Enterprising People: Exemplary Lives and Educational Keys to Career Guidance

In a neoliberal and globalized society, which shares sustained employment crises, and other successes such as Covid-19, with diverse impact on people's lives, entrepreneurship becomes a possible and worthwhile option to stay active and obtain resources to do sustainable life. This article allows shedding light on the development of the entrepreneurial career, through a biographical-narrative study with twelve informants. The interview is used to promote a process of chained inquiry with a triple purpose: a) to understand the meaning of entrepreneurial trajectories from subjective interpretation; b) deepen the processes of transition to entrepreneurship; at the same time, c) an educational approach to the construction of the identity (or identities) of enterprising people is of interest. The results show characteristics of the vital traces (educational, professional and personal) and keys to the shaping of entrepreneurial processes. While entrepreneurship is an intrinsic phenomenon in the processes of constructing one's identity, this approach reveals ways of learning that are linked to "situated learning" and "contextualized action". Conclusions are raised for discussion, laying out clues for an entrepreneurial education in times of complexity and crisis.