Here is a newly released excerpt from ONO.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  Read it and let me know what you think.  Also, don't forget to mark your calendars, ONO releases on April 22.

Spirituality in Business

I am only in control of two things: my choices and my behaviors.

Spirituality is a touchy subject because so many of us, in one way or another, have been “spiritually abused” at some point in our lives. What I mean by that is that many of us have been shunned, or threatened, or have had religion shoved down our throats. I can relate. Because of that, I want to be clear that I have no personal stake in trying to get you to think the way I do spiritually. My intention is to tell you about how my spirituality has kept me serene and kept me learning while I had fun in business. It’s not a prescription; it is merely one person’s story.

My spirituality came from being a recovering alcoholic. I got sober in 1992. I learned through Alcoholics Anonymous to call on a power greater than myself to overcome my addiction and get my life moving in the right direction. I chose to call my Higher Power, “God.” I knew I needed God to help me do something I couldn’t do for myself.

Here’s a fact that may startle you: only twenty percent of alcoholics take part in the AA program and only two percent die sober. For me, understanding that I had to fully surrender to God’s will made the difference between living and dying.

Control

A full surrender to God’s will means giving up the illusion of being in control of one’s own life. This was a complex thought for me to grasp. Like most recovering alcoholics, I had great difficulty telling the difference between things I could control and things I couldn’t.

Aspects of the economy, business systems, and the natural laws of business are uncontrollable, unpredictable, and even whimsical. If I told you that your business life would to be all cream and roses, I'd be lying. Most of us are told how to do things throughout our entire lives. We are told that if we think like the masses and follow certain steps, we can control our results and guarantee success. Then we jump into the business world without learning how to think for ourselves. More often than not, we get our tails kicked once and run away from the business world never to return.

However, when a person learns how to think in business, especially how to think spiritually in business, he or she may get a tail kicking, but will have the tools and understanding to make peace with it, learn from it, and move on to the next evolution. By making peace with results, good or bad, and knowing God as a loving entity is giving us the opportunity to learn, we can take greater strides than those people who are still trying to control results.

I obtained a great piece of wisdom one day from an ex-heroin addict who had achieved long-term sobriety. He was a scary looking guy. Had I not known him, and had I seen him coming down the street, I would have crossed the road just to stay away from him. He was very rough on the outside, but as I found out, he was kind and wise on the inside. Had I judged this man by his appearance, I would have missed something very important.

The man told me, “I am only in control of a couple things, and those are my choices and behaviors; everything else is up to my Higher Power.” I had read and heard that before but never realized how simple and powerful that statement actually was.

It stunned me to realize that all I needed to worry about was my own behavior. I had always understood that it was my responsibility to do the footwork, the due diligence, and then to implement the knowledge and wisdom I gained through the AA program, but up to that point I had also been trying to control the results. When I heard his words, I experienced a transitional moment, a life changing, “Aha.” It suddenly became very clear to me that I really had no control over the results. They were in the hands of God, my Higher Power.

I found peace in finally realizing this. From that point onward, I worked very hard to do my own footwork in life, but leave the results up to God. I implemented this insight in my business life, my spiritual life and my personal life and developed strategies that have allowed me to be “sober” in those three aspects of my life and to maintain my serenity.

As a spiritual man, when I look at a business equation, I know that I’m responsible for putting up the money, making decisions, marketing, and sales. I have to put the infrastructure in place. I have to employ the right people. All of these different things come with building and maintaining a functional business.

I’m responsible for all of the prep work, but the results of that effort are out of my hands. I could do everything right and it could turn out wonderfully, but as life has reminded me several times, it could still turn out to be a train wreck. The key to success is not worrying about a potential train wreck, it’s being prepared for, learning from, and moving on from either success or the train wreck, whichever happens. That’s serenity.

Shame

The fact is, being invested in the results of a business venture can hurt you. When you think that you can control results, you open the door to poor business decisions, wasted time, energy and money. To make matters worse, if you haven’t learned to let go and find serenity in both success and failure, you can be devastated by such defeats.

It’s natural to be embarrassed when something doesn’t go as planned, but holding onto shame and using it as an excuse to beat yourself up is counterproductive. When you feel shame, understand and accept what you’re feeling, and then move on. Don’t dwell on it. Learn from your mistakes and be thankful for having new wisdom that takes you to the next opportunity. Use this process to release the shame and move on toward success with serenity.

When you’re locked up in shame, you can’t see a way to move through it. So, the natural choice is to stop and not make another move. This is not the mindset of successful entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs look at failure as an opportunity to learn from mistakes. They move forward with new information and a new plan.

My personal serenity is one of my most valuable assets. I couldn’t pay enough for it. In fact, it is beyond any monetary value. I would give up every penny of the financial success I’ve ever had to keep my serenity. It gives me long-term security in my business ventures whether they are successful or not. It also prevents bringing negativity back home with me.

As a Family First Entrepreneur, I refuse to allow my ability to discern between what I can or can’t control to affect the quality of my time with my children or my wife. A person in business who does not have serenity is, in my opinion, like a bucket with a hole in it. It doesn’t matter how much you fill that bucket up, if it has a hole in the bottom, it will eventually be empty. Serenity in business keeps your bucket full and keeps you on track.

Be Moral and Ethical

A large part of spirituality in business is making sure that all of your actions fall within the parameters of the highest moral and ethical standards. When profitability gets in the way of ethics, it is only a matter of time before a business blows up and goes under. If you keep your moral and ethical standards high, you’ll attract a long list of people waiting to do business with you because they know they can count on your integrity. That simple fact alone is worth a fortune.

AA taught me the importance of being “service minded.” As an alcoholic, I had developed selfish and self-centered attitudes; it is the nature of the disease. As I found my spirituality, I learned to adopt the mindset of service in both my personal life and business life. Now I consider ways I can “under-promise and over-produce.”

A business must be operated to provide service rather than personal fulfillment. If your first thought is, “How can I help?” and your second thought is, “How can I make a profit?” you’re coming from the right place. A business based on substandard moral and ethical considerations will always reach a point of vulnerability, at which point it must change and grow. If it continues to be self-serving at the expense of its customers, it will collapse.

Developing a healthy spiritual life will not only affect your chances of succeeding in business, but also your ability to maintain serenity and balance, which is what I believe it’s all about. The road to ONO is not always going to be easy.

Now, I’m a realist. I know there are businesspeople out there that do not have a relationship with a Higher Power, and I’m not invested in converting anyone to my point of view. But for any entrepreneur, accepting responsibility for our own choices and behaviors and giving up the illusion of being able to control the outcome of every venture makes good business sense.

Operating morally and ethically is not only the right approach; it’s also the only way to stay in business long-term. Do your footwork, do your due diligence and then let go of the results. Let the chips fall where they may. Be serene, trust that you have done your part, and be thankful for the lessons.