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The entrepreneur had a dream. He wanted to make more money to live better. It required a time, an energy and persistence. He gave up leisure, stopped studying anything which had nothing to do with business, gave up spending time with friends, could hardly see his family. But he was conquering. A customer by customer. The business grew until it started to make a profit. A profit came, time went, as in an hourglass of life. The more energy and vigor drained from the thin funnel, the more the hourglass'es base filled with the sands of money. The entrepreneur had no time for parties, festivals, art or music. He couldn't waste time. Sport? No way! Unless I am going to be in pain. He needed to sell, to work, "to make more money." Over time he built a good team and started calling it "a family." With the team he spent all the time. He cared about it (the team is a key player in the “profit” gear). At the speed that the early days passed, decades also passed. In the hourglass of the entrepreneur's life many sands of money have accumulated. Many ones approached him to try to understand "how to generate so much profit?". The company name was increasingly promoted. Step by step, and the entrepreneur’s name gave a way to the brand’s name he had created himself. This was slow process until the brand name became much better known than the entrepreneur's name. Like a fierce Leviathan, “the brand” gained a strength, reached many places in the world, and inspired people. And the entrepreneur? He began to protect himself, thus avoiding kidnappings, photos, exposures... Little by little, grain by grain, he faded away. It disappeared under its own activities. He disappeared for fear of his own money. Already inseparable from business, he saw his children do different things in life - "it was all for you!". But they valued travel, experiences, their own friends, their small, innovative, some artistic, some sustainable initiatives... "Where did I go wrong?" He wondered as his last grains of sand faded into the air funnel. When the entrepreneur he had gotten all the money he thought he needed to “live better” (due to his demands), he found no one who could sell him another life. "I just want another 50 years!" There was not. He fought doctors and scientists, cursed physical therapists, chased nurses. “Bestemou” heaven and hell. But there was no market for it, a fatal thing that he had forgotten to consider this in his plans from the begining. He had gotteneverything he could, and in the end did not spend much time to actually “live better”. Money? That is what left over. More than he ever imagined he would earn. “Should I have started to 'live better' before? He questioned. After he disappeared (as all living one day will disappear), finally his name disappeared. The brand, strong and vigorous, stayed. The children, grandchildren and grand-grandchildren received their "inheritance", and continued to be known as the "family of that brand." They said little about the entrepreneur, after all, they did not have the opportunity to know much what he felt or thought - 'I was always working for the family'. The brand now survived on its own. She no longer needed that pioneer. Through him many others had arisen. Many other people "wore the shirt" and "gave blood" for the company. Many had made their way, and that's all the brand needed! So it was gone, eternalizing itself, as a powerful entity, as the growing group of people devoted their energies to the seductive treatise (time x money). “We were part of this story,” they said when the end came.

Entrepreneurship is wonderful, but, as with everything, it is prudent to search for a balance. Our achievements produce “more life,” and for whom? What, in fact, do our companies mean? Giving this reflection we suggest you reading of this NOI edition, prepared with a great care and love, in order to promote everyone's search for sanity and spiritual health (which seems to us to be the most precious good that a person can have). We would like to foster initiatives that prompt our readers to pursue quality of life (a real life). From this point of view, we strongly recommend for reading the great reportage about Marcopolo's 70 years anniversary, a company that prioritizes the appreciation of people, as well as the column by a climber Mauro Chies (p.88), concluding this editorial with the first question we should ask ourselves every day we awake: What is my success today?

Read this content in portuguese:

https://www.revistanoi.com.br/colunistas/caroline-pierosan/o-empreendedor.html