Spirituality in Business

Is All Business Spiritual?

When I use the word spiritual, I mean it in the following sense: In everything we do, we have the option of transcending the conscious level of our activity, in order to connect on a deeper level with the source of all that is.

This is true with regard to tasks demanding inspiration, such as creating a work of art, performing an opera, or conducting a religious ceremony. It is just as true with regard to mundane tasks such as preparing a meal, cleaning the car, or….. conducting our daily business. It is this spiritual connection that makes it possible for us to realize our full potential.

But this connection is not always evident to us because of all the mind-chatter that our conscious brain creates. We must first calm our mind-chatter, and focus beyond it.

Spiritual practice – be it what it may to each and every one of us – does exactly that. Whether it takes the form of meditation, prayer, religious rituals, or practicing any art form in a way that transcends the technical motions.

In the book Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, the author makes this quite evident as he describes how he came to transcend the conscious, technical aspects of using the bow and arrow, in order to master the art.

It is our spirituality that enables us to tap into our own infinite power. Spirituality helps us create a life of passion and purpose. It helps us focus on our mission and calling, develop positive thinking and cultivate self-discipline. It helps us learn the value of time as a precious asset, and the value of consistently nurturing relationships. It helps us live our life to the fullest, one day at a time.

Are all of the above not just as essential for our business, as they are for all other aspects of our life?

Is Zen in the Art of Archery any different from Zen in the Art of Business?

I think not, but I am open to any other views you may want to share.

How Do our Habits Predict our Future?

* Posted by Osnat Bresler on April 7, 2009 at 12:18pm
* View Osnat Bresler’s blog

“My Habits PREDICT My Future* Do you need Habit Surgery?” - John Di Lemme

This question resonates in everything we do, think and feel. We seem to be driven by mental habits, emotional habits and even physical habits that seem to put us on automatic pilot. We fall into patterns of automatic responses to what we hear, see, feel and perceive. Thus, we often react in a way that we had not intended to. Much more critical is the fact that we do not even always understand our reactions. And most important to realize is that our habitual automatic responses frequently work against our better interests.

How we react to the forces working on us, creates our reality, because these reactions form a pattern of behavior. Our behavior affects our surrounding, the people we interact with, the challenges we face, the results we achieve. Therefore if we take a good hard look at our habits, we will be able to predict the reality we are creating for ourselves.

I`m sure that the above is obvious to anyone who has spent years working on developing their sense of self awareness by doing personal development workshops and practicing various body-mind techniques such as Chi-Gong,Yoga or the Alexander Technique. To some individuals, this may even be obvious without doing any work on self awareness. But is this obvious to everyone?

John Di Lemme`s question painfully reminds us that we are all surrounded by individuals who don`t have a clue.

Educator and philosopher, John Dewey, has addressed this issue with remarkable clarity in his introduction to to Alexander`s book “Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual” in which he advocates constructive education. He claims that we all enter everything we are trying to do, as an agency, ” But the hardest thing to attend to is that which is closest to ourselves, that which is most constant and familiar. And this closest something is, precisely, ourselves, our own habits and ways of doing things” conditioned in what we are trying to do. Modern science has enabled us to master unbelievably intricate tools, for achieving results. But the..”one factor which is the primary tool in the use of all these other tools – namely ourselves – in other words, our own psycho-physical disposition, as the basic condition of our employment of all agencies and energies, has not even been studied as the central instrumentality”. He goes on to ask whether this failure cannot be held responsible for finding ourselves incompetent to direct the history and destiny of man?

So, I totally agree that we have always been and always will be able to predict our future, on the basis of our habits. Because of the said above, I believe it is urgent for each and every one of us, to find our own preferred method for achieving “habit surgery”. This will enable us to better control our own automatic habitual responses, thereby better controlling the predicable results we can achieve in all spheres of our life and our business.

My own life experience has taught me that working the network marketing model has been the one most effective method in compelling me to face my own limiting habits and beliefs, and doing the “habit surgery” required for getting the results I want to get. Over the years, I have done a great deal of body-mind work to take charge of my automatic habitual responses. However, nothing has come close to the real life results that I have attained by becoming a network marketing professional.

The real beauty of network marketing is that while we are building our own business, and helping our team members build theirs, we are confronted with many of the life habits we have adopted. Through the support structure we have put in place, are able to help other people with the “habit surgery” that they choose to do, in order to get the results they want.