Moana is a heart-led CEO.
She’s consumed by the entrepreneurial urge – or the creative urge.
Same thing.
In the classic Disney film, Moana wants to go. She has a good life – systematized, secure, consistent. All her needs are met. Her Dad is in the island-chiefing business and wants her to follow.
“We need you,” he says. “Be smart. Bloom where you’re planted.”
Founders hear this all the time – from outside voices and from inside ones.
But we’re obsessed with the horizon.
To stay safe – as those who love Moana wish for her – would crush her. It denies her heart. The world can’t see her as she really is.
This wounds Moana.
Those she meets off of her island have the same wound: A demigod who tattoos over rejection with achievement. A giant crab who hides not just in armor but in sparkly social-media perfection. A fire monster, who, it turns out, is a nature goddess transfigured by rage.
The world has robbed them each of their true heart. It robs Moana, too.
She has no purpose statement – just a call, an urge for something different. But she heeds it. And in owning that identity, in leaving structures and security she knows, Moana finds her purpose: She’ll restore the island goddess’s heart. She’ll heal the world.
The world laughs, as it does at all with the audacity to try and change it.
At the low point of the film, Moana fails: The goddess’s hurt and her own doubt wash over her, and all is lost. The world is unmoved by her mission; she can’t make a dent. The problem is too great.
“I’m the wrong person,” she concludes.
Tell me I’m not the only founder who has felt this.
Those of us who trade the stable for the liminal have our reasons. Maybe you could name your company’s mission from the start, or maybe you’re like me and like Moana: You just felt a call and figured out the rest along your journey.
Either way, it wasn’t just your industry. It wasn’t opportunity. It wasn’t only that you saw a need in those your business serves.
It started with you.
You were insane enough to think that what was in you was worth letting out – and business was your boat. You sailed for your horizon.
And at some point, didn’t it all fall apart?
Did someone ask you to be sensible? Did the world fail to change? Were your grand dreams and visions met with shrugs?
How many times have you thought, “I’m the wrong person?”
In the movie’s climax, Moana doesn’t fix her tactics or rework her org chart or try harder. She doesn’t even find her “why.”
She finds herself.
“They have stolen the heart from inside you, but this does not define you,” Moana sings to the fire monster. She is singing to herself, too, and to all she’s met and fought and loved.
She heals them with five words:
“You know who you are.”
ABOUT THE IMAGE
Pictured above: The biggest Moana fan in my life (current age: 2.75).
She’s out the door most days and down the path before we can shout “shoes!” She sings Moana’s song as she goes, just the three words that she knows:
“It caaaalls meee!”
If it calls you too, I hope you heed it. May your work restore our hearts.
May you know who you are.
