[Music]
we live in a world of extraordinary
unbearable almost unimaginable suffering
alongside all the joy and beauty of
course that exists in the world but did
you know that today 29,000 children
under the age of five will die from
preventable causes that 91 Americans
will die today from opioid overdoses
adding to the half million that have
died since 2000 that 40 million of our
fellow Americans over the age of 18
suffer from debilitating anxiety you
know we’re living actually in the most
peaceful time in human history when it
comes to physical violence fewer people
are being killed by murderers by in Wars
even by terrorists there’s less domestic
violence there’s less bullying all of
that is wonderful but the amount of
psychic suffering is rising suicide
rates in this country have risen 24% in
the last 15 years and a lot of this has
to do with how we lead our lives and how
we work that’s what I want to explore
with you today but when there is so much
suffering in the world how can we not
each of us at some level define our
personal purpose as in some way
alleviating some of that suffering in
our span of care and bringing joy
elevating joy alleviating suffering and
can we do that as individuals can we do
that as organizations it doesn’t matter
what you do you have an impact where you
can alleviate suffering and bring more
joy and that needs to be our Metta
purpose I believe consciously chosen
because if we do not consciously choose
to be part of the healing we are
probably inadvertently part of the
hurting you know they say that you will
see it when you believe it if you don’t
recognize it’s like the wake that a boat
leaves behind if you don’t turn around
to look you’ll never see the impact that
you’re actually having how much hurting
may be happening as a result of your
decisions as a manager as a leader even
as a parent so we are all the suffering
in the world a lot of it is
self-inflicted a lot of suffering
happens because we don’t know how to
think about life you don’t know how to
manage
regulate our own emotions and there are
ways that we can actually address that
we can help people in our span of care
address that as well
and I was at a conference a couple of
years ago and there was a Holocaust
survivor there named dr. Edith Eva eager
survived Auschwitz and she said a couple
of things that I remember she said you
know the greatest Nazis inside us and
this is a woman who experienced
Auschwitz okay so we torment ourselves
and we don’t need to and there ways that
we can learn how to think about that but
people need help they can’t get there on
their own
the other thing she says is that we are
victims of victims the people who
torment us were themselves tormented and
so if you look at all the suffering
that’s inflicted by us on each other
especially in the context of work by
managers by bosses and supervisors I
don’t know about you but nobody really
wants to be managed nobody likes to be
bossed nobody likes to be supervised and
yet that’s the lived experience for most
people and a lot of those are toxic
relationships so a lot of that suffering
comes from work related to sometimes
those kinds of relationships the fact is
that almost all of this suffering is
unnecessary and it does not serve a
higher purpose you know there’s one
thing Viktor Frankl talked about finding
meaning in your suffering you know the
mother who lost his child to a drunk
driver who went on to found Mothers
Against Drunk Driving saved who knows
how many thousands of other children she
found meaning in her suffering but there
is no inherent honor in suffering that
serves no higher purpose and that’s what
I want to talk about today there is
extraordinary amount of suffering that
actually does not is unnecessary and it
doesn’t serve a higher purpose and as
human beings how can we turn a blind eye
to that suffering when we actually have
in our hands the ability to do something
about it and we need healing all over we
need healing and every aspect every
sphere we certainly need to heal
ourselves our families our communities
need healing
we need to heal our companies and I’m
going to focus a lot on that and our
countries many countries today are more
divided than ever before and we have
something that we need to do about that
as businesses we need to heal our planet
we know about all of the things that are
happening with the planet and all the
species that are becoming extinct we
need to heal all the life that’s on our
plan
and we also need to heal the past before
we can move on to healing the present
and the future you know in South Africa
after the end of apartheid nearly 30
years ago they went through a Truth and
Reconciliation process that allowed them
to move past the extraordinary suffering
and violence that had existed there if
they hadn’t done that they would have
had decades of revenge fuel violence I
think in this country we need to learn
that lesson we have not moved we have
not healed our past in so many ways so
we need to do that even within the
context of business we need to
understand what has happened in the past
out of ignorance out of lower
consciousness whatever it might be so
that we can actually heal today and also
heal into the future and businesses and
corporations have a lot to do with all
of this because in this country out of
25 trillion dollars of economic activity
20 trillion actually is accounted for by
businesses governments is about 3 and
1/2 and nonprofits about 1 and a half
