Posts tagged ‘conscious capitalism’

Deep down, most service professionals don’t really want to build their practices. They wish their clients would just show up. They wish they could just provide their services without having to sell those services.

Not because these professionals are lazy. Or unworthy.

But because of a profound inner conflict. A conflict between their feeling that selling means taking while their services are about giving.

This conflict isn’t irrational. It’s the natural result of growing up in a culture driven by mass marketing. Think about it. When you open your mailbox, what do you get? Unwanted advertising. When you turn on your TV? Unwanted advertising. Receive a call from a telemarketer during dinner? Unwanted advertising.

We naturally learn to feel that selling means taking, because mass marketing is based on interrupting people. It’s based on taking your attention away from what you care about, and redirecting it to something the marketer cares about. It’s based on a subtle but persistent form of violence.

This leaves service professionals feeling like they’re caught between a rock and a hard place. Either they embrace mass marketing as a necessary evil, or else they suffer along without a lot of money or clients. Either they build a business based on taking or else they sacrifice themselves for their calling.

Because of this, most practice builders struggle. 80% of coaches make less than $20,000 a year. It takes the average therapist five years to build a practice making at least $50K a year after getting their license. And 95% of new businesses fail within five years or else limp along as a continual drain on the founder’s time and energy.

But here’s the thing.

Mass marketing is dying.

Interruption based marketing is being replaced by permission based marketing. Indiscriminate advertising is being replaced by web of trust marketing. And selling by taking is being replaced by Selling By Giving.

In the words of Seth Godin, mass marketing is being replaced by people who are willing to lead a tribe.

This isn’t just pie in the sky. The most successful company in the Internet is based on permission based marketing. Google grossed over $21 billion last year, serving us with advertisements we want to see, when we want to see them. In contrast, newspapers who built their businesses on interruption based marketing are dying out, even though they provide a crucially valuable service.

If you feel that selling means taking, it doesn’t matter how pretty your web site is, how many marketing consultants you hire, or how good your services are. You’re still going to feel like you have to choose between selling out – or not selling at all. You’re still going to feel like you have to pick between creating a business that creates money or meaning. (Besides, it turns out that mass marketing never really worked for service professionals anyway.)

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead, we’d love for you to come join the movement of service providers who are pioneering a new, more loving, more successful way of doing business.

Love and light,
Brian

P.S. I was awed by the results from the most recent graduates of the 6 month Selling By Giving teleclasses. For example, one student created $20,000 of new income during the second half of the class and many students reported transforming their relationship to sales. If you’re interested in being part of the next set of classes, starting June 2nd, please visit http://www.sellingbygiving.net/teleclass.php and then call Scott at 310-722-1028, so he can help you determine whether or not it would be a fit for you. The classes are already more than half full, and the waiting list may start as early as next week.

Have you been feeling insecure or worried with all the financial challenges going on right now?  I don’t know of many people, including myself, who haven’t been experiencing at least some fears about money and security.  In fact, the more I’ve been seeking to sit with those fears and understand them (whether mine or others’) the deeper they seem to go.

And I think I’m just now beginning to really understand why.

There is fear in the air, in the water, in the ground.  It’s bigger than our individual fears.  It’s the fear that comes with gobal, systemic, deep change.  It’s the instinctive reaction we have when confronted with the need to either “grow or die.”

In my community, people regularly talk about 2012 as the dawn of a new age.  We speak with optimism about a quantum leap in consciousness.  We connect with a sense of hope and evolution that’s bubbling across the land.

But in doing so, we tend to skip past a fundamental truth.

Every great strength comes with an equal challenge.  This is the nature of spiritual evolution, because our strengths are what allow us to grow, and our challenges are what push us to do so.

This realization begs a question.

What challenges are so profound they could push our entire civilization to evolve?

We’re beginning to find out.

I had an epiphany today, where I realized just how much larger this crisis is than what I’ve been allowing myself to imagine. It’s going to be presenting much bigger challenges than most of us are prepared to admit.  It may literally challenge the very foundations of our current economic paradigm, requiring us (among other things) to embrace a new, more loving, more effective way of doing business.

Does this resonate with you?

If so, please stay tuned to this exploration of conscious business, and please also feel free to visit www.sellingbygiving.net and register for the free practice building kit.  The first CD directly addresses the question of how to do business in a more loving, more effective way.

Also, feel free to check out http://www.realitysandwich.com/money_and_crisis_civilization – while I disagree with some of his proposed solutions, his diagnosis of the challenge is profound.

I have the privilege of facilitating an amazing group of soul-centered business builders who are engaged in a 12 month exploration of what it means to practice conscious capitalism. Not just as a theory, but as both a spiritual and economic practice.

Yesterday, we received a special gift in the form of Terry Tillman, one of the senior elders in the field of conscious leadership development (www.227company.com). I think I’m learning as much as anyone in the group, and I had a particularly profound take-away that I want to share with you.

Terry reminded us that one of the highest spiritual laws on our planet is the law of abundance, also known as the law of giving and receiving. As defined by Deepak Chopra, “The universe operates through dynamic exchange…giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.”

What is the difference between a lush tropic island and the Dead Sea? The former circulates water, both giving and receiving it. The Dead Sea doesn’t – it only receives.

The spiritual law of abundance is as automatic and consistent as the physical law of gravity, and abundance only breaks down when we stop the flow. When we become attached to things, we stop giving, we stop the flow – and we suffer. When we judge ourselves as unworthy, we stop receiving, we stop the flow – and we suffer. In contrast, a commitment to providing exceptional value means being equally committed to giving exceptional value and to receiving payment for that value. It means being committed to practicing the law of abundance.

Notice in your life, do you have a harder time giving or receiving? Which side do you have more of your blocks on? (We all have at least some blocks – otherwise we wouldn’t have anything left to learn…)

When we open to spiritual reality, our experience is one of abundance. In contrast, modern economic theory is based on scarcity. One of Wikipedia’s definitions of economics is “the social science of choice under scarcity.”

This does not mean that economics is wrong. What it means is that the world changes as we lift in consciousness. At the physical level, the world looks like it’s based in scarcity, win/lose, either/or, and survival of the fittest. But as we’re able to see things from a higher perspective, we realize that things are based in abundance, win/win, both/and, and love.

The challenge is that when we start to see this, we naturally tend to go into spiritual bypass, where we only want to focus on the spiritual and we tend to deny the physical (which is just another form of either/or). We may shift from the receiving-only focus of unconscious for-profit organizations (“money, money, I want more money NOW”) to the giving-only focus of unconscious non-profit organizations (“there shouldn’t be any scarcity so I’m going to fix things by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor”).

We may sit around and think that if we just watch The Secret another 27 times, we’ll win the Lotto and live happily ever after. Or we may see our self worth as defined by how much we sacrifice our needs for others. Or we may feel a secret sense of entitlement, where we expect that if we become good enough at providing our services, we deserve to have a full practice – without having to learn how to enroll clients.

So how do we embrace both the law of scarcity and the law of abundance?

That is a multi-trillion dollar question our world is grappling with right now.

I believe this question is at the heart of the current economic crisis, of the shift from unconscious capitalism to conscious capitalism, and the shift from unconscious philanthropy to conscious philanthropy. It’s at the heart of Selling By Giving, and it’s at the heart of our 12 month group. You can read about the three keys to integrating spirituality and business (i.e. abundance and scarcity) that I’ve come across so far, in www.sixfigurepractice.net/ebook.

I believe the answer starts by recognizing how deep this conflict goes within each of us and within our organizations, and by learning to embrace this. It also starts by recognizing that conscious capitalism can’t be measured just by the mission of the organization. It also requires focusing on the consciousness of the members in the organization. In other words, it’s not enough to focus just on what we do, it also requires focusing on how we are as we do it.

As my teachers at the University of Santa Monica say, “how you are with the issue is the issue.” Similarly, “how you are with the conflicts inherent in conscious capitalism is the measure of how conscious your capitalism is.”

Most of the work in this area I’ve seen so far has tended to come from one of two angles.

1) For-profit organizations seeking to make their mission more loving. This includes corporate social responsibility, the triple bottom line, etc.

2) Non-profit organizations seeking to make their mission more self-sustaining. This includes social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, etc.

But the thing is, when we’re coming from a lower place in consciousness, business is a battle for survival, and service is a sacrifice. When we’re at the bottom of the pyramid, we do have to choose between the left and the right, between for-profit and non-profit, between receiving and giving. It’s only as we lift in consciousness (a large piece of which happens by integrating the conflicts inside us and by learning to love all of who we are) that we’re able to actually live the law of abundance.

Because of this, you can’t build a conscious organization without also focusing on the consciousness of its members’.

When our conscious self is identified with our physical self, economics is about scarcity and service is about sacrifice. This is shown at the bottom of the triangle, and it’s what happens when we listen to the news and go into fear.

When our conscious self is identified with our spiritual self, both economics and service are about abundance and love. This is shown at the top of the triangle, and it’s what happens when we learn to see everything in life, including our inner conflicts, as opportunities for learning, upliftment and growth. It’s what happens as we find our inner conflicts, and instead of trying to fight, feed or flee them, we learn to love them instead.

Doing so requires learning to embrace both sides of Love (acceptance and loving self-discipline) and both sides of reality (physical and spiritual). Notice that the symbol for love is not a circle (which symbolizes oneness) it’s a heart, which symbolizes two becoming one while also remaining two. Similarly, to do business from a place of love and consciousness means integrating two value systems so they become one while also remaining two – the foundation to the three keys for integrating spirituality and business.

Love and light,

Brian

P.S. If this is interesting to you, please feel free to comment below or forward it to those you think would like it.

Last week, we explored the core strength and challenge of capitalism. We looked at the coming collision between the “unstoppable force” of exponential economic expansion, and the “immovable object” of sustainability demanded by the planet’s finite resources.

And we asked a question.

What will Capitalism 2.0 look like?

(If you missed it, last week’s nugget is available at http://ecoaching.corecoaching.org/?p=48)

This question fascinates me. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Here are a few of mine.

I’m guessing Capitalism 2.0 will embrace the following.

Money and Meaning. Gen Y regularly gets accused of being lazy. But my sense is that the deeper issue is an unwillingness to devote their lives just to making money for the sake of money. They want their jobs to have both money and meaning – a key feature of Capitalism 2.0. When we only focus on survival and success, desire will sooner or later turn in to addiction. Sustainable capitalism requires explicitly supporting people, companies and marketplaces in making the shift from focusing just on their physical needs (i.e. money, desire, success and survival) to also embracing their spiritual needs (i.e. meaning, growth and giving).

An Increased Shift to Services. Value creates money – not the other way around. And there are two ways we can expand the economy – by producing/consuming more products or by producing/consuming more services. Buying more couches isn’t sustainable. Investing in personal growth services is. If you’re building a practice offering life-enhancing services, but you’re afraid to charge a lot for them, ask yourself the question, “what else would my clients spend the money on?” If you don’t charge as much as you can for your services, and your client buys couches with that money instead, look at how much your choice just cost the planet!

Long Term Focus. Greed happens when desire turns into addiction. By definition, addiction means making what’s important today a higher priority than what’s important tomorrow. It means over-prioritizing our immediate desires. And a key component of capitalism’s current addiction has been Wall Street’s obsessive focus on quarterly earnings and annual bonuses. Capitalism works much better when decisions and compensation are based on 5, 10 or even 20 year windows.

Valuing Consciousness. A related question is “what is conscious capitalism?” And a simple way I’ve found of answering it is by rating an organization on two dimensions.
1) What is the purpose of the organization? Non-profits traditionally embrace meaning at the expense of money. For-profits traditionally embrace money at the expense of meaning. CSR and social enterprises are initial examples of organizations seeking to embrace both.
2) How conscious are the people in the organization? This is a complicated but vital question, because what we do is often less important than how we are as we do it. However we measure it, consciousness rates the beingness we have as we do business.
Conscious businesses can be at least as profitable as unconscious ones. And they’re much more sustainable.

Evolving Notions of Ownership. As we currently view it, companies are owned by their shareholders, and their primary purpose is to increase the wealth of those shareholders. This notion goes to the heart of what has made capitalism such a powerful force for economic expansion. And it goes to the heart of what is turning this strength into an unsustainable addiction. It’s what has allowed Wall Street to hold Main Street hostage with insatiable demands for increased quarterly earnings. In contrast, I would guess that Capitalism 2.0 will involve an evolved notion of ownership. Think for a second. Who owns the US government? Who owns the Catholic Church? Who owns the planet?

Reinvention of Production. There’s nothing wrong with consumption of products – as long as we can find ways of making this process sustainable. How can we rebuild our system so that the true global costs of each product are factored in, and each company is responsible not just for the cost of production, but also for the cost of renewing the source and waste of that production?

Interesting…

Love and light,
Brian

P.S. To learn more about how to bring together money and meaning in your business, please feel free to visit www.sixfigurepractice.net/introcds.html.

With all that’s going on with the economy, I’ve been thinking a lot about money and capitalism. What is money – really? Where does it come from? And what are capitalism’s strengths and challenges?

Here are a few interesting thoughts I’ve found…

The greatest strength of capitalism is its unparalleled capacity for economic expansion.

If you want to see something fascinating, look at this graph.

It shows capitalism’s remarkable ability to increase our standard of living. For example, for almost 200 years, the amount of real income each person in the US makes has increased by an average of 1.7% – year upon year upon year. Or look at China. Income was flat until Mao took over, then it plummeted and recovered. But in 1976 they embraced their own version of capitalism, and since then per person income has been increasing by 6.3% per year.

