My first real brush with spirituality was in 2009. Before that I had read a lot on the subject, but didn’t really think of incorporating meditation into my life, or actively following the spiritual path.
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Coincidentally 2009 was the same year I ventured into entrepreneurship. It was a time when I no longer had the security of a comfortable job and a prestigious position… I was left to my own devices, navigating the real world of business, without the backing of an organisation or brand name.
When I look back now, it finally makes sense: I had either left the workforce to pursue spirituality, or I needed spirituality to survive entrepreneurship.
When you’ve had structure for so long in your life, it gets difficult to fathom life without structure. That’s when you need to dip into your inner resources, and look to some higher force, to help you create a rhythm and structure of your own.
This doesn’t happen overnight… It takes time to settle into your own pace…to understand exactly what you need to be creative and productive. It takes a certain fluidity in your approach to life…to respond and work on opportunities as they come up…to gradually develop your own vision and systems.
For this you need to be agile and receptive. You need to quickly do away with what doesn’t work and hold on to what does. All this takes insight and heightened perception, and that can only come with a spiritual practice.
Entrepreneurship by its very nature demands you exercise your spiritual muscle. It asks you to align your mind, body and heart, so that you can rise to the occasion, and conduct entrepreneurial activities with ease.
Find below some ways in which spirituality aids the entrepreneurial journey:
1.Being creative
Every entrepreneur is essentially a creative person, and even if you’re not, entrepreneurship teaches you how to think creatively… What they called jugaad in India was essentially about making do with your resources in the most creative way… Jugaad was about finding solutions; it was about ‘winging’ it. And, the best way to be creative is to understand your strengths and talents. Spirituality is a great enabler, helping us identify these talents, and allowing for greater expression of them.
2. Gaining clarity of vision
Yes, the first step to entrepreneurship is gaining clarity of vision; the second, being focused on that vision, and not deviating from its core. The more you still your mind and body through meditation, the greater your ability to develop an insight on a situation and then find a solution to it. Not just entrepreneurship, life itself becomes smoother, with less friction, as you gain clarity on what needs to be done.
3.Identifying human needs
Spirituality has a great ability to make us think with empathy and compassion. Most services and products were first invented to help people deal with day-to-day problems, or they emerged as a result of the founder’s own difficulty while facing a certain life event. The famed eureka moment happens when a founder identifies with the pain of the consumer, or realizes that his pain could be the pain of many others too. Spirituality helps you feel oneness with others, it helps you empathise — the first step in design thinking too.
4.Dealing with uncertainty
Entrepreneurship is filled with uncertainty. You don’t know if your venture will take off, you don’t know if you will get support — be it from the audience, team or investors — and you definitely don’t know how much revenue you’re going to make. Surviving that uncertainty can be daunting; but what is more challenging is thriving in that uncertainty. That’s when spirituality comes in… It helps you learn how to live in the moment, enjoy each day and every challenge that it brings, and combat it with calm.
5.Taking decisions quickly
A Vedic scholar told me that if you take decisions within 24 hours you move faster toward your vision. Any delay and research shows that it slows down the cellular growth in the mind, body and heart. Today’s entrepreneur has to take quick decisions, and execute them even quicker. A volatile market, erratic customers and intense competition all demand faster decision-making. But decision-making requires enhanced perception and heightened risk-taking ability, both of which are aided by the spiritual process, as it sharpens your insight and makes you more alert to multiple possibilities.
6.Finding a balance
Entrepreneurship can take you to extremes… It can make you ecstatic on one day, and leave you drained of energy on another. Moreover, dealing with varied circumstances, a wide network of people, and burning the midnight oil take a toll of their own. Spirituality helps you stay centered, and strike that balance… A few rounds of pranayama — breathing exercises — or focusing on the space between your eyebrows can calm your nerves and rejuvenate you for the rest of the day.
7.Learning the art of giving
When I met entrepreneur Alok Kejriwal of The Rodinhoods fame, he started the conversation by telling me that he had become an Art of Living teacher, and now imparts a particular meditation practice to his students. His need to give back, or ‘empty his cup’, made him train to become an instructor and also start The Rodinhoods, a platform where he shares his stories of entrepreneurship. The platform also invites other entrepreneurs to share their stories and connect with each other. Alok’s spiritual practice led him to realize the art of giving, and today thousands in the Rodinhood community are connected and supported by his vision.
Spirituality is not only interlinked with entrepreneurship, but with life itself. It’s only when we venture into the unknown, dip into our reserves and look inward for answers, do we realize its importance… As individuals and as entrepreneurs, the more we connect with our inner selves, the easier will it be to connect with the rest of the world!
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