10 Principles for Shifting Business-as-Usual

On the world stage, we are going through a collective healing process ~ a genuine death/rebirth awakening experience.  Our underlying institutions and financial structures that help to keep us asleep are breaking down and coming apart.  We are shaking off the collective madness that it takes to destroy our environment.  The false, illusory separate self, which experiences ourselves as alien from one another, is dying.  The fundamental framework by which we relate to each other and the world is being recreated. We are awakening to our deep interconnection and interdependence with each other and all living things.

Business is a far-reaching, powerful vehicle through which to apply conscious practices based on basic tenants that we are all connected and that our well-being is the well-being of all.  The following Ten Principles applied to the creation, maintenance, and evolution of a business entity assist in the conscious awakening and rebirth of “business-as-usual” and shift attention to love as the ultimate bottom line:

Love is the Bottom-Line Principles

1.   Business is a vehicle thru which to manifest our creative dreams.

2.   We are ourselves creations.  And we, in turn, are meant to design new creations.

3.   Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source.  As we move towards our dreams we move towards our divinity.

4.   The ability to create is a gift to us.  Using our ability is our gift back.

5.   As we open our creative channel, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.

6.   It is safe to open ourselves up and give attention to greater creations and possibilities.

7.   As we open ourselves, we are present to deep interconnection and interdependence with each other and all living things.

8.   We understand that our well-being is the well-being and joy of everyone.

9.   Actions to be taken and transactions to be made are by-products of our focus on joy and sacred connection.

10. Our day-to-day experience of business is the experience of the ecstasy of love.

Sourced from Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way

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How to Deal with Overwhelm

The recent ProBlogger Blog Post by Darren Rowse, about how to get things done when you’re dealing with overwhelm, caught my eye.

Right now I am feeling a little overwhelmed with my business and I can’t think of one client I have worked with that has not experienced overwhelm at some point with their business or leadership role. Even when it is all good e.g. new projects, new clients, new offers –there is a darkness to overwhelm that can sometimes be paralyzing.

Here are the 4 ProBlogger tips integrated with a few thoughts of my own:

1. Focus upon the things you can control Don’t spend time worrying about factors you have little or no control over –focus on the things you can control.

2. Break it down into bite-size tasks Identify what smaller tasks need to be achieved to get the larger vision or project accomplished, then create a timeline with the tasks that you can check off as you go. Sometimes, just the act of organizing what it is you need to do can be a great relief.

3. Talk to others Don’t wallow in desperation and fear of what needs to be accomplished. Verbalize to others what you are feeling and consider collaborations so you don’t feel alone. Remember that talking to others includes prayer and meditation i.e. communicating with a source greater than yourself.

4. Start There comes a time when you just need to roll up your sleeves and start –the hardest part is often taking the first step. Avoid busy-work and be honest with yourself when are doing something that is simply a distraction.

Most importantly…think of your business or project as the river you have invited to flow into your life. The most important thing you can do is to breath, relax, and float –focus on navigating the water and you won’t get caught on the dark rocks of overwhelm.

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Top 10 Reasons to Embark on a Planning Journey

Love is the Yoke

Consider that when you formulate and act your business dream into being you are accessing the intangible world of spirit and then yoking it into the tangible, material world.  Your dream comes from spirit, your plan is a cart, and love is the yoke (a yoke is a wooden beam placed on oxen to pull a cart or load).

Only you, as a divine human, have the ability to use your heart (or love) as the yoke for everything that you do –imagine the possibilities when transacting every aspect of your business from the space or yoke of love –how delighted spirit would be with you then (assuming that matters to you, of course).  Essentially you create a heaven on earth –a space for spirit to further express and expand itself into tangible existence.

Your vision of your business comes from spirit and expressing that vision is your gift back to spirit. There really is no other choice but to act from the heart in all aspects of your business.  The degree to which we all fight this truth –the degree to which we act in non-compassionate, destructive ways within the realm of business, is the degree to which we, and everyone impacted by business, suffers.

