Conscious leaders are not only in tune with themselves, they're in tune with their customers' needs.
Jonathan Jeffery
ENTREPRENEUR LEADERSHIP NETWORK CONTRIBUTOR
Marketing and Growth Expert
October 9, 2020 8 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Today’s business environment has changed. And if you fail to move with the tide, you’ll be left on the shores of failure and bankruptcy. What’s this change sweeping over the business world?
Consciousness.
In its simplest form, consciousness is being aware of yourself, your surroundings, and the world at large. Conscious leaders are not only in tune with themselves, they have to be in tune with their customers' needs. When you can understand what the world needs from you, then you can start building a solution and creating a profitable business out of it.
Conscious leadership
Consciousness is not a new concept in business. It’s been around for some time, taking a backseat to inventions and innovation. Today, however, consciousness is once again enjoying a resurgence. As much as technological advancements may take us into the future, it’s consciousness that may keep humanity from extinction.
That’s what Deepak Chopra, one of the world’s leading conscious leaders, award-winning author, and founder of the Chopra Foundation, believes. Named one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century by Time Magazine, Chopra believes in humanity and planet Earth living together in a symbiotic relationship, instead of one taking advantage over the other. With the future of humanity in the balance, Chopra’s encouragement is for people to change their worldview if we’re to survive and thrive in a post-pandemic world. It will take a collective shift to consciousness to restore the Earth’s balance.
And it all starts with you. By embracing consciousness in your personal life and business, you’ll be a part of the wave that’s leading humanity to its next act in history.
So how do you do that? How do you power your life and business through consciousness?
According to Chopra, it all starts with finding your true self and aligning your business with your purpose. On a more granular level, however, here are a few ways to transform your life and business through consciousness:
1. Build a legacy, not a business
One of the main pillars of conscious living and conscious leadership is that everything you do must impact others in a positive way. From your community to your business, you must plant seeds of potential that will grow into positive developments. One of the easiest ways to do this is to discover your calling and build your business around it. That way, you’ll use your passion to generate profit while positively impacting those around you.
Building your business around your calling allows you to enjoy what you do for a living. More than that, it enables you to leave a legacy for future generations.
How do you discover your calling and use it to build a legacy driven business?
The key is to think outside the box while looking within. The foundation of a successful business is to provide a solution to people’s problems. To stand out from other solution providers, you’ll have to think outside the box. But to attract the right customers, you must look within. You must look at your calling and how you can use it to better serve your customers.
2. Challenge your beliefs and the "reality" of your business model
One reason many people fear crisis is that it disrupts the order of life. A clear example is the way COVID-19 has disrupted every facet of life. From social life to education systems to economic systems, everything has been disrupted.
And if there’s one thing human beings don’t like, it is change, especially change that’s forced upon them, that causes many people and businesses to crumble. The only way you can survive and thrive in such times of turmoil is to challenge your beliefs.
Why?
Because most of what we believe are assumptions. When you challenge all the assumptions you have about life and business, you come up with contingency plans that help you stay on top of your situation.
This is the key to taking control of your life.
By challenging your beliefs, you disrupt your thinking. And it takes disruptive thinkers to pave a way forward where everyone else sees a dead-end. Disruption breeds innovation, a key ingredient to being a successful business in today’s world.
3. Have a vision you’re passionate about and pursue it relentlessly
If there’s one thing that’s clear as the clouds of the global pandemic settle, it’s the fact that many businesses have sunk. That’s mainly because the way business is done has changed. But there’s a certain breed of businesses that have successfully weathered the storms and are thriving. Their common thread?
Passion.
The key to building a business you’re passionate about is to look within yourself and develop a vision for your life and business. The mistake many people make when it comes to developing and defining their vision is to make it a mental exercise. Your vision must stem from who you are inside. And that’s what stirs up the passion you need to fulfill your vision.
Passion is the reason startups are disrupting traditional markets. Most successful startup founders have broken the status quo of traditional business models and passionately pursue their dreams. While it may all sound rosy, the journey to success is never easy. That’s why only 56% of startups make it to the 5th year. The key to success lies in having a vision you’re passionate about and pursuing it relentlessly.
Whether it’s in your personal life or business, nothing is as fulfilling as a passionate pursuit of a vision. In business, the cherry on top is that people pay you to do what you love. Why? Because they probably don’t love it as much as you do.
4. Don’t build a business, build personal connections
It’s no secret. If you want to crush it in today’s world, you need to get your business in front of your clients. And there’s no better platform to do that than social media. Take Facebook, for example. With more than 2.7 billion monthly users, it’s one of the most popular social networks today. That makes it one of the best marketing tools for your business.
So what’s so special about social media?
One word: relationships.
The biggest thing the pandemic took away from us is one of our greatest needs: social interaction. That’s where live streaming on social media comes to play. It allows you to connect with your customers in real-time and interact with them as if you were meeting face-to-face.
And right there lies the secret to success in business: Don’t focus on building a business, focus on building meaningful relationships.
Relationships have been the foundation of strong businesses since the foundation of time. And while relationships have lost their value in the name of modernization, they’re quickly becoming the currency of the new age we’ve just stepped in.
If you’re to build a successful business, you must focus on building meaningful relationships with your customers. Use technology to your advantage and use functions like streaming live video to bring a community atmosphere online.
5. Step up and be a conscious leader
Today’s consumers are savvy and they can see right through your gimmicks. They’re tired of being tricked into buying products, services, or courses that don’t live up to their marketing hype. They want to deal with entrepreneurs who are conscious of who they are and live up to that. They’re looking for authentic leaders.
The only problem is that most entrepreneurs battle imposter syndrome at one point or another. And that’s caused by a lack of congruence—failing to align who you are with your offer. To overcome imposter syndrome and be an authentic leader who lives up to full potential, you must start with a radical mental shift. You need to re-define yourself and discover the value you bring to the world.
Following these five ways of consciousness is bound to lead to a fulfilling life and thriving business. Ultimately, it will lead to a better world.
Link:https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/356723?fbclid=IwAR0EpbZR2eWZ8tR-ZeBjHt5JQ97FfnBbynRMP1MFSymRAdnj46mZg37SlDc