Episode Transcript
The talk I wanted to give this evening was similar to a talk which I gave in London a few weeks ago. And the reason many of you may know that I went to London a few weeks ago was an invitation to give her a masterclass at a conference on human resources, basically to big business people, where there were managers from companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Intel and British Airways, and also for the National Health Service of Britain, who gave me an invitation to go back to teach another masterclass at their annual conference later this year, a invitation which I refused because I have to come some Friday nights to teach here. But obviously what a Buddhist monk said there was very well received and many of you may have seen in the last Saturday's Western Australian an article about her that visits, I think I gave the, uh, the editor the headline for that old article about a brown robe in a sea of suits. Because it was a monk teaching all these big business people how to run their companies, which is obviously a strange thing, because what does a Buddhist monk who is penniless, who is just filled in a monastery and has never been in that type of business? What does he know about teaching in human resources? But obviously, that's what we say has a huge effect and is well regarded because the organization where I went to the Chartered Institute of Personal Development is the biggest a human resources company in Europe. Their job basically is to train managers in how to get a greater morale, more efficiency, more harmony in the workplace. And so I was mentioning this this afternoon to a group of Vietnamese who had come from Melbourne, when I mentioned that one of the young men was quite surprised. Surely Buddhism and business don't match. And because that's what I say, because I disagreed with them. That's what this talk is going to be this evening. What is them in the business world? Because I disagree there that Buddhism has a huge amount to offer in the workplace, especially because many of you will spend a huge proportion of your time in the office at work, maybe 30, 40, 50% of the time sometimes these days. And what happens to you in the work environment affects not only your happiness and job satisfaction, it also affects your health. It affects your family life. It affects your basic well-being in every aspect, because 3,040% of your life is a huge chunk. And unfortunately, too many people have so much stress and negativity at their work, they can't come home. They either just so tired. They cannot relate warmly with their family. Or else I just get angry and tired and they just hide and they just do nothing. They don't really have a good family life because their office life is not so good. And when your family life is not so good, you have too many people separating. Kids suffer. The kids don't have time with their parents and the kids suffer. And then all those problems you take to work the following day and the whole feedback mechanism of negativity continues, and people are having a terrible time. And that also would affect the success of the company too. So just focusing on what happens in the office is directly responsible for a huge amount of your happiness and suffering in life. And that's Buddhism's concern that the lessening of suffering, the creating of more happiness and well-being and more understanding. And with that understanding, even the time you have at work can be more productive, more fulfilling, more peaceful, so that that will help you in your family life. So what sort of things can Buddhism offer? You know, for the workplace and the general principles of things like mindfulness and compassion help enormously, but not just those general principles of mindfulness and compassion and all that. Many centuries of Buddhism has existed. We have worked out some wonderful strategies to actually apply those principles of mindfulness and compassion, and that power of a mind which is focusing on those two. Uh, uh, very effective mind states of awareness and kindness. Those strategies which have been developed over the centuries when a Buddhist puts them into practice and develops no more than usual. Kindness, more than usual awareness that does effect your life in the office enormously. And one, uh, disciple in Penang. When I taught a retreat there last December, when she came up for her interview, she was beaming, she was smiling, and I asked her, why was it your meditation? And said, no. She said it was her promotion. You think all this very hard for promotion in her business, because that her performance at work was so more in advance of all of her so-called competitors? The boss is very easily gave us quite young lady, this huge promotion, and she was in customer service in the huge corporation in Penang. And the reason why she told me about this is because she said it was the Buddhist training which she had had got her this promotion. And the particular part of Buddhism was this mindfulness of compassion business. And the particular story which gave her this promotion was one which is one of the central stories in that book of mine, Opened the Door of your heart now, which I've taught many, many places, because it's very simple but also very powerful. And for those of you who heard it before, I don't mind repeating it because it's one of the great stories in that book. Castle Tolstoy is the story of the Emperor's three questions. But because many of you are familiar with that, I will only deal with it. In brief, the Empress three questions goes like this. And the Emperor was fed up with ordinary religion, wants to find his own spirituality. And he decided that all religion boiled down to the answer to three basic questions, which was when is the most important time? Who is the most important person and what is the most important thing to do? So when is the most important time? You'll know the answer to that. It is now. Yes, now's the most important time. And I often say this when I give talks. When is the best time to say how much you love the partner just living with now you live it till tomorrow. Your relationship dies. When's the best time to say sorry? Now, I think Mr. Ben Cousins needs to listen to this talk. And Mr. Howard and Mr. Blair, Mr. Bush especially because if you leave, I'll say sorry for too long. It gets harder and harder to stay. And the time is miss. For those of you