Good Life Project - Entrepreneurship: Delusional Quest or Daily Practice?

Episode Date: August 13, 2015

What if entrepreneurship wasn't just about what you create, but who you become along the way?Most people look at entrepreneurship as a quest, a desire to create something from nothing. The goal, to get to a substantial, viable, impact and revenue generating place as fast as humanly possible.Problem is, with rare exception, the path to success in the world of entrepreneurial dream manifestation just doesn't work that way.On a daily basis, the life of the entrepreneur ranges from intentional meandering, testing and "pivoting" to violent, non-stop jags, head-spinning problem-solving and night-sweats. And that's when things are going well!If your goal is simply to get swiftly to the end-state, you are going to suffer more than needed. You are also going to miss a huge opportunity for grace and growth. And you will likely ignore many critical signposts and possibilities that would've made the experience profoundly different in a way that's better. For you and for what you're trying to create.What if you approached entrepreneurship not as a mad-dash, but a daily practice?How might that change both the way you experience it and your likelihood of success? That's what I'm talking about in today's Good Life Project Riff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's episode is brought to you by Camp GLP, which is short for Good Life Project. We have got an incredible group, more than 300 people coming from all around the world, from the US, Asia, Australia, Europe, South Africa. Really just a gorgeous collection, gathering of humanity to learn, to grow, to laugh, to play, have fun, amazing workshops, events, activities. And most importantly, we've got this incredible tribe where you can literally show up and nobody cares who you are, what you've done, how much you're making, what your title is. It's not about posturing and positioning. It's about just being you,

being human, and interacting around a shared set of fantastic values. So if that sounds amazing to you, if you'd love to be there, we do have a small number of spots left. This all goes down August 27th to August 30th, just about 90 minutes outside of New York City. You can check out all the details at goodlifeproject.com slash camp, or just take a look at the show notes in whatever app you're listening to, and you'll see that you can just click right through to get all the information there in the show notes. Thanks so much, and I hope to see you at camp. Today's Good Life Project riff is entitled Entrepreneurship as a Practice. So most people look at entrepreneurship as a project, as a venture, as a business,

as something to do. You start with an idea, then you turn it into something real. You build a business around it. You invest, you start with no resources, with very little, with just a simple concept and you hope and pray that you can build it into something really big, something that matters, something that makes a difference. And when you do, when you get there, all will be well with the world. In my mind though, that's the wrong approach. Because entrepreneurship in the wild, the truth of the life of an entrepreneur, it doesn't work that way. What really happens is you get an idea. It may have some nugget of viability. It may be something that you can actually build, but it also may not be.

So you dig deeper. You do a whole bunch of research. You talk to a ton of people. You know, you get, quote, out of the building and the lingo that's sort of consuming tech entrepreneurship these days. You go out and you flesh it out. You create prototypes. You create messaging. You create slide decks. You get feedback and you dirty test for interest and value. And you find out after all of that stuff, very often that concept, the idea, the messaging, the product, the solution, the size of the market, the need for the market, the pain, and your ability to solve it, that on many of the things, you are just dead wrong. So you start over, you come up with a new variation, and then you go through the whole process again, you refine it, and then you tweak

it, and then you put it into people's hands. And then you learn that it's even more off course than when you started. And you curse, and you kick kick and scream and then you fret and whine and run and meditate and breathe and sing and dance and then you whine some more. And then you try again. You circle back. And somewhere between iteration numbers three and 13,000, you either get proven so wrong that you realize the heart of the idea just doesn't have legs, or you get proven so right that everything starts to click. People show up, trade value for what you've created, and you start to build something

real. Until, of course, it all breaks again. Which it will, because even successful businesses and ideas outgrow the structure, the processes, the people who gave rise to them. Entrepreneurship is not a discrete event or even a project or a venture. Truth is, entrepreneurship is a practice just like life. One that occasionally yields mondo rewards early in the process, but far more often reveals the fruits of your labor in bits and pieces that add up to gorgeous awakenings, rewards, and impact only over time. One you commit to until you don't. And just like artists and athletes and any other person pursuing a level of mastery in any field, it's not so much the place that you're going to, but it's the practice that becomes

so critical. And that's something that a lot of people miss. Entrepreneurship, creating something from nothing, isn't just about moments of insight or killer technical skills. It's about building a level of progressive mastery over the very process, the practice of entrepreneurship, over your ability to plan but remain open to serendipity, to act without perfect information, to read social dynamics, and to move people, to harness resources, to think in ways others don't and see things nobody else sees.

Some of that comes naturally to some people, but most, if not all, is also trainable over time. If you're willing to invest the effort in building the practice, the practice of day-to-day entrepreneurship, and when you look at it that way, when you look at it as a practice, as a daily practice, something profound happens too. You become still motivated, still aspiring fiercely to create something at the end of it. But at the same time, you're getting your buckets filled. You're getting your juice. You're getting that life force. You're getting joy and glory and connection and vitality and deep sense of meaning and purpose every day along the way. So zoom the lens out a little bit here. Think of it less

as a quest to go from A to B. And think of your desire to build something from nothing as the simple act of a daily practice that builds over time and allows you to experience each day as its own piece of enjoyment and fulfillment and engagement and contact with what matters. When you do that, every day becomes your reward as always I hope you enjoyed this week's Good Life Project riff I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project Thank you.