Incorporating Buddhist Wisdom for a More Mindful Business

Well, hey there, and welcome back to the Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast. Today's solo episode is going to be a little different than what you're accustomed to hearing from me, because today, we're going to talk about my philosophy of life, which is Buddhism, and how I apply it to my business. I really didn't think that there would ever be a reason for me to talk about this on the podcast, or frankly, to even talk about it with any of my clients. But over time, I've realized when I occasionally make reference to the fact that I'm Buddhist, or I might use terminology that the person recognizes as Buddhist in origin, people are often very curious about it. I mean, if you've seen a picture of me, than you know that I'm probably not what you picture when you think of a Buddhist and so people are curious.

They want to know, have you always been a Buddhist? Were you raised Buddhist? Or did you appropriate the religion later on in your life? What were the circumstances? Did you used to have a different religion before Buddhism? Why did you change? Why do you like Buddhism and so on and so on. So I realized, you know, a lot of people are curious and they wonder Is Buddhism something that's just completely separate in the personal part of my life? Or does it influence the way I think as a business owner, a coach, a consultant, and a mentor and the answer is yes, yes, yes. Preparing for this episode really has helped me understand the degree to which it really does influence my thinking.

So I decided to share this with you, and I invite you to express your thoughts and opinions about it, what insights you might have, what questions you might have after listening. And I would love to open up a dialogue because something I've discovered is once people understand what Buddhism actually is, they're often curious to know more. So I'm gonna open up with this, first and foremost, I draw the distinction between what I might call Buddhism as religion, and Buddhism as practice or philosophy. I have officially gone through a ceremony where I have become Buddhist, I did this many years ago. I acquired a new name, they chopped off a piece of my hair and burned it and it was a lovely, lovely ritual. So I am technically and officially, by virtue of ritual and conversion, a Buddhist.

It's also my religion of record on the hospital and with advanced directives and things like that. It's my wishes for when this life comes to an end, how I choose to leave it, and what kind of rituals are performed at that time. But for all intents and purposes, I really think of Buddhism as more my philosophy and the way I approach life. Many people have questions about, well, don't you have to be celibate, and I noticed that you eat meat. And I actually had someone asked me once, are you sure you're Buddhist because you kinda swear a lot as though swearing is anti Buddhist. And I will say not every Buddhist is a monk or a nun, not every Buddhist is actively on the path of ascension and attempting to exit the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. And not everyone considers themselves a bodhisattva or someone who's attempting to lead others in the way.

I think of Buddhism as the most sane, practical way for me to live my life. It has brought the most contentment, and joy, and peace of mind for me, but I'm not out converting other Buddhists. I'm not trying to get anyone to embrace it or even consider it. I am merely here to answer questions that people may have about how I approach Buddhism, how it is helpful to me and how I actually use it in my business. So I'm just gonna say, you probably should think of me more as a secular Buddhist than as a religious Buddhist. That being said, I do have lots of Buddhist statues around my home, including two life size marble statues outside of our home, 1 is a standing Buddha, 1 is a sitting Buddha.

My husband's been most gracious to allow these Buddhas to share our home environment with us because this is not his faith tradition or path. But we do have two lovely Buddha statues outside our home. We have a smattering of them throughout the home, and I do have a small shrine but I still don't consider myself religious in terms of Buddhism. When I see the statues, they remind me of why I chose this path. So I'm gonna give you some basic level Buddhism and make it as appropriate for business owners as I possibly can because I know that's who's primarily listening to this podcast. So the number one thing that defines Buddhism is what Buddhist believe about the causes of suffering. It is considered the 4 noble truths that human beings suffer when they're born.

They suffer when they die, they suffer through the process of aging, and they suffer through the process of sickness. And regardless of the length of the human life, we're born, we age, we get sick and we die. Some of us don't age, some of us die young so the understanding that to be born human is to be born into a body which is going to fail you and going to decrease in its function, and will wither, and your life will come to an end, and that is a cause of both pain and suffering. However, what's really important to me about Buddhism and what makes it really, really important and applicable to how I do business and how I help other business owners as a coach and a mentor is I believe there's a lot we can do about what's called unnecessary suffering.