who known death of a loved one, it's always one of the terrible things of a death. The person is no longer there, and you can't say what you always meant to say because you left. Those moments called now pass by. As you all know that my father died when I was 16. I remember at his funeral service these events, even though his wife 40 years ago, is still very vivid in your memory, because the most important moments of your life, losing a loved one. And at that time, I always felt guilty. Guilty for the things I did, which I shouldn't have done and which I should have said sorry for. And the things which you never said, and how much you loved and cared for your father. How much you respected him for what his death taught me, that those moments recall now they passed so quickly and went, so passed they never come back again. You've lost those opportunities, and it is painful to have lost the opportunities to say to someone who you really cared for, who you respected, that you did love and care for them. You did respect them to say it to their face. Because I didn't understand the importance of now. I let it pass and it could never be said because my father died. Now is such an important time. Please, as I say in common culture, not grab today, but grab the moment. The day is too long. The moment is the only time you have. And people who know the importance of now this is the most important time become very successful people remains. Question was not the when but the who. Who is the most important person. Whenever I say this in public, we never got time to. People haven't heard this before. I always ask for suggestions. Who is the most important person? I said to this at a Kansas of Wellness Association group, which came to that monastery on Wednesday, and still many of those people who were either cancer sufferers or relations and friends of people who had either suffered or died from cancer. Most of them put up their hands and said, oneself. Me is the most important person. And of course, that's the wrong answer. Because the right answer. And this is the reason why these insights are so powerful. Because they go deeper than you expect. They're not obvious. That's why they're called insights. The most important person is the one you're with, whoever they happen to be. It's another meaning of the word now. So whenever you are with your partner, please make sure that they feel that they are the most important person in the world. Do you understand what I mean? I think you all do because sometimes you're with your husband or your wife, your partner. You're talking to them. They're just trying to get rid of you. But they're not taking you seriously. You know how that feels. That's where your relationship starts to die. You're not important to them anymore. You feel that they're not listening. And their relationship starts to fade and shatter. There's no nothing there anymore. But if you can always remember that person who you're committed to, the one you live with when they're in front of you, please remember that they are the most important person in the world. They'll feel it and your relationship will change. That's your kid. Doesn't matter if you're tired. They're in front of you. They're the most important person in the world for you. Then you have a relationship with your children. And much of the problems of family life will be solved just by giving your kid that sense of importance. Sincerely. Honestly. Really? When they're in front of you, they're the most important person in the world. And lastly, the most important thing to do is to care. Take care again. His halfway between being caring, compassionate, kind and being careful. Being aware. Mindfulness. Alert. It's the most important thing to do. The combination of alertness, mindfulness with kindness, compassion. Those were the answers to the empathy question. Now is the most important time. The one you're with is the most important person, and the most important thing to do is to care. Very simple. Very incredibly powerful. I can't resist saying one of the stories, which. Is very inspiring how that particular The Empathy Questions has done a huge amount of benefit here in Perth. There's must have been about 10 or 12 years ago now when I was invited. So I think Morley, our recreation centre, because the education department in Perth had hired that place for a conference, a one day seminar. When I got the invitation. The invitation was inviting me to give the keynote address, an education seminar. And again, I hadn't got a clue why I was invited. But when I saw on the invitation there was a free breakfast and I decided to accept. Because sometimes you don't get breakfast in a monastery, sometimes you do. But this was like a big breakfast. So yeah, I'm in for that. So you woke up at Borley, and what happened to me happens to many people. This person comes up to me, they got their badge on, you know, the organizer, and they come up and they say, hello, Adam Brahm, do you remember me? The hair was many, many times to me, and unfortunately, I'm a monk. I have to be honest. And so I said no. Fortunately, she was all upset. It's a terrible question to ask people, so please don't do that. You don't want to offend you, you know? But we've got to be honest. Fortunately, that she laughed. And then she reminded me who she was. And this led to this amazing story. I love telling this story is there. Quite often I get teary eyed at this story, one of those beautiful events of my life. She told me that she was the principal. I'm not sure it was Kelmscott primary account Scott high School. It is south of the river between Gosnells and Armadale. And I had given a talk at her school just on Buddhism. I happened to mention that story. The Emperor's three Questions. That night she sent in her resignation. Now is the most important time. But not because she hated her job. It is because she told me that this was something she always wanted to do in her life, and that story inspired her to do it now. She resigned from being principal of this school and the one thing she wanted to do. The one thing I was worried her was her many young people at that time who were not going to school, who were living in the parks. Of Perth. There are homeless had run away from home. They were into petty crime, taking drugs. Girls were selling their bodies 1213 years of age for sex. Child prostitutes. Losers. No hopers. The ones which