The Hero's First Step: Embracing the Courage to Launch Your Business
Leaving home is the most heroic step in the hero's journey, a framework conceived and popularized by Joseph Campbell in the 1940's. The protagonist's adventure embraces the following steps:
The call to adventure
Refusal of the call
Meeting a mentor
Crossing the threshold, tests with allies, enemies, and mentors
Approaching the innermost cave
The ordeal
The rewards
The road back
The reward
These steps describe the journey, whether you are leaving home to embark on a personal journey of internal discovery adventure or leading the way in a new business venture.
To start a new entrepreneurial effort, you confront the unknown, risk failure, and depend on personal growth and attributes that are not yet part of or strength in your identity.
Confronting the unknown for a small business owner can mean venturing into new and unfamiliar markets, changing successful traditional business practices, or adopting new technologies. These decisions might be made with ample market data and research, yet taking that first step from vision to reach a tangible reality evokes courage, commitment, faith in yourself, and likely a higher power.
I look at the handful of family businesses and see that my great-grandfather had faith in his vision for building a wool and fur trading business in Dodge City in the Wild West. My other great-grandfather had faith and courage as he left his home country in Eastern Europe and eventually set up a fruit stand in Los Angeles. I appreciate that my father saw computers as a cornerstone of progress in the U.S. and set up a data processing service bureau in the 1950s.
Regardless of their humble or meteoric successes, they all dared to embrace the unknown and move forward. Their motivators differed, from a sense of adventure and unlimited possibility to a need to support a family in a new country to a leading-edge generational shared vision. Each had a different measure of success and imparted a family legacy of courage to face the unknown and follow their dream.
Risking failure means you may fail, fall, and lose your way more than once. Entering a new market requires adapting to unfamiliar territory and adopting new technologies. These decisions might be made with ample market data and research, yet taking that first step from vision to reach a tangible reality evokes courage, commitment, and faith in yourself.
You can start an architectural firm based on your expertise in long-term steady markets such as medical office buildings, schools, or housing, and due to economic factors, those markets might dry up. Your company may need to take on remodels or building life safety work to keep afloat. Building a referral-based business takes years rather than a year, and you need to pivot to learn and use social media to gain customers. Planning for success is one aspect of your business, and identifying the risks and risk mitigation are essential to grow your business.
Starting a new business is a risk. Embracing those risks and developing short-term and long-term plans to deal with them is necessary and courageous. You will find yourself in unknown situations and dynamics and dig deep to drive your business forward. It is a courageous acknowledgment of wanting your business to succeed and personal growth.
Personal growth is assured for anyone starting a business. In the context of the hero's journey, with each obstacle encountered, the hero digs deeper into themselves to face the trials, learn from their mentors, and grow beyond who they were when they started. Taking the first step takes courage. You will not know who you will be at the end of your journey, yet you are willing to follow a vision and grow and change along the journey.
My great-grandfather started his wool and fur trading business out of love and obligation to his family. Over the years, his family expanded to include his suppliers, such as sheep herders, distributors, banks and financial partners, and colleagues worldwide. He could not have known all his shoulders could carry when he and his brother Ben made some of their early deals for pennies for the wool they procured. He embraced those changes and became a man beyond what he could have imagined.
The willingness to grow personally may differ from what you hold onto as you start your business journey. Whatever your reasons for starting your business, at some level, you understand you are vulnerable to change and are willing to embrace that personal change.
As an entrepreneur, you are leaving home, taking risks, and putting yourself on the line without guaranteeing success. You know there may be loss or failure, yet the spirit of figuring it out and keeping going is the most courageous step of the hero's journey in business. Nothing is known; everything is at stake, and the excitement of adventure and success entices us as entrepreneurs.