Blogging and Working - Balance, and a few links

Once again my enthusiasm for my work projects have slowed down my blogging efforts!

For the last month or so I have been 'caught up' in launching a new business endeavor - YogaSolve. YogaSolve is going to provide yoga instructors around the US with a greater capacity to become viable and to bring the benefits of yogic technology to our communities as they struggle to find a new balance for addressing health care on a societal level.

At Yoga Yoga we have started out the new year with a great team, great projects, and lots of folks doing yoga. Our new spa at 360 is finding its place with our students, and it is a great addition to our community here in Austin.

And speaking of Austin, here's a great article on the trends we might expect in the economy nationally as we move into the coming decade, post economic recovery plan. I am a believer that in order to be successful as a conscious entrepreneur it is vital to be skillful. Also it is vital to be informed. This sort of macro view can really help provide deep background for strategic thinking. Check out this map, too. It shows a great big, growing green circle for Austin!

Trends in Business - Transparency

One of the 'hallmarks' of a conscious business is the shift towards greater transparency. When hierarchy is limited, and information flows freely at all levels of the organization, it is much more likely that the organization will be high-performing.

We (like many organizations) struggle with reviews within the company. Being a small organization, we don't have the sort of structure imposed on us that many larger companies do, yet, we are certainly at the size where people need feedback in their work. That feedback is critical for enhancing and continuously improving, both from the company's and the individual's perspective. Without adequate feedback, even if a team member wants to get better at what they do, they have a hard time figuring out what to work on.

Here's an example about how transparency can be enhanced through technology. I haven't tried it out myself, but the approach seems really interesting. Rypple. Watch the movie!

Yoga Yoga Opens At Seton Good Health Commons

Starting January 5th Yoga Yoga is going to be providing yoga classes at Seton Williamson County Good Health Commons. Here's the write up in the Austin Business Journal, GoodHealth Commons partners with Yoga Yoga.

Social Capital.....The Trend Continues

Here's a post about social enterprise from Lucy Bernholz of Blueprint Research.

The trends in the economy are genuinely strong towards social entrepreneurship, conscious capitalism, and the development of social enterprise.

In just a few short paragraphs Lucy provides a fabulous series of links and connections which is going to be useful for those familiar with these terms and newcomers to the social enterprise arena.

Enjoy

Rich

The Talmud, the Yogic Edge and Death

In the workshop I teach called 'The Yogic Edge' I assert that 'business is the most spiritual of pursuits'. This morning, reading this post by teacherken, which references this article about the Madoff scandal I came upon this writing about the Talmud. I think it makes the point....

The Talmud teaches that when we die and account for our lives before our Creator, each of us will be asked four core questions that determine whether we have lived a worthy life.

Were you honest in business? The first question we are asked in heaven is not a ritual question, but an ethical one: How were you in the marketplace? In this age of financial scandal, an ancient voice rings true: Business integrity is of paramount importance.

Did you make time to study sacred texts regularly? Our own instincts for authenticity, integrity, and compassion need to be recharged and renewed by studying, regularly, the words of the greatest ethical minds.

Did you do your part to nurture the next generation? Raising children affords us the grace of loving somebody more than we love ourselves.

Did you do your part to make the world a better place? Home and hearth, our own health and happiness, are crucial. But they are not enough for a worthy life. The broken world beckons. At the end of our days, what can we say we did to fix it?

Even if we can answer each question "yes," the Talmud teaches that there is still one last element to a worthy life: yirat hashem, a sense of God's presence. What does this mean in 2008? That we wake up in the morning and realize: it is not about us. We are not the center of the universe. We are not even the center of our own universe. There is God. However much we wrestle with God, however much we argue with God, however much we doubt God, it is God to whom we turn in the depths, and it is God whose service gives our life meaning.

I've been taking the chance to slow down and reflect these last few days as the year comes to an end. These words remind me that the values I have come to embrace as I've engaged the marketplace, the values that I seek to live into as I engage the marketplace, these are values worth living into. While I am surrounded by the 'din' of 'money is all that matters', I am grateful to be one of many who is engaged with the deeper integrity of the marketplace, the integrity of community as important as oneself, in balance. Teacherken's diary is about death. As he notes, more and more of those we have shared this path with are now finding themselves at the end of this journey. For me, as one of those still in our bodies, I am present to the beauty, the importance and the significance of paying attention to how we live, how we might answer these 4 questions. For me, it is not that I will answer them before God, so much as I must live with the fruits of the answers each day.

Raghurai (Rich)

Money. Dehumanization, and the 'Healthcare' System

As some who read this blog know, one of the writers I consider most enlightening is John Bloom, who writes 'Reimagine Money'. John posts infrequently, and I am always eager to read what he has to say. This last post is no exception. Here's how it concludes, in a way that I think we all must take to heart with regard to how we relate to all systems, and most definately as we relate to the 'healthcare' system.

Any invention of the mind (in this case money and debt) that is managed in order to dehumanize its users needs a new set of ethical practices that might take a cue from the ancient temples and the origins of money in Western civilization. There can be a quality of offering in and through every financial transaction. I can become more conscious of the intentions in my financial behavior, or more aware of the work and economic efforts of others to make the transactions possible at all. But first I, and others who have not already suffered enough, have to wake up to the pain and inequity that have grown within the system even as I have participated willingly, if not wisely, in it.

If you replace the references to finances and the financial system with the healthcare system you will see how clearly we have allowed ourselves to be blind and numb to the inequities we live with. Why should someone who is less fortunate than one of us suffer the consequences of no health insurance, and hence often less care, simply because our culture has chosen to capitalize the profit of delivering health care, but socialized so many of the costs. A chosen few profit, yet as a society we all bear the costs, both financial and energetic of allowing reactive care to prevail over prevention in virtually every circumstance in our healthcare system.

We have alot of work to do!

Back at it!

As has been the case time and again as I've written this blog, I have been through a slow writing period. What's interesting to me, is that there seems to be a direct relationship between how busy I get at Yoga Yoga, and how little time I have to write. Of course, it really isn't that I don't have the time, its more that the kind of time that this sort of writing takes is just more than I can do when I am way full in my 'day job'!

Well, much has been happening!

We opened a new yoga center in over the course of 6 weeks, Yoga Yoga 360. Its seems like this was ages ago, but in fact it was only 7 weeks ago that we actually opened our doors!

We're also going to start classes in partnership with Seton/ Good Health Commons in Round Rock in January.

And our newest project, YogaSolve(tm) is going to roll out shortly.

For us at Yoga Yoga this time has been challenging and exciting. We've managed to get the new center open, and really not 'miss a beat' with our end of year plans, projects and actions. The team is fabulous, and I'm learning what it really can be to work with a group that has begun to 'find itself'....what a pleasure!

More to follow as we head into '09!
Raghurai