Business value in the path not taken

Diversity of experiences and mentors

Hermann Hesse wrote Siddhartha over a century ago – helping him win a Nobel Prize for literature. “It radiates more genuine wisdom than just about any novel ever published” said novelist Tom Robbins.

A global cult classic among the youthful minded, it’s required reading for a perceptive manager, tired of AI prompts and stale recycled business doctrine, who wants to break out of the cage of convention.

The story follows Siddhartha, a young Brahmin who has everything. He has the looks, intelligence, and a clear path to success, but feels empty inside.

Eventually, he leaves home, becomes an ascetic Samana, wandering with no worldly possessions, then a lover of Kamala, then an affluent, successful businessman. Finally, he nearly dies by a river, before understanding what he’d been searching for all along.

It’s a simple story. But the lessons inside it cut through centuries of noise – and paradoxically apply to Kenyan managers today, aiming to be on the thinking cutting edge. Several lessons standout.

Business wisdom cannot be taught - it must be lived

Skills, knowledge and mindset are all we have, yet knowledge is the booby prize. Young job searching graduates know this. They may have the book learning, the theory, but it does not seem to make a difference. In the age of AI, intelligence – knowledge is just about free.

Knowledge and wisdom are very different. Business wisdom only comes from having had the experience. “Been there, done that.” Having to make a tough decision, when things are confusing, constantly shifting, when neither choice seems attractive.

One of the central messages in Siddhartha is the value of lived experience, both good and bad.

In the novel, Siddhartha meets the Buddha himself, who is the enlightened one, and still walks away. Siddhartha realises that no teaching, no matter how perfect, can give him what he’s looking for. Experience is the only real teacher.

You can read every book, prompt AI to share all its secrets, follow every business guru, and apply every framework and memorise every business principle. But until you’ve actually lived through something, made the mistakes, felt the consequences, you don’t truly know it. Words are signposts. But you have to walk the path, nobody can do it for you.

External success won’t fix internal emptiness

“Siddhartha has everything going for him at the start. He’s loved. He’s admired. He’s on track for a prestigious life as a Brahmin priest. And he’s still miserable. This is a trap so many fall into. They think the next achievement, the next milestone, the next level of success will finally make them feel whole. But it doesn’t work that way. External validation can’t fill an internal void” advises Alex Mathers.

Silicon Valley value of three age old skills

When faced with a difficult situation, it helps to return to the moment in the book when Siddhartha is asked what skills he possesses. His answer is simply: “I can think, I can wait, I can fast.” Is this really practical advice, in our hyper modern ‘always on’ world? One AI wizard thinks so.

“For the first part ‘I can think’ as the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelus said; “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your thoughts”. For the second part ‘I can wait’ patience and waiting often is indeed the optimal decision when facing a problem. Time does bring clarity and depth of understanding. For the third part ‘I can fast’. When needed being able to live and flourish with less, is a prerequisite of being free when the mind the body and society all are trying to put you in cages” says MIT computer scientist Lex Fridman.

Siddhartha had the advantage of the experience of being a wandering aesthetic Samana, with nothing but the robe on his back. While passing through the stage of being a prosperous merchant he saw things like money, petty pleasures, petty honours really had little real value.

“He saw people scold and insult one another, saw them wailing over aches and pains that would just make a Samana smile, suffering on account of deprivations a Samana would not notice” writes Hesse.

While in his time in business, Siddhartha sees “Whose minds are like those of little children. Most people are like a falling leaf as it twists and turns its way through the air, lurches and tumbles to the ground. Others, though—a very few—are like stars set on a fixed course; no wind can reach them, and they carry their law and their path within them.”

Thanks to his lived experience, Siddhartha had the ability to remain detached, slightly apart, just observing, when working with his business partner Kamaswami.

Hesse writes “He seems only to be playing at doing business. Never do the transactions have any real effect on him; never are they his master; never does he fear failure or worry over a loss.” Think, pause and notice cravings.

David [email protected] is a director at aCatalyst Consulting.

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