The problems that the salesman entrepreneur experiences are often much easier to solve than the ones experienced by the engineer, because if you go to a bank with a stack of orders and ask for a loan to fill the orders, few banks will say no. The engineer’s problem is that is mind wants a perfect product before every trying to sell it.

The reason why I enjoyed watching Rich’s speech is that he talked about how his scars prevented him from doing a lot of things that he wanted to do, because in his mind their importance was magnified to a large degree. Once he realized that this limitation was self-imposed he was able to do work to move beyond it. Likewise, “Mode One” talks about how most men default to either “Mode Two” communication or “Mode Three” communication as a form of saving their ego based in fear. To be a little crass, a man communicating in “Mode Two” will show a woman his dick but not until he is convinced that she wants to see it, a Man communicating in Mode 3 will not show a woman his dick until she explicitly asks. At their core, both these problems stem from flawed syllogism within one’s own mind that I suspect is largely subconscious:

Major Premise: To get X, [insert] must be Y

Minor Premise: [Insert] not Y

Conclusion: Therefore [Insert] cannot get X

I formulated this syllogism in a neutral form because I think it’s applicable in many areas. The engineer entrepreneur thinks:

Major Premise: To get success [the product] must be perfect

Minor Premise: [The Product] is not perfect

Conclusion: Therefore [the product] cannot get successful

The engineer’s dilemma reminds me of when I was doing some home renovation a while ago, after completing the work, I stood back, looked at what I had built. I saw every single mistake I had made and every single flaw. The moulding was off by a little bit under the ceiling, the nail marks from putting it up were really obvious, where I’d used spackle to cover up the nails there was a slight color difference with the paint, some of the floorboards had moved a little bit after being put in, and a ton of others. A couple of years later, I don’t really notice those flaws anymore.

The major difference between the salesman and the engineer is that they are both avoiding having to do something they dislike, but they also want to avoid different forms of criticism. The salesman wants to avoid being criticized for not getting his product sold, because his identity is tied up in being a salesman. The engineer wants to avoid being criticized for building a bad product, because his identity is tied up in being an engineer. Both of them forget that most people aren’t salesmen or engineers and will not be able to tell the real difference.

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Read the full essay here: https://blacklabellogic.com/2018/08/31/the-engineers-dilemma/