One of the recent books we rapped through Book Rapper was Power Stories by Valerie Khoo. We reviewed this book here. Power Stories contains guidelines for you to create eight important stories for your business. Epic stories equals epic business.
One of the eight business stories to write is your entrepreneur’s journey. Essentially, it’s centres around Joseph Campbell’s well-known Hero Journey. You might recognize it in the first of the Stars Wars movies where Luke is called to act, faces some obstacles, makes it work to receive a reward, faces more obstacles until a final victory is achieved.
To write your Entrepreneur’s Journey story, start with this question:
What was the spark or reason you started your business?
The aim is to dig around your calling. The best way to look at this is to consider some of the key turning points in your life and your career. Inside these moments of decisive change you will put the spotlight on your values and what’s important to you.
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Here is one the couple of the key moments in my life and career that point to my calling in life.
My first career was as an architect. During my student days I had a clear vision for my future running an architectural practice with a room full of architects working on drawing boards. This was clearly in the days before computers had taken over and, yes, I’m that old…
During my fourth year of my undergraduate degree I saw a video about the emerging use of computers in architecture, engineering and manufacturing. And, almost as soon as I saw this video, I realized my future vision had shattered into little pieces. It was clear that computers were going to replace drawing boards and my future was not what I thought it was going to be.
For a few weeks after I was deeply disappointed and probably not the best person to be around. I wished it wasn’t so. And, I soon had to admit that the world was bigger than me and this change was going to happen regardless of what I had been hoping for.
I then said something prophetic for me that set me on my path:
If computers are my future then I had better find out what they are all about.
In saying this to myself I made a personal declaration about my future intent and started to reveal my calling.
Since this moment, I have recast this into my first personal experience with disruptive technology. Computers effectively disrupted my future forcing me to pursue my objectives in fresh ways. This was the spark that started the journey I am now on.
QUESTION: What is your calling? What is the spark that started your entrepreneurial journey?
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