Doing Business the Spiritual way



  DOING BUSINESS THE SPIRITUAL WAY

  by

  Timo ten Cate and Janneke Kromkamp

  This booklet contains 100 ‘tips & tricks’ which can be used for (daily of weekly) contemplation.

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  Timo ten Cate and Janneke Kromkamp

  Doing Business the Spiritual Way

  Copyright 2011 by Timo ten Cate and Janneke Kromkamp

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Count Your Blessings

  Doing Nothing

  Coincidence

  Letting Things Go Wrong

  Resting

  Giving

  Helping

  Saying No

  Believing in Your Strengths

  Doing What You Are Really Good At

  Enthusiasm

  Human Resource Management

  More

  Profit

  Praying

  Paying Compliments

  Determining Your Price

  Negotiating

  De-Stressing

  Chasing

  Rejection

  Frugality

  Giving and Taking

  Creating

  Being Nice

  Intuition

  Working Hard

  Trust

  Total Quality Management

  Intention

  Learning

  Going with the Flow

  Listening

  Avoiding Negative Thoughts

  Celebrating Life

  Leading = Serving

  Stepping Back

  Accepting the Bigger Plan

  Leading

  Account Management

  Marketing

  Creating Opposition or Cooperation

  Asking Questions

  Making a Choice for Happiness

  Identifying Worries

  Giving Attention

  Rhythm

  Doing What You Enjoy Doing

  Optimism

  Higher Values

  Laugh at Yourself

  Authenticity

  The Rhythm of Things

  Sowing

  The New Working

  Self-Interest

  Perfectionism

  Meditation

  Inspiration

  A D-Minus

  Ego

  ‘Setting Goals’

  Competition

  Spirituality

  Perception

  Thinking

  Double or Nothing

  Mens Sane In Corpore Sano

  Timing

  Attention

  Bankruptcy

  Rule #6

  Time

  Control

  Follow Your Bliss

  Setting Boundaries

  Abundance

  What and How

  WYSIWYG

  Ambitions

  Comparing

  Investing

  Persistence

  Gifts

  Respect and Trust

  The Art of War

  Passion ≠ Emotion

  Discrimination

  There is No Such Thing as Failure

  Humbleness

  Unworthiness

  Getting Compliments (from Yourself)

  Wealth Versus Happiness

  Stealing

  Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  Love

  Networking

  Empathy

  Letting Go

  Authors

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  Success won’t come without vision and focused planning for the future. But don’t forget to look around, see what you’ve already accomplished and be grateful for it. Gratefulness gives strength.

  Our days are very busy. There is always more to do. But the power of doing nothing is tremendous. Sit still at your desk for 30-60 seconds. Keep the computer on but do nothing. Toy with the urge to answer your e-mail, but then relish the idea that it will be okay if you do nothing for a few more moments.

  You work hard. Be assured that one day it will all pay off. Things work out, sometimes without obvious reasons. This is not a coincidence, but a reward you’ve earned. It is very empowering to see coincidence as a gift.

  It is nice when things go as planned, when everything runs smoothly. Beware however your enjoyment of this does not come from a fear of failure. From time to time, laugh about things that may not be turning out as you’d like. This will give you a great amount of breathing space.

  You reap what you sow. Sending 40 business emails every weekend will result in responses you’ll want to answer. ‘Always busy’… again. On weekends, really stop working and you’ll have less work to worry about. Let Monday be a fresh start for you.

  Focusing on getting more for yourself (money, success, material objects) also focuses you on what you don’t have. It often results in restless agitation. Focusing on what you can give to the world leads to lightness and child like joy. The material gain will not be less and the paths to success will be much more pleasant. Every person senses intuitively when another’s attention is a genuine willingness to help or is for their own gain.

  A business deal dominated by one’s own self-interest, (‘what’s in it for me?’), will be obvious to others and will not be as successful.

  Saying ‘No’ to a project which isn’t right for you can be liberating. Rather than focusing on the negative(this client will never return), know you are acting on strength and focus on the positive (you are now open and available for better projects and better clients.)

  After determining the right price for your product or service, do not give in to a client’s endless tries to lower your prices. You lose your strength, a belief in your own capabilities and even credibility with your client. It may very well be interpreted as a sign of weakness.

  Along the way, many large companies rush to expand beyond their core business. They simply fall for the temptation of higher profits. Long-term this is never successful. Large conglomerates exist for a few decades at most. Specialized businesses often exist for hundreds of years.