were too difficult for anyone else to look after. Except maybe the police. And the police could do that. Much like I'm out for a few days. They were out again. She wanted to help do something. Now she had a philosophy for her work. The empathy questions were her philosophy. Now, the most important time she went to those parks. Those dark places in the city at night and found those kids. The point was that when she was in front of them, she remembered that doesn't matter if they were a child prostitute or if they were petty thief or burglar or drug addict or whatever. That person in this moment is the most important person in the world for me. She said. It was amazing just how powerful that attitude was. He said many of those kids for the first time, and some of these kids told me this. They said for the first time in their life, this was a few of the kids actually were at this seminar. They said it was the first time they could remember that a person authority, an adult was respecting them, was really listening to them, was saying that that person. Is this moment really important for me. And that attitude changed how these kids responded. They started telling her about where they were from, their histories, why they were where they were doing, and instead of being judged or being heard. Her feeling afraid, they opened up, told her their stories, and they could discuss if it was at all possible to get them in an education system again. And from that research, she told a program, a very innovative program to try and get these kids back into school so they could complete their education. And of course, she had to do those empathy questions to the bureaucrats in East Perth to get funding for this. But again, because now is the most important time, that bureaucrat in the suit or the business dress in front of me is the most important person I really care. Because of that importance, she gave even those bureaucrats. She got the funding. The program started, and this whole seminar was seven years after I'd been to her school, was to celebrate the success of this program. In the end, I never gave the keynote address. I gave a speech, but it wasn't a keynote. The keynote was given by one of the kids. One of the boys was about 17 who told where he'd come from. Of gross parental abuse ever since he was young, having no choice. It seemed like going on to the streets. And then this woman came along out of nowhere and cared for him. Who gave him respect because you are the most important person. So he joined this school which was tailored to his needs. What made me cry was when he said, I'm going to university next year. The kid who was lost had for this program been led into a life, a positive life of hope and success. There was another girl who was the street prostitute. She came up. She wasn't going to university yet, but she was in a full school program. Lives had been changed and that program was what changed it. That's why I was invited there. But that very philosophy was what this girl from Penang was using. I mean customer service. It doesn't matter how busy she was. As I mentioned at this business talk. What is business anyway? Business is not doing many, many things. The definition of busy is doing too many things at the same time. I wrote that definition because that's accurate. Sometimes I do that too many things at the same time, but you can get much more done if you try and just do one thing at a time. It's amazing high achievers seeing people get a lot done. Some of them, you look at them, they seem to be just floating along, hardly doing anything. You think? They don't look busy. But my goodness, at the end of the day they get a huge workload completed. Busyness is doing too many things at the same time. So this lady, the one you're with, is the most important person. Now is the most important time. And she just cared. She cared for her customers, and obviously she cared for her bosses as well. That's why she was recognized. She said that is what got her the promotion. So these are the sort of things which are just airy fairy, which you just know use when you're on your weekends in the temple. These are actually strategies which work even in the business environment. The most important thing to do is to care. And sometimes people think, yeah, but business is tough. Business is hard. But from people I've met who say no, the only way to get real success in business. And if you really think about it, it does make sense, is to have enough care for the people who are working for you, for your suppliers, for your customers, for everyone who is involved in the business. Because when there is that sense of care and trust, only then you get people working that much harder there. Be motivated. They want to. One of the stories which I told. From real life. This is not from the Buddhist suitors. That's a long time ago. But this is some real life. Because I collect these stories. There was an engineering firm in the Middle Midlands of England called Faraday and Sons, who won a prestigious award for best business practice a couple of years ago. They were in building maintenance, you know, who were contracted to look after, you know, whether it's the toilets or the maintenance, the lifts, that sort of stuff in this big high rise office blocks. The reason why they got the prize was because in 12 months, they had trebled their turnover and doubled their profits and no staff left. The way they achieved that was a very simple strategy. They banned overtime. No one in the company was allowed to work beyond the 8 or 9 hours which was stipulated for them. And of course, that is counter-intuitive for many companies. You think, well, we've got lots of projects to do. Let's work harder. And what happens? Yeah, you get those projects done, but the quality is no good. The staff are just resentful and they will leave. They'll have backbiting because of their tiredness, and tiredness leads to negativity and grumpiness. Instead, they banned overtime, which meant that that staff worked really efficiently. Number one, they didn't want to leave a company who obviously showed that they cared for their staff. I don't know where you work, but does your company care for you? If you found one, which did, would you want to leave such a company? Would you want to make sure that company was successful? You'd be motivated. Morale would go up. The quality of your work would improve. You