Why Top Founders Run Their Business Like Emergency Rooms

The other night I was watching a captivating documentary called EmergencyNYC.

It showed the behind the scenes of many different medical emergencies.

From helicopters transporting gunshot victims, to babies on Fentanyl drips in the back of an ambulance, to last minute brain surgeries.

It was intense.

But even with all the little-known intricacies I was learning about invading human brains, keeping babies alive, and donor to donor kidney transplants…

there was one question that I couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Why on Earth go through all this trouble for one person?”

It didn’t make sense.

The amount of technical skills, financial resources, and human effort put into each and every emergency was mind blowing.

It didn’t matter who you were, or what exactly happened.

All it took was one call saying what the emergency was and where you were located, and the entire calvary was almost instantaneously sent your way.

As someone who’s spent hundreds of hours in ER rooms, it made sense.

People were just being kind and helping thy neighbor.

But as an entrepreneur that knows how important profitability is, it made no sense.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in resources to save one random person, was simply unsustainable.

I was up all night thinking about this.

Then it finally hit me.

The reason emergency rooms give their all to patients, is the same reason top founders are successful.

The simplest way to measure whether something is a good decision, is to calculate the ROI (return on investment).

Whatever you get out, minus whatever you put in.

If it costs two bucks to buy lemons and turn it into lemonade, and I can instantly sell that same lemonade for five bucks…that’s a three dollar return on investment.

Not bad.

But in the case of an emergency room, hospital, or the whole nation, things are very different.

Most times, a random person just won’t be able to pay the exorbitant cost of saving their life.

And that’s just not sustainable.

So why do we still do it? (at least here in the U.S.)

Because, that person is a human being.

And what many humans have come to learn is that a human life is truly immeasurable.

You can never put a true limit on any single human life.

That random person could end up being the next Einstein or Barack Obama.

That random person could end up saving your life one day.

That random person could end up taking humanity to Mars and changing the whole universe as we know it.

That is why no matter the cost, and no matter the loss, emergency rooms fight for human life.

Someone, somewhere, long ago, realized this and made sure we put it into practice.

The dollar amount of help should always be incomparable to the value of a human life.

And it’s this exact thinking that is launching entrepreneurs into new levels of success.

Think about how you currently make decisions as an entrepreneur.

You’re worried about…

The company valuation.

The profit.

The growth.

But more often than not, that leads to a lifeless corporation that squeezes every cent out of their users until they all dry up.

What top founders are practicing is a shift in not only action but belief.

What if instead of treating every customer like dollar signs, we treated them like people in need?

What if instead of obsessing over profitability, we obsessed over finding cures to their problems?

What if instead of our motivation being dollars in an account, it was the amount of lives we impact on a daily basis?

That’s how emergency rooms around the world operate.

And now that’s how top founders are running their businesses.

You see the truth is, the ROI equation millions of people use on a daily basis is an abbreviated one.

What healthcare admins and governments realized long ago is that real ROI factors in unlocked potential.

You can play the short game, trying to get more than you give, but you’ll lose people, progress, and potential.

If instead you play long, seeing people for the unlimited potential they have, you’ll build something not only profitable but special.

Stop treating your customers like pixels on a screen. Or data points on a chart.

They are humans.

Walking balls of limitless potential.

And sometimes, getting that extra dollar is so much less valuable, then creating a product, service, or experience that truly improves their lives.

Emergency rooms treat all emergencies no matter the cost, because one saved life, can change humanity for the better.

Why not serve our customers not just for money, but because our product might be the one thing that helps them change the world one day?

Because you never know when that just might be true…

In progress,

Tim Lightwork