  Imagine you are at a party. Would you rather sit next to a tired looking person with a cold, wet handshake or next to someone telling a story with a relaxed enthusiasm? The same considerations are often made when winning new clients. Never lose your enthusiasm for what you do. If necessary, sleep in every day for a week to help regain your motivation. Because what you are actually selling is enthusiasm.

  Checking in with your employees is not the only way to encourage them to perform better. Giving them the gift of freedom, responsibility and trust touches them deeply within their inner being. The natural outcome is devotion, bonding and engagement.

  Successful entrepreneurship does not just come from focusing on more (employees, turnover, products, billable hours and profit). The net earnings of a business with 10 employees can easily be higher than that of a business with 100 employees. What is the purpose of ‘more’ and the added value of ‘less’? Success stems from the balance between the two.

  Profit is the result of doing the right things. Instead of focusing on their profit they spend their time focusing entirely on doing good things with enjoyment.

  Every year, the financial result turns out to be excellent.

  Success never appears out of the blue. Success is something that comes from hard work. When a sense of ‘having to d
o it all yourself’ weighs on your actions, you are denying the greatness of God’s existence. And hurting yourself unnecessarily. God does exist. Praying gives strength.

  Be honest. One of the nicest things in life is to receive a well-meaning compliment. Plants need water and light to grow. People need compliments. Paying compliments is free, and in return can bring an incredible amount of good things.

  The price you ask mirrors your self-esteem, as well as your esteem of the identity and beliefs of your business as a whole. Fear of rejection leads to a price which is too low. Fear of failure leads to a price which is too high. Determining your own price therefore touches the core of your business. Which parts of this can you identify in your own situation?

  Beyond determining the price and value of your pro-ducts and services, determine the price you are willing to pay for others’ products. There are often instances in which you can honestly negotiate a lower price. Over time, this savings can be quite substantial.

  Have you ever found a solution to an ‘unsolvable’ problem while in the bath or walking the dog? Silence and relaxation allow you to tap into an endless source of creativity. This creative zone is infinite and always available. De-stressing is the way into this zone. A good entrepreneur will therefore plan a walk in the woods or on the beach every few weeks.

  Nothing is as pointless as chasing after a client. If you want to hunt, go into the woods. Anywhere else itis a nuisance, especially to your potential client. Do your best, invest in yourself and then let it go.

  Presume that a decision to use another business has been made with care. Total respect for this decision results in building a level of trust. Long lasting client relationships can be built upon this trust. Questioning their decision on the other hand, can lead to a breach of trust.

  A deep belief in your own capabilities and in your own product is often the force behind investments and success. However, this often visionary aspect of entrepreneurship must be balanced with a sense of reality. In the end a healthy balance sheet is what counts. Dare to invest but be frugal when possible.

  An undeniable cosmic law says your environment reacts to you in the same way you react to it. If your focus is on ‘taking’, you will have to continuously work to keep what you took. Instead aim at ‘giving’, doing more than agreed or paid for. Effortlessly, many good things will come your way.

  Management guru’s say that it is important to clearly state what your organization does. But also what it does not do. This provides a clear direction. And a clear direction determines success. Creating your success via your own thoughts is the underlying spiritual value of this. The sharper your focus on your direction, the faster your success.

  There is nothing wrong with being nice. The proverb ‘He who does good things for others will receive good things in return’ exists for good reason. The reality is that many projects (formal as well as informal) or jobs are just given to the nicest person. Therefore, being nice should be one of the core values of every successful manager or entrepreneur.

  When conducting a job interview, your first impression of an applicant is almost always the best. When hearing about an investment plan, the same thing applies. The number of examples is infinite. The common thread is intuition. Use your mind, but do not let it dominate you. Use your feelings and intuition as building blocks for your success.

  The Chinese sign for ‘busy’, as in being busy, consists of two parts. One part symbolizes the human heart, the other part symbolizes death. What is the price we pay for staying busy and working hard all the time? No matter how great your product or service, you cannot sell it without someone first putting their trust in you. Once you have that trust, it should be treasured and nurtured. It will bring you success.

  You’ve sent a long, important e-mail to someone. But you never get a response. Do you still respect this person? Naturally, others would feel the same about you if you did this to them. Treat every person and every client with respect, In the way you’d like to be treated.

  You’ve sent a long, important e-mail to someone. But you never get a response. Do you still respect this person? Naturally, others would feel the same about you if you did this to them. Treat every person and every client with respect, in the way you’d like to be treated.

  The quality of your life and work is more greatly affected by the presence or absence of negative thoughts than by money. The quality of a business is the total presence or absence of it’s employees negative thoughts. These negative thoughts and emotions cannot be changed until people are aware they have them. You should work with those employees to make them aware.

