> A mentor has advised me not to become "boring" and wants me to try to stay entrepreneurial. I still want to be creative
That mentor has an interesting definition of "boring". I agree about trying not to be boring, as so many in tech are boring, but that includes most entrepreneurial people in tech as well.
For me, being "boring" is about a lack of life exploration and participation. Meeting people, investing in relationships, trying new things, traveling, being part of communities, having interests, hobbies, being multi-dimensional, those are what make you fun and interesting, in my opinion, they are also what life is all about.
Sometimes it's hard to be interesting if you're going ahead trying to build a company, single product, single mission, lots of hard work, but it's always the same work, single track, single goal, that's very one dimensional. Because it's a lot of work and can be stressful, it's often all consuming, leaving no space for anything else. That means you can become quite a boring person.
Now sometimes the reward pays off, and after the grind you can expand yourself due to your new found money and connections, but some people just don't make it, or when they do they stay boring, they missed their good years, or they feel they're only good at business now and just repeat the same old same old on a new venture, but it's basically the same thing so they don't really experience new things or have anything more to talk about.
An alternative is to see work as a necessity of taking 40h to pay for all the other life exploration you want to afford. You can then be interesting outside of work, join clubs, travel, try new things, go out, meet people, even if online only, learn things, experiment, become multi-dimensional, have multiple things that define yourself, etc.
How any of this relates to your personal happiness and feeling of accomplishment and worth is only for you to figure out. Some people are happier being boring, and need traditional recognition to feel worthy, like being rich or traditionally successful at business for example. Others are happier focusing only on family. Others are happier being interesting, and having experienced many different things and constantly trying some more. And any combination of the above.