Reframing responsibility

If you were to tell the story of your years in business, which parts would you omit?

This week I visited a new friend's home. Business interests had connected us. So at a long table, over crispy pizzas, we told each other our entrepreneurial stories, starting from the beginning.

I did this thing. Then that happened...

Did you know the telling of a personal experience brings coherence to our minds? This is not a metaphor. The act of saying it out loud — sifting from memory, choosing our words, watching the expressions of the listener, feeling gotten by another — actually builds the narrative in our brain. Telling our story reinforces our brain's neural pathways, affirming what's important and remembered.

More than getting to know someone, telling our story is how we come to know ourselves. We need a personal narrative that makes sense. We need it like we need breath.

That happened because of this reason. This was the outcome, which felt like...

I created my first company at age 25. Each month I would read Inc. magazine with zeal. I tested methods of rising earlier in the morning to be like the successful founders I read about in its pages. I rarely rested.

My zeal yielded mixed results. I had created services and products. I had revised and pivoted but without accomplishing magazine-worthy success. This perplexed me. If my company's outcome was not as I intended, then whose fault was that?

It was my fault.

The parts of my business stories I have wanted to omit were the unsuccessful parts where I felt ever at fault. But my stories that gave reasons of industry trends, competitor innovation, the labor market, four children, or Russian hackers seemed like a conversational crutch, an excuse. Inside I felt the outcome was always my fault. I felt responsible for creation and results. Year by year, the responsibility felt more of a grind. I stiffened. I numbed.

Wanting a release from the stiff tension, I've lately sought a truer narrative. I'm making sense of the ambiguity that has accompanied my efforts. The gist of my stories are thus shifting.

So back at my new friend's table, opening my second bottle, I paused from my telling of the facts. I shifted to an aspiration: I want to return to a simpler childhood understanding that a Higher Power is ultimately responsible. I want to see my part in what's transpired. I want to do my part of what's to be done. Then I want to rest, and let others do their parts. Can I give over to God what's beyond my power to effect?

Imagine this aspiration, and the resulting deep rest, circulating among fellow entrepreneurs everywhere. We all bend our backs at the heft of responsibility. What relief if this aspiration were to become our actual felt experience. I want this to become my everyday experience.

It's in God's hands!

That's part of what makes business easier. Holding this image in our minds in the midst of a difficult period softens that heft of responsibility. At the same time, it frees us to make decisions, to lead in a moment of uncertainty. Finding rest in the Beloved frees anxious constrictions that delay our choosing yes or no in timely business situations. This rest shifts us away from tension and towards a flow state. Flow looks like patient, purposeful, unfaltering action.

I can do it!

We all want a coherent business story that builds to a happy ending. I want this story for myself. I want to lean forward after the telling of it and look across the table. I want to tip the bottle towards my listener and smile in satisfaction. Cheers.

And that's how we did it!

Listening to all this, my companion set down her own bottle. She cast her eyes towards the candles, then to the floor. At last she met my expectant look and replied:

Whatever the outcome, you are not responsible.

But there is something you can always accept responsibility for, in business or otherwise: how you respond.

You choose your response to what happens to you, and who you will be regardless of the outcome.