David Green's Blog: Huffington Post blog about The World of Spies, Wealth Creation & Yoga - Posts Tagged "success"

As we know only too well, during the credit crisis, banks that had passed the rigid stress tests set out by the regulators nearly all went to the wall.
The directors and staff cleaning up the mess are under great pressure to react to the demands of regulators for even stricter controls and to shareholders who want their lost capital back. Stress-related enforced leave is affecting many including Hector Sants, the executive charged to sort out the regulatory problems at Barclays. This hit news last week along with a new international report as featured in The Evening Standard.

We are right to criticise the former bank directors who blindly oversaw what was happening under their noses, especially as 'saying sorry' or 'falling on the sword' with honour is no longer de rigeur. However there comes a point when we need to apply the hardest spiritual teaching of all: 'Hate the sin and not the sinner.' It's too easy to dehumanise politicians and bankers alike and blame them for the actions of a few.

If we do this, we will lose the employees and leaders who are moral, ethical and who care. A strong economy needs strong banks and strong banks need great leaders who rule with love and not the fist of fear.

Stress is an all too common factor in the modern world. The amount of people on anti-depressants, now dished out by doctors like sweets, is staggering. Recent UK government figures tell the story: 50 million prescriptions for antidepressants issued last year.

Meanwhile therapy is still a dark secret with most choosing to suffer in silence so as not to show weakness. As someone who spent his life in finance working 12-14 hour days and often weekends, I have worn the T-shirt. Luckily I was rescued by a magic remedy: Meditation. It changed my life.
Change came to me

I started my career in the once noble profession of merchant banking, traded eurobonds through the 1987 crash and was CEO of a finance house in a serious recession with interest rates at 15% . House prices halved in one year. By the time I hit my thirties, I was completely stressed out. Then, out-of-the-blue, I had a spiritual experience: a healer cured a year-long back problem literally overnight. This stunned me. I was rational but this was not.

Life then changed at a pace - healthy food, meditation, less alcohol and then no alcohol. I was being driven in a new direction - I met dubious 'new age' types who told me that "we are all one", had Dan Brown type of experiences in Egypt and met a 91-year-old guru from India. This guru taught me Kriya Yoga, which in modern day speak is the ancient meditation technique of breath mindfulness, taught to Gandhi and lauded by Steve Jobs.

The master told me that "with sincere practice of Kriya Yoga I could reduce my stress levels and extreme calmness would come in two minutes time!" I was sceptical but decided to believe him and invest just 1% of my hectic day in meditation. It was the best investment I ever made. I was amazed by the result. When stress came now, I had a powerful healthy antidote that actually worked. Meditation gave me an advantage that everyone looking for success is after - more focus, more endurance and drive to achieve their goals.

Be assured I am not a touchy feely new age yogi. I stumbled across meditation and used it to support my career. If it helped a cynic like me it can help you too.

Time to change and bring a spiritual attitude to business leadership
As I meditated more I realised that real success and contentment comes when we are calm and apply the spiritual qualities of love, faith, sacrifice and sincerity in our daily lives.

Having a spiritual attitude in business makes perfect business sense. We all feel good when business is going well - when clients and staff feel loved and wanted, they respond positively. The result is long term sustainable profit and reward for all - spiritually and materially.

Real satisfaction comes if we do business honourably. The line is crossed when greed and naked ambition take over without caring about the consequences.
Of course Gandhi was the original Change consultant, telling us to change ourselves and lead others to change by example.

In India, there was the golden era of Kalinga in 265 BC, when the respected businessman was highly revered and addressed as sadhava on a par with a sadhu or a holy man of the highest esteem. The sadhava carried out business with honour and conscious love and consideration for others.

So can this golden era come again and help overcome this new stress test? Only if we change course. Perhaps meditation breaks will soon become as common as cigarette breaks? Now there's a thought.

David Green's new book, The Invisible Hand: Business, Success & Spirituality, shows how business and spirituality really do go together. www.the-invisiblehand.com

Yoga, India's greatest and most well known export, is relevant to every aspect of life and what hits the news. In Sanskrit, yoga has 32 meanings. These include business, wealth, friendship, union, to deceive, rules, carrying out war and even spying!

