Even when I was very young, I knew that my dad had gone successfully through several huge ethical fogs.  Several years before Dad met my mom, he turned down an unethical but lucrative job at the height of the great depression.  When I was just six months old, he blew a whistle on his powerful embezzling boss, a college president. Four years later, soon after Dad’s testimony helped send the boss to jail, Dad turned down another lucrative but unethical job at a social service agency.

As a child, of course, I didn’t understand the full impact of these stories. As an adult, I got enough details about whistleblowing and its impact to fill a book.

In the end, Dad’s only regret  was that no one had stopped the president when the wrongdoing was small, by saying simply, “No, Dr. Meadows, you can’t do that.”  Over the years, I also learned a lot about the stress of Dad’s whistleblowing on our family, and I healed.

What was left after the forgiveness and healing were some very powerful life lessons in basic integrity.  May they also serve you.

Integrity Tip 1:  Discover And Strengthen Your Integrity Signals

Each of us has a set of unique signals that let us know when we’re in or out of integrity, whether we call those signals our North Star, our touch stone, our inner compass.  Or my favorite, which I learned in Dad’s shop, the level and plumb which have helped carpenters build on true and on the level for over 5,000 years.

For Dad, moral disgust was visceral, like the feeling of being kicked in the gut when he realized what that his boss was embezzling. We once talked about the feeing of moral uplift — that warm feeling you may get in the upper chest in the presence of goodness–or the quiet buzz I sometimes get in the upper back, when you know things are on true or on the level.

Integrity Tip 2: Feed and Exercise Your “Integrity Muscle”

Dad often got integrity guidance from intuition or memories.  The first time Dad was offered an unethical job, he was helping to tear down an old, unsafe bridge when the boss offered to cut him in on a deal to paint the old parts to look like new, then underbid other contractors on a job in another county.

Standing along on what was left of the old bridge, Dad felt a moment of temptation.   “With so many people going bankrupt,” he thought, “you could even help your mama buy the farm she’s always wanted.” Just then a Canada goose flew close by.  It eyeballed Dad and seemed to say, “You know you’re got to do the right thing.”

For the first time in his career, Dad lost his footing. As he scrambled for balance, he imagined crashing onto the rocks below, then being swept down the rapids to death or severe injury. That’s when he remembered Psalm 121, which he had memorized as a child:  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.  My help is in the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

The psalm then promised that God would not allow him to stumble or fall, that he would be guarded from evil, “both now and forever.” That helped him regain his footing and affirm his refusal to be part of corruption.

Integrity Tip No. 3:  Don’t Stand Naively Alone When You It’s Your Turn to Speak Out

Dad was lucky to have the support of several other faculty members who also blew the whistle.  A local politician connected him to the State Bureau of Investigation, and after the third try, he got the support of a great lawyer to protect himself. Dad also prayed a lot.

Whistleblowers have a lot more support today, starting with the Government Accountability Project (www.whistleblower.org). If Dad were speaking out today, he could benefit from a great therapist who understands how to alleviate stress.

And if you don’t already know how to document key information, get an attorney to teach you what you need to record and how to do it.  Assume that once you’ve spoken out, people who now seem like friends may be offered huge incentives to deny what they now admit is the truth. So get that truth in writing, before you go public.

Integrity Tip No. 4:  Don’t Take on Too Much.

Too many whistleblowers become obsessed with fixing the whole problem, winning a personal vendetta or being a martyr.  I grew up with inflated notions of all I thought I had to do to live in integrity, given my idealized image of my father.

My best ally here has been Rhena Schweitzer Miller, daughter of my lifetime hero, Albert Schweitzer.  While interviewing her once, I got the image that it’s possible to wear a powerful parental legacy or a calling as lightly as one wears a chiffon scarf.  Another ally is my minister, Rev. Dr. Patricia Keel, to seek guidance on what is mine to do, what is not.  To the extent I have courage to do that which really calls me and ignore my ego’s demand that I do something grand, I’m more likely to be in integrity.  I also get to have a great life while doing what’s I know to be right, because part of being in integrity is being whole and true to myself.

So what about you?  What stories and resources help you know, stay in or return to integrity?  What tips can you offer from your life or role models?

As always, many blessings

Pat McHenry Sullivan

Imagine, to use another John Lennon pet phrase, that it’s true.  Love IS all you need to bring more integrity, more purpose, more joy, more peace in the world through the ways  we work and deal with money.  Actually, I’m far from the first person to pose this idea.  One of the best discussions of love, business and money was Tim Sanders’ wonderful article, “Love is the Killer App” in Fast Company Magazine.

