Entrepreneurs tend to be seekers. Curiosity, ambition, and the willingness to imagine something better can be incredible strengths. They can also make it really hard to leave well enough alone.

In this episode of The Existential Entrepreneur, I’m exploring the line between growth and glorified shape-shifting: perfectionism, boredom, our tendency to keep moving the goalposts, and what yoga’s practice of santosha (contentment) has taught me about wanting something different without constantly fighting the present moment.

Sometimes growth looks like making a change. Sometimes it looks like staying long enough to discover what repetition, refinement, and deeper attention have to teach you.

Mentioned in this episode

• The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler
• Santosha, one of the five niyamas (observances) in yoga philosophy, commonly translated as contentment

Want to join the conversation?

I’m currently looking for guests for Season 2 of The Existential Entrepreneur—especially business owners who are in the middle of questioning, experimenting, changing direction, or figuring something out.

You don’t need to have the answers. That’s kind of the point.

If you’re in a place where you can talk candidly about what you’re working through, get in touch at cassie@cassiepaton.com.

If you’d like to hear about new episodes (and get the occasional existential dispatch in your inbox), join my email list.

Links:

Brand strategy at Mettle & Tonic

Yoga at Throughline Yoga with Cassie

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram

In this episode of The Existential Entrepreneur, I’m exploring purpose, work, and what happens when the goals you’ve been chasing no longer feel like your own.

We’ll get into the “black hole purse” of accumulated offers, strategies, expectations, and good-enough things that are surprisingly hard to let go of. I’ll also share how teaching yoga changed the way I saw my own work, and why I’ve become less interested in finding one grand purpose than in asking a more practical question: What do I actually need my work to give me?

Maybe meaning isn’t something we find by searching for more. Maybe it’s something we uncover by paying attention to what matters... and having the courage to arrange our lives accordingly.

Mentioned in this episode:

1. Hunter S. Thompson’s 1958 letter on finding purpose and choosing a way of life rather than conforming yourself to a predetermined goal
2. The Bhagavad Gita and the teaching that one’s own dharma (or purpose), even imperfectly lived, is preferable to perfectly following someone else’s path

Want to join the conversation?

I’m currently looking for guests for Season 2 of The Existential Entrepreneur—especially business owners who are in the middle of questioning, experimenting, changing direction, or figuring something out.

You don’t need to have the answers. That’s kind of the point.

If you’re in a place where you can talk candidly about what you’re working through, get in touch at cassie@cassiepaton.com.

If you’d like to hear about new episodes (and get the occasional existential dispatch in your inbox), join my email list.

Links:

Brand strategy at Mettle & Tonic

Yoga at Throughline Yoga with Cassie

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram

In the first episode of The Existential Entrepreneur, I’m sharing what led me to stop marketing my business and disappear from public view for nearly two years—and why I’m starting this podcast before I know how the story ends.

We’ll get into what happens when entrepreneurship becomes about more than running a business—when your work gets tangled up with who you are, what you want, and whether your old definition of success even resonates anymore.

This first season is an experiment in living the questions before rushing toward the answers. If you’re deeply invested in your work but questioning your path, you’re in the right place.

Want to join the conversation?

I’m currently looking for guests for Season 2 of The Existential Entrepreneur—especially business owners who are in the middle of questioning, experimenting, changing direction, or figuring something out.

You don’t need to have the answers. That’s kind of the point.

If you’re in a place where you can talk candidly about what you’re working through, get in touch at cassie@cassiepaton.com.

If you’d like to hear about new episodes (and get the occasional existential dispatch in your inbox), join my email list.

Links:

Brand strategy at Mettle & Tonic

Yoga at Throughline Yoga with Cassie

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram

The Existential Entrepreneur is for founders who are questioning their path in a time when everything feels unstable—politically, economically, technologically, and personally.

Hosted by Cassie Paton (brand strategist and yoga teacher), this podcast explores the existential side of entrepreneurship: identity, purpose, reinvention, burnout, and the tension between building something impressive and building something honest.

Through thoughtful meditations and conversations with business owners in the messy middle (not just the 6- and 7-figure highlight reels), we'll unpack what it actually looks like to evolve your work as you evolve yourself.

If you've ever gone from asking “How do I grow?” to “What’s the point?”... you're in the right place.

Season 1 drops this fall. Follow along.

Want to join the conversation?

I’m currently looking for guests for Season 2 of The Existential Entrepreneur—especially business owners who are in the middle of questioning, experimenting, changing direction, or figuring something out.

You don’t need to have the answers. That’s kind of the point.

If you’re in a place where you can talk candidly about what you’re working through, get in touch at cassie@cassiepaton.com.

If you’d like to hear about new episodes (and get the occasional existential dispatch in your inbox), join my email list.

Links:

Brand strategy at Mettle & Tonic

Yoga at Throughline Yoga with Cassie

Connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram