What If One and One Made Eleven?

A new way to think about entrepreneurship, identity, and success.

When I was a child in school, I remember being asked, “What’s one and one?” The answer came instantly to my mind was eleven. Because that’s what you get when you place 1 and 1 side by side – how does everyone else not see that?

Of course, I knew the expected answer was two, and so I gave it, because that’s what the system rewarded. But deep down, I always liked eleven more. It felt more curious, more imaginative, more me. But I learned quickly that there wasn’t much room for that kind of thinking in school, if you wanted to stay on track.

So, like many others, I did what was expected. I worked hard. I passed. I became what I thought I was supposed to be. I did ok, but something always felt off about my career path.

When I started my own business that I realised something that changed everything for me;   I was the critical ingredient or filter – behind every decision I made, and every result that followed.

Not the big idea, Not the business plan. Not the market trends. They were influences only. The core foundation – Me!

What I thought, how I thought, what I didn’t know but was willing to learn, and the people I surrounded myself with, all shaped my path far more than any textbook ever had.

And yet, I notice that when most people think about becoming an entrepreneur, the first thing they focus on is having “a great idea.” But in truth, the most important idea is you. What do you really want? What matters to you enough to carry it forward when things get hard?  And things do get hard, so It’s REALLY got to matter. What do you believe about success, failure, and your own capacity?

These aren’t just mindset questions. They’re the foundation of an entrepreneurial identity. And they’re rarely explored until something breaks, or until you do. Burn – out is real. The new venture failure statistics provide ample evidence, and these are only from the businesses we know of that failed – many quietly disappear.

From 2019 to 2022, I conducted a doctoral study with entrepreneurs who kept their businesses alive through the COVID-19 lockdowns, a time that acted as an unapologetic and brutal leveller. It affected everyone, and it offered no time to prepare.

I wanted to understand what helped some business owners hold steady while others were forced to close. What emerged was striking and consistent.

The three most powerful sources of positive influence weren’t funding, strategy, or digital tools. They were:

• Self-awareness
• Self-leadership
• Business structure
• Closely followed by the ability to collaborate.

In short: who they were mattered more to the entrepreneurs who held on, than what they had.

That’s not something our education system typically prepares us for. We’re taught to know the right answers, not to ask the right questions. We’re taught to perform, not to pause and reflect. We’re taught to follow a path, not to create one.

But entrepreneurship, real entrepreneurship, accessible and possible to all – asks something different. It asks us to know ourselves, to lead ourselves and to become the kind of person who can hold a vision and walk toward it, through unknown and often harsh terrain.

That’s why I created the Path of the Lion – and it’s now available digitally – to complete in your time, at your own pace, and at a fraction of the cost. It’s designed not to teach you how to start a business, but to help you become the kind of person who could.

It helps you build your internal compass. It doesn’t tell you what to see, but it shows you where to look. So that when you see “eleven” instead of “two,” you’ll understand why that matters, and how powerful that could be.

If you’ve ever sensed that you think a little differently, want a little more freedom, or carry ideas that don’t quite fit into the usual mould, this path was made for you.

It’s not about having the perfect idea. It’s about becoming an expert at who you are, so that you can become an expert at what you do. That is what is called Entrepreneurial Intelligence (EnQ).