In this article, Kate Griffiths explores why so many socially conscious businesses are not making good money and what needs to change to transform the world we live in.
Much has been written about money and I know my own relationship with money has changed significantly as I have gone deeper into my journey as a soulpreneur. I believe I have gained quite a bit of wisdom around this topic and I want to share that with you to help you on your journey.
What I write here is inspired by many of the conversations that I have online with other entrepreneurs and yet I want to give a special mention to the Meaningful Work community, a FB group that I belong to as a thread in there really prompted me to blog about this topic. Let me start by sharing some myths around money.
You are not truly spiritual if you ask for money for your products and services transparently
Part of the new paradigm has been to react against the greed and self-interest that twentieth century capitalism seems to have spawned. So often in history we do get these cycles where the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. However I really strongly believe that being poor does not make you more spiritual. We created money and that is part of our current reality. There is a strong belief in many spiritual communities that to seek money is not being true to your values because the most important thing is to help others. I contend that it is vital to walk your talk and first off you need to help yourself so that you are really in a position to support others. If you are still querying this working hypothesis then answer the following questions honestly:
- How can you really be of service to others if you are preventing your own success?
- To what extent do you really believe that you can make a difference to others?
- What value do you put on your own skills?
This year the predominant challenge you will see emerging if you are beginning to do well financially will be around the area of self-worth. It is absolutely critical that you clear any old beliefs in this area.
In essence money is merely the flow of energy so in essence the more you have, the more you can impact positively on the lives of others. Having money is not the issue, what you need to consider is how conscious you are around it.
Investing your money ethically
Recently my company became a limited company and when I informed my bank they told me that I had to open a new bank account. I was pretty frustrated because nothing had changed in that I was still offering the same kind of work. I did appreciate that the legal entity of my business had changed and that the bank was only responding to rules put in place by Companies House however I was champing at the bit rather. This went from bad to worse in that I then discovered that the whole process would take around 45 minutes. I could not understand why this was the case when I had banked with the organisation for many years and so they knew all about my financial history and had all my key details on their system. The last straw was when they said that they could not give me advice on which type of account to open. At that point, I was fuming and explained somewhat tersely that I would have to end the conversation and that it was unlikely that I would be remaining a customer of theirs.
Later on I recognised that this was a great opportunity to find a truly ethical alternative as my business bank. This led to a rich thread on Facebook in which many gave their points of view. As a result I discovered Metro bank, a truly ethical alternative. It is the first new bank on the high street in the UK in the last 100 years and it invests its money into local communities and local businesses. It really does put the customer first in that it is open 7 days a week until 8pm. Every branch has a business manager and it is rapidly expanding its reach beyond London. So far so good.
Spending your money wisely
I am passionate about seeing every soulpreneur earn good money for their services because in that way we will raise the vibration of socially conscious businesses so that spirituality in business becomes the norm. To that end I am on a mission to bring business into the soul. It is not either/ or: business is the life force of society: now it needs to become sacred. I have started that process through my FB Community Sacred Soul Space and we now have an online directory of soulpreneurs where it is free to register your business. Do take a look at that. This is the first step to creating the purple pound. It is my intention to spend my money with new paradigm businesses as much as possible.
I already do this in so many ways. As a mentor, one of my jobs is to help those that come to me to make connections with others. Only this week, I put one of my clients in touch with four other new paradigm business owners and I am eagerly awaiting to see what transpires.
To summarise, too often we simplify things as few people like dealing with complexity. Actually what is needed here is healing on two levels. At one level it is about putting the soul back into business so that we create soulful organisations; and at another it is about ensuring business principles are enshrined in the heart of the soulpreneur. Only then will we truly create new paradigm businesses.
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Kate Griffiths works with small business owners and leaders in corporates to enable them to grasp what the new business paradigm means so that they can apply it to their own organisations and benefit themselves and their teams by creating the kind of environment that has a positive effect on all who are part of it.