Separation of Church and Strategy
Faith = Out-performance
I’m not particularly religious.
But I do believe in a Higher Power. A divine Intelligence far beyond the human mind’s comprehension. A Higher Mind.
I resonate deeply with some of the esoteric teachings/messages of ancient texts like the Bhagwad Gita, Upanishads, Tao Te Ching.
I believe matter (including mind) manifests from consciousness (and not the other way around).
I believe we are eternal, connected souls/consciousness having a temporary human experience in different forms. Like waves of an ocean.
I believe we’re all psychic to different degrees.
I believe everything is “alive” and has soul, including the supposedly inanimate like mountains, oceans, planets, the stars.
So what does all this have to do with business and strategy?
Like most, for the longest time, I’ve kept my spiritual and “wu wu” beliefs separate from my work. Neatly compartmentalized, parallel worlds. Work, career, business was the domain of the mental/material only. Rationality/analysis and science were the only Gods I worshipped in this realm.
But something shifted these past few years. The spiritual and mental worlds started to converge.
The mental/material continues to have its place — I pour a lot of conscious effort into problems and projects; thinking deeply, probing, questioning, researching, studying.
But the spiritual has layered another dimension to my work. A mystery ingredient that elevates what I do well beyond my mental horsepower. A mystery ingredient powered by my faith and surrender.
It delivers in the form of ideas, intuitive nudges, solutions, insights, new ways of deconstructing problems (usually not the direct result of my thinking or deductive abilities). Delivered with a surprising conviction, clarity and suddenness. Like a sacred truth uncovered.
I have since come to believe this is that divine Intelligence working with me. A collaboration of mind and spirit. The intellect and the sublime. Human and God(s).
I don’t know if this is actually true.
I have no way of proving it.
But no one can convince me otherwise. Every cell of my body knows this as truth.
This is my (almost fanatical) faith in the unseen.
Business and strategy demand mental dexterity.
But I have come to believe that any form of out-performance or “genius” requires more. Much more.
Not more work or effort. Quite the opposite.
More faith. More surrender. More mysticism.
This can literally be your faith in your religion, your God(s). This can be your faith in the universe, spirit, martians, fairies, dragons, Yoda, your ancestors, the quantum field/matrix, whatever mystical/unseen forces you resonate with most.
Channel this faith in to your work. Bring this faith to your work. Work with the understanding that you’re not just moving atoms around in a material reality. You are co-creating with magical, unseen forces in a quantum reality that defies conventional logic.
(If you do, you would be in good company. I learned recently about Srinivas Ramanujan, a brilliant mathematician and a substantial contributor to the field (despite a lack of formal training), who believed he received his mathematical formulas directly from the Goddess Namagiri. Isaac Newton was an alchemist and obsessed with the occult. Alan Turing, the father of computer science, believed in telepathy.)
Our minds are wonderful, but finite in capability — they can see only so far, from so high, and are generally great for taking linear/logical/incremental steps.
Genius and non-linear quantum leaps require collaboration with the unseen, with the infinite.
Business/strategy mental models and frameworks are helpful, but you intentionally limit yourself if that is all you believe in.
Dare to see beyond the seen. All you need is a little faith.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
— Matthew 7:7
I manage Artsgy, a strategy consultancy built on ideas like the above.
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