I went to a discussion on Ethical Entrepreneaurs at the British Library last week. Very interesting indeed. There were four guets/speakers attendees: John Bird of The Big Issue, Geetie Singh of Duke of Cambridge pub in Islington, Richard Reed of Innocent, and Justin Frances of responsibletravel.com.
They were all fasinating in their own ways. Jon Bird was incredibly passionate, forthright, opionated, loud, entertaining. Geetie Singh had developed a successful business out of a passion for sustainability. Richard Reed was obviously very, very switched on, had an intelligent, insightful, interesting opinion on pretty much every topic raised. And Justin Frances was very chilled out, interesting, softly spoken, the complete antithesis of John Bird.
It's both re-assurring and inspiring to see people who have made a successful business, working for themselves, made some money, and also "left things a little better" (as Richard put it) as they've gone along their way.
One of the things that really struck home was when John started talking about doing, not saying. Well, everyone talked about this but John sticks out because he was the loudest. The fact that they were all proven do-ers gave what they were saying more gravitas, but it made me think of a post i'd read recently over on Logic+Emotion about the difference between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Everyone talks about the great things Steve Jobs has done, how revolutionary he is, while Bill Gates gets a hard time as the corporate bielzibob. Whereas, in fact, it's Bill Gates who is leaving the world a bit better than he found it.
Thinking different is great, but living different is better. It's the difference between sitting in a pub and talking about starting your own business and actually getting up and doing it.
Then, as i was looking for the Duke of Cambridge's website i found this quote from Abraham Maslow:
"Real progress cannot happen without the driving force of ideals. It is through the world of work, not just through law or politics, that we will make the good society".
It's through a combination of work and ideals that sociey is changed for the better. At the moment everyone is taking up resolutions, trying to do more stuff (excercise, hobbies, holidays). But John, Geetie, Richard and Justin have all made resolutions to do more good, not just more stuff.
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