Most often than not when you ask someone why they started their business, you will usually get a highly polished, visionary answer. They will tell you about a gap in the market, a burning desire to disrupt an industry, or a deep, lifelong passion for solving a specific problem.
We are obsessed with the noble origin story. We believe that to build something meaningful, you need to start with a meaningful "why."
But here’s the deal if I am being 100% honest, my origin story wasn't noble at all.
About ten years ago, I started my business for two very specific reasons.
First, I absolutely refused to work for anyone else, and of course I wanted to get rich. (Spoiler alert: ten years later, I am not rich).
Second, I wanted to prove everyone who said I wouldn't make anything of myself completely wrong.
That was it. There was no grand vision to change the world or the industry I work in.
There was just stubbornness, ego, and a heavy dose of spite. I was fueled almost entirely by the desire to build a life that looked successful to the people who had doubted me.
Spite is a remarkably powerful fuel for starting something (or at least for me it was). It will get you to work at 5:00 AM, and it will keep you grinding through the terrifying uncertainty of those first few years.
But spite is a terrible fuel for sustaining something. It burns too hot, and eventually, you realize that the people you were trying to prove wrong aren't actually paying attention to you anyway.
If you had told me ten years ago that I would fail at my primary goal of getting rich, I would have assumed I’d be miserable. But when you survive your own ego. Your "why" begins to quietly recalibrate.
Today, a decade into building my business, the reasons I love it have absolutely nothing to do with why I started it.
I no longer care about the ego trip of being a founder. I am not running on the treadmill of trying to prove my worth to ghosts from my past. Instead, my "why" has shrunk into something incredibly small, profoundly simple, and infinitely more valuable.
I love my business because it gives me the freedom to spend a Tuesday morning with my dogs.
That is the hidden assumption we get wrong about ambition. We assume that the reason we start a journey has to be the exact same reason we finish it. We judge our initial motivations, feeling guilty if they are petty, financial, or ego-driven, thinking we lack a "true purpose."
But the reason you start is just the spark. It just has to get the fire going.
The reason you stay is something entirely different. It is the quiet realization that the grand, cinematic life you were trying to build to impress other people is nowhere near as fulfilling as the quiet, autonomous life you get to experience for yourself.
You don't need a noble reason to begin. You just need the flexibility to let your reasons evolve.