trillion right so businesses have a
disproportionate huge impact especially
in free societies like ours and the sad
reality is that most businesses actually
are a source of livelihood of course and
goods and services but they also are a
source of suffering of hurting because
think about it people go into businesses
they’re healthy and whole relatively
when they start their careers what
happens over time they get burned out
they get stressed out they develop all
these chronic conditions do you know
that heart attacks are highest on Monday
morning it’s 4:00 a.m. Monday morning is
the peak of heart attacks why do we say
thank God is Friday because work is for
many of us it’s the hellish ordeal to be
survived 88% of Americans work for a
company they feel doesn’t treat them as
a human being we just views them as an
object a function of what they do and
87% of people worldwide are disengaged
in their work so this is the normal
state of affairs at at most companies it
doesn’t have to be this way and as a
result of all of that we have what I
would call an epidemic of silent
suffering and it is largely silent you
know people are stoic and people are
even heroic you know if I could put a
thought bubble over everybody that I
meet you would find out what burdens
people are struggling under what
extraordinary stress and distress people
are coming to work with and then going
home with
as a result of that works and a lot of
the silent suffering and unless we
figure out how we can elicit this and
listen to it we will never know now we
live in a time of almost full employment
there’s ninety-six percent employment in
this country unemployment is just 4.1
percent and yet the reality is that the
majority of working people people with
full-time jobs are actually living lives
of quiet desperation they’re on the edge
of disaster they’re one you know small
episode away from losing it all
couple of sobering statistics fifty
percent of Americans if they needed to
come up with $2,000 within 30 days to
deal with some kind of an emergency
their car their heating system something
with the health of a family member they
would not be able to which means they
would lose potentially everything
because they can’t come up with money
and most of those people cannot go to
their employer and say I need help right
they’ve tapped into their family
everybody else but they can’t come up
with this 50% of us in one of the
richest countries the world has ever
seen
how is this acceptable nearly 60 percent
of American households are technically
insolvent and adding to their debt loss
they have a negative net worth
they haven’t declared bankruptcy but
they are bankrupt if you really look at
their financials 60% of American
households how is this okay well I’ll
tell you where it came from you know in
the last 35 years worker pay has
increased 10% in 35 years CEO pay has
gone up 937 percent that is unconscious
capitalism that is exploiting and using
the system to benefit a few that leads
to revolutions we have to change the way
we practice business it’s not about
using and exploiting people to achieve
profits it’s about putting people at the
center human dignity as the highest
value the human cost of doing business
has become unacceptably high we are very
sophisticated are doing cost accounting
we know every single cause but we don’t
measure suffering what are the
sacrifices that we’re having people make
and here’s the greatest irony even our
healing professions have become places
of extraordinary suffering doctors
nurses retinas you know doctors have
twice the suicide rate of most American
15
and of doctors actually are addicted to
prescription drugs even places of
healing have become places of suffering
because of the way we work
so clearly the way that we work isn’t
working we need to change that I mean to
recognize the consequences of the way in
which we’ve been operating another fact
is that if you do it right business
actually can alleviate suffering and
elevate joy it does that conscious
business is caring businesses actually
take people who are broken burned out
stressed out almost in a post-traumatic
stress situation and over time they can
become whole again
so this is not about healing businesses
this is not about starting a yoga or a
massage business okay this is saying any
business at all every single business
can be a healing business about business
itself as a healing occupation as a
healing activity so how is that even
possible how can we do that how can
business be a source and a force for
healing well you know the first thing we
have to do is confront this as James
Baldwin said not everything that is
faced can be changed but nothing can be
changed until it is faced and if we turn
a blind eye to the suffering that is
going on right under our noses in our
corporations in our organizations of any
kind we will never be able to address
that we have to look at it squarely give
you an example a company called Apple
Tree answers which is a call center
company they discover that they really
have two different distinct categories
of people in their company they have a
salaried professional class very happy
highly engaged low turnover and then
there are people actually doing the work
80% of the people in their company are
really paid with a hundred and eighteen
percent turnover which means the last
about nine months extremely low
engagement they started to find out
