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I want to talk about change – and entrepreneurship

To do so, I’m going to start of by talking just a little about religion. That might seem a bit strange, but let me explain.

The other day I was watching a BBC tv programme about religion presented by a Church of England priest called Peter Owen Jones.

He’s an interesting character. Before becoming a priest he was an advertising agency executive. Recently he’s made a name for himself as a kind of travelling investigating pilgrim, taking a look at different religions in a series of programmes he’s been making for BBC TV called “Extreme Pilgrim”.

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The series is presented in a refreshing style and it’s not just about Christianity, but also covers other religions such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The series has taken him around the world to Europe, the United States, the Middle East, Africa, the Far East and India.

In one episode, Peter Owen Jones makes a trip to India where he takes part in the Hindu Kumbh Mela religious festival. For a while he pursues the life of a wandering Saddhu or Hindu holy man and takes refuge in a cave in the Indian Himalaya region for a period of quiet contemplation and meditation.

In the programme he makes the point about how for most of the last 20 or so years he’s never really had the time in his own busy daily schedule to stop to reflect on life, it’s meaning and what is important in life.

This was the first thing that struck me. He’s by no means the only one not to have taken the time out to sit down and think a little about life and our place in it.

Non-permanence is the only permanent feature of life!

But Peter Owen Jones then said something else that also struck a chord. Through his India trip he had come to realise how everything is just temporary, passing by. Nothing in our lives is really permanent.  Our sense of location, even of home –  in reality it’s all just fleeting.

We like to try and assign a permanence to things, but they’re never permanent. We like to say we “belong” here – or there, or that we are a national of such-and-such country or region or whatever – and we let this define us in our totality.

Perhaps it’s a longing within us for “eternity”. But if we want eternity – and I think we do actually already have eternity, then all we have to do is recognize and accept the fact that non-permanence or impermanence is the real state of affairs of everything.  I call it here “non-permanence” rather than impermanence because I think that emphasizes it better. Everything and everywhere continually changes.

Your home can be anywhere. Whilst it’s no bad thing to have affection for a place, a country, a region, a town, your house or apartment – I think we should beware of developing an over-attachment to it.

“Crisis” is just another word for “change”

It also made me realise how the idea of “crisis” comes about. It’s when situations that we thought of as permanent are suddenly shown not to be. Whether it’s our job, our relationships even, where we live, our possessions, our own lives. Government, economy, business, social and cultural ways of life…all these things are only “permanent” for a very short time.

What we call “crisis” is really just a change in those things which we assumed up to now to be permanent. Sometimes I wish the media and politicians would just stop talking about “crisis”. In a sense there are no crises, just continual change. All we have to deal with is change. Nothing else.

We’ve all experienced how it is when we go back and revisit places from our childhood.  Places where we once lived, places we once visited or vacationed in years ago. We then see how they have changed. The fact is, we can never really go back.

I think it’s important that we learn to recognize and accept this fact.

It doesn’t mean you have to give up your location, your home, or become a permanent wandering nomad. That would just be also be a form of attachment: being attached to continual mobility.

Beware of trying to hide behind “permanence”

Peter Owen Jones also said one other thing that I thought particularly relevant: that many people use the belief of permanence, and especially location, as a prop and an excuse to hide behind. As the reason why they say they can’t do something. People say, I’ve been living in such and such a place, a house, a town, for too long.  I “belong” there.  Or: “I’ve been in the same job for years and years – I belong there and so I can’t move or change”.

But you’re never ever permanent in a place.  It’s just self-imposed boxed-in thinking. Even if you don’t ever move from that situation,  your life will come to an end eventually – and with that end your so-called “permanence” and attachment to it for you.

The Earth is said to be over 4 billion years old – and even the Earth is continually changing. Countries and continental plates are continually shifting about, being affected by earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, storms, bush fires and other natural events.  The world map we look at and refer to is just a snapshot in time. We now know that even the whole universe itself is in constant motion.

What does non-permanence mean for us entrepreneurs?

I think we should never best become too attached to things. We should always be able to move and change as needed. Change is part of life. To change is to be alive.

Entrepreneurs are very much involved in change. In a sense you might say we are “artists of change”. We understand that we can change things. We can change ourselves and our circumstances. We are determined to change things. Our life is about change. We benefit and make business out of it.

Starting a business, developing a business, all this involves change. As our business develops, several years down the line things will be different again.

You may also be living somewhere else. You may be a location independent entrepreneur. Moving around, changing your location. But whatever you do or however you live, as an entrepreneur – a successful entrepreneur – you can never afford to stay still.

I find it fascinating to see how some people can change their lives, move on and up, starting businesses, moving to new places, new cities, new countries. Sell their business, start another, a new business, and so on and so on.

And yet at the same time you can go back years later to visit other people and places you were once at years ago – and still find many of the same people sitting in the same old seats, in the same old places, doing the same old things. And whinging and moaning in the same old way as well. It’s  like the existence of parallel universes.

I guess it’s true to say that different people have different capacity to accept change. Some people can embrace change, welcome change – whilst others can’t. Change or even just the idea of change throws them into a panic. They hold on, cling limpet-like to everything they have and see around them, and can’t envisage anything new or different. Unless it’s forced upon them by circumstances or by others.

But you can’t freeze a business and you can’t freeze and immobilize an entrepreneur. Change is the way we entrepreneurs do things, how we create things, how we achieve things. Change is the very nature of entrepreneurship.

Here’s the extract of the BBC Programme “Extreme Pilgrim – Kumbh Mela” by Peter Owen Jones (the final 8 minutes of the programme). This version is in English with Spanish subtitles.

You can also find the whole programme on YouTube if you want to view it in it’s entirety.

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