How to Thrive as a Single Business Owner
Does it seem like a paradox to say that it’s very important for single entrepreneurs to build a community? September 22 is National Singles Day, and in the midst of celebrating it don’t forget about friends and colleagues.
Why would single people, especially business owners, need to build a clan? If they’re (OK, we’re) single, why do we need other people in business if we don’t need them for partners or spouses?
Our individualistic society is an anomaly
Humans survived as a species by cooperating with each other. While pop culture might show a man on his own clubbing a mammoth for food, that’s not how it worked. As a species, we’re smaller and slower than many other animals, plus we don’t have big chompy fangs or sharp talons or other weapons. But we survived, which means that somehow we adapted despite these challenges.
One of the ways we adapted was to become persistence predators. You might’ve noticed we have a lot less hair than other animals that spend all their time on land. If you’ve ever seen your dog panting, you know that’s the only way that it can cool down. We humans, on the other hand, are relatively hairless and we cool ourselves down by sweating, with tons of openings in our skin to let the heat out.
Running away from predators is exhausting, hot work, particularly on the savannah. That’s why animals run very fast for short periods of time. They’d overheat if they just kept going. But humans with their ability to cool down by sweating means we can just keep going and going, overpowering prey by simply wearing them out.
Our other strategy for survival was banding together, mostly in societies linked by kinship. Together we took down prey and built shelters and foraged and raised offspring. Menopause (which we only share with a few aquatic mammals such as killer whales) is a way to keep the community going. The matriarch stops having offspring so there’s no competition between older daughters, more recent daughters, and granddaughters. That’s a cooperative strategy, not a competitive one.
Our ancestors weren’t actually doing a lot of work most days. Conserving energy has a big benefit when you’re dealing with predators who might suddenly appear. They hunted and gathered for short periods of time, and spent the rest of the day mostly hanging out with everyone else. The concept of an eight-hour day would be pretty much foreign to anyone who died before the twentieth century.
The “nuclear family” is also an anomaly, one that’s even more recent than an eight-hour workday. Throughout most of human history, more than one generation lived together. It wasn’t all about male/female pairs and couples raising their 2.3 children in a house with a white picket fence. (That seems to be a very American, post-WWII fantasy.) Instead, parents, their parents, their children, and an assortment of siblings lived together. Marriage as we know it today is another very recent construct.
The importance of community
In a land where predators could eat us at any time, being exiled from the group could have literally deadly consequences. That’s why we humans have social antennae that are finely tuned to our position in the group. Status-seeking that we see today in terms of enormous McMansions, fancy cars and designer handbags isn’t actually anything new. The more status you have, the more resources you have access to.
Humans understand how important it is to cooperate with others and be a member of a community – even if we don’t necessarily experience that understanding on a conscious level. The subconscious is always looking for clues as to where we are in the hierarchy. (The book The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson explains the social calculations going on at a subconscious level in detail.)
Being single doesn’t mean you don’t need others
With socializing being so important, even for introverts, it’s not necessary to have a long-term mate if you don’t want to. Having friends is equally as important. Being connected to one other person in the form of partner or spouse is not at all the same thing as being connected to a group of people who all have your back in one way or another.
Different people have different talents, which is why it’s not reasonable even if you do want to get married to expect the other person to be your entire community. Some of us (OK, me) aren’t as great at expressing sympathy. Maybe when you need a shoulder to cry on you go to someone else who’s very expressive. But when you need a problem solved or someone to bounce ideas off, you come to your more logical friends.
Some people adore making their Friday night plans just as they’re getting off work, and others have the next three Friday nights planned to the last detail. Some of your friends you might love to go shopping with, and others you leave to their Amazon orders – but they might be great movie companions. It’s hard for one person to satisfy all your friendship needs!
Community is especially important for business owners
As an entrepreneur you may have friends who work taking care of kids or the home, and others who work as employees. But sometimes you need to bounce ideas off someone else who’s in the same boat as you, or who’s been through a similar situation before.
Having other connections, even if they’re not your besties, in the business community can be incredibly helpful. If your spouse doesn’t own their own business, they probably don’t get what you’re going through either. Even married people need some business buddies outside their marriages.
Whether you’re single or not, having a group of people who get you and who you can rely on is key for emotional survival. Some of these people might be related to you – but they might not. If you had some difficulties with your family of origin, you might have created your own family with no blood ties.
You’ve probably heard the expression “blood is thicker than water”. But that’s not the real quote. It’s actually “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”.
I’m not saying you can’t get married or have a spouse or partner, if that’s what you like! But you don’t have to. As long as you have a group to belong to, you’re protecting your brain. (And as I have said many times, if it’s good for your brain, it’s good for productivity!
Recap:
We survived as a species because we cooperated with each other. That’s also how business owners survive in business. Having a group to belong to is good for your brain … which means it’s good for productivity too.