Four Positive Side Effects in Business from Spiritual Practice

With this topic, we’re on shaky ground. Thin ice, I tell ya. It’s just a few errors in logic to take the short steps from the business benefits of spiritual practice to saying that success in business is equivalent to spiritual advancement, and that making money means you must have it together spiritually.

So let me say out front that that’s NOT what I’m saying. Spiritual practice, and ease with spiritual connection benefits your entire life for a lot of reasons, which are mostly side effects.

It is okay, however, to practice spirituality in part because you want business to be easier. There is a subtle but important difference between this and what I said above.

Here are four business benefits I’ve found from deepening my spiritual practice.

1. Less drama.

When you have a consistent spiritual practice and access to your heart, things just aren’t so dramatic. Decades ago I remember being flipped out, scared, shut-down, sometimes for DAYS.

Even a decade ago, I remember struggling and struggling with worries and fears.

Just last night, worn down a bit from parenting, I mentioned to Holly, “I’m in a bad mood, upset. I wish I could let go of it.” Then we both laughed. The mood wasn’t entirely broken, but it was lighter.

Then I played some sacred chanting, even while I was playing with one of my sons, and I just felt everything start to shift. Some Remembrance and my mood had changed radically.

The metaphor the Sufis use is, predictably, the Ocean. When you live on the surface, any change in the weather can throw you. Big waves can capsize you. But if you live in the world of the heart, even just a few feet under the surface, the water is still, the love immersive.

2. Better decisions.

I have made a LOT of bad decisions over the 12 years of Heart of Business, and many more bad decisions in previous ventures. Yet, there have been many, many more good decisions, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve been around for 12 years, and continue to grow.

Spiritual practice helps in three ways. First, my path gives me general guidelines, values and understandings of how the world works, so I can avoid bad decisions before even thinking about them. For instance, the profit motive is not a healthy driver, so we don’t make decisions that are driven by profit, although we do pay attention to profitability.

Second, it gives me an a map for making decisions from the heart. Not just following whims, but actual practices that help decision-making.

Finally, attunement to my heart means that I can be awake to very subtle feelings of “offness.” In a meeting with the team the other day we were working with a decision that had already been made, and we all felt how heavy it was. In a “normal” business meeting, it would have been easy to forge ahead anyway, but because we all felt it, we stopped and changed the decision.

3. More enjoyable life.

Life can be hard at times. Struggle, challenge, pain, loss, illness, grief are all part of our journey.

At the same time, there is a Divine quality described by Sufism as the loving ground under us all. No matter what happens, there is love as a foundation.

It’s a great concept intellectually, but not much help when the chips are down. With spiritual practice the experience of that love becomes real, embodied, something that you can access and live with more and more.

This means that the hard times are infused with love, and the good times are just pure love. Sure, we all have negative, challenging emotions, as I described up above when I was discussing Less Drama. But I know that the drama and suffering aren’t the truth, and I have practices to help me find the truth in my heart. It’s so, so much easier. And more enjoyable.

When you are enjoying your life, this benefits your business in beautiful ways. When your life and your business are enjoyable… well, heck, you like what you do.

In the past I might have cherry-picked the most enjoyable tasks and avoided the others for as long as possible. With spiritual practice, I look for the love in each task even if it means the most loving thing is to give certain work to someone else.

Ultimately everything can get done that the need needs to be successful without sacrificing my happiness.

4. Attraction

Here’s the thinnest ice. I almost hesitate to mention it, but it needs to be mentioned.

Have you every been in the presence of the Dalai Lama, or another high spiritual teacher? They have a PRESENCE that fills the room. It calls for attention, it draws people.

In Sufism we talk about the fragrance of the love. Like the scent of a rose, it draws people in. When your heart is immersed in love, and expresses that infinite love, people are attracted to that, because their own hearts thirst for it.

Of course, it’s also within their own hearts, but they don’t know how to access it. Two pieces of land can be over the same aquifer, but if one piece of land has a bubbling spring, and the other has the water hidden under earth and brambles, people go to where the spring is.

It’s thin ice because people can want to develop spiritual presence in order to draw crowds and I must warn you, don’t do this! The most fundamental quality for a spiritual seeker is sincerity, and the energy of manipulation poisons the spring.

There is a subtle different between wanting to share the love with as many people as possible, and actively trying to draw a crowd for your own benefit.

You don’t have to be perfect

The ego is a reality, it’s okay to want to take care of yourself, and to want your business to do well. Just notice the difference in your heart between -using- spirituality to try to make your business do well, and being a sincere seeker of love while paying attention to the health of your business.

There are certainly more than four business benefits. I’m curious both about your own struggles with spirituality in business, as well as successes and insights you’ve had. I’d love for you to share your own journey with spirituality in business. Let’s inspire each other!

Peace,

Mark