I had the pleasure of attending the SFU Alumni Association Annual General meeting this past Tuesday night at the Segal School of Business. Business in Vancouver (BIV) was a major sponsor as were some of the banks. The panel discussion featured four SFU Alumni who are also BIV “Top 40 under 40″ award recipients in years past. These excellent speakers (including my friend Stacey Cerniuk) were talking about their secrets of success. There were some real nuggets in there but I think some of the audience members weren’t ready to hear them.

The extremely rude eye-rolling and snorting that some of the audience members were dishing out in addition to the ridiculously loaded questions about the environment and “profits” over social responsibility was disappointing. I’m going to assume that these snot remarks were coming from Arts and Social Science alumni and I’d like to call you guys out on your rude behaviour:

1. Only two of the four panellists have a business degree. The other two are Arts and Computing Science majors respectively.
2. The talk was not called “How to Rape and Plunder the Planet” – the theme was “secrets to success”.
3. The advice was not directed at business people specifically – it was directed at those who want to build something and be successful. That could be someone building a dance studio or a non-profit association.
4. Questions about how businesses can be socially/environmentally responsible could have been good ones if they weren’t asked like accusations.
5. When someone asked what motivates these business people, people were snorting when these business people denied that they were motivated by profit alone. What’s so hard to believe about that?

I’m a business owner and I’m not a business grad. I studied Communications and Public Policy at SFU and I fell into being an entrepreneur. That doesn’t mean I lubricate my bank vault door with baby harp seal oil. Here are some hard truths:

Being successful and being socially/environmentally responsible are not mutually exclusive.

Social and environmental responsibility is a core consideration for most businesses these days. It’s not always talked about in terms of the social good that is done but for most companies, being socially/environmentally responsible generates revenue. It makes no sense these days to be unethical.

Not everyone who starts a business is some kind of Donald Trump wannabe

A lot of people (like me) who start businesses and try to be successful do so because it seems like the path of least resistance. This is not to say that starting a business is easy but for some of us – it’s a far better option that being an employee. I care about people and I care about the environment. I take issue with people assuming that I don’t because I need to make money to live.

Money isn’t everything

When you don’t have money – money is everything. When you have money, it’s less important. I heard a lot of scoffing when all four panellists denied that their primary motivation is money. I understood it perfectly. I’m fortunate to be in a position where I don’t need to worry about money and my big driver is success and the feeling I get when I help someone do something amazing. I spend a lot of time mentoring and volunteering and those are the things that bring me joy (aside from my work). I also have three little kids and a mortgage to pay so if my business makes no money, they don’t eat. I’m sorry if that offends some of you.

My own story

When I was in my undergrad, I took a lot of heat in my social science degree from people who perceived me to be “right wing”. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m almost apolitical – I go for the useful bits of policy wherever they come from. I worked through my undergrad to pay for school as a tradesperson. I was looked down upon by my peers for showing up to class smelling like welding flux, sawdust or varnish and when I spoke up about economic realities from the perspective of small business, I was decried as an elitist and a “right wingnut”.

One of my peers (who shall remain unnamed) took great pride in the fact that he never worked and spent a lot of time in developing nations helping the working people “fight for their rights”. Clearly, I didn’t understand the plight of these people. I asked him point blank one day “you say you don’t work – how did you afford all of these vacations to go down there to fight the man?” His answer – his Dad bought him the tickets. My question – what does your Dad do? “He’s an investment banker.”

I just about fell out of my chair. This punk, this trust-fund kid was calling me out for being out of touch with the working people when I actually was a “working” person and he was flying down to protest unfair economic policies on the dime of the very people who likely caused some of these problems. The irony just about struck me down.

The take home message

Don’t assume that everyone who runs a business is a bad person. Show them some respect for walking a very hard road and when they volunteer their time to come and try to share some very valuable pointers about success that are applicable to any field – shut your mouth and listen, asshole.