"Work is Love made Visible"- Kahlil Gibran
By Shirley Moulton - Founder, The ACADEMi of Life, NYC
After seven years of working in major corporations and with over 22 years leading a company whose clients were primarily Fortune 1000, I came to realize that I and others who worked in these mammoth entities were generally unhappy, fearful and stressed.
I LOVE business and I have loved it since the age of 5 years when I opened an imaginary store and literally sold ‘dirt’ and leaves from trees, to my sisters as products. I loved it when I would go into the shop next door to my house and buy candy. I remember watching in awe as the shopkeeper Master Alan skillfully weighed the flour and sugar he sold. The scale he used was this metal device balanced on a chain that hung from the ceiling. He would put empty brown paper bags on the scale and scoop out the flour or sugar from crocus cloth bags on the floor and fill the bags. He would meticulously and gently fold the bags using consistent motions and finally the finished product – 2 lbs of sugar or flour for the customer.
I loved watching this process. I loved the notion that if you requested a product it was provided with loving care and in turn, you would pay for the service with money, given in recognition of a job well done. What I witnessed was a ‘loving exchange’ as both buyer and seller experienced happiness, joy and satisfaction during the process. Watching this was inspiring, it was awesome! Many years later I read a quote by Kahlil Gibran “work is love made visible” and realized that what Master Alan was engaged in was a loving act and what was really being exchanged between the buyer and seller was “love”.
From that experience and many others since then, I concluded that the real purpose of a business is to lovingly create products and services in exchange for love through the vehicle of money. Money was the vehicle to express love for the products received from Master Alan. What if we would extend this feeling of love and loving responses to all the constituents of a business, the employees, the customers, suppliers, investors and society and in so doing produce quiet joy and happiness for all participants. What an evolution this would be; a business always engaged in the exchange of LOVE and loving it!
Excerpt from a book I am currently writing titled “How Big Business Can Save the Lives of their People…a Guide to Authentic Leadership”
