Tag: Business

I’m crap at business

Posted on by philipdodson

This is not a Gerald Ratner style admission, for those not old enough to remember or not from the UK, well worth a read – Gerald Ratner’s quote.

Business is typically seen as this ‘make as much money as you can’ type of thing and sometimes at whatever human cost. In fact, the whole principle of capitalism is to always be increasing profit and once you have taken all the quality and cost out of your product or service, all that is left to do is squeeze the most costly asset, us, the humans.

So more money made = better at business.

I prefer to do something that I enjoy with people who I love as customers and as great people to collaborate and share my day with. Sure, I could make more money, but then that would be at the cost of relationships and things that matter to me.

What if we decided to abandon the pursuit of money and instead embraced the pursuit of humanity and relationships? What impact could that have on our lives? Would we have a more meaningful and caring society? Would we simply enjoy life more?

Once money is brought into any equation it often corrupts and poisons our thoughts and behaviour. We modify, we compromise, we change. We have all had that thought, ‘what would I do if money didn’t matter?’. Well, we can all chose not to allow money to matter.

So as most see business, I’m crap at it, thankfully.

We all have the same time

Posted on by philipdodson

I often hear that some people are busier than others ‘I have less time than…’

We all have the same time, it’s 24 hours in each day for every single one of the 7 billion + people on the planet.

It is what we choose to do with it that matters.

Goethe said ‘things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.’

It seems simple, prioritise the things that are most important and do them first. However, without a purpose or meaning, it is hard to prioritise what to do first.

So the less meaning we have, strangely we have less time as we are not focused on anything in particular and we drift. Equally, the more we do many things, the less well we do any of them and then we have no time for the more important.

The more meaning we have, the more purpose, the more productive and intentional we become. So we actually get more done in less time. This frees us up for guilt-free leisure time and less resentful work time.

It is a fantastically self-perpetuating cycle as the more guilt-free leisure time we get, the more productive we are at work, as resentment is removed, and then the more guilt-free leisure we can enjoy.

Our time is completely free every day, it is our choice with what we fill the time with.

The final factor is that things that are of value to us and the world take time to come together, create and spread.

So we have the time we need, as not everything has to be done today.