and be productive the entire time, loving life (those are great days). But when I’m off I rely heavily on those state-changers to keep me from wondering off in to lala land. Doesn’t always work. 🙂
The one I use the most is listening to lectures and debates. Nothing gets my blood rolling like a good Christopher Hitchens debate or a lecture from Dan Dennett. Ted Talks has saved many a day. Anything that focuses the attention or even pushes the mind to its limit. A talk on string theory pretty much sucks up all my system resources so all the little distractions just go away. Then I try to move that focus over to what Im SUPPOSED to be working on.
The other thing I find (curious if others are similar in this way) is that my productivity and ability to stay in a highly focused state is directly related to workload. If there’s an insane amount of work to do and deadlines all over the place, it’s all systems go. It’s when things are slower that those mood changers are needed most.
My other big fallback is gaming (right there with ya Patrick!). However, I am very conscious about the type of games I play. Don’t touch anything that requires too much time. A quick 30 minutes of zombie killing and then it’s back to work. 🙂
Oh, so THAT’S what you’re up to… 😛
I’ll second you on the productivity. When it’s a heavy day full of 100 emails to reply, two calls, an interview, and four decisions to ponder, I am ROCKIN’. And at the end of the day, it’s a really good feeling. I smashed my day. Victory!
But if it’s a quiet day… I pick at my email. I open one and close it without answering. Sigh. Check Twitter. Maybe I should do this… nah. Get up, wander… come back to the computer. Open the email… close it. Answer a quick question… sigh… I feel absofuckalutely useless and get nothing done. And I also feel blah, bored and dumb at the end of the day. Fun times!
Re gaming: I used to play in a creative writing role-playing game for years. It was a HELLA pleasure. Escapism at its best… and yes, slightly addictive.
Yup! That’s it. Well, that and planning for world domination. 🙂
Glad to hear that you suffer from the same issue. LOL. Not actually GLAD but you know what I mean. It’s easy to think that you’re the only person dealing with these kinds of things and nice to find out that even the most successful among us share in the pain.
I am curious as to whether you think most entrepreneurs are to some degree autistic. When I say that I don’t mean in an extreme sense, i.e. unable to communicate with others. I ask because my other half seems to believe that most highly talented or capable people she knows are to some extent disfunctional in other ways … and it seems to apply to many true entrepreneurs.
Linked with that, do you think that a lot of highly accomplished entrepreneurs are also OCD sufferers. This piece would seem to suggest so. And I’m beginning to form the same view.
Would be interested in your thoughts.
I tend to think that you could look at any group of people and find dysfunctional behaviour. Cubicle workers, for example… 🙂
That said, I also believe that entrepreneurs are formed from having faced great adversity and overcome it, which does tend to leave scars.
OCD is a pretty serious medical condition, though. I don’t know one person who exhibits behaviours that would make me think they need meds.
Hi Peter,
Yes for me its going and eating something or reshuffling piles of paper. Sometimes like my body and mind will just NOT DO any more work. I have to go watch a movie. I hate it when this happens. Its like the pattern of not wanting to do any more just takes over. I so want to push thru but it feels like I just can’t focus any longer. I know its brain lies and more lies. As I am sure if someone said finish that project, write that book in one evening. Go do that presentation now. And youll be given $1million $$. I would find the ways to push through and just get what needs to be done. F%&King DONE!
Any tips Peter on how to push through these times when the feelings of “JUST STOP” take over, always appreciated.
When I have finished my coaching with my current coach, I look forward to highering your coaching services.
Oh I am addicted to the exercise, the bike riding, the stretching. I love it! I don’t think I am accessive though as I really do want to have enough energy to get through the day.
Regards
Trevor
Peter how do I get a picture of myself to come up with my comments?
It looks cool and Im very handsome so its only fitting I share my face with the world. ha ha
Hey Trevor, thanks for joining the discussion here! I see (from your link) that you’re an aussie… just another reason we need to see your face 😉
Go to http://www.gravatar.com and set up a free account and you’ll get your pic on (almost) every blog you ever comment on, automagically.
