Buddha CEO - Howard M. Cox (best book recommendations TXT) 📗

little clinical like a research paper. However, if you can sift your way through all of that you can find the promised handbook for living.

Here are some of the observations the Dalai Lama makes in his book:

Our moment to moment happiness is determined by our outlook, not by our absolute condition.

Our feelings of contentment are strongly influenced by our tendency to compare.

We can increase our feelings of life satisfaction by comparing ourselves to those who are less fortunate than us and by reflecting on all the things that we have.

Eliminate those factors that lead to suffering and cultivate those that lead to happiness.

You can see the simple wisdom in his words. Happiness is 100% up to us. Every one of us can be happy by using the basic formula that he lays out in his book.

The trick is that in the west we confuse being happy with what we have as being soft or not having any ambition. The key is to be happy with what you have while you passionately seek to execute on your greater purpose to make the world a happier place through your work life.

If you don’t follow the Dalai Lama’s this advice, you will likely never be happy in the present, because you will be basing your level of happiness on the outcomes of future events. I will be happy when I get a new job, new car, new house, new spouse, etc.

In addition, if you only follow the advice from his book as you live your life away from work, your will end up wasting a huge portion of your life trying to buy happiness with unhappiness as Dr. Lund pointed out.

We spend the bulk of our productive years at work and we do not know how long we will live. Therefore, every day must count, because it is the only day you have for sure. This book is about how to make work matter, truly matter, as a vehicle for maximizing the cumulative value you create for the world in terms of happiness production.

Tim Sanders

In Tim Sanders’ masterpiece, “Love is the Killer App” he offers up the lovecat way “Offer your wisdom freely, give away your address book to everyone who wants it. And always be human.” You accomplish this through sharing your knowledge, sharing your network and sharing your compassion.

He describes the above system as an antidote for what he describes as the biggest challenge facing businesspeople today “Men and women across the country are trying desperately to understand how to maintain their value as professionals in the face of rapidly changing times.”

What is a killer app? Sanders’ defines a killer app as follows: “basically it’s an excellent new idea that either supersedes an existing idea or establishers a new category in its field. It soon becomes so popular that it devastates the original business model,”

The premise for the book is that Love is the new killer app. Sanders says (also the clever name of his blog) “Those of us who use love as a point of differentiation in business will separate ourselves from our competition. Further he states that “I believe that the most important new trend in business is the downfall of the barracudas, sharks, and piranhas, and the ascendancy of nice, smart people – because they are what I call lovecats.”

Sanders’ defines love in business or what he calls bizlove as “the selfless promotion of the growth of the other. When you are able to help others to grow to become the best people they can be, you are being loving – and you, too, grow.” Sanders’ battle cry is “SHOW ME THE LOVE”.

Tim sets up our contract with our employers as follows: “we take on a contract to create more value than the dollar amount we are paid. If we don’t add value to our employer, we are value losses; we are value vampires. Tim’s definition of added value: The value of you inside a situation is greater than the value without you.” Further he points out that now more than ever, “every member of your team depends on each and every other member to contribute. You can’t afford to take on people who will sink your value boat.”

Finally, he sets up the meat of the book with the following definition and observation. “Here then, is my definition of love business: The act of intelligently and sensibly sharing your intangibles with your bizpartners. What are our intangibles? They are our knowledge, our network and our compassion. These are the keys to true bizlove.”

Amen!

Tools

At this point we have a new goal for our lives and a new system to accomplish this feat. What’s missing; specific tools to help us be successful within the system. The rest of this book is dedicated to providing these tools. The implementation tools are divided into the three segments of the system, thought tools, word (communication) tools and action tools.

Keep in mind that although the tools are grouped into the three components of the system, they must be implemented in an integrated manner in order to be successful.

There is a linear relationship for sure. You must first create a concrete vision of the future you want to create, next, you must consistently and relentlessly communicate this message, and lastly, you must inspire actionable steps to for implementation.

However, once you have established some momentum, you need a feedback loop to create an ongoing and never ending process of simultaneously refinement of all three steps simultaneously.

