The demand-supply gap of dreams and realities
Why does India have lesser young entrepreneurs compared to the US or a lot other countries? I think there are two basic issues here; 1)As a preceding generation we are not responsible enough to nurture dreams or to motivate the younger generation 2) Bigger dreams, mostly, are not getting materialized. In this post, I shall try and elaborate on why I think these two issues are prevailing.
Though I was introduced to 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs' during my MBA, just like a lot of things introduced to me during that time, Maslow lost to me in my search of 'hierarchy of survival'. Anyhow, I just dug a little bit deeper in to Maslow's pyramid recently and I think it makes sense to me in a wider perspective now. In Indian context it takes a lot of time to reach from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, after which the materialization of big dreams are supposed to happen.
When you look at the pyramid, there are physiological, safety, love and esteem levels, before we reach the top of the pyramid which is self actualization. In Indian context, by the time we reach the fourth level, which is 'esteem', most of us might be happily retired from work, with lesser health and more wealth. No wonder retirement/old-age insurances are selling like hot cakes in India. An average Indian's dream is to secure the first three levels for most of his life, and then go for the fourth level.
According to Maslow, people will work towards their full potential only after reaching the final level of self actualization and he call it 'metamotivation'. In a society, where we are taught that securing a government job should be the ultimate target in life, most of us are not even reaching self-actualization stage. Metamotivation comes in to picture only after we are satisfied with our basic needs in all the other four levels. And this mostly explains why we have lesser entrepreneurs and much lesser successful start ups, and I am not finished yet.
Coming back to the two points which I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I think we can trace back the basic issue. The one single reason a huge majority of us are not letting ours and our kids' dreams grow, as far as I see it, is conditioning. We are told that a middle class family has to live within its means and further, a middle class kid should not dream big. Even though there is a spark of entrepreneurship in a middle class child , it's hard to find encouragement and motivation from where s/he deserves it most; from the educational system and the family. The educational system will always give priority to the best (conventional) performer, in terms of the norms laid down by the society for ages. Out of the box thinking is just a flashy word to represent a different sounding, but the same format thinking. In a few words, our educational system suppresses free thinking. And as I already told, most of the families motivate their kids just to secure a government job or likewise, 'secure' being the keyword.
So assume that someone with a stronger willpower managed to keep that spark in tact till his mid 20s. There also conditioning comes in to play, as a villain. The person goes to office everyday at the same time, toils for nine to 12 hours for five days a week, eats from the same canteen, has coffee at the same intervals, pays the bills every month, waits for salary at the end of the month and pays income tax on his meagre income in the month of March. Now you can clearly see, you are conditioned or programmed to stay in chains.
India surely needs people with entrepreneurial mindset and what is the solution? I so wish if I were that great to find a solution for this problem. However, I believe that only personal will power and belief in your dreams are the solutions to bridge the gap between the big dreams and realities. Hoping to see more and more young visionaries to build this bridge, in near future.
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Image: Wikipedia
Though I was introduced to 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs' during my MBA, just like a lot of things introduced to me during that time, Maslow lost to me in my search of 'hierarchy of survival'. Anyhow, I just dug a little bit deeper in to Maslow's pyramid recently and I think it makes sense to me in a wider perspective now. In Indian context it takes a lot of time to reach from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, after which the materialization of big dreams are supposed to happen.
When you look at the pyramid, there are physiological, safety, love and esteem levels, before we reach the top of the pyramid which is self actualization. In Indian context, by the time we reach the fourth level, which is 'esteem', most of us might be happily retired from work, with lesser health and more wealth. No wonder retirement/old-age insurances are selling like hot cakes in India. An average Indian's dream is to secure the first three levels for most of his life, and then go for the fourth level.
According to Maslow, people will work towards their full potential only after reaching the final level of self actualization and he call it 'metamotivation'. In a society, where we are taught that securing a government job should be the ultimate target in life, most of us are not even reaching self-actualization stage. Metamotivation comes in to picture only after we are satisfied with our basic needs in all the other four levels. And this mostly explains why we have lesser entrepreneurs and much lesser successful start ups, and I am not finished yet.
Coming back to the two points which I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I think we can trace back the basic issue. The one single reason a huge majority of us are not letting ours and our kids' dreams grow, as far as I see it, is conditioning. We are told that a middle class family has to live within its means and further, a middle class kid should not dream big. Even though there is a spark of entrepreneurship in a middle class child , it's hard to find encouragement and motivation from where s/he deserves it most; from the educational system and the family. The educational system will always give priority to the best (conventional) performer, in terms of the norms laid down by the society for ages. Out of the box thinking is just a flashy word to represent a different sounding, but the same format thinking. In a few words, our educational system suppresses free thinking. And as I already told, most of the families motivate their kids just to secure a government job or likewise, 'secure' being the keyword.
So assume that someone with a stronger willpower managed to keep that spark in tact till his mid 20s. There also conditioning comes in to play, as a villain. The person goes to office everyday at the same time, toils for nine to 12 hours for five days a week, eats from the same canteen, has coffee at the same intervals, pays the bills every month, waits for salary at the end of the month and pays income tax on his meagre income in the month of March. Now you can clearly see, you are conditioned or programmed to stay in chains.
India surely needs people with entrepreneurial mindset and what is the solution? I so wish if I were that great to find a solution for this problem. However, I believe that only personal will power and belief in your dreams are the solutions to bridge the gap between the big dreams and realities. Hoping to see more and more young visionaries to build this bridge, in near future.
------------------------------------------------------------
Image: Wikipedia
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