What is Success? In Business? In Our Relationships? – Day 4

Last night we had a beautiful conversation over cocktails and dinner with yet more new friends I was being introduced to. There was an elder gentleman grew up here in Varanasi and is charge of finance for a hospital and a woman from the Philippines on a photo-journalist travel journey. There was a question that was proposed to the table by the elder… at the end of the day … “How to you gauge business at the end of the day?” It’s impossible to do that at the beginning of the day and even in the middle of the day. Reflection happens at the end of the day or at a time where there feels like a completion of sorts.

This man who proposed the question is a wise man who has grown up here in Varanasi all his life. He is well educated. After I answered his question… 1) How much money you made during the day 2) were people happy with what your performance? 3) were you happy with your own performance? Those happened to be all the wrong answers. So what are the correct answers?

I think a lot of the USA is mostly primarily concerned with the bottom line in business. When I first moved to Maine I realized that the “dog eat dog” mentality that I was used to in the big cities was not going to work here. It became about cultivating relationships while doing business. It’s from those relationships that make us be successful and good at what we do. It is not all the money in the bank or the stuff we can accumulate or the cars we drive that bring us happiness. It’s in our relationships where we can be supported to personally grow, as well as our economic livelihood, and in union together. Unconditional positive regard for each other as Carl Rogers once put it.

I appreciated this reminder from an Indian elder today as I am traveling through a country with lots of diverse economic classes where people live in luxury and alongside them there are other people living in their street side shops and under tarps on the side of the road. Everyone deserves to be treated with the same dignity and respect no matter what our background, color, class or creed.