The Rabbi and the lobster

What they can teach us about stress and Startups

At our recent Founder offsite we were lucky enough to have Michael Townsend Williams as a speaker. Michael is a wise man and shared many great insights with us but my favourite was the video below — the simple story is a great life lesson and an even better analogy for the journey of a startup and its founders.

The video is less than 2 minutes and I’d highly recommend watching because the Rabbi tells it better than anyone. If you’re not online, or your short on time, then the story goes as follows…

“How do lobsters grow?

…a lobster is a soft mushy animal that lives inside of a rigid shell. That rigid shell does not expand.

…how can the lobster grow!?

As the lobster grows, that shell becomes very confining… the lobster feels itself under pressure and uncomfortable.

It goes under a rock formation to protect itself from predatory fish, casts off the shell and produces a new one.

Well eventually that shell becomes very uncomfortable as it grows… back under the rocks… and the lobster repeats this numerous times.”

The Rabbi’s key observation is that it’s the feeling of discomfort that enables the lobster to retreat and then grow. Stress becomes the stimulus for further growth. And yet in modern life we’re taught the exact opposite — we should avoid stress and discomfort wherever possible.

As the Rabbi points out, if lobsters had doctors they would never grow at all. They would be prescribed with drugs to calm the stress — removing the stimulus — and would therefore never cast off their shell.

“If lobsters had doctors they would never grow”

I’m not for a moment suggesting that stress is a wholly good thing or should be actively encouraged. Far from it. The impact of frequent or extreme stress is well documented. In the long term it reduces performance and often becomes debilitating. In the case of the lobster, the stress is NOT a good thing in itself but it DOES lead to significant positive change. It’s is a trigger for the lobster to retreat, protect itself and grow stronger. The Rabbi says it best…

“…we have to realise that times of stress are also times that are signals for growth.

…if we use adversity properly we can grow through adversity.”

Adversity is unavoidable in life and even more so in startup life. Founders are attempting to change the status quo — build something from nothing. This journey is always going to be uncomfortable and stressful.

However, I do love the idea that we can recognise stress and discomfort, in life and in building startups, as a trigger to protect ourselves and grow stronger.

As Seth Godin says in his book, Linchpin:

“Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you’re doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they’re hiding out in the comfortable zone. When your uncomfortable actions lead to success, the organization rewards you and brings you back for more.”

Startups are by definition designed to grow quickly (“Startup = Growth”, Paul Graham) so how does the Rabbi’s story specifically apply to a founder?

The key takeaways for me are as follows…

• Significant growth in a company can come from adversity. As a founder it can be a time to protect the company, look inward and focus only on what’s important at that specific moment (i.e. growing a bigger and stronger shell)
• Growth can often require you to cast off things that are incredibly important to you. These things (or people) might have been your key strength or defence in the past — this process is scary and painful
• Whenever you see a big and successful startup, you can be very confident that they’ve been through adversity and growth pains to get there — startup success is not obvious and never easy.

I can think of many examples where these lessons have played an important role in the journey of high growth startups. One of my partners, Simon Calver, experienced a warehouse fire whilst he was CEO of LOVEFiLM in 2005. He admits that it nearly brought down the whole business but in hindsight it was clear that it galvanised the growing team around the company mission and allowed them to grow stronger — eventually dominating their market in Europe and exiting to Amazon 5 years later. ASOS also suffered the same fate in both 2005 and 2014. After the incident in December 2005 (5 years after they were founded) they had to suspend their shares, refund 19,000 orders and close the website during their busiest seasonal period — and yet they came back stronger by relaunching in January and doubling profits in 2006.

John Mackey, founder of Wholefoods, also experienced a similar fate: within a year of opening their first store in Austin, the city experienced “the worst flood in 70 years”. All of their stock and much of their equipment was wiped out and they had no insurance. Not only did customers and neighbours help get them back on their feet — bonding the team and bringing them closer to their community — but this incident was also the catalyst for John Mackey to quickly pursue further expansion so that he didn’t have all his organic eggs in one basket.

All of this reminds me of a saying (sadly I can’t find the source) along the lines of…

Being an entrepreneur is being comfortable whist in a constant state of being uncomfortable.