want to work hard. Simply because people cared for you. A basic law of karma. If you care for someone else, really, chances are they're going to care back for you. The law of cause and effect. Karma. So number one, they didn't have so much stuff. Loss. And anyone in the company knows that a huge amounts of resources are lost when you have to retrain a staff. It takes weeks and months, maybe even longer than that. When you've lost a key employee to get someone else and train them, and to get them to have all those contacts, not just to know how the company works, but to have all those other contacts, you know, which is so important in life, especially in company life. Sometimes by losing your staff, you're actually losing the basic resource of your company. That was one of the messages, because when I was at this human resources conference, it wasn't just giving my own talk because, you know, I want to sort of increase my understanding of life. And so I was sitting in the back of many of the other sessions and listening to what these top gurus of management were saying, and I was just so impressed that they were saying Buddhism, basically. They said that one of the terrible things about these huge companies where there is Intel or whether it's PricewaterhouseCoopers, they train somebody and then when they get really good at their job, they go somewhere else and say, what a loss that is. Though financially, morale wise, one of the most important things for a successful company is to retain, you know, those staff, the key players, what they call in modern human resource management is to maintain the talent. And you just have to look at many sort of economic journals to know that that is one of the biggest problems in modern businesses, to spot the talents, to train that talent, and most importantly, to keep it. A lot of people will drive and poaching the key members of the organization because they are what make the company successful. If you want to keep that talent, you've got to be kind to them. Number one. And so that kindness sort of kept those people in that company. And that kindness spread because they were only working the 8 or 9 hours a day and they could not take work home. They could actually have a good family life. When they went home, they could relax with their wife and kids or their husband and their kids or their partner and their children or whatever. And because they could do that, they didn't have those family problems, which too many people take to work at 9:00, 8:00 in whatever time you go to work in the morning. How can you work efficiently when you're worrying about the argument you had with your partner last night, while you're worrying about your kid's performance at school, or whether they're taking drugs or whatever? Obviously, that's going to impinge upon your work performance. So by allowing people to have that time with their family, when these people were at work, they worked efficiently. They didn't have these other things bothering them. And because they weren't so tired and stressed, they didn't have all this office politics, which people keep asking me about. There are how many times people come and sort of ask me, just office politics are having such a hard time because they don't get on with this person in the office or that person's being really rude to them. It's a big problem, and a lot of those problems comes because of just basic tiredness. Stressed out, burnt out as too much demanded of you. You just had enough. So how can you develop that sort of companionship with other people you have to work for? And everybody knows whether it's a Manchester United soccer team or whether it's the the coach of the Eagles or the Dockers. That team spirit, being able to work together is one of the huge, important factors of any success. So that company has staff morale. They had efficiency and that spread to not just their families, to their suppliers and their customers. People wanted these people to do their office maintenance or their building maintenance. It's like these guys. Because the guys liked the company, because the company was caring for them. I can see so many other reasons why this company trebled their turnover. They got twice as many new contracts and also that they doubled their profits, which is why they won their business prize. So you can see with such, you know, spiritual values in the workplace. It does make the whole work experience positive for everyone in there. Even for the CEOs who've got to worry about the bottom line and the profits. Basically, everybody can win. You can have Buddhism in business and both win, which was the message of that family and sons. But it's not only that. Once you have sort of that sort of compassion and that kindness there, that people actually do have the ability to make contacts with each other. Not sure how many of you read that book many years ago. Daniel Goldman's emotional intelligence, where he was making the position, making the thesis and proving it very convincingly that success in life is nothing. Well, it is something to do, but not really much to do with your intelligence, your IQ. Now, your IQ is something which will get you your degrees at university. But in real life, the people who are successful are those who say they have emotional intelligence, which means the ability to talk with another person, to contact them, to make that friendships, their business is all about connections. How you can work together, how you can get those new contracts. How you can get your suppliers to do the right thing by you. It's about trust and kindness. Who do you want to do business with? This is a story from Sydney, I guess. I introduce a couple of stories from Sydney. Because now I go to Sydney quite regularly. There's a group over there which I look after, and one of these people was telling me that they were in this big business. I think it was, um, food business. Uh, and anyway, that they were trying to arrange a big multimillion dollar contract with some Taiwanese business people and these Taiwanese business people that were emailing backwards and forwards, and eventually they had the contract ready. So the Taiwanese businessman flew to Sydney to sign the contract. It was, you know, the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle for this multimillion dollar contract. Now, obviously, this was worth a lot to disguise business. But when they