Spirituality in Entrepreneurship: 1: Identity Crisis

I’ve pondered upon calling myself an entrepreneur. Fortunately all the yoga and meditation practices have not only kept me sane during my years of “entrepreneurial endeavour” but also kept my ego in check, so I’ve been calling myself unemployed instead.

At least that description is factually impeccable.

Many “true” entrepreneurs complain that nowadays anyone and everyone are calling themselves an entrepreneur. Frankly I could not care less about upholding the prestige (if any) that supposedly comes with the title. But if like me, you were (or are) tempted to identify yourself as an entrepreneur, read this cautionary tale before you make your decision.

i·den·ti·ty cri·sis

/īˈden(t)ədē ˌkrīsis/ (noun)

a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person’s sense of identity becomes insecure, typically due to a change in their expected aims or role in society.

For me it has been four years, and counting, of uncertainty and confusion. My sense of identity became insecure ever since I quit being a solicitor. Like most corporate escapees I declared I needed to find my purpose. Screw this identity that conforms with societal expectations, I was going to live my life on my own terms! So I immersed myself in a brave new world that seemingly has no map or even clear roads for that matter.

I navigated through Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad “financial education program” and learned to despise (not exaggerating) earning a salary while favouring passive and portfolio income. Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week certainly sounded way better than my 80-hour work week as a lawyer. I learned about ideal client avatar, creating websites, email marketing, and facebook ads. I created my first “business” that never made any money. Nonetheless I was living the life working only remotely either at my “hot desk” at a hipster co-working space or on a beach in Bali sipping on a coconut.

I mingled with Chris Guillebeau type entrepreneurs and learned new words such as bootstrapping and digital nomads, joined The Startup Weekend and came out with a business model for my second venture, worked and eventually killed my second venture during a Master’s degree on entrepreneurship at the University of Washington.

After four years of identity crisis I can say this with 100% confidence: “entrepreneur” is the most blindly used word with the least consensus on what it means.

While leaving my legal career shaken my sense of identity, it was the thought that I might be an entrepreneur (and on and off being referred to as an entrepreneur) that really created my identity crisis. Identity is our sense of self. Some people have a strong understanding of who they are from within, while others like myself rely more on external feedback and reaction to build up our sense of self. I would prefer to be in the former group but it is what it is. So being clear on what entrepreneur means was important for me for two reasons:

First and foremost — clarity on how I define me— so that I am not hiding behind some unauthentic label pretending to be someone I am not.

Secondly— it is helpful to understand how others may perceive what I am or what I am seeking to achieve if I choose to call myself an entrepreneur. Mismanaging others’ expectations may create external pressure on you to detour from your authentic self and you have nobody else to blame but yourself when that happens. And yes, that was totally what happened to me.

What is an Entrepreneur? (I)

Since nobody can agree on what entrepreneurship or entrepreneur mean, let’s look at a few different takes on it.

This is the most classic academia definition, used by Harvard Business School and the like: entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled.

Breaking it down intuitively:

• pursuit implies quest for something and taking action
• opportunity implies novelty and possibility
• beyond resources controlled implies not letting current circumstances limit your dream and imagination

Sure, I am a sucker for all of the above. Maybe I am an entrepreneur.

With this definition, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa are certainly entrepreneurs. So are non-profits founders such as Premal Shah who created Kiva to alleviate poverty through innovative crowdfunded micro-lendings. And who is to say J.K. Rowling is not an entrepreneur? She pursued the idea of Harry Potter and turned it into reality while being a single mom on state benefits.

All of them pursued something novel —they pushed boundaries and changed the rules of the game, created something completely new and original, disrupted industries if not the entire world, shifted cultures and mindsets — beyond the resources they had and against all odds.

I certainly aspire to be all that and have been undertaking many such projects (although with much humbler impact) over the years. So identifying myself as an entrepreneur seems right.

Above all I love the very original definition of the word, which is a French word coined by the economist Jean-Baptiste Say, and is usually translated as “adventurer.”

What is an Entrepreneur? (II)

So maybe I got some clarity on how I define me. Much confusion (and frustration) cropped up, however, when others think that I am identifying myself as an entrepreneur.

Apparently I must want to get venture capital funding some day, I must want an exit through IPO or being acquired, I must want to be a founder/CEO and of course, a unicorn.

If you only read about entrepreneurship from Techcrunch and the like, then apparently this is what makes you an entrepreneur: you are hardwired to want to grow as fast as possible, scale as big as possible, raise as much (fund) as possible.

Faster, bigger, richer. Exit. And repeat.

For quite some time I thought there was something wrong with me. Because, with all due respect, that sounds like hell.

I. Do. Not. Want. Any. Of. These.

Interestingly, in the Chinese translation of the word “entrepreneur”, it is literally “enterprise-r”. So an entrepreneur is simply a person who builds an enterprise. Guess it has adopted Silicon Valley’s interpretation of the word.

I have to say I like the original French word “adventurer” better.

Still Calling Yourself an Entrepreneur?

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing “wrong” if you are actually hardwired to want to build an enterprise, go after big market opportunities, grow your company and make your mark in history.

If that is you, sure, go do that!

But if any such “entrepreneur” (narrowly defined) thinks that makes him or her somehow “better” than a small business owner, freelancer, employee, self-employed person or anyone else for that matter, then I call bullshit. There is no inherent moral high ground or social superiority that comes with being an entrepreneur, whether you define it broadly or narrowly (and most certainly not if you define it narrowly.)

Whatever you choose to identify yourself with, the most important thing is not to let how others define that identity distort who you really are.

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Previously in this series: Read the up close and personal Prologue that inspired this series and find out why is spirituality (self-awareness, love and oneness) relevant in the pursuit of entrepreneurship in Introduction.

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