I founded the company Brush Dance with the vision and inspiration of turning trash into beautiful greeting cards and wrapping paper. I aspired to help solve a significant environmental problem while creating a successful business. I knew that discarded paper makes up more than 28 percent of all landfill in the United States, creating literal mountains of waste. I aspired to bring more awareness to this problem, present a solution, and create a model for a financially sustainable business that took care of its employees, customers, and stakeholders.
I had a vision and took action to grow a business. As in the story of the three bricklayers in the prologue, my motivations were many, and sometimes competing. I wanted the freedom and flexibility of owning my own company. I wanted to earn a living and be able to take care of myself and my family. I wanted to build a management team and a company that could have significant impact, more than I could by myself. I wanted to be financially independent. I aspired to create wealth so that I could have more freedom in my own life and to invest in other companies that were helping to solve significant social issues. I wanted to demonstrate to myself and others that it was possible to lead a company with a sense of drive, urgency, and business savvy as well as with heart and compassion. In order to grow the business and have the impact I sought, I raised investment capital from family, friends, and “angel” investors, and I borrowed money from banks.
Brush Dance was one of the first companies in the world to create wrapping paper and greeting cards from recycled paper. In 1989 recycled paper was a new idea and had a negative reputation among printers. There were only a handful of paper mills in the United States that were capable of manufacturing recycled paper. I couldn’t imagine the future we live in now, in which recycling is a daily habit, and recycled products of all kinds, including the book in your hands, are commonplace and eagerly promoted. And yet there remains much work to be done on this front.
Still, I remember the day when our first shipment of wrapping paper arrived. The company was in my home. A large truck came down the steep hill of my street and slowly backed into my driveway. The driver unlatched the truck door, and there were twenty cartons containing four different designs of recycled wrapping paper. I was excited. Then my heart sank. Wrapping paper? Why are we making wrapping paper? Does the world really need wrapping paper? This was a great question, and to this day I don’t have a satisfying answer.
In that moment, I said to myself, “Yes, people need, use, and love wrapping paper. It is an expression of care. It not only holds the gift given but demonstrates special attention, a sense of beauty, and caring.”
Perhaps, in my desire to start and grow a business, I succumbed to rationalizing. Perhaps, despite my doubts, I was right all along. The only thing I know for sure is that this was a powerful lesson in balancing intention and action, and vision and product, and experiencing the complex, paradoxical ways that benefiting others and benefiting ourselves are wound into the tightrope we walk every day.
This chapter helps you to define what gives your life meaning and then identify actions to support that vision. Like creating a business plan in chapter 6 (page 162), drafting vision statements is something you may do only periodically, but doing so provides a focus that will guide your decisions daily, even moment to moment. Ultimately, these practices and activities help us align our intentions with our actions, our means with our ends, so we live right now the beneficial life we desire.
1. Ask yourself: What do I call the world? Write down, or draw visually, the spheres in your life that are most meaningful (page 221).
2. Write down how you feel you currently impact or influence these worlds in a positive way, or create an “impact diagram” (page 222).
3. Separately, write down or consider what negative impacts or influences you might be having in the world (page 223).
4. Draft multiple vision statements for all the ways you would most like to benefit others and impact the world (page 228).
5. Create an informal, one-page business plan for each statement, which lists the actions you will pursue (page 228).
6. Rephrase your vision statements as persuasive offerings (page 230).
7. Consider how in your relationships you can lead by influence (page 232).
8. Check the climate of your workplace or business (page 232).
9. To benefit yourself, take care of your physical health (page 243).
10. To become aware of your self-talk, explore your voices (page 246).
11. To improve your sense of community and connection, have more real conversations (page 250) and participate in small groups (page 250).
12. Care for and shape your personal brand (page 251).
13. Practicing saying yes to yourself, your work, others, and the world (page 255).
There is a famous story from the Zen tradition about two teachers meeting on the road.
One teacher asks the other, “Where do you come from?”
The second replies, “From the south.”
The first asks, “How is Zen practice in the south these days?”
The second responds, “There is lots of discussion.”
The first states, “How can all the discussion compare to planting the fields and cooking rice?”
The second asks, “What are you doing about the world?”
The first replies, “What do you call the world?”
This dialogue not only reminds me of discussions I hear in the world of business, nonprofits, and social entrepreneurship but represents an ongoing dialogue I have with myself. Is the work I’m doing helping others? Am I focused on the critical problems, the right problems? Are my efforts and actions aligned with my purpose and vision? All these questions arose for me as I looked at my first batch of wrapping paper, and they continue to arise every single day.
During my time running Brush Dance, I was aware that I was living on a tightrope and balancing multiple, sometimes competing, agendas — improving the world and taking care of me, constantly driving change and accepting what is. At times, it was complex and amazingly confusing. At times, utterly simple and clear — just take the next step, plan the next new product, have the next conversation. Make sure there is enough money in the bank to pay payroll. When the phone rings, answer it, whether it is from a paper supplier wondering when it will be paid, an artist with an idea for a new greeting card series, or a customer telling me the story of how one of our greeting cards was the perfect birthday gift that touched the heart of her dying mother.
This Zen story asks, Where are we putting our focus and attention? What is right and appropriate action? Are we doing the things that matter? Today, I work primarily with business leaders, but what about all the other types of populations and communities? What about the homeless people I see in the streets of San Francisco every day? What’s more important: food or spiritual sustenance? Helping those who create jobs or those who need jobs? As the story implies, there is no single, inherent right answer, and as individuals our resources are limited. We have to make choices, and as we know from the state of our own political discourse, universal agreement on how to solve the world’s problems doesn’t exist. Like the teachers in the story, we must define and answer these essential questions on our own terms: What do I call the world? How can I take care of that world? What am I actually doing? Once we’ve answered those, the next questions are: Could I be doing more? How can I have the most impact? How can I best leverage my time and resources?
We all want to live a life that has meaning and purpose, that makes a positive difference. By most definitions, “meaningful” work is whatever fulfills some larger purpose, some higher calling, that is more than just taking care of ourselves. We find meaning in helping others, by improving the world we all share. The executives and leaders I coach all desire this sense of purpose and suffer if they feel it lacking. They also question whether they are serving that larger purpose in the best, most effective ways. The first step in figuring that out, as the Zen story implies, is defining what we mean by “the world.”