Imagine the Most Powerful Force in Work and Money is Love — Not Greed, Fear or Unbridled Competition

It’s been almost 8 years since Sanders wrote this in the “Love is the Killer App” article:  The most powerful force in business isn’t greed, fear, or even the raw energy of unbridled competition. The most powerful force in business is love. It’s what will help your company grow and become stronger. It’s what will propel your career forward. It’s what will give you a sense of meaning and satisfaction in your work, which will help you do your best work.

Since Sanders wrote this, there have been more examples of how disastrous the results of greed, fear and unbridled competition are for everyone than anyone could have imagined in 2002.  Yet, there have also been numerous examples of a movement toward sustainability.  The field of spirit and work (which one prominent publisher told me around 2000 had peaked and was dying), has grown and become mainstream.  Movements in socially responsible capitalism are growing. Millions, probably billions of us, have put our finances on sounder footings of reality and meaning rather than fear and the chase for the latest shiny thing.

Today, Market Forces are Moving Us Towards More Integrity — An Essential Element of Love

Workforce Management recently published “10 Ethics Trends for 2010“  by attorney Stephen M. Paskoff which started with the trend towards even greater public scrutiny for the misdeeds of corporations and their celebrity spokespeople.  I was most excited by the impact of the last two trends he noted:

• Organizations will increasingly come to recognize that uncivil, abusive treatment—whether legal or not—causes business risks that exceed the economic costs of employment claims. These must be reined in during a period of diminished resources. This realization can be found in the health care field and will continue to spread to other industries.

• “Lean and clean” will replace “lean and mean.” Too many people and organizations have suffered too much because of greed and corporate corruption. There will be a renewed focus on values such as integrity, and these will replace the “greed is good” mentality prevalent in many organizations over the past 25 years.

“All You Need Is Love” May Sound Simplistic, But It’s a Great Starting Point

I discovered the “All You Need Is Love” singout through an e-mail from my friend Francine Brevetti.  “All You Need Is Love” certainly works for our friendship.  Not love in a passive “I think nice thoughts about you” kind of way, but in an active relationship where we are there for each other professionally and as buddies, for richer or poorer, in laughter and pain, in sickness and in health.

This morning, while I was viewing “All You Need Is Love,” my husband John joined me.  Later, we came up with these thoughts:

• All you need is love to guide you from hate or confusion towards caring and clarity.
• All you need is love for yourself to give you the courage to speak out when others harm you and to get help to deal with workplace bullies.
• All you need is love to create a richer foundation for any workplace or financial challenge that just your left brain or business as usual.
• All it takes is love to move from a state of “my heart just isn’t in it” to a commitment to do your best for yourself and others.

How Can You Put Love to Work Right Now?

Obviously, I hope you listen to the video and let it move you.

I hope you savor the articles listed above, as well as an earlier post in this blog, “True Love of Money is the Root of Many Blessings.”

To repeat the blog post’s  central thesis, what if  true love of money returns many benefits spiritual and material, including a more sane, kind and profitable economy for everyone? What if you love money according to the definition in Paul’s 1 Corinthians 13, where love is defined as patient, kind and many more wondrous things?

As always, many blessings, and please add your comments.

Pat McHenry Sullivan

“Can you give me more tips and resources for how to put more of my values into my business?” asked a participant in a class I taught on business planning at the San Francisco Small Business Administration www.sba.gov/localresources/index.html). That led to the following list, which I’ll use in tomorrow night’s class.  Links are kept visible, in case you want to print out the list and share it.

1.  Be very clear about what matters most to you:  what and who you care about, how you’re called to serve and use your talents.  Focus a vision around your values, then build your business plan around your vision and values.  Resource: “Finding Visions for Work and Life” at www.workwithmeaningandjoy.com/html/your_work_vision.html

2.  Read biographies of people who do business profitably in a way that excites you. Take a walk and imagine your role model giving you practical advice and inspiration.  This process can be magical.  Just ask any kid who becomes more courageous by imagining she is more like her hero. Business consultant C.J. Hayden‘s (www.cjhayden.com) public service website (http://www.howtobecomeahero.com) is loaded with tips.