came to Sydney, they said, yeah, we agreed to sign the contract. We'll sign it tonight in the bar. You will pay for the drinks. And after we finished at the bar, you'll take us to a brothel and supply us with girls for the night. I wish he said sorry. I'm a Buddhist. I keep my precepts. I don't drink alcohol. You can go to a restaurant if you like, but not to a bar. And number two. I've got a wife, I love her, I'm committed to her. I don't break that third precept of adultery. I won't do this. And apparently, this is a true story. The Taiwanese businesspeople were so upset that basically they said, look, if you don't do this, no deal. I was very proud of this disciple. He said, no deal. I'd rather keep my precepts and keep my integrity and love my wife than have this big, profitable deal for my company. So they broke off, the deal was off and he went back to his home, obviously disappointed, but he felt good about himself. He'd done the right thing. Late that night he got a telephone call. The Taiwanese businessman had been drinking in the bar and they were thinking, they're discussing. They said, look, this guy is trustworthy. He won't even shi on his wife. He's not very likely to cheat on us. Can we come round to your house and sign the contract? And so the contract was signed. And what a wonderful thing that was because those Taiwanese PCs. But it made sense. Would you want to sign a business contract with someone who cheats on his wife and gets drunk? It doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm not in business, but if you can't trust the people you are in partnership with, what's going to happen to your business? It's a very, very risky undertaking. So you sign a contract. This other story is another. This is very nice lady. She was in the, um. Was it the garment? The fashion business? This has been very successful in Sydney. Although it's one occasion she had to go to London again to sign the contract. Be, you know, contract for her, her fashion business. I think she supplies wires and coals and stuff like that with her designs and stuff. So she flew all the way from Sydney to London. I've just been to London to see him from Perth. He gets jet lagged. He gets tired. For me, I had like a day before I went to the conference so I could actually have a rest and relaxation. But for her it was as soon as she arrived. Arriving at Heathrow. Straight to the hotel. Just check in. Have a shower and then back. Straight to the office. To actually to meet the the board and the managing director. And so she was very tired. Very jetlagged. And when she got into the office. Into the boardroom. The directors told her immediately. You wasted your time. You might as well go back to Sydney. The MD is in a filthy mood this morning. He's not in a good mood most days anyway, but this day is particularly bad. He's been shouting as there's no way in the world you're going to get your contract signed. No way. But she did get her contract signed. You know why? Because she's been learning meditation and Buddhism now for monks like me. You know what happened? She said, well, look, I'm here anyway. I might as well see the bloke. Well, he'd be down about 15 minutes. So while she was waiting, she prepared for her encounter with this monster of an MD managing director by going into a corner and sitting in meditation and doing metta loving kindness. Just what you know. You learn here. And she was disturbed. The managing director came in. Who are you? But much louder than that. One. And instead of actually, you know, saying that what she wanted, what she. Who she was and what she was there for, though, she just got up and she has so much this metta loving kindness in her. And she told me she didn't know where this came from. It just came out spontaneously. She looked at this managing director was glaring at her and said, you've got such beautiful blue eyes like my baby baby daughter Holly. And he said, really? Yeah. Is that so? And they had the contract signed in five minutes and said, it's amazing because of that loving kindness, that it was genuine. She wasn't playing. It really came from inside because she spent 15 minutes just meditating on metta and it worked. Now, how many times we say that I overcome this anger with loving kindness and it does actually work. And it worked. And she got her contract side. She said the funny thing happened afterwards, as soon as the managing director went out of the room, all the other directors, they would not let her go. They wanted her to teach them how to do this. It was so oppressive. And that's how you do it. Now now's the time. But you don't plan these things. Now's the most important time to care. No managing director in front of is the most important person in the world. You care for them. It's amazing just how effective that is. But, you know, one of the things of business. Not just getting the contracts. Sometimes in business, especially if you're a manager, one of the things which I heard at this conference was managers just to not know how to lead there. Sometimes they get promoted into these positions because they're very, very good engineers or they're very, very good salesmen or sales women, but they don't know how to lead a team. Because part of leading a team is actually what we call a business performance. Performance assessment, where you've got to see the members in your team and actually tell them how they're doing. And sometimes you have to tell them that they're not doing well. And I think maybe some of you have that experience in an office with 1 or 2 people who are not pulling their weight. People who aren't really meant to be there are too lazy or whatever it is. And other people in that office have to cover for them. They have to work harder for them. And as the manager doesn't see it, or the managers is too scared to tell people they're not working well, it's because of that that many leaders, many managers, they just don't want to tell the other person what's going on. They don't know how to do that without giving offense. But it's a tough task, isn't it? You're a manager. You're going to tell someone that you're not performing well. You're not doing well. That's their career. They've got a family to feed, a mortgage to pay. She is a tough thing to tell another person to criticize her. Some managers are so scared they put it off and off and off and off and off until in the end, they go up to