“A business can be a prototype of the world you want to live in.”
You probably started your business to create the world you wanted to live in.
You thought about the kind of people you wanted to work with, the kind of work you wanted to do, the kind of time off you didn’t want to have to ask permission for, and the kind of flexible schedule that would allow you to accomplish more than work.
I hope you accomplished a lot of that!
Maybe some of it is still a work-in-progress…
Yet, as you are very well aware, the world doesn’t stop at your office door or even your front door.
If you want to build a business that prototypes the world you want to live in, you have to consider how your business is impacting your customers and your community.
- Does the structure of it embody the values you hold dear?
- Do the offers you make reinforce your idea of how you want to build relationships with others?
- Does your team reflect the way you want to see our communities organized?
- Does your mindset as an entrepreneur and leader represent the mindset you want to see in the leaders of our community at large?
Building a business that is a prototype for the world you want to live in doesn’t just mean you get to live a great life (although that’s incredibly important).
It also means that the decisions you make for your business reflect your greatest hopes and dreams for our society.
What you’re building has the capacity to be so much bigger than you.
If you want to live up to that potential, you have to answer those questions. And then keep answering them so that you are always improving on the world you’re creating for yourself and others.
And today–today–I challenge you to rise up to that potential.
Your potential gives me hope–hope that is growing day by day by day:
Between 1997 and 2014, non-employer firms in the United States grew by 60% (for contrast, traditional payroll jobs grew 12% in that same time).
What’s a non-employer firm, you ask?
Well, it’s you. Or, if you’re not anymore, you most likely started your business as a non-employer firm.
Non-employer firms are–most often–the scrappy, creative, determined sort of micro businesses that have no employees. They consist solely of an owner creating something from scratch with an idea and loads of ambition.
This is an unprecedented rise in this measure. And that means…
There is an unprecedented number of entrepreneurs taking steps to create the world they want to live in. There is an unprecedented number of business owners building personal wealth and contributing to the common wealth.
There is real change afoot.
And, it’s not coming from the top down.
It’s coming from the bottom up.
What you’re doing right now—by building your business, circumventing pre-established norms, creating value for others and wealth for yourself—is slowing but surely changing the dynamics of power in your community.
