Everybody’s entrepreneurial journey is somewhat different, but certain qualities or themes seem to appear in some of the best-known stories: resilience, urgency, adaptability and integrity. The founders we admire most often share a blend of these traits—and what’s striking is how many have captured them in writing, in memoirs that detail their most pivotal moments.

These stories—of resilience and urgency, adaptability and integrity—offer more than just a historical accounting. They also deliver a road map to aspiring entrepreneurs—and inspiration for the next generation of business leaders.

And here’s the thing: You don’t need to wait until you’ve sold your company, retired or hit age 70 to start reflecting. In fact, the act of putting your story on record—right now, in the messy middle—might be one of the most strategic things you can do to sharpen your entrepreneurial edge.

In my business, I’ve seen this in action over and over. For the last quarter-century, I’ve been working with CEOs at the top of their game to help identify and share the individual leadership qualities that have grown some of the most successful businesses in North America. And in every case, I’ve urged these clients to reflect on their life stories—now, while they’re all fresh, and not just the tidy bits. It takes the good, the bad and the ugly to concretely demonstrate critical entrepreneurial skills to staff, clients and investors.

So let’s take those four qualities I mentioned and explain why they’re so important—and why they’re so prevalent in the world of entrepreneurial superstars.

1. Resilience

Every founder stumbles—some in a very public fashion. What sets the exceptional entrepreneurs apart is how they rise again. More than one of our clients declared bankruptcy in their first business; one even wound up in jail before launching their second act, which is now valued at over a billion dollars.

Sophia Amoruso is another example. In her 2014 memoir #GIRLBOSS, she, then 30, recounts dumpster-diving and shoplifting before building Nasty Gal, a $100 million fashion brand that started life as an eBay store.

2. Urgency
Ideas aren’t wine. They don’t always get better with age. A client of ours began his entrepreneurial journey in his early 20s as a junior salesman. One Friday afternoon, he took the initiative to knock on a factory door when everyone else had left for the day. He just couldn’t wait for growth—and apparently, the factory manager couldn’t either. My client rose through the ranks of the business to take over operations and then ownership, turning the enterprise—already successful at $100 million in annual revenue—into a billion-dollar business. And it was all on the strength of his central philosophy of zigging when everyone else is zagging—and doing it now, today.

Paul Van Doren, the founder of Vans, is a fellow traveler. He didn’t even wait until his 20s. In his 2021 book Authentic, Van Doren tells the story of dropping out of high school to work at a rubber factory, where he discovered the opportunity to disrupt retail by skipping the middleman.

3. Adaptability

Founders who stay curious adapt, and founders who adapt survive. Ruth Zukerman trained in dance, taught aerobics and rebuilt her career after divorce by cofounding SoulCycle in her 40s, then Flywheel in her 50s. Her 2018 memoir, Riding High: How I Kissed SoulCycle Goodbye, Co-Founded Flywheel, and Built the Life I Always Wanted, isn’t about reinvention so much as evolution. Her entrepreneurial journey began with a single question: “How can this experience be improved upon? I started to see what appealed to people and what resonated.”

4. Integrity

The most magnetic founders are driven by both mission and values. A number of years ago, a long-standing client of ours reached a level of wealth that far exceeded what he and his family could spend in their lifetimes. He started looking for the meaning behind the assets, a purpose for all of his stockpiled treasure. He added social enterprise startups to his portfolio of businesses, endowed a foundation and began working with government and think tanks to understand how to make a true and positive impact on the world. The second act of his life—currently at the manuscript stage—is the story of how he’s working to make sure that by the time his ride is over, he’s given it all away with maximum benefit and efficiency. This second act isn’t just a hobby; it’s the expansion of a vision that had been gestating for decades.

These themes aren’t restricted to the exceptional few; every entrepreneur can, and should, embrace them.

Take resilience: We all go through challenging times that test our mettle. Sometimes these episodes even bring back embarrassing memories. But any good story has lots of valleys as well as peaks. Make sure to give your audience the full picture, warts and all, to strengthen your connection and authenticity.

For urgency and adaptability, be sure to clearly connect your successes with those key decisions that saw you take a risk or make a pivot—even when everyone else was telling you to stay the course. In all cases, demonstrate that integrity is the foundation upon which all your successes are built—it’s the one theme that will cement your reputation for decades to come.

When a founder puts their story on paper, it isn’t just to preserve the facts. It’s to sharpen the lens on their life. Patterns emerge, priorities reveal themselves and decisions that they’ve made begin to align with certain values they hold true. It’s a lesson that resonates with anyone hoping to tell their story: Whether you’re journaling quietly or sitting with a biographer, the act of reflection itself becomes strategic. It gives your leadership clarity and your journey context.

Your story may not be over, but the time to start telling it is now.