3.  Think quadruple bottom line:  profits, people, planet and purpose. Research the conscious capitalism and socially responsible business movements; find meetings and gatherings.  Resources:  Fast Company Magazine and its Ethonomics online channel (http://www.fastcompany.com), Heart of Business (www.heartofbusiness.com), Ode Magazine (www.odemagazine.com), consciouscapitalism.com, www.livingeconomies.org and quite possibly your local business school.

4.  Go green! The Sustainable Business Alliance (www.sustainablebiz.org) is a membership organization for companies committed to greater environmental and socially responsible business practices. This San Francisco East Bay, CA group is a role model for any sustainable, socially responsible member group.  Gil Friend’s book and talk on The Truth about Green Business are outstanding.  See www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKB20j4sWAE  Also see his free newsletters at http://www.natlogic.com/approach/new-bottom-line/.

5.  Make integrity your bottom line. (http://spiritworkandmoney.com/creating-a-culture-of-integrity-for-work-and-money/).\   Using your mental inner compass, North Start, gyroscope, or carpenter’s level and plumb line, note how to measure when you are on true with your deepest self and on the level with others.  Then stick to your principles.  Elizabeth Doty’s new book:  The Compromise Trap, How to Thrive at Work without Selling Your Soul, is totally practical.  (See www.worklore.com/CompromiseTrap and  spiritworkandmoney.com/how-to-thrive-at-work-without-selling-your-soul.

6.  Turn every business task into an opportunity to implement your deepest values. For more than thirty years, a growing spirituality and work (also called “faith and work” or “spirituality and business” or “workplace spirituality”) movement has sought to heal the split between work and what matters most:  integrity, purpose, joy, time to pet the cat and be with people we love, etc.  For an overview of this movement and many resources, see www.spiritandworkresourcecenter.com.

7.  Be absolutely respectful in implementing your values at work. The wisdom of our diverse faiths needs to be practiced, not preached.   (spiritworkandmoney.com/all-faiths-are-rich-in-wisdom-for-money-and-work-part-1/  Etiquette for spirituality and work is thankfully a growing field (www.workforce.com/archive/feature/25/96/27/index.php?ht=)  When in doubt, be kind.  http://spiritworkandmoney.com/kindness-the-best-workplace-spirituality-practice-ever/

So how do you do this in a world where fraud, waste or abuse seem to be the norm?  Where it seems that, in order to earn your paycheck or have a thriving business, you’ve got to give up your need for a life, your values, your sense of purpose or your integrity.

What You Compromise is a Key to Soulful Work that Helps Your Thrive

Compromise is a fact of life, writes Elizabeth Doty in her new book, The Compromise Trap: how to thrive at work without selling your soul. When compromise is healthy, we give up something lesser for something of higher value.  We cooperate to share resources and meet goals that matter.  Examples of healthy compromises:  sharing costs, adapting to others’ personalities, or giving up old ways to learn new ones.

When compromise is unhealthy, we give up our principles. Some examples of what we give up, according to Elizabeth, are our honesty, adherence to laws or regulations, professional standards, promises or commitments, a desire to do good work, our values, our objectivity, our character, purpose or mission.

A common pattern goes something like this:  without thinking about whether we really want it, we sacrifice time with self and family for more time at work in order to impress others into promoting us into positions we don’t really want in order to buy more stuff.

With Unhealthy Compromise, We are Out of Alignment with Ourselves and Others

Every time I speak at workplaces about spirituality and work, I’m horrified by stories such as the nurse who says the only time she has to herself is in the bathroom.

Obviously, the nurse cares about her children and her work. But when she sacrifices her own objectivity, health and perhaps other things, how can she be in alignment with her true self?  Being out of true with herself, how can she be aligned with the true needs of others, including her family and all who are impacted by her work?

It takes courage to take time for self, just as it takes courage to stand up to a workplace bully or the kind or insanity that has driven the economy into a mess these past few years.  As Elizabeth so eloquently puts it, there are healthy pressures, such as a cultural norm that enforces accountability or a company directive to build business with integrity and by creating more customer trust.

With Courage and Creativity, We Don’t have to Be Caught in the Compromise Trap

Unhealthy pressures reward lower values while penalizing higher ones.  Examples from Elizabeth’s book:  “expectations that salespeople will lie to customers, a directive to cut costs for appearance’s sake, or a cultural norm that enforces posturing.”