what’s happening there and the CEO was
determined to do something about you
know elevating their lives and
recognizing how the financial distress
that they’re under you know figuring out
how to pay them more and so forth and
they started a program called dream on
kind of like make-a-wish and they asked
people tell us if they’re facing a
situation in your life where you need
help and for a couple of weeks nobody
responded because people as I said are
stoic
right they don’t want to appear
unprofessional asking for help
being vulnerable is seen as a liability
vulnerability is an ability it’s right
in the word finally a woman came forward
and said you know my husband stopped
paying alimony and I got evicted from
our apartment last week and my children
and I have been living in a car for a
week and I’ve just I can’t do this to
them anymore I need help
sorry and the CEO got this note and the
only thing he felt was shame he said I
started this company I’m employing these
people full-time and one of my people is
homeless how is that acceptable
they got her into a hotel that night got
her an apartment
helped to furnish it paid all this you
know did all that within a week and you
know after that the floodgates opened
people saw what had happened and you
know dozens of stories came pouring out
a number of other people were also
homeless and dealing with all kinds of
extraordinary stress again you will see
it when you believe it there are
industries where we have rules of how we
operate this is how we do things in
consulting this is how we do things in
construction this is how we do things in
a restaurant but doesn’t have to be done
that way because most of those are
dehumanizing and they don’t put people
at the center and they don’t think about
what’s happening on to their lives
there’s a consulting company here in
Atlanta JB and started by a couple of ex
McKinsey people who when they went
through their careers at McKinsey
essentially didn’t see their kids from
Monday to Thursday because that’s what
you do in consulting you’re a client
site and they miss the childhoods of
their children and they said that’s an
irreplaceable loss there’s no more of
money that’s gonna make up for that and
so when they started JB and they said we
are going to make it a norm that all of
our clients are local so you don’t have
to travel because children are also our
stakeholders the children of our
employees matter their well-being is
important it hasn’t hurt them in any way
in fact they have three of the top 20
consultants in this country have chosen
to work for this company here in Atlanta
because this matters and nobody ever
questions this nobody ever says well I’m
a consultant do I not have to tell ya
that’s what you do but doesn’t have to
be that way we can challenge and I many
stories like that that we have
challenging the industry standards we
have a great deal of social sadness you
know if you look at in this country
what’s the biggest source one of them is
our prison system America Inc oscillates
a larger percentage by far of its
population than any other country in the
world including North Korea
China and any other Cuba etc the fact is
17 million Americans have some kind of a
criminal record they have to check that
box that says have you ever been
convicted same number of people that
have a college degree have some kind of
a criminal record for many of those
doors are closed
those two opportunities they’ve served
their time it is a non-violent offense
whatever it was some trivial thing for
in many cases and then they come out and
they don’t get the opportunity that they
need so Greyston bakery a company in
Yonkers started by rabbi basically has
open hiring if you need a job you put
your name on the list and they just go
down the list they hire the next person
no background checks no interviews they
train them give them a job this is one
of the people that their work the ID on
drew he said if is he had been in prison
three times most recently for three
years every time he came out he couldn’t
find a job and it eventually ended up
going back to doing whatever got him in
trouble in the first place finally found
a job here and he had tears when he was
speaking at our conference he said oh
he’s a three-year-old daughter and I
said if it weren’t for this company I
would either be dead or back in jail so
they say we don’t hire people to make
brownies we bake brownies to hire people
and this is what business can do
business can create opportunity and
everything I’m talking about here these
are for-profit businesses you know
they’re wonderful nonprofits out there
that do these kinds of things but
business can do it too you don’t have to
be just the source of suffering we can
actually be the cure for suffering we
can heal communities as a wonderful
story is coming out of Houston all these
companies that have stepped forward so
for example h-e-b which is a grocery
chain headquartered in San Antonio but
they are known for what they do in times
of crisis they actually have their own
disaster relief operation that shows up
before FEMA and before the Red Cross in
communities and they use helicopters to
move drivers around and you know they
reopen all their stores within three
days I mean ahead of anybody else
because they really are embedded and
care about the people in those
communities whether you have a healing
organization or a hurting organization
depends on the leader you cannot have a
