Toine Knipping has taken to heart the statement, 'One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure that it is worth watching' In a very engaging, lucid style, he draws the reader not only into his philosophy of entrepreneurship but also explains how to live a well-rounded life. This is a book full of wisdom-highly recommended to anyone interested in acquiring a deeper understanding of the inner theatre of the entrepreneur -Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Clinical Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change, The Raoul de Vitry d'Avaucourt Chaired Professor of Leadership Development "While you may or may not agree with everything Toine Knipping says, one thing is for sure: he is an inspiration to all entrepreneurs. Mind Your Business is a practical and necessary read for anyone who wants to succeed in business" -Chip Conley, Founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels and author of PEAK and Emotional Equations "Mind Your Business is a rare book that combines eminently practical and valuable advice for would-be entrepreneurs with wise reflections that imbue the whole activity with a larger purpose. Toine Knipping is a hugely successful entrepreneur who has valuable observations not only about business but also about the business of life. Mind Your Business should not only be read by budding entrepreneurs but by everyone who is involved in business life and is struggling to give this life more meaning" -Sudhir Kakar, World-renowned Psychoanalyst and Author of numerous books including The Inner World
Mind Your Business
Thoughts for EntrepreneursBy Toine KnippingBALBOA PRESS
Copyright © 2012 Toine Knipping
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4525-5494-5Contents
Epigraph..........................................................................................ixDisclaimer........................................................................................xiPreface...........................................................................................xiiiAcknowledgments...................................................................................xxiiiChapter 1: What Makes Your Heart Sing?............................................................1Chapter 2: Am I Capable of Starting and Running a Business?.......................................13Chapter 3: Where Do You Find the Bright and the Right Idea?.......................................26Chapter 4: When Is the Best Time to Start a Business?.............................................33Chapter 5: Do We Really Need a Business Plan?.....................................................37Chapter 6: Where Can I Sign Up for Entrepreneur School?...........................................42Chapter 7: What Is the Importance of Top Quality?.................................................51Chapter 8: How Does One Define the Corporate Mission, Vision, and Values?.........................59Chapter 9: Where Do You Stand?....................................................................66Chapter 10: How Can You Be a Leader and Be Followed?..............................................76Chapter 11: What Can You Manage and What Not?.....................................................86Chapter 12: Do Teams Work?........................................................................92Chapter 13: What Is Essential in Marketing and Sales?.............................................103Chapter 14: How Do You Deal with Risk and Failure?................................................107Chapter 15: What Is the Value of Time?............................................................111Chapter 16: What Use Do We Have for Gurus and Consultants?........................................115Chapter 17: Are Employees the Most Valuable Asset to Your Company?................................122Chapter 18: Who Pays the Salaries and Calls the Shots?............................................140Chapter 19: Is It Important to Have Your Suppliers as Your Business Partners?.....................146Chapter 20: With Whom Do You Compete?.............................................................150Chapter 21: How Does One Finance a Company?.......................................................154Chapter 22: How Does One Combine Friends and Family with Business?................................160Chapter 23: What Is Corporate Social Responsibility?..............................................165Chapter 24: How Does One Create Environmental Consciousness?......................................174Chapter 25: Why Is Transparency Important?........................................................182Chapter 26: What Is the Need for Good Corporate Governance?.......................................189Chapter 27: What Causes Happiness, and Where Does One Find It?....................................196Chapter 28: How about Love, Desire, and Sex in the Workplace?.....................................205Chapter 29: Can Your Business Become an Addiction?................................................216Chapter 30: What Does Religion Have to Do with It?................................................222Chapter 31: Where Will It End?....................................................................231Chapter 32: How Much Money Is Enough?.............................................................237Chapter 33: Is Death the End in Mind?.............................................................244Chapter 34: Is This It?...........................................................................250Afterword.........................................................................................255About the Author..................................................................................257References........................................................................................259
Chapter One
What Makes Your Heart Sing?
The recipe for living life to the fullest—if such a recipe exists—is to laugh heartily and often, play with abandon, appreciate beautiful things, build and maintain deep friendships, take pleasure in family, and enjoy the task at hand. It is the journey of life that counts, not the destination. How we cope with the obstacles that we inevitably encounter on that journey determines the richness of our life. By extensive self-exploration we can all learn the lesson that most of our obstacles are self-made. If we want to, we can remove or restructure them. We can learn from experience.