Making a conscious choice to make love to the world with business is a choice we can all live with and yoke to.

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The Principle of Wheat

Ripening Wheat

Running a business is a creative process at every phase. There is never a point in any business where every single detail is known. Creating a business plan is about designing a strong framework in which the business can operate, while at same time allowing enough flexibility for conscious observation and spirit-filled revision.

Once a plan is produced, it is a given that weeds of error, such as faulty observation, old habits of thought, and so on will sprout just as quickly as seeds of wisdom and foresight. Remember the parable in the Gospel according to St. Matthew concerning the wheat and the tares? It is a story of the successful application of revision:

“So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, ‘Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in they field? From whence then hath it tares?’ He said unto them; ‘An enemy hath done this.’ The servants said unto him, ‘Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?’

“But he said, ‘Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root out also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather first the tares, and bind them into bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Based on my studying the lessons of B.O.T.A., my understanding is the principle of wheat is about accepting with love and compassion everything that shows up once a plan or project is set in motion. It is about being 100% revision-responsible without pouting, blame or revenge — this is the true power of the principle of wheat.

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Top 10 Reasons to Embark on a Planning Journey

Top 10 Reasons to Embark on a Planning Journey

Walking into the unknown

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It used to be that business planning fundamentally was about designing linear steps between a a current situation and a chosen future. There are as many reasons why this idea seems ridiculous in today’s world as there are numerous non-linear way’s to live into a chosen future.

So why even do any planning?

You still need a plan to design the structure for business transactions to occur in and prosperity to flow into, but planning today has very little to do with a known destination. Planning today is about an exciting, powerful journey in and of itself. Evolving business planning concepts teach us to proactively interweave action and deep attention. Planning becomes about learning to open the business door and the love window at the same time.

Top 10 reasons to embark on a planning journey:

1. To allow you to access how powerful you are and to get to your true “highest-self” desires.

2. To communicate to others who may want to participate with you (as investors, lenders, partners, etc.) what your business is about and where it is going.

3. To create a structure that holds the flow of prosperity and leverages flood.

4. To design a tangible framework in which you invite spirit to co-create with you.

5. To encourage you to ask yourself and others the right questions –right questions include hard questions.

6. To get you to a place where, as much as possible, you are operating from love and projecting out the expansion of love.

7. To give you the “now” of the day-to-day tending of the business of your business, by getting ideas out of your head and “onto paper”.

8. To have you participate in a consciousness re-creation of “how business is done”.

9. To learn how to powerfully negotiate the integrated space between the tangible, material world and the intangible, invisible world.

10. To serve as a guide for the lifetime of your business by providing guideposts and tools to analyze growth, as well as exit points.

Whether you “end up” with a formalized business plan for financing or 5-sheets of handwritten notes, embarking on the journey of attention-action planning is a conscious choice to step into the reality of the vast unknown.

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Some Kiss We Want ~Rumi

Looking into the Creek ~ Rumi

Originally uploaded by wild prairie man

The way the soul is with the senses and the intellect is like a creek. When desire weeds

grow thick, intelligence can’t flow, and soul creatures stay hidden. But sometimes

the reasonable clarity runs so strong it sweeps the clogged stream open. No longer weeping

and frustrated, your being grows as powerful as your wantings were before, more so. Laughing

and satisfied, the masterful flow lets creations of the soul appear. You look

down, and…the gates made of light swing open. You see in.

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Deliver Transformative Products & Services

Originally uploaded by ~Mina~

When you deliver a product or service, you are participating in a shared reality that exists between you and your customers. There is an intimate agreement about the shared reality.  There is trust and communication about the mutual benefits of your interchange.  This is communion; a sharing of spirit.

Within the space of communion, there is a natural evolution that is set in motion. It is a given that this evolution is a growth process for both you and your customers. Consider approaching the development and delivery of your products and services with a conscious commitment to evoke evolution and transformation.