conscious company without a conscious
leader you cannot have a healing
organization without a leader who has
love in their heart and cares for people
because what’s inside us gets manifested
outside the macro
is a reflection of the microcosm we have
to have leaders who actually care about
people and purpose and then reflect that
in their organizations and we have to
hire people who are like that as opposed
to people to just deliver the numbers
because all great leaders as John
Kenneth Galbraith said have one
characteristic in common the willingness
to confront unequivocally the major
anxiety of people in their time in
leaders who don’t do that add to the
anxiety and the suffering leadership
matters a great deal at every level of
political end in business so as the
Dalai Lama said our prime purpose in
this life is to help others if we cannot
help them don’t hurt them and
unfortunately that is what we are doing
and we’re doing at our ignorance not out
of spite but we’re doing it also because
we put the wrong people in charge we
have too many managers bosses and
supervisors not enough leaders we have
leaders who only care about the numbers
you know that 20% of fast-rising
executives in companies according to
some studies have a personality profile
that is similar to that of a sociopath
because they will use people and climb
over people do anything to deliver the
numbers and the human consequences of
that are never measured in the general
population sociopaths he is 1% in
prisons is about 20% prisons you know
for extreme offenders is about 20 bit
that’s what we find in the world of is
that is what we have created what the
hell are we doing in business how can we
accept this how can we tolerate this
when we know there’s a better way and
then when you operate in that other way
you actually succeed better that’s our
research in conscious capitalism it’s
not shown in the long term you create
far more financial wealth but you don’t
do at the expense of human well-being in
fact you elevate human flourishing
alongside creating financial wealth
emotional well-being spiritual
well-being ecological well-being
positive impact on the culture so we
have to take care of the people the
business of businesses people yesterday
today and forever and serve calendars
that take care of the people and the
people will take care of the business so
when you go back to work think about all
the people in your span of care and even
really go back home and try to find out
what they are carrying around what is
their burden how can you help because
you can you will see it when you believe
it
let’s bring suffering out of the closet
so we can actually then do something
about it thank you very much
[Applause]
you
we live in a world of extraordinary
unbearable almost unimaginable suffering
alongside all the joy and beauty of
course that exists in the world but did
you know that today 29,000 children
under the age of five will die from
preventable causes that 91 Americans
will die today from opioid overdoses
adding to the half million that have
died since 2000 that 40 million of our
fellow Americans over the age of 18
suffer from debilitating anxiety you
know we’re living actually in the most
peaceful time in human history when it
comes to physical violence fewer people
are being killed by murderers by in Wars
even by terrorists there’s less domestic
violence there’s less bullying all of
that is wonderful but the amount of
psychic suffering is rising suicide
rates in this country have risen 24% in
the last 15 years and a lot of this has
to do with how we lead our lives and how
we work that’s what I want to explore
with you today but when there is so much
suffering in the world how can we not
each of us at some level define our
personal purpose as in some way
alleviating some of that suffering in
our span of care and bringing joy
elevating joy alleviating suffering and
can we do that as individuals can we do
that as organizations it doesn’t matter
what you do you have an impact where you
can alleviate suffering and bring more
joy and that needs to be our Metta
purpose I believe consciously chosen
because if we do not consciously choose
to be part of the healing we are
probably inadvertently part of the
hurting you know they say that you will
see it when you believe it if you don’t
recognize it’s like the wake that a boat
leaves behind if you don’t turn around
to look you’ll never see the impact that
you’re actually having how much hurting
may be happening as a result of your
decisions as a manager as a leader even
as a parent so we are all the suffering
in the world a lot of it is
self-inflicted a lot of suffering
happens because we don’t know how to
think about life you don’t know how to
manage
regulate our own emotions and there are
ways that we can actually address that
we can help people in our span of care
address that as well
and I was at a conference a couple of
years ago and there was a Holocaust
survivor there named dr. Edith Eva eager
survived Auschwitz and she said a couple
of things that I remember she said you
know the greatest Nazis inside us and
this is a woman who experienced
Auschwitz okay so we torment ourselves
and we don’t need to and there ways that
we can learn how to think about that but
people need help they can’t get there on
their own
the other thing she says is that we are
victims of victims the people who
torment us were themselves tormented and
so if you look at all the suffering