them and say, you're fired. It's. He said why, he should know. But you'd never been told. And a lot of times those problems can be overcome by nipping in the bud. By having those personal skills, that emotional intelligence. To take a person aside and be able to point out the faults in a way which they don't feel offended, they don't feel rejected, they don't feel not valued, but they actually take on board and they may be able to do something about it. And how is that done? But I told in this little conference, because I'm a manager of a monastery and spiritual dictator of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. So, you know, sometimes you have to tell people, but how you do that, and it's a wonderful way of doing it. General rule five pieces of praise for every piece of criticism. So if you're a manager and you gotta give someone performance assessment. Find five things which, you know they're doing really well, which you really value, which you really respect about their work in that office, in their company, in that team. Tell them that, first of all, because it makes you feel good, but then come with the criticism. No, the mistakes are making when you couch it, not just you blurt it out straight away. What's wrong if you blurt out straight away? The people think that that's what you think of them. You're not valued, you're not respected, and you get defensive. You don't listen. You just don't take it on board. You think the boss is being a bastard and there's no communication left. But if that boss actually tells nice things about you. Oh, this is really nice. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, I'm really glad that you've seen that, because I have been working hard in those areas. I'm glad you value that. And then you tell about the weakness, their mistakes, and straight away you've got their empathy. Now, this is basic Buddhism, which I've known a long time, but apparently that some psychology person wrote a paper about this a year ago and it was published in many papers. That's actually how you tell someone off or tell him you're doing something wrong, a mistake. You get the empathy. First of all, you make sure that they realize, yes, you do care for them. You don't assume that they know you care. You've got to make it plain explicit. Write five pieces of praise. And then when you say the mistake, they can realize, oh, yeah, let's realize you're not rejecting the whole of them. You're just rejecting a part of their performance, not the whole performance. So don't feel rejected. They don't feel undervalued. They don't feel they're not appreciated. They are appreciated. And the very fact that you appreciate them so much is why you're telling this than this. So you can appreciate them even more. So you can be of more value. Because one of the things I learned at this conference was that many people in a office, in your work, you want to learn more. You want to grow that. Your work in the workforce is a learning experience. It's not just about making money. It's understanding more of the world, more of the company, more of your speciality in this world so you can grow your skills. People want to grow skills. They want to be helped. But sometimes we don't know how to help each other. So that way the manager goes up. Yeah, I really value five things. Now this is a bit wish a week on. And number two is not your problem. It's not my problem. Remember I keep saying this most weeks is our problem in a marriage. It's not the wife's problem. It's not the husband's problem. It's our problem. Very often do marriage ceremonies. I tell the happy couple, from now on, you should not think of yourself and say, yeah, yeah, we shouldn't think of ourselves anymore. And I tell the bride, you shouldn't think of your husband. Tell her husband you should not think of your bride. And that's when they get confused. For I was supposed to think of myself and not speaking to think of them. But I can't think of either of those. Who am I supposed to think about? And the answer is you think about us. Not him, not her, not me, isn't us. That changes the whole dynamics. It's the same when you're pointing out someone's force. If you're manager, it's not your problem. It's not my problem. It's our problem. So that way you're not really criticizing putting a person down too much. You're saying that now I'm here for you. You're here for me. Let's work it out together. So the manager also takes responsibility for moving forward from that defect in their performance, finding ways where they can't do the work because they're stressed at home. They need some sort of time off, or because they're sick or because they're not in the right job, or they need some extra training or whatever it is. You know that you realize that that manager is actually caring for you. They're not so much criticizing. So this is a problem. We value you. We want to value you more. This is a nurturing environment. This is a learning. We want your skills to grow. So let's find a way to make them grow together. And you can see just how positive that sort of attitude is. It means that everybody in that company, instead of having negativity, instead of having this terrible office politics and afraid of the boss or the boss being afraid of the workers, they are sometimes afraid of telling them off, that we have a beautiful way of moving forward together. The personal skills, the emotional skills, and obviously that this is great for the words of the Buddha. When you're telling somebody off, make sure that you do it with kindness, right? Time and place. That's an important thing for a manager to know. It's important thing for wife, husband or parent to know you don't tell somebody off when they just had such a hard day at work. They know best their car, playing their car in a small accident. They've had a disappointment at work or whatever it is. You don't tell a person off, you know when they're tired is stressed. Now when they are already had enough to stay. You've got to look at a person's body language to say when they're relaxed, when there is a be happy, choose that time and people will listen to you. So if you're a manager, you look at the workers. You find a time when they're reasonably relaxed as best they can be in the day. Remember what the first thing on a Monday morning, that's the wrong time to go and sort of be hauled into the manager's office. Now, a nice time when