The Misery We Need To Eliminate In Ireland And The Difference Your Business Can Make

What’s your New Year’s resolution, is it to become fitter, perhaps lose some weight or maybe you’ve decided to have a dry January? Perhaps instead, the indulgences of the festive period have left you thinking that maybe your New Year’s resolution should involve helping others less fortunate than you?

I Have A Dream

It was the civil rights leader Martin Luther King who coined that phrase in his impassioned speech on August 28th 1963 and although some would argue we still have a way to go for his dream to be fully realised, sometimes all it takes is a dream or a well thought through idea to make a significant difference to those less fortunate than us. My dream is about how the businesses of Ireland can make a real difference to the communities we live in and the lives of those who live within them.   

There’s a saying that ‘charity begins at home’ but what if you don’t have a home? My business is centred around helping those with money purchase property and land, it’s how I make my living but in the back of mind is always a frustration when I see or read about the acute situation where people find themselves sleeping on the streets and the problem of homeless in general. 

For the fortunate among us who have a nice house and a business, it can sometimes ease our conscience when we throw a few euros into someone’s cap on the ground and then walk on by but I have a dream that would see us able to do much more than this and it wouldn’t be that difficult to achieve either.

Making Our Businesses Accountable To Our Communities

Perhaps instead of simply giving a few pence and walking away, what if the business community was able to help in a much more productive way? Do you realise that if every successful business person in Ireland arranged for the provision of a house in our country that this would eliminate homelessness overnight?!. This is actually a very workable solution. Instead of showing off the most recent vehicle number plate on their Bentley or Range Rover, what if that after-dinner conversation was about the house they’d just bought and the lives they had changed that week? The house would like appreciate in value much more so than the depreciating asset of owning a car.

Could Charity Start In Business Too?

My dream does not only consider how the business community of Ireland could help the homeless but also how we can help a community who are not that dissimilar to the most successful of entrepreneurs, unfortunately these people simply didn’t get the same breaks.

There are many people who have a dream of running their own business and work very hard at becoming a success but no matter how many hours they work and how many opportunities come their way, they fail to make it.

According to the Bank of Ireland, more than 66% of all businesses fail within the first 5 years. That statistic itself is concerning but what is more disheartening are the numbers of these budding entrepreneurs who go on to experience depression and sometimes even resort to taking their own lives as the impact of their business failure is fully realised.

Yes, we have charities like St Vincent De Paul, The Simon Community and others but what is offered from the business community itself? Nothing!

What if it was a condition of getting a tax clearance certificate for any larger business or sole trader that you had to have helped at least one other new start-up to achieve a measurable level of success? Under such terms, would you invest the time to help another business owner and help to reduce the number of suicides and depression and see a lot more happy families and successful businesses and a more buoyant Irish economy as a result?

My dreams may be just that and I don’t profess to have all the solutions or answers to challenges the homeless or struggling business owners face each day – this post was simply about reflection and whether as a business community we could do more for others less fortunate than ourselves?

On a positive note, my own slightly less inspiring resolutions to eliminate rubbish and sweet items from my diet is going well. My business is on target to grow from last year and my efforts on LinkedIn are paying off, having seen my network of connections exceed 3000 just before Christmas and my previous LinkedIn post attracted an incredible 5000 views (that’s considered viral in my house!)

Wishing you a hugely successful 2018

Hugh

For further information about my off-market property and land opportunities, please invite me to connect and you can also visit my website https://www.thelandman.ie/HomePage or please connect with me on LinkedIn.

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