Spirituality and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs often seek meaning in their work and attempt to find individual happiness by living out their personal values and doing what they truly love, to become a “whole person” whereby their jobs no longer feel like work.
These internal values which can also be called as the driving forces of entrepreneur’s mind vary from being social, emotional, cultural, financial to spiritual in nature and play a critical role in determining the venture’s personality, culture and relationships that exist between the entrepreneur and stakeholders involved.
When we specifically discuss how spiritual values affect an entrepreneur’s life, there is a lot of subjectivity involved, as spirituality has many layers and many interpretations. It originates from a space of openness and acceptance for heterogeneity. However, there is a universal sense in which spiritual values serve a purpose in every entrepreneur’s life. We talk about some of them as follows:
Firstly, spirituality helps one connect with one’s inner self at a deeper level and provides the ability to have a clear conscious. Spirituality gives people a strong sense of who they are as an individual, thus take better intuitive decisions.
Secondly, it helps one manage his/her energy, thus time in a much more efficient manner and harness the maximum out of the brain. When one’s mind, thoughts and emotions are in sync, he/she can deal with stress in more resilient ways and have free space to stimulate the creativity.
Thirdly, spirituality opens oneself to the process of self-improvement which always keeps one indulged in the learning process, thus strengthens virtues like self-discipline, honesty and integrity. It keeps one grounded and provides the ability to not be labeled by one’s achievements or accomplishments.
Lastly, learning and practicing detachment is critical to every entrepreneur’s existence. Each one of them goes through a rollercoaster ride of financial, emotional, mental and physical ups and downs, and when something fails it is essential that one knows when to let go and when to hold on.
Everything said and done, no one size fits all. There is a great scope and need to study the importance of spiritual values at different levels of analysis — cultural, subcultural, institutional, and personal — as they relate to entrepreneurial activities. What can be said conclusively is that spirituality provides oneself right tools to have right attitude towards life’s experiences and it is the attitude that creates altitude in life and governs its narrative.
I would love to know about some of the core spiritual values that you practice at workplace.
