Well, this was a topic I was longing to cover, as I have had repeated comments from people on my posts or my videos, that I am now doing business, therefore I would be now biased and will give wrong information. I really couldn’t find the link between the right information which is based on research & evidence and doing business.
Let’s first understand the meaning of certain terms, before we clear this ambiguity in the minds of people. There is a difference in doing Ethical & Unethical business. Ethics can be defined simply as the practice of doing the right things. If you want a stricter definition, then ethics can be defined as the practice of doing what is right, when no one is looking at you.
Business Ethics, then, can be defined as the practice of doing the right things in business, or simply, doing business honestly. And Unethical business practices, as the name suggests, involve all the practices which are morally and legally wrong. Remember the goal of the business can be common, but the way to achieve it can be very different.
Now, this topic is a big discussion in itself, but my aim to make you understand the basics was to decipher between what a person/company is trying to do when it comes to doing business. From the time you’re born, you have encountered business practices of different orders but just failed to recognize them.
The hospital you’re a born in, did it not charge your parents for giving you birth? Is the hospital not doing business?
The school you studied in, did the school not take the fees? Are the schools not doing business?
The university/college you went to, did it give you the degree for free? Is that not business?
Everything which you eat & every piece of cloth which you wear, did you not pay for it all? Are the companies selling you all these products, not doing business?
When someone dies, does even the cremation process happens for free? Is that not business?
Everything you can imagine today in your life comes from business practice. When human requirements increase, there are other humans to fulfill those requirements. This is true in every stage of your life. This is simply doing business. Then how do you say that because you are doing business you are wrong?
That’s why I explained before, that what’s wrong is not business, but wrong business, or unethical business. The world is full of examples of ethical and unethical business practices. Many businesses are interested in making money, and that is the bottom line or in other words, they just want to be in business; on the other hand, there are many businesses that making money does not mean everything to them, but doing the right thing and having responsibility and commitment toward society have far more importance.
When we talk about unethical business, it can be an individual who is engaged in unethical practices, or the entire organization adhering to such practices.
Now, let’s shift our focus to the fitness, nutrition and supplementation industry. There are numerous business practices in this industry, which is generating employment for millions of people. There is a large amount of revenue being generated from various sectors, creating thousands of job opportunities.
But, again, the problem of unethical business practices is seen quite commonly here. There are gyms which opened up because they wanted to provide the best of services to their clients based on honest practices. On the other hand, there are gyms for which a client is like an ATM machine, and the coaches are like ATM cards, which can be used in any manner, anytime to extract money from the machine i.e. the client.
There are supplement companies trying to manufacture the best products, using most ethical practices and regulations. Then there are supplement companies, whose sole aim is to just sell, sell anything, sell it fast, make a quick buck and move on to another product before the client comes to know about the truth.
This is the same with supplement dealers, coaches/trainers, dieticians, fitness bloggers, YouTubers, etc. But all these fields also have ethical professionals, for whom their conscious doesn’t allow them to go in the wrong direction. Just like others, they also want to earn, but want to do that, without any moral compromise, without any lies, and without selling their soul.
For me, my endeavor has always been to maintain my ethical values at the very top. I won’t compromise my integrity for profits. That’s the reason, my gym is one of the most successful gyms in the state because I instilled those ethical values in the working culture of the gym. My channel WE R STUPID is one of the few channels to give you, pure research-based information, not some false self-made dogmas with hidden agendas.
I am similarly, engaged in multiple facets of fitness and nutrition business, but my aim would always be to provide the highest quality information, product or service, without compromising on the ethics.
I am regularly approached by various brands and companies for endorsements and collaborations. I reject almost 90% of them outrightly because they are asking me to promote, what I have already exposed. No one has exposed more myths about various supplements, and fitness related information in India than me. I could have made a lot of money from tons of useless and harmful supplements in the market, but I opted to expose them because I knew that we in the defense forces have been bred to accept the harder right instead of the easier wrong.
I will surely do business, and much more in the near future, but one thing I can promise, I would give everything to protect the Trust I have built in my clients, subscribers, viewers & customers, over all these years.
