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by Chri s topher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek

Some people don’t just live a life, they lead a life. They go after their dreams and bringthem to life. Rather than bending to the status quo, they change it. Rather thanbeing imprisoned by circumstance, they turn circumstance to their advantage. They

develop a vision of the good life they want to lead, devise a plan for how to attain it, go forit, and check their progress along the way—all the while addressing, with creativity and flex-ibility, the inevitable obstacles that arise. As with any great effort, their work is never done.Ever-evolving, it is often inspiring to those around them.

These people are life entrepreneurs—people who create lives of significance through oppor-tunity recognition, innovation, and action. Rather than being driven by the opportunity tocreate an enterprise of significance, a life entrepreneur is driven by the chance to create a lifeof significance. We recently interviewed fifty-five business and social entrepreneurs, all ofwhom brought entrepreneurial flair to their lives as well as their work. Nearly all come fromordinary backgrounds, yet they have created extraordinary lives for themselves and thosearound them through a mix of drive and direction. You have probably heard of some oftheir organizations: Starbucks, Chipotle, Cranium, Clif Bar, RealNetworks, Hanna Ander-sson, KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program), Share Our Strength, and perhaps others. Thepeople we interviewed range from prominent figures to less well-known folks—from busi-ness, nonprofit, and political leaders to chefs, musicians, journalists, professors, and min-isters, as well as a rancher, a fighter pilot, and a yoga instructor.

In the course of these interviews, we sought to learn about the people behind the en-terprises: Who are they? What makes them tick? Who influenced them? Why and how

H E S S E L B E I N & C O M P A N Y

LIFEENTREPRENEURSHIP:LEADING YOURLIFE

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did they make the decisions they did? What mistakeshave they made? What have they learned? What ad-vice do they have for others?

When transcriptions of these interviews were com-piled—about a thousand pages of text—powerfulthemes emerged. Here are some of the major patternswe spotted:

• All the entrepreneurs we interviewed made a con-scious decision to walk their own path and forgetheir own future—often going against prevailingexpectations.

• There was a direct correlation between the pur-posefulness and conviction with which they walktheir path in life and the passion and joy they feelfor their life and work.

• Many of the entrepreneurs don’t think of them-selves as dividing their time between “work” and“life.” For many, these are integrated—not com-partmentalized—pursuits. They are creating, own-ing, and taking responsibility for every facet oftheir lives.

• Their dispositions toward risk were all over themap—ranging from those who were somewhatrisk-averse to a few intrepid risk junkies. But theywere all willing to take measured risks in pursuit ofa worthy project or goal.

• All have experienced failure and dealt with signifi-cant setbacks. Many have encountered life-chang-ing episodes of tragedy, illness, loss, financialdifficulty, and more, but each bounced back—fo-cused on achieving their life’s vision.

• Several found great value in stepping off the pathto renew, recharge, and sometimes reinvent theirlives, discovering that periods of activity andachievement must be counterbalanced by periodsof rest and regrouping.

• Their life path was usually a winding one, not lin-ear. In most cases, it made much more sense look-ing backward. As they moved forward, they wereboth shaping the future and responding to it.

• Most of them came to the conclusion that it’s not

all about them—far from it. They have cultivatedhealthy support systems and social networks, andmany have become deeply connected, civic-minded leaders.

What is behind these patterns? They reflect an emerg-ing trend that rejects past approaches to stable careers,job security, and lives built around safety, security, andstatus. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,these days the median tenure for employed wage andsalary workers is just four years, and 23 percent of themhave been with their current employer for one year orless.) In their place, we are seeing more and more peo-ple building their lives around passion, connection, andsignificance. Evidence abounds, from the increasing in-terest in “socially responsible business” and the “triplebottom line” of people, profits, and planet to the well-documented surge of voluntarism and social conscious-ness of rising generations, especially Generation Y (born1978 to 1994).

We believe that entrepreneurship is not solely theprovince of the professional. It is a mind-set, approach,and process that can be applied to any endeavor—in-cluding that of leading our lives. In the same way thata business or social entrepreneur creates an enterprisethrough artful combinations of vision, creativity, dy-namism, and risk, so too can we—any one of us, in anyplace—build an extraordinary life. We can fashion a lifethat is purposeful, self-directed, and aligned with whowe truly are—providing us with opportunities for chal-lenge, contribution, and fulfillment.

Entrepreneurship is a

mind-set, approach, and

process that can be applied

to any endeavor.

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The Path of the Life Entrepreneur

For too many of us, our long march of jobs has been di-vorced from the larger context of what we want in ourlives and how we can best put our talents to use for oth-ers. Where can we go to figure out what we want for thewhole of our lives? How can we start building a life thatintegrates family, health, career, friendship, community,learning, and other priorities in practical ways?

These are questions of some urgency. Currently, toomany of us buy into the false dichotomy of either pay-ing the rent or leading a life of fulfillment, reluctant tobelieve the two can go together. The sad result is an ex-istence of compromise. Today, only about 6 percent ofpeople in the United States call themselves “veryhappy”—a number that has declined 1.5 percent since1950. Psychologist Edward Deiner has noted that theaverage score on a test of life satisfaction in the UnitedStates is “slightly satisfied.” According to a 2005 surveyof U.S. companies by the Gallup Organization, 71 per-cent of employees are either not engaged or actively dis-engaged in their jobs. Gallup found that only 27percent of U.S. workers—less than one-third—are en-gaged in their jobs. What can be done about these dis-couraging trends?

Fortunately, people have an alternative to a life of dis-content. As George Bernard Shaw put it, “This is thetrue joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognizedby yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly wornout before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the beinga force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clodof ailments and grievances complaining that the worldwill not devote itself to making you happy.”

The alternative we discovered through our interviewsis an entrepreneurial framework for integrating life,work, and purpose. Note, though, that the life entre-preneur’s path is decidedly nonlinear. Each person’s pathto becoming a life entrepreneur is unique. Also, walkingthe path is only half the battle. It is this combinationof the path and how we walk it that determines thequality and character of our lives.

Seven steps on the path of the life entrepreneur greatlyincrease the chances of success and, ultimately, a life ofsignificance:

1. Discovering Core IdentityThis is our compass. At its heart are our values and pur-pose. These are informed by external factors such as ourpersonal history, current circumstances, and relation-ships as well as internal factors such as our needs,strengths, and passions. Establishing an authentic orien-tation (a “true north”) is a lifelong project. Without astrong core identity, the steps that follow are likely tolead us astray.

2. Awakening to OpportunityWith deep self-awareness, we become more aware ofopportunities around us that resonate with our coreidentity. This includes being switched-on to the worldaround us, being able to assess alternatives as they arise,and figuring out how to translate these promising ideasinto attractive and actionable opportunities.

3. Envisioning the FutureThe notion of vision is commonly applied to an orga-nization, but it can also be applied to human lives: whatdo we envision for who we will be and what we will dowith our lives? This is best imagined in long increments,such as a decade or even an entire lifetime. Our visionis unearthed from within even as it is informed by op-portunity and circumstance, reflecting a nexus of inter-nal and external elements. With vivid clarity, our visionshould raise our sights, inspiring us to something au-dacious and worthy of pursuit.

4. Developing Goals and StrategiesSuccessful entrepreneurs will tell you that without awell-informed game plan an enterprise is likely to fallflat. The same can be true in life. Developing goals andstrategies provides needed clarity and focus. Goals

The life entrepreneur’s

path is decidedly

nonlinear.

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should be purposeful and prioritized, clear and mea-surable, and challenging but achievable. Once our goalsare established, we can identify the gaps between ourcurrent reality and envisioned future and start planningto fill those gaps by using existing resources and attract-ing new ones.

5. Building Healthy Support SystemsNone of us can create a life of significance on our own.Having a robust support system infused with healthy,diverse relationships helps us achieve our life goals. Itcan also provide shelter from the inevitable storms thatroll in. If we are doing right by others, this web of sup-port can create a positive network effect, enhancing ourability to make a difference in the world.

6. Taking Action and Making a Differ-enceThe preceding steps are academic unless we assume risksand take action. The essential elements of taking actionare having the courage to try, leaping through windowsof opportunity, entering the arena, creatively findingways to serve, adapting and persisting, and erasing lim-its. What’s more, we must avoid the common pitfallsthat trap many entrepreneurs and recognize the cost ofnot taking action. This was a resounding theme in ourinterviews with life entrepreneurs. As we analyze thecosts and benefits of embarking on a new venture, weoften forget to factor in the cost of regret. The chal-lenges of entrepreneurship are indisputable. It is messy,chaotic, taxing, and risky. Potential failure lurks aroundmany corners. But what is failure, really? We fail by notgoing for it, not entering the arena, and not persevering.If we fall down, we can get up. If we lose our way, wecan find our way back. But if we don’t summon thecourage to take the first step, we will never know whereour journey might have taken us.

7. Embracing Renewal and ReinventionSometimes renewal is necessary. At times we must stepback and take a look around, assessing where we havecome from and where we are going. It is vital to findregular times to reconnect with our core identity andprepare to initiate a new set of adventures. We must becareful not to push ourselves back into superhero ac-tion mode before we are replenished and ready. Andwhen renewal is insufficient, we turn to reinvention.

This framework has worked for countless business andsocial entrepreneurs, and it can also be a powerful modelfor approaching our own lives.

The Story of a Life Entrepreneur

Consider the story of Gary Erickson of Clif Bar. Tenyears after launching the energy bar company, Gary waspushed into a corner, beaten down, and about to sellout. “I felt trapped,” he recalls. Gary’s partner had a 50percent stake in the business, and she wanted out. Herecounts, “I was getting worn out. We needed money togrow the business. I was marooned and everybodywould just beat me down. . . . Everybody was sayingthat the competition was going to kill us.” The indus-try was consolidating—all of Clif Bar’s competitors werebeing bought by global corporations, and Power Barnow had the resources of Nestlé, the largest food com-pany in the world. Nearly everybody was advising Garyto sell.