The USA is brilliant at wealth creation and has created a $10.3bn industry out of yoga, according to 2012 figures released by Yoga Journal - it is certainly practising one aspect of yoga with excellence.

However the USA doesn't fair so well regarding the yoga of spying. It finds itself in the uncomfortable position of getting caught for allegedly spying on other leaders - allies or not. It's surely naive to believe for one second that they are the only ones at it. As John Lyly the 16th century poet reminded us: "All's fair in love and war." It sometimes makes me wonder if reality is based on James Bond, '24' and The Bourne Supremacy, or the other way around.

Meanwhile in the UK, the yoga of employment is in the news. Should the unemployed do something in return for being supported by the taxpayer? The flat hand is also a mudra from yoga. It means the helping hand. Helping others is our nature but surely those being helped can also contribute to society positively.

As for the yoga of wealth, the judgement of how much it is ethical to earn is constantly discussed even if those rewarded earn their money through hard work, honesty and sacrifice. Somehow celebs and footballers are exempt from criticism compared to those who earn far less and financially assist or employ others.

The next financial crisis in the UK to affect wealth will be about mortgages. Firstly, interest rates will eventually go up bringing a mass of arrears. Secondly, those who knowingly entered into 'interest only' mortgages they could never repay, with or without the collusion of their IFA, will cry foul and find a way to sue the mortgage provider. This is highlighted in the Telegraph which indicates 1 million people will not be able to repay their capital. Even suitability is a meaning of yoga.

Regarding responsibility, what kind of world do we live in when we are told to go to a doctor before going on a diet, but not told to see a doctor before overeating or consuming damaging amounts of alcohol or drugs? Dependence is another meaning of yoga. Have we forgotten how to listen to our own bodies and do what is good for us or do we cover our problems by devoting ourselves to overindulgence which can only mask our hidden misery? Even devotion is another meaning of yoga.
At what point do we as individuals take the rap for our own actions and mistakes? A true yogi will take the pragmatic approach that mistakes are made for correction, never to make the same mistake twice and to learn from the mistakes of others.

And what about the yoga of war? Regarding yoga's meaning to fight, this is the basic meaning of India's foremost scripture the Bhagavad Gita. It is meant to refer to fighting our inner enemies - our negatives and not to manifest these externally. Aggression comes from inside. We cannot be warlike if we are calm inside.

Even in spiritual circles people do battle claiming that their yoga is more authentic than other yogas and that their guru is greater than other gurus. The same battles occur between religions. Yet I am sure that if Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mohammad were having lunch together, there would only be love, respect and admiration for each other. The word religion has a similar meaning to yoga deriving from the Latin word religare which means to join.

So what is the remedy? Remedy is another meaning of yoga. I was lucky enough to have been taught yoga and meditation, by a great Kriya Yoga master from India called Paramahamsa Hariharananda. He told me that life is not a broken dream, to concentrate on my positive qualities and to never give up. He explained that our negative qualities of anger, pride, cruelty, insincerity, jealousy and unhappiness reside in the right hand side of the brain. If these are overactive then they will manifest and override our positives on the left hand side of the brain.

Practice of real yoga promotes our positive qualities and reveals our true nature: to be calm, strong, loving, humble, peaceful and united with others. Fifteen years later I am still practising every day. When I fail I try again.

Which type of yoga are you practising?

David Green is the author of The Invisible Hand: Business, Success & Spirituality. The book shows how meditation helps us to become more successful and content - both materially and spiritually. www.the-invisiblehand.com

Leaders would do well to take a leaf out of Pope Francis’ book on how to be a true leader by actions and not just words. He welcomes the homeless for lunch, shows infinite patience to a child running around while delivering a keynote speech and responds personally to people who contact him. Leadership is about serving others faithfully. This is known as Seva, the Sanskrit word for selfless service.

Bosses have a huge responsibility to be ethical regardless of the pressure to make money. At least that was the old school way of thinking. Good leadership comes from the top; bad leadership comes from reacting to a cacophony of discontentment from taxpayers, clients, staff or shareholders.

