“How do you find the courage to start a business”?

Hopefully by the end of this you’ll agree with me that the answer to this question is a strong and unshakable "I don't know".

Yesterday, in celebration of international women’s day, I spoke at an event targeted at students who were being encouraged to explore entrepreneurship. There were 3 of us on the panel. Three people who had the fortune, drive, and insanity to explore a change we wanted to see. 

In the QA part a woman raised her hand and asked “how do you find the courage to start a business”. My fellow panelists gave very thoughtful responses, and I added that “you already have the courage, that’s why you are here, what you need to tap into is the curiosity to go out there and explore; just figure out how you can stay resilient and curious to keep trying”. Such a thoughtful answer, I patted myself on the shoulder. Look at me go all contrarian and throw in a whole new dimension into the discussion; go me, go! What a beautiful way to set an example for “doing it my way” which was my message for them.

Boy, I was wrong! That interaction has haunted me ever since.

Later in the networking lunch, I interacted with a few women that were introduced to me as “hey, this is X, she is a bit shy but wants to talk to you”. Or women who approached a few of their more extroverted classmates and me deep in discussion, but they were so careful to make sure they dont take up too much space, or get in front of anyone else who wanted to talk to me, and eventually went back and sat alone in a corner. 

Those were the moments when I started to realize how tone deaf I was when I heard that question about “courage”. From my position of power up on the stage, I failed to see the insecurity in the eyes and hear the shiver in the voice of the person who asked that question. I failed to notice the historical context of that question, the societal pressure buried deep inside that question, and the tears that must have been the bedrock to build up the courage to ask that question. She was the brave one, not me with my “out of the box” answer. 

Later I discussed this with some fellow founders and shared that although I receive this comment often, I never thought of what I am doing as brave or courageous! Discussion with them was when I realized that “courage” means so many things to different people. “Courage” is such a remarkable example of the nuances of how we use language: at best vague and hand wavy:

• We call farting after a big curry meal courage; We also call driving to an underprivileged neighborhood to feed starving orphan children, courage. The exact same word! 

• We call the act of a social media influencer from a first world country and happy way of life who just put on an outrageous lipstick in the safety of her bedroom although she knows she would get hateful comments, courage; And we call the journalist who uses media to expose corrupt people of influence, knowing the potential for legal and illegal retribution, also courage!

• We call the business built by a white boy from a well-off family, going to a prestigious private school, having access to a well-funded lab with a rare computer (see Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell), courage; We call the business built by a woman, working on completely underfunded women’s health, raising money from white dude VCs, and kicking ass on all fronts, also courage!

• We call the trips of the explorer who travels the seas and spends weeks in Amazon forests to discover new species, courage. We call the African mom who has to walk for a mile to fill a water tank to cook for her children knowing quite well that she might be kidnapped by the rebels for ransom, you guessed it, also courage!

• We call the compassion shown by a white guy ally calling out a fellow white guy about some sexist or xenophobic comments, courage. We call the anger of a white woman calling out all the infrastructural design elements preventing her from growing professionally although she knows that will buy her the label “difficult” and will damage her odds of promotion, also courage.   

• We call moving to live in a third world country, paid and protected by corporate money, to launch a new line of business, courage; We call hopping from country to country to find a safe place to live that a Syrian refugee woman is doing, well, also courage.

• We call the tight dress the chubby teenager puts on knowing well that she might get some comments, courage; We also call the teenage women of my country marching in the streets without their mandated headscarves demanding to be treated like human beings knowing well that they might be shot at by the police, sigh, also courage.  

Don’t get me wrong! All these usages are valid. Well, ignoring the fact that we don't even have time to think about half of these examples because of the perfect, romanticized, and exaggerated realities we have carefully crafted on social media about ourselves and others. We don’t even notice so many of these acts of literal heroism happening every single day in the corners of this world simply because they are not “dramatic enough” to make great media headlines. But I hope you realize which half I call “courageous” in my books and why I find the language of calling what I do “brave” odd! 

