The Path of the Life Entrepreneur

1. Discovering Core Identity
2. Awakening To Opportunity
   
3. Envisioning The Future
   
4. Developing Goals and Strategies
   
5. Building Healthy Support Systems
   
6. Taking Action and Making a Difference
   
7. Embracing Renewal and Reinvention
   

Discovering Core Identity
This is our compass. At its heart are our values and purpose. These are informed by external factors such as our personal history, current circumstances, and relationships as well as internal factors such as our needs, strengths, and passions. Establishing an authentic orientation (a “true north”) is a lifelong project. Without a strong core identity, the steps that follow are likely to lead us astray.

Awakening to Opportunity
With deep self-awareness, we become more aware of opportunities around us that resonate with our core identity. This includes being “switched on” to the world around us, being able to assess opportunities as they arise, and figuring out how to translate these promising ideas into attractive and actionable opportunities.

Envisioning the Future
The notion of vision is commonly applied to an organization, but it can also be applied to our lives: What do we envision we will be and what we will do with our lives? This is best imagined in long increments, such as a decade or even an entire lifetime. Our vision is unearthed from within even as it is informed by opportunity.

Developing Goals and Strategies
Successful entrepreneurs will tell you that without a well-informed game plan, as enterprise is likely to fall flat. The same can be true in life. Developing goals and strategies provides needed clarity and focus. Goals should be purposeful and prioritized, clear, and measureable, and challenging but achievable. Once our goals are established, we can identify the gaps between our current reality and envisioned future and start planning to fill those gaps by leveraging existing resources and attracting new ones.

Building Healthy Support Systems
None of us can create a life of significance on our own. Having a robust support system infused with healthy, diverse relationships helps us achieve our life goals. It can also provide shelter from the inevitable storms that roll in. If we are doing right by others, this web of support can create what we call positive network effect, enhancing our ability to make a difference in the world.

Taking Action and Making a Difference
The preceding steps are academic unless we assume risks and take action. The essential elements of taking action are having the courage to try, leaping through windows of opportunity, entering the arena, creatively finding new ways to serve, adapting and persisting, and erasing limits.  What’s more, we must avoid the common pitfalls that trap many entrepreneurs and recognize the cost of not taking action.

Embracing Renewal and Reinvention
Sometimes renew is necessary. At times we must step back and take a look around, assessing where we have come from and where we are going. It is vital to find regular times to reconnect with out core identity and prepare to initiate a new set of adventures. We must be careful not to push ourselves back into a “superhero” action mode before we are replenished and ready. And when renewal is insufficient, we turn to reinvention-making wholesale changes in the fabric of our lives, stitching them together with new material better suited to the days ahead.

By: Life Entrepreneurs – Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek