The Pygmalion Effect and the Psychology of Founder Growth

The person holding you back isn't your competitor.
(Or even your ex...)

It's you.

I watch this play out with founders constantly.
(And I won't lie and act like I haven't myself.)

People sitting way below their own ceiling because nobody's ever treated them like they belonged higher up.

There's a psychology term for this.
The Pygmalion effect.

When someone expects more from you, you start performing like it's already true.

Teachers who expected more from certain students back in the 1960s got more from them, even though nothing else had changed.

Founders work the same way.

The founders who scale fastest got put in rooms 2 levels above where they'd have put themselves.

Someone believed they belonged there before they did.

And this can look totally different for anyone, at any stage:

A friend calls out a skill you never realized you had.
An investor hands you more responsibility than you asked for.
A mentor introduces you as who you're becoming, instead of who you currently are.

None of that happens by accident.

Someone in the room decided you were capable of more than you'd decided for yourself.

You can't see your own ceiling.
That's just how it works.

So look at who's in your corner right now.

Are they people who've known you forever, or people who see where you're headed?

♻️ Repost this for the person who needs to hear it.
And follow me, Jacob Rokeach, for more on how founders build without burning out.

Shout out Rohan Sheth for the visual 🤣