Myths are more than ancient stories or narrative relics that are no longer relevant. They are like mirrors for societies; they reflect the culture and biases of their time, and that’s true today, too.

A culture shapes its image of a hero in the stories that it tells. Heroes are typically society’s ‘ideal man’ formed from stories that are repeated over and over, evolving from simple tales into a mythos woven into the very fabric of that society, using a compelling narrative to share its values and beliefs.

In Ancient Greece, a misogynistic and patriarchal society, the heroes embodied traits idolized by men: strength, attractiveness, isolation, and monster-slaying prowess. He was what men aspired to be and what women wanted to be with.

These male heroes set a standard echoed in today’s American mythology. The conservative GOP in the U.S. still upholds the same “ideal man” as Ancient Greece, though today’s hero doesn’t fight literal monsters.

Nowhere is a better example of this than with Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) campaign. MAGA is political myth-making that centers its hero, Trump, as the only one equipped to fight the metaphorical monsters of American society (be they immigrants from non-European countries, trans women, and “the left”), thanks to his previous reputation as a “no-nonsense businessman.”

This pattern plays out in our capitalistic and patriarchal society, churning out tales with a hero who fits a specific mold and inspires countless bestsellers.¹ (Yes, I mean him: almost always a handsome, able-bodied white man from a wealthy, but not too wealthy background.) This narrow view of the hero archetype ignores the complexity of overlapping identities, such as race, class, disability, sexuality, and gender identity. It reinforces narrow ideals of success.²

These modern myths feature the hero in memoirs and biographies of entrepreneurs and businessmen. The hero stumbles on a great idea, takes a risk, and after many struggles, achieves success that society approves of, with accolades to show for it (30 Under 30, Fortune 500, etc.) Think of books like Shoe Dog by Phil Knight³, a memoir of Nike’s co-founder, as an example.

Stories like this often mirror the Campbellian Hero’s Journey monomyth, set in the modern tech era.

Let’s examine how society’s modern capitalist hero fits into the Hero’s Journey framework.

Joseph Campbell, a 20th-century mythologist, argued in his most famous work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, that most global myths followed a “monomyth”: 1) Departure, 2) Initiation, and 3) Return.⁴ Within each stage are steps the hero passes through until his story ends.

You can spot this pattern in countless books and movies today; for instance, George Lucas famously used it in the first Star Wars film.⁵

We’ll trace the stages as defined by Campbell for our capitalist hero as he sets out: Departure, where he embarks on an unexpected venture; Initiation, where he faces trials and gains wisdom; and Return, where he brings that transformation back to society.

Departure

1. The Call to Adventure

This is where our hero and his college buddy have a beer and complain about a service they want but can’t find. Despite the wall of sound around them, the booming music and the shouted conversations, the two look at each other, and the noise falls away as they blow each other’s minds, and say, “Should we start a business for this? Let’s do it!”

2. Refusal of the Call

But no matter how mind-shatteringly awesome an idea is, starting a business is always risky, and the hero is scared to take the leap. In the memoir, the aged hero-as-author looks back, sympathetic to his younger self and his self-doubt.

3. Supernatural Aid

The hero is lucky here (or the aged hero-as-author looking back says he created his own luck). Perhaps the hero’s college mentor offers key advice, or if he’s really lucky, his first angel investor appears. The hero is lucky that he looks like a younger version of his mentor, or otherwise has a similar background to his mentor. Others don’t get access to such elusive formative guidance because of their different look or backgrounds.⁶

4. The Crossing of the First Threshold

This is the point in the memoir when the aged hero-as-author looks back at his early business moves and laughs. He writes about how he and his college buddy were naive and details all the wacky tactics he now warns budding entrepreneurs against.

On a deeper level, however, the laughter makes light of the privilege of his being able to make mistakes and recover. If he is self-aware, perhaps the aged hero-as-author will acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury of a safety net—like parental support, college networks, etc.—that allows him to stumble and get back up again.

5. The Belly of the Whale

Here is where the young hero faces his first potentially catastrophic event in his business. Perhaps the young tech CEO launches an update to his app, but the server unexpectedly crashes on launch day, and he spends the next week assuring his employees and customers that this is just a temporary glitch. Maybe this is a personal hardship with a death in the family or a cancer diagnosis.

Initiation

6. The Road of Trials

After the Belly of the Whale episode, we see the transformative period in which the hero works seemingly unending hours in the office. He realizes that he can’t do it alone (or with just him and his business partner) and gathers a team of qualified individuals to help “uplevel” the business.

This is like the montage in the documentaries with a flurry of photos of the young hero and his small new team working out of their first rented office space.

7. Meeting with the Goddess

By now, the business has not only survived its first few bombshells, but it is thriving. The hero thinks of how his business has upleveled, and now so should he. He thinks of how he needs to get himself a seat at the table with real powerhouses if he intends to be like one of them. Maybe he attends a tech conference where he has a chance meeting with an industry thought leader. The hero hasn’t felt this invigorated since the early days of him and his buddy at the bar. Ideas are flying, and the hero sets out to update his business model, inspiring a new pivot that will accelerate the business’s growth trajectory even faster.

