Mailing printed newsletters are in. Then they’re out. Cold calls in, then they’re out. Email newsletters (ezines) are in. Then ezines are out. MySpace is in. Then MySpace is out. Cell phone ads, Facebook, twitter, blogs are in until…
In the realm of communication the pace of change is incredibly rapid and increasing in speed. Each new thing has a learning curve to it, and when they flash in and out so quickly, it becomes an exercise in futility and overwhelm.
Do I have to keep learning business over and over again every time something new pops up?
The Short Answer: No
Have you heard the story about the companies who proclaimed, “Business has changed!” then all went broke the next year? I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the year 2000 when that happened, and oy… such good-intentioned ignorance!
Your resistance to keeping up with change? Well, it might just be reactivity. And it might also be your heart telling you something that is very true.
Your Deep Heart’s Twitter Application just popped up this message from @Divine-Presence: I am here. I am always here. The winds blow, the seasons pass, humans are born, grow up, and die. And love remains.
Sound A Bit Sentimental?
Try the longer Facebook version: “Listen, folks. Super cool link: the Divine says the essence of the human being and how we relate has been the same for a very looooong time, so no need to freak out about new inventions.”
Is that really true? Aren’t big changes happening?
No Cusp In Sight
There are many people who are talking about how we’re on the cusp of a major evolution in consciousness. I’m not qualified to say whether we are or aren’t. Personally, I’m not seeing it.
I’m not entirely buying that because the stories and descriptions of spiritual enlightenment have remained the same for millennia. There is no new spiritual experience being described now.
While there may be many more people accessing spiritual states, there are also many more people on the planet than there were. Are things truly changing, or has the spiritual enlightenment per capita remained roughly the same as the population has grown?
I dunno. And who’s going to take that census?
What I do know is that there are basic elements within human relationships that, by my account, throughout history have not changed.
People want to contribute. People want to love and be loved. People want safety and caring. People want security and joy.
People struggle with their families. People struggle with their health. People struggle with their work. People struggle with their wealth.
Here’s How to Have An Easier Time With Techno-Craziness
Learn communication. Learn Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, or any of a dozen other ways of learning healthy communication.
Learn your heart. Take time to connect with the wellspring of nourishment that is within you.
Be cautious when someone proclaims “Business has changed!” Or “Everything is different!” Or “Cutting edge new stuff in business!”
And when you approach the next bit of learning for your business, keep the eye of your heart open and look for the basics of how humans like to connect. How are those basics present in the new technology? Can you use the technology to give and receive love? Can you contribute to others? Can you provide safety and caring?
If so, then using it is just learning details. You don’t have to worry about it being “all new.” Just breathe, relax, and know that if your business is built on the foundations of caring, contributing, love and helping with struggles, then you’re going to be okay.
It’s all okay.
Your Opinion?
Bring your thoughts to the blog — what do you consider to be an immutable basic of business, regardless of technology or business model?
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It starts June 3. Check it out and see if it clicks for you.
p.p.s. Want help with the basics so you can evolve?
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33 Responses
Hear, hear! Thank you for this one, Mark.
I’ve bemoaned not so much the rise but the exponential *speed* of changing technology for a long time (while using a lot of it, and chuckling at that irony). It gets overwhelming, and i resent the feeling of having to “keep up.” You’ve done a good job of explaining why I don’t need to worry about that so much.
In answer to your question, I’d say the immutable basic of business is serving people by providing something they need or want. Some people do it for the money, some from a wish to be of service–and for most of us, I think it’s probably a healthy mix of both. And that’s fine. (Yep, I’ve mostly gotten over the whole “money is evil and yucky” thing.)
Thanks again for the reminder that what looks new isn’t so much, really. 🙂
If there can be a slow food movement where we grow our food organically, buy it locally, prepare it lovingly in our kitchens for family and friends with table talk and conversation as essential side dishes, then surely we can slow down long enough to communicate in our businesses with love and in service to one another with thoughtful messages and helpful information using the amazing technology that is now available to us.
When I work with people face to face, this is usually their first comment spoken with a sigh of relief…it’s so nice just to have all this time for someone to listen.
Perhaps we can avail ourselves of both fast and slow and know the difference!
all the best with gratitude for your work Mark,
donna
I so hear ya… oh, gotta run… what did you say? 😉
(oy)
I’m just impressed you got “bemoaned” into a comment. Love that.
Thank you!
Hi Mark,
Agreed.
There are too many industries motivated by an interest in taking something old, repackaging it and calling it new. Media, publishing and consulting come quickly come to mind.
