Soul Over Matter. Zhi Gang Sha

       3

       Karmic Life and Business

      WE TEND TO look at the world as made up of competitors. At work we compete for promotions, budgets, resources, and the ever-vaunted corner office. In business we compete for profits, attention, customers, contracts, and market share. Even in our home life, we compete for everything from the opportunity to be heard to the choice of where our next vacation will be.

      It’s no surprise that this is the case—after all, it’s how we were raised. From an early age we were taught to win in sports, to “wrestle” with siblings for attention, and to strive for grades with our classmates. We’ve been programmed from day one to compete.

      At the root, however, competition is fundamentally about scarcity. In fact, scarcity is the only way that competition can exist at all. If we saw everything as limitless, there would be no need to compete at all—the idea itself would seem absurd. But we haven’t been programmed that way, and the result is that in everything from our home to our office, we inevitably build an us-versus-them competitive mind-set.

      In the book Karmic Management, authors Geshe Michael Roach, Lama Christie McNally, and Michael Gordon turn this idea on its head, arguing that we should see everyone as our “karmic business partners,” with our highest goal being not to ensure that we are successful, but that they are.

      In this model, you look to collaborate, not compete. If you’re in the microwave oven business, you don’t try to corner the market, undercut the competition, or win the war for search engine results. Instead, you root for your competitors; you wish them well and even buy their products. You don’t beat your vendors down on price; rather, you work with them collaboratively to find a way to ensure that they succeed. You don’t try to squeeze the most work per dollar from an employee; instead, you work to make him or her as successful as possible so that the productivity will flow back to you.

      You don’t need to be an entrepreneur to reap the benefits of karmic management. As an employee, you can see your peers as karmic partners, too, not corner office competitors. You can help them get the promotions, the raises, and the kudos, and discover the wonder of watching it come back to you in turn.

      If this sounds like “You get what you give” or “Do unto others,” you’re right. It is. But it’s also more than that. Karma in life is about eliminating fear by acknowledging the abundance in the world and finally seeing the divine in everyone and everything around you.

      A great example of how giving benefits the giver is Google, which in 2011 built physical community hubs or coworking spaces called campuses, where entrepreneurs come to learn, share ideas, and launch start-ups.

      Google also supports and reaches out to minority-owned businesses to join its Accelerate with Google Academy, a free twelve-week program aimed at small-business owners who are looking to take their marketing to the next level and significantly grow their revenues using online advertising.

      In a case of helping others to help themselves, Google shows businesses how to create website landing pages, manage Google AdWords to advertise their business, and manage marketing campaigns. The program is beneficial to businesses as well as to Google: More businesses using Google’s services gives the search company more data to mine and helps it provide more granular data to people who are searching for businesses.

      Here are six examples of things you can do to help others, your business, and yourself at the same time.

      1. Connect with like-minded businesses. By joining forces, small businesses can achieve economies of scale and have a presence that can compete with larger corporations. There is power in the collective, and businesses can harness the power of community to move forward.

      2. Participate in your local chamber of commerce events, Meetup. com, and similar networks for interested parties in your area. Build a strong Twitter network so you can organize a tweetup to leverage that network into an even more powerful experience through face-to-face networking.

      3. Join a social network or virtual group for like-minded small business owners to exchange advice, get support, build partnerships, find help, and more. For example, join Entrepreneur Connect, part of the Entrepreneur Network and Entrepreneur.com.

      4. Build informal alliances with like-minded companies. Reach out to other companies who share your views on customer service, business, product development, etc. Start with simple steps like swapping guest posts or sharing online communities.

      5. Create a “support small business” mind-set in your own company. Support your local economies by shopping at independently owned brick-and-mortar businesses. You can adopt a similar mind-set at your own business. Analyze your current vendors and service providers for opportunities to “downsize.” Are there any places where you could be supporting a small business—virtual or physical?

      6. American Express Open Forum online (https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/8-ways-small-businesses-help-communities-1/) is a great resource for small- and medium-sized businesses to help each other and to be visible to a much larger audience nationally and globally.