The choice every business owner faces

Over the years, I've noticed that business owners broadly fall into two camps. The kind who celebrate and collaborate. And the kind who criticise and compete. The interesting thing is that this isn't really about strategy or industry. It's about character. And the character you choose to build, more than almost anything else, will shape both the business you create and the kind of person you become while creating it.

Starting a business is a bold thing to do. Whether you're launching online, in person, or somewhere in between, you're putting your ideas, your energy, and your dreams out into the world where other people can see them, judge them, and respond to them.

And respond they will. Almost always in one of two ways.

The Celebrate & Collaborate crowd

These are the people who genuinely cheer you on. They believe there's room for everyone in the marketplace, and that when one person steps into their purpose, it inspires others to do the same. They'll share your content. They'll make introductions. They'll send you ideas. They'll back your vision when it's still wobbly, and they'll celebrate when things go well for you, even when nothing in it benefits them directly.

The reason they operate this way isn't naive. They understand something that scarcity-minded people miss. Collaboration creates momentum, and momentum is genuinely contagious. The networks they build over time tend to compound in unexpected ways. The favours they do for others come back, often years later, in ways they couldn't have predicted.

These are the people who make the entrepreneurial journey lighter. Find them. Appreciate them. And, more importantly, be one of them.

The Criticise & Compete crowd

Then there are the others. The ones who'll view your launch as a personal threat. The ones who'll quietly question your qualifications, compare your offering unfavourably to others, or pull you down with the kind of subtle commentary that's hard to confront directly. Some will copy your ideas without acknowledgement. Others will treat your progress as a race they need to win.

Most of the time, this kind of behaviour comes from fear. Fear of scarcity. Fear of being left behind. Fear that someone else's success means there's less available for them.

That fear is almost always misplaced, but it's powerful when it grips a person, and it produces small ugly behaviours that can wear down the people on the receiving end if they're not careful.

The most important thing you can do, when you encounter that energy, is refuse to be derailed by it. Stay focused on your mission. Let your work speak louder than the noise. The criticism rarely lasts. Your work, if it's good, eventually does.

The mindset underneath

As a founder, your mindset is one of your most valuable assets, more valuable, in many ways, than your capital, your network, or even your skill.

You can't control how others respond to your business. You can't make competitors generous. You can't force critics to become cheerleaders. But you can absolutely control how you show up in the process. Whether you operate from abundance or anxiety. Whether you build bridges or stay defensively locked in your own silo. Whether you respond to other people's success with celebration or with quiet resentment.

The choice matters more than people realise. Founders who consistently choose to celebrate other people's good work, who collaborate where it makes sense, who treat their industry as something worth contributing to rather than just extracting from, tend to build stronger networks, healthier reputations, and more sustainable success over time.

Generosity, in business, is a long game. It rarely produces immediate returns. Over a decade, it tends to produce extraordinary ones.

Five questions worth asking yourself honestly

If you want to test which crowd you're really in, five questions are worth turning over in your own mind.

• Who could I intentionally celebrate or support in their business journey this week?
• Am I genuinely operating from a mindset of abundance, or am I quietly running on scarcity and pretending I'm not?
• What real opportunities exist for me to collaborate, rather than always trying to go it alone?
• How do I actually respond, internally, when I see someone else succeeding in a space I'm in or want to be in?
• What kind of energy do I want to be known for bringing into my industry, my community, and my relationships?

That last question is probably the most useful one. The energy you bring into a room, into a meeting, into an industry, becomes your reputation over time. The reputation precedes you. People decide whether to do business with you, partner with you, or refer others to you, based on the energy they associate with your name.

Choose deliberately what you want that energy to be.

The choice you actually get to make

Business doesn't have to be a battleground. Plenty of founders treat it as one, and for them it ends up being exactly that. But it doesn't have to be. It's far more powerful when it becomes a platform for growth, connection, and genuine collective impact.

You get to decide how you build. The customers, the colleagues, the competitors, none of them ultimately determine the kind of leader you become. You do. The decision is renewed every week, every meeting, every interaction with someone who has either succeeded or struggled.

The two paths look fairly similar in the short term. They diverge dramatically over a career.

So as you look at the next twelve months of your business, which crowd do you genuinely want to be part of, and what is one specific way you could celebrate or collaborate with another founder this week to start being the kind of presence in your industry that you'd want to encounter yourself?