Business Success vs Life Success
The Mantra of Never-Ending Economic Growth
We live in a world obsessed with material gain. In the story of our current economic culture and the structure of work, we find ourselves entangled in a web of assumptions and practices that have far-reaching consequences. At the heart of this narrative lies the belief that financial growth is an inherent good. It’s a necessary catalyst for creating opportunities and ensuring livelihoods. However, if you dig a bit deeper into the rose-tinted world of never-ending economic growth, you uncover the stark reality that this relentless pursuit of ‘more’ has become a source of immense stress. Stress that’s eroding our personal physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Not to mention the damage it is doing to the people, communities, and environment we seek to nurture. And indeed, we rely on to nurture ourselves. Everyone and everything are buckling under the weight of this relentless drive.
In a culture obsessed with financial growth, success is measured by the accumulation of material possessions. This inevitably results in a system that produces a small number of winners and a multitude of strugglers. We are fed the narrative that our personal efforts are the key to success. The harder you work, the more successful you will be.
This compels us to remain glued to the economic treadmill; the fear of failure and the allure of extrinsic status symbols keeping our weary bodies and minds going. This desperation to succeed and avoid failure breeds individualism, comparison, and ruthless competition. It doesn’t just disconnect us from our competitors. It disconnects us from our inner lives, our cherished relationships, the communities we live in, and our precious natural world.
The chronic stress and disconnection that result from this system give rise to selfishness and a sense of entitlement, making it increasingly difficult to make responsible choices. Despite the widespread desire to break free from this cycle, the story of economic growth and the current world of work holds such a powerful grip that it can feel inescapable; leaving us feeling trapped and resigned to accept that this is just ‘the way things are’. Over time, we grow accustomed to the pain, accepting our toxic culture as normal, even as it continues to exact a heavy toll on our lives and the world around us.
Surely there must be another way. A better way!
The Story of Life, the Universe and Everything
The story of our economy and the way work functions isn't necessarily an evil tale. It's simply the narrative we've chosen to adopt as a society. And probably with the best of intentions. However, as we've embraced it, some pretty dire consequences have emerged—and they're only getting worse.
I once wholeheartedly believed in the story of economic growth. I spent years chasing symbols of business success and material abundance. And from that perspective I guess I did OK. But in the end, it left me feeling stressed, anxious, and unhappy. I turned to alcohol to numb this underlying unhappiness. An unhappiness and a type of pain I had grown accustomed to. I clung on to this story and its definition of success even though it caused me so much anguish. I identified with it. I wanted to succeed in it. I aligned my own story, identity and purpose directly to it. I didn't realize was that there was a different story, an even bigger one, that I could align myself with instead. I didn’t realise there was a different way to be successful.
Accepting the Problem
The first step to discovering that there is another way to succeed is accepting that there’s a problem with the old way. I had to acknowledge that the way I was leading my life was leaving me feeling trapped, helpless, in pain, and suffering. I wasn't sure why it was causing me to feel this way. But as the pain became unbearable, I came to the stark conclusion that something wasn't working for me.
Over time, it became clear to me that my definition of success was causing me problems. I could see that my drive to earn more, possess more, and consume more was making me more and more unwell. Ever so slowly it dawned on me that maybe what I earn didn't matter quite as much as I thought it did. Nor did the kind of car I drove. Or my job title.
In his book The Myth of Normal, Gabor Mate writes, "Our physical and mental health is intricately interwoven with how we feel, what we perceive or believe about ourselves and the world, and the ways that life does or does not satisfy our non-negotiable needs." This was a revelation to me—he was saying that when it comes to our health and wellbeing, our feelings, beliefs, and needs truly matter. It’s what’s happening on the inside that counts. Not what extrinsic wealth we have. Success is an inside job not an outside one. If success means feeling happy, then why wouldn’t you prioritise the things that make you happy, rather than spend most of your time on the things that cause you stress and make you ill. That seems so obvious now. How did I miss something so obvious?
