The Hero’s Journey of Entrepreneurship: From Perfection to Progress

I was told by my friend, Timo, to build a business 2 years ago. For a perfectionist polymath like myself, this was too bold of a request. I felt I wasn't good enough for this step but my judgment was based on ignorance of myself, what a business is and what people want. Let me explain those points one by one.

Ignorance of Myself

First, I was ignorant of myself because how can one know himself other than in interacting with other human beings? I was judging myself based on my idea of myself without taking into account what genuine people think of me.

For instance, the trial handstand session I made for the gym I will be a coach in, it took me like 30 minutes or less to prepare for it. I even had to improvise a lot because the attendants were all athletes, not beginners as I assumed. I assumed it didn't go well because I never did anything crazy or fancy. Yet, every single one of them LOVED it.

They even said that in the comments they have always been looking for such course. So, my judgement of myself.. I am tempted to say it is a seeking of perfection, but I'd rather say it is a seeking for beauty. Beauty is an ideal that deeply inspires me in art, literature, poetry, architecture and nature.

Ignorance of Business

I was ignorant of what a business is as I assumed it requires a different personality, lot of money, paper work, and I was more interested in being legal than pursuing something great.

How would a guy who was running through random falling bullets, missiles and their shells in the air now operate a business? My nervous system was irregulated, and still is when I hear a loud noise or see a mass of people, I only recall images and sounds of bombing.

Also, I was driven by my survival instinct. Who wants to go back to the Middle East to become a cheap victim on the front line, or worse now living with the head of Qaeda?

It takes a tremendous amount of courage, sanity and clarity of thought to get oneself out of their imposed identity to believe enough to define a new one, especially when this identity is completely foreign to the culture and society one comes from.

But I learned that business is simply providing value and knowing how to communicate it. If you're working somewhere, you're already doing that: providing value and communicating it to the manager. The only difference is that the clients are contacting the company you work at instead of contacting you. So, you can take your same knowledge, skills and experience and provide it for a fee for someone else. It is simply an exchange of value, nothing fancy.

Does that mean you're gonna generate as much profit. No, not necessarily. But do you actually need to?

Ignorance of What People Need

My wrong perception of what people want.. it's already discussed above, but basically people don't want to deal with brands and logos. I am sick of this, you're sick of this and so is everyone else. People want to deal with people. The human element is irreplaceable, especially with the age of AI and AI slop.

To put it shortly, I learned that I don't need fancy titles or tags. By simply being myself I can live a simple, satisfying and fulfilling life. I learned that the Hero I read about in Campbell's lines is he who confronts horrible chaos and transforms it like a skilled alchemist to blooming order.

"...he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if once he saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing." -Carl G. Jung, Collected Works Vol.14