Is self-acceptance in conflict with ambition? Tell me what you think...

I came across a Harvard Business Review article this morning with the headline "Why You Should Stop Trying to Fix Yourself". The subject had more to do with audacious new year's resolutions than career/business choices, but I'm interested in how these concepts are related.

For me it has always felt as though humanity's role in the long saga of evolution is directly in conflict with our desire to feel "happy" and satisfied in our daily lives. But the question I'm posing here is whether that conflict exists, and a champion between those two opponents should be chosen independently by each person, or whether the feeling of conflict between these concepts is completely imaginary.

On one hand, I strongly believe that we are more likely to feel "happier" at any given moment by accepting ourselves, our "flaws", the status quo, the way others see us, matters at the fringes of our control, etcetera.

But "happiness" isn't everything, otherwise I don't believe our ancestors would have left such a sustainable hunter-gatherer lifestyle in exchange for the wonders [and horrors] that began with our agricultural revolution. Since we made that trade, we've accomplished incredible things. Incidentally, those accomplishments have created new problems to be solved at an ever-inflating scale.

I harbor the belief that the trap of solving problems [which inevitably spawns new problems] is one that is inherent to our nature. I believe it's just the latest model of an evolutionary invention which resulted in our existence in the first place, some hundreds of thousands of years ago, and that in modern times we entrepreneurs pretend that we're seeking "happiness" by building companies -- these new organisms made to survive in the grand Darwinian fabric of the marketplace -- when in fact we are fulfilling our role in the trajectory of evolution. How clever of mother nature to position our proverbial carrot conveniently on the other side of her own agenda.

(Tangential curiosity: What new form of evolution might come after humanity on the heels of our accomplishments, if any?)

But Matt Price, with whom I've enjoyed recording a nuanced podcast, once said something to the effect of "I think we [entrepreneurs] are all just a little bit f****d up. There's a particular kind of trauma that motivates someone to choose this lifestyle."

Hearing this said so plainly brought something which had been loitering in my subconscious straight to the front of my conscious mind: My drive to create companies, to foster excellence, to produce meaningful positive change in our world, and to accomplish a legacy worthy of my own satisfaction was absolutely inspired by my own [self-inflicted] past trauma. It started from a desire to justify my parents' claims that I'm "special" or "smart". It started with a desire to upstage my childhood peers and to prove my worth... ultimately to myself.

This is something that I haven't been proud of. It's a sad, tired cliché that made me feel uncomfortable when I watched a local portrayal of "Death of a Salesman" before the pandemic. I've found myself wondering, "Have I dedicated my life in entrepreneurship to nothing more than my own vanity? Is my so-called 'purpose' little more than an expensive and ineffective alternative to psychotherapy?"

But hearing Matt so candidly assert this relatable assessment of the origins of entrepreneurial drive was, in a way, liberating. It made me think that maybe it's somehow okay for a small part of our motivation to be vain, superficial, or egotistical. In fact, maybe this is the very catalyst for innovation, and a natural component of every accomplished innovator's journey. Whether this is true or not, this theory itself has begun serving as a form of self-acceptance for me.

Mixing my own ambitions with a concept of self-acceptance is new to me. I spent the first half of my 12-year entrepreneurial journey ignoring my own needs in the name of ambition, only to learn halfway through that you actually need to be a complete person as an entrepreneur, otherwise people don't want to do business with you. That inflection point was the beginning of me putting self-acceptance (the seeds of "happiness") and ambition on the same side of my internal negotiating table.

And yet, I remain reluctant. When I think of accepting myself, what few accomplishments I've concocted, or the notion that I might actually have a good life already, my involuntary reaction is to put those "happy" thoughts behind me and to divert my attention to "room for improvement." I have developed an inherent fear which associates self-acceptance with "slowing down," or "settling," or "giving up." Within that fear somewhere is a fear of mortality; a fear of the unknown; a fear that I will never accomplish anything on the scale that I expect for myself. After all, we are each only blessed with a limited window of consciousness, and a growing number of us have taken to deciding for ourselves what our purpose is. Entrepreneurship, for me, is tied very tightly to purpose, which makes complacency very scary indeed.

This is an irrational fear, isn't it?

Surely I will have successful days and unsuccessful days. Surely after each of those experiences -- as I have consistently done before -- I will seek to learn how I can do better and how I can increase the opportunity for successful days. Surely, at the very moment before my own death, I will have a final opportunity to consider the story of my life in the best possible light. Even if that story does not succeed in giving me the satisfaction of a life well-lived, that moment itself cannot possibly be the only measure of my lifetime. These are things I can be certain of.

And these certainties tell me that whether I succeed or fail in my current endeavors will have much more to do with who I have become than the reasons I have become that way. At this point I cannot avoid being innovative. No duration of imposter syndrome could possibly change that.

These are things I can accept. They have nothing to do with slowing down. In fact, I am starting to believe that accepting them is likely to increase my chances for success in entrepreneurship. In time, I may even reach a level of acceptance at which I can say the word "happiness" without quotation marks... and I'm starting to believe that is as good an ambition as any other.

Conversation: What do you think about the relationship between self-acceptance and ambition? Can you relate to my experience or do you see it from a different perspective? This was never meant to be a monologue. I want to hear your story.