There are, in fact, many worlds that we are involved in and strive to take care of. We work hard to take care of the world of our family. We are connected to the world of our friends and our communities, the world of our body, the world of spirit. Each individual relationship is like its own world. Every organization and workplace is its own world. Sometimes each moment, each experience, can seem like its own world, when we slow down enough to notice.
Ask yourself right now: What worlds am I part of? Which am I actively serving? Which are most important to me? In a journal or on a piece of paper, name these worlds in as much detail and specificity as you can. Order them by your own subjective sense of importance. If it helps you to visualize this, create a diagram of your universe of worlds. As with a word cloud, make the most important worlds bigger and the less important ones smaller (irrespective of what others may think or how many people they involve). Be expansive in this list; note worlds within worlds. And don’t neglect the world of pausing and everyday life: of planting a garden and cooking rice, of appreciating beauty, celebrating good fortune, mourning loss, raising children, caring for the sick, and more. What about all these? Aren’t they as important and vital as the public arenas we typically look to for validation and purpose — such as our jobs and workplaces?
Ultimately, why is it that we want to live more effective, balanced, healthy, and happy lives? To what purpose? This chapter raises these questions; it helps you name these meaningful endeavors and then see how to bring your values and actions into alignment. Inevitably, this raises tricky issues of context and control — of how much our worlds are self-defined and how much they are defined for us, of what we can influence and what is beyond our influence.
For the moment, let’s stay with the first question: What do you call the world? Recall the story of the three bricklayers: by describing what they saw as their job, they each defined the world that mattered to them, the focus that gave the work meaning. One focused on making the building itself; the second focused on the well-being of family; the third focused on creating a gathering place for spiritual worship. All were engaged in the same activity, but the meaning of it, each person’s vision of its impact, was utterly different. By naming worlds, you are also naming the ways you would like to have impact. In the end, there are no lesser or more important impacts. The bricklayer who focuses on making the building well is impacting the business that hired him or her as well as every person who uses the building: ensuring it is safe and structurally sound, pleasing to the eye and enduring. Are these impacts any less profound than those of the bricklayer whose main motivation is that the building be a cathedral? The world needs farmers to grow the food that sustains us, and truckers and highways to get that food to stores. We need teachers and therapists, businesspeople and priests. And the impacts of all these jobs and roles radiate through our entire society.
To help see this for yourself, once you define your worlds, take a moment to note and trace impacts. Simply write about this or, if it helps to visualize, create an impact diagram, almost like a map. Identify who is affected by your most important worlds, and your work in them, and who is affected by those you impact. Look upstream as well as downstream: which people and organizations impact your life? Who provides you with food, technology, clothing, services? How does what you do affect them? Begin to see the interconnected web of relationships, worlds, and impacts that you actually are a part of. Yes, the closer you look, the more complexity and interconnection grows to an almost infinite degree. Keep naming and tracing till your perspective is as wide as possible.
As I hope the exercise above demonstrates, we each live within an amazingly complex, multilayered web of connections. Within that, our task is to decide how to make a living, what communities to join or create, what impacts to have, and how to create joy and satisfaction in our lives. But what happens when our dreams, goals, and hopes meet the practical world? As we all know, good intentions are not enough to ensure success, and our actions can sometimes have consequences that turn our hopes inside out. The day-to-day world is a dynamic, quickly changing, and challenging place. War, famine, overpopulation, climate change, poverty, recession, crime, oppression: all of these things are disturbing realities in the world. While we name worlds and the positive impacts we would like to have, we also must open our eyes to the negative impacts we may also be having. As we move forward, pursuing meaning and purpose in our lives, realize that one of the most difficult paradoxes we face is that even our most noble acts may cause pain for some, and even within our most terrible mistakes, good can occur. Naming our impacts, and doing our best to minimize negative ones, is an important aspect of effectiveness.
Here is a concrete example of this tension, this paradox and dilemma, from my own life. At one point, Brush Dance increased sales of writing journals, and I wanted to increase production to meet demand as well as expand the company’s line of journals. I discovered that it was not possible to be in the journal business and manufacture journals in the United States or Canada. Supporting US workers seemed like an honorable and sensible intention, but the economics did not work to continue doing so for Brush Dance’s journal business. What I discovered was that in order to sell journals at a competitive price, we had to make them in China. And yet, this was a time when China was being accused of human rights violations, and I was concerned about supporting the Chinese government, even tangentially, as well as the environmental costs of shipping products across the ocean. However, after extensive research, we began producing our journal line in China.
I met with a colleague who had visited the plant in China and learned that the company we were working with treated its employees well and paid them fairly, at least in the context of China’s economy. However, when my teenage daughter noticed that our journals were made in China, she gave me a stern lecture, questioning and doubting the alignment of my values and business practices. Sometime after this, at a trade show in New York, I met with the Chinese company’s representatives, who were all women in their thirties and forties. I spoke about my concerns about making products in China. They were quite puzzled and surprised. One said to me, “We are just people, with the intention of growing a business in the best way we know. We have children and families to feed. We are not the Chinese government and don’t condone all the actions of the Chinese government, just as you are not the US government, nor do we question doing business with you because of the actions of your government.”
As the women brought home to me, impacts differ depending on your perspective, and the political misgivings I expressed can cut both ways. And just to be clear: I mention China only as an example, not to single out any one nation. Then again, we are each complicit in whatever the impacts of our actions are, and those impacts will always be imperfect, mixed. You may not be facing the challenging question of where to manufacture your company’s products. However, nearly everyone buys or uses goods manufactured in countries whose politics and government we may not agree with. We realize our “devil’s bargain” when we pay attention to where our most precious everyday objects are made — our computers, phones, cars, books, tables, chairs, silverware, and so on. Then there is the energy that powers our cars, warms our houses, and moves our food to stores — the oil we import from a wide range of countries across the globe. How is this energy we use affecting the changing environment we all share? If our job helps create better technology, such as faster and quicker ways for people to communicate with each other, is this helping or hurting our everyday sense of connection? I work with a scientist who helps create drugs to treat diseases, but I sometimes wonder — do these drugs that treat diseases reduce or distract from efforts to actually cure the diseases?