that’s inflicted by us on each other
especially in the context of work by
managers by bosses and supervisors I
don’t know about you but nobody really
wants to be managed nobody likes to be
bossed nobody likes to be supervised and
yet that’s the lived experience for most
people and a lot of those are toxic
relationships so a lot of that suffering
comes from work related to sometimes
those kinds of relationships the fact is
that almost all of this suffering is
unnecessary and it does not serve a
higher purpose you know there’s one
thing Viktor Frankl talked about finding
meaning in your suffering you know the
mother who lost his child to a drunk
driver who went on to found Mothers
Against Drunk Driving saved who knows
how many thousands of other children she
found meaning in her suffering but there
is no inherent honor in suffering that
serves no higher purpose and that’s what
I want to talk about today there is
extraordinary amount of suffering that
actually does not is unnecessary and it
doesn’t serve a higher purpose and as
human beings how can we turn a blind eye
to that suffering when we actually have
in our hands the ability to do something
about it and we need healing all over we
need healing and every aspect every
sphere we certainly need to heal
ourselves our families our communities
need healing
we need to heal our companies and I’m
going to focus a lot on that and our
countries many countries today are more
divided than ever before and we have
something that we need to do about that
as businesses we need to heal our planet
we know about all of the things that are
happening with the planet and all the
species that are becoming extinct we
need to heal all the life that’s on our
plan
and we also need to heal the past before
we can move on to healing the present
and the future you know in South Africa
after the end of apartheid nearly 30
years ago they went through a Truth and
Reconciliation process that allowed them
to move past the extraordinary suffering
and violence that had existed there if
they hadn’t done that they would have
had decades of revenge fuel violence I
think in this country we need to learn
that lesson we have not moved we have
not healed our past in so many ways so
we need to do that even within the
context of business we need to
understand what has happened in the past
out of ignorance out of lower
consciousness whatever it might be so
that we can actually heal today and also
heal into the future and businesses and
corporations have a lot to do with all
of this because in this country out of
25 trillion dollars of economic activity
20 trillion actually is accounted for by
businesses governments is about 3 and
1/2 and nonprofits about 1 and a half
trillion right so businesses have a
disproportionate huge impact especially
in free societies like ours and the sad
reality is that most businesses actually
are a source of livelihood of course and
goods and services but they also are a
source of suffering of hurting because
think about it people go into businesses
they’re healthy and whole relatively
when they start their careers what
happens over time they get burned out
they get stressed out they develop all
these chronic conditions do you know
that heart attacks are highest on Monday
morning it’s 4:00 a.m. Monday morning is
the peak of heart attacks why do we say
thank God is Friday because work is for
many of us it’s the hellish ordeal to be
survived 88% of Americans work for a
company they feel doesn’t treat them as
a human being we just views them as an
object a function of what they do and
87% of people worldwide are disengaged
in their work so this is the normal
state of affairs at at most companies it
doesn’t have to be this way and as a
result of all of that we have what I
would call an epidemic of silent
suffering and it is largely silent you
know people are stoic and people are
even heroic you know if I could put a
thought bubble over everybody that I
meet you would find out what burdens
people are struggling under what
extraordinary stress and distress people
are coming to work with and then going
home with
as a result of that works and a lot of
the silent suffering and unless we
figure out how we can elicit this and
listen to it we will never know now we
live in a time of almost full employment
there’s ninety-six percent employment in
this country unemployment is just 4.1
percent and yet the reality is that the
majority of working people people with
full-time jobs are actually living lives
of quiet desperation they’re on the edge
of disaster they’re one you know small
episode away from losing it all
couple of sobering statistics fifty
percent of Americans if they needed to
come up with $2,000 within 30 days to
deal with some kind of an emergency
their car their heating system something
with the health of a family member they
would not be able to which means they
would lose potentially everything
because they can’t come up with money
and most of those people cannot go to
their employer and say I need help right
they’ve tapped into their family
everybody else but they can’t come up
with this 50% of us in one of the
richest countries the world has ever
seen
how is this acceptable nearly 60 percent
of American households are technically
insolvent and adding to their debt loss
they have a negative net worth
they haven’t declared bankruptcy but
they are bankrupt if you really look at
their financials 60% of American
