You don’t need to have the bravado of Tony Robbins. Or the polarizing opinions of Gary Vee. Or the creative angst of Lady Gaga.

I can still remember one particular conversation from when I was 22. A family friend—a successful serial entrepreneur—asked me if I would consider starting my own business after graduating from University. Without missing a beat, I replied “I’m not creative enough to start a business”.

As soon as the words were out, I wished I could swallow them back up. My response that day has haunted me ever since, because it exposed a few limiting beliefs I was holding.

First, I got a reality check about the identity I was carrying about myself: “not entrepreneur material”.

Second, it highlighted my narrow view of entrepreneurship. That it was reserved for a specific personality type, whether the loud extrovert or the emotional artist.

This second part has taken a lot longer to unpack… that success and fulfillment are not reserved for a certain personality or skill set.

There’s room for all of us.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve found myself at a company whose vision of entrepreneurship covers the full spectrum: from Kylie Jenner selling lipsticks on our platform to the developers building Shopify apps in their basements. Entrepreneurship means many things at Shopify: being a store owner, running a design agency, or freelancing as an accountant. In our books, they’re all entrepreneurs deserving of success.

It’s been a full circle moment realizing how closely I’ve aligned myself with a company whose mission is to spread entrepreneurship, when for a long time I didn’t believe it was possible.

So don’t be like me at 22. Don’t reserve success for other people, for a certain personality type.

Take the time to actually become more of who you are and start finding ways to use it more.

That journey might start with a career switch to better align with your strengths and interests. I took a huge pay cut moving from finance to starting out in partnership marketing…

But what you lose in a momentary income dip, you gain back in motivation and drive. Leading to promotions, side hustles, and many more opportunities for success.

At which point you realize you have a very unique expertise to share with the world. And a personal brand is born, attracting a new level of experiences.

And after that?

Let’s figure that out together 🙂