I realized that out of whims I would say hey, I won’t work for anyone, I want my own business, I won’t take orders, I’ll have my own thing. But deep down I was just a scared young boy trying to run away from the world.

The real issue is much more complicated than just wanting your own thing.

I’m currently getting inducted into a new organization. I was scared really bad. Am I really going to be able to do this? It seemed so complicated and hard. But in just two or three days, I feel way more comfortable in my new role.

The issue was three-faced.

First was the fear of not knowing enough. I thought: what if I am assigned a project and I just don’t know enough? How will I manage? That sounds so prickly and uncomfortable, to be tasked with something and just not know how to do it. It’s such a helpless feeling. It’s almost as if you are abandoned not only by the world but also by your own mind, which can’t even help you. Forget about others.

Next: what if people are mean? What if they’re not nice? What if I fumble and they laugh? What if I win and they conspire? What if they’re just poking me around for fun? That’s also a very debilitating thought to have.

But this new firm I’m joining really took care of this. The culture is nice, people are genuinely supportive, and on top of that the training is so extensive that they might just teach me the ABCD at this point.

And the last one, the most difficult one to recognize, was actually an avoidance of ownership. The desire to escape accountability, to not be answerable to anything. My nervous system was treating responsibility itself as danger and desire no responsibilities. That desire sometimes leads you to not wanting to do any work that involves other people. Ownership means you are accountable. Which means if you don’t do it, you might get yelled at. You might face social outcomes you don’t like. And I am really averse to negative social stuff. It trips me off so bad, I get so nervous. But now, in this firm, people are nice. If you don’t know something, they teach you or point you to the resources. That cleared about 90% of the brain fog I had. And I got to realize that the real bottleneck is my own lack of tendency to take ownership, to say: this perimeter and the work inside it is mine, I take responsibility for it, and if it goes wrong I will be answerable.

So I realize that in this new firm, as long as I take radical ownership of things, I’ll thrive. Even if the volume of the row work is high I will be fine. Because the people are nice and I get to learn whatever I need for the role.

Taking extreme ownership has also stopped me from always looking for the exit gate. That “hey this thing is not worth it i’ll find something better than this”. It also stopped me from burning my cognitive energy on dreaming about escapism.

When someone doesn’t fully own their current position, every difficulty becomes evidence that they should leave.

“This project is annoying.”
“Maybe there’s a better opportunity.”

“This role is difficult.”
“Maybe I should do something else.”

“This organization has flaws.”
“Maybe entrepreneurship is the answer.”

The mind keeps scanning for alternate realities because committing to the current reality feels risky.

But this thing also has lessons for me if i ever become a future employer. That, new talent, as it enters into organization it is nervous and has these three fears:

• Fear of incompetence (“What if I don’t know enough?”)
• Fear of social hostility (“What if people turn on me?”)
• Fear of accountability (“What if I become responsible for outcomes?”)

So we better make them aware that hey there is no hostility here and that you will be trained enough so there is no question of you ever being incompetent to do something. We will help you out. And also developing a sense of deep accountability in them that “Hey boss you have this perimeter please defend it”

We have to understand that we actually hire humans. We don’t just hire labor. We hire humans and along with human comes the labor and their anxieties. We have to address them or their productivity just won’t be there. They will spend all their cognitive energy on trying to protect themselves.

People start taking ownership when they believe:

• they can learn,
• they won’t be humiliated,
• and they won’t be abandoned when difficulties arise.