Are you meant to be an Entrepreneur? How do you know, if you have it in you?

Spirituality is a topic generally related to theology but has been becoming an important area in the field of economics, especially entrepreneurship. The world has been changing. The way people do business has been changing. Entrepreneurs today do not see entrepreneurship only as a way to accumulate wealth and income for themselves, or for a few individuals in society. Entrepreneurship is going beyond the realm of self-uplift. Entrepreneurship is more of the generation and distribution of wealth for all. It is not separate from society. More and more businesses are coming into existence that focus on societal well-being, environmental balance, and human development which are aspects of spirituality in work.

Billionaire businessman Richard Branson defines entrepreneurship as an undertaking of an individual to make a difference in other people’s lives. If we carefully look, within this simple definition itself lies the meaning of an entrepreneur and spirituality in entrepreneurship. It’s not completely putting people before profits. But it is about creating a profitable business by making a difference in other people’s lives. For entrepreneurs who pursue spirituality, motivation originates from compassion and love for people, the environment, and society. Their businesses revolve around easing others’ lives. When I say this, most people would think of businesses and people who work around yoga, healing, therapeutic practices, etc. Of course, a person running a small yoga center is also an entrepreneur. Sadhguru and Sri Sri, with their world-renown ISHA and Art of Living Foundations respectively, are spiritual entrepreneurs making difference in society with their meditative courses and schools. I have high regard for them.

But one does not have to do traditionally spiritual work to be a spiritual entrepreneur. There are other businesses as well that defines the spirit of spiritual entrepreneurship. Many have made a visible difference in our lives with their highly successful businesses. I love to give the example of TATA Sons, time and again, to highlight spiritual entrepreneurship to its core. In India, around 28% of the population, as per 2021 data, is middle class. Every family dreams of having its own private car. But not everyone can afford it. Car was a luxury item around 15 years back. However, it was TATA Motors under the TATA Sons conglomerate run by Mr. Ratan Tata that made the dream of owning a car a reality for every middle-class family. In 2009, it launched the TATA Nano with a base starting price of 1500 USD. The brand had its fair share of success till it ceased its production in 2018. TATA Nano, I believe, is spiritual entrepreneurship in every regard. It was Mr. Tata who gave a thought to providing an affordable car to middle-class families when no other manufacturer did. He realized the need of thousands of small families who generally traveled on their two-wheelers. The group is into other philanthropic businesses as well. No doubt, this group is the world’s biggest philanthropist.

So, spiritual entrepreneurs are the kind of entrepreneurs who try to find solutions to future problems. There are so many examples of spiritual entrepreneurship. If you have watched Shark Tank India, you couldn’t agree more. Many budding entrepreneurs, contesting on the platform, have business ideas revolving around the motto of wellbeing. Jugadu Kamlesh (Kamlesh Ghumare) pitched a pesticide spray trolley mounted on a bicycle for making the lives of farmers easy. Aditi Gupta and Tuhin Paul’s Menstrupedia Comic is about menstrual awareness. Hecoll’s pollution protection fabric, Tinkerbell Labs Braille literacy devices for the visually impaired students, KAVACH- the anti-bullying App, etc. are some other businesses in the same league. All are about easing people’s lives.

We could see a whole lot of young entrepreneurs creating products and services that are beneficial for people and society. Some well-motivated entrepreneurs are turning up to green entrepreneurship to fix environmental issues through their business models. Vaibhav Anant’s (CEO of Bambrew) aim is to create alternatives for single-use plastics for a green environment. His company offers sustainable packaging solutions through products made of bamboo and wood pulp. Similarly, Mutha Industries is trying to add some green to the environment with its bamboo flooring materials. The very idea of edible cutlery itself is amazing. Chew your dinner plates too for zero leftovers! And spare the environment. For Vinay, the founder of the edible cutlery brand Thooshan, it is not purely business. It’s his motto to bring a change in the way people use plastics and to mitigate ways to reduce plastic cutlery from reaching landfills. Heard of Thaely, the sneaker brand made of waste plastic bags? That’s true. Plastic bags, literally called thaely in India is the raw material for this shoe brand. Ashay Bhave introduced this business to solve the menace of 100 billion plastic bags and bottles that suffocate thousands of marine animals annually.

I could keep on giving many other examples of entrepreneurial ventures that are driven by the spirit of do-good. It’s a different matter whether the websites proclaim it or not. I read through their vision and goals to categorize them. Opportunity and profits, no doubt, remain the undeniable parts of entrepreneurship but welfare, if it’s the original motive, is spiritual entrepreneurship. Otherwise, why would anyone want to pick up our garbage and convert it to compost? Why would somebody collect plastics to produce Thaely? Why would Jugadu Kamlesh not design some cars and sell them? And why would Vinay introduce edible plates? The answer is simple. These entrepreneurs are here to do business the spiritual way where service to people, society, and the environment is foremost. They are motivated to offer solutions to address problems of the future. So guys, if you are interested in entrepreneurship, choose the spiritual way. Spiritual entrepreneurship is the need of the hour.