– Vee Haslam –
What if a curriculum of love in business enables a better world?
I have just re-read a book that deeply touches my soul, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. A memoir about Mitch’s visits with his former sociology Professor Morrie Schwartz while Morrie was dying of ALS. They wrote their last thesis together exploring; life, being part of something bigger with one another, learning to give and receive love.
“Once we learn how to die, we learn how to live.” (Morrie Schwartz)
I immersed myself in the experience: I read, I cried, I felt deeply, I am processing… Through the contemplation of many emerging questions…
Funny how experiences and circumstances emerge in our path in ways that are unexpectedly perfect. At least that is how I see my world 😊 For me, there are no accidents and there is invaluable insight in seemingly ‘randomly insignificant’ events.
I first read Tuesdays with Morrie some time ago… I found a clue in my book as to when this was. A public transport ticket used as a bookmark which has a foreign language on it. I must have been overseas on my honeymoon in Europe. This dates me and the experience! I would have been 23 years old and I’m now 48.
For some reason, when I was in my parent’s study a couple of months ago helping out with something on their computer, I spotted this book on their bookshelf and I took it.
For some reason, I felt drawn to re-reading it over the last couple of nights.
I was so touched by just about every word in it. What a gift Morrie and Mitch have shared with the world.
Those who know me would probably guess that I now find myself asking why this book would re-appear in my path at this moment?
Here is my in-this-moment contemplation…
What would ‘business’ be like if we had a book like Tuesdays with Morrie on the curriculum?
Our learning as preparation for stepping into ‘business’ is commonly filled with approved publications, evidence-based research, strategies, frameworks, models, theories, concepts…
- What ‘fits’ the expected learning outcomes?
- What constitutes a ‘good’ grade?
- Did we do ‘good’ enough?
- What’s next?
- Will we get a job?
Translate that forward into who we show up as when we are in ‘business’ together…
- What role do we step into?
- How do we perform our role and why?
- What expectations are there about how to interrelate and for what purpose?
- Where are we / our souls in all of this?
- Where is love?
What would ‘business’ be like if we saw beyond the illusion of:
- Competition?
- Scarcity?
- Shorter-term egoic measures of success for ourselves? And, our organizations?
That is, if we lived in alignment with an abundant mindset and energy?
What would ‘business’ be like if we looked at it through the lens of what legacy we are leaving for our shared humanity and the generations to come?
What if it’s not ‘just business’?
I wonder what our world would be like if the fully-felt, holistic human experience is the curriculum?
- When we truly engage in business from love…
- Living in the present of every moment of life together…
- Where there is no longer arbitrary delineation between what’s ‘business’ and what’s ‘life’…
“In business people negotiate to win. Then negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.” (Morrie Schwartz)
One of the many beautiful messages resonating in my re-reading of this book is that at the end of our lives, we are the meaning that we have made and the moments of authenticity and deep sharing that we have with each other.
- If we have the opportunity, what will we truly REFLECT on as our own time to transition from this life comes near?
- Will we really SEE a difference in the settings of our life experiences? Is it really ‘just business’?
- Or, will we FEEL all of life’s rich experiences of challenge, triumph and every moment of messiness and clarity in between regardless of the ‘label’ we give the ‘setting’?
What if business was about relationships?
- Relationships with others…
- Relationships with our collective humanity and the world…
- Relationship with ourselves…
That we are sharing precious moments of our lives together in every moment of business? Brought together perfectly for our individual and collective highest purpose. Never insignificant or accidental in any way. Invaluable moments that enable us to learn and grow together.
“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like.” (Morrie Schwartz)
What if our holistic human experience is the curriculum – that at the end of our lives there is no distinction between ‘work / business’ and ‘life?’
That it’s an all-encompassing experience through which we have the opportunity to explore life’s meaning. That in every moment including business, we share:
- The ability to choose what matters to us.
- The ability to feel deeply and detach in awe of the impermanence of life that moves through us.
- The ability to hold compassionate forgiveness.
- The ability to be fully present with one another.
- The ability to give and receive the gift of love.
What if we have the precious opportunity to co-create the world we want to live in by being from love in business together?
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. . . . Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act.” (Morrie Schwartz)
May you have a magical workday, every day. 💚
