Following the right North Star

I started my own business. I founded a compnay, registered it with the Companies House, and I've been developing it for the past year and a half. Why did I do this? Was it just for money? Something mentioned quite prominently in The Millionaire Fastlane by M.J DeMarco is that if your focus is just to become rich, then that value will seep into your work and any customers you get will be able to tell and not feel compelled to give you their business. Obviously income is a major part of why we do anything, but it can't be what your drive is.

So when I'm creating this business, I have to think about what values are important to me, that I'm passionate about and how they relate to this business, because if this business doesn't represent my values and doesn't help to further my ideals, then what's the point of it all, really. A lesson I often refer back to is the concept of Memento Mori, something espoused by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in his book Meditations. It's the idea that someday, you will die. A morbid concept but true nonetheless. And you have to think about wether you stuck by your values, whether you are a good contribution to the world and people around you. You don't have to have done something crazy influential and good that the whole world will remember for centuries and get you your own page on Wikipedia. Sometimes something small in compariosn to the works of a figure like Nelson Mandela or Abraham Lincoln is all that's necessary for one to feel content with themselves, to feel happy with what they've contributed to the world during their life.

So that's what I think of when I'm developing this business. I won't go into too much detail as it might give away much of the business too early, but I will say a little bit.

One of my most important values is freedom. Is an individual's ability to free will, to free expression, to be free essentially.

I can unequivocally say that the big project I'm working on is something that will favour that ideal. In fact, I hope that it will help to further that ideal and to aid others in their freedom.

That is a value that helps me keep going.