Hope is an incredibly powerful emotion. What if we could bring hope to a huge number of people with a simple idea from the entrepreneurial ecosystem? From tiny seeds, mighty oak trees grow, or even flower grow through cracks in the pavement.
Recently I began writing about Emotional Equations, as coined by Chip Conley. I’ve since looked at a number of themes that can be put into equations and will write about them in upcoming posts.
For today, inspiration from Ben Brabyn, an inspiring thinker. Each time I meet with Ben synapses fire and ideas fly, and it was great to meet with him on the first working day of 2018 with additional inspiration from the amazing view and great coffee at Level 39!
One of the topics we talked about was an idea he has been cogitating on and shared in this article on Linked In the day before we met. I love that Ben, in addition to his role leading “the world’s most connected community for finance, cybersecurity, retail and smart-city technology businesses”, also, as a CEO, makes time to focus his energy on big ideas, keeping himself in context rather than content as great leaders do.
Some snippets :
- “Entrepreneurship helps our whole society and business can be a force for good and change”
- “All too often this message is lost”
- “now is a good time for entrepreneurs to reclaim a “social license to operate” and be recognised as the people whose talent, hard work and willingness to take risks help people throughout our community with jobs, tax and innovation”
- “We can spread this message via a lottery.”
- “By spreading stakes in some of the UK’s most promising companies we can share hope and ambition throughout our society”
To me, this is a great concept (please read the article), and Ben and I evolved in a direction that saw us coin the term “Universal Equity”. The term Universal Income is now common as an economic concept to promote inclusion and reduce inequality. Where Universal Equity in the way Ben is thinking about his lottery is different is that it would give citizens an equity stake in entrepreneurial businesses, they’d be connected to entrepreneurial activity across the country, universally (as the concept and programme unfolds).
I know this idea “has legs”, and look forward to being part of the evolving conversation.
For now, though, I have cogitated on a key part of what Ben talked through with me, and that is that the idea of the lottery is that lotteries create a sense of hope where perhaps that person has too little elsewhere in their life.
However, a lottery that feels abstract and with tiny odds can only give a glimmer of hope, What if there was a lottery where the odds were better (the average funded company has at least a 1:10 chance of success, far better odds than any regular lottery. In addition, what if lottery winners could feel real connection to what they won, eg actual equity shares in a real company ?
From this my emotional equation :
Hope = Connection x Opportunity
I chose x rather than +
This is an emotional equation and Hope is a powerful feeling. As such, the more the person feels connected to what brings hope (the company they win shares in) will have a mutual multiplier effect with how real the opportunity feels to them (eg a roughly 1:10 chance of a funded company succeeding is far better than the roughly 1:1000 chance of a £100 win on the UK National Lottery!).
What are your thoughts on the Hope equation? Ben’s lottery concept? Bringing hope through entrepreneurialism?