DEAR ENTREPRENEUR

This is your story.  

I want to tell your story through the lens of the Hero's Journey. 

• The lonely hero who is trying to find themselves. 
• A sudden and unexpected journey.  A promising adventure and peril. 
• A test of character, strength, and skill. An ultimate battle that tests the hero’s resolve. 
• A triumphant return home.

Picture yourself as the Hero. Find a quiet place and read this out loud to yourself. 

After you do that, please comment below.  Tell me how this made you feel .

DEAR ENTREPRENEUR,

Heroes, like you are introduced from the ordinary world, where You received the call to adventure

How did you find this business? Or did this business find you? Did you ever imagine you would be where you are today?

You were reluctant at first or maybe you even refused the call, but you were encouraged by a mentor to cross the threshold.

You are here because you know you are different. 

Sometimes you may feel alone because you go where others are afraid to go.  It can be a lonely road.

Someone encouraged you along the way. Certain people saw your gifts.

Who are the mentors that have appeared in your life? 

When the student is ready, the teacher shows up. 

THE SPECIAL WORLD

You enter the special world where you encounter tests, allies, and enemies

You start a side hustle, you start a business, maybe you start your ability to be an influencer or you start a real life organization. 

However, owners and founders at the infancy stage of a new endeavor,  are incredibly vulnerable. 

Many may promise the money or support, or the ability to sell your ideas.

Because the Hero is vulnerable, you cannot discern the difference between a friend and an enemy.

You battle all the outside forces:  cash flow people, opinions, health, crisis, time, doubt, and uncertainty to get your Enterprise off the ground. 

You believe the enemy is outside yourself and you fight to win with all your power.  You lose the battle.  Or many battles.

Do not give up.  

THE ENEMY IS WITHIN

Like a bolt of lightning, you are stunned to discover that the enemy is not outside, but rests within.

You discover that you believed that who you were, was not enough.

You confront that part of you that you avoided looking at for most of your life. 

You confront your innermost demons. Your abilities, your worthiness, your intelligence, even your sanity. 

Illusions, temptations, other people, world events, new situations, health breakdowns, business breakdowns, and unexpected crises rise up to pull you in a million different directions.

It is here, inside yourself, you meet the Guides that will give you self reflection and determine your worthiness to endure the Ordeal.

Here is how you know you are here.  If people are saying good things about you, you previously didn’t believe, the Guides have arrived.

THE TRANSFORMATION  

You experience a RESURRECTION, a TRANSFORMATION, a METAMORPHOSIS and become changed by the experience. like a chrysalis, you emerge from your cocoon.  

During this time, you may face your own mortality. 

You’ve decided to be ALIVE.  

You are enough.  

Now you must kill your old identity so a new one can be born.

Be more of who you are and less of who you’ve been trying to become. 

You endure the SUPREME ORDEAL and you RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR, your TRUE GIFTs, to benefit the Ordinary World.

You are pursued on THE ROAD BACK to the Ordinary World by the same demons. But they no longer have any power. 

You the Hero, begin to feel a steady, daily glow from harnessing the power of your TRUE SELF.

You have merged your ORDINARY SELF with the HERO you've been trying to become. 

Perhaps it’s breaking the pattern of an old story that has consumed you for your entire life.  Perhaps you realize you have settled in your relationships. 

This battle is for much more than your life. Other lives, (like the HERO’S family, friends or cohorts) may be at stake and you must now prove that you have achieved Heroic status.

Other Allies may come to you at-the last minute to lend assistance, 

In the end it is only You that can rise to the sacrifice at hand.

Have you transformed yourself and achieved what you thought was impossible?

Yes you have.  The impossible just takes a little bit longer. 

Your voice becomes viral. Your business takes off. There are strong sales and cash flow. 

You have evolved and who you are benefits everyone that knows you or will know you in the future.  

Now you have the ability to grant everyone you touch, greater awareness of themselves and the world.

You make a difference.  You matter. You touch the lives of everyone you meet.  

It wasn’t just a dream. It is real.  

Leave a Legacy. Put yourself out there.   

Share your journey with others so they can see they are not alone.  

Pay it forward. 

Welcome home.

******

“It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.


I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.


I want to know what sustains you from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.”

With permission from Oriah.  Thank you.

© Mountaindreaming, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999