To Hell with Tradition – Let’s Build Businesses for Progress

I come from a compulsively entrepreneurial family of four – a mother and three sons. We used to be five of us, and the loss of the general of our squad – my dad – set in motion a series of events that changed the direction of our lives forever.

We were collectively left with less than (~$2) INR 100 in our bank accounts and no home to call our own. A little over 10 years on and we have five blossoming businesses under our wings – each in our own fields of life (the extra one’s for Dad).

Having experienced a spectrum of life that some of us don’t get to, I thought it might be nice to share a thought that I only recently learned, which really is the culmination of this humbling, decade-long journey.

Being Human

There is a human element to business that has long been forgotten. It seems to have been lost somewhere in the shuffle between traditional businessmen, big data analyses, the Internet of Things, and pre-conceived notions about what a business needs to be. The business lifestyle of ‘money makes more money’ that traditional businesses embody has never been more ripe for questioning.

The world is moving at lightning speed.

New hardware, new software and new mediums of communication show up every passing year. The barrier to entry for entrepreneurship has never been lower, and small companies are born around the world every day. Big companies acquire these small companies, to form huge companies. Huge companies will merge to form super companies.

And every single one of them is collecting a repository of human behavioural data to analyse and chart out a predictive map of the things we’re going to do. ‘Business’ has never been more of a numbers game than it is today.

Templates for success, existing models of business and strategic outlines are being adopted, but aren’t evolving at the pace at which the world is. The availability of information – on some level – threatens to stifle us as much as it promises growth. More of us are being pulled towards the ‘next big opportunity’, the next ‘viral sensation’ and the need to ‘trend worldwide’. We’re making those our goals.

And it’s not our fault.

Lost in this illusion of false purpose, we seem to have forgotten what makes us human. We are sentient. We can choose to aspire to a purpose that goes beyond our immediate need for social adulation. We can choose to build the life we want, not just for us, but for those around us. We can choose a path that we see fit and drag the world in the same direction. We can choose a path that changes the world, and not simply our bottom line in our businesses – and in return, the world will pay us money to change it for them.

Passion Matters

Lost in the illusion of false purpose is a word we underestimate – passion.

Passion – on an individual level – is a catalyst that can change the world. Passion creates hope in times of despair. Passion will barge through roadblocks like they weren’t even there. Passion has the power to turn repeated failure into sustained success, even in business.

Not because of a long-held belief in an unquestioned mantra that says ‘follow your passion.’ But because passion stimulates chemical reactions in the brain that unleash our creativity. When you’re running on fumes passion will fill you with adrenalin to work with. When the chips are down and your back is against the wall, passion will intellectually demonstrate to you that there is more than one way out.

But passion cannot be created. It can only be discovered.

In the context of the new world – where templates and ready-made paths threaten to curb discovery – it’s quite important to remember our roots. As humans, we are meant to be uniquely different. The sum of our life experiences coupled with the genes we were handed define who we really are. And through that definition of who we are lies the discovery of the passion for things we truly love – which are unique to each of us, but still shared by others.

To extract the true value of ‘business’ in the context of life, and to extract the true value of ‘humans’ in the context of business – we must first accept that passion has the power to drive human beings beyond their normal capabilities.

And if passion comes from the aspiration towards a higher purpose, then practically, it makes sense that all new business should be driven by a higher purpose – whatever that means in your context.

It is only natural that if we, as businesses, aspire to a higher purpose, the passion of our people to aspire towards a better world will drive us further – well beyond a passion for our bottom line. The collective energy to progress will drive us a whole lot more than individual or collective greed. And in that light – collectively – we will drive the world towards a better future. Not fuelled by greed. But by the need for a better world.

The Time Is Now

To those of you ready to embark on your journey, please remember – this is not the blind idealism of the old school, but the practical reality of now. Question everything. The world is already very different from what it was five years ago. And it will be very different five years from now.

The barrier to entry has never been lower to start a new business. The barrier to entry has never been lower to change the world.

[This post by Surojit Roy originally appeared on LinkedIn and has been reproduced with permission.]

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