91 years young Prof. Dr Paul de Blot (still active as Professor at Business University Nyenrode, The Netherlands) shares his rich and inspiring experience about the truth about business in a real sense. He has brought the concept of spirituality into business.
Dr Namita Aggarwal, Director at ATELIER V & IIMRS interviewing Prof. Dr Paul de Chauvigny de Blot SJ, Lic.Phil (15-05-1924) – Professor of Business Spirituality at Business University Nyenrode – Breukelen, The Netherlands.
Business & Spirituality
Some of his wisdom:
- “Business spirituality is a model in which realism and idealism have a business interaction. Successful companies have both corporate expertise and corporate spirituality”. (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “Mistakes are the most important learning school, not your success. Success is very often the result of other people. Mistakes is very often the result of your own mistakes.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “Business is chaotic like a war, but your soul, your inner feeling is clear, it is a light.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “Business spirituality is only a catalyst to awaken your own wisdom in yourself, in my students.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “The most important wisdom is the wisdom about how to survive.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “The point between living and dying is the most important learning point.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “If you can get back your joy you can get back your childishness, that is the point. If you are not becoming a child you cannot have a grip on your life and be happy in your life. As soon as you are an adult the freedom is lost. Becoming a child means having pleasure in your life, creating freedom in your life. That is the reason why I like to become a clown. To stay in my childishness. Then you feel free.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “Business is innovating all the time. There is no business model. The nature is my model of business.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “If you spoil the nature, you spoil yourself. Because your DNA is a summary of the elements of nature.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “The old economy created a difference between value and cost. Water is a value but is very cheap. A diamond has no value but is very expensive, but you cannot survive with a stone. The modern economy is mathematical, is artificial. It is connected to value and cost. So everything which is valuable is also expensive. So, everything in nature which is valuable is now an economic value of cost and that is the mistake of the modern economy.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- His message to the world, although knowing that it is impossible: “Stop the ownership. Everything is for everybody. E.g. Patents are a result of also other people and your ancestors. The patent holder gets the money, that is a mistake. A patent is not the result of a company but of the whole society, of your gurus of your teachers. If Edison had not done his invention, Philips could not get their patents on light bulbs.”
- “My books are copyright free. Everybody can take it over for nothing. I have no rights because my richness is also a gift from others. My principal is, I got it for free so I also give it for free to others.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “The secret of my wisdom is my experience.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “I feel at home everywhere where I can be together with people who are helping each other.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “You find your vocation by trial and error. If you are looking for it you don’t find it. So is life.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)
- “I have not a message for the new generations, my only message is, what is your dream? What is making you happy? Why are you not in it? You must become conscious of your own dream. That is all! I don’t have a schedule, a system or a model. Every person is unique with their own dream and program of life. You must find it yourself by trial and error. I don’t avoid you fall but I help you to get up if you fall.” (Prof. Dr Paul de Blot SJ)