I mean, there are things we can do about the pain that we suffer when we're born. There are things we can do medically, pharmaceutically, about the pain we suffer through illness and aging and death. But unnecessary suffering, that is more of a mental thing and suffering, in the way I look at it, not to be esoteric, but really, really practical, there's pain, there's suffering, and there's unnecessary suffering. The unnecessary suffering is something we can do something about by being mindful, by being intentional, by being thoughtful, and by exercising more skillful deliberate actions. The way I like to think about unnecessary suffering is to break it down into 2 types. Not getting what we want makes us suffer because we all want what we want whether we're a little kid who wants the last cookie in the jar and we're told, no. We're having dinner in an hour. You've had enough. That child feels suffering.

There's also the suffering that comes from getting what we don't want. We might get broken up with, we might get passed over for a promotion. We might not land a contract that we were sure was in the bag. We might not get the partner that we seek. Our children may not turn out the way we imagined they would. So, so much of practical, secular Buddhism for me is being really mindful and aware of my expectations. I want what I want, and I don't want what I don't want and that makes me exactly like every other human. However, because I am a practicing Buddhist, I try to be really aware that when I'm experiencing strong emotions, emotions of anger, emotions of resentment, emotions of Disappointment, frustration.

Where are those emotions coming from? They're coming from thoughts, those negative emotions are coming as a result of thoughts. What are the thoughts? When I dig down just a little bit deeper. The thoughts are oftentimes, that was absolutely supposed to be mine, I had that in the bag. That client should have signed up with me, I should have gotten that gig. So when we start thinking what we expect, not necessarily title too, but sometimes that's part of our makeup too. We're talking about our ego, our ego tells us that if we want it, we should have it. And there are many popular new age and self help gurus who teach manifestation and kind of give people the impression that if you want it, it's coming your way. You wouldn't want it if it wasn't meant for you. So if you want it, that means it's intended for you, and all you need to do is send a clear message to the universe to direct that thing, whatever it is, to you.

I don't think that way, that is not how I work with the world. I prefer to think that I want to receive what's happening in my life moment to moment with an open hand. Yes. I have dreams, wishes, wants, preferences, and priorities. I set goals and I take action toward those goals. How I deal with disappointment. How I deal with things not going the way I expect. How I deal with mistakes, how I deal with failure, how I deal with things not working out in the way that I wanted them to, that's where my practice comes in. Fundamentally, we can save ourselves so much unnecessary suffering by thinking in a more neutral way. It's okay to want what we want. It's to be human is to want, it's our nature. But what do we do when we don't get it? Do we have an adult tantrum? Do we become enraged? Do we become depressed?

When someone tells us, no, they're not going to hire us, they decided to hire someone else, do we go into a spiral of self loathing and rejection sensitive dysphoria? Or can we except the reality of our circumstances, feel our feels, and release them. I've never been fishing in my life, but I like the fishing term, catch and release. I often try to manage my own emotions in that way. If I'm caught by my emotions, because I didn't get something I wanted. Or I got something I didn't want like a nightmare client that I had to fire and refund. I'm not going to tell you that I don't experience any emotions, because I most certainly do. I do not indulge them excessively. I hold space for myself to feel the feels.

I will typically do a little bit of writing practice if the thoughts behind those feelings is not evident to me. I always want to get to the thoughts that are driving the underlying feelings, so that I can transform the way I feel by intentionally changing the way I think. One of the reasons why Buddhism was so appealing to me is because it resonated really well with my background as a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist. I had been helping people for years to feel better and function better by changing their thoughts intentionally. When I started learning about Buddhism, the causes of suffering, the causes of unnecessary suffering, meaning the thoughts we're having that things should be different than they are. It became easier to me to start learning that I can't necessarily stop my automatic thoughts, especially the ones I've been having for decades. I still have them.

My first thoughts about myself when something goes wrong is, oh shit, you fucked up. That will probably always be my first thought, but I no longer feel any way about that if that's my first thought, and I recognize it's just a habit. That thought is just a habit, and my brain just keeps serving up that thought automatically, because there's a neural pathway dedicated to maintaining that thought. It doesn't make it true, and I don't need to have the negative feelings that I used to have, when that thought would arise in my mind. I can literally observe that thought and all negative thoughts, with kind of like I'm seeing them on a TV screen in front of my mind. Yes, I have a feeling about it but I can so much more readily manage that feeling, and address it.

Sometimes I screw up with my team, of course, my first thought is well that's awkward, that's embarrassing, you look bad to these people that you're supposed to be leading. It's okay if that's the first thought that I have, I'm not going to try to yank out all my neural pathway. Some of them have been in there for a really long time, longer than you've probably been alive, but I don't have to let them take me down that path. So a lot of what I bring to the way I run my business, the way I help my clients, and the way I just kind of go through the ups and downs of being a solopreneur is to try to approach things mindfully. Now, if you've never learned mindfulness practice, by now you've heard of it, everyone's heard of it, but most people don't really know.

