Why I built Ananda: A Mental Model Tribe for entrepreneurial minds
I laid my pencil down on the cold, wooden table.
Taking a break, I took 2 deep breaths, calming the chaotic flurry of thoughts in my quiet study room.
My fingers reflexively zoomed across the keyboard, typing what is the distractions of all distractions .
Within seconds, the familiar blue bar appeared — I was searching for a dopamine hit. My eyes gleaned over the first post that appeared on my Facebook feed.
“In less than a year, Freedom Funnels has hit $100,000 of revenue…”
…beamed a post from Mark Thompson (my business mentor), to tons of cheers from the digital audience.
It took me 4 seconds to re-read and register this.
What shocked me wasn’t the revenue, but rather my first response to it.
Mark was my mentor and business partner for my first 2 years in University. We had first met while I during a internship at a startup called Street Smart University. They empowered entrepreneurs and with coaching and consulting programs.
After learning the tools of the trade, Mark and I branched out and launched this service to another vertical. After hustling hard for business and everything in between, we were on track to hit the goal that I had set out to achieve - to create a 6-figure revenue business in 1 year.
After numerous failed attempts at creating a profitable business, I had craved this financial yardstick so much that for 2 years.
To the point where I was on the brink of neurosis, like a toothpick bent out of shape.
The slightest trauma would break me into two.
One time, we made less sales than we expected.
Mark said:
“Tony, I expected more results from you in the past few months. You are not performing up to standards, and you ended up wasting everyone’s time.”
I was so brittle that 2 hours later, I found myself crying in a shower painfully revisiting feelings of inadequacy, and all the emotional baggage that came with it.
I would neglect my friends and family, while constantly worrying about what people said behind my back.
I used to check Facebook every 10 minutes after a new marketing post because I was so afraid of someone else’s opinion - Imposter syndrome.
I would spend hours hustling in the rat race for early millennial success, only to burn out in bouts of loneliness and frustration.
I was mentally consumed by this goal.
And after 2 years, I finally had the results to show for something.
“In less than a year, Freedom Funnels has hit $100,000 of revenue…”
Once again, my eyes glazed over the Facebook Post, the statement I have lived and died for, many times over.
All that pain and sacrifice flashed before me in a second. I looked into my heart for anything that resembled joy…
.
..
?
…
…
meh, break time’ over.
Let’s get back to schoolwork.
…
…
Wait.
…
What?
…
Wasn’t this something I yearned so much for?
THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO IT?
…
…
..
.
I was so shocked at my own utter indifference I couldn’t breathe.
I felt this rage building inside, yet I couldn’t muster the self awareness to scream or shout. I just stared into this void.
Even the cold, wooden table seemed to be laughing back at all my hard work.
To think that a goal I could dedicate so much time and energy into can be waved off by my very self in an instant, was beyond my wildest comprehension.
This episode still stings my heart to this day.
In an epiphanic moment of self-contradiction, I humbly realised I was thoroughly successful at living the life I had set out NOT to live — a life consumed by the mind-numbing drudgery of work, eyeing the vain tag lines I saw people put on their LinkedIn resumes.
“When you stop pursuing success and happiness, you become obsessed with the process — the 364 days that take you to the 365th — rather than just focusing on the 365th and ignoring the other 364 days.”
Alexander Heyne
I realised the real value was found in the journey that got me there — the learnings, setbacks and mindset shifts that were invaluable to clarify what I really wanted, while equipping me with the skills and mental resilience to pursue them.
This was the turning point that made me focus on the journey of life, rather than the end goal.
A Redefined Model of Reality
After experiencing this epiphany, I realised there were so many people operating with the same beliefs I did, and being miserably diligent while at it.
There had to be some other way.
I poured through countless self-growth videos, personal development articles hoping to find some answer.
Days passed.
Weeks flew by.
I stumbled upon an interview show on Youtube by Tom Bilyeu, Founder of Impact Theory.
“We pursue external goals to hit an internal emotional target.”
Mastin Kipp
In a blink of an eye, everything clicked.
Everything we do is for the reward of an emotional feeling within.
EVERYTHING.
Whether it’s eating a burger, preparing for SATs or volunteering for charity, if you trace it down to your deepest motivations, you would evoke a “reward” feeling that is giving you the energy to perform that task.
That “reward” can be short-term gratification, fulfilment and even the relief of avoiding pain.
From Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism Is True, we are wired to be lazy creatures designed to expend as little energy as possible in the direction of pleasurable feelings.
Humans have aggregated all the genes and predispositions from our ancestors under natural selection, where the “best” genes survive the test of time.
However, every test has limitations. Given enough reward, humans would find ways around the test with the least effort.
When schools dish out standardised tests with the intention of measuring knowledge, students hack the process by cheating, cramming last-minute content and circling random answers hoping to win the dice roll.
In the same vein, the test of gene proliferation is simply what helps pass down our genes to the next generation, even if it means constantly lazing around and storing energy, engaging in excessive sexual activity to spread genes and blindly following the pack.
What reward do we get for engaging in such behaviour?
Internal emotional targets.
The satisfaction from a sumptuous meal. The ecstasy of orgasm. The security of the masses.
As good as they feel, these traits help us survive, not thrive, and most people are content with surviving.
Look at movers, shakers, successful people in any field.
What differentiates this top 0.1% with the other 99.99% of the population?
They have different internal emotional targets.
Emotional targets wired for risk-taking pursuits, relentless hustle, fearless conviction to execute on dreams, and a fear of regret of not living up to their potential.
