Business Needs a New Story

A lot of business advice is generic performance art. It is cleverly packaged as “high value” but in fact is worthless. An imitation, artificial. How rare can something be when there are infinite copies of the how-to playbook circulating. Yet everyone is fixated on the artificial these days.

To me the playbooks all look the same: build and break things fast and be relentless…carrying on in an extreme way. Work nonstop without pay for years or decades at time. Sell something that no one really wants or needs. Constant output is your proof of relevance. The worship of exhaustion and scale at the altar of the money god whom you will serve until your death, relentlessly.

And if you are tired, broke, anxious, learn to LOVE it! Frame it as price paid for success. It’s the toll owed to the gatekeepers. As the founder you may think you are in control because they let you think it. They decide if you succeed or fail. On their terms not yours. Because they hold all the cards, not you.

Somewhere along the way, you notice you stopped solving real problems and became a public display of someone else’s ambition. So perhaps one day you will be the 1 in 10 to succeed by generating #returns for whom you serve. That is, if that is your definition of success.

But is it? Are those odds the side you want to be on. 90% certainty of failure. Time lost which you will never get back. Is it you, building something so fragile that it consumes your entire life. Scaling without substance or soul. Or do you become strong, useful, sane, and get paid to be of service to others without destroying yourself in the process.

We are brainwashed that manifesting money without pain is impossible. That we can only get things through hard work, struggle, and sacrifice. That suffering is beneficial and simple is worthless.

Rethinking business with your unique story means unlearning what is not yours. It’s about knowing who you are and who you are not. The real you.

For me, business is a means of creating value for others and getting paid for it. Not a ritual of exploitation and self-sacrifice. But I was taught by the system to believe that there is only one right way to do business. Kill yourself to IPO, acquisition, or sale to a larger firm after achieving scale and market dominance. I had to unlearn this.

Not every idea needs to be a start-up, not every idea should be. Unless that is what you truly desire. It means making room for the deliberately small, deeply intentional, and built around freedom. Focus on being of value to others. The rest falls into place.