“Troy, what are you talking about, I’m not paranoid!”
Allow me to explain.
I was watching an episode of Shark Tank recently and an entrepreneur was in the tank seeking cash for a percentage of equity in his company.
The Sharks seemed underwhelmed by an app that they felt lacked real scalability & could be easily replicated by someone in their basement. Most importantly, and to the point of this post, the entrepreneur was not paranoid enough according to one of the Sharks.
It takes real courage to get into that environment and make a successful pitch to seasoned investors. Kudos to him.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), he left without a deal.
That’s when I began to realize what “not being paranoid enough” meant. Firstly, to be great, you must be aware, and paranoia heightens that awareness of your environment and competition. Secondly, having a degree of paranoia keeps you humble and prevents a work ethic flat line.
Every great entrepreneur is to some extent out of touch with reality. Failing to recognize your own vulnerabilities, however, is dangerous and counterproductive to growth.
His idea may have been great and perhaps scalable, but he was not paranoid enough to warrant a significant investment from one of those Sharks.
Let’s turn this to the boardroom…
Every great leader must be paranoid and that paranoia is what drives you to excellence.
Let’s be clear; there is a healthy & an unhealthy version of paranoia. Placing cameras throughout the office or monitoring emails to catch offenses is bad paranoia, and will create a revolving door.
The healthy version of paranoia that every leader must possess prevents you from taking people for granted. It causes you to have an acute awareness that your competitors are aggressively chasing your company’s position and best people. It fosters a deep sobriety that prevents you from treating people like cattle or resources. Finally, it prevents pride from forming, while reminding you that complacency is an enemy to growth.
Paranoia allows you to sense danger and anticipate threats to your company & team, which allows you to be proactive, and not reactive.
We’ve allowed our accomplishments to make us comfortable and quite frankly, arrogant.
A dose of reality through paranoia will cure that immediately.
So, let’s frame paranoia the right way and use it to make you a sharper leader and a better entrepreneur.
👇 What do you think? Is a degree of “paranoia” necessary to stay ahead, or do you view it differently? Comment below.