{"id":243,"date":"2008-12-29T17:42:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T17:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.wpdude.com\/test\/?p=243"},"modified":"2008-12-29T17:42:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T17:42:00","slug":"human-business-2009-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/12\/human-business-2009-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Business – 2009 Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> During a somatic coaching session on Christmas Eve with new associate Anthony Davies I was asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s your biggest vision for your business?\u201d I was unprepared for the question, and understand that my business isn\u2019t just how I make money but who I am and my contribution to the world \u2013 so it was a big question. I work with 1-3 year plans but had never thought what my BIGGEST vision was. Conditioned by English cynicism and \u201cknow your place\u201d limitations the question had simply never occurred to me. This post is a more articulate version of the surprise response that I expressed then, and what I woke-up with today – Human Business.
<\/strong>
The reason I get up every day and do what I do (it\u2019s a Sunday morning in the holiday period as I write) is because I love what I do. I have taken on the old adage and done what, for me, is not just the hard way but the only way, doing what I love and getting paid for it. The very idea of doing things I don\u2019t want to do to earn money disgusts me now, and I\u2019m grateful to be in the privileged position of not having to. I distinctly remember as a child thinking that the whole work thing was a bit of a con and that \u201cjobs were for losers.\u201d These days I see that many are trapped by circumstance or thinking so hold it a little more softly, but still refuse to join the miserable masses. That\u2019s not to say that I don\u2019t put in looooong hours now, or that everything I do is orgasmic fun, but that even filling in a tax return has an element to play to it as long as I stay connected to what matters. To what one of my teachers calls \u201cFor the Sake of What.\u201d When I dig into my motivation for doing anything I usually find that it\u2019s for the sake of peace and education, and I try and keep these things close to the surface now as this changes the whole tone of my work. The stress management courses and team building <\/a>sessions I run are really about being at peace with one-self and with others. The Embodied Management Training <\/a>that we will be bringing forward in 2009 is about education in the deepest sense, coming from a family of teachers it is perhaps no surprise that this is a core commitment to me. To me core commitments are not just nice vision statements framed on the company wall, but embodied states of being – I am <\/em>my commitment to these things, and the life lead is a testament to my striving to support them. My thanks to Dr Richard Strozzi Heckler for informing my understanding of these matters.<\/p>\n

So what does this world look like that I would help build? The main area I now work with is training for organisations. Largely this is because it is in this area I see that work needs to be done. People usually spend at least half their waking lives in the workplace and how organisations function has a profound effect on their wellbeing. With a growing number of multi-nationals having more economic and political power than countries, I also see developing \u201chuman dialogues\u201d within companies as critical to the future of the planet. My business offers demonstrate how it is in the best interests of organisations to consider the human side of business and signs of this happening increasingly, encourage me. Phrases like corporate bullying, conscious business <\/a>and corporate social responsibility are moving from the fringes to the mainstream, as the world develops along integral lines. While true embodiment takes longer than acquiring new phrases, I see development rolling onwards, with selfish \u201cslash and burn\u201d businessmen, ethnocentric orientations and unfeeling organisations increasingly looking like dinosaurs. I see smart organisations realising that it is in their best interests to reintegrate people and planet with profit, and those that can\u2019t adapt to this higher functioning naturally withering.<\/p>\n

The work my associates and I do through the body and feeling simply would not have been possible just a short time ago, and now we are thriving. For example:<\/p>\n

–<\/strong> Francis Briers – An interfaith minister, actor and martial artist who works in a blue-chip corporate training role
–<\/strong> Clare Myatt \u2013 A UK pioneer of \u201csomatic bodywork\u201d who was recently received with delight at one of the UK\u2019s oldest and most respected training institutions
–<\/strong> Dawn Bentley \u2013 Whose embodied work on impact and influence, NLP expertise and knowledge of Jungian archetypes continues to support high street names
–<\/strong> Andy Mason \u2013 who delivers needs-based communication training (Non Violent Communication) to such varied locales as the local unemployed resource centre, Egyptian corporations and embattled NGOs in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Typing this what comes up for me is profound gratitude that these people are not only my work associates and friends but also just that they exist and are doing the work they do.<\/p>\n

