mindful of this moment for for one
second because standing on stage for
TEDx is you know it’s not a small moment
in a boy’s life so I want to make sure
that I get the picture and thank you for
being here thank you for listening to my
story and I hope it’s there and it will
help you to inspire you with it with
your career parts I’m going to talk
about purposeful companies and to start
that so what is this what how do you
call this a flower yeah right
it’s a flower which is completely right
but take another look can you see
anything else it’s a it’s a red flower
which is also completely true because
it’s a flower and it’s color it’s it’s
colored red so it’s red flower and have
another look can you see even more two
flowers yeah yes very yes very good but
you might also see that the flower
exists of various elements there’s a
stem and there are pencils and leaves so
it’s actually a combination of all those
elements but there’s even more who sees
even more in this picture what I’m sorry
I didn’t hear you she dies arose also
very true no but if you if you are able
to look beyond the picture you might be
able to see data is also a seed in this
flower because one thing is sure without
a seed that can’t be a flower you might
not be able to see the seeds but it has
to be in the flower because now seed now
flower and if you look really powerful
and really well you might also see soil
because one thing is sure it has seeds
that isn’t that hasn’t landed into soil
can’t ever sprout to become a flower
so there’s soil in the flower as well
and if you look even deeper you might
even see that our minerals in that flour
and water rain sun warmth so basically
what you’re looking at is not just a
flower it’s a unique combination of the
whole universe working together to
manifest a flower you’re actually
looking at a interconnectedness of
elements creating the flower and
basically what I just shared with you is
a Buddhist teaching a Dharma talk by the
Zen Vietnamese a Buddhist teacher dick
Motta I’m not sure if you guys ever
heard of it and when I witnessed this
Dharma talk it actually completely
changed my life
instantly dramatically because I had
this very profound insight that I
understood karma I understood how
everything is interrelated how
everything influences everything how
there is no such thing as an isolated
activity everything has caused
everything is conditioned and then that
completely changed my life around
traumatically
as a person because I realized that also
as a person every act that I put in this
world matters because everything I do
influences other things there is no such
thing as an isolated activity everything
we do impacts the bigger picture whether
we like it or not there is no there’s no
it there’s no escape there’s nothing in
between you do and that creates a very
clear situation that you’re either part
of the problem
or you’re part of the solution you
either create positivity by doing stuff
that positively influences the world or
you create negativity by doing stuff
that damages the planet so you either
help or you hurt and there’s no gray
in-between whatsoever and there were
also no free rights this is the way it
works this is karma it’s mandatory and
that basically that basically seriously
damaged the way I was working because I
was working as a conventional marketing
consultant at a big marketing agency and
I was basically doing nothing else than
hurting the planet I was helping big
companies to make even bigger money by
selling products to people that
were actually created by socially
hurting or environmentally hurting the
planet and it became especially hard for
me to continue because I already was
active as a Buddhist practice er you
know I was a devout Buddhist at night
and a commercial asshole by a day and
and after this Dharma talk I just
couldn’t do it anymore I completely
froze and I knew I had to change my my
way I knew I had to do some something
completely different so so what I did is
I took a knee I was really brave and I
basically quit my job and I started
karma no mix which is which is my
company and I pledge to myself to from
that from that moment on to always use
Buddhist practice or practices Buddhist
principles as a leading principle in my
business practices principle stresses
interconnectedness loving kindness
compassion generosity and I pledge to
myself that I want to use my business
skills to help humanity forward and not
hurt humanity I only wanted to proceed
if it’s possible
to create business for good rather than
just for money you know don’t not
striving for money but striving for
happy and that’s what I that’s what I
started to do eleven years ago and I
want to take this opportunity to share
some of the insights that I’ve learned
over the years to basically show you
that business doesn’t have to be only
about making money and having a career
you can actually work for something
bigger than yourself
and your your salary which is the most
fantastic thing to do and I really hope
that I can inspire you to follow that
part and go in that direction so this is
what I want to want to talk you about so
what are the main characteristics of the
growing movement of companies that use
business as a force for good rather than
just for for making money well basically
in my humble opinion they are the new
normal when Fairtrade could introduce in
the late 80s of the last century most of
us associated it with the fact that we
had the choice in the supermarket to
choose between regular products and fair
products and we we had the option to go
and buy fair products which gave us a
good feeling but what is even more
important is that we became aware from
that moment on that there were unfair
products because if there are fair
products there have to be unfair
products as well otherwise who gives you
and what’s even more shocking is
that we found out that most of the of
the products that we thought were normal
products were actually created by
borderline criminal activities of
companies or even sometimes beyond
borderline criminal seriously hurting
people or seriously hurting the planet
and the most important thing that I’ve
learned from working with purposeful
companies as I call them is they are not
the very few virtuous good examples in
the market they are normal it’s actually
a pub normal completely abnormal to hurt
the planet or to hurt other people to
make money it’s it’s ridiculous
and yet we have gone all the way with
accepting that simple fact and we treat
the economy as some sort of entity by
itself that needs to be fed by making
money and spending money and we’re all
ok with it but it’s not ok and what’s
even more important it’s not normal if
not normal but criminal to use people or
the planet for your own purposes so
that’s what I’m that’s the most
important thing that I’ve learned it’s
normal it’s not virtuous it’s not good
it’s normal
the second thing I’ve learned from those
purposeful companies is that it’s a
completely delusional idea to treat the
economy as an isolated autonomous thing
which is what we are doing we are living
in a country that measures our
well-being by measuring our productivity
by measuring the amount of money that
gets pumped around in our economy that’s
what we are we’re economic units which
by itself is stupid and delusional but
what’s even more stupid and delusional