—Manfred Kets de Vries
I purposefully decided to begin this business book with a chapter on the purpose of life. This may not seem to be the most logical starting point, but I believe that before establishing or taking over a business, it is very important to be conscious of what we are doing, why we do what we do, and why we want to be responsible for an enterprise and the many people who depend on it for their livelihoods. Once a business is born, it is like your baby. You have to take care of it, and you cannot help but love it. And whether you are a capable parent or not, you are responsible for it until it matures, leaves the house, or dies. I have stood at the cradle of a few businesses, and I assure you there are many parallels between setting up and running a business and bringing up your kids. And whether they become instant successes or limp along, I love them equally. Once you decide to become an entrepreneur, I am convinced the same will happen to you.
So you will have to contemplate what "makes you tick," what drives you to do the things that you do. Those may be totally different things from what you learned in school or at university, heard at the dinner table from your parents, shared with your friends on social occasions, or see as part of normal conventions. You will need to go deep inside yourself to discover what really drives you, what really makes your heart sing, and what really produces happiness and fulfillment for you. One of my favorite German writers, Rainer Maria Rilke, crystallized it as follows: "There is only one journey. Going inside yourself." If you think or meditate long and hard enough, you will discover that at the subconscious level there are a number of beliefs, ideas, and values that drive your life, maybe unbeknown to you, in a certain direction. It is what Sudhir Kakar, who is sometimes described as the psychoanalyst of the world, calls "the elephant" inside you. It is who and what you are, what your purpose for being on earth is, what your dharma is. You can nudge the elephant somewhat in one direction or another, you can reason with it, or you can ignore it, but it always remains an elephant and always does what that elephant is supposed to do.
Do not confuse this with determinism. The idea that your thoughts, character, or behavior cannot be changed, as they are prewired by your genetics or the way your early childhood evolved, has been studied in detail and proven to be false. In fact, the latest studies confirm that although, yes, all that information is in your DNA, and, yes, all the early childhood memories remain in your amygdala and reptile brain, they are only part of who you are. Less than 10 percent of how your life and health develop can be attributed to genetics and environment, according to stem-cell biologist Bruce Lipton in The Biology of Belief. You need not develop a heart condition just because your father had one. You need not be a bad businessperson just because your mother was one. You need not remain poor and ill-educated just because you grew up in a neighborhood of poor and ill-educated people. It is amazing the number of people who let their lives be influenced and limited in creativity and opportunity by thoughts about determinism. There are, however, millions of stories of people who did not develop the way their parents did or who did not remain ensconced in the mentality of the environment in which they grew up. Actually, I think believing in determinism is a poor excuse for not taking charge of your own life or taking responsibility for your own choices.
It has also been proven that all people have more or less the same amount of brain matter, and although some people are more naturally attracted to subjects like mathematics and science, and Asians usually are better at mathematics than Europeans (as masterly described by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers), all people have the capacity to learn math if they really want to learn it. Some people have a higher IQ than others, so not all of us will learn to think like Einstein (whose brain has been investigated in detail), but all of us can think and have the ability to learn and master what we really put our mind—and our time—to. When scrutinized, most success stories at first reveal ordinary results by ordinary people. Then, on further study, they demonstrate persistent dedication by strong-minded individuals or teams. The underdogs become better and better to slowly but determinedly rise above the ordinary.
I think this is important to reflect on. To a large extent, we are completely free to develop our lives in the directions we choose—the directions that make our heart sing. If you feel a deep passion inside to become an artist or a baker, by all means you need to pursue that dream and become a really good artist or a really great baker. Ignore your father's advice about going to university and studying law as he did, for this will neither make you happy nor make you a good lawyer. It is a bit like if you were born gay; you can try whatever you want, but sooner or later it is best to come out of the closet and be who you are.
Coming from a family of farmers, entrepreneurialism was in my blood. From the moment I left university, I was basically just looking for the right idea, time, and moment to take the first step. Only later did I realize the many forms of satisfaction being an entrepreneur provided. Now I can hardly imagine living my life in another way.