My vision is organisations of all sizes becoming places where it is possible to be a human being while getting the job done. I see bodily and emotional intelligence in the workplace informing real people, perusing multiple bottom-lines. I envisage what is already happening with my small group spreading as its benefits become obvious \u2013 employees really cared for through hard times, honest open communication, even meetings that end with \u201cI love you\u201d (as well as \u201cNow get back to bloody work!\u201d) as is common at Integration Training. I image a world where the person I phone at the call centre will want to support her company for what it stands for and will listen to me because she really gives a damn. I imagine a world where empathy, self-awareness and vulnerable honesty will be considered critical values in business. I imagine a time where governments will simply be too present and too human to indulge in bureaucracy, environmental destruction or warfare. I see this process as happening anyway, and my business as helping to facilitate this growth.<\/p>\n

How can I have such high hopes given the state of the world? Perhaps I\u2019m na\u00efve given what\u2019s going on all around us? I\u2019ve seen my share of suffering – talking with Iraqi refugees, working in the slums of Brazil and while living with a HIV awareness group in Ethiopia, and yet I see much to be optimistic about today. Even if I didn\u2019t, what would be the sense in giving-in to resentment, cynicism and apathy? None.<\/em> I state and live my commitment to the things I love precisely BECAUSE of what is going on around us. ,”Not because it is easy but because it is hard” to borrow a phrase from another great adventure. I see the news of fresh violence from the Middle East, as well as e-mails from friends involved in Arab-Israeli peace projects that don\u2019t make the headlines, I cry in hope or despair and redouble my efforts. I feel the contraction of fear in this economic climate and I decide not to cling to what I\u2019ve got but give away who I am. Generosity, not attachment, is the antidote to scarcity. The externals can and certainly will change but my reaction to them\u2026now that\u2019s my business! My choice is simply to be who I am and do what I do, anything less would be a kind of death and I\u2019m not ready to go gently into the night just yet.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve talked of love and this is central to the vision I have and I won\u2019t be embarrassed to spell it out as I\u2019ve recently paid the price of making that mistake. When we\u2019re disconnected to love as a real embodied state, life loses its magic and work becomes a chore, relationships degrade to economic exchange and violence of all kinds becomes possible. When we are connected to\u2026and enter any name that works for you here\u2026love, spirit, hope – life isn\u2019t easy either \u2013 this is not a soft-option, sickly Christmas card or the poetry of a child. My vision comes from following my life\u2019s heartbreak as well as my joy, with the spirit I had before loss but with the experience of an adult. Now, split from the woman I wished to spend my life with, and mourning my best friend who killed herself at this time three years ago, I am aware of what the stakes are and I choose not to complain but to dream. I choose to acknowledge and work with the heartbreak that makes us human and build a life that serves others as well as myself as a consequence. Deep within us, is the centre of our pain, and buried in that something precious and worth sharing.<\/p>\n

Whatever vision you are looking to make flesh in 2009 I wish you luck as what concerns me is not that people will have the wrong dreams, but that human beings will stop dreaming at all, or lack the courage to turn visions into plans. I hope this inspires you to do whatever it is you were put here to do and nothing less. Hear it as a challenge or a plea if that ignites you, as dreams die in their sleep if not acted upon. These are just my Jerry Maguire ramblings after a bad night and a beautiful morning – I invite you to take from them what you will.<\/p>\n

May you have a happy, prosperous and compassionate New Year. <\/p>\n

Mark Walsh<\/p>\n

Integration Training<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a somatic coaching session on Christmas Eve with new associate Anthony Davies I was asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s your biggest vision for your business?\u201d I was unprepared for the question, and understand that my business isn\u2019t just how I make money but who I am and my contribution to the world \u2013 so it was a big question. I work with 1-3 year plans but had never thought what my BIGGEST vision was. Conditioned by English cynicism and \u201cknow your place\u201d limitations the question had simply never occurred to me. This post is a more articulate version of the surprise response <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xvDN-3V","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}