and even dangerous is there is no such
thing as an economy you thought you’ve
seen the flower the economy is just an
integrated part of society everything a
company does influences our lives not
not by choice but by definition that’s
just the way it is so if we create this
monster which companies start using and
do stuff that are
are hurtful and we accept that fact
because it’s good for the economy
we’re actually fooling ourselves there’s
no such thing as the economy it’s
society stupid in my humble opinion
another thing I’ve learned from these
folks they are explicitly Purpose Driven
have you ever heard of the term purpose
it’s a bit of a this world at this
moment and it’s often associated with
having a calling a higher course
something you know you at the North Star
people who’ve read Simon Simon it’s
about the why finding your why it’s none
of the above
purpose is actually really simple it has
nothing to do with something that you
find with your head with your heads
purpose finds you purpose is a verb as
soon as you act altruistically which
means not serving yourself but serving
the bigger picture you get a sense of
fulfillment so purpose is a happiness
experience purpose is it’s basically
just part of our well-being biology as
soon as you do it you feel a sense of
fulfillment which is called purpose so
it’s not something you can strive for
get white papers and then work towards
it it’s just there as soon as you not
serve yourself but you serve others
which is which is basically our basic
biology you know get the tribe find your
tribe and make the tribe as as solid as
possible as soon as you do it you
experience purpose and this is what all
these wonderful companies that do
business for good experience because
their company is bigger than than
themselves they serve the bigger picture
I could I could combine these two so
another thing that companies that do
business for good rather than making
business for for money two differently
is that they are issue driven so these
folks start a company based upon the
fact that they see a problem in society
that they want to solve rather than that
they want have a business idea and want
to start a company they just use a
company as the most effective way to
change society for the good which is
completely different so they’re not
looking for the gap in the market which
is what we get ditched at schools at
university or commercial commercial
economy they are looking for the gap in
society it’s all based upon the fact
that I see a problem and they want to
solve the problem and and what that
results in is its impact so they’re not
interested primarily in profit but an
impact an impact is a broader definition
of profit it’s not just about money
impact is about making progress socially
environmentally or ecologically and
financially and this turns around the
old definitions of economics quite
drastically because what sets this
purpose of companies apart from other
companies if they actually strive for
what I call the minimum viable profit
principle they don’t go for maximum
profit but minimum profit because they
need the financial performances of the
company for social or environmental
purposes so if you read about companies
that use purpose to get more profit than
you know you’ll be full because the only
relationship between purpose and profit
is less profit but more social value
societal value and so and this is and
this is something which can be really
interesting because our whole economy is
based on based on growth growth growth
and these companies are not they don’t
go for 20-25 percent profit margins they
go for 2 or 3 percent because that
enables them to make a difference
socially or environmentally so they have
a completely way another way of looking
at value and value proposition 2 more
another thing that I’ve learned that I
think is helpful for you on your career
path is what I call H Q happiness
intelligence or humanity intelligence
one thing that I’ve learned from working
with purposeful companies and purposeful
entrepreneurs is that it is that they
have this very specific quality and it’s
a quality that I’ve I’m very accustomed
to as a Buddhist by not studying their
issues but becoming their issues so
they’re not information driven but their
compassion driven rather than getting
and getting into a problem and studying
the problem because if you want to start
a purposeful companies you don’t only
need to be need to be business savvy but
you also need to be socially or
environmentally environmentally savvy
you have to know how to intervene in a
most effective way to make a change and
the best way to do it is not by studying
the object but by becoming the object
and in Buddhism we say that the
definition of compassion is seeing your
own face in that of another person so if
you are able to not look at another
person as somebody who is different than
you who is distant for you if you’re
open if you’re able to open your heart
and to own the pain of the other person
then you know exactly what to do to help
the other person to serve the other
person and this is this is something
that these purposeful entrepreneurs
purposeful companies know very well and
do very well they they know how to help
you manatee forward because they can get
into the problems out there
last one and this is my my question to
you what I’ve learned about these
purposeful entrepreneurs and also about
my own practice is the very profound
difference between hacking the system
and the system so you might say
and I think that’s a very proper way of
defining and describing these purposeful
entrepreneurs is that they are business
activists you know they have an ideal
that they feel very strongly about and
they use business as a force to do it
and you might even say it’s a sort of a
protest but what’s really interesting is
they don’t use the protest in the
old-school way
like for instance occupy the Occupy
movements which didn’t do now what
they do is they understand the fact that
there is only one system remember the
flower so they dive right in the system
and they changed it and they changed the
system from the inside out so there are
wonderful examples in every imaginable
market of companies that show and prove
that there is room for business as
unusual that there that you don’t have
to make maximum profit to build a very
promising valuable company that does
more than just making money and I know a
lot of you how many of you are students
aha look so you’re about to start your
career path and I you know I just if you
can take away one thing for my talk is
remember the flower remember that you
too are part of the problem or the
solution and don’t don’t think about now
it doesn’t really matter because Who am
I and what it’s only my career it does
everything you do matters
you have impacts by definition whether
you like it or not so please take that
away with you and and
and don’t go please don’t go
the conventional commercial corporate
way don’t follow the money follow the
happy swallow the happy and and and I I
really hope that you know that you can
start a purposeful company or that you
can or that you can work at a purposeful
company and experience the the
fulfillment of purpose of contributing
to something that helps humanity forward
rather than hurt humanity and I wish you
all the best on that path and good luck
out there [Applause]