Conscious Success

I’ve long been fascinated by Conscious Business and Conscious Capitalism. The idea that business and our capitalist way of being can (and should) be a force for good in the world and that organisations have a responsibility in making this true.

But part of what is missing for me from these concepts is how they can become more universal, beyond an organisational or business context. What is the version of conscious business or capitalism on an individual level that we can prescribe to whether we run a business or not? Whether we’re a leader in an organisation or not? Whether we have major responsibilities for how a company runs or not? How can we infuse consciousness into how we show up as people as we strive to make a buck and live a good life?

Fred Kaufman’s book Conscious Business does touch on the role of the individual to some extent, but for me I was looking to go deeper.

I’ve mulled this over across a number of years and the concept I’ve landed on is what I’m calling (working title) Conscious Success.

What is Conscious Success?

Conscious Success is the mindful progress towards that which is truly meaningful, important or fulfilling, without causing harm.

Let’s break that down…

Truly meaningful, important or fulfilling

As a coach, one of the things I’m forever trying to get to the bottom of with my clients, is what is REALLY important to them? I’m sure you can relate that part of being human is trying to decipher between our own true desires and those that have been imprinted on us or that we’ve borrowed: from society, parents, school, friends, TV, community, you name it.

If we are not consciously aware of what is truly meaningful to us, we end up working towards the wrong things. Then when we get to our goal, we don’t feel the sense of fulfilment or satisfaction we had hoped. The classical example of this is working towards some shiny big ticket purchase (like a fancy car), only to find that after the initial excitement of buying it has worn off, we are no happier than we were before. Actually, it might have the opposite effect.

Traditional success is often measured by stuff and status. How much money do we have? How nice is our house? What kind of job to we have? How far up the ranks have we climbed? What level of education? Are we known to those we want to be known to? But often it’s not the stuff or the status we’re really chasing. It’s a feeling. A way of being. A fulfilment of deeper purpose or connection to something greater than ourselves. We don’t really want the car, instead we might want to feel respected, for example. That feeling might be nothing to do with our status, our stuff, or even how others see us; it may be a product of how we see and relate to ourselves. So we could buy 100 cars and never get the feeling we truly desire.

To be consciously successful, we must uncover what’s below the surface, that which is truly meaningful.

Mindful progress

This is about the way we go about achieving something and the journey of getting there (if we get there at all). Firstly, let’s address the idea of progress versus achievement. Once again, if we look at more traditional notions of success, we tend to think achieving the thing is the aim. It’s about getting to the destination, not the trip along the way. But the amazing thing about Conscious Success is we get just as much out of the journey. It’s through the process of working towards something we can feel a sense of satisfaction, joy or fulfilment. In many cases, arriving at the ‘destination’ is just the icing on the cake. This is not to say we don’t set goals and seek to achieve. It’s just not what we judge ourselves or our experience by.

Mindful progress asks us to place out attention in the present moment and become aware of how the process feels as we experience it. Does the progress feel good? Is it aligned to who we want to be and how we want to live? Not tomorrow, not in a year’s time, not in 10 years time, but right now.

To be consciously successful, we must be grounded in our present moment experience.

I was once part of a program about developing thought leadership. The program placed a lot of emphasis on moving up through higher and higher levels of income. At one point one of the faculty told me, until you’ve reached a certain level, you could pretty much expect to be working like a crazy person. The message: work your butt off now, get the lifestyle you desire later. Now I’m not one to shy away from hard work if it’s necessary. But at that moment I had to ask myself, how do I want to live? Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up for the things and people I care about RIGHT NOW? I didn’t care about earning X amount of money someday. I cared about living well and aligned to my values today. And one of my core values is ‘ease’. So I pulled the plug. Because their kind of progress was not mindful. Not for me at least.

Mindful progress also asks us to consider progress more holistically. To be mindful requires awareness. Mindful awareness is expanded awareness. If we place our awareness on one thing and turn a blind eye to another, are we really aware? If we take the example above, for me to have achieved the results this program was aiming for, all my awareness would have had to turn to my business. My time, my attention, my impact would have become about making the money and away from things like my wellbeing, relationships and other aspects of my personal growth. All things that are very important to me.

To be consciously successful, we must see the bigger picture.

Without causing harm

I debated whether to put this in the definition at all. In many ways it could be contained within ‘mindful progress’. But I thought it was important to call it out, because I don’t want anyone to miss it. It’s key to the whole thing. Let’s call a spade a spade — it’s possible to be aware or mindful of something and still choose to turn a blind eye because of convenience or because something else seems more important at the time.

Do you know where I mostly see people turning this blind eye? It’s towards themselves. Let’s take the cliche example of a top level executive doing incredible things in their organisations, but completely neglecting their own health: Not getting enough sleep (which research shows has incredibly negative impacts both mentally and physically), eating crappy food and rarely exercising. It doesn’t matter what work they do. It doesn’t matter how important they are to the organisation. It doesn’t matter what they are able to achieve. Their success in their work is at the expense of themselves.

To be consciously successful, we must treat ourselves with kindness, care and compassion – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

I like to think most of us don’t want to cause anyone or anything harm intentionally. Well, if you’re the type of person to read an article titled ‘Conscious Success’ I’m going to assume that anyway. The challenge is, it’s easy to cause harm in ways we’re not aware of. Related to mindful progress and looking at things holistically, we can place our attention on doing good, being kind and having a positive impact in one area, without thinking about the whole picture. It’s actually almost impossible not to cause harm, but the greater our awareness of ourselves, others and the world around us, the more likely we are to catch ourselves and adjust our behaviours. Maybe I should have said ‘Conscious Success is the mindful progress towards that which is truly meaningful, important or fulfilling, and trying our best to reduce harm wherever possible.’ But that’s doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Let’s take a really common example. I’d like you to answer this question. Who do you bank with? Do you know what they do and do not invest their funds in? Is your bank contributing financially to anything you wouldn’t agree with from a moral or ethical standpoint? Unless you’ve taken the time to switch your banking to an ethical bank (if you have, well done you), you might be causing harm through one of the biggest levers you have to pull. Your money.

Part of our impact (positive or negative) on ourselves and the world around us is visible to us. Other parts are not. What ‘without causing harm’ really means to me is that we each try to make visible and become aware of our impact. So we can up the positive and reduce the negative. That might be external things like where we invest our money. Or it could be internal, like our negative or unconscious biases.

We can’t do this all at once. And we certainly can’t be perfect or get everything ‘right’ (I for one have been meaning to switch to an ethical super fund for years and still haven’t done it). But we can always be learning, growing, shifting and improving.

To be consciously successful, we must become aware and make efforts to reduce any negative impact we might have.

A work in progress

Conscious Success is a work in progress. I am still forming and playing with it in terms of what it is and how it looks. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m enjoying exploring possibilities. I invite you to explore with me. It’s a work in progress for each of us, shaped by our own unique experiences. As our world evolves and changes, we evolve and change. And so does everyone around us. Our conscious success must evolve too.