Business with Heart

Today my friend Donny shared a quote his mother had on their wall growing up and I find myself unable to stop thinking about this.

“It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince

For my friends with meditation practices, they have learned, or would say they are always in the process of learning this truth. The truth that what is inside of us is more important to be tuned in with than what is external. That finding what matters in life can be found in our heart and the hearts of others, and this is not logical but is true; that not being deceived by surface-level characteristics but instead looking more deeply using more than just our eyes to see matters. We have all had to have immensely difficult and very human conversations with our families and life partners, teams and colleagues, supplier partners and clients, possibly more so than you can remember in your recent history as we struggle through isolation, and unimaginable external pressures. In business, we have likely all found there are conversations, or sometimes dictates from above that feel as if they are delivered without heart, a disassociation, using the contract and employment laws to deliver news that is tough to hear.

We all have also likely had very human conversations with business partners who understand we still need to get to the same end, but we can do it with empathy and kindness, knowing there is a very good chance when we get to the other side of this our roles and interactions will be forever altered, and we have one moment to get through this in a way that causes less pain. As we navigate our way out of this Covid-19 crisis, how will you be looking differently at the people we work with and work for, and how will you seek to become the best partner?

How will you incorporate mindfulness into your life – building in time and making the effort to see not just the tree, but the root system that brings it life? Not just the building, but the infrastructure including the people that bring it alive? Not just the business and its processes, but the people who commit to its success one small, thoughtful task at a time. Not just the title, but the person? Now is as good a time as we will ever get to not only consider new processes and strategies but also how we create human-to-human interactions that bring us joy.