The experiment seems flawed. It seems, at least to me, that desperation would tie in to success through simple things like the ol', "I've got nothing to lose". Someone who is desperate is, basically by definition, someone who will do just about anything to secure X.
It doesn't seem like you can produce these behaviors in yourself with a few self-imposed "ground rules". Heck, "self-imposed rules" and "desperate" are almost mutually exclusive.
Desperation doesn't mean being unable to hang out with friends and share beers. It means paying for gas to return home with pocket change - because you have no money and no credit anymore. And considering selling said car - which wouldn't even be enough to offset the debts. And not being sure if you will even have food in a month without having to borrow money from friends.
And even after the money starts flowing again, you don't hang out with friends until the debt is paid for.
However, this is a partial experiment and might provide the necessary incentive to launch something. But it is an experiment, not the real thing. Might be useful as a vocational exercise.
Yeah, the definition of desperation seems a little odd to me. When I was doing my startup, having money to hang out with friends was a non-issue, because I had no friends.
(FWIW, I've done an experiment on myself similar to this but more extreme: I forbid myself from having a social or romantic life while working on my startup, so that I was doing basically nothing except working and reading startup blogs. My results were that I made myself hella insecure, nearly drove myself crazy, and my startup failed anyway. But I did learn a lot about myself and what I wanted, did some cool side projects, and improved my programming chops enough to get into Google, so it wasn't a total loss.
Even that I wouldn't really equate with being "desperate", which I usually equate with not knowing whether you'll have food or a roof over your head at the end of the week.)
If I wasn't there, I was certainly close while I was in school. I remember how embarrassed I was to have to pawn the tv my mother got me for Christmas, when it was the last thing in the apartment I thought I could get something for.
I agree. I admit that the experiment is completely flawed and any sort of data will be completely subjective. Also, I want to be on record that there are a lot of people out there who are living truly desperate lives and I don't mean to undercut them in any way.
A better experiment would be to kill someone's family and steal all their money. It is hard to self experiment with desperation. I guess you could shoot some meth and let that snowball...
It doesn't seem like you can produce these behaviors in yourself with a few self-imposed "ground rules". Heck, "self-imposed rules" and "desperate" are almost mutually exclusive.