The buzz of being alive; Re-defining Success
I missed this point because our culture misses this point. As a society, as the culture of economic growth has tightened its grip, we've become increasingly "life blind." Philosopher Mary Midgley coined this term to describe what she observed happening in the sciences, specifically biology. As biology claims to study life, scientifically minded biologists delve deeper into the minutiae of cells, genes and the like. In doing so, they're losing the ability to account for the fundamental nature of existence—not least of which is "the buzz of being alive."
It strikes me that we're all becoming increasingly life blind, losing the ability to account for and tap into our fundamental nature of existence. We're losing touch with the very buzz of being alive. I lost it. Businesses are losing it. Communities are losing it. Society is losing it. We're so caught up in working for a living that we're forgetting how to truly live.
Enter the story of life, the universe and everything—the story of what it means to be alive, of what matters to us about life. A story where it's more important to discover what brings us joy, peace and fulfilment than to figure out how to make more money. Interestingly, this story is almost the complete opposite of the story of economic growth.
The story of life, the universe and everything does not focus on us as individuals and what we need to do get ahead of others. It is a bigger story, focusing on us as part of the whole fabric of life. It highlights how we are interconnected with everybody and everything else, and how reliant we are on each other and all of existence to succeed.
This story does not result in comparison and competition, but in cooperation and co-creation. It creates situations where I win if you win—and ideally, they win too. That's because this story is one of abundance, not scarcity. In the story of our economy and the way work currently works, we all end up fighting each other for limited amounts of money, possessions and status—the extrinsic material symbols that define success. In the story of life, success means flourishing. Success means spiritual happiness. It means feeling joy, peace, fulfilment and freedom. There's no limit to those feelings; they're available to everyone in unlimited supply because they come from within. They are not contingent on me getting something from somebody. In fact, the more I help other people achieve these things, the more I receive in return. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.
In this story, life is imbued with goodness. It is all around us. Our challenge is to find that goodness, even if the specific circumstances of our life feel quite difficult at any given moment. Yes, there are disappointments, hardships, sickness and death. But there is always goodness surrounding those circumstances. There is always peace, meaning and hope to be found. We just need to seek them out.
The key to success in this story is finding richer ways to relate to the world around us. Rather than becoming more stressed, disconnected, selfish and entitled—the side effects of success in the economic growth story—in this one, success yields better, deeper, more meaningful connections with ourselves, with other people, with our communities and with Mother Nature. As we flourish, so do they.
Although this story might sound at odds with the world of business and work, it needn't be. This is not a story of anti-business or anti-work, but of anti-growth-at-any-cost. It's a story where businesses make money and profits to survive, but it's not why they exist. They exist to increase the wellbeing of as many of their stakeholders as possible: customers, employees, communities, suppliers, the environment, and shareholders. They don't exist to make more profit than last year exclusively for shareholders' benefit while everybody else loses out.
And this is a story where people engage in good work—work where they find meaning and purpose as well as a level of financial security that affords a reasonable living. Mahatma Gandhi said, "The truth is that man needs work even more than he needs a wage." In the story of life, the universe and everything, people are afforded the freedom to apply their unique skills towards achieving goals that are meaningful to them. They do not feel trapped in a job that drives them crazy because they need to pay the bills.
The story of life may feel like a pipe dream, a New Age fantasy that doesn't reflect the commercial reality of the world we actually inhabit. That may be true. Or more precisely, it may be my truth or your truth. That's because we may believe in the story of our economy and the way work works more than we believe in the story of life, the universe and everything.
When I strongly believe in the story of life, I align my own story, identity and purpose with it. In doing so, I choose to act in certain ways. I choose to work on projects that give me the most meaning rather than the ones that pay the most. I choose to help people even if there is no immediate payback, rather than manipulate situations to my advantage. I choose to gauge my success by how I feel—by my wellbeing and spiritual happiness—rather than by how much money is in the bank.
When I align with life rather than the economy, that’s when I tend to feel joyful, fulfilled, free and at peace.