Why Business Is Like The Circle Of Life

Let's start by defining the purpose of life. Is there any specific purpose or reason to be alive? Many people feel that their life is meaningless. They think the endless cycle of life is pointless.

We wake up everyday and go to work, so we can get money, so we can buy food, so we can raise kids, so they can grow up and go to work, so they can have money, so they can buy food, so they . . . to infinitum. Is there any specific reason behind this routine? What is the ultimate purpose of being alive?

The circle of life.

Let's examine the life cycle of living organisms and arrive to a conclusion. Living things possess the following qualities . . .

Organization - They are comprised of one or more cells.

Metabolism - This is the process through which they create energy. Living things are complex systems which need energy to maintain internal organization.

Growth - They increase in size over time in all of their parts simultaneously.

Adaptation - They adapt to their environment. This process is fundamental for evolution.

Response to stimuli - They respond in many different ways to the stimuli from their environment.

Reproduction - This process refer to both the division of the cells in organismal growth as well as the production of a new individual.

This alone tells us nothing, but if we analyze the behavior of most living things we arrive to the conclusion that they have something in common. They add value! Yes, you heard that right. Organisms add value, to their own life, the environment (Earth/ecosystem) and the life of others.

The reason we perceive that some living things subtract value (kill and eat other organisms) is that we don't live in a perfect ecosystem. I believe though that most living things add more value than they subtract from the environment, otherwise the ecosystem we live in wouldn't be able to sustain itself.

Now, think about it. In a perfect ecosystem life wouldn't need to feed on itself. This means that animals wouldn't need to kill plants nor other animals to survive. All animals would eat fruits, leaving the plants alive to produce more fruits. Plants get their nutrients directly from non-living things. So, the ecosystem would be able to sustain itself without anybody having to suffer.

On our planet things seem to be different. It seems that life feeds on itself here. Apparently the purpose of living things is to stay alive and produce more individuals of their specie, to survive and evolve. If you scrutinize this better you realize that the true purpose is to add value. The purpose of life is to add value to other forms of life and to the ecosystem (Earth).

Entropy is the universal tendency to chaos and disorder. Energy tends to spread out in the Universe. All non-living things get more disorganized and simpler over time. Now, living things are different. They get energy from their environment to sustain and improve (grow/evolve) their complex biological systems.

Organisms get energy from areas of low concentration and bring it into areas of high concentration (their bodies). They act in direct opposition to the law of entropy. So, in some way living things are an obstruction to the second law of thermodynamics. There is something about life that makes it behave in such a way. It is information. I am talking about biological information here, the genes.

The genes are a set of special biological codes that make living things behave the way they do. Something that also affect the behavior of an organism is its environment. Some of the information that you will find on the genes is the instruction; to grow, expand, multiply and reproduce.

Living things come programmed to behave in a certain way. We are supposed to use our energy productively. We are meant to add value to our lives, the life of others and the ecosystem. Organisms not always know nor understand what is their true purpose in life, but they often achieve it intuitively.

For example bees seek nectar everyday to make honey. They pollinate some plants on the process. The same happens with many other birds and insects. Their goal is to seek food and stay alive, but their true purpose may be very different.

This is the pattern for most living things. Plants for example convert Sunlight energy into chemical energy through the process of photosynthesis. The chemical energy is then used by the plants to produce sugars and other important nutrients. Plants do this to keep themselves alive. They do not know what their true purpose is.

Many plants only purpose is to produce oxygen and serve as food to other living things like animals. Some plants are very useful for humans as well as other animals. They can be used as food, medicine, wood, etc.

Many plants are genetically codified to produce fruits and reproduce that way. Their goal is to reproduce. Their purpose is to feed other animals with those fruits. When an animal comes to the plant, take the fruit, eat it and throw the remains away, the goal of that animal is to eat and stay alive, the purpose is to spread out the seeds of the plant and sow new life somewhere else.

This happens instinctively in nature all the time. We have the ability to reason though and we can understand this fact. In the example above, neither organisms understand their true purpose. They focus on attaining their goal. Your goal and your true purpose can be very different though. Don't forget this. Based on our observations, our true purpose is to add value.

Now, the most important part of this article. How can we apply this scientific knowledge to the business world? What does this general principles about life has to do with business and wealth building?

Simple. Our goal is to make money, but our true purpose is to add value. We humans can add value in many different ways. We have conscience. The basic idea is to do something that improves the life of others.

The best way to do this is to create something new that did not exist before and which can be very useful to others. This new thing can be a device, a machine, a system, anything; as long as it is innovative and useful.

How can you measure how useful is the value you added? You can do this by observing how many people get interested in it. The more useful it is, the more people will want it and the more money you can make with it. Innovation is very important in business for this reason, but you can also add value without creating something new.

You can offer your services to others. You can fix broken stuff. Offer your help and support, add value through your job, etc. It is important that you understand this. We are not supposed to chase wealth. Just do something that improves people’s lives and capitalize on your efforts.

Now, to finalize this article lets apply the life cycle to your business cycle. As you can see above, all living things have organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli and reproduction. Believe it or not, most businesses if not all of them, need these qualities too.

Organization - You need to be organized. You will notice how there is always a tendency to chaos and disorder. You will need to exert some efforts to keep the business running smoothly. Businesses are complex systems. Constant input energy is required to maintain the internal organization of any complex system.

You need to be organized if you want to be a successful business person. This includes setting up goals and achieving them. It includes planning, realizing projects and keeping the disorder under control.

Metabolism - Metabolism is something else you will need. Businesses use raw materials from the environment. Business people use energy, their own energy, other people's efforts, financial resources, etc; to run their businesses. Some energy will be converted into useful work within the system that is your business. The more effective you are at it, the better results you will obtain.

Growth - Businesses are supposed to grow too. Everyday you can learn something new from the marketplace (your environment). Over a period of time you and your organization can grow and increase in value and size. Organize your business in such a way that it can grow a little bit more every day.

Adaptation - This has to do with surviving and evolution. If you can adapt quickly to fast changes on the environment you will have an advantage over other businesses which for one reason or another can’t do this. Successful business people adapt to changes easily. They keep their goal in sight: to make money. They change the method as many time as necessary. They persevere on the goal not on the method.

Response to stimuli - This one has to do with feedback. What is people telling you with their reactions, choices, attitudes, etc. What are the results of your efforts. Negative feedback is as important as positive one as long as it makes sense.

If you can analyze the information that you receive from the environment and change based on it, you will be responding to the stimuli you receive. Your overall result will depend on your response (your choices).

Reproduction - At last you may want to reproduce too. This involves starting other businesses or getting different streams of income from the business you already have. Business people know this. They prefer to have different sources of revenue, so if one dries up they still have the others to back up that temporary trouble.

I will be inexpanding this in my next article, "Why Business Is Like Gravity".