8. Woman as the Temptress

This is not usually a literal woman tempting the hero, though some stories have the “crazy ex-girlfriend” stereotype. More often, the temptress is the temptation to give up the business and to take a standard job: a latent desire for stability and the lure of less intense work. Even though his company is successful, and he’s already made it through challenges before, thoughts like “Give up and get a real job! You wouldn’t stress this much if you were an accountant.” swirl around in the young hero’s mind. But he knows these are fleeting thoughts, and he knows that he won’t give in to these lingering fears and thoughts of self-doubt. How could he? He’s come too far now.

9. Atonement with the Father

Just like with the Woman as Temptress, this atonement is not with the hero’s literal father (although sometimes it is!) This is more likely to be a clash with his morality or, in a legal sense, with the government. Maybe he is at a stage in the business where he needs an infusion of capital and new investors, and to do so, he may need to do questionable things to make his offer more enticing. (Perhaps this is upping the production of the product in his company, causing human rights violations to the workers who produce the things he sells. Or maybe it’s tax evasion, or “borrowing” (read: stealing) intellectual property.

10. Apotheosis

Our aged hero-as-author explains here that after he wades in doubt for a while longer, he buckles down and prepares to pitch to investors.

11. The Ultimate Boon

If the hero didn’t get the angel investor earlier in the story, he’s got it here. The investor sees a lot of himself in the young hero: he thinks, “This is a good kid with a good idea and a lot of potential,” and takes a chance on him. Thanks to this, the hero has truly lifted his business off the ground. Or perhaps this is the first major investment or merger his company has made. Whatever this boon is, it transforms the business from a successful venture into a household name.

Return

13. The Magic Flight (Farther ahead than in Campbell’s original framework)

A plot twist: maybe the college buddy the hero started the business with has been embezzling money for years. Or perhaps a recession happened. Something happens that throws a wrench into the story, and the hero must pivot the business to save it.⁷

14. Rescue from Without

The hero has faced intense adversity before, but this betrayal or major setback has higher stakes. But he’s not alone, and he has more guidance here. He’s very successful at this point in his story, so he taps into the network that he’s built throughout the early years of his business. Or he relies on high-level executives, such as his COO, CFO, and other key positions, to help pull the company out of the scandal or incident it is facing.

12. Refusal of the Return (Farther back than in Campbell’s original framework)

After years in the business, the not-so-young-anymore hero hears the call he’s reluctant to answer: to slow down. Perhaps his sense of morality comes by more often and is too loud to ignore. Or maybe he’s realized that he’s become a bottleneck in the progress of the business. Either way, he can’t continue doing the work at the pace that he previously was.

15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold

At this point in the hero’s journey, he has sold his company. This is the part of the memoir where the aged hero-as-author describes his yearning to “be the visionary” while hiring a CEO who “runs the day-to-day” operations. The aged hero returns to his family and now spends time with them after years of late nights and no weekends.

16 & 17 Master of the Two Worlds and Freedom to Live

At the end of the memoir, the hero-protagonist and the aged hero-as-author converge. Now the hero is the angel investor for the future generations of heroes that look just like him. He spends time on philanthropic work.

In his memoir or in his inspirational speeches, the aged hero describes the freedom to work on the “things that really light me up.”⁸

What if you don’t fit the mold of this hero?

The farther you are from a wealthy, young, able-bodied white man, the harder this hero’s journey is for you to replicate. Exceptions exist, of course, as conversations finally include others that don’t match the traditional capitalist hero’s description. But there’s still a long way to go. Not to mention, the men who do fit this mold but face shame if they choose a different path, like becoming a stay-at-home dad.

I firmly believe it is in our best interest and our duty to ourselves to be the authors of our own journey, rather than placing so much importance on emulating the capitalist hero’s journey. However, if you’re someone who reads the memoirs of traditional capitalist heroes and sees yourself in them, then by all means, godspeed to you!

But for the rest of us wanting to forge our own path—one that our society doesn’t value as much—I hope you continue to block out the noise as you continue on your unique hero’s journey.

All my best,

Monica⁹

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^1. You can see early stages of American mythos in the Frontier myths and Manifest Destiny.

^2. A prime example of this would be the combination of racism and sexism, seen in Misogynoir, a term coined by Moya Bailey in 2008.

^3. Though Shoe Dog serves as a great example, the breakdown of the hero’s journey that follows is not entirely based on this book. I’ve based the story on various biographies and memoirs I’ve come across and on personal anecdotes from local CEOs.

^4. The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (Bookshop.org affiliate link)

^5. Campbell’s framework helps identify commonalities in myths and stories, but it has faced criticism for its Western bias, as it often fails to fully account for the diversity and nuances in many non-Western cultures’ narratives. This encourages us to engage in critical thinking when applying these ideas to modern storytelling.

^6. This is not a new-age, or “woke” idea. Roland Barthes explores how systematic privilege affects popular narratives in his 1956 book, Mythologies. (Bookshop.org affiliate link).

^7. I’ve found that Campbell’s 12th step, “Refusal of Return,” works better for our purposes a little later in the hero’s journey. This is also a good time to say that, of course, everyone’s journey and story looks unique (American capitalist heroes included), so any of these story beats can be a mixed-up order, or even some beats missing.

^8. For the hero of the entrepreneur’s memoirs and biographies, I’ve found that these last stages often overlap.

^9. This article originally appeared as an Instagram post back when I was still on Instagram. I’ve reedited the work and fleshed it out since I first posted it.