We are in the midst of a vocational shift. Entrepreneurship is an open, blank canvas for us to step into, create new things and propose new ideas to shape culture and society.
According to a recent Nielsen study, 55% of Gen Z said they wanted to start their own company. Many people are wanting to be entrepreneurs. There’s never been an opportunity like this before where it’s so easy to start new things. There’s more interest and more access to starting something than ever before.
These young people indicated control, freedom, money, and living out a purposeful life were the reasons driving their entrepreneurial ambitions. While these are all great benefits, what we’re trying to dig at is the deeper meaning behind entrepreneurship. That it’s not just the new, cool thing — but a vocational shift.
In this view, the future of culture largely depends on the worldview of the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Creating new things has the power to change lives — to build better stories and create opportunity. But today, we’re seeing a bit of a different story.
We see on average 5,000+ ads a day. Noise driven by entrepreneurs designed to make us feel a certain way. It’s causing us to feel more distracted, anxious, and “stuck” than ever. It falsely tells us, “This is where you should be. This is the kind of success you should be feeling. Instead, you’re there.”
This messaging in our current culture is largely dictating and manipulating us towards wanting more and to be something else. Its distracting nature has caused us to ignore searching and exploring who we already are and what’s already planted in us. How can we fix this?
How can we direct the future of culture towards an alternative, redemptive version of entrepreneurship?
Let’s start by exploring this definition of redemptive entrepreneurship.
Praxis is a creative engine for startups who defines entrepreneurship as this:
When we hear the term “entrepreneurship” today, many of us think of well-capitalized, high-growth, Silicon Valley startups. But this is just one small part of the varied landscape — which includes businesses that find new, sustainable ways to serve their communities.
- It’s scrappy nonprofits and NGOs that find new paths to impact, replication, and scale.
- It’s new teams leading existing organizations, placing bets on new products, services, customers, business models, and channels.
- It’s intrapreneurial mavericks who are given the freedom to launch new businesses from existing ones.
- It’s the dorm-room and solopreneur hustles that find a way to sustainability through sheer force of will and inspiration.
The vision is for entrepreneurs to see a better future and then create solutions around it.
Imagine the difference it’d make. A culture mindful of wanting to deliver quality solutions to the core problems of their customers. A culture fixed on impacting lives and rooted in bringing the best out of people.
Entrepreneurship is an open, blank canvas for us to create new things and propose new ideas to shape culture and society.
In order to start, you don’t need to be wicked smart, a Harvard/MIT grad, or have much of a track record. It simply starts with having the imagination to make new things come to life.
What’s a problem or something you experience and can’t stop thinking about?
It usually goes a bit like this:
1. Someone encounters a problem and says, “life shouldn’t exist this way. Is everyone blind to it? Why do people just accept it?”
2. … “Wait a second, this shouldn’t be happening, why is it this way?”
3. I’m going to explore this problem and see if there’s a potential solution I can build.
Out of this deep curiosity in #1 and #2, comes a deep conviction and motivation to keep working at #3. An obedience to keep learning about the problem, inching one step closer to a viable solution that builds a newer, better narrative.
How do we look at brokenness in culture and then deploy entrepreneurial solutions around it? It may not be big, it might be really small — but there’s an opportunity to do it and we’re here to support you in that.
Entrepreneurship is an open, blank canvas for you to step into, for you to discover who you are — for you to explore your calling to create.
This is what Zealm aims to do and encourage. We aim to foster a culture where people may take risks and step into what they feel called to do out of a deep conviction and confidence in who they are. To build a culture of creation through bringing the best out of people.
“It is the time for new business enterprises that create value and jobs to replace the hundreds of thousands being lost. We need initiatives that can create social glue, capable of bringing the disparate parts of our lonely and isolated society together.
Let’s innovate, launch and grow rather than pause, retreat, and retrench. The greatest barriers are self-limiting beliefs. We might think that our idea, resources or experience are too small. Let’s overcome our feelings of self-doubt and fear of rejection and failure and instead dig deep in our reservoirs of determination, hope, and compassion.
Now is the perfect time. There is no shortage of human need and opportunity. Let us unleash the spirit of enterprise to create livelihoods and well-being: true wealth and shalom.”
