On Being An Entrepreneur
Foundations: Where Data and Feelings Collide
Last night I lay in bed working on a backend document trying to get tasks for the business done.
Before I fell asleep I lay there aching, knowing something was off, but not sure what it was. Feeling an ache in my core. Knowing that whatever I had done or not done contributed to this feeling, but I hadn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.
I was still existing inside a partially disconnected state, except now I could feel it as I dropped into my body, into my room, and into bed next to my love.
In my rush to get these tasks completed before I went to bed I had disconnected from my body, from my husband, and from the reality of the room I was in. And I didn’t even realize it. I identified the point where it started and how I felt it just after I put the computer down and turned off the light.
This drove home a point I’ve come to realize on this trip in such a visceral way:
Computers have come to mean personal disconnection from reality in some really strange ways for me.
They can capture my attention and make me forget where I’m at, pull me into somewhere that’s not inside my body, perhaps more in my head, more in my eyes, more on the screen, but not really in the room where I’m at.
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When I’m speaking to someone with a screen in front of me my attention is being triangulated in a way that, while it can maybe? sometimes? be useful, it also pulls my focus away from what matters most to me, the people in my life, the experience of being human, the love and the passion I feel in my heart and in my body.
The reason I’m doing all this is to create connection in a greater collective sense, for all of me and for the people I meet. And I lost it by focusing on something that didn’t really matter. Not at that time of the evening, not in that context.
I’m learning. And today I’m feeling into that realization. Feelings are data in this model. And I have to be fully honest with myself in order to function well. I need to be honest with him for us to function well.
I’m realizing that its not only the vision before me that keeps pulling me along. There are a few unnamed fears that have informed and influenced some of my actions. I’m more anxious than I’d like to be. I’m less ease-ful. These feelings are telling me that I still am holding to a mindset that is not serving me.
It’s an important realization. And I need to recover and recalibrate. I need to re-work the internal conflict these feelings are highlighting.
Being a founder, an entrepreneur, is less important to me than creating a system that can allow us to feel seen, to grow, and to help and meet one another. And yet I think that these values, this attitude, are essential to lead well, to ground my actions.
There have been fears of being left behind, questions in myself, wondering how I might build more resilient foundations.
I have a lot of skills, a lot of experience, and I know I help people and can help people in so many different ways, but really showing that, helping myself, my husband, my children, and others put food on their tables, find freedom, and place peace within their hearts in whatever ways possible, is what it really comes down to.
For me to do that I must live and love from that place and keep my priorities, my spaces, my boundaries, and my time in order. I must stay present and aware of the dynamics of the room.