A few days ago Britain’s “TimesOnline” ran an article about the importance of focus in business. It began with this:
—
“The idea that businesses should focus on their core is so well entrenched in corporate culture that it seems surprising that it can be traced back to a book published less than ten years ago.”
—
This is an absurd and ignorant statement.
To stand out, to promote themselves and their books, consultants and authors have an interest in “proving” how things have changed and how “The old rules no longer apply.”
So they say things like “The requirements of leadership have changed.” Also absurd. And I railed against that in an article first published at SMBCEO.com called “How to Build Your Competitive Advantage by Seeing What Does NOT Change.” It’s here if anyone wants to read it: http://bit.ly/dq0gR7
Mark, it’s nice to read common sense.
Dov Gordon
.-= Dov Gordon’s lastest post: How to influence bewildered stakeholders who want to cling to misperceptions or excuses for ego or other deeply emotional reasons =-.
Thanks for the link, Dov. And ten years? That’s so crazy. I’m wondering if Alzheimer’s is a cultural revenge on our way of doing things…
Great posting – bold, brave and pure. Yes, yes , yes.
There is so much pseudo communication but much of it is empty and ego dressed up as insight. Your post is powerful and pure.
There are things that are eternal and that do not change. These are there to serve us whether as an individual or as an organisation. Here is one that is as old as can be and that I have seen work time and time again in all sorts of rough and ready workplaces.
Be present in the here and now: it is the only time in which transformation can happen; it is the time where there is no suffering; it is the time where you can always find beauty – it is a gift of a time. Many have said this but still business goes hurtling on reporting on the past or planning for the future instead of stopping…..
breathing…. being present to oneself and to each other. Being still. That is when the communication really starts to happen. We return to our real self and hear our real voice and we are able to see and truly hear our colleagues. Ah, then miracles begin to happen as lightly as can be. I have seen absenteeism go down from 30% to 0% as stillness leaves space for valuing each person.
This is a time of cuts – let’s cut out some of the wasteful living in the past and the future and come in to the fruitful and productive present.
Indeed.
As the saying goes “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”
I could repeat that in French, but it would just be self-serving. 🙂
Hi Mark,
For me, the more methods of communication there are, the more I feel overwhelmed and less inclined to communicate!
Personally, I feel that a lot of real communication between people happens on a consciousness, energetic level when they are in proximity, like in the same room, or at least on the phone where they are hearing each others voice and focused on each others message.
Electronic methods may be used to disseminate information, but real Communication takes place on several levels at once, and some sort of personal connection – by voice or in person – allows that to happen.
.-= Michelle’s lastest post: Relaxation Response Helps Cure and Prevent Genetic Stress-Related Illness =-.
I think you are correct that personal, real-time communication can’t be replaced.
But I also have observed some amazing friendships and connections arise out of these digital media. Connections across the globe that I would never have made without these technologies.
I appreciate them- I just don’t want us to think something fundamental has changed just because we’ve got new toys.
Hey Mark,
I think – essentially – you’re right. The basics of human communication haven’t changed and are unlikely to do so anytime soon. Further, I think you’re right on when you coax us out of our anxiety by reminding us that WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO THIS STUFF. Human minds are so easily caught up in details, so easily thrown into helpless worrying. Mine included!
I do, however, think there is something new afoot. The degree to which I can form cross-continental relationships in (almost) real-time with people I have never met in person seems to represent a change in how human communities are formed. I truly have deep, functional relationships with people who live thousands and thousands of miles away. While the essentials of the communication (and the problems, and the humor, etc etc) have not changed – but there is something very interesting happening with regards to how quickly and with whom we form connections.
It may not transform anything, may not “change the face of business,” but it is worth paying attention to, learning more about, and either embracing – or not.
Eric
It’s true- there is a connection and communication across cultural and national boundaries that has never happened before, not to this extent.
I’m curious what will arise out of it.
Ahhh thank you for this post, feels like a long drink of cool water.
I spent quite a lot of time today doing another video clip:
http://youinspireme.co.uk/special-offers
I was irked by the webcam, bamboozled by not understanding iMovie, and then bemused by uploading it to YouTube. Plus of course there was embedding into my website and then tweeting and sending it out on Facebook. Phew!
Feel proud of having a handle on technology because it adds some new learning curves and possibilities… and I remember throughout that it’s all just a means to an end. The end is that I want to connect in the most in-person way that I can. First option for me is always real life in-person, second best is phone calls, and third best by way of video or other online interaction.
Thanks for the reminder of those universal basics – connection with the divine and then clean, honest communication with those around us.
Corrina
.-= Corrina Gordon-Barnes’s lastest post: I Feel Too Cluttered To Declutter! =-.