Faced with such reward of lower values, many people at work fall into what Elizabeth calls the “Compromise Trap,” which slowly erodes one’s principles.  Using my favorite definition of integrity in all its meanings, that means that we can compromise away our ability to be honest, true to self, whole, authentic, or ethical.  Without personal integrity, we can’t be on the level with others.  There’s no resonance between our inner values and outer actions. After a while, we can’t even see our own principles, but we may feel some gnawing manifestation from that part of us that knows we’re off base.

Elizabeth notes that too many people focus on a narrow view of self-protection and just play along with the game as they see it.  In the long run, this means others, who may be less principled, define our options and terms of engagement.

A better choice is to choose a higher level of engagement, oriented around a bigger win for more people.  “Generally, trying to act as a positive force to help the right thing happen, for oneself and others.”

How Can You Redefine Your Work and Money Game So It Better Meets Your Vision and Values?

Elizabeth, a brilliant storyteller and expert in organizational learning, offers over 50 stories of corporate compromise versus corporate courage.  She also lays out numerous exercises that are valuable to any individual (even those like me who are corporate-avoiders) who wants to clarify and live by their values.

This book is going up on my list of top books for spirituality and work, conscious capitalism, or whatever name you use for work that’s more meaningful, purposeful and satisfying.

Full disclosure: I have known Elizabeth for close to ten years, and have grown to respect her highly as a colleague.  Though I consider her a cherished friend even when our lives are too busy to hang out much together, I gain nothing from recommending this book other than helping you discover it … and hopefully helping to create a more ethical, thriving economy that serves all of us better.

As always, many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

But greed is just one variety of fraud, waste and abuse that have long been rampant in our world. All are supported by a culture that makes it equally hard to confront wrong-doing or to envision a culture based on honesty, sustainability, and compassion.

A participant in a seminar I taught several years ago on “Bottom Line: Integrity” said that if he never wasted any organizational resources such as time or supplies, he might stand out like a sore thumb. Another remembered the pain of being branded a “curve buster” or “teacher’s pet” when she had based her actions not on peer norms but on her deeper values. A third affirmed that by acting on our values, we could be role models.

It’s not easy to confront another’s wrongdoing, and it’s not easy to listen when someone dares say there’s something off with one of our actions or pet projects. But without honest feedback, organizations become like dysfunctional families who are run by those with the least capacity for or commitment to wise leadership.

Needed: Road Markers to Keep Our Work and Business in Integrity

My dad, the late William McHenry, said we are all called to guide each other out of dangerous ethical fogs by being like white lines on curvy mountain roads that can keep us from crashing into each other, provided we slow down enough to see those lines and are humble enough to heed them.

The problem, says whistleblower expert Don Soeken is that, though we are taught to tell the truth and act ethically, we rarely are taught how. Instead we are warned not to be “tattlers” or “snitches” and we’re overwhelmed with stories about how integrity is a poor career move.

Hard as it is to confront wrongdoing in self and others, it’s often harder to meet our own magnificent capacity for goodness and creativity. With each new hope comes the possibility of hurt should the hope not turn into reality. With each new creative possibility comes the danger that we will be less satisfied with the status quo or more threatening to those who are committed to a particular way of seeing things.

How can we build a culture based in integrity?

While I can’t pretend to have all the answers (except when I’m grandiose, which is way out of integrity), I do offer these practical starting points that hopefully will become common habits:

1. We could tell the truth more. Whether we need to blow a whistle against fraud, waste and abuse at work or whether we need to take on the even scarier work of reminding each other how magnificent we can be, we could dare speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Even when the truth is, “I’m scared” or “I haven’t the foggiest idea how to do what needs to be done.”

2.  We could dare to dream wishfully about what a culture of integrity would look like and how it would act, even though we know right now neither the final content of the dream or how it might possibility be realized. All great movements, like the civil rights movement, started with wishful thinking. Strategy came later, and the dream kept evolving, which called forth more creative strategy.

3. We could take each  integrity challenge as an opportunity to grow, to learn and to serve better ourselves and others. One gift of the current economic mess is a growing dialogue on the nature of integrity and how much it matters to us. If that dialogue is supported, it can come up with far better answers than any expert or politician could.

4. We could go dare to be mentally and emotionally empty more. As the Buddhist teacher Suzuki reminds us, our beginner’s mind can always see new aspects to old challenges. The Christian teacher St. John of the Cross reminds us that sometimes the faint light of a new vision can only be seen when we step away from the light of the status quo.

