Does Destiny Really Exist in Business?
- Lim Tola
- February 25, 2020 10:06 AM
Cambodia remains an inherently spiritual country, but are the successes and failures we all experience in life and in business pre-determined or is success what we make of it?
PHNOM PENH--There are no differences between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the rest of the world. There are plenty of businesses out there in the field which become very successful, nevertheless, there are a huge number of businesses which go bankrupt shortly after their initial start. What are the factors behind all those successes? And what makes some businesses fail? Could success and failure be parts of the spiritual destiny?
Enduring the trials of running a business is a lot harder than thinking about what to create as a business. By just popping up and raising ideas about what to do as a business, a lot of entrepreneurs straight away begin to imagine the revenue and profits they could make. However, from the very first day that any business opens the doors, the owners will have to find every possible means of maintaining their investment. Complications, tough decisions and challenges become ever more apparent, and sometimes far more complex than what was planned in the first place.
Some specialists portray the creation of a business as not too complicated. The real beginning is the ability to ensure the health of their own investment, produce a profitable flow of revenue and do all that is possible to make the business adaptable to the challenging aspects that entrepreneurs face. Put simply, creating a business is not hard, but taking care of the business is an everyday pain in the head. Some businesses that were running for over two decades can close their doors in after a rough six months – nobody is ever completely safe.
It is a common understanding that running a business is one of the main challenges that a person could face in their life. Failure can completely alter the course of their destiny. So in spite of knowing all of this, why is there still an ever-increasing number of people who are willing to invest their capitals in creating businesses? Why would people invite such a convoluted, time-consuming risk into their lives?
It is a reality so inherent to humans – the underlying need to escape from being always employed by others. We all seek the freedom to live the way we want to, to invest our time and energies into projects we believe in and that is rarely available when working for someone else. Some people develop the mindset that they should work to build a firm that he or she can personally own and can use it to employ others. These are the wills and the ambitions inseparable from every person since birth. Yet, the outcome of a business really depends on the talent and the ability of each player in the market. If every person on this planet approaches their ambitions righteously and all businesses are successful, then there will be no one who is still struggling with poverty, but this, we know, is not reality. While there are those who succeed, it appears as though by the will of a counterbalance, there must be those who fail or who lose out to the successful.
There are more reasons why many people want to be the owners on their own business. Firstly, some of them really want to create a legacy for the future. For many it is more about creating an independent source of income and revenue. Others feel more keenly the need to create something personal and to escape the pressure of being employed by a company. People keep investing in businesses to ensure that they can be financially healthy during worst case scenarios in which they are fired from their job – this is especially true in the case of Cambodia.
What are the factors that push businesses forward, and at the very same time, drag businesses down into bankruptcy?
In accordance with economic theory, a successful business depends immensely on adherence to the guidelines of economic principles. A business owner has to be aware on the amount of investments, the types of products, the targeted demand of the consumers, the suitability of location, the general income of the consumers, and the duration needed for the investment to return profits, the principles of management and the management of capital, etc.
After an analysis of the surrounding market, the next challenge is production and maintenance. A stage which requires the acquisition of human resources and the structuring of internal management. When human resources and structural management are combined, they become a key component for determining the success of a business. Plus, in this specific stage of development, a business’s success hinges on the competency and talent of a manager able to produce a positive impact on the sustainability of a business. Competency and talent do not relate entirely to diplomas or qualifications. It is mainly about the intelligence of a person who is in charge. When talking about the theory of leadership, many leaders can possess similar level of knowledge. On the contrary, some leaders succeed in many aspects of their investments, yet fail in others.
At this point, the practical intelligence of a person can outweigh the theories he or she has learnt of business management. Theories can be learnt and taught at schools, but intelligence can only be gifted by nature or nurtured through a combination of practical and theoretical experience. This offers one explanation for why some leaders fail and some succeed in their investment, even when they receive the same level of education. A business cannot be successful without the cooperative dynamics of the firm as a whole.
Instead, what pushes a business closer toward the impending moment of bankruptcy?
The most answered questions by many business owners include a lack of investment, failure to address internal conflicts between investors, a lack of useful market research, unaddressed conflict between employees, a failure of direction from management and a failure to properly assess the principles of the business in the first place.
Despite all of these reasonable factors above, there are still people who will relate the success of a business to the abstract view of the spiritual world in which spiritual destiny plays a defining role in businesses, seeing business or economic competency as only the tip of the iceberg. A spiritual person may believe in the destiny of all things and that people are born with a pre-determined timeline in their life.
How will your life be shaped? What will you become? The boss? The employee? The worker? Put simply, you cannot walk away from what you have been set to become. The prevalence of this mindset – that success may be predetermined spiritually – has led many business owners practice various form of worshiping before opening a business and throughout the course of running their business. Furthermore, some people require spiritual teachers to abstractly lead them and tell them the path as how to handle their businesses.
It is hard to say that these practices are wrong, but scientists and realists describe success as being based on the competency and talent that exists inside a person. Avoid blaming destiny and the spiritual beliefs! Those who put the blame on destiny are those who lack trust in themselves. It does not matter if you are spiritual or not. Sometimes, people from highly-educated backgrounds or who are highly-talented are not guaranteed to become wealthy or high-ranking. On the other side of the spectrum, poorly-educated people or fools are not guaranteed to remain poor as well. So, does destiny really exist or do we make it for ourselves?
