Business in the face of continual, ongoing trauma

One of the reasons that we humans value political process and social contracts is that it creates a tremendous amount of trust. Really, trust in huge ways, that support our ability to function.

When you can give someone thousands of kilometers away your money and be completely confident they are going to follow through with sending you what you bought, that’s huge trust. There are countless examples of that trust.

The overwhelm that rises up in the face of trauma and tragedy is that it interrupts that trust and shakes it. It’s the ground we walk on, and suddenly that ground is not stable.

When I see refugees streaming from their homes, there’s a part of me thinking about how complex weavings of trust and commerce are swept away. When I see people evacuated from their homes ahead of hurricanes, and they are gone for a week, or longer… even that takes a tremendous amount of recovery for the businesses there.

And businesses are how people earn a living, how they survive. If businesses fail because of a tragedy, how many people are affected?

It’s even more subtle than that. In this week’s example (and there’s huge grief in just writing “this week’s example”), one guy decides to take out his aggression, and kills and wounds a huge number of people.

I wasn’t directly affected by the Las Vegas shooting, in that I don’t know anyone who was there. And yet that event took up a portion of my day yesterday, dealing with emotions, and talking about it with our team, responding to it among clients.

To put it another way: in addition to all the horrific killing and people affected WAY WAY worse than I was, that event also disrupted my business, and probably your business, too.

That can seem like an incredibly selfish way to look at it, and it would be, if it were the only perspective. If I didn’t feel sincere grief and pain at how people were hurt… this event is not just about me.

But it is also about me. And about you.

When we have many of these events in a year, that’s an unmanageable amount of disruption to a business.

I have anger and grief over how politically we in the U.S. can’t seem to get it together to respond to climate change. And the effects are deadly and horrific and increasing. AND it also affects my business and yours.

I have anger and grief over how politically we in the U.S. can’t seem to get it together to respond to gun violence. And the effects are deadly and horrific and increasing. AND it also affects my business and yours.

I have anger and grief over how politically we in the U.S. can’t seem to get it together to respond to racism and sexism we’ve perpetrated. And the effects are deadly and horrific and increasing. AND it also affects my business and yours.

Four Things to Know

First: our nervous systems are not meant for this. The level of trauma that we have access to through news media is much, much higher than we evolved for. But now we have access to large numbers of traumatic incidents all the time. It’s helpful in how it can knit us together in common experiences of loss and grief… and it’s traumatizing. It’s good to stay informed, but don’t immerse yourself in images and news.

Second: It’s okay to continue doing business. You have to earn a living. Your clients need you. With the amount of tragedy happening, if you stopped every time, you wouldn’t have a life or a business.

Third: Choose and engage. There’s so much going on, and it all relates to each other, and yet individually we can’t respond and work effectively on everything. Pick an issue and engage, while holding the big picture of how the issue you picked is woven in with everything else.

Fourth: Love and spiritual connection are key. A message embedded in many spiritual paths: the world is always changing, and is no place to try to place your anchor. You need to anchor yourself in love, in the Divine, in your deep heart.

This is not the “love and light” of spiritual bypass. This is the anchoring in Divine love, strength, peace and justice, that allows us to engage with the world well-resourced.

Yet another perspective. My friend and colleague Tad Hargrave from Marketing For Hippies posted this quick video yesterday about breaking the trance of “your work is needed now more than ever.” He goes beyond that, to a perspective which resonates with me deeply and applies to your business. You can see it here.

Care for yourself. Care for your business.

Sending big hugs.

Mark Silver, M.Div.
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.

Getting help for your business: two bonuses.

We have two core programs: F1: Clients & Money for the first stage of business development and F2: Expand Your Reach for the second stage.

They are in-depth, step-by-step, spiritually-informed programs, tested with hundreds of clients, and they work.

They start the first Monday of each month, and so if you enroll in October, you start the first Monday in November.

Two things to know:
1. If you enroll during October, you get a bonus.

For Clients & Money, you’ll be included in a small group of no more than 4 to get 1-1 coaching help on your core marketing message/elevator pitch, which we call your One Compelling Sentence.

For Expand Your Reach, you’ll receive a video review of the website you create through our program, pointing out what can be tweaked and improved.

2. We have a free way for you to tell which program your business needs.

If you’re in start-up, or your income is very low, then you probably need Clients & Money, so you can start getting clients and earning money. Take a look: Clients & Money.

If you’re income is inconsistent, some months okay, some months not quite enough, and if you had enough people your schedule would be full, then you probably need Expand Your Reach. Take a look: Expand Your Reach.

If you’re not sure? Take our free Readiness Assessment. You’ll get a personal response from us.

And please, ask any questions you may have.

With love,
Mark