On a more intimate level, we are constantly challenged to evaluate the impacts of our choices on our closest communities — our family and circle of friends. If, like the second bricklayer, our main desire with our work is to care for the well-being of our family, is our job laying bricks the best way to do that? If we are paid poorly and are rarely home, then the negative impacts may outweigh the positive. It is useful to question and examine whether our actions are aligned with our values, and if the means of our lives undermine our stated ends. Refer back to Harry Roberts’s three questions: What do you want? What do you have to do to get it? Can you pay the price? Only with this information can we know when to move ahead confidently and when we need to be more inquisitive, when to fight for change and when to accept things as they are. When to speak up and when to be silent. When to be like the orchestra leader, taking a wide view of all the instruments, and when to pick up our instrument and play our own important and particular notes.
When it comes to benefiting others, there is no shortage of paradox. As I’ve said, I’m not seeking paradox; I want clarity. Yet the way to clarity and alignment is often through embracing paradox. I founded Brush Dance as an environmentally conscious business making recycled-paper products, but if I was shipping journals from overseas, at what point would the negative environmental impacts of this manufacturing process outweigh the benefits of the product itself? Did I need to make small changes and marginal improvements to be satisfied; did I need to radically rethink our manufacturing process (and perhaps impact the business’s potential profit); or did I need to quit the recycled-paper business altogether as unviable, or impossible to align with my stated goals?
Others most likely would have made different decisions than I did, and I made different decisions at different times as circumstances changed. I revisited this question of environmental impact continually, and the company devised new solutions at every turn. It was a process of trial and error, with no easy-to-follow steps, no clear recipes. In one sense, it was sometimes exhausting to always be questioning the company’s basic mandate; it was always disappointing to find that, yet again, we were falling out of alignment. On the other hand, that’s life. We find a good balance, things change, and we must find our balance again.
This chapter and this book are meant as a manual to help you successfully walk the paradoxical tightropes of your life. Yet while there are effective methods for doing this, you must take the specific steps that are right for you. There is no single recipe; your life makes up the ingredients. How you combine and cook them is up to you. What are you cooking, what are your resources and circumstances, and what are the challenging paradoxes this raises? See the paradoxes and embrace them; by exploring them you will find more clarity, and you can then take effective, meaningful action that benefits others. This is how, in our own individual ways, we each take care of the world.
Figuring out the best way to benefit others begins with vision, with naming an intention or problem we want solved. Sometimes this arrives quietly and intuitively, other times in a flash of insight or inspiration.
I had lunch recently with a friend, writer Roger Housden. Roger described leading a poetry session recently for a group of veterans who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he was being introduced, he was asked to share his intention with the group; specifically, he was asked to share his “fierce intention.” Roger paused at hearing these words and this question. “I don’t have a fierce intention,” he said. “I listen carefully and quietly to the deep intuitions, streams, and voices that quietly seep or noisily rumble through my body, my consciousness, my being.” I was moved by this response. What I heard Roger saying, in part, is that vision is not completely a question of what problem you choose to solve. It’s about being open and aware enough to notice what problem chooses you! Often it is the circumstances and events of life that provide openings and possibilities. I particularly liked that Roger turned this introduction into a teaching moment, both in how he responded and in what he said. He didn’t try to fit himself into the question but instead redefined intention. Then he described his own process. In that moment, he was practicing and demonstrating the point he was making.
Above, you named the worlds you are part of, and you established a rough hierarchy of importance among them. You also considered the impacts you would like to have as well as the potential reach of your influence. Now, in your most important spheres, consider what you might actually do to benefit others. You can focus on only one world or tackle several or many, but be concrete and specific: What will you do and who will benefit — where, how, and when? Craft succinct statements of purpose like “I choose to benefit this part of the world by doing the following: ____. This will occur [in this place] when I [do this particular activity] [during this time frame].”
Describing this vision is very similar to creating the business plan I describe in chapter 6. However, the focus here is specifically on helping others. Also, I encourage you to do this for all the important relationships in your life: for the worlds of family, friends, and community, not just for work and business. How you phrase your vision statement isn’t important. Just get it down on paper; nothing fancy. You may have several visions. Great. If you don’t have a specific, concrete vision for how to help, simply stay with the question. Listen. Create enough time and space, even a small amount each day, listening to the questions and noticing what responds. As my friend Roger suggests, listen to the world. It will express its needs and show you the problems that need solving; it may even reveal the specific way you can address them.
I was first introduced to this method of listening and questioning during my MBA program at New York University. The professor of an entrepreneurship class gave this as a weekly assignment: begin noticing problems, identifying solutions, and visualizing how this could be a business or organization. Try this exercise, which I call the one-page business plan: Wherever you go, start seeing what problems exist in your world, large and small. Then, brainstorm possible solutions. In a single page, describe a problem, your solution, and the actions you would take. While you don’t need to think in terms of starting a business or company, consider what help you might offer, whose help you might need, and how to enlist or organize that help. During business school, I noticed that by doing this I was training my mind, little by little, to see differently, to think differently — to see needs and visualize solutions. It was this way of thinking that led me to begin Brush Dance. I saw that environmental awareness would become a high priority in our world, and I noticed that the greeting card and wrapping paper business was enormous, and I saw that virtually no one was making these products from recycled paper. I founded my consulting practice, ZBA Associates, in the same way: I saw a need to help corporate and nonprofit leaders become more self-aware, more composed, and more focused as a way to more skillfully lead and solve important problems.
I have been running a one-person coaching and consulting company for more than eight years. One of my mentors recently asked me, “Do you know, really, what business you are in?” I thought this was a silly question; of course I knew the answer. I said I was an executive coach and leadership consultant. He responded, “I would say that you are a 100 percent commissioned salesperson.” I was surprised and not happy to hear this, but before I could formulate my rebuttal, I recognized that he was correct. Not only was his statement accurate, but it provided a new and useful lens through which to view my business. You present an offer, a solution that solves a particular problem. Through ZBA, I provide a service, not a product, but I do have something to sell, what I like to call “my offer” and “solution.” If someone doesn’t “buy” my conception of the problem and the benefits I offer, then they won’t engage my services.