households how is this okay well I’ll
tell you where it came from you know in
the last 35 years worker pay has
increased 10% in 35 years CEO pay has
gone up 937 percent that is unconscious
capitalism that is exploiting and using
the system to benefit a few that leads
to revolutions we have to change the way
we practice business it’s not about
using and exploiting people to achieve
profits it’s about putting people at the
center human dignity as the highest
value the human cost of doing business
has become unacceptably high we are very
sophisticated are doing cost accounting
we know every single cause but we don’t
measure suffering what are the
sacrifices that we’re having people make
and here’s the greatest irony even our
healing professions have become places
of extraordinary suffering doctors
nurses retinas you know doctors have
twice the suicide rate of most American
15
and of doctors actually are addicted to
prescription drugs even places of
healing have become places of suffering
because of the way we work
so clearly the way that we work isn’t
working we need to change that I mean to
recognize the consequences of the way in
which we’ve been operating another fact
is that if you do it right business
actually can alleviate suffering and
elevate joy it does that conscious
business is caring businesses actually
take people who are broken burned out
stressed out almost in a post-traumatic
stress situation and over time they can
become whole again
so this is not about healing businesses
this is not about starting a yoga or a
massage business okay this is saying any
business at all every single business
can be a healing business about business
itself as a healing occupation as a
healing activity so how is that even
possible how can we do that how can
business be a source and a force for
healing well you know the first thing we
have to do is confront this as James
Baldwin said not everything that is
faced can be changed but nothing can be
changed until it is faced and if we turn
a blind eye to the suffering that is
going on right under our noses in our
corporations in our organizations of any
kind we will never be able to address
that we have to look at it squarely give
you an example a company called Apple
Tree answers which is a call center
company they discover that they really
have two different distinct categories
of people in their company they have a
salaried professional class very happy
highly engaged low turnover and then
there are people actually doing the work
80% of the people in their company are
really paid with a hundred and eighteen
percent turnover which means the last
about nine months extremely low
engagement they started to find out
what’s happening there and the CEO was
determined to do something about you
know elevating their lives and
recognizing how the financial distress
that they’re under you know figuring out
how to pay them more and so forth and
they started a program called dream on
kind of like make-a-wish and they asked
people tell us if they’re facing a
situation in your life where you need
help and for a couple of weeks nobody
responded because people as I said are
stoic
right they don’t want to appear
unprofessional asking for help
being vulnerable is seen as a liability
vulnerability is an ability it’s right
in the word finally a woman came forward
and said you know my husband stopped
paying alimony and I got evicted from
our apartment last week and my children
and I have been living in a car for a
week and I’ve just I can’t do this to
them anymore I need help
sorry and the CEO got this note and the
only thing he felt was shame he said I
started this company I’m employing these
people full-time and one of my people is
homeless how is that acceptable
they got her into a hotel that night got
her an apartment
helped to furnish it paid all this you
know did all that within a week and you
know after that the floodgates opened
people saw what had happened and you
know dozens of stories came pouring out
a number of other people were also
homeless and dealing with all kinds of
extraordinary stress again you will see
it when you believe it there are
industries where we have rules of how we
operate this is how we do things in
consulting this is how we do things in
construction this is how we do things in
a restaurant but doesn’t have to be done
that way because most of those are
dehumanizing and they don’t put people
at the center and they don’t think about
what’s happening on to their lives
there’s a consulting company here in
Atlanta JB and started by a couple of ex
McKinsey people who when they went
through their careers at McKinsey
essentially didn’t see their kids from
Monday to Thursday because that’s what
you do in consulting you’re a client
site and they miss the childhoods of
their children and they said that’s an
irreplaceable loss there’s no more of
money that’s gonna make up for that and
so when they started JB and they said we
are going to make it a norm that all of
our clients are local so you don’t have
to travel because children are also our
stakeholders the children of our
employees matter their well-being is
important it hasn’t hurt them in any way
in fact they have three of the top 20
consultants in this country have chosen
to work for this company here in Atlanta
because this matters and nobody ever
questions this nobody ever says well I’m
a consultant do I not have to tell ya
that’s what you do but doesn’t have to
