Start from a Green Mind
Setting free their spirituality in life, entrepreneurs' green minds are the premise for companies to turn green.
Many successful Chinese entrepreneurs today have nearly stopped complaining, since it does nothing but create negative energy. Complainers easily found themselves frustrated or even self-destructive. Many entrepreneurs used to suffer from this quite a bit.
Energy will not have vanished, but transferred. For these successful entrepreneurs, where has their whining energy gone? They have found their outlet-playing golf, mountain climbing, white-water rafting, and etc. The negative energy is transferred. Otherwise, the entrepreneur would have already failed at the mid-point.
However, much of the negative energy is not transferred, but repressed. In this scenario, entrepreneurs are still burdened. When the accumulated negative energy reaches one's utmost limit, it is natural for one to fall apart. Only by using one's spiritual power can the problem be solved.
Ten years ago, I started to systematically study Western mainstream psychology while practicing Inner Canon of Yellow Emperor. During this process, I found that if businessmen failed to overcome mental barriers or if their hearts were not natural, the discomfort would be carved into their products as well as into the business environment and social network. Therefore, Chinese companies' turning green must start from entrepreneurs' minds, setting free their spirituality.
"It's my problem"
Over the years, my company has really integrated a human-oriented management style. Employees are respected even to the extent that a nap is allowed during meetings. Now I found we have gone too far, resulting in a lack of discipline and an inability to execution. I am worried about it. If it was 10 years ago, the uncontrollable negative power in my body would come out all of a sudden and I probably would yell at my subordinates, "It's all because of you. We've got such a horrible outcome." I couldn't calm down in the past because the feeling of dissatisfaction was too powerful to control. The unconscious criticism caused discontent and hurt both others and myself. The whole team became petrified as a result. What would you expect the employees to do if their boss was out of control?
But now, I will first communicate with our CEO over the phone, telling him my concerns and providing him with my solutions to the problem. He will then pass my words to other staff members. I just need to read the meeting notes one week later. I can now convert my negative emotions into positive energy at work.
The study of psychology makes me understand that complainers arise out of discontent, and most of us regard others to be the reasons for discontent. It is "your" fault that makes me unsatisfied, and then I complain.
But whose problem is it, really? It's mine. One example is my uneasy feeling when I see my son playing soccer at home. I worry that he will break the furniture. But actually there's nothing wrong with my son's mind, only his objective behavior is against my will. Therefore, it's my problem. Likewise, managers and subordinates have contributed a lot. There's nothing wrong with their minds. It is me who pushed a human-oriented management style too far and who gave out orders. It is the outcome of their behaviors that didn't meet my expectation. Who is responsible for the problem? Of course I am.
Express yourself with "I feel"
The key is for you to assume the responsibility. If you want others to take responsibility, the destructive power generated in yourself will break out and will eventually lead to the criticizing of others; if you take responsibility, the negative power will be kept inside and drive you to seek solutions.
You must cultivate a power in your body, expressing what you're feeling directly with "I feel": I feel anxious when the execution fails to fulfill my expectation; I feel angry and upset when the requirements in the meeting early this year are not implemented immediately. I can even pound the table, but just to convey what I feel.
In this way, your emotions won't be so devastating that it threatens or hurts others. Employees often project their boss as their parents. No child will stand still when his parents are in trouble. As a result, understanding and sympathy are generated. Complaint and expression with "I feel" are two ways of "emotional release." One drags you into mire, the other calms you down.
In this sense, sincerity is quite important. No disguise, no pressure. Express a real self and comforts will come along.
The floating moderation
After scrutinizing yourself, you should know the reason for a person's success or failure. This is related to "methodology," or "Taoism," in the universe. Many factors contribute to how far you will go in the end: Genes, past experiences, future opportunities, etc. On one hand, there's nothing but exhaustions, and maybe sometimes discomforts. But you can never stop. You must move forward.
Everyone's exhaustion shows itself deliberately. It should be shown naturally, but we can't make it that way. I am not talking about fatalism. Actually, if it's yours, you will get it anyway. If it's not yours, no matter what you won't get it. If you behave in a natural way, yours will still be yours. It is just this simple. This is my understanding about "Taoism"- everything follows nature.
However, there's something wrong in our time. Everything is deliberate, or unnatural. We work deliberately, we build our network deliberately, and we're deliberately being healthy. We do everything deliberately, even love and hate. Eventually, we drift apart from nature.
Once in a flood, an old monk carried a girl who was trapped on a bridge to a safe place. Another younger monk saw and was confused, and eventually couldn't help asking the old monk, "Master, you said before that we couldn't get close to any woman. How come you were so close to that girl just now?" The old monk was stunned. "Was I? I think it's you who still keeps the girl in mind. I've already left it behind." What this story tells is that if you just do what you need to do at the moment, there will be no fear or unease.
There is always another voice hovering in our mind when we are doing something-"What should I really do?" What we think always conflicts with how we act. However, if we immerse ourselves into what we should do, we can then do what we want to do, and thereby harmony between body and mind can be achieved.
From knowing to doing is a natural but not deliberate process. The most brilliant part in Chinese philosophy is the "floating moderation," in which "moderation" is not finding a certain point in the middle but a feeling in a natural flow between margins. Developing a career is like practicing Taoism. The highest state of the practice is to achieve "Tai chi in action and harmony in mind." Every entrepreneur should enjoy the beauty of life and sublimate their spirit during the process of practice.
