November Reflections

In November, the daylight fades. Falling leaves disintegrate; the darkness calls. Summer’s pleasures are gone-but the renewal of spring is months away. We can’t resist the natural cycle. So instead, the earth’s energies invite us to surrender. It’s time to let go, time to begin making peace with the year, its blessings and achievements as well as its trials and disappointments.

What is November encouraging you to surrender? Perhaps it is a hope you nourished through 2013, one that sadly, has not come to be. Or did you intend to embrace a positive new habit: to take a daily walk, do a 20-minute meditation, or play a musical instrument? Now here you are: the year’s coming to an end, and your new initiative never really got started.

Or maybe this was your year to shine? Everything seemed to go your way. You enjoyed exciting new levels of health, wealth, or happiness. Do you hope next year will bring even more? Or you are guided to surrender even the year’s joys and successes along with its sorrows?

Just as we collect the dry leaves, withered summer flowers, and the remnants of a good autumn harvest to cultivate a fertile mix for future growth, the dreams and sorrows that we willingly choose to surrender in November will enrich and nourish our vision for the New Year.

November ushers in the final phase of the Celtic calendar. Now and into December, we address the business of surrender and acceptance in order to fully welcome the fresh new cycle that begins at Winter Solstice and then joyous holidays-Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa-that lead to New Year’s. It’s time to be still and prepare for renewal.

novembersky

Conscious Capitalism and Conscious Money

My article on Conscious Money in the November/December online issue of
Green Money Journal speaks to investors and financial professionals. It’s the sort of story you could share with a stockbroker or financial planner to show them how YOU think and feel about your money, that is, you want your money choices to reflect higher consciousness and human values! Read now on www.greenmoney.com.

Last month I shared my AMA (as in Management, not Medical) story on Conscious Capitalism. But what if you’re an individual? Can Conscious Capitalism work for you? The answer, as I argue in Conscious Money, is, “Yes!” Provided you know how identify a conscious company. Think of a firm where you might want to work, shop, or invest. Does it:

  • Embrace and personify a purpose beyond money making?
  • Practice transcendent human values?
  • Treat its people fairly and well?
  • Honor the environment as a crucial stakeholder?
  • Satisfy and delight customers?
  • Give back to the communities in which it operates?
  • Generate sustainable shareholder value?

If the company lives up to these standards, it is probably a Conscious Capitalist.

November Happenings

Early this month, I head to Cleveland, Ohio’s River’s Edge Retreat Center for a public event November 8th for Cleveland’s business and general communities. I’ve so looked forward to meeting Sister Rita and my friends at Candlewood Partners! In the morning, I speak on Conscious Capitalism. The afternoon is dedicated to Conscious Money. For more details, check out: riversedgecleveland.com. Come join us!

After this exciting gathering, I’ll take the advice I offered earlier and start winding down. My friend Carolyn Long comes to visit and Thanksgiving follows soon. Then there’ll be travel homeward, friends’ birthdays, lights on the tree, and the holiday music I’ve come to love.

Enjoy the quiet before the festivities begin! Sending love your way,

— Patricia

Save

October Reflections

In the golden month of October, as we celebrate the Harvest, we might also ask ourselves, “What do I want to harvest from within myself this autumn? Which seeds, planted in spring and nurtured through summer, have grown into nuggets of wisdom that can I collect now and integrate into my being?” This was for me a year full of blessings, a few setbacks, and my old impossible companion, Mr. Stress. Sound familiar?

So how do we reap the insights hidden in our all too human experiences? One lesson for me was this: despite worry, upset, and a few sleepless nights, here I am happier than ever. Next time, will I remember: “This too shall pass”? Or perhaps realize it’s time to learn A New Way of Being?

