One of my main interests outside of solving the problem of depression is entrepreneurship. I think it is one of the greatest vehicles for positive change, and that more people – particularly whip-smart college grads who go off to consulting firms and investment banks instead – should get involved in it.
I once sat in on a keynote speech by Leonard Schlesinger, President of Babson College (#1 school for entrepreneurship in the world, obscurely located in Babson Park, MA).
During the keynote, he offered his views on “entrepreneurship,” and afterwards he spoke a little more specifically about his vision for the future of his school – basically he plugged Babson.
Among the key points of his keynote:
1 Contrary to conventional wisdom, we absolutely do understand how entrepreneurs think, and in fact the way they think can be taught (as theory) in 6 hours
2 We are all entrepreneurs – it’s just a matter of whether or not we let it surface for ourselves
3 Entrepreneurship is the most important tool in the world for economic growth.
Mr. Schlesinger went on to address the scientific method, and I think in general we entrepreneurs may get the impression that scientists can sometimes be rather skeptical of what we claim to be.
Recently, to make some easy cash, I did one of those psych studies they run on students, and when they asked me what my dream job would be, I responded with, “I want to be an entrepreneur.” Which frankly sounds horribly vague. What does that even mean?
But to return to the story.
Mr. Schlesinger spoke about how he admired and recognized the utility of the scientific method, but added this caveat:
The higher the uncertainty, the more quickly you reach the limits of the scientific method…and then you are only left with YOU.
I think it’s interesting to think about the way people learn. On the one hand, we are deductive creatures of logic. (for those of you who, like me, get deductive and inductive mixed up sometimes, deductive reasoning is the one where you infer specific principles from general principles)
And I think that’s largely how the scientific approach to doing things works. It’s heavily logical, and you apply broad established methods to tackle specific problems.
(I have no experience being a scientist, this is just based on my rather shabby experience in high school, and I’m really just an ignorant little punk with a little bit of intuition…so please, no heat from the scientists if I've gotten this wrong, I have the utmost respect for you guys)
On the other hand, inductive reasoning starts from specifics and moves to general conclusions based on those specifics.
Which I think is what Mr. Schlesinger was talking about when he said, and then you are only left with YOU.
It’s what Emerson was talking about when he said that genius is recognizing that what is true for you is true for all (see my earlier post, “In Defense of Individuality”).
It’s extrapolating from personal experience, and thinking, “Hmmm, this may be a universal truth.”
Now, Mr. Schlesinger’s next sequence of ideas I thought were fantastic.
After discussing the limits of the scientific method, he asserted that entrepreneurs don’t just find opportunities (using deductive reasoning/scientific method type approaches), they make them.
According to Mr. Schlesigner, most universities think something along the lines of, “We will systematically improve the quality of thought, and this improved quality of thought will lead to improved action.”
But this contains a spurious thought-action link of causality.
Now the gem of the whole keynote:
YOU CAN ACT YOUR WAY INTO NEW WAYS OF THINKING.
Now, I don’t know where Mr. Schlesinger got this particular phrase. The concept is certainly not new – we all know the old maxim, “Fake it ‘til you make it.” But this particular formulation of that idea is bloody brilliant.
Because it has radical implications for those who suffer from depression.
Now let me go personal-anecdotal for a moment.
When I was in the depths of my depression, my way of thinking was as twisted as can be. Each day, I thought nothing but, I want this to end – I need this to end – I will soon end my life. I meditated upon the possibility for relief that death would provide until it became an all-consuming obsession. Every second of every minute of every hour, my brain did nothing but register pain, and my natural response to that was to develop a flawed system of thought – the “I give up” system of thought.
But after I survived absolute rock bottom (with the help of many people), I found hope in an idea – I would write a book. A book that would help others in my situation.
And no matter what happened, or how bad it got again, I wasn’t going to pull any stupid shit until my book hit the shelves.
I cannot emphasize enough how much this book idea meant to me, and how many obstacles it gave me the strength to plow through. Let me explain the situation a little more fully.
I’ve never written anything for a public audience until this blog. In high school, I wasn’t on the staff of the school paper, nor did I ever submit a single article. My only experience with formal writing was writing essays for class. And we all know how bullshit that can be.
Now even after I changed my mindset and decided I wanted to live (it’s very easy to rationalize that suicide is the most moronic of options, but very hard to stick to that rationalization in the face of constant intense pain), I still had a host of physical symptoms from the depression.
