Searching for Better Fuel

A few years before founding Octave, I cut added sugar out of my diet. It was a painful choice – my wife and I had developed a nightly ritual after putting our children to bed, rewarding ourselves with some ice cream or cookies. We looked forward to that sweet little dopamine hit to end a long day. 

After a bumpy (and cranky) few weeks, I found that I was able to replace the sugar with better fuel – healthy fats like avocado, nuts and peanut butter began to slowly become our routine. In addition to losing weight, I started sleeping better, I felt less soreness after exercising, and my moods felt more constant. I still struggle to maintain this routine (I have few better ways to cope with stress than eating an Oreo), but I remind myself that the long-term benefits outweigh the immediate rush.

As I have tried to figure out how to lead a company, it’s striking how the fuel that powers a company matters too. I remember receiving advice a few years ago from an entrepreneur who had just left a company he founded. He spoke of how he rallied his company around the “sugar rush” (his words, not mine) of major funding announcements or enterprise deals, and how that led to a culture of boom-and-bust motivation. I also watched colleagues at another company shift their focus after the major milestone celebration of an IPO, from building for the long term to scanning around for who made how much in the process. 

In many ways, building around those goalposts makes sense: Humans are energized by immediate rewards – whether it’s sugar, praise, or money – and societies are built around embedding enough of these rewards to sustain motivation. This can work, if those carrots (or in my case, Oreos) are constantly replaced – but then you run the risk of running out of carrots, not placing them at the right time or place, or attracting those who are willing to take shortcuts for the treats. The “sugar rushes” work well until they don’t. 

I’m learning to draw, both personally and professionally, from healthier fuels – ones that are sustainable, consistent, and bring long-term benefits. In a business context, that means shifting the focus to less tangible, but no less satisfying, rewards: creating positive change, personal growth, and connection with others.

On creating positive change: How much better would the world be if we were to achieve the outcome we are driving towards? I want to be excited by that answer, in any work I undertake. This sense of mission has become more important for workers in recent years – a 2019 survey showed that employee satisfaction more than doubled at companies that are clear on their purpose – and I can only see its importance growing as we continue re-evaluating the role of work in our lives. Whether companies are improving how families eat, or how software integrations are done, or how people can access high-quality mental health care, a strong and clear mission can fuel anyone through highs and lows of daily work. And importantly, if we create a certain change, but receive no recognition or reward in return, can we be satisfied? I strive for my answer to that question to be yes.

On personal growth: My journey as an entrepreneur has been one of seeing a possibility and then wanting and sacrificing to make it a reality, which often puts me in a vulnerable and scary place. I have lost many hours of sleep to the question of whether something will or won’t happen, but I’ve come to realize that the answer has always been yes and no. The joy of every win is temporary, as is the disappointment of every loss, but what really matters is how I took that win/loss and put those learnings into practice. The job of CEO is really tough, but I hope I’m getting better at it every day while also learning a lot about character and empathy from the experience. I hope that everyone can find elements of their work that allow them to grow, and companies should seek out employees who are driven by this innate hunger and curiosity.

On connection: Everyone has a desire to be understood and accepted unconditionally. So in my work life, I want to work with people who understand and care about me, and I want to be able to provide that in return. Those daily connections sustain me during the tougher times, and I’m proud to have built a company that fosters kindness, compassion, and camaraderie. It’s always a work in progress, but that investment is one of the best that any company can make: One recent study shows that U.S. employees who are satisfied with social connectivity at work are 3x more productive.

I still find that in the day-to-day rush of activity and emotion, it’s easy to “chase sugar.” It is a daily trial to sift and find my motivation before making any big decision. For example, as an entrepreneur, I’ve been rejected for investment at least 50 times over the years, sometimes by people whose respect I thought I’d worked hard to earn. It hurts every single time. It’s easy to convert that hurt into the desire for status (“Let’s beat their portfolio company, because that will show them!”); far harder to stop and search for better fuel to keep going.

At Octave, we are taking some really important steps to build systems that encourage the right fuel for us. Our team is revisiting our mission statement – honing and refining based on our last few years of learning what really reflects the change we want to create and why. Later this year, we are also going to be thinking again through our values, competencies, and how we measure people against them because while we can provide people promotion pathways and title change, we want to be clearer on the growth that they must demonstrate to achieve them.

As we have been in a rapid phase of growth, it’s sometimes tempting to skip through these exercises and focus on scaling. But I’ve come to realize that it’s some of the most critical work to support that growth – so we may remain strong even after the sugar burns off.