Is Your Silicon Valley Success Causing Chaos in Your Personal Life?

Silicon Valley success takes years to achieve. You devote all your talents, your vision, your passion and too often also all your time to it. But your success may cause chaos in your personal life.

Some of you may even ask yourselves – what personal life?

The ugly truth is that Silicon Valley success is often bought at the price of not having any meaningful personal relationships at all. But don’t worry, you can always go back to work…

Are you willing to pay that price? Or is there another way?

Overwork and self-esteem

Overwork and over-worry create a difficult life style, but Silicon Valley culture encourages people to think of bags under their eyes as badges of honor.

When you base your self-esteem on professional success, or get your validation from working longer hours than everyone else, there is little room left for personal relationships. And if you are honest, you signal to your friends and family that you care less about them than about your company. Not through your words, but through your actions.

What will that do to their self-esteem? Particularly if they prioritize the relationship with you over their own work?

Startup Martyrs

The expectation of working 60 to 80 hour weeks and ‘coding for fun’ after work to prove that you are a ‘real techie’, make Silicon Valley workers vulnerable to stress-related illnesses, including irritability, exhaustion, and inability to communicate constructively. All of this is poison in personal relationships.

Add to that the chaotic life style of running a startup, and the idea that you can only succeed if you devote yourself 100% to your business, then you have the image of the ‘startup martyr’. Unfortunately, that martyr is sacrificing others, too.

Constant crisis

Silicon Valley success often means mastering a life of constant professional crises.

Suppliers are late, staff members make mistakes, customers change their minds. There is chaos every day. Well-made plans fall apart, and solutions can be hard to find.

This is reality for successful business people. But this amount of chaos can create havoc in your personal life. Personal relationships depend on a certain amount of reliability.

Legacy lifestyle

There may be a  deep psychological reason why some startup founders thrive (or seem to thrive) in a chaotic atmosphere. Steve Blank’s research suggests that many startup founders come from dysfunctional families.

They are survivors of chaos. That is their greatest strength. Unfortunately, it is also their greatest weakness when it come to personal relationships.

The legacy of family chaos creates conflict and loneliness.

Conflicting priorities

Studies show that, for many successful people, resolving unexpected business problems takes priority over personal life. Business issues cannot wait. Personal relationships are seen as more static, and almost like a background to life. Your partner and children will still be there tomorrow, while your business may not be, if you don’t attend to this crisis now.

In the struggle of conflicting priorities, Silicon Valley success often wins over family and friends. But how long can you go canceling plans and putting people on the ‘back burner’ before they do the same to you?

Silicon Valley success creates chaos in your life, and you are creating chaos in theirs.

How do successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs deal with their personal lives?

The secret to creating a less chaotic personal life is to value it more.

Block out personal time in your schedule. Take vacations and remove yourself to a different location. If you have kids, mark their events as priorities. Children need predictability and reliability from their parents. The chaos has to stop here.

Change your mind-set

Is your partner important to you?

This may sound like a silly question, but how prepared are you to make space for them, every day, every week?

Organize your thoughts about a successful relationship, just as you would in your professional life.

What does your partner bring to your life and why do you want to spend time with them? Are you willing to put an office crisis on the back burner and put your family first? Not just once, but on a regular basis?

Finally, can you stop being a martyr and enjoy the journey?

After all, success doesn’t define you, you define the meaning of success in your life.