It's actually quite simple. If you want to practice mindfulness in your business, it only requires 3 things. Be open to what's actually happening, don't fight with reality. You will never win. Never and that's the cause of unnecessary suffering. Except reality, just be open to it. Whatever's happening, you had a launch and you didn't get the sign ups that you wanted, that's what's happening. Be open to it. Be curious about why what's happening is happening. Well, that's interesting because I hired a launch consultant, and I ran ads to a tested post, and this should have produced a different result. That's really interesting. I'm curious about that. I wonder what we might need to tweak or do differently. And the 3rd aspect is non-judgmentalism.

So going with the launch analysis analogy, open to what is. We don't have to be fearful about the outcome of the launch. We can just receive it on face value. Be curious about why it didn't go as well as expected, or why it went significantly better than we expected, because you want to know how that happened just as well. And the most important part is being non judgmental toward yourself, toward your team, toward the people who didn't sign up when you thought they would, towards any consultants or contractors that you hired to assist you toward the Facebook algorithm or how they keep changing ads? I'm not saying you should be passive and lie down and take your licks, that's not it at all.

But we cannot be mindful, strategic, thoughtful, practical, skillful business owners making good decisions if we are caught up in unnecessary drama and unnecessary suffering that is self imposed. Now, does this require a certain amount of self awareness? Yes it does. It does and it requires a certain amount of introspection. I mean, we kind of do have to be willing to look at our thoughts and our emotions and our behaviors, but I would hope that we're willing to do that anyway, for no better reason than being self employed is hard. We have to make so many decisions and oftentimes, we're making them in isolation with nobody to guide us and we're just hoping that we're making the right ones. So in my mind, any possible way that we can reduce unnecessary suffering, be more mindful, be more skillful, and handle what happens in our business with equanimity, which means kind of in a very balanced way. Where we're not thinking this is a good outcome, and that is about bad outcome. This was a great launch, and that launch sucked. But just an open, curious, non judgmental way.

Believe it or not, you won't be less successful. Some people might think you would, because it almost the way some people hear this is Oh, well you're basically saying I should just like not care, and just like accept whatever happens and be like, whatever. No, you're not hearing me, if that's what you're thinking. What I'm saying is, we can take a lot of the unnecessary suffering out of our self employment by being more skillful with our own thoughts and emotions. I'm going to pump the brakes now for just a minute, because I realize this is a lot to take in and I have a few more things that I want to share with you. But I want to take a quick little break for this announcement.

Okay, we've been talking about unnecessary suffering. We've been talking about approaching business in a mindful way. I want to tell you a few more things about why Buddhism has been so helpful to me in my 12 plus years as a solopreneur and how it informs the way I help my clients. There's a concept in Buddhism called Right Action, and there's another complementary concept which is skillful means. Now, a lot of people talk about trying to be ethical business owners, ethical marketers, working with integrity because there let's face it, there's a lot of people out there that are running all kinds of scams and running all kinds of grifting and really duping a lot of people with a lot of shiny objects that really don't pan out.

So right action and skillful means are applying empathy and compassion in the way you do business, kind of like to how the Christians think of the Golden Rule. We treat other people in the same way that we wish to be treated, that is right action. If you do that, you are naturally acting with integrity and ethics, aren't you? You're basically treating people the way you want to be treated. So how that might look is, instead of focusing so much on your podcast downloads, or your social media followers, or how many of your leads convert to clients and there's nothing wrong with any of that. So please understand there are human beings behind every single one of those numbers. Every single download of this podcast is a human being who's taking their time and attention away from any number of other things, and giving it to me.

I don't take that lightly, that is an honor for me. As is any person who decides to sign up for my newsletter, and allow me to show up in their inbox every week, or follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram, or decide to work with me in some fashion. This is an exchange of value, that is very, very satisfying to me and I aim to do it in a skillful way using Right Action. What is Right Action? It's delivering value that's equal to the value the person is giving me, their money and their time. And on the subject of money, I feel like I do need to pause briefly and say this, because just like when someone once said to me, are you sure you're Buddhist, you sure swear a lot. Which I was able to, not laugh out loud, but it did strike me as funny. You know, Buddhists do not say money is evil or money is the root of all evil, as some Christian denominations do.

