I remember, years ago, having a business meeting with someone who was new to our team. They had something rough going on personally, and we took some time to talk about it. Actually, a LOT of time during the meeting. We came to a great place emotionally with it.
And then discovered that the “business” work of the call fell together really quickly, and we didn’t even go over on our time.
That’s happened over and over and over again with me working with clients, and with our team.
If you take the time to sort out the emotional and spiritual stuff, the details, the strategy, can fall together much more easily.
What I see far too often is rushing past the emotional and spiritual needs of the people around a business, as well as the needs of the business itself, in an attempt to “get things done.”
Listening to the heart of the business, listening past all the upset, all the distractions, all the fears, until you get to the still silent voice, it just takes time.
Do you give yourself that time? In business?
The way I see it, I can ignore all the inner stuff, and spend a lot of anxiety-ridden time trying to do way too much of the wrong things with the wrong attitude, and see it limp along or crash and burn.
Or, I can take the time in my heart to listen deeply, and then move forward with more clarity, more love, and see better results.
Can’t you spend too much time in your heart?
Actually, the truth is, you can. Some people love that sensation of being in the deeper heart, and don’t want to emerge from that to do the work needed to make something a reality.
That doesn’t help either. If you find yourself on this side of things, you may need to step into a place of discomfort, leaving the womb of the heart, so-to-speak, and seeing what happens as you put elbow-grease into what your heart shows you.
However, don’t try to swing to the other extreme and stay out of your heart! You’ll still want to spend a good amount of time listening.
Doesn’t sometimes the path reveal itself in doing the action, rather than listening more deeply?
That’s also true… if you’ve been listening. More often, just taking action is on top of anxiety, which means that the business owner is missing the subtle signs of the path forward.
If you are not in the habit of giving yourself the listening time in your heart, I want to encourage you to make that time, during your work time, to make it something real.
Try this experiment.
Start one of your work days by listening deeply to your heart, for at least 15-20 minutes. See how the day goes if you follow what your heart shows you.
Then, start one of your work days without that. And see what happens then.
Your heart, and the heart of your business is worth the time.
With love,
Mark Silver, M.Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
Four days of deep listening plus strategy.
When your business and your heart is at a crossroads, that’s when you need to be listening most deeply. There may be big decisions to make, turns in your path that if you make the wrong decision, it can be costly.
This September I’m holding a four-day spiritual and strategic container for only 12 business owners. Let’s resolve your crossroads with spiritual depth and real strategy, like business model and team structures that work for micro-businesses.
It’s going to be fun, profound and effective, based on work I’ve done for years with my individual clients, but more powerfully in this group intensive-retreat format.
1 Response
I like your exercise of starting the day and listening to your heart. It’s actually much easier said than done as we’re tempted to start our day right away – especially in this post-pandemic world. I’m going to try to do this on Monday by setting my alarm a few minutes early so I have time to just think – and listen. Thanks for this post.