Stephen Covey identified some of life's great motivating factors as to live, to learn, to love, and to leave a legacy. This is what they mean to me in my life.
• To live means that any business we are in should at least provide us with an income: a means of living and sustaining ourselves and our families. It should also give us job satisfaction, pleasure in what we are trying to do, and a sense of accomplishment. It should provide us with goals, dreams, and vision so as to give direction to our lives.
• To learn means that the business we are in should give us an intellectual challenge. It should keep us challenged and engaged and provide a sense of purpose. Whether it is cooking great meals, building beautiful furniture, devising great tax-planning solutions, or taking good care of customers, there should always be a challenge, a possibility of improvement, a perfection of a skill, and a growth in knowledge and experience. If we get the feeling we are reliving the previous day—day after day—it is time to change what we are doing. I have been in the trust business for almost twenty-five years, and I still thoroughly enjoy doing what I am doing. But I have organized my business and my life in a way that fits my dreams, ideas, feelings, and desires.
• To love means that we need to love whatever we are doing and share it with the people around us. As social beings, we enjoy, develop, and fulfill ourselves mostly through interaction with others; we all need close relationships, partners, friends, and colleagues. Sharing our accomplishments and acquisitions provides a great source of satisfaction. I consider many of the people I work with every day my personal friends. Our relationship goes beyond the work relationship. We share more worries and more happiness than we have to, but it enriches all of our lives.
• To leave a legacy refers to the need people have of doing something meaningful. To create something that will live or extend beyond ourselves adds value to society at large. For many, if not most people, the beneficiaries of their legacy are their children; for others it is contributing something new to society: an invention, a service, a thought, and so on. I would like to leave the business I was involved in building behind in such a way that it is enjoyed by our clients and employees and is an example to others in the same industry.
Depending on your character, you may find yourself gravitating toward one over another, but all four driving forces play a major role in our lives, and if one is off balance, you will feel it as emptiness in your life. When selecting the business that fits you best, you need to think through those motivators. If, for instance, leaving behind a legacy is really important to you, you might be better off writing cookbooks than starting a restaurant. If your need for love, companionship, and satisfying interaction is great, you might not want to seek a solitary activity that shuts you off from people, like scientific research or writing a book. If, however, you choose a business that requires many hours (as do most entrepreneurial businesses), you need to make sure the social aspects, intellectual challenges, and possibilities for growth are all present in sufficient quantities within your business. If you have to satisfy those basic needs outside your work, you will overburden yourself and create a very stressful life for you, your family, and your friends.
Manfred Kets de Vries, a famous Dutch psychoanalyst and deemed one of the fifty greatest thinkers of this age, describes the central driving forces in life as sex, money/power, happiness, and death.
• Sexual desire is the key driving force of humankind. Obviously we exist in order to continue our kind. The desire for sex determines to a large extent what we do, to whom we are attracted, how we attach ourselves, why we strive for distant goals, and why we can move mountains if we are sufficiently motivated.
• Money and power, as they are being earned, create the possibility to acquire material wealth, impress the people around us, and build independence, control, self-esteem, and even love.
• Happiness, the state of subjective well-being, is what we pursue most of our lives. We must remember to enjoy the journey while rushing toward our goals. And appreciate that we are in paradise already.
• Death is what gives finality to our live; it creates a sense of urgency as well as futility.
In Buddhism, life is all about making others happy in order to be happy ourselves. Buddhists are less goal-oriented than many others; they accept that things are what they are. Our role in life is embodied in what we are, just like leaves on the tree of life. We bud, we grow, we whither and decompose, and life continues. Our children take our place, the tree continues to live, and its leaves get recycled.
In Zen, life itself is the only thing worth living for. As a famous Zen koan goes: before enlightenment you fetch water and chop wood, and after enlightenment you fetch water and chop wood. Nothing changes other than the intensity of your awareness and your consciousness of the present moment. The purpose of life will reveal itself as you go along: move and the road will open.