Maybe I have begun. For the first time in years, I took it easy this summer. As ease and re-creation started healing my stress situation, I dared to experiment with the spiritual Art of Allowing, as in, “You don’t have to make it happen, Patricia. You can just let it happen.” [Thank you, Crimson Circle, Geoff and Linda for April 2013’s “Quantum Allowing” event in Hawaii!] Would Allowing work for me? Who knew? But I was so fed up with my tiresome, ancient “conditioning” that I was ready to try anything–even Allowing! To practice Allowing, I observed, accepted, and finally attempted to let go old, yet familiar mindsets and patterns that “reward” overwork as some wacko badge of honor, one that interrupted my sleep, Well Being, happiness-and success.

In July and August, I gave “Allowing” a try and thank heaven I did.

As summer mellowed into September, my garden of Allowing blossomed with its first luscious fruits: exciting opportunities that came to me unbidden and exceeded any I’d might have “tried to make happen” during the beautiful summer I gave myself. Heck, I could get used to this.fallflatirons

 

Conscious Capitalism and Conscious Money

Meanwhile, my new article on Conscious Capitalism appeared in the Summer 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Management Association, entitled MWorld. This publication is available to AMA members. But MWorld has graciously invited me to share it with my newsletter subscribers. VIEW ARTICLE
Next month, a new Conscious Money article appears at greenmoney.com. Stay tuned!

AUTUMN HAPPENINGS

Conscious Money Online! I’ll soon record a first-ever multi-session Conscious Money webinar with Crimson Circle’s Awakening Zone Academy. I’ll keep you posted.

Radiance coach and Conscious Money fan Camden Hoch and I will engage in a “Conversation About Healing Money Wounds.” I hope you can join us. Details will follow. Meanwhile, check out Camden’s website camdenhoch.com.

My dear friend Corinne McLaughlin (and colleague in the Ohana Conscious Investing Circle) invited me to join November’s Healthy Money Summit, sponsored by The Shift Network, today’s leading transformational online community. I’ll soon tell you exactly how to get involved.

Next month, I head to Cleveland, Ohio’s fantastic River’s Edge Retreat Center for a public event on both Conscious Capitalism and Conscious Money on November 8th For details,  see the website.

January Reflections

consciousmoneycovI love January. On New Year’s Day I wake delighted that the darkest days are past, a new cycle awaits us, and sunset gets later every evening. In the winter, I’m typically in Boulder, CO, where there’s either a magnificent snowstorm or a mild sunny stretch that locals call “the January thaw.” This month is a wonderful time for reflection (“Where am I right now in my life?”), giving your journal a serious workout, and focusing on themes and initiatives for the year ahead.

This year January also marks for me the start of a new creative phase. Like a toddler off to grade school, Conscious Money: Living, Creating, and Investing with Your Values for A Sustainable New Prosperity (Read Chapter one or buy the book here) is launched out into the world.

In the months to come, I’ll share with you some favorite links from the launch, such as:

• Rideau Real Recognition Radio (Download as MP3 file or click on “Free on iTunes”) Jan 15, 2013

• Creativity Portal Website (Focused on Creativity despite the general title) “Conscious Money” Q & A with Patricia Aburdene

• New Dimensions Radio “Free Listen” until February 5, 2013. (After that it’s $1.99)

booksforabetterlifeI am pleased to report that Conscious Money is a finalist in the Green Category for the Books for A Better Life Award. Thanks go to Beyond Words Publishing, Bill Gladstone, Jane Wesman Public Relations, Sara Sgarlat Publicity, Crimson Circle, The Tattered Cover, my dear and supportive friends and colleagues, and all of you.

This year, I’ll focus on speaking about Conscious Money and Conscious Capitalism (Links to my agent BigSpeak appear on my website speaking page), courses and seminars (more soon!) and reframing my books on conscious finance into bite-sized modules in articles (for the American Management Association and others), audios, and blogs (for LOHAS and other and others).

Finally, to practice Conscious Money, you will want to cultivate relationships with financial partners, mostly companies, that reflect and honor many of the same values you do. Each January out comes a great resource get started: Fortune magazine’s list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Whether you are looking for a job, a place to shop, or a possible investment, you’re sure to find lots of ideas here.

Sending you my warmest wishes for a happy, fulfilling, conscious, and abundant year!