This is an important concept for any company or organization, but it applies equally well to all aspects of our personal life. It is usually thought of as sales and marketing — crafting a convincing message about what you are selling. My problem with what my mentor said wasn’t the underlying concept, but the negative connotations of the word sell. I find that shifting the language creates a powerful distinction. Instead of selling something, describe what you are offering. Think of the situation from the perspective of the person or community you want to help: What do they need and how will you provide that? What is your message? Do this with your vision statements. Reconsider them as offerings, and rephrase them as persuasive messages. In fact, we do this whenever we apply for a job: we try to encapsulate our talents, skills, and experience so they clearly fill the needs of the position we are applying for. By trying to help others, we are in essence applying for a job. Try this as an experiment: What are you offering? What is the problem you are solving? What are the benefits to your customers? What role will you fill?
As with a traditional business plan, the heart of any offering lies in how you plan to actualize your vision, intention, and purpose. Moving from planning to acting; anticipating problems and challenges and rising to find creative solutions; tallying your resources and skills, and gathering any support you will need. Then, as you move forward, developing skillful attention: knowing when to be flexible, when to change course, and when to stand your ground. In business, particularly new ventures, success often hinges on how skillfully the business pivots to change course in response to new information and new opportunities.
So far, in naming your worlds and phrasing your offerings, you will have already named some of the actions you will take to benefit others. Sometimes these are implicit in your vision. Nevertheless, at this point, see if you can clarify next steps within your one-page business plan. While I can’t advise you on what specific actions to take, I can offer some guidance about how to evaluate how well you are doing and whether you are having the sort of influence and impact you desire.
For when it comes to benefiting others, this process of reflection is essential. Developing healthy, reliable, cooperative relationships is often not just the vital means to an end but the end in itself. To have any positive impact, it is important to be skilled at teamwork and conscious of how we are using our influence. I don’t remember there being any training, not even one word, about influencing people and teamwork during my two-year MBA program. And yet very little gets done unless we develop our own presence and awareness, our listening and speaking skills, our ability to respond to what is actually needed. In other words, our emotional intelligence. This is critical for interacting with others. Taking care of the world means working with other people, and this means influencing as well as being influenced by others. And this is the paradox of this particular insight: that in seeking to create change in the world we must allow ourselves to be changed. We must both lead and listen, be both flexible and persistent, and value the process as highly as any measurable achievements. Oftentimes, when it comes to benefiting others, how we enact change is as important as or more important than the change itself.
Here are three key practices of what I like to call “leading by influence.”
With every action and outcome, ask yourself: What did I do or not do to make this happen? Everything you do and don’t do, and everything you say and don’t say, influences others. This is a subtle and important baseline assumption of building trust and of effective leadership. If you don’t say something about someone’s good effort or good result, this sends a message. Take off the blinders to how you influence others, to the messages you give. Let go of blaming others and looking for fault outside yourself. And make it a habit to ask others for their feedback: How were they influenced by you? What do they wish you’d done or not done?
In this way, you actively improve the process of working with others, and you demonstrate that you value the means as much as the ends.
Every organization, company, community, and other group of people has a climate, which refers to the overall culture of the group. What’s the climate like where you work, or in the worlds you are seeking to benefit? Is it open and collaborative? Is it closed, secretive, and political? Take the temperature of the group dynamics, and account for them. To what degree will the established dynamics help or hinder what you hope to accomplish? Is a dull or ineffective climate the thing that needs changing?
What would you like the climate to be, and what actions can you take to move it in that direction? This may sound simple and obvious, and yet I’ve noticed that very few organizations ask these questions and take effective action on a regular basis. Though there are countless values, relationships, and actions that contribute to climate, I find that three primary components are trust, meetings, and decision making. Though an entire book can be written on this subject, let’s briefly explore these three areas.
TRUST: In organizations that build trust, people place a strong emphasis on aligning words and actions. People are encouraged to be open, transparent, and vulnerable. Expectations are clear. Nearly everyone knows what success looks like for individuals, teams, and the organization. Mistakes and failures are openly acknowledged and seen as a path toward finding solutions and increasing innovation. There is a high level of self-awareness and a strong emphasis on listening, building great teams, and collaboration. People feel valued for who they are and for the contributions they make.
MEETINGS: To foster a healthy climate, meetings are often times of learning, exchange, and enthusiasm. The purpose and expected outcomes are clear. There are a variety of types of meetings, and everyone involved knows what kind of meeting is being held: problem solving, information sharing, work planning, strategic planning, brainstorming, and so on. There is clear preparation and follow-through for all meetings. The right people are at the right meetings at the right times; not too many, not too few, just right.
DECISION MAKING: In organizations (and families) with healthy climates there is clarity about who makes what decisions. Healthy decision making is a result of a high level of trust and a culture of skillful meetings. There is an emphasis on freedom, autonomy, and responsibility — individuals feel free to ask difficult questions. People know what decisions are theirs to make and what decisions are made by others. There is a strong emphasis on personal and team responsibility.
Change begins by noticing the gaps between where you are and where you want to be, as well as identifying your own resistance and habits regarding change. What improvements would you like to see in the world or in your relationships? Make sure to embody those changes in yourself first. As Gandhi once said, be the change you want to see in the world. This is the most effective way to lead, and by leading, to benefit others. One way to begin is to say to yourself and to those you work with, “In the past, I didn’t listen well (or plan well, or focus well, and so on). This is how I plan to be different moving forward. I value your feedback and hope you will help me.”
Look at your vision statements and the ways you hope to help others. Do any of these represent gaps in your own personal life, work, or communication style? What in the present or in your past may have contributed to the situation as it now exists? If there are things, can you change them first? Explore making statements that specify these intentions: In the past I did this; moving forward I will be different by doing this.
In the bestselling book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Social Justice, and Beauty to the World, Paul Hawken set out to count the number of organizations in existence working for environmental and social justice. He expected to find perhaps thirty thousand, then he increased his estimate to a hundred thousand. After extensive research he estimates that there are more than 2 million such organizations.
