Human Being — Human Doing
Dear Entrepreneur, You are your business… but do you know who you are?
I open every first coaching session with the question: who are you?
I’ve found powerful freedom within this question. When I ask it, I often see the person across from me do a tally in their minds of what seems relevant or professional to say. The job, the family structure, the years of experience, oh and don’t forget, the passion for changing the world. I empathize from across the seat because I know that if I answered that same question, it would sound a lot like this:
“My name is Kui. I love people and want them to thrive. I love a good love story. I’m a hugger whose love language is words of affirmation probably because a part of me wants to make sure I’m making an impact in others lives. I want to transform people’s lives and businesses and do it with care and hugs :)”
No part of me is ever looking for the well-rehearsed answer to that question. However, I do understand why it seems that way. We’ve gotten used to answering the question: what do you do and somehow believing that what we do and who we are are the same.
What do you do ? is a question that we all amour up for. It is where we feel the need to defend ourselves from public judgement and craft the image of success. The trap, however, is that the more things you do, the more you need to do. We get caught in this never-ending to-do list that not only stresses us out but makes it impossible to see what we already have at the moment. You become a human-doing, defined by the balls in the air, the long task list and the quantity of your output. The human-doing places you at the edge of inadequacy where you are just never enough.
At some point, I too had a serious look in the mirror and asked myself who I was. It had been fifteen years of just doing. In that time I had sold lingerie, sold leather products, sold leather finishing chemicals, managed the family business and ran my boutique hotel. It was hectic! In reflecting on my journey, I realized that I had spent a lot of time jumping into things to fill the space because the thought of not doing something was too frightening. What hurt the most, was the realization that none of the things I had done were even connected to my why. None of them reflected who I was!
The last few months have stripped away a lot of the layers. It is easier to see now that the things I thought defined me, maybe never did. This space forced me to understand what truly defined me.
Last week I stumbled upon this beautiful poem that put into words what I saw when I looked into the mirror. The last lines of the poem read: “For she was human doing, human moving, human seeing. But she’d never taken time to simply be a human being”. That line shook me because, in the gentlest way, it called out a truth I’d been running from.
The human doing is the hustler inside you, the one that is determined to find a way to survive. That’s the one that runs away from perceived failure and doesn’t allow you to deal. It tells you that there is no time to sit and reflect or feel any emotion. It convinces you that every decision is life or death. It creeps into your calendar until suddenly you have no space to explore your real why- your true meaning.
That’s where your human being comes in. This is the space for the dreamer in you. The one that seeks to do something different, to help people, to create, to spread joy and to solve a problem. That’s where your why lives, and that is your truest fuel.
Meeting the human being requires space — and silence — and truth. It requires deep reflection, and that is what I spent the better part of the past six months doing-being Kui, the human being.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much clarity figuring out yourself can give you even about your business and the work you do.
One of the primary realizations I had in figuring out Kui without the external titles was that my life mission was to coach entrepreneurs through their long, hard and lonely journeys of building a business. When I think back on it, it is the thing I did without any acclaim or without being asked. There was a reason I was so immersed in my husband’s journey building his company or advising my friends and family on their ventures. No one paid me for it, and no one demanded it, but I did it anyway. I did it because it was the thing that brought me joy. Over the last 3 years, I have felt the same sense of fulfillment committing deeply to my entrepreneur clients.
Now, well on my way to becoming a certified entrepreneur coach, I can feel the difference. This, unlike my other business ventures, is anchored on my why. As a result, every session I have or every entrepreneur I interact with and can help fuels me in a deep place. The act of being and letting go of the urge to simply do things gave me that peace and the freedom to find the work I love.
We’re all humans, trying to make a little difference in the world as we go along — trying to be more than we do.
