When your business becomes your identity, the line between you and the company blurs. Its good weeks lift you, its bad weeks flatten you, and a stranger's remark about the product lands on you personally. Often that blur began long before the company did.
Dalal's daughter has drawn the family for a school project, and the shop is in it.
There they all are in felt-tip, spread across the living-room floor: her grandmother, her little brother, the cat, herself and Dalal. And beside Dalal, standing so close that the lines touch, a tall rectangle with a door and a perfume bottle on its front. "That's the shop," the girl says, as if it's obvious. "It always goes next to you."
Dalal laughs. Part of her doesn't.
Eight years ago the brand was a spare bedroom in Al Warqa'a and a box of glass droppers. Now it's a counter in a Dubai mall, a website that ships across the Gulf, and eleven people on the team. Every scent on the shelf was her call. Her name is on every contract.
Last week a beauty creator with a big following said, in a short video, that Dalal's best seller "smells like everyone else's now". The team shrugged and got on with the day. Dalal heard something else in it: that she'd become ordinary, that whatever made her who she is had worn off. It has followed her all week, into meetings, into a call with her mother, into this room.
Now she can't stop looking at the place where her outline meets the shop's, wondering which line is hers.
What happens when your business becomes your identity?
Your sense of who you are moves into the company. Criticism of the product reaches you personally. A decision about its future feels like a decision about who you'll be. Plenty of founders love their work and keep that line clear. When it fades, you lose track of where you end and the company begins.
That's all the drawing caught. Dalal's daughter didn't mean anything by it. She drew what she sees.
How does a company become part of who you are?
Part of it is only natural. Something made from that much of you will feel like you. Your taste is in what it makes. Your judgement chose the people. It carries your name. It would be strange if a remark about it didn't sting at all.
A sting is one thing, though, and carrying it for a week is another. When a comment follows someone into a phone call with their mother, the company is usually holding more than a product.
For some founders, the business is the first thing that was ever entirely theirs. If your plans were settled for you at the family table, a company where your word is the last word can be the first place you've felt like someone in your own right. That's a lot to ask of a business: to hold your place in the world.
If talking suits you better than reading, Sara, our veteran RS Method Master Coach, takes free calls on Zoom. If you'd like one, choose a time here. Or read on.
An employee can leave a job title behind at the end of the day. A founder made the thing, so there's nothing to leave behind, only a line to find.
Where do you end, and where does the company begin?
Watch the company's bad days, and watch what happens when someone asks it to change.
A wholesale client moves to a bigger brand, and it doesn't register as a lost account. It registers as a judgement on you. A good manager hands in her notice, and part of you takes it as a comment on your character rather than a step in her career.
Someone on the team suggests a new name for a range, and it feels as though they've suggested a new name for you.
Even on a quiet evening, the company's mood comes home with you. In Dalal's daughter's drawing, the shop stands where a person would.
The company exists because someone cared about it enough to start it.
If the business has already gone, sold or closed, some of what I wrote in identity crisis after job loss may fit where you are. If an ending like that has left you struggling, please see a doctor. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
Why does a remark about the product feel like a remark about you?
Because the remark has two targets, and the business is just one of them.
The product part is simple. A note about a scent is something a company can weigh, test, use or ignore, and Dalal's team did exactly that before lunch.
The rest of the remark went to the place the company has been holding for her: being somebody, unmistakably, with nobody else's name in front of hers. "Like everyone else's" was a product note. What Dalal heard was that she'd blended back into the crowd, and that's what has kept the remark with her all week.
She didn't choose to hear it that way. A much younger Dalal settled what it would take to count, long before there was a brand, and over the years the company became the place that conclusion lives.
I see this in a lot of people who run their own companies. Talk to them about the business and you hear "we" in every sentence: we launched, we lost the account, we're having a hard month. The "we" has no edges, and somewhere inside it the "I" has stopped having an address of its own.
The company came from you. You didn't come from the company. You are not broken. You are buried. The freedom is in the removal.
There's also a person you can say all this to. A call with Sara costs nothing, and it's about you, not the company. Pick a time.
Before you try the practice below, a word about looking after yourself. This work isn't therapy or medical care. If you're in treatment, keep working with your doctor or therapist. A business in trouble can press hard on the person who built it, so if it's affecting your health, please talk to a doctor. If it ever leads to thoughts of harming yourself, don't wait: get help today. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services. You can always talk it over with a friend you trust, or with a professional.
What can you try with a blank page?
Try drawing a picture like the one on Dalal's floor, but your own version, on a blank page nobody else will see.
- Draw yourself, the people who matter to you, and the company. Stick figures are fine. Give the company whatever shape it wants. Don't plan where anything goes.
- Look at where the company ended up. Is it next to you, behind you, or between you and someone else? Is it bigger than anyone in the picture? Do its lines touch yours?
- Cover the company with your hand. Look at what's left of the picture, and take your time. There's nothing to write and nothing to decide. If it feels strange, you can take your hand away whenever you like.
You can fold the page away or throw it out. A drawing can show what a sentence leaves out. And if the picture looks empty without the company in it, I don't know who I am anymore is about that feeling.
What makes a good first conversation about this?
Three things make a first conversation about this worth having.
- It asks about you before the business. A founder spends most of the week answering for the company. This conversation should ask about the person who runs it.
- It starts by listening. Before anything is suggested, someone should hear what you're carrying.
- It helps you find a next step and leaves the choice with you. With us, somewhere else, or not yet.
Sara's free call works that way. She's our veteran RS Method Master Coach, and her Zoom calls run twenty to forty minutes. Her booking page lists what to expect: she listens first, she answers your questions about the work, and you leave with clarity. In the page's words, "Sometimes that means a next step. Sometimes it means a different doorway." Put plainly, the call is about fit and your next step. It isn't advice on the business. You choose your time zone and a window, and the Zoom link arrives by email.
Of all the questions people have brought to me over the years, one keeps coming back.
The next sentence is someone else's.
Marko Mladenovic, in his interview at rs-method.com/stories: "I feel like I have finally found the answers on my question, Who am I?"
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.
P.S. The company gets asked about every day. For one conversation that's about you, Sara's free call is there to "help you find your next true step", as her booking page puts it. Book a call with Sara.