To benefit others, we first focus in the most personal terms, within the context of our life and relationships as we currently experience them. In the end, benefiting others is also about changing the world: changing our society’s organizations and systems for the benefit of all of us. Capitalism as expressed by the unfettered pursuit of wealth without a social conscience is destructive and foolish. Look closely at US industry and business, and we find the unintended consequences of unfettered greed: unhealthy manufacturing, industrial, and food supply systems that are destructive to our environment, and thus to ourselves. We find an economic system that has created an imbalanced, unequal distribution of wealth, in which 1 percent of the population controls more than 30 percent of the country’s wealth, and there is a persistent and growing underclass. The rules and assumptions of capitalism have been partial and one-sided; it values creating wealth over almost all other concerns. We freely spend the world’s limited resources and undervalue our quality of life by harming the environment and negatively impacting human safety, health, and well-being. In essence, our current brand of capitalism fails to take into account all the real costs of doing business. What is the actual cost of removing natural resources from the earth, clear-cutting rain forests, and leveling mountains? It’s time to change the game, time to rewrite the rules of business. It is my firm belief that, just as we can change our personal relationships, we can change the system and redefine the way we do business: it is indeed possible to enjoy all of the advantages of a free-market economy while maintaining a social conscience and a sensibility of stewardship, in which we also value taking care of people and the environment.
I see this already happening. As cited above, nonprofit entre- preneurship is flourishing. Even more intriguing, the world of forprofit social entrepreneurship is exploding. These are for-profit companies that are also committed to benefiting society. Nearly every major MBA program in the country now offers courses and training in this realm, in which the focus is on creating a company that balances making money with benefiting others. There are at least three major categories of for-profit companies that combine and integrate profit with social good: environmental, workplace, and finance.
These for-profit companies create products in ways that either benefit the environment or strive to not harm the environment. One example of an environmentally focused, socially responsible company is Patagonia, which makes clothing with great respect for the environment. I once heard Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder and CEO, describe the challenge of making environmentally friendly clothing. His research unearthed that toxic chemicals were required to create orange-colored dyes. As a result, the company decided to stop producing all orange clothing, despite its popularity. Stonyfield Farms is a pioneer working with local farmers in producing organic yogurt and in developing ways to create healthy products while taking care of the environment. Seventh Generation was one of the first companies in the world to make environmentally friendly household products, and they continue to be a leader in the field. Today there are an enormous number of companies that could be cited for their environmental stewardship.
This category of company includes those that have been outstanding in taking care of the health and well-being of their employees. Eileen Fisher, a clothing designer and manufacturer and retail store outlet, is one example. I have met Eileen Fisher and spent time with several of the company’s senior executives. Here are some of the values and ways of doing business this company publicly proclaims on its website.
Communicate Openly
• Be present. Be accessible. Listen. Ask questions. Share information. Learn more about and respect other people’s perspectives.
• Find your voice. Trust and express it. Share your own ideas. Integrate your thinking into the big picture. Be conscious of how your presence and style affect others.
Tell the Truth
• Be authentic. Tell the truth with great kindness.
• Be open about mistakes. We make them every day. In the middle of a mistake we discover a new solution. There are infinite opportunities to learn.
Nurture Growth in Others
• Support people in knowing their passions, strengths, and work styles. Celebrate who they are.
• Create a shared vision of each person’s path. Develop shared expectations.
• Help people to set priorities and balance the varying elements of their work lives. Encourage them to seek new challenges and possibilities. Every person expands the company’s potential.
• Support people to find meaningful ways to take care of themselves. Help people find ways to reduce stress.
Nurture Growth in Yourself
• Know yourself. Be yourself. Embrace your authentic style. Deepen and engage your strengths and passions — that’s how you make the most valuable contribution.
• Identify where you want to grow. Stretch yourself. Value other people’s gifts. Draw on them — they complement your own.
• Nurture your well-being. Model a balanced life and support others to do the same.
Create a Joyful Atmosphere
• Have fun every day. Focus on the positive. Inspire others to be positive.
• Discover the possibilities in each situation.
• Honor and celebrate our diversity. Together we create something wonderful.
Isn’t this how most of us truly aspire to run our companies as well as live our lives? I’m aware that this is not easy. I’m not suggesting we see the world through rose-colored glasses, or that the company and the people who run it always live up to these ideals. They are not perfect. Who is? The best we can do, as the Eileen Fisher company does, is to make a sincere effort to define values and to work in alignment with those values. To be both real and visionary, grounded in reality while aiming high.
The list of companies dedicated to creating healthy work environments is large and growing. Google, one of the largest companies on the planet, is such an example. Again, they are not perfect. People at Google work hard. Being surrounded by talented overachievers can be stressful. Google provides an amazing array of services for its employees: first of all, unlimited free food that is healthy, nutritious, and of the highest quality, along with on-site massage, meditation, a gym, dry cleaning, haircuts, car washing, and more. All are aimed at supporting and nurturing a healthy workforce.
Some people speculate the company’s underlying intention is self-serving — providing perks that encourage people to work long hours and sacrifice their work/life balance. The company does expect a lot from its employees, and the company recognizes that, in turn, employees expect a lot from the company. When properly balanced and sincerely pursued, healthy workplace policies benefit everyone. I believe the motivations at Google and similar companies are many: to attract and retain talented people, to support people to focus on their work, and to nurture a healthy workforce that emphasizes high achievement drive and a collaborative environment.
Calvert Investments is a $12 billion company that focuses on socially responsible investments — investments in companies that are not involved in creating weapons, in manufacturing cigarettes, or in undermining the environment. In the financial services sector, integrating business and social responsibility is a growing trend.
As you might expect, Calvert doesn’t just focus on investing in socially responsible companies; it tries to embody one itself. As it promises on its website: “Calvert embraces transparency and corporate responsibility in our own operations — which is demonstrated by our Corporate Sustainability Reports — and has been recognized for our community involvement and workplace policies by organizations as diverse as the Metropolitan Washington DC Council of Governments, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Working Mother magazine.”
New Resource Bank is another example; this for-profit bank based in San Francisco uses its deposits to make loans to those seeking low-income housing and for other socially responsible causes. As it says in its vision statement: “New Resource Bank is a mission-driven community bank focused on sustainability. We work to have positive environmental and social impacts, as well as make a profit, and we support businesses that do the same. We also serve sustainability-minded nonprofits and individuals.”