Way to go! You’ve made another video… that must mean I have to keep up and make another one. You just do this to egg me on, don’t you? I mean, everything IS about me, right?
And way to go. 🙂
Mark,
Thanks for the reframe. I do think that Eric has a point about the shift in being able to relate to people around the globe. The underlying and unchanging: Love is the bottom line.
Bobbye Middendorf
The Write Synergies Guru
.-= Bobbye Middendorf’s lastest post: Blown Away by for about Writing 31 of 30 =-.
Love is the bottom line. I can sign on to that one.
As always friend, what wisdom. I marvel at how you can produce such a good newsletter / blog week in and week out and that has nothing to do with changing times. I have found myself, in the last months, wanting less speed and more heart time… and listening to that is powerfully important. Thanks for the thumbs up for the deep, true way.
.-= Jennifer Louden’s lastest post: Wednesday Wiry Fankle
The trick is just saying the same thing over and over again in different ways. That’s what this blog post was all about. Reduce, reuse, recycle.
I agree with everything you’ve written.
*And* as a woman, I am acutely aware of things being very different for me than they were for my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and so on. None of them could have even entertained the idea of having their own business.
I believe that we are ripe for a circling back to honouring the feminine energy. I consider your blog and your presence a part of that. What you have pointed to here: NVC, love, caring – you are calling out the feminine.
.-= Lianne’s lastest post: RING OF FIRE – GROUP COACHING FOR WOMEN FIRESTARTERS =-.
Amen! Amen! More feminine, please, now.
This was really interesting to read. I have a funny old relationship with spirituality – there’s a lot of walls there preventing me from getting properly to grips with it. But this really spoke to me.
I like the idea that no matter what new technology we are obsessing over (and there’s always something, isn’t there?) we are basically still human beings. I can get behind that.
.-= Lucy Viret’s lastest post: Heroes. =-.
‘zackly. No need to drag issues with spirituality into this one. I just drag spirituality into everything, because it drags me everywhere, kinda like an old shoe caught on a rear fender. I can’t help going where spirituality goes.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
On the one hand, integrity, honesty, and providing a professional service at a fair price that provides a remarkable customer experience (that is easy to share) will always be in style.
On the other hand, there is a lot of fast money to be made in exploiting the latest and greatest. But this way tends to be ripe with corruption too.
Some integration seems important, but with an 80/20 split towards the fundamentals.
It’s true, it’s helpful on the business owner’s side to get people’s attention, and bright shiny object seems to do that.
And, it’s so easy to blur the truth when playing that game. I cling to my heart’s connection in these cases.
What we’re talking about here are the “philosophical underpinnings” for Bright Shiny Object syndrome.
I’ve been using Remembrance and meditation to combat it. Break away from the computer, consciously leave behind the mentally-scrolling to-do list and observe what seems true.
Actually, I’m still not sure I do Remembrance and mediation “right,” but it’s working for me. At least I’m not going totally crazy.
Diana Schneidman
http://www.StartFreelancingAndConsulting.com : How to take control of your life and make great money quickly as a solopro
Hey, if it’s working, it’s working, eh? Not going totally crazy is a great way to judge “good enough.” 😉
Thank you!
I am going to save this article and pull it out everytime I start to feel overwhelmed with trying to keep up.
Just the other day I was longing for the “good old days” when I did not feel the pressure to be blogging, posting to facebook, twittering and even checking my email all the time. It wasn’t that long ago.
I will stop and listen to my heart……………beautiful.
Thank you again!
PS I loved Donna’s comment!
I think we are on the cusp of a major evolution if we really want to see it. But like you said people have felt this way for 1000s of years.
We create the world that is before us.
A person that is critical of my blog post may think I’m dumb, but that doesn’t make it true until I believe it. Once I believe it then I find a way to make it a reality.
It’s all about the power of intention. If we feel that life is good than it is. If we feel life sucks then we find a way to hate it.
Businesses that have found a simple, honest, and loving way to connect with their people. They succeed because they are working from the heart.
We don’t need social media. It’s just another way to build relationships. It’s why I use Twitter and comment on blogs because I’m compelled to connect. We need to use the tools that fit us the best. If that means meeting people in person so be it. We all have to find what works the best for us and enjoy the connections we are creating.
.-= Karl Staib – Work Happy Now’s lastest post: What do you need? =-.
The main goal must be to earn as much as possible when the going is good as every business has its life unless its going to become a legend but such businesses are few and far
Being able to communicate with people throughout the world, without having to get out of bed is fantastic.
With so many communication mediums available, some of us are overwhelmed with choice and from a business point of view we don
Absolutely. One reasons to jump off social media and actually speak with people from time to time. 🙂