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Business lessons from an early Greek philosopher

Francisco Miraval

Last week, the founder of a national business organization asked me if, in my opinion, there were any connections between philosophy (which I have been studying and teaching for three decades) and business. A detailed answer to that question far exceeds the limits of this column, so I will only focus on three lessons based on the teachings of an early Greek philosopher.

Heraclitus lived in Ephesus (now Turkey) two and a half millennia ago. He wrote a book, now lost, but about 130 fragments have survived and some of them include good lessons for postmodern, not-philosophically inclined business owners.

Heraclitus famously said that, “You can’t step into the same river twice, because new water is always arriving” (Fragments 12 and 49a).

Heraclitus is not talking about “not making the same mistake twice”. It seems more consistent with the rest of his thoughts that in this fragment he explores the ever-changing essence of reality and the fact that very often we don’t pay enough attention to that change and we pay even less attention to the transformation that is happening in us.

In other words, he seems to use the metaphor of the constant flow in a river not only to talk about the constant change in nature, but also to invite us to discover the constant change in ourselves. The second time you jump into the river you have also changed. People may realize the river (life, business) is changing without realizing they are changing too.

Becoming aware of our metamorphosis and searching for our true self is the first lesson. The second lesson is based on Fragment 18: “If you don’t expect the unexpected, you will never find it.”

To paraphrase: “If you don’t have any hope in those (apparently) hopeless things, you will never find things that are difficult to detect and almost impossible to understand”

Heraclitus is not talking about having a Plan B, or about preparing for disaster, or about Murphy’s Law.

It seems he says that if you insist on thinking as you usually do, then you impose limits to what you can think and hope, that is, you are restricting your own realityIf you assume that something is “difficult” or “impossible”, that thing will remain so for you and, therefore, out of your reach.

The second lesson is to become aware of your own thought process and of your thinking style. To put it in a non-Heraclitean way: stop thinking that everything is a nail just because you have a hammer in your hand.

The third lesson is the most difficult on to explain, far exceeding the limits of this column. Heraclitus said (in a free retelling of Fragment 119) that, “To be truly human means to find the existential place (inside you) where you can transcend being just human.”

In a very simplistic way: Don’t allow your business to take away your humanity or the humanity of others and don’t assume that there is only true way (yours) of being truly human.

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