The bane of the world is just that human beings are working with limited individualistic ambition. Instead of working with ambition, if people work for a vision of their own, a deeper vision of life for themselves and for everything around them, their ambitions would never be in conflict with anyone else’s vision, because fundamentally, all human beings are working for human wellbeing. It is just that the scale of how you handle human wellbeing may be different from person to person. For one person, human wellbeing may just mean one’s own wellbeing. For another person, it may mean one’s family. For another person, it may mean one’s community, or one’s nation. For another person, it may mean the whole humanity. There is no one on this planet who is not concerned about human wellbeing. It is only a difference in scale.

If every human being works with a larger vision, then there is no need to scale down anything. Anyway you want wellbeing. All I am saying is, why are you stingy about your desires? Why don’t you be magnanimous? Why don’t you be infinite in your desires? It is not just about “I want to be well.” “I want the whole world to be well. I want the whole existence to be well. I want all life to be well.” I want you to be really greedy with your ambition. Whatever is your ambition for yourself, extend that to the whole of humanity or to all life forms on this planet. Then there is no need to scale it down. I am telling you, up it, don’t bring it down. Right now the problem is that you have brought it down.

All this philosophy, is it possible for a businessman? It is very much possible and not only possible; it is especially needed for the businessman because business is about expansion. Does expansion happen because of inclusiveness or does it happen because you forcefully take something? If you forcefully take something, you will never expand to your full capacity. Only if you learn how to make the world yield to what you want it to be, can you take it all. Ambition is about more, vision is about all.

There is a beautiful story in the Indian lore. A monkey goes into a house and finds a jar full of nuts. He puts his hand inside and takes a handful of nuts. It is a very narrow-necked jar so the hand gets stuck. The monkey has to let go of some nuts, but it is ambitious so it won’t. He pulls but the hand doesn’t come. Then, a wise monkey comes and says, “This is not the way. Leave the nuts.” And together they overturned the jar and all the nuts fell out. We have to move from “more” to “all.” If you journey from “more” to “all,” that means you have travelled from “ambition to vision.” – Sadhguru, Isha Foundation