Happiness?

How I broke through anxiety and agoraphobia to freedom

What is happiness? Or better yet. What is happiness for me?

I’ve wanted to share something that I’ve have hidden for years, so I finally decided to say fuck it and do it. It’s about addressing something that embarrassed me at first but has ended up becoming an unlock for me and for my happiness.

And I think it’s worth hearing about.

In 2002, the after I founded my first company, I started having severe panic attacks. At first, I just thought it was a function of being a founder of startup and the cumulative impacts of shitting myself on a daily basis. But what started out as panic attacks and night sweats soon turned into a fear of flying, of going to the mountains, of going to the movies, and finally of even crossing the bay bridge. I finally went to a doctor, then many, to find out what was going on.

I was diagnosed with high-functioning agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by symptoms of anxiety in situations where the person perceives the environment to be unsafe with no easy way to get away.[1] These situations can include open spaces, public transit, shopping malls, or simply being outside the home.[1] Being in these situations may result in a panic attack.[2] The symptoms occur nearly every time the situation is encountered and last for more than six months. Those affected will go to great lengths to avoid these situations.[1] In severe cases people may become unable to leave their homes.[2]

I shat a Twinky. But then did what I do best — I went into action. I read books, did excercises, and researched possible solutions. Finally, I looked up who in the world was the world’s leading expert on solving this thing for me. I found out that there are several approaches.

• the lie down on a couch and talk to a “my mom did it” PHD
• take drugs
• talk to a cognitive therapist

I did the first one — nothing. I did the second — yikes, nobody wants me on drugs let’s just share that right now. So I tried the third.

Cognitive therapy is all about understanding what’s happening in your body when you are having a panic attack, realizing that when you are panicking your ability to estimate the likelihood of disaster is almost shut down, and that you can retrain your brain if you work at it. The therapist walks you through a program that does these things and in the process I learned two things.

• I now had the logical (and I’m a big fan of logic) tools to deal with a flight/fight response
• I had an unexpected unlock moment that enabled me to change my life

It’s the second bullet I’d like to talk about.

What I realized as a part of this exercise is that for me, happiness is all about how I’m living my life. When I’m living dishonestly, even in the smallest way, I get anxiety, restlessness, and a fear of being left to myself. Waiting, for me, is the worst. It’s when my subconscious catches up with my conscious and the shit hits the fan. You see, as a f0under, I am always going a million miles an hour, but when the world suddenly stop spinning (like when I’m waiting to go over the bridge, into a plan, into a movie theater, etc) the small lies that I’ve been living catch up to me — and I panic.

By lies, I don’t mean big lies. It’s the small ones that kill. And for me it’s those moments, at work and at home, where I’m cutting corners instead of giving it my all. If I dial it in on a design, product, or engineering meeting — BAM. If I don’t wash the dishes, take out the trash, or do the small things that show my wife how much I appreciate her — BAM. If I don’t address something I know needs my attention and let a list of these little nits add up — BAM.

When I had my panic attacks, the cognitive therapist helped me understand that my subconscious was ringing the alarm bells saying “you need to fix these things” but since the thoughts weren’t in my conscious thoughts, my body simply reacted as a general “unkown” threat dumping adrenaline into my system.

So, for me, the trick became to put those unconscious tiny sins into my conscious — every single day.

So now, every morning after my meditation run, I write down all of the little sins I need to clean up. In doing so, I realized just how small they were, how easy they were to fix, and that the proper response to their existence was annoyance and not panic. It made me realize something that I think many could benefit from.

When I’m living honestly I fear nothing.

When I’m dishonest with myself, the shit hits the fan. Live, love, and work honestly and life will reward you. Waiting becomes salvation instead of pain. The most common reason I feel anxious is that I’m not running my company honestly. But what does that mean? Well, for starters it’s meant many things over the years. But it actually all boils down to the same thing.

Living a lie.

Now it’s many years later, and keep my lists and manage them daily. And I’m not going to lie now either — it’s been a struggle. It took me a year to conquer restaurants, movies, and the bridge. It took me another year to get over wide open spaces and another to fly again. But every step of the way, I experimented and I found the unlock I was seeking effectively using a modified form of lean startup for my cray cray.

What I learned through hypothesis testing was that the more honest I was in my day-to-day life, the happier I became.

The shocking thing is that in this process I was forced to really get to know myself, to understand my views on things. It was me becoming me. And I want to let you know right now that I’m pretty shocked at who I am. here are few examples that I didn’t want to admit before, but now I shout them out with glee.

• I love Stove Top stuffing and just I don’t care who knows. I also love spreadsheets, I search for fonts when I’m left alone, and I love watching really cheesy television shows.
• I love design of all aspects. I love digital design, fashion, watches, hardware — I can’t get enough of it. I still remember when I told Mike Arrington that I loved design and he called me a pussy. I told him to go fuck himself. Then he invested in my company.
• I love details. I want to sell the corners, not cut them. And when our code, our design, and our product has the details, it shows and I am peace with our fate. If we fail as a company, we won’t fail for me.
• There are a lot, and I’m mean a lot, of wonderful, talented, smart people who are totally bullshitting themselves. They put off admitting things are working at work, in relationships, and even with themselves. Once I realized how much I was bullshitting myself on a day to day basis, it became much easier to see when other people were doing it to themselves.
• I am my own man. I will listen, I will seek advice, but my pattern is to listen, to think, and then to come back with an idea that is unique, beautiful, and my own. It’s the way I am made and I will never compromise that position.
• I am a leader and I accept the responsibilities that come with it. I understand the consequences of my decisions as a leader. I deeply respect the guts it takes to follow a leader and for those that decide to follow me and be there through the good and the bad, I will move mountains for those people.
• I will leave work every day knowing I gave it my all. I did my best to solve every problem, to be there for every person. And when I get home, I will do my very best to be there for my wife.

Maybe I’m weird, but authenticity and honesty are happiness for me. I’d rather go through war than live a life of inauthenticity. Work isn’t work for me, it’s a road to happiness. For me, happiness is all in the details the the trying. And now that I know that and have been living that for a while, it’s kind of given me some super powers.

• my bullshit detector is now phenomenal
• I’m kinder (to people who work hard)
• I’m scarier (to bullshitters)
• I’m much more productive
• I’m working on the right things, much more often
• I’m able to get others to work on the right things, much more often
• I’m much more honest about when something isn’t working at work
• I fire people who don’t belong much faster
• I don’t hire people I shouldn’t
• I’m able to listen better and be more valuable in a conversation
• I can speak truth to power (without being an asshole)
• I can hear truth regardless of my own power (without being hurt)
• I love and appreciate my wife more than ever