Poorly run companies have to be ‘found out’ before admitting to their mistakes. Monopolies and big business continue to overcharge us if they can get away with it and it’s too easy to treat clients and staff with contempt. Sir Mike Rake, President of the CBI, has finally acknowledged that “business is suffering a crisis of confidence and business is seen as the enemy.” But lip service is just not enough. Has proactive leadership become a dying art? It surely has when denial is always the first form of defence. No wonder expressions such as “customer is king” and “my word is my bond” have been sent to the iCloud recycling bin.

One of the problems is that big business and big government rely on consultants who don’t ‘feel’ the clients or staff or look past the numbers. Last month, I found myself on a plane, next to Peter, a Change consultant who according to a recent Harvard Business Review blog, is part of a staggering $400 billion per annum consulting industry which is not properly accountable. I was curious to hear what Peter’s job entailed. He informed me that he was there to make savings and bring change. I asked if that meant he implemented change in a gentle caring way. He laughed. “If the staff don’t like it they can leave. The owners are only interested in their return and not how we achieve it.” I was taken aback. Has big business in the 21st Century really come to t

Going Undercover

Every CEO needs to become an Undercover Boss. CEO’s gain the most knowledge when they come down from the safety of their ivory towers. They soon discover how difficult it is to do business with their company, how well or badly they treat their staff and how hard it is to complain. If on the other hand, leaders and their directors go literally undercover, then such anonymity filters down negatively to their staff, the lifeblood of the company. Why should staff go the extra mile if their leaders do not demonstrate active leadership?

If all else fails, perhaps governments should enshrine in law a Customer Service Charter enforcing CEO’s of PLC’s and monopolies to personally sign off and deal with complaints. If the government wants to be popular, here’s a sure way to achieve it - force CEO’s to experience first hand what the customers are feeling.

Out of darkness comes light

Luckily all is not lost. Even Michael O’Reilly, boss of Ryanair, has supposedly declared a new love for his clients. I have experienced firsthand how annoying the Ryanair website is - it’s a miracle that any of us go back. It’s no mean feat to buy a ticket without including insurance, a lifejacket, a mobile phone or even a new suitcase. I’m not sure why some leaders take so long to recognise that hacking off your clients may not be the smartest way to do business.

Then there’s Malcolm Walker, Chairman of Iceland Foods, featured on the BBC programme ‘Life in the Freezer Cabinet’ . Here’s a boss who leads from the front, who cares less about his own image and more about his staff and clients. He demonstrates that supporting clients and staff is the number one reason for business success. Such leaders make sure that we understand what we are buying and that the product arrives on time and as described. If a problem arises we can talk to a person with knowledge who can help us, rather than a machine or a person that responds like a machine!

Great leaders do not take the blind path of ignorance and are not afraid to do the right thing: To lead by example with conviction, visibility and honour. Albert Einstein remarked: “Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”

It seems that religious leaders and eminent scientists can give valuable lessons to business leaders who need to rediscover the art of leadership.

David Green’s new book, The Invisible Hand: Business, Success & Spirituality illustrates how material success can be achieved with a spiritual attitude.

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The Invisible Hand: Business, Success & Spirituality

It's just not right that a person who works and pays tax, earns less than someone on unemployment benefits. This anomaly was highlighted recently in the Daily Mail when 50 jobs remained unfilled in Worcester where unemployment is high. One potential applicant didn't bother to apply because the government paid him more not to work.

The benefits debate is gathering real momentum in the UK. Should the unemployed do something in return for taxpayer's support? Surely the answer is yes. But if governments condition our unemployed to expect money for nothing, then the result is obvious. There is no incentive to find a job. Any smart person will take money for nothing.

Unemployed people need to be reminded that they are valued, useful and are needed. Everyone is good at something and everyone can contribute. Policymakers need to create the opportunities - not animosity or vacuous promises. Initiatives don't count unless they are delivered. Surely a sense of responsibility needs to be imbued well before young people become unemployed.

