Ranjay Gulati

Now, I'll add to that another point, which I call confidence.

I don't like that confidence word.

It comes from research by a Stanford professor named Albert Bandura.

Bandura was also interested in fear.

And he recruited Stanford undergraduate students who were terrified of snakes.

Technical term is ophidiophobes.

And he was going to convince them over a period of several weeks with slow exposure, showing them videos and all, to ultimately hold a snake.

Actually, a corn snake.

They're harmless, don't bite, but they're six feet long.

They look scary.

Half the students dropped out as the study progressed.

The other half who stuck in there eventually held a snake.

What's most interesting is not that they did it, but how this simple study transformed how they thought about themselves.

It made them realize that if I can overcome one of my worst nightmare fears, snakes, I can do anything.

And he called this research self-efficacy, what in local parlance we would call can-do mindset.

I can do it.

Now, you see that with entrepreneurs, not all, some entrepreneurs.

No matter how many setbacks come their way and the business is failing, they're running out of cash, everything is going wrong, I don't know, I'm going to get it done.

I can do it.

I got it.