Making your business human
More and more people want a human business. Their priority is not money and success because they realise that lack of humanity will spoil the enjoyment of them.
Sure you want to build a successful business and want to make nice money out of it, but you want to enjoy money and success as well. And that’s when humanity gets into the picture.
Humanity is also essential to transform failure into a positive occasion of learning.
Taking inspiration from Rasheed
I have known Rasheed personally.
He is very inspirational. He is the author of “Soul Trader – Putting the Heart into Your Business”. It’s a precious book from which you can learn a lot, especially about how to make your business human.
Soul Trader is packed with advice
The book starts with “Clarity”. Rasheed tells us about how to make clarity in our business. He helps us answer many questions and shows us how the answers will bring clarity and clear doubts. This is a very good thing to do and it’s good to do it with the help of someone who has a different point of view.
Soul Trader is a goldmine of advice and practical ideas about many other subjects, like cooperation, talking with clients and creativity.
Clarity in my business
I made some clarity in my business as software developer.
I realised that I love solving problems. I also love taking time to understand what my clients want or need to build.
I enjoy learning as well. New technologies sprout every day and they are examples of human ingenuity.
I enjoy seeing how humans produce new ideas all the time.
Compassion in business?
Is there any space for compassion in business? Isn’t it a dog-eat-dog situation?
This is what I used to think. Now I think that without compassion a business becomes a chore that makes nobody happy.
First thing first we need to use our compassion to take care of ourselves.
Our well-being needs to be well above any goal we want to achieve because otherwise we are likely not to enjoy it.
Listening is good
Listening makes the person you are talking to feel heard.
Listening is related to compassion and starts from ourselves. We need to listen to ourselves before we can listen to others.
Listening is very important when working with clients especially when what we want to build is complex or new.
This doesn’t mean that you renounce to speak your opinion if it’s different from your client’s one.
It would be bad service.
Richard is my best friend
Richard is a client of mine. But he is more of a friend than of a client.
I ask him for advice about my personal life too.
I built a fantastic application for him.
It was challenging because there were patented technologies involved with the complexity they imply.
I was listening to him and taking time to understand.
Conclusion
Rasheed is an inspiring business and life coach, if you feel the need for a human business.
His “Soul Trader” contains a lot of useful and inspiring advice.
If you think that compassion and humanity are needed to find a balance between business and life, you may want to join the club of the Soul Traders.