I was a young teenager when I became attached to the idea that I would someday own a business. I didn’t have a clue what it would be but being in business for myself became the goal.
Finally, some 25 years later, I started a wholesale plant brokerage company. It felt, for a minute, as though I had arrived. However, I soon realized something was missing. I expected to feel accomplished, fulfilled, and as one who had arrived. But the opposite was true. It was unfulfilling, and I felt empty. Something was missing, and I didn’t know what it was. It turns out, it was me.
Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was missing. I felt almost immediately that I was simply playing the role of “business owner.” I had spent my life to that point working toward something that I thought would provide status, prestige, and happiness. But upon arrival, my “true self” (as written about by Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, and others) had something to say about it. It just wasn’t me. Not that business anyway.
The reasons for starting a specific business or working at a particular company are many. But too seldom it is in response to our inner wisdom. Most people have simply not learned to attune to that still, small voice inside of us that is always there giving us hints and whispers that show us our way.
One of the main culprits for this lack of attunement is that we begin our professional lives at a young age when we’re primarily concerned with the bottom four layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Our needs on these bottom four layers are primarily met by looking externally. We begin working at the company that will hire us. Or we start a business that provides a product or service that we are willing to do and know how to provide. We have families to care for, college debts, and a mortgage, all of which need our attention. And so, we build our lives by looking outward and accepting what comes or following the path of least resistance. We believe that the solutions (and problems) are “out there.” We are stuck in, what Psychologist, Harvard professor, and author, Robert Kegan calls the “socialized mind” where we live our lives largely reacting to our external world and becoming what we believe our communities and culture are telling us is valued.
The good news is that we don’t stay young forever. And with age, we sometimes mature and gain new perspectives. For some, the inner voice becomes more insistent as we age into our thirties, forties, or fifties. It may not be clear what it’s telling us, but it shows up as a restlessness, ambition, a soul-level yearning, or the sense that something in our work or business is missing.
If this is happening for you, receive it warmly as you would a friend. Then get curious and listen closely. Journal your thoughts without filtering and process what you’re experiencing with a trusted mentor or coach, but also trust yourself with what you’re hearing. It’s valuable information. And it’s for you, pointing you toward a life aligned with your true self.
Postscript:
The journey toward your true self is not often quick or easy. It took me 10 more years after closing my first business before I started to see, dimly at first, but with increasing clarity over the next five years, what an aligned life might look like in the next season of my life. If any part of this resonates with you, and you’d like to share your journey with someone, please connect. You have an important story, and I welcome the opportunity to listen.