Why I Do It.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." --- Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

There is an unanswered question that has and continues to collectively baffle economists, psychologists and career coaches. The question has existed parallel to the economic system that encourages its asking. A question that many have asked since the idea of capitalism was first penned by Adam Smith himself. The answer is hard to produce and succinctly articulate, even for the entrepreneur: Why do people start new ventures? Put another way:

Why do entrepreneurs do what they do?

Why suffer through the ambiguity and inner turmoil? The feeling of constantly walking on the edge of failure? Why put in hours on the laptop at odd hours of the night, on weekends in coffee shops with free wifi and during the holidays? Why strip yourself of the lifestyle trappings that your peers are enjoying at 40k a year so that you can plow every extra dollar into an idea that everyone says won't work anyway? Why engage in the ditch digging that drains away the person you thought you were?

The sexiest answer, of course, is to get rich. But the only people who buy that answer are students because it was sold to them at Barnes & Noble by corporate marketing teams posing as entrepreneurs - telling them to use their strengths to go "take it to the next level".

The truth is, we all know the money is far from guaranteed and that it will be years before we even see a dime of it. Given the 70% failure rate of new businesses, each entrepreneur answers this question in their own way, because each entrepreneur's situation is different and how they come to grips with the daunting odds is individual to them.

For me personally, I don't do it for fame, fortune or personal prestige. I don't do it to impress people, to "stick it to The Man", prove critics wrong, to look smart or because I like being the underdog.

In all the months that I slugged it out for Dash & Cooper, nothing in my life compares to the ecstasy of seeing my first D&C shirt finally come in from one of my manufacturers. The road that lies between your idea and selling your first product is paved with late nights, missed social functions and the constant whir of your mind as you parse through disparate information, groping for some solid ground. The reason why I do it is for the pure elation that occurs when you are briefly reminded that out of nothing, you built something that people value. You are reminded that this is a fact. Something that no one can refute or take away from you. It is then, and only then, that you become present to the meaning of creation and the truth that ownership is not simply a bunch of papers and signatures.

In order to understand what it's like to bathe in the pure experience of ownership and self-reliance - to feel it pierce through to your bones - you must slog it out in the trenches amongst the mud and much of uncertainty and fear. There is no other way.

That's why I do it: to feel alive.

***

This post was written in part for {Branded} Online Magazine. Feel free to go check it out and see some other things that we are saying over there.

Go to the next blog post: The 2011 Action Plan.