How Fathers Figure in the Creation of Entrepreneurs
Whether your father was present in your upbringing or not, he will always be a force, good and bad, in your business.
BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN
The statistics pertaining to what kind of upbringing is most
likely to result in the creation of a successful entrepreneur have a wide
dispersion, are completely contradictory, and totally inconclusive. That's even
before you consider the fact that the vast majority of the collected data deals
almost exclusively with white males and a smattering of male immigrants,
typically Asian or Indian. Needless to say, this accumulated data doesn't have
a whole lot to say about today's multi-cultural and multi-gender
entrepreneurial world. And don't even get me started on the famous "nature" versus "nurture" debate.
Predictive factoids, formulations, and fantasies were and
continue to be prevalent across media and literature. There are conclusions
about birth order, divorced parents, single parent (always a mother),
unemployed or fired parents, rich or poor - and none of them has ever made a
material or meaningful contribution to the world's understanding. Frankly, it's
unlikely that these conclusions will improve in the future, but the search for
certainty continues.
None of this matters: whatever family situation gets you started
on the startup journey is only a small part of the path to ultimate success.
Passion, preparation, perseverance, and perspiration -- basic hard work-- play just as big a part in anyone getting
to the goal line as family lineage.
At the same time, in my own hundreds of conversations over the
last 50 years with successful entrepreneurs, I have found a single correlative
consideration to be present in an astounding number of cases. Starting from
amazingly young ages and spanning decades of interactions and life changes, how
you feel about your father and the changes over time in your relationship with
him have a dramatic and lifelong impact on you as an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurs are always builders, and even they don't always realize that what
they're forever trying to build is a bridge back to their fathers. This is also
why so many of them confuse and can't effectively separate their work from
their self-worth.
Let me state my own caveat at the start - my comments, conversations
and conclusions have to do exclusively with my own interactions, discussions
and observations of the male entrepreneurs I've dealt with over the decades.
So, my perspective and impressions are limited in that regard even though it's
obvious that successful female entrepreneurs may share many of the same
feelings and experiences. Experience and anecdotal information is certainly not
evidence. But, make no mistake, these feelings are at the very heart of the
drive, desire, and success of millions of individuals building businesses
throughout the world.
In a few words, the American poet Robert Frost probably
expressed it best: "You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You
have to deserve your father's." Most entrepreneurs I know spend a
lifetime trying to earn that love and respect. It's never an easy task, but
it's an inevitable and unavoidable one. And it starts early on - sometimes
couched in ironic references, but almost always pretty close to the surface and
easily combined with a touch of anger and a big chip on the shoulder. Armed
with a grin and hiding behind painful humor.
One CEO said his father stole most of his childhood. Another
joked that one day his father took him aside and left him there. Fatherless
children - whether through disappearance, death or divorce - feel abandoned,
cheated, and forever angry deep down inside. As Sam Fender sings in Seventeen
Going Under: "That's the thing with anger, it begs to stick around. So
it can fleece you of your beauty."
I believe that, if you haven't had a good father or lost one
abruptly, you have to create your own. Many entrepreneurs feel that their
businesses are surrogate families and literal extensions of their own lives,
which they can better craft and control than their own upbringings. They think
they can make things "right" this time around. Everything becomes far
more personal and emotional - commitments and loyalty, among other things, are
regularly tested - because the business's success is so psychologically
important to the entrepreneur's mental health as well as to his or her
financial well-being.
This is also the reason that so many fathers (much to their
late-in-life dismay) get so wrapped up in making a living that they lose sight
of the need to make a life for themselves and their families as well. If
they're not careful, the cycle repeats itself and, as Harry Chapin wrote long
ago in a song called Cat's in the Cradle: "And as I hung up
the phone, it occurred to me. He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like
me." Sam Fender calls it "a mirrored picture of my old
man."
Writers and especially academics spend a great deal of time
stressing the importance of finding mentors at critical junctures throughout
your career without really appreciating that the path, the boundaries, the
tenor and the final destination for so many entrepreneurs are set and defined
early on by our parents, and especially our fathers.
Our mothers may be our first coaches, but our fathers are our
earliest and most essential mentors. The most pivotal person in a young man's
life isn't a lecturer or teacher, it's someone who offers and demonstrates that
they care unreservedly about that kid as an individual and have his back. The
best fathers try to set the goals, dreams, and aspirations not only for
themselves, but for their sons and daughters as well, but they do it from an
emotional rather than a purely rational perspective. Young people need models,
not critics.
Our mothers seek to protect us from the world while our fathers
too often threaten us with its woes and worries. They think of this as
preparation and protection for the often brutal and bitter road ahead, but it's
a delicate and complex task and one that's easy to overdue. Fathers often use
too much force.
Done well - the manifest grit, guidance, and encouragement
create an unquenchable fire. Children with strong fathers learn to trust early,
to believe that their needs will be met, that their fears will be addressed,
and that they are wanted and loved. Overdone or done too pedantically and
aggressively, and the process can create a destructive and debilitating albatross.
Absent entirely, it's likely to lead to an even worse result.
The most important lesson for entrepreneurs as they mature and
start families - whether their childhood was a supportive bed of roses or a
thorny and painful garden of grief - is that you have two critical jobs to do
at the same time. You've got to build a business and, if you have them, also
raise strong, secure and resilient kids if you ever want to call yourself a
true success. But, unlike startups which provide regular opportunities for
course corrections, new starts, and even do-overs, you only get one chance and
one lifetime to make the best life for your family while you're trying to make
a living as well.
What we know for sure is this: Your family is a much more
important extension of yourself than any work you will ever do. Don't sell them
short.
AUG 16, 2022
