Ownership is a key factor for improving motivation in the workplace. If I had owned something, I’d care about it. A simple example can be seen with where one lives. The person who owns their apartment will care much more for its maintenance than the renter who knows this is a relationship that will end with minimal repercussions.

This obvious relationship is common in investing as many fundamentals-oriented investors prefer owner-operators. I personally will rarely invest in a company not run by a founder. There is also the caveat that the founder needs to have some level of ownership in the company. The higher the better. It’s simple alignment. I would rather invest in a company where the founder has more to lose with the business’ results than I do. The opposite is all the mercenary CEOs who get fat compensations and exit packages with minimal (if at all) amounts of their net worth tied to the actual business they are steering.

Such importance for ownership is also why equity is a big component for startups. How else would you entice smart people to join an endeavour that is statistically fated to fail? Sure there is the greater mission but we can’t kid ourselves that everyone is looking to optimize rewards for the risks they take.

Ownership can go further than literal equity ownership in a business but also the work one does. To have control, whether it’s one process or the full end-to-end, of a project or deliverable can create similar levels of responsibility and motivation to see it through. To persevere and want it to succeed. Without it, the work itself will lose all meaning because why have pride in something you don’t own? It’s stupid to expect otherwise.

But it struck me that taking ownership of the self isn’t as widely touted as an obvious course of action. Much like CEO equity ownership or ownership of work in company cultures, owning what the individual stands for is rarely spoken for.

It takes me back to common cases in university where during finals week, I’d be surrounded with peers who’d brag about how little they studied or how they were all going to fail. Most who screamed this the loudest all got an A or B (God forbid). I mean, I get it. Getting an A wasn’t ever celebrated much in my house either. It was the base standard.

But it made me wonder why must my peers send out such signals? What was the point? My first instinct back then was because they wanted to lower any guard and it was another form of lying to my face. Hence I regarded such people with contempt. However, I now wonder if it was their way of pushing ownership away from the situation. To not be responsible for the outcome and vocalizing their desire to not take any responsibility publicly. In a way tricking themselves so that all the hard work they put into studying didn’t feel like a mistake or failure on their part.

It reminds me of how Steven Pressfield distinguishes the difference between an amateur and pro in The War of Art:

"The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there 7 days a week. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time.”

It’s like the consultant who tells me they want to be an investor but they don’t invest their own money and maybe reads one annual report a month. Or the lawyer who spends the weekend doing a podcast. Or a creator who runs so many projects that all of them are side projects with no main project.

Much of what limits these individuals is the escape route they left themselves. A weekend podcast project has an excuse to be inconsistent and shitty. It has an out. Something to blame. Same for the person who runs a lot of projects. They all become hedges in the name of diversification because you don’t know what will work….but it ends up none of it works because of a lack of focus. You wouldn’t think an entrepreneur who runs two/three companies would be able to do a great job and that’s no different with the individual who is trying to do work they believe they should be doing.

I’m not saying everyone has to “burn their boats” and jump into things. It’s what I’ve tended to do and I don’t recommend it for most. Looking back, I think I would make transitions better for myself.

However, I’m writing this because even when I jump headfirst into my next adventure with no backup plans, I still find it a natural instinct to ward off full ownership of what I’m striving to do. Sometimes it’s because I don’t really know and exploring helps with the process but it’s also good to call the self out on "the shit”.

It takes work to take ownership of what one is truly seeking to achieve and I think the first step is to be aware of such behaviour. I imagine it’ll be a process for me. One that’ll require some patience.