5. We could go through a ritual of honesty and transformation together. A great model is the Jewish New Year and succeeding the holidays that follow it. First, we eat apples and sweet honey and recall the blessings of what has passed and what is now. Next, we empty our mental and emotional pockets of all the beliefs and thoughts that keep us fully present to ourselves and others. We do our best to heal relationships and make clean those aspects of our lives that are off base.

The Jewish high holy day of Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, is a time of prayerful fasting, of laying open one’s soul before the Creator. It is followed soon after by the harvest festival of Sukkot, which honors the playful and creative child and by Simchat Torah, which celebrates the holy law as the framework for community. In some synagogues, the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is danced throughout the community.

As a non-Jew, I’m awed by these ceremonies and what they represent. What kind of a culture could we build together if we honored what is already good and if we also dared be open to seeing our worst faults? What kind of culture could we have if we celebrated and valued those laws and mores that support a culture of integrity?

An affirmative prayer to consider: I choose to see clearly what is on or off integrity in my own life and work. I gratefully accept inspiration from any source in order to clarify my sight and to give me new perspectives. I welcome clarity that will help me discern when and how I am called to act with integrity, and when I am called to wait for further guidance.

As always, many blessings to you,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

“Tao” means the way, path or guiding principle for working with faith, integrity and meaning in a mysterious universe.

The concept of way, path or guiding principle is central to all religious faiths and secular philosophies — not just the ancient faith of Taoism. We may get lost in ethical fogs or illusion, but through prayer or other pathways, we can find our way back to what most matters. We can find wisdom through patience and by reconciling seeming opposites, like our need to earn money while also caring for others.

In any true tao, paradox is the norm. Example: sometimes the best way to deal with a time crunch is to take more time for prayer or meditation. In the timeless space of ultimate reality that is beyond words or even thought, we generate new insights for the challenge of the moment.

The “Dow” is a rapidly changing bunch of numbers that has been endowed with the perception that it offers great financial wisdom.

“The Dow” stands for a constantly changing index of stock prices selected by the editors of the Wall Street Journal, published by Dow Jones & Company. It’s supposed to measure the financial worth of “the market.” Stocks up, Dow up; stocks down, Dow down. Dow up, good; Dow down, bad.

The Dow is not an intelligent creature. It’s “subject to panics and irrational exuberance and sour moods and churlishness and massive misjudgments. To judge whether an economic plan is working or not requires time and wisdom – neither of which are found in the daily results of the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” writes Joe Campbell. http://2parse.com/?p=2307.

Stock prices make no accounting of environmental or human costs of production or benefits of goods and services. Often the higher the stock price, the lower the human or environmental benefit. And often, stock prices have little or no real relationship to the actual production of goods and services.

Yet many individuals, driven by many media, are obsessed with stock numbers. Jon Stewart satirized this by suggesting that Obama should wear a visor showing the latest stock prices whenever he speaks. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220253&title=The-Dow-Knows-All. That way even the laziest viewer could stay focused on “what matters” without having to move focus from Obama to the latest stock numbers.

The Dow is often a powerful catalyst for decisions that take us away from true prosperity.

Can you imagine having to run a business with your eye constantly on stock market prices, not on the true worth you are creating for customers? And knowing that by squeezing costs — no matter the harm to others or the earth or even your own company over the long run– you raise your perceived value and access to capital?

Well, that kind of consciousness has run rampant the past decade, and everyone has suffered from it.

The health care crisis is just one example of how harmful stock price obsession can be. As health insurance whistleblower Wendell Potter reports, “I knew that 47 million people were uninsured, but … in the financial medium, what you think about are the numbers … and whether or not you’re going to meet Wall Street’s expectations.” http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/transcript2.html?print

On June 24, 2009, Potter testified to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that as a senior executive at health insurance companies, “I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick – all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors.”

The impact of this is an awful truth: between us and our doctors are not just health insurance executives but also Wall Street investors, forcing the health insurance companies to force doctors to cut costs so investors can make higher profits.

We need a tao or way to deal with the realities of money that is more meaningful, conscious and beneficial.

Countering this trend of 24-hour Dow obsession are a number of movements that will be discussed in future posts, especially socially responsible investing and conscious capitalism. All mean that we don’t just buy based on price and momentary gain, but we invest longer term in products and services we care about, that provide real good to us and others. We invest more in smaller, local companies that we can know better.