Newest to arrive is a new form of corporation, what’s called a Benefit Corporation, or B Corp. This newly legal format is the result of a grassroots movement that has the potential to create an enormous impact in the business world and significant systemic change. By 2012, it was approved in only seven states, but it is expected to be available in many more states by the end of 2013. Traditionally, the definition of a typical for-profit corporation is that its primary responsibility is to maximize profits for its shareholders. A B Corp builds a different, wider responsibility into its corporate bylaws. A B Corp’s mandate is to benefit its stakeholders and its customers. In essence it operates with not just one bottom line, profits, but with three bottom lines: people, planet, and profits.
Here is an excerpt of the B Corp vision statement from its website.
Our vision is simple yet ambitious: to create a new sector of the economy which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. This sector will be comprised of a new type of corporation — the B Corporation — that meets rigorous and independent standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
As a result, individuals will have greater economic opportunity, society will move closer to achieving a positive environmental footprint, more people will be employed in great places to work, and we will have built stronger communities at home and across the world.
Do good, avoid harm, and help others is the essential teaching of right livelihood in Zen Buddhism, as well as many religious traditions and systems of ethics. Isn’t this common sense, and if so, why isn’t this the essential basis of all business? How can we make a living and find satisfaction in our work while simultaneously helping others? To do this, it is important to transform the concept of business as being primarily about creating wealth for ourselves and to see business as the bricks out of which we build a healthy society that serves all of us. Seeking this balance is no longer an option but a necessity.
A student asks the teacher, “I’m feeling discouraged. What should I do?”
The teacher responds, “Encourage others.” Here again is the essence of this chapter’s paradox: as Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön says, compassion for others begins with expressing compassion for ourselves. Then again, according to this Zen dialogue, the path for healing our emotional suffering is to focus, not on ourselves, but on helping others. Within this circular logic is an essential truth about our human predicament: we are all in this together, and we succeed or fail together.
If we just take care of ourselves and ignore helping others, what meaning does our life have? We will harm the relationships and real connections that provide our lives with fulfillment and meaning. If we devote our lives to helping others but don’t take care of ourselves, what good is that? We will be depleted, unhappy, or both, and soon become ineffective. Where is the balance? Again, balance is not achieved by finding a midpoint. It doesn’t work to halfheartedly help others and halfheartedly take care of ourselves. The real question is: How can we fully take care of others and fully take care of ourselves at the same time? Let’s explore this realm.
I work with many busy, high-powered men and women. They are business and nonprofit leaders, as well as people outside the business world, who aspire to both take care of the world and take care of themselves. This is extremely challenging for a host of ancient and thoroughly modern reasons. News about the problems of our twenty-first-century world appears in the palm of our hands, and those problems seem to be mounting and increasingly complex: financial meltdowns, job insecurity, international conflicts, 24/7 information-technology overload, environmental crises. These are laid over the basic human conditions that challenge every generation: old age, sickness, and death, caring for one’s family, raising children. And underlying all these circumstances are the challenges of self and what it means to be human: wrestling with the suffering in our hearts and trying to figure out who we are and what we are meant to do. That is, seeking to survive each day without succumbing to the self-defeating impulses of greed, hatred, and delusion.
During a recent Search Inside Yourself, Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence Program I was teaching at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, I noticed that a number of people looked exhausted. I could see they were interested in the material, yet several were struggling to stay alert. It struck me that while we were teaching the art and practice of mindfulness, building emotional competencies, and skillful leadership, we weren’t addressing, and were perhaps overlooking, some basic, important habits. Without proper self-care — without enough sleep, exercise, and healthy food — we undermine our efforts before we begin.
Is it strange to arrive at the end of this book to discuss physical health? This would seem to be the most basic step, and yet it appears last. In fact, that’s often the way we treat our everyday well-being — making it our lowest priority, the last thing we make time for. I’m always intrigued, and often amused, at the circular nature of this work: we struggle through intense and complex issues only to wind up where we began, just hopefully a little wiser and more skilled. On any given day, our problem focusing, dealing with our emotions, or making a decision might best be solved by taking a nap or a walk, or eating a decent lunch. We will benefit no one, least of all ourselves, if we aren’t taking adequate care of our physical health.
I won’t go into much depth on these topics, since there is so much information available on them. However, it’s worth quickly summarizing some basic points. First, pay attention to both the quantity and the quality of your sleep. How much sleep do you typically need, and how much do you regularly get? Adjust your routines or expectations to close that gap. Also, take steps to increase your ability to get a good night’s sleep: practice relaxation, meditation, and exercise every day. Don’t check your email for at least an hour before going to sleep. If you suffer from persistent anxiety that keeps you from sleeping well, seek help and advice. Sleep is such a fundamental human need, and yet it is surprisingly easy to overlook or ignore.
Eating well is easy (and not so easy). We already make time to eat every day, so simply pay attention to what you put in your body. Scrutinize your current choices; for one week, conduct a personal audit of only what you eat. Now, how can you improve your eating habits? Michael Pollan, in his book In Defense of Food, says healthy eating can be summarized in seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. I agree, but I think it really comes down to one word: awareness. Then, successfully changing habits, and maintaining them, really depends on three words: Love your food. Enjoy eating. Enjoy cooking or choosing food that is right for you. Keep track of what you actually eat. Count calories. Try it. It works.
Even if we sleep well and eat well, a too-sedentary life can undermine our physical health (and lead to disease). Again, simply paying attention to your body is the most essential step. To take care of this body, do a little exercise every day, and do lots some days. Create a plan. Work your plan. Seek company to create mutual support. Be good to your body.
