00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 617 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Shannon miles from ballet. I challenged you to discover your calling and find your third option so you can be empowered to live every day to the fullest. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend and Scott Mader. So instead it's about developing a business that has maturity around it,
00:00:34 that embraces a diversity of views and does it exclude anyone and then recognizes the fact that the people are the most important thing where there is no vision, the people perish. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time,
00:01:04 your talent, and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. You will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself, I talked with you about why spirituality and business aren't opposites, how embracing spirituality can improve business and how you can embrace spirituality by allowing it into your business.
00:01:45 You know, one of the things that uh, I was dwelling on this weekend and reflecting on as we came into the Memorial day holiday weekend is Proverbs chapter 29 verse 18 where there is no vision, the people perish. And I was thinking about business and how different organizations conduct business and thinking and reflecting on what's going on right now and how a lot of different companies are dealing with a lot of change and a lot of stress.
00:02:20 Their employees are dealing with a lot of change and a lot of stress. And I was reflecting on how more and more in the last decade you're starting to see, see things about, you know, ethics and business and morality and business and spirituality and even religion in business. Not in terms of, you know, a business has to be religious to be successful,
00:02:46 but used to, it was like you absolutely could not allow anything remotely related to religion in the business. There was this, this feeling that mixing the two was always wrong. And don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about using a business to quote brow beat people into believing a certain way, but I am talking about recognizing that this idea of people being connected to a higher power,
00:03:17 this idea of people having religious beliefs and diverse religious beliefs, that that can be an important one to recognize in your business. You know, often times we've treat these two things as if they're opposites or at least as if they cannot belong together. They always exclude each other. But the truth is that there's research out there that showing that there is actually benefits to recognizing ethics and spiritual values and diversity of beliefs in business.
00:03:55 As employees begin to develop their own habits around mindset and belief and spirituality and truly even religious beliefs. And as they began to recognize the diversity of these beliefs and connect with each other, they began to also focus on more than just the bottom line, but the larger way they can serve their community, serve the business and actually do things well. You know,
00:04:27 there are businesses out there that embedded in their DNA is this idea of serving both their internal clients, their their staff, their employees, and their external clients, their customers, and that both of these things are necessary and vital to doing business well, and that is at its core, a spiritual or religious idea. The idea of having a servant mindset,
00:04:55 the idea of approaching things not just with what's in it for you, but what's in it for other people. How does it affect the world around you? Is it good for the environment? Is it good for the longterm success of the business, or is this just about the short term success and increasing the bottom line so that you can get a particular bonus or something else out of it when it becomes self serving that it really isn't the spiritual exercise at its core.
00:05:26 That's what's interesting. Oftentimes I think people think of spirituality in terms of promoting a particular Ridge religion or a particular belief system. And what I'm putting forward here is the idea that it's actually about embracing the core of these beliefs. You know, I am a Christian, but I have friends who are other face and I don't feel like they're in some sort of bad position because of instead my job is to love on them and you know,
00:06:01 put my arms around them, give them a hug and help them succeed. That's how it improves business. It also improves people's mindset and wellbeing. It's even shown to increase people's health and help them succeed better, which also, you know, self-serving servingly lowers the cost of the business because there's less work days missed, there's less time out and there's less cost on the healthcare system.
00:06:28 You know, the truth is that if we recognize that at its core these ideas of serving others well and taking care of each other isn't foreign to being a good business person, then what you discover is that your business can actually embrace spirituality. It can be open to the idea of prayer. It can be open to the idea that giving people time to connect to a higher power can be beneficial to them.
00:07:03 It's recognizing the idea that the people are at the core of your business and that you can put time and money and effort into investing in those people, including all aspects of their lives and their beliefs. You can look at them and not ask them to leave their religion at home, but bring it into the workplace, but bring it in in a way that nurtures each other and doesn't create conflict.
00:07:35 See, that's the reason that religion usually gets cut out of the workplaces because there are times and there are ways where it can create conflict because if it comes across as my beliefs are right and yours are wrong, no matter what, that creates friction and conflict and then from that you can get argument and pain and discomfort, but that happens with political beliefs.
00:08:02 That happens with all sorts of things that happens with how people there, their sexual identity that comes with their race that comes with all sorts of things, some of which there's no way people can leave at the door. So instead it's about developing a business that has a maturity around it that embraces the diversity of views and doesn't exclude anyone and then recognizes the fact that the people are the most important thing where there is no vision,
00:08:37 the people perish. You know? The truth is I love that vision of a business that is open to all comers and I hope you are too. Thanks for listening. Thanks so Much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling.
00:09:12 If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures.
00:09:43 Develop your influence and impact the world.