they feel reasonably relaxed, maybe just after lunchtime might be one of the best times. And then people are more willing to learn. Time and place is important. The way you do this, making sure it is out of kindness and compassion, you are really aware of what that other person looks like, so you know it's not the right time. You know it's the right time and place. You do it in a way which is together. Kindness. Learning. Nurturing. Moving forward. The other thing which I learn also has to be timely. You can't wait for too long. Don't put it off out of fear. It needs to be done. Like going to the dentist as soon as you get it done. So the less is going to hurt and also the less is going to cost probably. So feedback has to be given timely because I remember some of the HR people were in their talks, were saying that sometimes by the time you get that feedback, it's months later, you don't know you are causing a problem. You think, why didn't you tell me earlier? I could have done something about it. I didn't realize that my performance wasn't so good. Because a lot of times the feedback you get of your work in the company in the office is far too late to do anything about it. You get resentment. Obviously, this people don't care about you because they're not there to take you by the hand and get you to perform better. So that way that these skills, you know, which you learn here, they help enormously in the office. Businesses like that, they want to have a harmonious workforce, the harmonious workforce, where you can point out mistakes in a in a positive way and actually overcome those mistakes to move forward in nurturing environment, getting the people behind the company, the company behind the people as a team, good morale, even passion for what you're doing. See, that company is going to take off. Hester. People want to work there. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing? I don't know how many of you. When you get up in a Monday morning that you want to go to work? You think? Wow. Monday morning I can go to work again today. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing if you had that? That feeling thing that can be achieved? Maybe it can. So anyway, that way that these, uh, strategies, they do actually help. And of course, the greatest strategy of all is the time out strategy, simply because sometimes when you are working, sometimes you get so much to do and the pressures are on you so much that your efficiency goes down, down, down, down, down. Which is why that those of you who come here and learn a tiny bit of meditation, you don't need to be, you know, get into these deep journeys and become enlightened and be able to levitate and do all these amazing, weird, crazy things. But just having a little bit of peace, being able to drop the past, drop the future, drop all the thinking. Just focus on the breath for just a few minutes. That has enormous value in the office. Simply being able to relax and put things down for a while. As you must have seen this similarly many, many times because I say this so often, how heavy is the glass of water? The answer is the longer you hold it, the heavier it feels. I keep holding this for five minutes. I start to get in pain. If I keep holding this for ten minutes, I'll be in agony. If I keep hold of this for half an hour. I'm a stupid Mac. What should I do when it starts to get heavy? You put it down. You don't throw it away. You put it down for maybe a minute or maybe two. I often say, if you don't believe me, you can try this at home. After 1 or 2 minutes, you pick it up again and it actually feels lighter. And that's stress in a nutshell. Stress is not how much water you have in your cup. It's not how many duties you have to perform in your office, in your work. Stress is all about when it gets heavy. Carry on holding it. Carry on holding it. Kept pushing through the pain. You just get more pain. More stress. All you need to do when it gets a bit too much. Put it down for goodness sake. And if you put it down for a few moments, then when you pick it up again, it actually feels lighter. It feels easier to carry, which means that you don't have the stress related problems of being grumpy, angry at your fellow workers, angry at your wife, your husband, your kids, your parents when you go home. Even angry at the monks. You don't call me up so much. You don't worry, sister. I don't worry. Armor. So we can have a much easier time as well. You don't get so sick. But most important, your efficiency goes up. It is not just how many hours you put in at the workplace. It's how clear you are when you're doing that work. If you're not clear minded, you make too many mistakes. The quality of your work goes down. You miss too much of what the customer needs. Does that work? Well because you do not efficient anymore. It's so obvious to me. Being a meditator, there are times when I'm tired and I know, I know that the talk is not going to be so, so hot simply because your mind is not so clear. But when your mind is really clear. So some of those best talks I give, like on meditation retreats or during the rains retreat because there's so much meditation and might is so still gets really powerful. You get really, really clear. It's obvious. Put down your glass and your efficiency, your clarity, the quality of your work improves enormously. If is spent ten minutes doing your lunch hour, calming the mind. Like one person does. It's a great little technique. Every hour on the hour. He sits at his desk in front of his computer screen, closes his eyes and meditates for one minute 60s every hour. On the hour. He does nothing for one minute. His boss. Fellow workers go past his desk and think, I must be thinking about something. They don't realize that he's not working. He's meditating. So by resting, by centering himself every hour on the hour for one minute, it means that the other 59 minutes are very good, very clear. One minute of meditation every hour is an investment of time. You make it up with greater efficiency afterwards, but then you don't have any stress as well. So these are strategies which should be introduced in every office. That's basically it. A few of you said a few other things, but basically why I was given this free air ticket to go to London Hotel and why when I came back, there was another invitation to the National Health Service conference, the National conference in