Ultimately, all the tools and practices presented in this book are ways to benefit yourself and to benefit others. Whether focused outward or inward, they generate a virtuous circle of care, intention, and effectiveness that benefits all of us. In chapter 5, we discussed our communication with others through confident speech, curious questioning, and compassionate listening. We need to bring those same skills to bear, and take the same care, in our own inner life. People are all essentially the same: we are simple and straightforward, just seeking happiness, just wanting others to be happy. We are also quite complex and multifaceted. We contain a variety of aspirations and wishes, fears and doubts. These express themselves in a multitude of voices; sometimes they are aligned, sometimes competing. An effective way to take care of and benefit ourselves is to become more familiar with these voices. Pay close attention to the ways in which you speak to yourself. Do you speak confidently and listen compassionately? Are you curious about your inner life? We are almost always holding an inner conversation with ourselves that is influencing and directing our emotions and actions. The more we can become familiar with these voices, the more effective we can be.
Here is an exercise for exploring and understanding your voices.
Let’s start with a short guided visualization. However you are sitting, change your position, even slightly. This is a way of bringing your attention to your body. Notice how you are sitting. See if you can relax; relax your shoulders, back, face, and jaw. At the same time notice your energy. See if you can sit while being both relaxed and alert at the same time. This is my aim and intention for accomplishing most things: to be relaxed and alert.
Now, bring your attention to your breathing. Notice that you are breathing. See if you can breathe all the way in and all the way out. Whatever thoughts and concerns may arise in your mind, notice these and gently bring your attention back to your breath.
Now, let’s explore some of your internal voices.
Let’s begin with the voice of appreciation. Let thoughts arise about a person or something that your appreciate, a loved one, a friend, or a place that is meaningful to you. Picture this person or object and notice what appreciation feels like. Where in your body do you feel appreciation; is it in your chest or stomach, or maybe not any clear place? What does your voice of appreciation sound like and feel like within you? Stay here for a few moments.
Now, let go of that voice, of all voices, and bring your attention back to your breath and back to your body.
Now, let’s explore your voice of fear. Think for a moment about a situation that brings up fear. If several situations come up, notice what these situations have in common. What do you worry about? What fears do you harbor for yourself or your family? What fears do you have about your work or for the world? Let your voice of fear arise. If you usually suppress this voice, allow it; we are just exploring. Listen to this voice with open curiosity. Where in your body is the voice of fear? What does this voice sound like and feel like? Stay with this voice for a few minutes.
Now, let go of that voice, of all voices, and bring your attention back to your breath and back to your body.
Now, let’s explore your voice of hope. What are you hoping for, from this exercise or book, from your day today? What do you hope for yourself and your family? What hopes do you have for your work and for the world? Let your voice of hope arise. If you usually suppress this voice, allow it; we are just exploring. Listen to this voice with open curiosity. Where in your body is the voice of hope? What does this voice sound like? Stay with this voice for a few minutes.
Now, let go of that voice, of all voices, and bring your attention back to your breath and back to your body.
Lastly, let’s explore your voice of wisdom — whatever that might mean for you. Think of a person you consider wise, compassionate, or generous. Think of something you said or did or accomplished that you felt really good about; think of a decision you made that had a positive outcome. Maybe wisdom is a spiritual voice of just appreciating being alive, beyond good or bad, right or wrong. Allow this voice; we are just exploring. Listen to this voice with open curiosity. Where in your body do you experience wisdom? What does this voice sound like and feel like? If this is easy, great! If this is not so easy, and if not much is happening, also great! Just remain relaxed and alert, exploring.
Now, let go of that voice, of all voices, and bring your attention back to your breath and back to your body. Sit quietly for a few minutes, following the breath, being aware.
Now, open your eyes. Let your consciousness return to the room.
When you finish, take a few minutes to reflect on what happened. How was that for you? Was hearing these voices of appreciation, fear, hope, and wisdom easy or difficult? Was your thinking mind calm or agitated? Did you notice other voices arise — judgments and self-criticism, or voices of kindness and generosity? Try this exercise again and explore other voices, such as jealousy, joy, worry, or patience. You could also do this as a written exercise, or artistic expression, letting your voices come forth on the page.
What a powerful conclusion to a seventy-year study: “The only thing that really matters in life [is] your relationships with other people.” I think we all know this, and yet it is easy to forget in the midst of the pace and challenges of daily life.
What are your life goals as you’ve defined them while reading this book? How do you define prosperity? Almost by default, we often think of prosperity in terms of money, financial security, or standard of living. We think of our life goals in terms of significant achievements: founding a company, writing a book, changing the world, leaving a legacy. Accordingly, we can fall into the habit of evaluating the people we meet by how well they can help us, as necessary means to our ends, but our true prosperity is our relationships. This is another way we can change the way we conduct the business of our lives — by valuing the people in them, not what they can do to help us.
When it comes to issues of prosperity, it is also easy to feel a sense of scarcity, that we never have enough time or money. But when we look closely, the most poignant feelings of scarcity come from a lack of connection. No amount of money or time soothes a loss of community, if our lives become bereft of close emotional connections with other people. Abundance, safety, and happiness come from the richness of our relationships with family members, friends, coworkers, and others.
However, at least in much of the United States and the developed world, feeling separate and isolated seems to be the accepted state for many people. We live in separate units, drive alone in cars, and avoid eye contact in public places. Developing friendships often involves intention and effort. Of course, seeking connection can involve the risk of rejection. Social media have increased our reach, but often in a shallow way. Online “social media friends” are not necessarily real friends unless or until they cross the digital threshold: spending time with us, having conversations, sharing experiences and hopes, caring.
So, to increase your prosperity, explore ways to develop the quality and richness of your existing relationships. Identify people whom you want to develop a deeper connection or friendship with, and schedule time with them. Ask colleagues to join you for walks or for lunch. While cultivating existing relationships, explore ways you might cultivate new ones as well.
It is easy to go an entire day, or many days, without having a real conversation with another person. What is a real conversation? It is one that includes your emotions; it’s a discussion about something you care about in which you express that caring. It can be anything that matters: personal issues, work issues, your gardening, your hopes and dreams. In some way, you show up in the presence of another; you are open, unguarded, even vulnerable. It doesn’t have to be confessional; it can be providing the space for someone else to be open and vulnerable. Your part of the conversation may be to listen.
This is as essential for our well-being and health as eating and sleeping, which is why I include it in the personal audit I describe in chapter 4. If you’re unsure how many real conversations you have each day, keep track and become aware.
