When I talk about your heart, I don’t mean the center of your emotions.  Instead, I mean the steady place inside you that lets emotions and thoughts wash over it like waves but remains essentially unchanged.  This core is where your wisdom resides, and its shining surface reflects aspects of life that inspire you and bring you happiness.  This is your true nature.”

– Maria Nemeth, The Energy of Money — a Spiritual Guide to Financial and Personal Fulfillment

Talking about religion is often seen as taboo in business.

But not for some financial advisers. In fact, many of them argue that it’s crucial to speak with clients about their religion or spirituality, as a way to gain a full understanding of their financial goals.

…To be sure, religion is a subject to be approached carefully with clients. Some may not want to discuss it at all, others only in a very limited way. But some advisers say that talking about religion can help clients and advisers clarify financial goals—as well as develop appropriate strategies to reach those goals.

Talking about religion is often seen as taboo in business. But as Veronica Dagher explains on Lunch Break, for financial advisers it can sometimes be a crucial topic toward gaining a full understanding the goals of their clients.

When he works with wealthy clients, San Francisco-based financial adviser Roger Carter says he helps them create a “family values and mission statement,” which typically includes a section about the family’s “spiritual values.”

Mr. Carter says clients are often happy to spell out their values on paper, as it helps them gain clarity about their family’s priorities. A Mormon client’s statement, for example, includes eight bullet points such as “the faith to pay a full tithing” and a commitment to community service.

Mr. Carter says his clients who write out their spiritual values seem calm in difficult markets. “They tend to take a longer-term view,” he says.

excerpted from Where Religion and Business Do Mix. Veronica Dagher, Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2011.

When we plan to help another person Win, does it matter whether we start with Intention or Action?

The MBA part of my brain is laughing at the question:  ”Dude — ‘Help Someone Win’ is a big enough leap for most business people.  Don’t waste time on the details.”  And the MBA brain is probably right at least most of the time.

But for those who want to dig deeper, it’s a question worth asking:

Do I start with Intention — wanting the other person to Win; then continue with Action — working for the win?  Or do I start with Action — working for the win — knowing that I’ll naturally feel the Intention after I start taking Action?

Sages and scholars can be found on either side of the argument.

The Buddha favors Intention first:

“Therein bhikkhus, right view comes first. And how does right view come first? In one of right view, right intention comes into being; in one of right intention, right speech comes into being; in one of right speech, right action comes into being; in one of right livelihood, right effort comes into being; in one of right effort, right mindfulness comes into being; in one of right mindfulness, right concentration comes into being; in one of right concentration, right knowledge comes into being; in one of right knowledge, right deliverance comes into being. Thus bhikkhus, the path of disciple in higher training possesses eight factors, the arahant possesses ten factors.”

Buddha, Mahacattarisaka Sutta, 117, Majjhima Nikaya

Scholar (and Sage)  Thomas Moore starts with Action

Writing as a psychotherapist and former Catholic Monk, Moore suggests that Intention follows from Action; and regardless, Action is the fundamental thing.  My paraphrase of his advice to couples in conflict: “If you have come to a place of antipathy and distance, begin the recovery by once again loving each other.  Not by trying to  ”feel” the love, because that’s neither easy nor useful.  Instead, do the love.  Love is a verb: take care of a task that your wife needs done.  Pay an honest compliment to your husband.  Choose your spouse’s preference before your own.  Do these things repeatedly , and the feeling of love will emerge on its own.”

After hearing these two takes my client said, “But Moore is talking about people in conflict, not new people like I’m going to meet.  And as for the Buddha and intention, I don’t know these people enough to know what to intend for them.”

“You know, ” I replied, “Don’t worry about it.  Just put “Look for [Dick or Jane]‘s Win” at the top of your meeting notes, and everything will work out fine.

She laughed as we remembered this fundamental — an idea so basic and so easily forgotten when we’re focused on our own needs.

Of course, my client understood that the  Win/Win model is enlightened self-interest: Win/Win builds goodwill and improves the odds that she’ll get good help.

But beyond — or perhaps “before” — the Win/Win, we agreed to start with a simple, single Win.  Not for herself but for the other.  This wasn’t enlightened self-interest — it was just a Good Thing.

