F2F #37: The chase is better than the catch

Last week, I came across this thread by Joel Gascoigne, CEO of Buffer, where he opens up about a paradox. His business is thriving more than ever, yet he feels like he's disconnected emotionally from business.

It would seem that he enjoyed more and was driven more intensely by adverse situations, like when they plateaued after COVID or in times when they experienced declines in their metrics. Now, with a soaring business and a quasi-infinite runway, he's having a hard time to focus or get motivated by the routine.

I immediately connected with this idea. Throughout my 11 years leading MarsBased as CEO, I have also experienced this but never reflected on it.

Ever since I was a kid, I tend to fall into complacency when everything around me is easy or has no mental challenge for me.

I actually remember the first time I heard the expression "rest on one's laurels". In elementary school, I skipped one grade because of my learning pace. I was learning and progressing too fast, so the traditional pace was hindering my progress. A few months into the first year with my new classmates (1-2 years older than me), I continued to get the best grades but my attention deficit was becoming apparent, and what should've been studied further ended up being pigeon-holed as complacency.

"Too bad he's resting on his laurels and is not fully developing his potential" - they told my parents - "otherwise we could advance him another grade".

The problem was that the complacency came from seeing that I didn't perceive a higher challenge. It was as easy as before, so I lost interest in putting in the effort. Why should you keep on pushing the boundaries for no extra reward or no reward at all? I just did the minimum, I got my great grades, and moved forward with life.

That's what I find nowadays, too, as the CEO of MarsBased.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job. You can also argue that I write this from my extremely privileged position, and I would concur.

But my job is to find new clients for the company and make it grow. The challenge was fun for the first few years, as I had never done sales previously. Every new contract was something. It was challenging because I had to learn many things at a fast pace.

After 11 years, almost 30 employees and over 12 million in accumulated revenue, I feel like the challenge is not enticing enough. A higher bonus at the end of the year doesn't mean much to me. I don't like press or recognition. That is simply not for me.

However, I can't quite ditch it all and pursue other interests at the drop of a hat. I have responsibilities and commitments to my employees, clients, partners and, above all, my family.

After all, someone once said that the job of a CEO is 90% of the time doing things you have to do, 10% things you like to do. I'd say it's even more unbalanced than that.

Anyways, this goes to show that motivation comes and goes. I have probably done a terrible job at creating my own challenges.

A good example to illustrate this is: whenever I've moved to a new apartment, I have put my soul into making it habitable, but I tend to fail to decorate it. Furthermore, if something breaks but isn't disrupting my daily operations or has a way to circumvent the annoyance, it can stay broken for ages.

Neurodivergent profiles like me can move mountains for something we're interested in but struggle tremendously to work on the most mundane, repetitive and unattractive tasks.

It’s as if your internal sine wave of motivation is perfectly out of sync with the cosine wave of your company’s progress: when one hits its high, the other hits its low.

The result? You’re leading something that’s objectively successful but personally less thrilling. And that can be deeply disorienting if you don’t realize it’s a pattern, not a failure.

Or is it?

And this is, probably, the biggest paradox I have faced as CEO.