By Álvaro Tobar Álvarez – Chile

Public discourse around entrepreneurship continues to be shaped by a simplified narrative: that it is primarily a vehicle for capturing economic rents. This view, widely disseminated through media and conventional training programs, frames company formation as little more than a strategy to “make money.” What it overlooks is a central dimension of the entrepreneurial process: self-actualization. From both an economic and behavioral standpoint, this omission is not merely conceptual — it leads to incomplete interpretations of what actually drives sustained business success.

Behavioral economics has long shown that individuals do not maximize monetary payoffs alone. Scholars such as Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, through self-determination theory, argue that intrinsic motivators — autonomy, competence and purpose — systematically produce higher levels of persistence, creativity and subjective well-being. In an entrepreneurial setting, these variables translate into greater resilience under uncertainty, stronger innovative capacity and the endurance required to move from ideation to measurable value creation.

This framework reframes a familiar maxim often repeated in business circles: “If you do great work, the money will follow.” Markets do not operate by magical logic, and no serious analysis would claim that excellence guarantees financial returns. Yet the evidence does suggest that when entrepreneurship is fueled by self-actualization rather than purely by income maximization, a virtuous alignment tends to emerge: quality improves, innovation compounds and differentiation becomes more organic. Financial performance, in this view, materializes as a positive externality of deeper motivational drivers.

From an educational perspective, this argument challenges training models focused exclusively on technical instruments: pitching, funding sources, cost structures, agile methodologies and similar tools. While indispensable, these mechanisms do not capture the full complexity of entrepreneurship. When identity, vocation and psychological commitment are excluded from the equation, programs risk producing ventures that are structurally sound on paper yet devoid of meaning for the individuals tasked with sustaining them.

Integrating self-actualization explicitly into entrepreneurship education is not a romantic gesture. It is a technical acknowledgment that non-monetary variables have measurable effects on business performance. Founders who understand why they are building — and to what end — tend to make more coherent strategic decisions, navigate volatility more effectively and construct business models that generate genuine value rather than short-term cash flow alone.

Viewed through this broader lens, entrepreneurship shifts from a narrow accumulation strategy to a mechanism for mobilizing talent, creativity and human capital toward solving real problems. Sustainable enterprises are not built on financial incentives alone, but on a calibrated mix of purpose, discipline and long-term vision. When these elements align, economic returns — including monetary ones — tend to follow as a function of value created.

–English Magazine