“The spiritual laws that govern human behavior have been articulated for thousands of yeasr by all the world’s religions and schools of philosophy,with remarkable consistency… The phrasing may be different, but the message is essentially the same: Love your neighbor, be honest, live in justice, control your impulses, avoid corrupation, let your intentions be pure, and serve your fellow humans.

…At the core of all these guiding principles is one fundamental law from which all others spring: Love your neighbor and treat your neighbor as you would wish to be treated.  Alothough not all religious texts use the word love to portray this principle, in fact love is the common thread…

…When asked what was the most important commandment, Jesus replied that it was to love God with all your heart and soul, and the second was to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these’ (Mark 12:29-13)…  Though many people in Western societies associate this principle with Jesus, the concept itself actually preceded him and has been an integral part of all the major religions.  It goes as far back as early Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and ancient Zoroastrianism…”

– Dorothy Marcic, Managing with the Wisdom of Love: Uncovering Virtue in People and Organizations

I firmly believe that the unrelenting pursuit of outward success is one of today’s chief sources of unhappiness. …[P]eople driven by success are rarely satisfied, no matter how high they climb-no accomplishment gives lasting satisfaction. Whenever they reach one level of success, they imagine yet another, higher level. The income they once dreamed of now looks like a starvation salary. It comes down to this: people who equate happiness with success will never achieve enough success to be happy. They’re like Sisyphus, interminably pushing a rock up a hill. Ironically, Sisyphus’s only period of happiness was probably that short moment when the rock was rolling down-when he wasn’t pushing, when he had time for self-reflection. But self-reflection would probably have been the last thing he’d have wanted.   His conclusions would have been depressing indeed

The inner restlessness and discontent that accompany the pursuit of external success have ruined many a person. Paradoxically, happiness rests on being satisfied both with what we have and what we don’t have. That dual satisfaction is a solid foundation for a feeling of well-being. The happiest people are often those who are content with their present state, and who don’t want things they can’t get.

Manfred Kets de Vries in Sex, Money, Happiness, and Death — the Quest for Authenticity.

Kets de Vries is a professor of Leadership at INSEAD university in France.  He is a trained psychoanalyst with doctoral degrees in both economics and business.

As for the daytime, I strongly suspect that an attitude of gratitude is good for profit, as well.  Gratitude associates itself with recognizing abundance;  abundance comes to those who would accept it; and acceptance comes from openness. It is this openness that lets opportunities into our world — opportunities that come from being open to the spark of an innovative idea; a possible a win-win where others would see a zero-sum; an informal airport lounge chat that turns into a corporate partnership; or even the ability to imagine constructing a success for tomorrow from the remains of a failure from today.  Even when we see things that we don’t want, gratitude lets us say “No, thank you!” with a smile, instead of just “No.”

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

William James (1842-1910)

When we say “thank you”, we feed the soul.

“In Working Ourselves to Death, Diane Fassel notes this shadow side: “Everywhere I go it seems people are killing themselves with work, busyness, rushing, caring, and rescuing… John O. Neikirk calls it ‘the pain others applaud’…. I call it the cleanest of all the addictions.  It is socially promoted because it is seemingly socially productive” (Fassel, 1990, p.2).

…To grapple with the shadow side of performance, we must somehow learn to embrace the inward complexity of our lives.  We need a vision of inward work that extends outward into community, into service that is worth doing, into productive aims that offer an opportunity for meaning and relatedness.”

– Alan Briskin, in The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace

“Work and play are the same.  When you’re following your energy and doing what you want all the time, the distinction between work and play dissolves.  Work is no longer what you have to do or play what you want to do.  When you are doing what you love, you may work harder and produce more than ever before, but it will feel like play.”

“…When we follow the light, everything is fun, creative and transformational.  We make a contribution to the world just by being ourselves in every moment…You no longer work in order to make money.  Work is no longer something you have to do in order to sustain life.  Instead, the delight that comes from expressing yourself becomes the greatest reward.  The money comes along as a natural part of being alive.”

–Shakti Gawain, Work and Play