None of us can create a life

of significance on our own.

If we don’t take the first

step, we will never know

where our journey might

have taken us.

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Selling would indeed be lucrative. Gary was on the cuspof bringing in $60 million personally from the sale, buthe was torn because this wasn’t just a business to him. Itwas a passion. The concept of the Clif Bar had come tohim during an epic 175-mile bike ride with his friend Jayover Mount Hamilton in northern California. That“epiphany ride,” as he now calls it, led to a start-up sen-sation that took the nascent energy bar industry by astorm. Living in a garage at the time with his dog, skis,climbing gear, bike, and two trumpets, he had recruitedhis mother to help him gin up different recipes in thekitchen until they finally landed on one that was justright. The first year, they racked up $700,000 in sales.From 1992, the company’s revenues nearly doubled eachyear to more than $100 million in 2002. Clif Bar becamea lifestyle product driven by a grassroots phenomenon.

The power of Erickson’s vision was not only in the mar-ket opportunity he spotted but in the authentic con-vergence of his passions that the product embodies.Gary’s identity was wrapped up in his passion for musicand the great outdoors as well as in his family’s love af-fair with good food. He brought all those elements to-gether at Clif Bar. He had poured his heart and soulinto it. Now it was all about to end.

“It came down to the last minute,” he says, “one lastwalk around the block. That moment changed every-thing. I decided I’m not going to do this.” He returnedto the office and sent the lawyers home. “I felt the hap-piest I had felt in months,” he recalls. Still, the decisioncarried immense risk. To honor his business partner’swishes, he had to buy her out. “Instead of selling andwalking away with $60 million for my half of the busi-ness,” he explains, “I was now keeping the company butfacing $70 million of debt financing to buy my part-ner out of her half of the business.”

Gary’s goal was “to create a place where people had fun,worked hard, and felt that their work had meaning.”Collectively, its people developed the company’s “FiveAspirations”: statements centered on sustaining theirbrands, business, people, community, and planet. Theseare not just platitudes at Clif Bar. The company offersprofit-sharing, sabbaticals, and a wellness program, in-cluding an in-house gym, three full-time trainers, and

twenty fitness classes per week—during working hours.Employees get paid for staying in shape (two and a halfhours of workout time per week) and are able to take athree-day weekend every other week. Gary built a the-ater in the headquarters where employees have theirWednesday night jam sessions.

Clif Bar also has a robust community service program,went “green” with an aggressive sustainability initiative,and launched the Clif Bar Family Foundation to pro-vide financial support to grassroots organizations fo-cused on environmental restoration, conservation,sustainable food and agriculture, and more.

This multifaceted approach is paying off. The Clif Barbrand is now the top-selling organic energy and nutri-tion bar on the market. And Gary has managed to buildthis enterprise while also maintaining an integrated life.He explains, “There is no separation of work and play.It’s all together. . . . For me, the goal was to keep thelifestyle. I’ve been able to create a business that supportsall the things I love to do.”

An Improvised Melody

As Gary’s story demonstrates, the spirit of life entrepre-neurship is inspired by the freedom of living a life thatis decidedly our own. Rather than marching to someoneelse’s drumbeat, life entrepreneurs lead their own bandand are prone to improvisation. With time and experi-ence, they stop playing from a score and start devisinga new tune.

There’s a big dividing line between ordinary lives andextraordinary ones, and many of us pass our time wellshort of that line. But one of time’s jealously guardedsecrets is that the line is imaginary. It exists only in ourheads. There is, it turns out, no limit to the number ofextraordinary lives that can be realized, no quota ongood lives to be claimed. Yet too many of us clingfiercely to imaginary limits we have set for ourselves oraccepted from others.

The first and most important step in creating an ex-traordinary life is choosing to do so—with imagination,courage, and conviction. When it comes to integratinglife, work, and purpose, we can do so with creativity,

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playfulness, and passion. Sometimes the hardest part ofleading an entrepreneurial life is getting out of the wayof the good life that wants to charge forth from within.One of the primary lessons of life entrepreneurship is

that effective leaders don’t just lead their organizations—first they lead their lives.

Are you leading yours?

Christopher Gergen is co-founding partner of entrepreneurial leadership devel-

opment firm New Mountain Ventures (www.newmountainventures.com) and

co-founder and current chairman of SMARTHINKING, the leading online

tutoring provider in the United States. He is also a visiting lecturer of entrepre-

neurial leadership at Duke University’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

Gregg Vanourek is co-founding partner of New Mountain Ventures and served

as Senior Vice President of School Development for K12 Inc., a national online

curriculum company. This article is adapted from “Life Entrepreneurs: Ordi-

nary People Creating Extraordinary Lives,” by Christopher Gergen and Gregg

Vanourek. For more information about life entrepreneurs, including how to

order the book, interviewee profiles, and relevant activities, please go to

www.lifeentrepreneurs.com.

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