– Patricia

March 2010: Spirit in Biz. What’s the Motive?

Me again? Yes. I’m going for shorter, more frequent newsletters. It’s Twitteresque.

Back in Boulder (I bypassed Boston and the storm) after an exciting Miami speech for Florida Atlantic University’s Program in the Study of Spirituality — and a great audience: equally passionate about business and Spirit.

Early on, however, a sincere, if traditional gentleman, blew the whistle on our little love fest with a concern I’ve gotten before but heard with fresh ears. I’d just told the story of HP inkjet honcho Greg Merten, who added hundreds of millions to HP’s bottom line through the spiritual value of Trust (See Megatrends 2010, pp 1-2).

“I’m all for spirituality, the man said, “but not in business. What’s the motive? If it’s to make more money,” he added, “that’s not spirituality; it’s materialism!”

I honor your viewpoint, I said, but I don’t see it that way. I’d hate to shut down corporate meditation because it makes people innovative and companies profitable!

When the man continued to raise well-meant objections, the audience engaged frankly with him, some suggesting he had a “Money is Bad” bias. All in all, we had a  very lively discussion. Two hours flew by. I met new friends and went off to dinner with my old friend Astrologer Barbara Hamilton and her daughter Sarah.

But on the plane home, I recalled that Tami Simon, founder of Sounds True, the premier producer of spiritual audio programs (which starts meetings with a moment of silence and has a meditation room), chided me for connecting Spirit and profit. “I have no idea if what we do [spiritually] makes us money or loses us money,” she said with passion. “We do it because it has intrinsic value.”

Come to think of it, Greg Merten did not devote a full day every 4-6 weeks to team dynamics to enrich the bottom line. He did it to get better at relationships.

Can a questionable (read greedy?) motive impugn the value of Spirit in business? I still don’t think so. But today, thanks to a gentleman in Miami, I’d venture to say I now think the question is a healthy and thoughtful one.

Thanks to Lexie Potamkin and Nathan Katz for a memorable Miami adventure.

July 2006 from Telluride

I’m relaxing at home in Telluride, Colorado after a busy spring traveling and speaking about — what else? — The Rise of Conscious Capitalism. Soon, I’ll drive to a great gathering at the Vail (CO) Leadership Institute, my last event until autumn.

On the road, I expected to discover a bit of resistance to the message of morals and money, Spirituality in business and shareholder capitalism. Instead, I found the movement and the megatrend of Conscious Capitalism thriving in the hearts and minds of the people I met from Virginia to Minneapolis, L.A. to Stockholm, Chicago, Dallas, upstate New York, all of which I visited this year. It is a great confirmation of every email I’ve gotten from all of you!

What follows cannot be called a blog. I’ve been so active that I haven’t kept you up-to-date. But I aim to do so from now on. So, although these highlights are more “blurt” that blog, it’s a start. Maybe a blog will follow.

June: Herman Miller – a Conscious Capitalist Company

I’d estimate half the S&P 500 embrace important aspects of Conscious Capitalism. Maybe 50 or so excel on numerous fronts. Among them is super-green Herman Miller — which introduced participatory management in the 1950s! — and wins diversity awards today. “Miller” as insiders call the company consistently hits lists like Business Ethics “100 Top Corporate Citizens,” the “Sustainable Business 20” and Fortune’s “Most Admired.” So when Herman Miller invited me to speak to their customers, staff and guests at the big NEOCON (Nope, nothing political. It’s all about furniture) show at the Chicago Merchandise Mart, I thought “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Except it did. Because the company also invited me to a “get to know you” visit to their Zeeland, Michigan headquarters, two buildings of which are LEED Gold certified. Not surprisingly, Herman Miller’s own offices exemplify the company’s commitment to dazzling beauty while honoring the human body with high touch ergonomics. I met wonderful people including several top women executives I hope to get to know better.

Working with a company of “Miller’s” caliber helped clarify my next project, a study of the “Practice of Conscious Capitalism,” that is how companies weave the principles of spirituality and stakeholder capitalism into day-to-day business.