Zen Business Philosophy

Doing what comes easily and most naturally will yield the best results. 

Would you rather fight a loosing battle or play an enjoyable game?  Most people, rational people say they'd rather play an enjoyable game than fight a loosing battle.  At first glance this seems like a obvious choice, until you dig deeper and realize most people are fighting loosing battles, doing everything possible to "win" without necessarily enjoying the ride. 

What if the answer to riddle of life isn't to "win" but instead to "be", to exist in a state which comes easily and naturally and that that will yield the best results with the least difficulty. 

A friend recently sent over a fascinating article by Steve Pavlina, which talks about Steve's journey from a failing profit chaser to a life-loving game player. When Steve focused on making a profit over everything else, he had a miserable time and ended up bankrupt, when he focused on enjoying the game of life he had a great time and made enough money to play indefinitely.  

Reading Steve's article struck a personal chord.  From 2008 through 2011 I was chasing dollars, miserably working at Microsoft for a paycheck, fighting to get ahead in the corporate world and loosing.  In 2011 I stopped trying to make money doing something I hated (working for a large bureaucratic company) and instead started doing something I enjoyed (collaborating on interesting projects with talented entrepreneurs).  Almost immediately after joining the startup we hit it big and I was effectively able to "retire" at 28.  

These days I run a technology and art based incubator (TheNerditorium.com) where I collaborate with amazing people on projects we're all deeply passionate about.  Driven by passion our projects are effortless, it's easy and enjoyable.  We're massively profitable and can sustain our income with about 5 minutes of "work" (stuff that's not entirely enjoyable) per month.  The notable point, we could bring in 10X more profit by hunkering down and doing more "work" on the most profitable parts of our business... but we'd rather play.  We're having too much fun collaborating on projects we care about which may be less profitable or even doing pro-bono work.  The really strange thing, the more we focus on projects we're passionate about, the more we seem to attract a crowd of people who want to help push these projects into reality. We recently started a a film project using home-brewed video tech, People in Motion which received over $10,000 in support from people around the world who wanted to help make the project a reality, Hollywood has even come knocking on our door to help produce & distribute the film. 

In our limited experience, the lesson seems to be that doing the easy things that come most naturally will yield the best results.  Focus on projects you're passionate about and success will follow.   

Pip pip, 

Cedric