They are people who have identified the right internal emotional targets to focus on and pursued the right external goals needed to acquire those feelings.
Knowing this, I had yet another epiphany.
Instead of seeking assurance that nobody was talking shit behind my back, I focused on feeling assured in-spite of whatever anyone was doing outside of my control.
Instead of seeking the feel-good factor when I saw how well-endowed other people’s LinkedIn profiles were, I focused on feeling good in-spite of however lacklustre I was compared to others, and started learning from them.
Knowing that I had identified the right emotional targets, I realised external goals like practicing meditation and lifelong learning grew my skillset to acquire those internal feelings on a more frequent-basis.
It all became crystal-clear to me.
Focus On Processes, Not Events
Many successes we celebrate in popular culture come from years, if not decades of hard work, grit, failures and reflection.
Think Elon Musk, Thomas Edison and the other greats.
Social media misleadingly portrays success as a singular event of triumph, the “aha” moment that clicks everything into place. The “natural” talent they always had. The big break that came as a “deserving” reward for all their hard work.
The truth is, that they had to put in tons of work to get to that “aha moment”. They had to face numerous rejections, pain and progress to even stand a chance of standing out.
When others stand in awe at their brilliance wondering how they could emulate them, the uncomfortable truth is that these greats simply failed more times than them. The greats had more faith and respect in the process.
They had processes that got them through the trials and tribulations on the path to greatness others were not willing to go through.
This is what trips most people (even me for a long time). Even the most mundane day — working, hustling with no sign whatsoever that you are going to succeed can be one of the most important ingredients to greatness.
My takeaway was rather than living for arbitrary events like “when I reach 30”, or when I pass that external exam, get that job, or hit that revenue goal — the simplest key to fulfilment was to strive for a successful process in the form of a successful day.
“If you live just for today, to make today the most successful, happy day of your life, I am sure that you will have an extraordinary life. A successful life is nothing more than a series of successful days.”
Unknown
Combining my knowledge on emotional targets and processes, I then sought to find the best processes successful people had that increased their odds of success.
This is where I stumbled onto Mental Models.
The Power of Mental Models Towards Emotional Targets
In the ground-breaking book Principles by Ray Dalio, he clearly lists down a set of mental models that has brought him success over the long run.
I was amazed that someone could live with such clarity and structure in their principles to deal with life, which is fundamentally chaotic.
I realised I have the attributes of a shaper:
“They have very strong mental maps of how things should be done, and at the same time a willingness to test those mental maps in the world of reality and change the ways they do things to make them work better.
All are able to see both big pictures and granular details (and levels in between) and synthesise the perspectives they gain at those different levels, whereas most people see just one or the other.
Ray Dalio
Shaper or not, I realised everyone lives by their own set of principles.
Whether or not they can clearly describe it, whether or not it’s what they consciously choose to believe, whether or not it serves them towards their goals.
The problem is, most people have latent principles hidden inside their head that only surfaces when they use them. Nor do they know where they came from.
Where they created by reading books, learning from successful people who walk the talk? Or where they created from some irrational fear that stuck since childhood, or what you learned from a friend when you were 15?
Most people (myself included) have mental models that crumble the moment we get them out of heads, simply because they cannot stand the scrutiny of logic.
Yet these are the very same models that drive us down 10-year career paths, big family decisions and lifelong commitments that greatly shape how we live our life.
They are like operating systems analogous to programming, where people follow scripts with clear logic flows.
Unlike computers where codes are visible and emotionless, human code is contorted by irrational beliefs, conditioning and circumstances.
Mental Models are very much analogous to neural pathways, or ways of thinking that can be conditioned to operate on “default” mode.
Very much like habits, which are ways of systemising subconscious thoughts. We hardly feel them on a moment-to-moment basis, yet they are ever-present.
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
Warren Buffet
Mental Models are ways of systemising conscious thoughts, to categorise a finite set of life experiences into buckets with common strategies for them.
No matter where you are, what you do, if you can read this, here are some generic life experiences you go through:
- How to communicate and build relationships with others
- How to pay your bills, take care of yourself and your family
- How to lead a team of people to a common goal
- How to learn a new subject
Chances are, you are already using the same mental models to deal with similar challenges.
Are you getting the results you want? If not, it’s time to upgrade them.
The hard truth is, it takes the extreme willingness to reflect and stare at one’s weaknesses and inadequacies to be able to formulate such principles, though the result of such reflection is better processes and better shots at success.
Here’s the deal: We have to operate on mental models no matter what. However, we can choose what mental models to operate on.
For most people, life forces them to make decisions. You grow out of college, build a career, find a mate — these are all decisions you have to make at some point, where or not you are geared with the best models for your scenario.
“Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that require us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down this river and we can’t avoid those encounters. We can only approach them in the best possible way.”
Ray Dalio
This is where I belief real transformation happens.
When you can identify the your correct internal emotional targets, uncover the processes that get there using the right mental models, you naturally improve your odds of success.
Who Ananda is for
Hence, I have committed my life to collecting, packaging and sharing mental models with the world.
Models proven to improve your odds of moving closer to your internal emotional target.
To give people tools to pull out of the matrix, and to see reality with the level of clarity that brings a deep confidence in changing the world for the better.
People who would choose the red pill over the blue pill, even if it means crashing against the brutal walls of reality.
For people who understand the difference between acquiring knowledge and attaining wisdom to use the knowledge well.
If you have read this far, then you are my kind of person.
If this resonates with you, join my FREE 4-Part Cognitive Bias Course where I help you build entrepreneurial muscle overcoming cognitive biases everyone (including YOU) fall prey to.
