Business without you

Are you in business or is the business in you?

When mentoring a business person/leader, there are always two avenues of interest. One is the business itself, the systems, processes, goals and results/outcomes to name a few. The other is the person. Their thinking, their hopes and fears, their goals and vision. And that, for me is the most interesting part. The business can be a reflection of the owner and their thinking.

A couple of questions that keep cropping up. Is it, be yourself or create yourself? Can you create yourself and still be true to who you are? The answer is yes, but there there more to it than meets the eye.

Who are you?

We are made up of 3 things:

Our Body:

This is our physical presence in the material world, it’s what we live in while we are here. All the little bits of you are needed for your body to function the way it does.

Our Mind/Soul.

This could also be called your soul. This is your thinking and emotions, your conscience and decision making. This is the bit that makes you you.

Our Spirit.

This is the part that it most neglected. This is the eternal part of you. The bit that says “I know, that I know, that I know”. This is the bit that is the spark of life. It is neglected because people don’t know about it, or they just have an inkling about. It is arguably the most important part. And it’s not taught in schools anymore. And without it there is no life.

Taking care

Body

Taking care of the body is down to common sense. Eating good healthy food – more on this here Horizon Innovations. Like a car, you only but it the best recommended fuel, and as food is fuel for the body, it makes sense to feed it good fuel. Exercise and sleep are also required. Remember that the whole is greater that the sum of the parts! If you laid out all the parts of a motorcycle on a bench it would do nothing; but put them together and you’ll get a motorcycle that’ll take you from here to there. It’s the same with your body!

Mind

Taking care of the mind is also important, very important. You need to make sure you are feeding your mind the best things possible. Do you watch the news? How do you feel afterward? Is that benefiting you? No? Then don’t watch the news! A guy I know used to listen to a chat show on the radio. He used to get so angry at some of the people on the show. He suddenly realised he really didn’t want to feel or think this way, it wasn’t doing him any good, so he switched stations. Now he turns up at work with a happy heart.
What are you reading? Again, what you feed your mind will have an influence on how and what you think.
From your thoughts come emotions, and from emotions come decisions. If you don’t like your decisions, change your thoughts.
Your diet also has an effect on how your mind works. It’s been shown that sugar can bring on anxiety.

Spirit

How do you take care of your spirit? Your spirit gives you your conscience. It’s your “knowingness”, your intuition. The bit that says “I knew you were going to say that!”. To keep th

is bit healthy is very important.
Take time out to be with yourself. Go somewhere peaceful, absorb the peacefulness. Listen to your inner voice.
I am a Christian and I find inner peace by being with God. You can find out more here on my personal website.

Back to the question, can you create yourself while remaining true to you? To answer that, you need to know who you are and what your purpose is. Once you find that, then you can create yourself while remaining true to yourself, and really you’re not creating yourself, you’re changing into the person you need to be to fulfill your purpose. If you don’t and just go for creating yourself you may end up living a lie. You can only live a lie for a while, even if you don’t realise it, because the internal you will start to reject the external you. The outcome of living a lie is that you’ll not be fulfilled, and you’ll feel empty inside and possibly feel conflicted.

How do you find yourself?

Good question. How do you react under pressure? Extreme pressure? What do you say? How do you behave? These are the bits you can change. Have a look at finding your purpose, and here’s a clue, you have special gifts and talents that no one else has, have a look at these. Your purpose is connected with who you are and the gifts you have and not necessarily what you’ve experienced. Your experiences have helped you become who you are today, they have shaped you. Your past does not determine your future.

You are the best person for your purpose – no-one can do it better than you!