Any tao of money management will require us to relax self-will and be more engaged in something bigger than ourselves, which is a lot more conscious and engaged process than the 60′s definition of tao as “go with the flow.”

When we’re open to it, guidance to find and follow our tao is everywhere. Some of my favorite gems come from Jon Stewart’s 2004 commencement address to our common alma mater, William and Mary:

• So how do you know what is the right path to choose to get the result that you desire? And the honest answer is this. You won’t. And accepting that greatly eases the anxiety of your life experience.
• [The] truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain.
• Success is defined in myriad ways. [It] will come from your own internal sense of decency .
• Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

What wisdom guides you on your path?

As always, many blessings and come back real soon, Pat McHenry Sullivan

The original Prayer of St. Francis is posted in many cubicles and kept in many desk drawers.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Hatred, love and every other element of the prayer of St. Francis shows up at work today.

Hatred shows up in not just in physical violence or screaming hatred, but also in all ways we can harm others through our work. Racial, sexual and other harassment or discrimination are definitely forms of hatred. So are rudeness and fraud. Theft. Lying about a product or service’s value. Any types of lies.

Hatred also extends to deliberate un-caring, which includes carelessness or indifference. Or helping others commit fraud, waste or abuse.

Obviously, we can’t give our love at work the way we would a child or spouse or close friend, but we can love through our work by doing a task carefully — as if we were doing it for our beloved. We can love by blessings our tasks and bringing all our consciousness to the work.

Being kind an compassionate to vendors, bosses and colleagues is a powerful way to love through work. So is confronting fraud, waste and abuse because we care more about the well-being of others than we fear retaliation for speaking truth to power.

In 2006, my husband John and I taught a class on spirituality and work, using the Prayer of St. Francis as a starting point or touchstone for making our work our prayer, our prayer our work.

Here’s our prayer for today’s workplace realities, based on the Prayer of St. Francis.

Make me an instrument of peace at work.

Where there are indifference or hatred, let me sow compassion and love.

Where there are fraud, waste, and abuse, let me sow accountability and help restore justice.

Where there are stress and burnout, help me sow purpose and divine calm.

Where there are darkness and confusion, help me find wisdom and clear sight.

Where there is sadness, help me promote healing and joy.

May all my tasks be done in harmony with all Creation.

May I always work in balance, true to myself and my purpose, on the level with others, giving to others, loving others, as I give to and love myself.

May my workplace be sacred space, where peaceful, divine order ripples out from each small act that I do, right here, right now, and always.

How does the prayer of St. Francis inspire your own workday prayer?

How can you put it What’s your prayer for your current realities around work?

As always, many blessing, Pat McHenry Sullivan.

Please add your comments by clicking on “comments” below and to the right.

I was blessed with parents who modeled spirit and work. Here’s what they taught me: Have a passion that suits your soul, and follow it. Exercise your integrity muscles regularly. Bring the formal faith you practice on Sunday morning to the work of Monday through Saturday. Find joy in the tasks of ordinary life, like pouring concrete for the back porch.

Stories and role models are key to passing on the wisdom of spirit and work. My parents showed me how their paid work as teachers was as much a source of prayer as a prayer itself and how the little pay they got for their work could be stretched creatively into a rich life. Dad twice demonstrated that no amount of money was worth cheating for. During the Great Depression, he said no to a high-paying but fraudulent job, when he desperately needed a job. Later, when I was a baby, he blew a whistle against an embezzling college president, which cost him that job and years of emotional pain. As I watched him deal with the impact of retaliation (in a time with almost no whistleblower protection or emotional support), I saw how he learned and grew from the experience.

To utilize my parents’ gifts, I’ve had to learn a lot, especially that spirit isn’t just for the big things like “what’s my calling?” or “how can I take on this huge ethical challenge with my boss?” Spirit is for every aspect of work, including the mundane and lowly jobs that ego hates. Bring spirit respectfully to work (including the work of looking for work) and wonderful things always happen. Burnout disappears as you get more creative with your challenges. You may even find that you end your workday with more energy than you had at the beginning, even if you have a job you don’t love! 

Now, helping others bring spirit to work is my work. I’ve been blessed to interview hundreds of people about how work can be filled with integrity, purpose and joy. An archive of columns in the archives of the San Francisco Chronicle is based on many of these interviews. World religions scholar Huston Smith granted an interview on the wisdom of all faiths for work. Workforce Management magazine assigned an article on how to bring all that wisdom into the workplace in a way that respects co-workers, employers, customers and everyone else who is affected by your work.