  You’ve probably heard of the management triad ‘strategy, structure and systems’. Determining a strategy is something you can do much more often than once every few years. There are countless possibilities on a daily basis. How? By formulating your intentions and goals for your conversations, meetings and e-mails. Intention is an indispensable management tool to give strategic direction to all your activities.

  A crucial characteristic that distinguishes a business from it’s competition is, among other things, the ability to learn. Managers should ask themselves ‘What can I learn from this situation as a person and what can the business as a whole learn from it?’ on a regular basis. Best of all, the life lesson you’ll receive is free.

  Sometimes everything just seems to be ‘flowing’. Suddenly everything falls into place. On the other hand, sometimes it seems that nothing goes right. The art of all this is to enjoy the good with a sense of gratefulness, and develop the ability to adapt your original plan when things go wrong. Critical to your success is the ability to keep going with the flow.

  The art of clever entrepreneurship is among other things to pay attention to and believe in small signals. You can do things that affect all your clients, but probably specific clients will come to mind while doing so. If you contact these clients, chances are good that you’ll be able to do some additional business with them immediately.

  Music travels through the air, invisibly but everywhere. Thoughts move from ‘transmitter’ to ‘receiver’ in a similar way. Consciously or not, negative thoughts are always picked up by the receiver. Therefore, be alert to your negative thoughts, particularly when it comes to business.

  One of the objectives in life is to enjoy it as much as possible. Do you really want to wait until your retirement to do this? Life is a not a sprint, where you don’t get a chance to stop for a drink. Life is a marathon, where you can quench your thirst along the way with delicious drinks.

  Are the managers in your organization mainly focused on themselves? Or are they truly interested in those they supervise? Only those focused on others will be naturally recognized and followed as real leaders. Ego-driven leaders weaken organizations. Leaders who serve and feed strengthen organizations.

  When you become stressed, your expensive life coach will tell you to ‘take a step back.’ Why not take charge of this yourself? In the morning, write on your bathroom mirror, ‘What will life have in store for me today?’ Start the day with a natural smile. It’s free.

  Billions of years ago, earth came into being through the forces of nature. The human race has been on earth for millions of years. Once, we were babies without teeth. One day, old and wrinkled, we will leave this life. Each year has its seasons. A budding flower does not think ‘I need to bloom as soon as I can’. Everything has its own time. Tomorrow is another day.

  Businesses often spend a great deal of time collecting their profit and sales figures. One can say these ill-fated attempts at providing a direction are based on fear. Instead, lead by obtaining and maintaining the trust of your clients, and the well-being of your employees. It’s more pleasant and more efficient.

  Your clients will often tell others of their experience dealing with your business. What they say may seem out of your control. However if you make the effort and investment in making sure your work is done to their complete satisfaction, you will create an invisibl
e group of sales people.

  It is fine to promote your products. The amount of money spent on this is often significant, however the effects can be short-lived. On the other hand, a positive experience is something that lives for many years. You should therefore trust the power of ‘the experience’ as a marketing tool. Ensure the money spent on promotional activities is balanced with the investment aimed at client satisfaction.

  Deep down inside, do you view your staff as consumers of your profit? This belief creates distance and opposition. If you believe they create important work, you will get their best work because they feel their efforts really have value. This feeling doesn’t develop automatically. It comes from you expressing how important their contributions are.

  Often, the worst has to happen before the ‘why?’ question is asked. However you can ask this every day. ‘Why is this (always) happening to me?’; ‘Why do I (always) react this way?’; ‘Why is this project not going well?’; ‘Why is our profit falling short?’. The power of the ‘why?’ question is two-fold. It is not only the basis for personal growth and therefore success(!), it’s also an excellent tool for providing direction.

  Your happiness is the result of your choices. Try to be aware of your thoughts right now. Make the choice not to focus on the thought itself, but on the fact that you are having a thought…your conscious self. You’ll feel a lot ‘lighter’ soon. You have just made a choice for happiness.

  ‘What time does the meeting start?’ is a practical, useful thought. ‘I don’t know if I can do this’ and ‘I will never finish my work’ are worrying, pointless thoughts. Worries are often ‘hidden’ and are fatal for your zest for life. You will only discover them by searching for them. Ask yourself what are you subconsciously concerned about and you will begin a fascinating process of personal growth.

  You set aside 30 minutes in your busy schedule for a meeting with someone. During the meeting, the other party keeps taking calls on his cell phone. How can this relationship blossom with such a lack of attention and respect?

  For many, a benefit of a regular job is getting into an ‘8 to 5 rhythm’. The power is not with the particular hours but in the steady rhythm and the knowledge of when their work day will be done. Rhythm brings calm because you allow yourself to stop working at an agreed time.