Birmingham in October. But I can't go because it's raised between. These things work and they're valid. The HR professionals noticed this and I got this wonderful question time afterwards. This lady is an expensive business to put her hand up. What is it they say? Any questions? She said this is not a question. This is a comment. That's amazing. I'm going to put everything into practice in my company. What a wonderful accolade that was. So had this conference because my brother and his daughter, my niece, turned up just before I was about to give my masterclass. They turned up and the message came through. You got some family members here, want to come in for free? So I said, oh come on, I've come all this way. And it's there you can you get them. So I taught the organizers into letting them in for free because it's good karma having a brother as a monk, having an uncle as a monk. He should call uncle. Uncle, as usual. With. And. But that's when I found out that how much they were charging, you know, but just by talking how much they were charging £300. How much is that in this? About 700. No. How is it in Aussie money? $750, you see. And you're getting all this for absolutely free. Wow, what a bargain. Courage. The Buddhist Society of Western Australia on a Friday night. So thank you very much for the bargain. And hopefully that what we said this evening will enhance what you do in the workplace, because some of you who are managers and maybe low level managers hire managers. I don't know who you are, but it helps. So Buddhism, our business, they do mix. And it's wonderful actually to get those messages into the workplace for the happiness and well-being of so many thousands and millions of people, and also for the economy as well. So really, this talk should have been sponsored by Mr. Costello. So that's the same thing. Are there any comments or questions about this evening's dermatologist? Any questions or comments? Okay. Oh, this one from over there and then from Tanya. Oh. Okay. Um, I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but I'll repeat the question, said a big, bad, nasty multinational company. They learnt how I think people works and that they become more efficient. And then it became even more big, more national, more nasty multinational company. You know that one of the the biggest and oldest multinational companies in the world is the Buddhist sangha. We've been going for 2500 years. Uh, it is for the happiness and well-being of every being that's a profit. And everyone winner for the not this sort of the gross national product, but the subtle national product, which is more important, the happiness of everybody. And look what this human resource is saying, that this is what everybody was saying. That that model of business is unsustainable. If you don't care and look after your people, then the people will leave. They won't work well. They'll destroy the company like a cancer from within. And this is what all these other people were saying. These are the the leading gurus of business in Europe, and also from places like Cornell University and from other places in the United States. And this is business. People were taking on boarders. This one, Francesco Castle or something. I forget her name. This, uh, African British woman. And she was this amazing lady. She was, uh, the human resources manager for Defra, the Department of Environment, farming and something or other. And she was saying when she first came into this, uh, like government department, sort of there were getting outcomes. So if they went where she said it, if the team went to Brussels and they got the sort of the piece of paper back, you know, the what they wanted, then they would get promotions. But what she was saying that modern business is not whether you get the outcomes is how you get those outcomes. The process is as important as the result, because if you get those outcomes that everybody just really pissed off at the company that fed up, because now they've been working overtime and basically that they've got no real commitment to the process. Those people leave. So the success is not sustainable. So what she was actually doing. So I'll just finish what she actually did. She managed to finally convince people who awarded the promotions and the pay rises to actually to not just look at their outcomes and what they achieved, but how they achieve that. Because you all know what government departments are like. Why are they like that? Why are they the education department sort of in Perth. And having all the problems with OBE is as good as what else is the process which these things were arrived at? That's the weakness. So this is actually where, you know, she was obviously this a leader of this human resources movement. And she had actually changed the whole culture in this government department. So people who were leaders, team workers, who had this morale, who were working together, these were the ones who got the promotion. So they rewarded the people with the real skills rather than the people who got the job done at any cost. Now that was actually other. This was not just government departments. And I would say like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Intel. I don't know who else was there, but those were actually on the list of people who were coming to my my masterclass NHS. So these are actually, you know, big organisations. So multinationals can probably are taking that on board as well. You're hearing the business of the future here in Pudding Society of Western Australia. And you heard it here first. So do you want to come back again with that? Lawrence? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I think. Yeah. Okay. Your question. Are you saying that, uh, if it is a big multinational company that may have, like, good work procedures for the staff, but there goes the ethics of where they're actually going can be quite harmful. I did see in the newspaper today that there was a group who from Greenpeace and McDonald's executives, uh, on a canoe going out the Amazon. And raising picture simply because even the multinationals are starting to get an ethical conscience, because they know they're not going to sustain their, their company unless they do. Uh, some arts are good. I go, I would I go and are a be what they. So are cut off by a lot of the more from an Amazon. Supply demand of a water source or a song Duncan among.
