Security and ENTREPRENEURIALISM
Being an entrepreneur can be a very scary thing.
I entered the workforce when I was 12 - the second son of two teachers, I had a knack for teaching, and became a babysitter for family friends. I was physically energetic, and hard working (my Dad taught me that whenever a chore was done, you looked for the next thing that needed doing) - and so I also started working for local farmers. In the spring, after the thaw, I could be found walking behind a tractor which pulled a flat bed trailer as I and other kids picked the rocks (and sometimes BIG rocks) from the field. In that part of the country, the frozen and thawing ground drove rocks (‘field stones’) to the surface, and they needed to be removed before the spring tiling or planting could be done. This was dirty, backbreaking labour. In the autumn, it was riding on the trailer, catching hay bales and stacking them, and then repeating this to get them into the haylofts above the barn (itchy sweaty work).
All of this was, what I thought, ‘good work’. I felt tired, but also felt accomplished and appreciated at the end of the day. It was exciting to have the freedom that money provided, and the knowledge that if there was more to be done, I could work more, and earn more, and enjoy the benefits that this provided.
From those early manual labour gig-jobs, I went to more secure and regular employment at the local gas station (at the time all gas stations were 'full-service' which meant, as a 16 year old, I was washing windows, pumping gas, putting air in tires, checking the oil and washer fluids, etc...) - and from there I also picked up a job at the local grocery store stocking shelves, and bagging groceries, carrying groceries out to peoples cars for them. Rain, sleet, snow, or shine, as all grocery stores at the time were full-service too.
Yet I knew that not all work was this way. I dreamed of moving from hourly wage to salaried positions. In my mind, getting paid (regardless of how much) regularly, each week or fortnight, not having to clock my hours… it meant, to me, that I had ‘made it’. I was an ‘adult’. And when I achieved this in my early twenties, it did feel, at least for a while, as though I was 'trusted' to genuinely work for the good of the company/mission, and I did.
The next 3 decades of my working life were in a variety of salaried positions from not-for-profit, for-profit, and public sector organisations. In the first 2 decades of these, this need for security arose again, but this time it didn't manifest as a desire for a 'steady pay check' (I had that, albeit a small one). It arose in the security that came through my wanting to improve the financial position of myself, and then, when I had one, my family. I started to find roles that I could do, building on my past roles, but roles that would pay me more money to enable me to afford a home (rental, then purchase), a more reliable vehicle, and the celebrations of life I wanted to share with my children and community.
Yet as I progressed with this, things started to shift again. In the last decade of my pre-entrepreneur life, I was not motivated to do better financially. I was happy with the compensation that the mid-level management role in the Public Service gave me. However I was seeing that security for my children was reliant on the environment that they were going to be entering into. This meant that I needed to leave the comfort of the known roles I was in, and seek out roles that would enable me to work on the systems around me that needed attention. The ‘security’ I sought at that stage of my career was to expand my work to influence areas that would have larger impacts. But as a single individual, I felt I needed to be strategic if I was going to help the world improve. I sought out roles that had the 'multiplier effect', influencing others to do Good too.
Yet anytime someone seeks to exchange a ‘secure’ and ‘known’ identity for one that works for something larger than a pay check… tensions emerge. Relationships change. It becomes increasingly harder and harder to show up wearing an identity that is no longer fit for the size of the Good you want to do in the world. It becomes harder to fit into the ‘transactional roles’ that people expect from you, when you know you have already changed and now need more if you are to have that sense of ‘thriving’ and of being alive.
For me, a number of factors aligned which, regardless of my ‘readiness’, I needed to officially begin the next stage of my career, and my life. So while I had started to plan the next stage of this, in January of 2022, I ‘took the leap’. I quit paid employment to start a values driven entrepreneurial venture, which was Insightful Path.
While the above writing is about ‘security’ and an ‘entrepreneurial life’, this is but one of the many lenses through which to look at that journey to becoming a founder of an entrepreneurial venture.
This idea - of looking at your own experience through different lenses is an important one. One of the skills I’ve learned along the way that has helped me stay motivated as I face the many challenges of this life, is the power of the narrative.
By examining, and connecting with the Good within my experience, I have been able to connect with a resilience that has enabled me many opportunities.
I hope that this idea can resonate with your own path. If you are creating your passion project, and are feeling ‘lost in the woods’… why don’t you connect with me? My raison d’être is to use what I’ve learned to help others be their best selves. I hope to help you find, and travel your own Insightful Path too!
The photo at the start of this post is an ‘ex libris’ (from the library of) stamp, that I created in my wood shop for the hundreds (if not thousands) of books that I read, process, and distil in order to help me help you on the Insightful Path.
I look forward to talking with you about your path of insight when you make contact.