In the book The Social Animal, New York Times writer David Brooks cites a research statistic that “being part of a small group that meets monthly brings more personal happiness than having your salary doubled.” That’s another very interesting standard for evaluating the prosperity in your life. How many small groups are you part of? Any? If you are not part of a group, consider joining one or creating one, of any kind — a book group or discussion group, a yoga class or cycling club, a volunteer or community group. Be part of something either connected to or distinct from your work and home life. It’s hard to feel alone when others rely on us, turn to us, need us — when we are part of joint efforts and shared purpose.
As this implies, creating a satisfying sense of community takes work and commitment. Many of us are already part of multiple groups or communities that we barely notice and don’t take the time or effort to cultivate. These communities include our neighbors, people supporting our chosen profession or our favorite hobbies, and the larger communities of the town or city where we live. I once helped create a community of executive coaches, a group of eight that met about every six weeks for many years. I’m also part of an Old Zen Men group that meets for a long weekend once a year. We have known each other for more than thirty years. I have been surprised at how important this group has become for me, even though it meets infrequently. Another important community for me is my friends from the socially responsible business world. I’ve been a member of a nonprofit organization called Social Venture Network (SVN) for many years, and I attend SVN conferences twice a year. These are work events, in which I’m focused on business, but unexpectedly, it has become an important and nurturing community of friends. As it turns out, sometimes blurring these distinctions is part of what being a socially responsible businessperson is all about.
Personal branding is a hot topic these days. To a degree, it all began with the article “The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters in 1997. Peters wrote:
Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.
If, within this chapter’s paradox, one essential aspect of balance is to approach business in more emotional, personal terms, then the other and opposite aspect is to see ourselves in more businesslike terms. What is our persona, our story, our offering, our brand? I agree with Peters: we ignore our brand at our own peril. Our brand is how we represent the business of our self. Our brand is how we are (or would like to be) perceived by others. This determines whether others believe that we meet their needs, whether we offer useful solutions or help, whether we are trustworthy and reliable. As all businesses today know, it is vital to pay attention to and care for your brand.
We all have a brand, whether we want one or not, whether we consciously construct one or have one given to us. Buddha had a brand, as do the Dalai Lama and President Obama, and even those claiming not to have a brand — no brand is also a brand. Our brand is part of our story. What story do you tell of yourself when you meet someone new? When used with integrity, our brand expresses who we are and what we stand for; it encapsulates the way we see the world and its problems, and the nature of the solutions we offer. Our brand expresses our values.
Like anything, a brand can be misused. The word itself has negative connotations. A brand can be the ultimate corporate fraud or scam when it’s used to peddle the perception of value without actually providing value. But isn’t this a struggle we all face? We express noble values or intentions even while knowing that there is a gap between these and our actions. Further, we cannot control how others perceive us. Our brand’s reputation will differ from one person to the next. In the West, many people regard the Dalai Lama as a model of wisdom and humility. The Chinese government has a different perception.
Despite this lack of control over perception, we still must tend to our public self or persona. To benefit others, to benefit ourselves, we explore what we offer, and so we arrive back at our first paradox: Know yourself, forget yourself, write your story. Your effort to create a solid, clearly identifiable self and a solid unchanging brand is both a worthy, even necessary, effort and also essentially impossible. It is not wholly real, complete, or lasting: you will change, others will change, markets change, needs change — your brand will change.
So keep walking, keep balancing, keep embracing paradox:
• Articulate your values and evaluate your life to ensure your actions are aligned with them.
• Communicate your brand, your authentic offering, the best you can. Then ask for and listen to feedback, and change in response to it. Be flexible and persistent.
• Notice and be honest about your strengths and your limitations, and work to close the gaps between your brand, your perception of yourself, and the perceptions of others.
At the same time, remember that you are not a brand. You are not a story. You simply are. Even as you tend to your brand, practice the art of “being nobody.” This is a terrific, freeing practice. It means letting go of trying to be anyone special, of trying to be in control, of trying to fix or hold on to or gain or offer anything, especially yourself. Let yourself just be, a happy, compassionate nobody, a paradox. Yes, know yourself, forget yourself!
Here is a simple and penetrating story from the Zen tradition about taking care of the world and taking care of yourself. It goes like this:
This is the Zen version of the tightrope walker and the Zen response to the paradox of how we both benefit others and benefit ourselves. If you think you and the world are different, your understanding is not developed enough; it is not wide enough, not genuine. Make just a little more effort by letting go of whatever gets in your way of seeing that you are the world and the world is you.
Stepping from a hundred-foot pole is to step out from behind yourself and the habits that hold you back. This doesn’t mean to avoid or ignore your pain and confusion, and your messy, sometimes challenging, sometimes seemingly impossible life circumstances. Instead, stepping from the hundred-foot pole is just the opposite — you step directly into your feelings and emotions, your motivations and conditions. You step into and embrace whatever is most messy and difficult, as well as joyful and wise. Look deeply, gently, openly.
It seems at times as though we have no choice but to act as though the world is permanent, solid, and predictable, and at the same time, we must realize that everything around us is impermanent, fluid, and unpredictable. If we go too far toward believing in permanence, we will be thrown when something unexpected happens. If we lean too far toward a belief in impermanence, we may fall into the trap of not setting clear goals, not achieving what is within our potential, and living irresponsibly. This can be a way of trying to protect ourselves from failure or sometimes of trying to protect ourselves from success. The secret of successful business practice and of life practice is finding the balance between control and letting go; it’s understanding that, though little is within our control, we must act with complete responsibility.
In one of his talks, Shunryu Suzuki commented on this story, saying, “The secret is just to say ‘Yes!’ and jump off from here. Then there is no problem. It means to be yourself in the present moment, always yourself, without sticking to an old self. You forget yourself and are refreshed.”
This short, pithy four-line story points to the dilemma that we all have, that we all face, all experience. How do we balance all of these seemingly impossible demands and priorities? How can I be happy, feel safe, be satisfied, provide for myself and family, and help others? What is this life? What does it mean to be an authentic human being in the realm of family, work, smart phones, relationships, love, hate, birth, and death? We are all perched on the top of a hundred-foot pole. Together. It is a very wide pole. So wide, there is no place to fall.
Just say yes.