It was in my oncologist’s office that I realized the connection between breast cancer and sustainable business. As an unemployed GreenMBA diagnosed with stage III invasive ductal carcinoma, I understandably had a bigger fish to fry: my house was a month away from foreclosure; I had just received a $ 27,000 bill from the hospital that performed the lumpectomy, and it had only been two weeks since I moved my life 3,000 miles back home to California. The truth is, it was a miracle that I even found an oncologist who accepted my insurance and was accepting new patients. He wasn’t exactly looking for life-changing truths.

“With triple negative cases like yours,” said Dr. Kuan, “I like to recommend clinical trials, because there is no drug I can take after chemotherapy and radiation …” I looked at her blankly. “To prevent the cancer from coming back,” he clarified. To prevent it from coming back? It hadn’t even occurred to me that my cancer might come back. I had two surgeries to cut it; I was pouring petrochemicals into my body (despite my ecological values) so that the remaining cells would be destroyed. When chemotherapy finished, I was injecting radioactive isotopes into my chest. Why the hell would my cancer come back? For the first time since my diagnosis, I realized that I should do everything I can to survive. If not, he was in danger of surviving this round alone.
 

Leaving his office, I realized that companies can think the same way when faced with a crisis resulting from unsustainable practices. A carpet company realizes that everything it produces is made from a finite resource that is being depleted. A utility company faces the impossible expense of building a new power plant due to needs that only exist for two hours a day. Suddenly, something that has been working well for years and years is faced with a challenge that threatens to undo it completely.
 

The first instinct of most companies is the same as mine: let’s get over this. Let’s solve this problem, recover and get back on track. What no one ever asks is, could it be the path we are on that led us directly to this crisis? It never occurs to most companies that the crisis is not an accident at all; which is the inevitable progression of your operating systems and priorities. We focus on solving the problem, and five years later, we are in a different crisis, with another fire to put out.
 

I spoke with a woman a few days after seeing my doctor, whose best friend was battling the same cancer that I had. It had spread to her friend’s bones, then her liver, then her brain, and she was looking for an oncologist who would specialize in liver cancer. The woman was distracted by the idea that someone so close to her had months to live. “I’m trying to do everything I can to help her,” she said, and I asked her if her friend had thought about changing her diet. “We can’t even get him to quit smoking!” she said. I thought, but didn’t say, so I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your friend wants to die.
 

What fighting cancer and running a business sustainably have in common is that both efforts are aimed at ensuring longevity. And to ensure longevity, you have to do certain things: you have to be designed from the ground up, you have to have a base of support, you have to have a sense of purpose, and you have to focus your attention on the long-term vision. .
 

Unfortunately, it is not always within your control to be designed correctly. As human beings, we are susceptible to our genetic makeup; we may be predisposed to cancer, heart disease, or alcoholism. What’s important to remember is that we can still make smart decisions. We can challenge our odds. When you take over or inherit a business, you may have a design flaw, but if you can’t start from scratch, you can at least do everything you can to fix it. People who are born without sight or hearing learn to live without eyes or ears; soldiers who lose their legs learn to walk without feet. They may not function as perfectly as someone blessed with ideal genes, but they may have enough stamina and persistence to survive them. Even well-designed companies can fall victim to employee theft or an owner’s ridiculously inflated ego. The lesson is that if the odds are against you, recognize your downsides and don’t let yourself be defined or limited by them. If the odds are in your favor, don’t blow yourself away with avoidable mistakes.
 

Learn a lesson from Mother Nature: Having an unbreakable foundation allows you to bend and not break in a storm. If your business can be destroyed by a three-month recession or a bad customer, it won’t last 50 years. If your physical health can be destroyed by a broken leg, or your mental health by a miscarriage, it won’t last 50 years either. It is not to say that change is not challenging or painful. Adapting to change is not easy, and companies and species have become extinct in the attempt, but if you want to survive, you must not only adapt, you must get closer. Don’t take all the hits for yourself. Many individuals and business owners confused resilience with adaptability; in fact, adaptability can mean changing direction each time the wind blows in a different way. Resilience, on the other hand, means being able to defend your position no matter which way the wind blows, and that comes from having strong roots in the form of a strong foundation of supportive friends, family, coworkers and clients. through those great storms. People need people. If you want to overcome the obstacles that life presents you, build a network of roots around you so that you can call in the troops and regain your balance.
 

I have always believed that a sense of purpose can only develop from a life of service. Feeling needed and valued gives you a reason to stay, and when a business has a purpose in a community, its customers need and value it too. It sounds sad, but as long as there are deaths and taxes, morgues and accountants will always have job security. So learn a lesson from the companies and people who have seen night commuters come and go. Longevity belongs to those who are an integral part of the community they serve. When you see yourself as an integral and invaluable contributor to a cause, you have a reason to fight for your life, because you are not just living for yourself.
 

Lastly, if you want to get through a crisis and still be there when other companies are failing or when other people with your prognosis are dying, you need to take a long-term view. I’m not saying, “Don’t listen to economists or doctors!” Rather, keep any information in mind, but more importantly, consider what you need to do to stay. We often get our forecasts wrong, investing our efforts in daydreaming about a “future self” that is thinner, richer, or more successful than our current self, without actually outlining a plan and taking steps to get there. Instead, we eat junk and overspend, postponing the day when we will finally take care of ourselves or our business. Even now, with scientists around the globe agreeing that we are running out of oil, people continue to drive gas-guzzling cars on long trips. We are building hybrid cars, but the dashboards and headlights are still made of plastic! Since most people in the world of work are in their 30s and 50s, it is understandable that we tend to think only in our 20s or 30s, but we have to think much, much more ahead. Seven generations ahead, if you follow the advice of the Iroquois nation.
 

If I had been thinking, since I was born, to live as long as possible, I would never have developed a sweet tooth; I would have exercised regularly and managed stress better, reduced my exposure to toxic substances, and had regular checkups. If we ran our businesses (and our planet) looking seven generations into the future, there would be no gigantic garbage dump floating in the Pacific Ocean. NASA wouldn’t even be entertaining the idea of ​​colonizing Mars (seriously, why isn’t anyone talking about the amount of steel and oil that we would have to extract from our already resource-depleted planet to achieve such a waste? ?!). We act like we have to pass this generation on alive. We are not doing everything possible to ensure the survival of our species. We are like a breast cancer patient who wants to beat cancer, but refuses to give up her cigarettes.
 

Before meeting with my new oncologist, I indulged in root beer sodas to cheer me up after chemotherapy. Organic root beer sweetened with cane sugar, without RBGH, all-natural vanilla ice cream. I would finish a large bottle of root beer and a pint of ice cream for maybe a week, flooding my bloodstream with the kind of food cancer cells love, immediately after pouring petrochemicals into my body to kill them. A week after realizing the futility (and irony) of this “feel good” indulgence, I radically changed my diet and immediately set a five-year goal for my fortieth birthday, with five years being the benchmark for remission. If I can be cancer-free in five years, my chances of long-term survival are dramatically increased. In short, if I live to 40, I have a better chance of living to 80. Where other diets have failed, this one has succeeded, because I’m no longer struggling to get through this quarter, this year, or even the next five years. I’m struggling to be able to be around for the rest of my life, for years that I can’t even imagine yet, because I want to do everything I can to make sure I get the chance to live them.
 

It is very worth investing in our longevity and a terrible price to pay for instant gratification. Perhaps, if we start taking care of our businesses and our planet and our bodies as we want them forever, and not just for the next 10, 20, or even 100 years, we could achieve true sustainability.