The Rise of the Entrepreneur

Starting your own business mimics the characteristics of the ancient mythological creature, the phoenix. The long-lived phoenix, goes through a transformative death, being completely burned to the ground only to rise from the ashes anew. From the ashes it becomes a new version of itself.

Historically, the symbolism of the phoenix is that of consecration, resurrection or life in paradise, essentially pointing to a deep freedom from within. As every part of the old self is burned to the ground, the phoenix utilizes the ashes from its former life to rise into a renewed form of self. A similar pattern transpires for entrepreneurs. As an entrepreneur you must take a leap into an unknown world. You must execute the transition in order to grow into your new form. Without the leap, without the rise, you stagnate.

Business owners are special people; they consciously take the risk to be more alive. They are “coming out” into a new layer of fullness. It’s critical that they come out as their new self, rising from the ashes of their corporate background, their unmanageable schedules and/or their perceptions that no longer serve them. Whatever was burned away as they moved toward their transformation must remain in the past.

I don’t mean to suggest a perfectionistic ideology, rather that, you will begin to recognize old patterns and old coping mechanisms that require new perspective. As a business owner you are opening up to an entirely new world. New ways of being are demanded of you. When you rise, you are exposed to new challenges, old challenges, and a plethora of decisions to make.

So what does this new world look like? Who are you?

Your business is you.

While I advocate for healthy boundaries between your personal life and your business, there is no denying that your business functions the way that you function. If you hide from yourself, you hide from your business. If you struggle with integrity within yourself, you struggle with integrity within your business. Anything you run away from within yourself, you run away from in your business.

This is the challenge of leadership, in general, with the major difference being that there is no buffer between you and your client as an entrepreneur. Not at first. You are the product. Even if you are a software developer, you are still the person selling your product, your business and therefore a good portion of your identity is inextricably linked to that.

In contrast, when you are selling a product in the corporate world, you are disconnected from most of the process. There are teams of people focusing specifically on concept development and other teams focusing on estimating profitability. At each stage of the way, the product is brought to completion by many hands. You can see that the responsibility of one versus many could put a whole new spin on the vulnerability of the business owner. The business owner is all those things, not just one department.

The Struggle with Integrity

One of the biggest struggles I see my clients face, is tied to their connection with integrity. There is both an external and internal component to integrity. The external piece is being honest to others and expressing your personal values to the people you come in contact with, essentially doing what you say you’re going to do. The internal piece is the state of being whole and undivided. This addresses a deeper component to integrity, which is self-integrity, where the individual is unwavering in their own cause or beliefs that they don’t compromise their personhood for the sake of the client.

While the internal and external components of integrity are married to one another, it’s important to make this distinction because the fall out of integrity suffers when the individual attempts to be externally integrous while their inner world of integrity suffers. In other words, the heart of what it means to be integrous comes from your internal framework of how to be honest, not only with yourself but with others as well. If you lose sight of your own personal goals and desires to please others, then your integrity is compromised. Your clients may be ecstatic about the incredible service that your company provides but it’s at the expense of your personal integrity.

This plays out in a myriad of ways in your business. For example, saying yes to too many project. You are eager to please (as most business owners are!) and within that you compromise your own needs. You drop everything for a client but you will not show yourself the same level of respect when you need time for yourself.

There are layers to this. It could be a fear of turning down revenue, saying yes without thinking about the implications of your decision or just simply saying yes to your client because you haven’t been able to commit to the time-blocks for yourself.

Before you start analyzing this, please understand that this is more common than not. There is no need to beat yourself up. The first requirement for moving toward change is awareness of a situation.

Goodbye to old patterns

The patterns that you live out in your life inevitably play out in your business. A big part of your “coming out” as an entrepreneur involves you developing new ways of being. In order for your business to thrive, it’s important for you to adapt without compromising your personal integrity.

Recalling the phoenix, it’s critical for you to consider that you are stepping into new territory. New territory presupposes new experiences. New, as in, you likely don’t know how things will go or who you will become in these situations. Be easy on yourself as you discover what is working and what is not. It can be challenging to decipher straight away.

When you are bombarded by new tasks, new ideas and new methodologies, it’s easy to feel scattered and unsure of yourself. That’s when going internal is so important. Though things can get blurry at times, you always have yourself to go back to, to check in and see what needs to be tweaked.

Moving forward, I recommend scheduling personal time on your calendar. Maybe that’s one day a week that you let yourself be free from the business. Or perhaps you want to block out short bursts of time during the week to let yourself think. Start small. Start with what works but make sure you actually give yourself the time.