Many entrepreneurs think about different M’s for their business – money, marketing, management and a model of their business. My view is that they miss one key M there – meaning. 

Why are you in business?

Let’s take some quotes from the guy called Viktor Frankl, who is the world’s most famous writer about meaning with his “Man’s Search for Meaning”. Surely, he was referring to personal meaning, but that’s exactly how businesses are created – with one’s personal meaning. This meaning is an answer to the question ‘why are you doing this?’

Modern day entrepreneurs can definitely relate to Viktor’s understanding of the importance of human freedom: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in an any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.

After all, by creating a business, you are going your own way. 

He also said that this is how ‘we can turn life into an inner triumph’.

Entrepreneurship is hard

Yet we know it is hard, entrepreneurship is sweat and lots of tears, hard work and sometimes lack of sleep. Having a clear meaning of why you are doing it (read, your own meaning), helps with dealing with all these stress factors. 

I personally love a quote by Spinoza in his ‘Ethics’: “Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam”. It can be translated as: “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it”.

He recommends to take on these bumps on your journey with a clear head, eyes wide open and understand what’s the problem. It is not about avoiding things or even positive psychology, it is about realism. 

And one thing that can feed this realism in a good way is your meaning. 

Meaning fuels you and your business

Personally, I would have given up my own startup when it was damn hard, but there was always this meaning that carried me through, it gave me additional strength and powers. 

In a way, you connect your personal meaning to things that happen. Surely, it can be good and bad, so you either celebrate your success or learn from your mistakes. Yet you move on with enthusiasm and energy fueled by your meaning. 

Have you experienced your own huge setbacks? Was it demotivating or was it easy for you to learn and move on? 

Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”

I think he meant that the feeling of being worthy of a suffering comes with realizing a very deep personal meaning and lessons learned. 

So I invite you to contemplate your own personal meaning for your business and maybe even the whole business meaning there there could be. When you re-connect with your values and what’s important for you and your business, it becomes so much easier and somewhat happier to live!

And finally, a personal quote from a guy I met last year. When we spoke about his own meaning for the business, he said that ‘it is simply why I am getting out of my bed’. I want to love my mornings and I feel that knowing and living my own meaning is key to that.