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Shiny New Object - Crash and Burn Cycle - Valley of Despair - Woman In The Red Dress

Last week, I listened to Steven Bartlett and Alex Hormozi's podcast; among a lot of business advice that does not apply to me now, one thing stood out and resonated with me. The notion of Crisis of Meaning. In the past couple of years, I started at least five side projects:

​https://urlrec.com/ https://snaptocontent.com/ https://agentdevhire.com/ https://primo-protein.com/ https://lifenotes.chat/ https://leadsparklabs.com/​

I stopped working on them after the initial building phase. I soon lost interest after the initial hype was over, and I would need to transition from builder into seller mode. Obviously, I like building more than selling.

As it turns out, I'm not alone! The core idea is that many entrepreneurs get trapped in a loop of starting, struggling, and abandoning ventures due to:

• FOMO (fear of missing out)
• Emotional swings
• Over-optimism
• A tendency to split attention across multiple pursuits rather than committing to one

The Six Stages of the Entrepreneurial Cycle

1. Each cycle starts with Uninformed Optimism. You are excited about it because it looks promising from the outside.
2. You realize the idea execution is much more complex than you thought - Informed Pessimism.
3. Crisis of Meaning (Valley of Despair): Things are not working despite your efforts.
4. Crash and Burn (The Doom Loop) Most ideas end here; you abandoned the project.

But there is an alternative way: Informed Optimism. Apparently, where you stick to the project, and you make progress.

What can we do about it?

The Woman in the Red Dress Metaphor falls into place here. When FOMO strikes, we can remind ourselves that the grass is always grander on the other side and keep in mind that the new project will also always have challenges. We can commit to this by burning the bridge, eliminating alternatives, and resisting chasing trends. We have to stop looking at the things in binary. Working or Not working? Instead, we must stop abandoning things, start tweaking them, and build resilience against things not working by iterating. Only in the long term can we build something that works.

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Stanford class About Emotions

There are a lot of talks about remote vs. nonremote right now; what do we think about returning to the office and how being together in one room relates to interpersonal relationships? The whole framework applies to both personal and professional settings. I learned about a Stanford class by professor Carol Robbins, which is now also adapted for business people and is called "Leaders in Tech." The course introduces two frameworks:

1. Two Tracks of Communication

• Content track - This is a conversation about surface-level information and facts. (How is the project going?).
• Relationship track - Emotions and feelings: This is where we build trust and closeness. (I feel upset about this!) .

Relationships aren’t built or broken on that surface level. They’re shaped by what’s underneath—feelings like frustration, appreciation, or hurt that people don’t usually say out loud

2. Five Levels of Communication

• Level 1: Ritual - Basic greetings with no depth (Hey, how’s it going?).
• Level 2: Extended Ritual - More engaged small talk (How’s the weather?).
• Level 3: Content - Sharing facts or discussing tasks (The project is late).
• Level 4: Emotional Self-Disclosure - Expressing personal feelings (I feel sad about this).
• Level 5: Mutual Emotional Self-Disclosure - Sharing emotions about the other person (I feel disappointed in you).

Levels 1-3 fill the Content Track, while Levels 4-5 fill the Relationship Track. You must move beyond Level 3 into emotional disclosure to build trust and closeness. Fun fact I also learned. In English, "I feel like" is often used to express opinions instead of feelings. (I feel this is dumb!), this makes it harder to go to levels 4 and 5. Usually, we stay on levels 1 to 3, which makes it hard to build trust-based relationships.

What can we do about it?

Practice level 4 with people who are close to us, friends or partners, and observe reactions. Avoid using "I feel like". Use real emotions instead of "like". For example. Sad, proud, angry. Frame conversation as sharing, not attacking: "When I see this, I tell myself you don’t respect me, and I feel angry. I’m sharing this because I don’t think you intend that, and I want us to understand each other.” This keeps it collaborative, not confrontational.

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NBA Best Betting Edge

I'm not sure if this one is real, but it was a fun fact for me because I follow and play basketball. This alpha gave Haralabos Voulgaris a betting edge to make around $10 million a year for the past 10 years by exploiting a pattern in how teams chose their baskets in NBA games and how this affected halftime and full-game scoring.

The away team gets to choose which basket they will shoot on in the first half. Most teams choose offense shooting in front of the bench for the first half. You can give instructions and cheer to your team. Three coaches (Jerry Sloan (Utah Jazz), Eddie Jordan (Washington Wizards), and Byron Scott (New Jersey Nets)) decided to flip this. This resulted in lower-scoring first halves and higher-scoring second halves for those teams. By identifying these teams and betting on the "over" for the second halves or "under" for the first halves, he was able to capitalize on this information.

What can we do about it?

In 2025, replicating this exact edge is unlikely due to improved data and market efficiency. But it's fun to know what is possible.

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