Looking back at some of my symptoms, I think it was also partly that I’d acquired a vitamin B deficiency, quite possibly aggravated by a brief but intense period of alcoholism. I even thought I had neurological problems and got to hyperventilate for an EEG (Electroencephalogram) and sit through a TCD (Transcranial Doppler test), and eventually an MRI.
Yeah, I’m pretty screwed on health insurance now, even though I’m only 20 years old. Profit-driven bastards.
(For the record, brain MRIs are just cruel. It’s like being on a game show and getting every answer wrong, and having the “ERRR-you’re-wrong” beeps fire off constantly, rapidly, and in a rhythmic fashion while you're confined in a chamber)
But worst of all of my symptoms was the reemergence and rapid intensification of my Tourette’s syndrome.
I’ve had Tourette’s syndrome since I was 2 years old (I don’t actually remember that far back, but I’m told so by my father). I’ve cycled through several different tics, including arm and leg jerks, waving my hand across my face, shoulder shrugs, pulling my hair, ear popping, and excessive sniffing and blinking.
By the time I got to high school, many (but not all) of these tics tapered off, and it really wasn’t much of a factor in my life.
But after going through such a prolonged and severe period of stress, all of these bizarre uncontrollable urges came flooding back, and with an unprecedented intensity.
I was jerking and tensing the muscles in my arms and legs every few minutes or so. When I walked, I had to kick the inside of my right shoe against the back of the heel of my left shoe, so that my right shoe would wear thin from the constant friction. Moreover, certain parts of my feet had to come into contact with the ground at very particular times, or else I would freak out.
I would force myself to pop my ears (you know how if you swallow, you get that little pop? Like that, except self-induced without swallowing), sometimes continuously for minutes at a time.
And blinking. There were times when I’d blink nearly nonstop for an hour. And it wasn’t just blinking, it was hard blinking. Sometimes I’d have to emphasize the strength with which I blinked a certain eye, left or right, so that it would turn out more like a wink.
For a while I didn’t dare drive.
Much of this continued when I enrolled at Rutgers. The hard rapid blinking and ear popping continued even after I left and moved to Waltham. (I considered wearing sunglasses indoors to conceal it, but decided it would only draw attention to the matter)
Driving to Olin was a bitch the first few weeks. I’m not sure it was even a responsible thing to do. There were definitely some near misses, especially in bumper-to-bumper traffic, when you’re already prone to zone out.
Now I don’t mean to pity my past self. Or wallow in past misery.
The point is that I was having a very trying time on a daily basis. I even accepted the fact that I might live with severe Tourette’s syndrome for the rest of my life. That I had possibly (and probably) done severe damage to my body for putting it through so much stress.
Even today, I’m worried about the long-term consequences of that prolonged period of intense stress. But only a little worried, because worrying is largely useless to me, so I don’t do it.
The key thing is, having a project to work on sustained me.
I knew that I had something to offer that no one else in the world could offer, and I woke up every day looking forward to delivering.
As time has progressed (I’ve only been in the greater Boston area for 2 months or so), I’ve taken on new projects in addition to my book.
And my symptoms have finally disappeared. Yes, I still have minor tics associated with my Tourette’s syndrome, but I am largely symptom free. I could not be more thrilled about that.
What I’ve come to realize is that bringing out the entrepreneur within me has been the most potent antidote to the symptoms of my depression – both the mental and the physical symptoms.
By taking action – dropping out of school and driving to Waltham – I forced myself into a new way of thinking.
I threw my back against the wall and left myself with only two options – success or failure. Which really means I left myself with only one option.
Success.
As a good friend of mine (shout out to Dan at Babson) recently reminded me,
“Do or do not…there is no try.”
-Yoda
The fact is, crisis is opportunity.
Depression is crisis to the extreme, and because of that, it is a chance for you to reinvent yourself through the struggle it will require to defeat it. Use it to discover the unassailable strength within you.
Use it to unleash the entrepreneur within you.
I believe that any effective solution to the problem of depression will incorporate the entrepreneurial spirit that exists within all of us.
For some of us, this spirit burns fierce like fire. For others, it dribbles like snot.
I don’t care. I know it’s there.
Popping pills is not entrepreneurial. Sitting on a couch and letting a therapist talk at you is not entrepreneurial. That is why these traditional methods are so often ineffective. And not only that, they are expensive too. And if they do work, they work in conjuction with a change in mindset and lifestyle. No amount of drugs or therapy will work unless the patient is active about getting better.
There must be a better solution to traditional interventions.
And that is what I spend the majority of each day thinking about.
If you have any ideas, let me know!
-David
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