Gambling is Bad and Business is Gambling then why do people do buisness?

India
October 25, 2008 2:14am CST
It is said that business is gambling. We also know that gambling is a bad habit, but I don't understand why most of us want to have our own business. Have you got any idea any comments?
1 response
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
25 Oct 08
I think that there are two false statements here. First, business is not gambling (or shouldn't be). Any good business should have a sound business plan and a clear understanding of its market. There is always an element of risk, as, indeed, there is in everything we do. In that sense only it can be likened to 'gambling' but it is really very different. Just because a car is green does not show that it is made of grass! Second, gambling is a bad habit only if it encourages one to spend more than one can afford. Gambling (on cards, horses, dogs, slots or whatever) is an entertainment. One expects to pay for entertainment and any sensible person will tell you that you should expect to lose when gambling in the long run because the industry, itself, is a business which has a very clear business plan and is always set up so that the people who run it will make money overall. Gambling itself is not wrong. It is the way that people are sometimes persuaded by their own weakness and lack of judgement to spend more than they can afford in the vain hope of making large amounts of money. That, in essence, is bad business. It is often said that "Money is the root of all evil" but that is a MISQUOTATION! The correct saying is that "The love of money is the root of all evil." Anyone who is in business (or, indeed, does anything) purely out of love for money is seriously missing the point. Money is a means to an end. In the basic sense, it is a way of exchanging something we have for something that someone else has. In business, it can also be used as a measure of success or failure, when it is not really the money itself that is being counted or 'scored', it is the success or otherwise of the business. Money just happens to be a convenient and countable method of judging the success and it is cash flow (and other measures) that is being counted. Just as the gas consumption of a car tells you more about the power and efficiency of the machine than about its actual cost, so money in business is a guide to the health of the business. One of the first things one has to learn in becoming a successful businessman is to get rid of the idea of money that most of us have been taught from birth - that it is only the means to feed and clothe and house us and that any other use of it is 'bad' and 'wrong'. It is that 'writing on the walls' that holds many people back from being successful and happy because they are always fearful that what they are doing (by passing money through the business) may be in some way wrong. It is that guilt that we need to see as illogical.