While creativity and innovation are in the hype, successful entrepreneurs are the new celebrities in the media. If you pause for a moment and look a little bit closer, some questions may arise, how how many years did it take these founders to become successful overnight? Or what kind of journey did they have to build and to grow their companies? Was it just talent, luck, persistence, or what was their secret? Did they enjoy the ride?

Partially, totally, or not at all? It seems to me that entrepreneurship and actually business is way more than just following techniques or frameworks, or even reading books, about business, marketing, finance or attending an MBA. Business is personal. Could it be that business is an art?

Business artists learn how to channel their purpose, vision and talents while navigating the proper strategies and tactics in their companies to impact the world for good. No more business as usual. I'm Ramon Estrada and this is Business is Art.

I'm Ramon Estrada. I'm a scale up strategist helping founders and their businesses grow and I welcome you to business is art. This is a show about successful entrepreneurship. Unlike other shows about successful entrepreneurship, only we dig into the founders and leaders journey from purpose, mindset, strategies and tactics, to making an impact and achieving exponential growth.

A few months ago, I had lunch with a friend whose startup is valued at more than 1,000,000,000 US dollars. In relative terms, I mean, seriously, we could say that he is a successful entrepreneur, but he told me that he was not passionate about his work anymore, he wanted out, and actually, he knew many other entrepreneurs and none of them felt happy working at their ventures anymore. I mean, this was absolutely shocking to me. How can it be that working more than 60 hours a week in something that you dreamt of, in something that you invited others to participate, is no longer fulfilling enough.

Actually, later on, I remembered my own experience. I have been an entrepreneur 7 times, actually, no, seriously, just 6, because once I started companies when I was getting a fat salary in a corporation and that's called entrepreneurship. My entrepreneur's friend comment reminded me of how difficult it is to build something concrete out of thin air, of just having an idea, and the time and the energy it required. It's no joke that the Harvard Business School study shows that the failure of new companies is around 50% in the first 5 years, And I truly believe that the problem is that the entrepreneurs lose track of the purpose of why they are building this dream, and how this dream is deeply connected to them, to their values. They no longer consider their work as personal, as art.

They don't see themselves anymore as artists, as creators, as non conformists. They are just managing resources, time, and people. The vision and their intention fades away, it goes down, and eventually, they feel nothing at all. They feel that the creativity muse dries up in the desert of daily tasks and chores, it's just about the to do list, and they are mostly following the techniques and managing. I can vouch that this happened to me and to many other entrepreneurs that I know of.

Is there a better way for this? I envision more successful entrepreneurs from a holistic point of view, not only valued in monetary terms, but in personal fulfillment, that's true success. By the happiness and well-being of their employees, of their clients, by making environmentally friendly products, taking care of all stakeholders, not only of the shareholders, and why not, by being present with their families and communities, but it all starts starts with an energized and powerful entrepreneurial mindset by getting rid of the busyness of being busy.

The stillness for an open space is required and it allows seeing the big picture again and the awareness of where these entrepreneurs are and where they want to go with their organization. It's about reconnecting with how their dream makes them feel, how it creates an impact in the world and finding the proper strategies and tactics tactics to make it work.

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