Two messages that are regularly conveyed on entrepreneurship: 1) Entrepreneurship is hard, but work hard and you can succeed. 2) Struggling is good. In other words, you should be working long hours, failing for years and you shouldn’t be comfortable. Entrepreneurs lap up this second message because most of them are failing. The intended message may be "if you work hard at the right thing you can succeed," but it’s misinterpreted as "if you’re struggling, you’re doing the right thing". The result is a masochistic obsession with pushing yourself harder, listening to people tell you to work harder, and broadcasting how hard you’re working. It’s struggle porn. Working hard is great, but struggle porn has a dangerous side effect: not quitting. When you believe the normal state of affairs is to feel like you’re struggling to make progress, you’ll be less likely to quit something that isn’t going anywhere. Of course, there have been some big successes, but the vast majority of wannabe entr...
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