Hindus get to a similar state by practicing Vipassana or, in full, Anapanavipassana: full awareness of breathing by observing the Witness within you. The very act of evaluating each moment of your life will disconnect it from the past and the future, breaking the continuum, and making you aware of what is real and what is not.
In the Hindu philosophy, the four aims (artha) of a man's life (purusha) are called the four Purushartas. And life is not complete until all four have been achieved. If any one of the four is ignored, accomplishment is not possible, and life is not complete or satisfying. The results of your actions, whatever you did (karma), in the past and in previous lives define what you are confronted with today. Just as your actions today build up karma, you will be confronted with it later on in this life as well as in future lives. Moving your actions in the right direction and building good karma will gradually improve your life.
The four aims are as follow:
• Dharma is duty, virtue, and man's drive to be perfect in what he is. It is being the "elephant" that is inside you, and developing whatever you are capable of being. It is about self-realization on the moral level, which includes courage, honesty, reliability, tolerance, and charity.
• Artha is wealth, success, means, family, and the acquisition of material goods. This is self-realization on the social and active level.
• Kama is pleasure, sexuality, and enjoyment in all forms. This is self-realization at the sensual and bodily level. Read the Kama Sutra to get some three-thousand-year-old inspiration in this area.
• Moksha is the final and complete liberation from the material and emotional side of existence. This is self-realization at the spiritual level.
There are clear overlaps between Western and Eastern purpose in life. There are also clear differences. Asians are less self-centered and more community-centered and have less of a need to leave a legacy. After all, they believe that many will be back in a next life to work on other aspects of their souls on their way to enlightenment. That is great, but it will not work for everyone. I try not to take any chances, and so I try to accomplish what I can in this life. But I always try to figure out, when I meet someone, what cultural background that person comes from, as it influences so much of how he will think, feel, and react. When you want to do business, you will not get far without getting into the skin of the people you deal with.
I think it is important that you know yourself well and understand what drives you. If you want a comfortable life and do not want to spend too much effort on achieving financial security, entrepreneurship may not be your calling. You may not want to do "whatever it takes" to be successful. If you are a nervous person who readily panics or worries about the future, you may be lured more by the false security of working in a multinational corporation or a government department where others make the big decisions, and the continuity of your existence seems forever assured. If you are really shy or prefer to work by yourself, you also should not become an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur you will need to be a social person. You cannot achieve much without communicating constantly with others around you. There is no such thing as a part-time entrepreneur.
When we started our Amicorp business, we were three partners: two in Curaçao and a third in Aruba. We discussed that what we wanted was to provide perfect service to a limited group of clients, in the countries nearby, with whom we could build close relationships and have time left over to enjoy life outside of work. As the years passed, two of us got caught up in the fun and satisfaction of building something larger than ourselves. We hired bright young colleagues with good ideas and more knowledge and drive than we were used to. We grew our revenues, increased the spectrum of our service offerings, conquered new markets, and reached bigger and more interesting clients and intermediaries. Our third partner stuck to the original concept, and so after a couple of years we went our separate ways. He continued with his office in Aruba as it was until he died, with limited business ambition and plenty of time for entertainment and enjoyment. That was his choice and the fulfillment of his goals in life.
We, the remaining partners, changed our priorities and goals several times over the course of the years and also whenever more partners or shareholders were added to the company. We spent many fun evenings deciding which new location we would add to our network. Is it more challenging to set up business in Moscow or in Beijing? Can we find more clients in São Paulo or in Jakarta or Mumbai? Can we use the solutions for the Mexican market in the Venezuelan or Peruvian markets? How will we deal with changing legislation in country A, and can we find the right people in country B? As we grow older and the more basic needs have been covered, goals pop up that are less focused on survival and more focused on development (product development, education, and social and environmental awareness), thus leaving a legacy and creating a structure that will survive and flourish long after we are no longer involved. We created a child-care center to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of our Curaçao office and developed a number of fun, recurring fund-raising activities to help finance it. We created activities to support an orphanage in Bangalore. And we really enjoy stimulating our employees to spend time on socially responsible activities.
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Excerpted from Mind Your Businessby Toine Knipping Copyright © 2012 by Toine Knipping. Excerpted by permission of BALBOA PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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