Eoghan McCabe: uncertainty

Transcript context

…I want to follow this thread. I was going to ask you this earlier, but I didn't, and I want to see if this takes us somewhere interesting, just watching you speak and talk. You're very self-reflective, very centered. You have these really good breaths you take when you think about something. I met you a long time ago, randomly at a party when you were just starting Intercom. I don't think you were like that. During this kind of two-year period was there kind a transformation that you went through to kind of become this? Absolutely. Yeah. There's a couple things. First, I mean, there's three things that come to mind. Working in a startup for 14 years has a certain way of kicking you in the head many times a day that either kills you or makes you far stronger. So, that's one piece. There's no elegance to that point, but I think we can all intuit that that level of experience teaches you something, you grow up very fast. Point two is I did a lot of therapy. I found this amazing guy 12 years ago. He started a couple of his own tech companies and talked in public. He only coached and was a therapist to CEOs. He's now kind of in a later stage of his career. But this amazing guy, his name is Yosi Amram, amazing guy. I just landed on my feet. I just didn't know who I was dealing with. But one of the greatest minds and teachers of the last, I don't know, many decades, people don't even know him, but he's taught and worked with many CEOs and he just helped me get to know me and take time for myself. And people like to hate on therapy right now. I think a lot of therapy sucks and a lot of therapists are not good. And they fear that actually therapy will lobotomize them and turn them into thumb sucking, navel-gazing, soft, irrelevant losers that won't have that edge anymore. And the interesting thing about 12 years of weekly therapy and spiritual work is that it takes your edges off, but they're all edges that are super counterproductive. All the edges that made you an asshole, got you triggered, miscommunicated or fought back when you were insecure, they take all the edges away then help you see yourself and love yourself so much more for who you are. Be completely unafraid to acknowledge the things you're not good at, but own the things you are. And in understanding yourself, you understand others better and can communicate in a substantially more connected and authentic way. Great, great therapy and it has to be great, is a recipe for brilliant leadership in my opinion. And then the third part is two years away where I ran away, where I was sick, revenue growth wasn't doing so hot. I unsuccessfully tried to defend myself from a bunch of fake bullshit in the newspapers. I mean I was beat up. And in a moment like that, your ego, any sense you have of your greatness is eviscerated. And that's painful. It can be so painful that many people don't come back from it, and I credit the 10 years at that point, or nine years of therapy I did at that point, plus the support of this therapist, the coach that I had, to surviving it. But if you can survive it, what you end up with on the other side is all of those insecure, a lot of the insecurities and all that ego bullshit that made you super ineffective, jealous, or triggered for all sorts of different reasons, it's gone. And your image that you are this perfect, brilliant leader that all successful founders form when they are successful had to die. And the reason that's so good is that that's so limiting. , it's gone. And your image that you are this perfect, brilliant leader that all successful founders form when they are successful had to die. And the reason that's so good is that that's so limiting. When you have this ego identity of yourself about how fucking amazing you are, then any moment that challenges that is super scary. Anyone who questions it is offensive. And so I credit wherever I am today and I have decades of learning still to go to those three components. And I feel super fortunate to have had all of them, even though the last one sucked, I can finally say, wow, it really helped.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.