be that way we can challenge and I many
stories like that that we have
challenging the industry standards we
have a great deal of social sadness you
know if you look at in this country
what’s the biggest source one of them is
our prison system America Inc oscillates
a larger percentage by far of its
population than any other country in the
world including North Korea
China and any other Cuba etc the fact is
17 million Americans have some kind of a
criminal record they have to check that
box that says have you ever been
convicted same number of people that
have a college degree have some kind of
a criminal record for many of those
doors are closed
those two opportunities they’ve served
their time it is a non-violent offense
whatever it was some trivial thing for
in many cases and then they come out and
they don’t get the opportunity that they
need so Greyston bakery a company in
Yonkers started by rabbi basically has
open hiring if you need a job you put
your name on the list and they just go
down the list they hire the next person
no background checks no interviews they
train them give them a job this is one
of the people that their work the ID on
drew he said if is he had been in prison
three times most recently for three
years every time he came out he couldn’t
find a job and it eventually ended up
going back to doing whatever got him in
trouble in the first place finally found
a job here and he had tears when he was
speaking at our conference he said oh
he’s a three-year-old daughter and I
said if it weren’t for this company I
would either be dead or back in jail so
they say we don’t hire people to make
brownies we bake brownies to hire people
and this is what business can do
business can create opportunity and
everything I’m talking about here these
are for-profit businesses you know
they’re wonderful nonprofits out there
that do these kinds of things but
business can do it too you don’t have to
be just the source of suffering we can
actually be the cure for suffering we
can heal communities as a wonderful
story is coming out of Houston all these
companies that have stepped forward so
for example h-e-b which is a grocery
chain headquartered in San Antonio but
they are known for what they do in times
of crisis they actually have their own
disaster relief operation that shows up
before FEMA and before the Red Cross in
communities and they use helicopters to
move drivers around and you know they
reopen all their stores within three
days I mean ahead of anybody else
because they really are embedded and
care about the people in those
communities whether you have a healing
organization or a hurting organization
depends on the leader you cannot have a
conscious company without a conscious
leader you cannot have a healing
organization without a leader who has
love in their heart and cares for people
because what’s inside us gets manifested
outside the macro
is a reflection of the microcosm we have
to have leaders who actually care about
people and purpose and then reflect that
in their organizations and we have to
hire people who are like that as opposed
to people to just deliver the numbers
because all great leaders as John
Kenneth Galbraith said have one
characteristic in common the willingness
to confront unequivocally the major
anxiety of people in their time in
leaders who don’t do that add to the
anxiety and the suffering leadership
matters a great deal at every level of
political end in business so as the
Dalai Lama said our prime purpose in
this life is to help others if we cannot
help them don’t hurt them and
unfortunately that is what we are doing
and we’re doing at our ignorance not out
of spite but we’re doing it also because
we put the wrong people in charge we
have too many managers bosses and
supervisors not enough leaders we have
leaders who only care about the numbers
you know that 20% of fast-rising
executives in companies according to
some studies have a personality profile
that is similar to that of a sociopath
because they will use people and climb
over people do anything to deliver the
numbers and the human consequences of
that are never measured in the general
population sociopaths he is 1% in
prisons is about 20% prisons you know
for extreme offenders is about 20 bit
that’s what we find in the world of is
that is what we have created what the
hell are we doing in business how can we
accept this how can we tolerate this
when we know there’s a better way and
then when you operate in that other way
you actually succeed better that’s our
research in conscious capitalism it’s
not shown in the long term you create
far more financial wealth but you don’t
do at the expense of human well-being in
fact you elevate human flourishing
alongside creating financial wealth
emotional well-being spiritual
well-being ecological well-being
positive impact on the culture so we
have to take care of the people the
business of businesses people yesterday
today and forever and serve calendars
that take care of the people and the
people will take care of the business so
when you go back to work think about all
the people in your span of care and even
really go back home and try to find out
what they are carrying around what is
their burden how can you help because
you can you will see it when you believe
it
let’s bring suffering out of the closet
so we can actually then do something
about it thank you very much
[Applause]
you
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