Business is a Journey About Love

I think prosperity boils down to two things:

1. Knowing who you are, what you want from life, and what you have to offer.

2. Offering yourself to the world with love.

When we’re doing both, things are good. We are aligned with our inner self, and with the laws of the Universe, and prosperity happens naturally.

But getting there? That’s a journey.

For years I’ve been focused pretty much on the first one. What do I want to do? What do I love to do? What makes my heart sing? How can I get my needs for contribution and stimulation met? How can I be happy? What is my purpose in life? Who am I anyway?

Now I feel ready for #2. Do I love my customers? My colleagues? How can I open that flow? How can I bring love to the table, and let go of everything unlike love? How can I open my whole heart to the world? How can I experience the Divine flow that comes with giving myself to life?

Wait. What does love have to do with it?

I am defining love as “an open and generous flow of energy between lifeforms”. Prosperity I am defining as “giving and receiving an abundant flow of personal energy”. Sounds pretty similar, right? Oh, and money? When you remove all the baggage and meaning we have added on to it, money is just a condensed form of energy.

Prosperity is about both love and money.

If you focus on money without love, you miss something. You end up alone, cold, grasping–trying to control the world into meeting your needs. If you focus just on your own bottom line, or your own navel, you miss the juicy exchange of energy that can happen on a planet full of other loving beings. If you contract in fear, not sure if your needs will get met if you open up and let the energy of love flow through you and your business, you’ll stay in a self-created shell and never feel the glorious experience of being fully involved in the world.

If you focus on love without money, you also miss something. If you focus just on giving and giving, and don’t include your personal self in the equation, you will get burnt out. If you do things out of an idea of “selfless love” that doesn’t include your personal desires and needs, then you’re missing the reason we’re embodied in human form. Fully expressing your unique personhood is part of the ride. And money is part of that embodied existence. A very useful part.

The Prostitute Archetype

Many people have become afraid to have money, because they think money will turn them into people who care only about money. There is this idea that money is inherently corrupting. I think that is B.S. of the highest order and is a denial of free will.

But I also think that people often do go through a phase of being “corrupted” – i.e. playing out the Prostitute archetype, where you hand over a part of your soul for more money. Upon first experiencing success, many people go through a phase of doing things to get more money, and fudge their ethics. They use manipulation, or shortcuts, or other things that are not really in alignment with spiritual truth. They get greedy. Or they stop paying attention to what really makes their soul sing, and start producing a product that sells instead of giving from their heart. They focus on money and forget about love.

It’s a risk. But I see this as part of the learning process, part of the journey. Some people seem to get stuck there, but you don’t have to be. And you don’t have to be afraid of it. The journey takes heart, but I believe you’re up for it.

If you don’t risk “corruption”, you’ll never move beyond fear.

Ultimately the experience of being human isn’t about being perfect, or good, or generous right off the bat. It’s about your soul being forged in the fire of experience. To hold off from that experience out of fear of falling into the mud is a basic fear of living. It’s lack of trust in your soul to handle the experience and bring you through. It’s saying no to the journey.

Where are you on the path?

Are you trying so hard to be “good” that you are denying the expression of who you really are?

Or are you so invested in your personal good that you’ve forgotten how to be of service?

Or are you stuck in fear, not willing to jump into the river of life and trust that your soul is guiding you in your journey?

There are many steps in the journey. Wherever you are at, choose to move forward. That’s all it takes. 

Let no one be deluded that a knowledge of the path can substitute for putting one foot in front of the other. – M.C. Richards