So why now is money being added to the equation of spirit + work? Actually, it’s impossible to separate them. Whenever you apply the wisdom of the spirit and work field (aka workplace spirituality, faith and work) to the work of earning money, you’re impacting money. Whenever you choose work that satisfies over work that pays better (or vice versa), you’re impacting money. Many of the tasks involved in business planning, especially marketing, sales and financial management, directly involve money.

Tough economic times call for direct focus on spirit and money. This blog began with an inspiration: what if for 30 days we all prayed about money, thought about it, shared reflections and wisdom with others? For several weeks I put out the fruits of my prayers, and some others came along with comments.

Then life intervened with all its challenges of trying to collect for work from clients whose cash flow turned from rosy to rotten between November and January, of finding new paying projects as one huge (and hugely satisfying) one is winding down, of attempting to work with unfamiliar technology that never is as simple as it’s touted to be. And as always, there are my perpetual companions: Doubt, Fear, Who Does She Think She Is? and Why Bother?

In the end, I bother because — even if I never get the technology and the search optimization technique down and no one finds this blog than the few I lead directly to it — I believe very strongly that spirit and work are meant to work together. Bring money to the mix, and we’ve got a powerful team to deal with what ails us and calls us to something better.

The more challenging the economy, the more we need the wisdom of spirit to anchor money in integrity, purpose and the capacity for joy. The more unknowns we face, the more we need spirit to show us how to discern when being clueless is exactly the right strategy and how to grieve as we walk through the darkness until we see the dim light of our own hearts and souls. The more we are tempted to fall back onto beliefs that it’s every person for herself, the more we need the wisdom of compassion and right livelihood

Please check out some of the earlier posts and join me in an adventure of reshaping our individual and group economies. Your comments and ideas are most welcome. And until I figure out how to tell you to get every new post sent to your mailbox if you wish, just keep coming back!

As always, a blessing. May you discover in the midst of your challenges just the wisdom you need to meet those challenges. May laughter ease your way and bring you marvelous new companions on your spirit, work and money journey.

Pat McHenry Sullivan

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Right now, people I know are really hurting financially. Here are some examples, all with changed names.

After two years, Joan and David finally sold their house in the town where they used to live, so they could pay expenses in a new location that works better for the family, but they lost a lot on the transaction. To qualify for a mortgage again, they will need to create a bigger down payment and larger reserve fund than they ever imagined.

Jake’s carefully planned retirement is falling apart. His new part-time employer went into bankruptcy. The value of his 401k has dropped drastically.  A widower with grown children, Jake can’t sell the big house he doesn’t need and buy something smaller, more affordable and nearer the grandchildren.

Louisa hasn’t found a job in spite of a great track record and a year of almost full-time, creative job-hunting. Like many late-life job-hunters, Louisa also faces the challenge of having most of her experience in a dying industry.

Tom’s successful business is in danger of failing in spite of cost-cutting and voluntary cutbacks of hours and benefits by all staff. If Tom fails, there go the jobs of 22 people, all of whom Tom knows and respects, and none of who can afford to be without a job.

Of all these people, only Joan and David have health insurance at a rate they can afford.

Both assessing current reality and visioning a richer one require a lot of faith, self-respect and other gifts that can easily become battered by financial and other challenges. Plus, the world is filled with a lot of temptations to give up, hang out with pessimists, deny pain, and/or base your plan of action on such theories as “someone needs to rescue me.”

The process of focusing and building visions for life and work has been so fascinating to me that I made it the focus of a master’s degree in 1998. Only over the past few years, however, have I really appreciated the concept of current reality, though I had learned it in a workshop in the mid-1980s designed by Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance, Creating, Your Life as Art, and other great books.

Current reality affirms that while certain things never change, like all of us are born and all of us die, reality is always changing. E.g., once I had decades to build a secure retirement, now my retirement-income building window is narrowing fast. Once my vision for what is possible was limited by fear or lack of experience; now it is sharper and richer, based in fewer illusions and increased experience.

Changing reality brings new opportunities as well as new challenges. Creativity loves the fertile ground of challenge. People coming together in common need and caring can be enormously resourceful. Out of new needs and new inventions come new jobs and new markets.

So here’s the big challenge for all of us: to dare to dream, individually and as a whole, long before we have any idea how to manifest the dream. Here are a few capsules of current reality in contrast to a vision. Note that each vision has some nice, juicy details to give your creative mind something to play and work with.