  Having success is largely the result of doing what you really love. In the long-run, stress develops to a greater extent when you do things you don’t feel like doing. Courage is required to check-in with your inner self regularly in order to not lose your zest and energy for life. Find out if you are still doing what you love doing. Listen to what you hear.

  For each entrepreneur, optimism is a great strength. It is also one of the best imaginable examples of spirituality applied to daily life. Constantly believing in a good result, no matter in what shape or form, is a sign of a deep trust in life and Awareness of God. Whether you are aware or not, as a good entrepreneur you are a spiritual person.

  The driving force for employees is not to maximize profit. Profit is not directly tangible to them. Deep in their hearts, people are searching for meaning, and for a connection with Higher Values. Only then are they able to feel a true sense of pride for the organization they work in. Which higher values are leading you, and your actions?

  Be honest with yourself, do you feel drawn to people who take themselves too seriously? Laughing at yourself makes you a more pleasant person to everyone around you and is an excellent remedy for stress. When you are able to laugh at yourself (or: your ego), you create a strong connection with who you really are – a connection with your soul.

  People need examples; the entire principle of the master-disciple or master-student relationship is based on this. However, the goal of this principle is not to copy from someone, including their commercial success, or to(attempt to) completely become like someone else. As Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) put it: ‘Just be yourself, everyone else is already taken.’

  Don’t we all have our moments of fatigue or grumpiness? But hopefully, these are also alternated with happiness and energy. When something makes you truly happy, you can safely assume that you are doing the right things at that particular moment. However, the reverse is often also true. With that in mind, what lesson could we learn from this? Becoming aware of the distinction between these two is an excellent personal guidance tool.

  We are used to short cycles from nature: You sow some seeds and, one season later, you can reap the results. Just like it is natural that a baby calf can already stand fifteen minutes after birth, despite it taking a human baby more than a year, the ‘human’ sowing and reaping process takes more time than what is currently accepted in our hurried business dealings. Without question, investing in relationships takes time.

  With ‘The New Way of Working’, which has already received a great deal of hype during recent years, managers and employees struggle to achieve the balance between freedom and responsibility. How is this balance for you? Do you have the courage to go for an extended coffee break without feeling guilty, and without constantly checking your Smartphone?

  As Einstein (1879-1955) stated, ‘Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.’ Translated to the business world, this can be interpreted as follows: The key to long-lasting success lies in giving up your self-interest.

  For many people, their main drive for doing what they do is to ‘make something nice out of it’; however, this sometimes borders perfectionism or even idealism. In a developmental phase, this is a beautiful and useful quality – but did you know that there are also several negative aspects involved with this? For longer-term success, it is important to become aware of the shadow sides of your drive.

  It has gradually become common knowledge that meditation creates a peaceful yet razor-sharp mind. Nevertheless, busy bees continue to claim that they do not have time for such things. But here is some good news for those pressed for time: you can even achieve an effective meditation session if you have just 5 seconds to spare. Just try this: take a deep breath in, take a deep breath out. Just do it! Success guaranteed!

  It is virtually impossible to not do anything for longer than one hour. Before you even realize it, ‘something’ will have already brought you back to action. Artists and creative entrepreneurs often consciously wait for that moment of transition. It also has a name: inspiration. Other people call it: God.

  The best product is not always the product which is sold the most; having a well-written manuscript is not a guarantee for a best seller. Something you may be embarrassed about may be more than acceptable for a customer. Customers have other considerations than suppliers. Why strive for an A when a D-minus is sufficient?

  One way to determine the size of your ego is to become aware of any inner tendencies to get the greatest possible gain for yourself with everything you do. A wonderful indicator is the degree to which you think that the achieved result is due only to your own doings.

  This is a frequently asked question: Can doing business and spirituality be combined? How can I do business as ‘purely’ as possible? The easiest way to apply a whole range of spiritual principles integrated into one action, is a habit that is also applied by many successful multi-nationals: consequently, give 10% of your net profit to a good cause.

  Doing business and spirituality are usually not considered to go hand-in-hand with each other. ‘How do you deal with competition?’ is a frequently heard argument. The answer is simple: Use your God-given talents and beat the competition! But, most of all, try to have fun in what you do and try to accept the end result from the very start.

  Spirituality is a catch-all term with a wide spectrum, ranging from foot reflexology to biodanza. So what is ‘spiritual entrepreneurship’? Where ‘ordinary’ entrepreneurship mainly deals with what a business does, spiritual entrepreneurship is exclusively focused on the questions of how and why you do something, with the company being an account of that.