How to find your meaning in life – Erik Angner

Everyone knows that passion is one of the key ingredients when finding your business idea. But how do you find your passion? Episode six of Speaking of Startups invites Erik Angner to the mic to answer this, one of life’s biggest questions (no pressure, then).

As it turns out, it’s a question that Angner has been asking himself since his late teens. Now an author and professor of philosophy at Stockholm University, he too found himself on unsure footing when he began debating the kind of career he wanted.  

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do in college”, he admits on the episode. “I started off doing philosophy just for a lack of interest in other things. I studied some religious history and some languages, then I circled back to philosophy as the thing I was really interested in.”

Specifically, Angner’s interest lay in rationality, and the science behind how we choose. Do we choose wisely? Is there anything we can do to choose better for our welfare, wellbeing, and happiness? These questions can paralyse aspiring founders before they’ve even put pen to business plan, just as they had Angner when he set foot on his university campus.

Throughout the episode, Angner discusses his learnings on how to make the perfect choice — or settle on the perfect business idea — from a career that has spanned two decades. We’ll give you the Cliff notes now: don’t make a choice, make choices. And lots of them.

The only way to figure out what you’re passionate about is to try things out. Try different subject matters, move in different communities, and try different lines of work. I did a couple of different things as an undergrad and I had no real direction. But I did social science and a little philosophy. Over time, a pattern emerged.

Keeping your options open may sound like indecision. But as Angner explains, flexibility is an important attribute for business founders. For those who typically have a fixed monetary or career goal they are striving towards, the idea of giving up control can feel uncomfortable. 

If you're in this business at all, you're probably a go-getter, and a bit of a perfectionist. But one thing about goals is that they tend to move. It's important to remember that you're progressing when you're going through this process.

Such self-determination is complicated by social media. In the age of TikTok and Instagram, Angner also speaks about the importance of standing by your own choices without comparing yourself to the LinkedIn influencers of the day, and their 5am alarm calls.

That includes sage advice on how to create a network of healthy business relationships. Sole traders in particular can feel protective over their idea, as well as hesitant to delegate or onboard new team members. But to stay productive long-term, Angner warns, entrepreneurs must build a community. There are limits to how much one person can do, he explains.

The danger is that you just sit around and feel bad about yourself because you're not accomplishing much as you would have wanted to. Having a community that you can rely on for pep talks and feedback and suggestions is really important.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Speaking of Startups, and be sure to subscribe to ensure you always get the next available episode first.

This episode is hosted by Eloise Skinner, founder of two businesses herself, as well as a published author and contributor to multiple sites, including our own Startups.co.uk, as well as Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and Management Today. You can learn more about Eloise and her own journey at ⁠eloiseskinner.com.