Any evolution is a process; a growth pattern. You set the evolution in motion by fulfilling a specific need or desire for your customer. From that point forward, you are in a unique position to evoke evolution. When you evoke, you go beyond simply participating in the reality between you and your customer, to deeply influencing (impressing) upon the reality.

In order to evoke vs. participate, add an element to each and every one of your products & services that meets not only the immediate desire of your customer, but a “higher desire” as well.  Always reflect back to your customer a vision of their highest self.  For example, if you are selling “A” laptops, delivering it with the clear message that your customer has everything to do with why this laptop is so fantastic, meets a higher-desire recognition that “A” laptop users are smart and savvy. When your “A” laptop customer configures their laptop, invite them to join an on-line community of smart and savvy “A” laptop users. These higher desire attributes impress upon the growth pattern of evolution –deepening the relationship with your customer, as well as evoking qualities of co-creation, self-esteem and community.

Think of your products & services as an invitation to an intimate interchange with your customer vs. an exchange –this is the access to communion. An interchange is spirit-to-spirit vs. an ego-to-ego exchange.  If you choose to hold and maintain the interchange of communion with sacred gloves, you impress upon the evolution implicit in communion. Impressing with loving consciousness is the opportunity to influence the highest evolution for business, the planet, and humanity.

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Encouraging Shoulds

 

VerseVisions Art

Originally uploaded by MarkLawrenceGallery.com

Take a moment and think about two people you are infatuated with –people you adore and who you also consider to be champions of your highest desires. These are people who wish you well AND don’t let you off the hook when you are being a ninny. These are NOT the people you call when you know what you want to hear. You may enjoy the people who tell you exactly what you want to hear, but you are not infatuated with them –I promise you. You may not even know your champions personally, but when you think about them, or read something about them, “truth” resonates.

My current champions are my Yoga Teacher, Guruatma Khalsa, and Yogi Bhajan. Guruatma, received direct instruction in the Science of Kundalini Yoga from Yogi Bhajan, the modern proponent of this ancient technology.  This yoga gives me what I want by allowing me to feel like I am improving myself physically. The teachings behind the practice frequently shock me with brutal honesty. I can count on Guruatma to deliver the science in a way that supports what I want, while at the same time keeping me on track with what I “should” be doing. This makes her pricelessly infatuating.

Now, consider your two favorite customers (past, current, or future).  Is there something you are offering or could offer that inspires infatuation? You might consider helping customers with their “should’s”?  Several months ago, Made to Stick authors Dan & Chip Heath wrote an interesting article on the subject for Fast Company. Reading it might give you the inspiration for a product or service that links wants (a fix) and shoulds (fulfillment) for your customers: Sell Handcuffs – Why Customers Will Pay You to Restrain Them.

Several years ago I worked with an HR Director that I adored.  I supported her in what she wanted –getting on Forbes Best-Companies-to-Work-for-List (2 years in a row). Her “want” was in the recognition –her company was absolutely a fabulous place to work. The “should” came from me –the company should have some metrics to demonstrate the bottom-line effectiveness of being a great place to work. At the time, an HR Director implementing metrics was not the norm, but we both knew it was a worthwhile endeavor and an edge. It was my job to support not only her need, but the metric design “should” prior to submitting the Best Company Application.

Might the future of business lie in encouraging “shoulds,” things customers know are good for them, rather than indulging “wants,” things craved in the moment? It’s a compelling idea.

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Love sees thousands of markets

 

Albaquoiquie

Originally uploaded by MikeJonesPhoto

The intellect saw a market and started to haggle; Love saw thousands of markets beyond that market. ~ Rumi

One of the programs I deliver, Plan & Let Go, was created several years ago.  I revamped it late last year, balancing it out with what I felt was important from a spiritual perspective and adding the Seven Success Practices of Love-is-the-Bottom-Line.