Forget the politics, good old fashioned hard work and enthusiasm leads to financial reward, satisfaction and high self esteem. It's the law of karma.

Prince Charles, a great role model for the young, has announced a new scheme called Step Up To Serve which is a call to arms to inspire our youth many of whom are unemployed. Brilliant in principle, but will it be adequately funded to create a meaningful difference to the underlying issue which is really the government's problem to solve? Also, do we ever stop to think that our young people cannot always be blamed for their lack of education and the environment in which they grow up which influences their attitude to work?

Work is Worship

Work ethic alongside education should be gently introduced at a very young age.

I grew up in a family where we were taught that extra pocket money required something in return. My father was self employed, so we were given mundane tasks like stuffing envelopes from a young age and had holiday jobs. This conditioning helped me to realise that with hard work everything was possible - effort and sacrifice puts food on the table. If on the other hand, I had grown up with 'work shy' parents, the odds are that I would have followed that pattern instead.

Getting the best out of young people is also a middle class problem. It's too easy for young adults to ride on the backs of their hardworking parents expecting continued hand outs without breaking sweat. Parents naturally want to help their children, but 'free' money is never as valuable as money earned after a hard day's work.

Some will say that it's not easy for a young person to get a holiday job. Well that just isn't so. Take Christina, a hairdresser from Glasgow. She has raised her son Jack on her own whilst running a business. Her work ethic has rubbed off on him - at just 13 and has shown a talent for cooking. Jack is now being trained by a top chef at weekends who has taken him under his wing because he wants to learn, works hard and displays a good attitude. Surely these are the key ingredients to success. Can you imagine how great a chef he is going to be by the age of 21?

Yoga Could Be The Answer

Yoga is a practical science which can be applied to our lives. It is not just sitting cross-legged chanting OM.

There are three main paths of yoga which prevail in our daily activities:

Karma yoga: The Path of Action - through our actions we can be useful to society in our work;
Jnani yoga: The Path of Wisdom - as we learn and experience more, we become wiser and
Bhakti yoga: The Path of Devotion - through serving and caring, our love, acceptance and tolerance increases for others.

Meanwhile mudras, which are normally represented by symbolic hand gestures, have great significance in daily life also. Many who practise yoga put the forefinger to the thumb but few know the significance. It means bending the ego with humility and surrender. Both governments and the unemployed need to be humble and support each other.

Those who don't work, demonstrate another type of mudra with the flat palm facing upwards. This mudra can represent a plea for help and not just money. Then there is the mudra of putting two hands together, normally when welcoming someone, which signifies the symbol of unity. In this context the government should be signalling togetherness with the unemployed - we will help you but you need to help yourselves by helping others.

Policymakers need to be mindful of the unemployed by introducing properly funded schemes and education while showing proper respect to the employed.

Values need to be instilled and nurtured by example and not force fed. Future generations will then never expect something for nothing again.

David Green is a retired entrepreneur, experienced practitioner of Kriya Yoga and is the author of a new book, The Invisible Hand: Business, Success & Spirituality, which shows that material success and spiritual success are bound together. www.the-invisiblehand.com

Book Review extract:

"I was given this book to read and review. I enjoyed it very much. I have come across many self-help and life change books before but, this book seems different in that it feels very honest and truthful.

The pace is good and the use of language is straightforward which makes it a very comfortable read. This is not a book about giving up material wealth for spiritualism, it in fact illustrates how a more spiritual way of life can improve all aspects of living, including wealth.

Being a recent convert to daily meditation, I can wholly connect with the writer's experience of finding out more about the inner self and our strengths. The discipline of regular meditation according to David Green has given him an understanding of love and happiness and success.

This is not a religious book and you do not feel preached to but the writer believes that faith in our own abilities, rather than faith in external powers, plays a large part in the help and love arriving from the Invisible Hand. One passage stays with me: "Meditation is the superfood for the mind. This superfood calms my mind and I worry less."

I would be happy to recommend this book as an inspiring read."
Rating: 8.5/10

J A Skinner

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"Be fearless and tearless; be cheerful and not fearful. Everything is possible for the sincere seeker who prays and meditates."

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