Standing On Principle in Business
The very concept of business has become very popular to demonize and condemn in recent time. The ideas of success, excellence, and profit are ridiculed and seen as greedy, selfish, and now even hatful and the emotional blackmail on businesses (both big and small) has gotten so bad that even they have begun to believe it. It is an odd fact that if you tell someone they are a monster for long enough they will begin to believe it and, most unfortunately, the efforts made by businesses everywhere to correct what is a largely projected problem has caused them to lose sight of the value they provide and seems to have convinced them that they are in fact the monsters everyone says they are. Business are no longer able to fulfill their chief purpose and this is a huge detriment to our society and, because of this phenomenon, it has become essential to remind everyone what business is and the importance it provides.
Businesses exist to server. Period. They do not exist to provide jobs, to make money, to take care of employees, or to provided charity and they most certainly do not exist to criticizes, condemn, belittle, or morally blackmail their customers. Business provide a product or a service to people and communities and the more useful their product, the more advantageous their service, and the better they treat their customers, employees, and even their detractors, the more successful they will be, which means the more value they will be able to provide.
It is only when a business succeeds that they can hire more people, expand, and give to charities and organizations. The flip side is also true. If the product or service is not needed and/or if they treat the people around them terribly then the will not survive.
It is important to understand that there is no such thing as a “non-essential” business. ALL businesses provide value and are therefor essential and they all deserve respect. The labeling of business as “essential and non-essential” and the subsequent shutting down of so called “non-essential” business during 2020 was a horrible error in judgment and a level of ineptitude of such a decision cannot be discussed in full here, but, for now, it is necessary to know if a business no longer provides value or chooses to abandon their customers they will simply cease to exist unless they are keep open by outside forces, which will prevent the correction or growth that may be required for the owners of said business (who can take their lessons and start again), the industry, or future entrepreneurs. So, what value does business provide?
On a societal level, business is the back bone of not only this country, but all countries. It is the ingenuity, creativity, and genius of a nation’s citizens that bring about every innovation known to man and each innovation is becomes part of the foundation which the next generation of creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs build and improve on. All of the roads we drive on, the buildings we work in, the power and plumbing networks we use, were all put their by prior entrepreneurs. We inherit it as a free gift by being a citizen of this country and it is our responsibility to be grateful for it and add to it.
On an individual level, ownership is the American Dream. In addition to having the opportunity to own your own property and home you also have the opportunity to own your own means of production. This allows you to pursue your own dream. Not only can you fulfill your own mission and purpose, but your lifestyle is not limited to the whims of a boss or a king. You can determine how you want to live and then make the money which would facilitate that kind of lifestyle. This is the great value of the free market system to free people. You are not subject to the constraints of others. You can excel or fail to which whatever degree you want. You can reach the highest of peaks or the lowest of valleys. This freedom comes directly out of the center of American Principle.
All people are born with the inalienable right to pursue happiness as a result of the divinity of their creation. Everyone has talents and dreams. We all have a special purpose and mission and our nation allows people to explore this to the fullest degree; however, we do not do an adequate job of teaching this. We don’t teach people how to dream or set goals. We do not teach people how to look for opportunities to serve. We don’t teach people how to excel nor do we encourage them to do so. We don’t teach people how to be the best of themselves. We need to change this.
It is essential restore the pursuit of happiness to our nations conscious. With our attention firmly fixed on that we can begin to teach people how to excel and to encourage them to do so and, when the pursuit of happiness, is the center of our understanding, businesses will automatically being to orient themselves to the happiness and well being of their customer. Which will lead to a productive business and a happier community.
As individual business owners, we should focus our attention on catering to the best of human nature. There are a lot of industries out there which violate both God’s laws and/or man’s laws and while they can be very financially lucrative, the price we pay is the dignity of man. This will cost us our own integrity as business owners and the health and general happiness and well being of our society and it’s people. Our goal as entrepreneurs should always be to cultivate and encourage the best parts of human nature never to cater to the worst and the products and services we provide should ultimately serve that end. This requires constant vigilance on our part.
There are many many ways to fall into the trap of catering to the worst parts of human nature, which is always looking for gratification. This might include lying or exaggerating to confirm a confirmation bias. It might include selling addicting materials for the sake of physical pleasure. It might mean misrepresenting one’s true intention in order to cause social engineering. It could be a myriad of other things. It could be any form of theft or cutting corners and it doesn’t matter, because all of these goals must be rejected in our business practices. We have to make it our commitment to serve the greatness of humanity not foster the downside. This is business at it’s best and such integrity IS respected and rewarded even though it isn’t celebrated openly or could be actively criticized. We are all called to be servants though and the biggest leaders in any industry are the biggest servants.