I don’t know a lot about church planters, but I do know a lot about startup founders and I overwhelmingly associate higher narcissism with longer hours and harder work.
There definitely is a category of lifestyle entrepreneur who wants to work as little as possible and is just hanging out for the image, but those people tend to be relatively non-neurotic social climbers who want to have a good time.
The real hardcore narcissists tend towards maximalism and masochism in their startups. They walk the halls whipping themselves so that others in the startup economy may admire how committed they are to the mission. Every project is as intense as they are, and must be executed as if its outcome has lasting consequences for the human race.
This kind of intensity has great ergonomics for narcissism—the pain and difficulty in conjunction with a great and important mission feeds the self-image of greatness in a way that a great and important mission alone does not.
I don’t know a lot about church planters, but I do know a lot about startup founders and I overwhelmingly associate higher narcissism with longer hours and harder work.
There definitely is a category of lifestyle entrepreneur who wants to work as little as possible and is just hanging out for the image, but those people tend to be relatively non-neurotic social climbers who want to have a good time.
The real hardcore narcissists tend towards maximalism and masochism in their startups. They walk the halls whipping themselves so that others in the startup economy may admire how committed they are to the mission. Every project is as intense as they are, and must be executed as if its outcome has lasting consequences for the human race.
This kind of intensity has great ergonomics for narcissism—the pain and difficulty in conjunction with a great and important mission feeds the self-image of greatness in a way that a great and important mission alone does not.