Do you ever fantasize about ditching the corporate career and becoming an entrepreneur? Are you already an entrepreneur, fighting to survive and struggling with the question; what is it all for? The answers may be waiting for you in entrepreneur heaven.
A few years back, Mitch Albom wrote a touching and wildly successful book called The Five People You Meet in Heaven. The book follows an old man into heaven where he encounters five people from his life who each have a lesson to share, helping him finally understand the meaning of his life.
I spend 90% of my time working with and around entrepreneurs, many whose names you would know. Each of their journeys is utterly unique, and yet I consistently see the same set of characters appearing in their life stories.
Is there an entrepreneur heaven? And are there people there from your life here on earth that can help you understand the purpose of it all? Who knows. But if there is, here are five people you will likely meet:
The Advocate
The first person you meet in entrepreneurial heaven is an older, experienced and very successful individual who revealed for you a potential future for yourself you had never imagined. For me this was a highly regarded leadership coach who worked with dozens of Fortune 500 CEOs. I was young with no notable success to my name, and yet he saw something in me I had not yet seen. He challenged me to write, and I became an author. He pushed me to create, and I became an entrepreneur. He compelled me to dream, and barriers in front of me collapsed.
Lesson One: If you open yourself up to the possibility that you can achieve much more than you or others around you think possible, those dreams just might come true.
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The Apprentice
The second person you meet is the young, eager employee who was open to new horizons. My very first hire in my first company was a secretary. Not an assistant. A secretary. But she quickly showed amazing promise and enthusiasm to grow. I gave her some rope, and soon she was pulling rope from me like a sailor in a world cup race raising the mainsail. She is still with my first company today, thriving as one of the organizations top executives. I was always amazed at her capacity to learn, but in the end I realized it was her that was teaching me.
Lesson Two: Your role is to inspire not only customers, but everyone around you to reach their true potential.
The Provocateur
The third person you meet is a customer. This may not have been your first customer, but they will likely have been the one in the most pain. They desperately needed you to solve a problem for them, and they were willing to help you get there. They openly (and often offensively) told you your ideas were unintelligent and entirely off the mark (even when others were showering you with early praise). But they encouraged you, providing invaluable hints along the way. Ultimately, they became a trusted partner in your success.
Lesson Three: You must embrace the brutal, gritty, honest truth. Early success if often the most inefficient teacher.
The Leveler
The fourth person you will meet in entrepreneur heaven is someone who made sure you were living in reality; building you up and bringing you back down in equal measure. For me, this person has been my wife. She provides much needed support when times are tough, and a strong dose of humility when the world around me is cheering. Not distracted by the highs and lows, she always keeps me grounded near the middle.
Lesson Four: The entrepreneur who lives greatly faces adversity with courage, uncertainty with optimism, and success with humility.
The Child
The final person you meet in entrepreneur heaven is a child. She is not aware of your struggles and challenges, of your defeats and triumphs, or the insurmountable walls that you passed over on your journey. She is not even aware of your role in the world. But somehow, she knows that you were part of making it a better place.
Lesson Five: Your challenge is to change the world. No all of it. Not even most of it. Just your small piece of it. For the better, and forever.
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If the lessons of heaven are about meaning, then meaning is about the journey, not the outcome. So often, we look to the end result without considering the experiences that will get us there. We cherish the potential outcome but discount the process and people that will make it possible, and worthwhile.
It is the people you meet along this journey that add the color to your own personal life portrait. And through them the meaning of it all is revealed.