Right now, I am out of work. I’m running out of money, and it’s hard to find the energy to look for a job when sometimes, all I want to do is crawl into bed with the covers up over my head. I envision the day when I say thank you to all the people who have helped me find satisfying new work. I imagine the joy of working in a new job where I am treated with respect as I do tasks that stretch my skills and use my experience purposefully.

Right now, I am bankrupt or near bankruptcy. The only assets I recognize are my skills, my compassion, my track record of resiliency, and the willingness to do whatever I can do to improve my situation. As I recognize more and more gifts in myself, I also discover more internal gifts and worldly allies. I envision myself on my feet again financially. I see my heart more open, my creativity more courageous.

Right now, I earn sufficient income, but at the expense of my personal and family life and sometimes in opposition to my values. Sometimes I am so exhausted at the end of the day that I don’t sleep well and I almost never have a full day off. I envision earning sufficient income with deep integrity. I see myself having time and energy for personal and family life. I envision helping my children develop better values about money. I envision having time and energy to mentor at-risk youth.

Hopefully this helps you to continue to enrich and hone your vision for a better financial future. Keep playing with it, and feel free to share what you are discovering here or elsewhere.

Again, a blessing to edit if you wish: May I see more clearly current reality: warts, gifts, faults, challenges and all. May I be again like a child, awestruck by the wonder of the universe, including my own imagination and other visionary potentials.

Come back real soon with your own insights and inspiration, Pat McHenry Sullivan

Have you ever dreamed of flourishing financially, no matter what happens in the economy?

Does it matter that you flourish with integrity in all its meanings–whole, honest, naturally ethical, true to your own values and in harmony with the rest of the world?

Do you want to meet all financial challenges–from emergencies to long-range planning–with wisdom, not panic?

If these questions speak to you, then I invite you to join a 30-day money challenge:

• Every day for 30 days, set aside 10-30 minutes to discover how you can earn, save, invest and share your money with more integrity, purpose and joy.
• Every day, act more from your deepest guidance about money.
• Every day, take small steps to anchor your personal economy in money sanity, money harmony, and money consciousness.
• Every day, share a portion of your increase with others in a way that empowers them to create money sanity, harmony and consciousness.

At the end of this challenge, I hope we’ll all have a richer relationship with money, measured in spiritual, emotional and financial terms. I believe that participating in this challenge can support us in creating an economy that works better for all.

This 30-day challenge was birthed during a meditation at the November 2008 meeting of the Spirit and Work Resource Center at Unity of Berkeley in Berkeley, California. A few of us have now begun meditating and/or dialoguing about money every day. I’ve started this blog to share my thoughts about money for 30 days, as often as I can. Sometimes colleagues and friends will add their thoughts.

Your comments are welcome here with some simple caveats: no direct requests for money or a job; no stock tips, specific job leads or network marketing opportunity; and no putting down of another’s thoughts. Do speak from your heart and your own experience.

Feel free to join in the challenge at any time, maybe starting with the oldest post and working your way forward. Take as long as you wish to work with each post, and feel free to bring your friends into the dialogue.

What will happen to this blog after the 30 days? I don’t know yet. But I do know that taking on any challenge is a lot easier and more satisfying when people take it on together. That includes common dialogue, sharing tips or inspiration, and encouraging each other to do the things that we can only do ourselves.

Your action today and every day of this challenge, if you so choose: Spend some time alone, thinking and praying about your relationship to money. In your journal, note your insights and understandings. If you receive guidance, write it down. As you discern what is right for you, follow that guidance until you are clearly called to go in another direction.

Talk with other people who are interested in exploring their relationship to money. And start reading, listening to and watching wise people. Here are some recent words from Bill Moyers:

“[Our] self-correcting faculty, even in the darkest hours, is the best thing we have going for us. That and the knowledge that nothing we face in the months ahead is more than was asked of our parents and grandparents in war and depression.

“This giant of a country is bleeding badly from savage self-inflicted wounds, but what happens next is still our story to write. We can be thankful for that.”

Finally, be sure to bless your money journey every day. Here’s my blessing for this moment:

May everything I do to earn, save, spend or invest money be done for the highest, deepest and broadest good. May I always be grateful for the gifts of learning and growing, even when times are tough.

Come back real soon with your own insights and inspiration,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

p.s. To comment, click on the word “comment” below.