Language, arguably the most admirable invention of a completely stochastic process called evolution, has been an integral tool in our intellectual discourse, technological advancement, and also the biggest slaughters in the name of ideology. Language, very much like all other artifacts of evolution, comes with a big caveat: it is not perfect. While it is the most effective collaboration tool we have, It can also be the source of so much misunderstanding. While it has been at the center of liberation movements, It can also be a tool for suffocating voices of disagreement. While it can be the medium carrying a representation of the softest parts of the human emotions in poems and songs, it can also be a tool for the most hidden but destructive societal biases leading to suppression and exclusion. 

See, what I am criticizing is our careless use of language here while acknowledging that there is a bigger, systematic problem. One of the remarkable characteristics of language is that it represents very clearly what is important to a society that holds that language. The rise of gender sensitive language in the more liberal shades of the society is perhaps one of the latest examples of that. Ancient Greeks had a word for “sadness” but not “regret” because you were culturally expected to be in the present and accepting (unverified). The equivalent of the English words nostalgia and longing in Farsi (“deltangi”) emphasizes the deep physiological reaction your body has when you really want something because it was important for the persians to show how deeply they were affected. I’m sure if you speak more than one language you have seen what I’m talking about intimately. 

My point here is that, if we are using “courage” willy nilly like that, does it actually mean anything specific? Or is it just one of those scenarios where it is up to the receiver to decide what it really means. Or maybe it is one of those cases where only the more articulate and mindful among us, use a much richer and intentional vocabulary to describe each of those situations to spare the audience of the cognitive burden of deciphering. Mhmm, that feels more right. 

Ah right! While we are deep down this rabbit hole, you know what kind of society I am longing for? One where the idiom for courage is “that took some black vagina to pull off” instead of the current one “that took some balls”, the propaganda message from dudes who have never received a blow in the groin area to know how fragile testicles are. Compare that to the strength, resilience, and optimism that a black mother has when her teenage son walks out of the door to buy milk from the grocery store knowing full well that he might never come back because an insecure piece of shit police officer might feel threatened by his unwelcome black presence. That mother’s heart of steel is what fucking courage is, not having balls!

Brene Brown says “courage” comes from a latin root meaning “heart”. Her interpretation is that courage is all about speaking and acting according to your heart, in other words, your true desire and self. And if you do that, what happens? Well, you’ll be in a vulnerable position. That vulnerable position might be out of necessity and survival, or it might be out of exploration and curiosity. Regardless, people might not like what you think should happen. At best they might dismiss it, and at worst they might actively sabotage you. Call it courage or whatever, as long as you find meaning in a pursuit you have, that’s really all that matters. 

Maybe entrepreneurship is all about courage for that woman from Africa who is here doing a university program, crying herself to sleep at night thinking how she can take her newly acquired knowledge back home to help her people. Maybe it is all about curiosity for the middle class Iranian man whose family had just enough to support him to go abroad and become someone for himself and feels secure enough to explore what else can be gained. Maybe it is all about tenacity for that Immigrant mother with autistic kid who has decided that no other mother should go through what she has. Maybe it is about the anger that Canadian woman felt when she had a cancer scare and realized how unimportant her reproductive organs are to the healthcare system. Maybe it is about being determined as a rock for the European engineer who lost his legs in an accident and decided that no other mobility challenged person should be treated like he was. Or more maybe, as valid as the rest, for the white dude who had all the privileges and wanted to do something useful with those. 

Ah, that was a long tangent. Where were we? Right, we were asking ourselves if starting a business takes courage. Well, the answer, as I promised, is maybe. But the answer that I can give you more confidently is that, no matter what drives you, no matter what kind of insanity has gotten into you, no matter what kind of injustice you are up against, there is no set ingredient for success, there is no one way to do it, and your way is probably the best way, because that’s what makes it personal. So, do it your way.

PS. Almost all entrepreneurs I used as examples are real people who I have had the humbling experience of meeting, felt inspired by, and will look up to as long as I can.