It took me a while to be in the reality that there was a huge gap in the material regarding Social Media –a gap that could not be ignored.  I set off on a trek to research the subject (and wrote about it here over the course of several weeks).

What began as a simple inquiry, soon proved to be a profound lesson.

While exploring the subject, my MBA self started to get really excited and see the profit opportunity available in this growing realm.  The universe picked up on the excitement and soon a good friend (OK, so she may have been reading my blog) contacted me to see if I would be interested in exploring the possibility of delivering Social Media Consulting.  She had the networks plus an amazing tech consultant to add to the mix –cool.

Over the next three weeks we met, talked and explored.  My ego rapidly took over.  There was good money, good clients and kudos available.  I was so honored to be in the company of these two amazing women, and not wanting to rock the boat, I never once brought up creating our venture from a Love-is-the-Bottom-Line perspective.

I began to wonder if I should stop focusing on my current work. Immediately an anxiety came up that thankfully had me stop, think, touch base with my coach (check her out!) and get back to the core.   The next day was amazing and it all came together.

I had a Plan & Let Go session with a client in the a.m. –we met at the Houston Arboretum – we walked, planned, and picked up stones to anchor it in.  I loved it and practically skipped away — clear I was not giving that up!  Later, knowing I would have to be up-front about where I was at, I met the forming Social Media group in a beautiful Zen condo – we ate chicken salad and watched the most recent PBS Frontline program on Digital_Nation…….we did not know it when we sat down, but the program had a huge focus on the dangers of Social Media.

Once the program was over, I experienced a profound energetic shift and the possibility of “why” we had come together was brought forth.  We sat in silence for a few moments and looked at each other.  Our discussion immediately took a different direction from where we had been headed. We ended up leaving with action items to explore a balanced plugged and unplugged Social Media support group.  A project that would make money AND make a difference for people –a Love-is-the-Bottom-Line project!

That evening, I shared with my husband the events of the day. “He ended up stating the most fundamental question –one everyone should ask themselves – “Is your business / career / project forwarding your spiritual ascension, or is it holding you back in distraction and ego?”

Can you see thru the eye of love into thousands of markets –markets that go beyond immediate tangibility and add to your spiritual ascension?  Can you let go or tweak projects as soon as you recognize a blinding aspect?

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Infatuate Your Customers

Everyone has some experience of infatuation and the changes it brings. It takes you beyond the mundane, rising you above ordinary concerns –everything appears new as old boundaries are released. Two worlds become apparent; both immanent and transcendent. The immanent world is the ordinary world, apparent to our senses –material, changing, subject to time. The transcendent world is beyond material –eternal and timeless. Infatuation can be the gateway to transcendent reality and our access to extraordinary awareness.

Learning how to be in love all of the time with ourselves and our customers (including alliances) allows for the quality of awareness accessible thru infatuation. This deep awareness allows you to pierce the mask of appearance and separateness, view from the heart, and unconditionally give to your customers.

An unconditional way of business is the opposite of a conditional or depending way. Conditional business is a usual way to do business –I give you this, you give me that –because you need me, you depend on me, and I need you, so I depend on you. Unconditionally buying yourself first reminds you that the truth is you need nothing else but yourself. If you need nothing other than yourself, this is true of your customers as well. This means that nothing other than profound mutual benefit is worth offering. It takes a great deal of discipline, foresight, and trust to unconditionally serve customers, but it does come together –just ask Google.

Relating to your customers unconditionally –always looking for the extraordinary in the the ordinary –allows you to access your own extraordinariness, deliver profoundly, and fulfill deeply. Operating from a place of customized infatuation with every transaction of your business opens channels for the next right action.

Look deep, see within. As you look you will be able to see what your customers are searching for …then deliver the miracle …creating mutual infatuation and ultimately evolving your love-power as well as theirs.

Reference: Deepak Chopra, Kama Sutra: Including the Seven Spiritual Laws of Love. London: Virgin Books Ltd., 2006.

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