What if Irony is Judging Others for Lacking Empathy?
Business
is often compared
to a war.
There are
competitions.
Founders
feel hurt in the process.
It is important
to survive.
…
But business
is also different
from a war.
Because you may win a war
by crushing the competition.
But in business
even in the absence of competition
you only win
by winning with
the customers.
One dictionary says,
business
is “the practice
of making one’s living
by engaging in commerce.”
The same dictionary says
trade
is “the action
of buying and selling
goods and services.”
When we first found our companies,
we tend to do business,
because we want
to make our living.
But after a while,
there often comes a point
where we forget to inquire
into the meaning and value
of living,
as we stop doing business
and start trading,
in pursuit of an image
of life.
One
of the most important concepts
in my first book
is metaphors.
Metaphors
connect two seemingly
unrelated
ideas.
In doing so,
it can help us discover
new
or unexpected insights
into something we were previously
unaware.
For example,
while I was on tour
with my book
I shared the psychological pain
and struggle
I experienced
in the artistic
creative
process..
To my surprise,
entrepreneurs
resonated more deeply with my experience
than others.
It turns out
entrepreneurs experience
similar psychological/interpersonal pain
and struggle
in the process
of launching
and running
their business.
This experience helped me
create a metaphor
between the experience of artists
and the experience of entrepreneurs,
which lead me to do
what I do
now.
But until I created
that metaphor
I used to often say
that I don’t understand entrepreneurs.
If I said I do understand,
it was just so I could feel entitled
to say something negative
about them.
So now
whenever I say
I don’t understand someone
or say I do understand them
just so I can say something negative about them,
I tell myself
that it’s time
for another
metaphor.