To be honest though, I think that part of the solution for you is going to be surrendering to your need to chill every now and then. We weren’t designed to produce break-through work or “art” 24/7 and all the psychological research indicates that lots of rest and psychological/physical nourishment are needed to produce kick-ass output.
My challenge to you would be to develop the internal *acuity* to sense when your “wall” is approaching, recognize it and HONOR your need to “hit refresh” – before you actually smack into that wall. When you get in touch with your own inner-chemistry to do this, you’ll see a remarkable shift in the output you create.
PS Looking forward to hearing about how we might work together – there’s a waiting list though, so get in touch *before* you need me 🙂
My ‘state change of choice’ was to drink a coke. For 16 years it was my fix of choice. Until last year. Not sure why, but I stopped. Know what happened – move to chocolate – haven’t had so many sweets in my life.
Now I am looking for healthier options – have noticed that I want to reach for a coke / chocolate when my brain was exhausted. So now I have picked up my pens and crayons and am having fun drawing. All I needed was something whimsical to pick me up and then keep going.
Ainslie
Stumbled on the blog today and loved the couple of posts I read, as well as the participation from your readers. I thank you AND them.
My issue is that I have things that change my state that are fine in moderation, but I go overboard with almost everything! It doesn’t matter what it is or if it’s healthy or not. Any thoughts on that?
What you described as seeking a state change to replenish or re-invigorate or even chill out is one reason for addicition. We could call it Recover or Repair or Reactive. The more dangerous kind that I’ve seen in myself is the more forward thinking version of the same behavior: Preperatory or Proactive.
This where we seek the ‘rush,’ the’juice,’ the adrenaline and dopamine (literally) PRIOR to an event we know we need to be our best at to perform; whether that’s a long day at work, or a spat of coding, or sitting at the blackjack table for a while. For a period of time, Stephen King once consumed a case of beer a day and approx an 8 ball of cocaine. He said he believed he couldn’t get creative to write unless he was high; many of his books were written with blood from his nose dripping on the keyboard. Until he got hit by a passing car, and made some new life choices.
The problem with Proactive addiction is that it literally steals from tomorrow. Most addicitions create a dopamine rush. Dopamine creates happiness. But taking your bodies chemical manufacturing plant and cranking it on high-speed for a few hrs (or days), only depletes the natural chemistry. As a result, the next day (or days) are the opposite…no adrenaline or dopamine.
These patterns can be 5 minute or 5 day intervals…but no matter what, if you borrow from the future, you will inevitably have to pay it back. All addicitions are ultimately physiologically, b/c you are truly playing with your bodies chemical manufacturing system. Literally self-medicating; whether through excercise, excessive work, or cocaine. The problem is one you Proactively start playing with this system…the machine shuts down. Then you can’t generate the chemicals when you need them, without the external stimuli. Simple less fatalistic example: can’t seem to get any good work until on a last minute deadline, college cramming, etc.
The correction comes by slowly altering one’s own behavior and one’s mental acceptance of said behavior. Combined with a good support network, elimination of convenient temptations, patience and self belief, and allowance for some time to pass to allow for a re-setting to occur mentally and physically.
Point is… Don’t fall into a pattern of stealing from the future; b/c all of this is more easily prevented than repaired.
And I truly think most entrepreneur’s have a bevvy of ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ addictions. Oftentimes, seems their whole life is jumping from one to the next. Starts with a pacifier and ends with gardening and Metamucil 😉
Hey Gene, thanks for joining the discussion here with such an incredibly insightful comment. I think you’ve made some really important points here.
I do think that habits like exercise and healthy diet aren’t “stealing from the future”… but more supportive of creating a future where there is MORE energy/whatever to get important stuff done (as opposed to less). Not sure if you were trying to imply the opposite. Maybe you agree with me on that?
I love this idea of “stealing from tomorrow” – be it energy or the ability to focus. I definitely think some entrepreneurs condition themselves to ONLY be able to pump out good work in dire circumstances. I’ve even been guilty of it.
Thanks for making me think Gene.
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