Over time, the power of compounded growth is AMAZING. In the US, it’s the difference (in 1990 $) between $1,200 / person in 1820 and $32,000 / person in 2006. In China, it’s the difference between $130 / person in 1960 and $7,100 / person in 2008.

It’s why in the US, people now DRIVE to their protests.

At the same time, every great strength comes with an equal challenge.

And the current crisis is exposing capitalism’s root challenge…

The greatest challenge of capitalism is its addiction to economic expansion.

Many people have been asking about the Wall Street blowup, “how could they have been so greedy?” And, “how could they have been so dumb?”

But what is greed? It’s not our desire for more money. It’s an addiction to our desire for more money. It’s desire that’s gotten out of control. And what always comes with addiction? Denial and self-deception. Greed is stupid – literally – because it’s an addiction that causes us to lie to ourselves. Above all else, this crisis was created by an almost ubiquitous level of denial. It was created by the most expensive words in finance, “this time it’s different.”

This addiction isn’t just a problem with the people on Wall Street. Or the people who took out a mortgage they couldn’t afford. Or the people who got up to their eyeballs in credit card debt.

It’s the core challenge of the system itself.

Our entire financial system is based on the root assumption that the economy will continue expanding – that there will be more money tomorrow than there is today. How are we funding our retirements? Through the assumption that money we invest in the stock market will grow, because there will be more money tomorrow than today. How do banks make money? By selling interest bearing loans. And what allows us to take out a loan? Our assumption that we’ll have more money tomorrow than we do today. Why is our government able to create trillions of dollars in new debt?

Because of the assumption that there will be more money tomorrow than there is today.

Notice how much fear there is of the “R word.” Why is a recession so scary? I mean, it’s just the difference of a few percentage points, right? No. It’s the difference between satisfying our addiction to economic expansion, and going in to expansion-addiction-withdrawal.

It’s the difference between the system working and the system failing.

But here’s the thing. Exponential expansion isn’t sustainable over the long term. It can’t be. Our planet has limited resources. Resources that are beginning to be maxed out.

And so this century may be defined in large part by the collision of an unstoppable force – capitalism – with an immovable object – the need for sustainability.

Most of the suggestions I’ve seen for how to work with this dilemma have involved regression to earlier times and ways of being. But I believe this crisis is another example of our race being called to evolve to the next level of consciousness. It’s an opportunity to step forward, not fall back. It’s an opportunity to redefine the way we do business. And it’s an opportunity to redefine the way we do life.

Which leaves me with a question.

What will Capitalism 2.0 look like?

Love and light,
Brian

P.S. Stay tuned for next week, when I’ll be sharing some initial thoughts on this question…

P.P.S. Can you think of anyone in your life who would receive value from these nuggets? If so, feel free to visit http://www.sixfigurepractice.net/give-a-gift.php to give them as a free gift to someone you love.

A month ago, I sat down for lunch with two friends from London who have been working at the heart of the investment banking industry. They explained that things were much worse than they appeared at the time, and they claimed that the entire financial system was going to have to be pulled apart and rebuilt in the upcoming months and years. I wondered if they were being a bit dramatic.

Until last week.

In case you missed it, we’re in the midst of what’s already being called the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. And it’s not even close to being done yet. As part of this, we’ve seen lots of people talking about why this happened, but no real long-term solutions. People agree that widespread greed and hubris got us into this mess, but they’ve been assuming this is just the nature of business, and so the failure was primarily one of regulation.

But while greed can be the root of business, it doesn’t have to be. In Megatrends 2010, Patricia Aburdene (who correctly called both the IT and Internet revolutions) explained why conscious business is going to be the economic trend of the next decade. My calling is to support this trend, and I’ve already seen lots of evidence of it on Main Street (particularly among practice builders and small businesses). However, Wall Street has seemed locked in place. More and more people are looking to create careers that provide both money and meaning, but Wall Street’s obsession with money-money-more-money-need-to-make-more-money-Today!-tomorrow-doesn’t-count-money-money-money has been holding this wave back.

Until last week?

For as I look at this crisis, I wonder if perhaps the core failure was not an issue of regulation, but of consciousness. Perhaps this crisis isn’t just a wave of destruction, but it’s also the birthing pains of a new stage of growth. Perhaps the financial hurricane that’s pummeling New York (and still has a long way to go) isn’t just a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to embrace some radically new ways of doing business.

I have no idea how this is going to play out. But one thing I do know is that there has never been a larger need, or a bigger opportunity, to learn how to do business in a new, different, and more heart-centered way.

To see some leading ideas on how to do this, please feel to check out The Essence of Selling By Giving or An Introduction to Selling By Giving.

Love and light,
Brian