Perfect Thought Tools – Creating the Mindset

Thought tools are the first creation. They embody Stephen Covey’s first habit of “Beginning with the end in mind” or also referred to as the “Seeing Habit”.

Seek Mind Control First

Buddha taught:

1. First, seek mind control
2. Learn the essential nature of this world of life and death
3. Make good use of this life
4. Ever radiating thoughts of goodwill and compassion

It should be self evident, that if you don’t have your thinking straight, you won’t get anything else right. That is why the Buddhist system starts with Perfect Thought.

Buddha taught that a person, any person, each person’s mind may make them a Buddha or a beast. We have the choice to make; create either one of the extreme results of Buddha or beast or anything in between for our lives.

Seek mind control is about taking charge of your mental activities. This is the step that allows you to proactively decide to implement the rest of the system.

You have to learn to understand and truly appreciate the essential nature of this world of life and death to understand the urgency with which you must implement the system. One of my favorite movies is the old Harrison Ford movie “Blade Runner”. At the end of the movie he is driving off to space with his robot girlfriend who by the nature of her programming has a definite and certain end to her “life” but they don’t know what it is. The Harrison Ford character properly points out the fact that that is true for all of us.

Meditating on the absolute certainty that this life has a definite end point and we don’t know when it is and therefore must always be prepared for it ignites the urgency to “Make good use of this life”.

Buddha’s commandment to accomplish the goal of making good use of this life is to be ever radiating thoughts of goodwill and compassion.

Key Buddhist Sayings on the Subject of Mind Control & the Right View

• If the mind is pure, the path will be smooth and the journey peaceful
• Everything in this world is brought about by causes and conditions
• Life is a succession of grasping and attachments; and then, because of this, they must assume the illusions of pain and suffering
• Even a good thing, when it becomes an unnecessary burden, should be thrown away
• The one who maintains the noble path to enlightenment will not maintain regrets, neither will he cherish anticipations, but, with an equitable and peaceful mind, will meet what comes
• The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure
• The mind that is not disturbed by things as they occur, that remains pure and tranquil under all circumstances, is the true mind that should be the master
• Human beings tend to move in the direction of their thoughts

Managing Apparent Paradoxes

One of the concepts we have to get our thinking right on is “managing apparent paradoxes”. Collins and Porras addressed this in their book “Built To Last” when they described the “Genius of AND vs. the Tyranny of OR”. This is what I mean by the fact that systems can be linear AND simultaneous not just linear OR simultaneous.

Jack Welch has also addressed this many times. One great metaphor is the age old questions of whether to manage for the short term or for the long term. The answer of course is BOTH. He describes it as squeezing and dreaming all at the same time. Squeezing profit out or our current operations while dreaming of the future and not jeopardizing your future by your current actions.

This is a difficult balance. Too much squeezing for short term profit inevitably results in running a business straight into the ground. Too much dreaming about the future leads to never getting anything actually started.

Stephen Covey describes maintaining this delicate balance as the P/PC balance. We need to take care of ourselves, our organizations and our families by balancing getting results from our current production while at the same time always investing some time to up-skill and renew so that we are ever increasing our future productive capacity.

Vision Statements

The first tool in this category is the Vision Statement. The goal of a vision statement is to create and sustain excitement. If your vision for your life, your family or you organization doesn’t make your pulse rate jump into high gear, then you still have work to do.

The bottom line purpose of your vision is essentially to act as an advertisement to attract and retain the right people onto your team. This could be a spouse, employee, investor, supplier, banker or customer.

Vision Statements should clearly and concisely describe what you intend to accomplish. They must define what your organization will look like when it is done. They usually look out into the future at least 2 to five years. However, longer time frames are fine as long as interim milestones are defined so that you can track your successes along the way to the accomplishment of the ultimate vision.

The vision should define such things as follows:

• Sales volume
• # of team members
• # of locations or geographic reach
• # of or type of customers
• Product range or depth

All organizations are simply vessels to match up people and systems internal to the business with customers outside the business with specific products or services over a defined area of some type. Therefore, a good vision statement incorporates elements of all of the above.

Mission Statements

The war for talent, capital, credit and customers is extremely competitive. Therefore, you will need more than