The Business of Kindness
written by Steven on March 21, 2011
Years ago I was on the path from being deeply devoted to god to atheism. At the time I was struggling with my spiritual practice. I was busy, tired, always on the go and not sure how god fit into my life anymore. One day I had an insight that spiritual practice doesn't have to be about god, I can make it about kindness. If I simply worked at being kinder and more patient then if there was a god, she couldn't complain about that practice and if there wasn't it didn't matter, I am still improving myself.
Over the last few years as my stress and responsibilities have grown tremendously I had forgotten that practice, to busy, tired and on the go. Last week I decided that I should start it up again.
Allan loved the idea so much he decided that we will use that as a mantra for business as well as life. So now we are using that as a yard stick in how we deal with clients, employees and customers. Not that we didn't try to be nice before, but now we want to be more than nice, we want to be kind.
Don't worry, I'm still gonna say "fuck" and have a confrontative (combative?) style during my LessConf interviews and we're still gonna be silly and stupid and offensive in our humor, but we're also going to be kinder. Look for it in the checkout aisle of your grocery store.
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Steven Bristol has written code for the past 20 years. He like green vegetables and kittens, oh and butterflies too. He loves to throw ninja stars at his enemies.
6 Comments
I can attest to this! Last week, you and everyone at Less showed your support for me and my family at a difficult time for my 7 year-old son and his health issues. We liked you all before, but its clear that you care more about your customers than you have to and it’s wonderful. Thank you.
So THAT’S why you haven’t made fun of my placeband! (http://www.energy-armor.com)
: )
That’s really interesting what you are saying about not being able to have time to have a separate spiritual practice and work practice. I see Jesus as a great model of someone who took their spiritual life into their work life. When he was working (e.g. feeding the poor) he was also practicing spirituality (multiplying bread and fish). Do you think Jesus might have anything to say into our work lives?
Goddamn, that’s good! Love it. Makes me want to learn more about less. Thanks for the quick inspiration.
We liked you all 2 :)