First off, what is an identity?
Can you change it or is it permanent? Is it what you stand for? What you do for a living? Your nationality? Where you live? One thing’s for sure: when you’re an entrepreneur, your business becomes your identity, and your identity becomes your business.
This word “Identity” is one of the words in the English language that is subjective to the person you ask… similar to the word ‘happiness’. The answer derives from their personal experience. ‘Identity’ is used in everyday conversations but few people can tell you exactly what they mean by it, and yet it is so so important in every chapter of our lives.
Finding the holy grail
Just how exactly can you find your identity?
It is not something where you can just flip a switch – there is not one item or event alone which can define your identity or who you are. Undoubtedly there are milestones that may have a significant impact on your world views and shape your beliefs and how you behave in the future. However, YOU are not an event, a physical object, or a cause. You are a combination of all those things put together. Your identity is the root of who you are and the sum of your experiences. Your experiences and perceptions of those events then make up your life story up to this present moment.
The definition of progress
So how exactly can you define it?
Your identity is a journey and the true definition of progress. All of our personalities are malleable and therefore are never the same as they were the previous day. As long as we are interacting with others and taking in new experiences we will continue to change as people.
The quest to define “who we are” has been going on for thousands of years. Organized religion, tribes, communities, movements, and any cause that links us to a higher purpose gives us the sense of being and self realization. Most of today’s capitalism and consumerism derives from our need to accumulate “things” in search of what makes “us”. Things allow us to answer the question “who are you?” to someone that may not know us or understand our life story.
When someone asks you what you do, the question is not being asked because they want to know what is on your business card. They want to know who you are.
Who you are is what you do
“What do you do?” is the greatest question for an entrepreneur… they know EXACTLY how to respond. The pride and accomplishment of starting and creating a business is synonymous with who they are. What they do as a career is completely integrated with their identity. Running a company allows an entrepreneur to paint their identity throughout the creation and growth of the business.
Who you hire, how you service your clients, how fast you grow, what problems you are trying to solve, how you lead etc. are all direct reflections of WHO YOU ARE. You set the standards.
It is natural for an entrepreneur to set all this in motion because the need for self-discovery is very high. You get affirmation by seeing your progress as a person through the growth of your business.
The entrepreneur’s identity
When someone asks the question “who are you, what do you do?” to an entrepreneur, the answer is very simple: “Their business”. It is a way to describe and show who you are without any ambiguity. There are no introspective statements – it is all quantified through the business they have grown. There is a reason that every business owner refers to their company as “their baby”. A child is the only other thing that you are able to nurture based on your values and watch grow into something that reflects who you are.
Here in lies the major problem when a business owner sells their company.
Where is their identity then? Who do they become? With more free time and less pressure it should be easier to broaden horizons and find another identity, but the opposite is normally true. Ex-business owners can get lost without the routine and without the buzz of accomplishing day-to-day challenges, which is why it’s super-important to see the sale of a business as something beyond just the numbers.
Identify the identity crisis
Any business sale should be looked at in holistic terms, but when a business sale equals retirement it quite simply must be viewed as a lifestyle choice first, business transaction second. Ask yourself questions about your future identity before you get down into the detail of your sale. If you don’t do that then you’re effectively going into it with a blindfold on.
The last thing you want to happen when someone asks you “who are you, what do you?” is for your first answer to be “well I used to do…”. There is nothing wrong with being proud of past achievements, but any business owner looking to sell should dedicate as much energy to succeeding in their new lifestyle post-business as they did to getting their venture off the ground in the first place.
You might not always have a business to take care of, but you will always have an identity. Look after it!