Personal Exceptionalism: why knowing you’re the exception to the rule matters

By Alice Bentinck, Cofounder & CEO at Entrepreneurs First

Over the last twelve years of supporting exceptional people to build companies at Entrepreneurs First, one trait has been consistently correlated with our most successful founders: Personal Exceptionalism.

What is Personal Exceptionalism?

Personal Exceptionalism is one of Michael Dearing’s Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done. He discusses this on the Twenty Minute VC podcast:

“Personal Exceptionalism means that they [founders] see themselves as special and their outcomes are going to be outside the bounds of normal.”

It’s the belief that you are not like other people. You are different and can achieve what others can’t.

It’s not arrogance or overconfidence. Many arrogant and overconfident individuals seem to lack Personal Exceptionalism. It’s a quiet belief that even if the world is falling around you, you will be the one who is ok.

In his piece How to be Successful, OpenAI founder Sam Altman says that you should “have almost too much self-belief”.

“Self-belief is immensely powerful. The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.”

Having high Personal Exceptionalism is not sufficient to become a world-class founder, but it is necessary.

Deciding to found a company is an irrational thing to do. The majority of founders will have a ‘bad’ outcome where their company fails. Being a founder is taking on a power law. Very few individuals succeed, but when they do succeed, they succeed to an insane degree.

You could say it’s like playing the lottery. But not all the lottery tickets in this gamble are made equal. High PE individuals believe that the odds of their lottery ticket are different. They believe they have improved odds of building a successful startup one day.

We see this at EF in the cohort members who aren’t focused on avoiding failure, but on realizing their potential.

Why does Personal Exceptionalism matter for a founder?

A Google of Personal Exceptionalism describes it as destructive; by believing you are different, you don’t fit in with normal life.

But, founders aren’t normal, they are the exceptions to the rule and often don’t fit in with normal life.

Personal Exceptionalism allows early-stage founders to:

1. Take on insane goals

This is the most important factor with Personal Exceptionalism. Individuals with high Personal Exceptionalism often overestimate their level of skill and expertise. They aren’t afraid to take on goals that do not match their level of experience.

A good example of this is Rob Bishop, CEO of Magic Pony Technology. When he was selling his company to Twitter, instead of following the norm of using a private bank to sell, he managed the entire process himself (age 25). It was unorthodox, but he secured a great outcome for MPT (a reported $150M exit). He then went on to found Macroscope, for which he’s recently raised $30M in a Series A, bringing the total raised to $40M.

2. Break the rules

Individuals with high Personal Exceptionalism believe rules are for other people. This could be social norms, legal requirements, or industry norms. What others see as breaking the rules, they see as lateral thinking. Their belief in their uniqueness means they aren’t constrained by barriers ‘made for other people’.

This is frustrating if you are the manager of someone with high Personal Exceptionalism. But, as an investor, this is exactly the kind of characteristic we are looking for.

For example, Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t put off building Facebook when Harvard shut down an early version because it violated university policy.

There are of course examples of where individuals with high PE take this too far in regulated industries, for example Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX and Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos.

3. Be resilient

As a founder, you are told “no” daily. My cofounder and I experienced this when first starting Entrepreneurs First. The ecosystem told us it was impossible to build startups from strangers who didn’t know each other. $13B of companies later, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

High Personal Exceptionalism individuals stick to their vision, even when critics tell them that their idea won’t work. No ideas are born great, but founders need to be sticky to a mission and vision to create greatness. This is easier as a high Personal Exceptionalism individual as you have an unshakable belief in your own ability.

4. Push themselves

One of our values at Entrepreneurs First is to “push yourself and others to greatness”. EF is there to help push individuals to outcomes they would never have achieved otherwise.

High Personal Exceptionalism individuals are likely to show dissatisfaction with how they are progressing. They are aware of the delta between their current performance and what they are capable of. Having high Personal Exceptionalism and a growth mindset is an unstoppable combination.

Many of the founders we work with at EF are from technical backgrounds who often haven’t done commercial work in the past. The best of these founders push themselves out of their comfort zone. They throw themselves into learning to sell for example, and use feedback to improve.

5. Upside thinking

When a new EF cohort starts, there will always be someone who asks the question “what can I do to avoid failure?”. This is often a clear signal this individual has low PE.

Low Personal Exceptionalism individuals spend much of their energy on avoiding failure, not on how to succeed. High Personal Exceptionalism individuals ‘know’ that they will succeed and so focus on how they will get there as fast as possible. Both are problem solving, but to achieve very different outcomes.

How do you get high Personal Exceptionalism?

Individuals develop high Personal Exceptionalism through repeatedly testing their ability and chances of success compared to others. They have gathered sufficient data to build the confidence that they can outperform on a given task. They then apply this confidence and self-belief to adjacent tasks.

Most will have been building their Personal Exceptionalism from a young age (they’ve outperformed every peer group they’ve ever been part of).

Some may build it as their career progresses. This often happens when they upgrade their peer group as they grow up (e.g., joining university, their first job) and use that moment to recalibrate themselves against the others. This is then used to inform their Personal Exceptionalism.

Of course, some people are just deluded. This is typically where they believe they have outperformed their peers in the past, but their peers are not sufficiently exceptional to justify their conclusion.

Personal Exceptionalism doesn’t guarantee success

Personal Exceptionalism isn’t a magic bullet. It’s necessary, but not sufficient to succeed.

Personal Exceptionalism also has some downsides. High Personal Exceptionalism individuals are not always easy to work with. They can seem irrational in their belief in themselves. They can appear to be slow to take on feedback as they’re more likely to filter the feedback for relevance to their particular situation.

A key lever for making Personal Exceptionalism a positive personality trait is to combine it with a growth mindset. Believing that you can have extraordinary outcomes, coupled with openness to learning and personal development, is a potent mix.

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