August 1, 2023.

What does it take to become a true Entrepreneur?

Freedom to decide.

Can you choose freely if you inhabit a bubble?

A bubble is a set of assumptions considered true. Those assumptions are taken for granted and become part of how we respond and react to our circumstances and environment. If I inhabit any particular bubble and cannot realize it, I will limit my decision-making to the assumptions I consider true. In contrast, if I know I'm in a bubble, I can challenge the assumptions and expand my choices.

To me, entrepreneurship is a process that helps us learn how to decide with freedom. The more you challenge your assumptions, the more you learn about yourself and expand your capacity to decide freely. Throughout the process, you become more confident.

As you can see, deciding with freedom is about doing so with less self-imposed limitations.

You assess each circumstance using your experience, knowledge, and perception capacity. But that assessment is limited, even if you are an expert in the matter. In other words, you can only feel confident when you realize you can't always be correct.

For example, you can skip a problem you foresaw but easily ignore the consequences of solving it. You could achieve what you wanted but could not see the effects that achievement would present later.

Confidence comes from the realization that you can adapt and decide. It doesn't come from accumulating knowledge. When you know you can be wrong, you can feel confident to ask for help.

If you believe you are mostly right, you will be more likely to misjudge the situation, perform shallow analysis, and easily ignore different perspectives. You'll trust more in the bubble than yourself. Your attitude will be defensive and closed-minded. If you get proven right, you will reinforce your behavior; in the opposite case, your self-confidence can suffer.

Your power lies in your capacity to decide with freedom, with fewer biases, in alignment with your interests and your values.

The role models most admire embraced their uniqueness, accepted themselves, and persisted in their exploration. Some of them did so at a significant cost.

I point out that following social conventions often overwrite our interests and values. Following what others do, what's popular, looking for acceptance or even approval, very often achieves precisely the opposite.

In contrast, accepting yourself as you are today, including your circumstances, biases, and limitations, will give you a cleaner perception of reality, a humbler perspective, and an open mind for listening to different opinions. The outcome of your decisions will point to success, but knowing that it is not entirely in your power will defend your confidence. You will show your human side and vulnerability, enabling others to perceive it as authenticity and connect with you with empathy, boosting the collective power to find creative solutions and points of view.

The faster you realize that life is not primarily about getting what you want, but it is about accepting yourself as you are, as quickly as you'll get out of the infamous rat's race and gather experience at being yourself without the filters.

You don't need to compete with the rest when you leave the rat race. You will start learning what you want and be fine if it is not matching what others think they need.

A true entrepreneur intuitively knows to challenge herself and the status quo and, by doing so, inspires others to do the same.

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Do you remember the OS of Entrepreneurship self-evaluation we opened in our last newsletter?

So far, these are the answers:

It is fascinating to see that, in general, experienced entrepreneurs know to persist, support others, and enrich their personal philosophies. And it is not surprising that a big challenge is learning to manage our energy or avoiding burnout.

Would you like to add your answer?

Answer the self-evaluation anonymously.

​If you missed the past newsletter, you can read the latest article about the OS of Entrepreneurship by following this link.

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There is something else I would like to share with you. It is a fascinating video from an author I learned a lot from: Lisa Feldman Barrett

In this video, she explains how our brain creates reality and suggests it doesn't detect it.

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Embrace yourself and August!

Jose.