Business Creator: Born or Made? I’ve Got Thoughts

I was at a fireside chat recently on what makes a winning startup founder.

One of the panelists—a serial founder turned VC—outlined the three stages of building a business:

🏢 Phase 1: Product-market fit
🏢 Phase 2: Growth
🏢 Phase 3: Scale

He explained that each phase calls for a different type of leadership.

And for Phase 1? “You need a Rambo.”

Then he turned to the audience and asked: “Are you a Rambo?”

People laughed. Hands went up.
I chuckled—uneasily. I didn’t raise mine.

It stuck with me.
Not because it was offensive, but because of what it left out.

Beneath the laughs was something more serious—
a deeper belief that shows up in a lot of rooms like this one.

The idea that entrepreneurs—or business creators—are born is something you hear a lot. It sounds like it might be true. You let it slide.

But it’s a story that shrinks the field.

It implies there’s:

🏢 One kind of founder
🏢 One kind of energy
🏢 One kind of path

And it quietly excludes all kinds of people.

I’ve heard versions of this belief for years.
And I’ve lived through how untrue it can be.

Fifteen years ago, I was at one of the lowest points in my life—navigating the end of a 12-year relationship.

My horizon of possibility was narrow.
I couldn’t imagine starting a business, learning to market my service, or helping others build futures they hadn’t yet imagined.

But here I am now.

It’s easy—and comforting—
to believe you have to be born a certain way.
That belief keeps you safe. Inside the lines. Inside your story.

Once you glimpse something new—an identity, a possibility—it’s hard to unsee it.

And I’m not the only one.

This came up in a conversation with a woman I interviewed for an future issue of this newsletter.

At 25, she was floating. No plan. Not a thought or vision of starting a business.

Today?
She’s launched a platform and community for women to support and amplify each other.

She left a long corporate career—not because she had all the answers, but because she had the clarity, confidence, and courage to bet on herself.

Her story—like mine—wasn’t about being born with it. It was about recognizing a new path and choosing to walk it.

But too often, we don’t see those paths.
We stay where it’s familiar.

Which reminds me of a story I think about often.

Mohini was a white Bengal tiger at the National Zoo.

For years, she lived in a 12-by-12-foot concrete cage.

Eventually, the zoo built her a lush, open enclosure—designed to give her room to roam.

But when they released her, she didn’t explore.

She found a 12-by-12 corner and paced there, over and over.

The cage was gone.
But she still lived inside it.

That’s what limiting beliefs do.
They shrink our sense of what’s possible—long after the actual barriers are gone.

Mohini couldn’t escape her learned limitations.
But we can.

Unlike Mohini, we have something extraordinary:
The capacity to change—not just our circumstances, but ourselves.

It’s not easy.
It takes effort.
It means unlearning what once helped us survive—and choosing what helps us grow.

But it can be done.
People do it every day.

I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it.
And I’ve watched people transform once they stop asking:

“Was I born for this?” and start asking
“Who do I want to become next?”

You don’t have to have always seen it to step into it now.
You just have to, as Mary Oliver says, 

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

In a future post, I’ll tell the story of a young man apprenticed to a cobbler and a barber—who went on to win a Nobel Prize and reshape our understanding of the brain’s capacity to change. (You can read that post here.)

To your success,

Pierre

Certified Professional Coach