The Buddhist attitude towards money is that it's neutral. The Buddha taught that money is neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but it can take on the good or bad qualities depending on how we use it. So you can have a very, very healthy relationship with money, or you can have an unhealthy relationship with money. Greed is considered unhealthy. Contentment is considered healthy. Now do I take a vow of poverty as a Buddhist business owner, I do not. I believe that there's nothing wrong with me earning a good living, provided I am being of service and delivering genuine value to the people who work with me. So I think this is a concept that's really really important. I do not seek to be rich. I do not seek to be famous. I do not feel the need for those things, my ego does not require them.

Do I want to make a comfortable living for myself, based on using my gifts and attributes, my skill and talent, my wisdom and experience in service to other people who want what I have to offer? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. A couple of other things that I think are really important is non attachment. Non attachment to thoughts allows us to be in business without worrying so much about whether we're keeping up with other people, whether we are growing fast enough, whether we are quote unquote where we should be, whether we are making the best use of the attributes that we have. Are we getting our money's worth out of the programs, products and services that we've invested in? Those thoughts cause a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Now I'm not saying we don't need to succeed, because unless you are running a non for profit or a charity, you do need to have some evidence that you are doing the right things, as evidenced by revenue and profit. But all of the comparisons to what other business owners are doing, cause unnecessary suffering and I can be prone to this too. I love being in groups because I love the camaraderie. I love networking with other small business owners. I love the group support and even just a little bit of friendly competition. But if I allow myself to get too focused on how fast someone else is growing, or how big their audience is, or how much more successful they appear to be with fewer years in business than me. I have brought upon myself a level of unnecessary suffering that does nothing for my well-being or my mental health, and it does nothing for my business. That is my responsibility to manage.

Practicing non attachment also means that I can not only allow myself to have good months and bad months, episodes that get a lot of downloads, and episodes that get fewer. Some of my consultations result in clients that I love working with, and sometimes someone I thought was a great fit and was really eager to work with me, inexplicably falls through the cracks. How do I manage those disappointments without coming to the conclusion that I suck. I don't know what I'm doing. My business is heading for the toilet. I don't have what it takes and so on and so on and so on. Well, it's being mindful, open, curious, non judgmental and recognizing I have far less control over myself and other people than I think I would like. I think I would be happier if things would just go the way I want them to. If I would just get what I want all the time, and if I would never get what I don't want, I think I would be happier. But you know, I've had enough years on this planet to know that's not actually true. It's not actually true.

Now you may not think of that as a Buddhist philosophy for business. You might think of that as just being practical and resilient and resourceful. You may think of that as having a growth mindset. It doesn't matter what we call it, what matters is that we allow the fact that we are business owners to transform us as human beings. I've said this before. I kind of wish I was the person who originated it, but I know I'm not. I'm just repeating it, being self employed, being a soloist, being a small business owner or solopreneur, is one of the best ways I know to develop yourself as a person. The level of discipline, the level of emotional management, the decision making, the resourcefulness, the resilience, the willingness to be of service, the willingness to delay gratification, the willingness to try and fail and try again that develops you so much as a human being in ways that I imagine it might be much harder to develop through another occupational path, I don't know.

This is the one I've been on for the last almost 14 years actually. I said 12 before, but it's actually closer to 14. So I want to leave you with this thought, how can what I've shared today help you in your business. Like I said before, I'm not an evangelist for Buddhism. You don't need to change your religion, but you might want to appropriate something that I've shared today. Could it be the concept of reducing unnecessary suffering in your business? And practically speaking, maybe the way you do that is stop paying attention to your competitors so closely. Do that. If the way you want to incorporate something I've said today is to be more mindful in your business by approaching the decisions that you make and the outcomes of the actions that you take with openness, curiosity and lack of judgment. Or do you want to change the way you think about money, so that it doesn't feel like it has a stranglehold on your self esteem.

It's simply a tool. It's neither bad or good. Maybe you don't have a money mindset problem. Maybe you don't have a scarcity problem. Maybe you just need to think about money in a different way, so that it feels more grace and ease as it comes and goes in your business and life. I don't know what's best for you, but I bet if you spend a moment or two contemplating it, you will. And as always, if you'd like to know more about this topic or want to suggest another topic that you would love to hear me talk about on The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast, there's a link in the show notes and several different ways that you can let me know. That's all for now, in the meantime, stay driven!