A Narcissist’s Playground: The Harder They Fall

The fight game today is like show business. There’s no real fighters anymore, they’re all actors. The best showman becomes the champ! – The Harder They Fall, 1956

An entrepreneurial career certainly has its perks. You control your own schedule, activity and work inputs, and have the ability to quickly assess a situation to move towards maximizing an output at any given time. With the few layers of organization that exist in an entrepreneurial business, a strategy can quickly become a tactic. The fragile speed is exhilarating, and often blindly addicting.

If you assess a high level executive at a large company, the perks they fight for through the stuffy ranks include those an entrepreneur can amass to almost instantly. The freedom, the attitude, and even the swag that comes along with being the decision maker. Pay schedules typically differ in timing¹ , but the passive independence can be similar.

Corporations can be binding, while the titles are homogeneous depending strictly on age, experience and income. Small organizations, startups and entrepreneurial ventures are free willing, where titles matter the least, but are thrown around the most. I see it all the time, and the autonomous entitlement can be destructive.

It’s easier to claim you’re an entrepreneur than to actually work your way up a corporate rank. Entrepreneurs make bold claims about their market and product, skills and ability, experience and contacts, sometimes before merit exists. Fighting your way up the corporate ladder proves something in a bureaucracy. Crowning yourself with a title is meaningless in a meritocracy like a startup.

It’s not strategy. It’s being self-aware enough to realize what you do, not what you’re labeled, is the only thing that matters.

It’s lonely at the top, and when the best showman can become the champ, it might seem useful to proclaim you’re something that you aren’t. Appearance is deceiving, and talk is cheap. Words are easy to throw around, but even easier to see through when there’s no where to hide.

Entrepreneurship can be a narcissist’s playground. The bigger you come, the quicker you’ll rise, and eventually, the harder you’ll fall.

The executive pay is typically linear, while the entrepreneur will ideally hit an eventual home run [↩]

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Post Tags: Attitude, Ego, Narcissism

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If you're shooting for big rewards, entrepreneurial ventures are probably as high risk as climbing the corporate status ladder. If you're looking to lead a righteous life, however: entrepreneurial ventures are pretty much the only way to fly. The ability to sleep late is overrated, and generally untrue; you wake up when your customers and investors tell you to. The main thing is the sensation of freedom. You stand or fall on your own merits and luck, and you keep whatever wealth you manage to create. If you have any talent at all, you're capable of creating a rather large amount of wealth in a fairly short period of time, though luck has a lot to do with it as well. I tell people it's like being a cowboy, wandering the wilds of America. If you screw up, the Indians will get you, and you're buzzard food. But the view and sensation of utter freedom makes it worth the risk. If all those 9 sets of entrepreneurs suffer is me making fun of them, they'll be fine.
No matter how great your company or boss may be, make no mistake: you are a slave on a plantation. You can be bought and sold at someone else's pleasure. Most people are descended from serfs, so that's OK by them. Some of us can't live like that.

Scott Locklin added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 10:22 am

I'm not sure if you are echoing me or challenging me. But, I do agree with most of what you have written, and it falls in line with why I do what it is I do.

In regards to my post, the point I was attempting to hammer in was that an entrepreneurial environment is more sensitive to ego than others, especially because self-proclaimed titles are effortless to throw around. When ego becomes a priority, you will fail.

Besides that, spot on comment.

alexjmann added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 10:50 am

I guess I am neither echoing you nor challenging you; just pre-coffee preachin' as it were. Anyway, best of luck on your ventures.

Scott Locklin added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 11:38 am

Is it really correct to say that a strategy can become a tactic? Tactics can be enacted more quickly in a startup, but a tactic is a different type of thing than a strategy.

jamtoday added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 4:02 pm

Perhaps my analogy wasn't clear. In a large organization, strategy moves slowly from the top down before the tactics are acted on. This can take months, or sometimes years.

I'd say that in a startup a strategy can be implemented via tactics almost immediately. This is why startups are so agile.

So, while strategy and tactics are different concepts, the “strategy becoming a tactic” description I gave was really in reference to the time span between idea to action.

alexjmann added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 4:10 pm

Is it really correct to say that a strategy can become a tactic? Tactics can be enacted more quickly in a startup, but a tactic is a different type of thing than a strategy.

jamtoday added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 6:02 pm

Perhaps my analogy wasn't clear. In a large organization, strategy moves slowly from the top down before the tactics are acted on. This can take months, or sometimes years.

I'd say that in a startup a strategy can be implemented via tactics almost immediately. This is why startups are so agile.

So, while strategy and tactics are different concepts, the “strategy becoming a tactic” description I gave was really in reference to the time span between idea to action.

alexjmann added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 6:10 pm

I guess I am neither echoing you nor challenging you; just pre-coffee preachin' as it were. Anyway, best of luck on your ventures.

Scott Locklin added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 6:38 pm

Is it really correct to say that a strategy can become a tactic? Tactics can be enacted more quickly in a startup, but a tactic is a different type of thing than a strategy.

jamtoday added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 11:02 pm

Perhaps my analogy wasn't clear. In a large organization, strategy moves slowly from the top down before the tactics are acted on. This can take months, or sometimes years.

I'd say that in a startup a strategy can be implemented via tactics almost immediately. This is why startups are so agile.

So, while strategy and tactics are different concepts, the “strategy becoming a tactic” description I gave was really in reference to the time span between idea to action.

alexjmann added these pithy words on Oct 16 09 at 11:10 pm

alex j. mann (.com)

A Narcissist’s Playground: The Harder They Fall

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