The Diamond Cutter

Geshe Michael Roach is a Princeton graduate and a Buddhist monk. After graduation, he spent seven years studying the wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism. At the suggestion of his teacher, he joined a fledgling diamond business in New York to test his ideals in real life. He stayed with the business as a member of the core management team for seventeen years.

The company grew from a start-up with two owners and two employees to $100 million in sales and five hundred employees in offices around the world. The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life tells the story of how Geshe Michael Roach built the diamond division of this company, using principles culled from ancient Tibetan Buddhism as the driving force behind his decision making.

Drawing on lessons he learned in the diamond business and years in Buddhist monasteries, Roach shows how taking care of others is the ultimate path to taking care of oneself, even--especially--in business. As he puts it, you have to engage in "mental gardening," which means doing certain practical things that will form new habits that will create an ideal reality for you. If this sounds a little outrageous, his very precise instructions are down to earth and address numerous specific issues common to the business/management world.

Through this practice, you will become a considerate, generous, introspective, creative person of immense integrity, and that will be the key to your wealth...

Some of the many insights in The Diamond Cutter are as follows:

A business should be successful; it should make money. There is no conflict between spirituality and success in business. Successful business people have the resources to do more good in the world than those people without the same resources do. In addition, the very people who are attracted to business are the same people who have the strength to grasp and carry out the deeper practices of the spirit.

Money should be made honestly and with absolute integrity. How we make money matters more than anything else does. It determines our ability to keep making money as nobody can indefinitely run a business built on dishonesty or deception. It also significantly affects our ability to enjoy the money we make.

Nothing is good or bad in and of itself; everything has a hidden potential. This is what the Buddhists call emptiness. What is bad news for you may be good news for someone else, and vice versa. We must not leap to conclusions about events, but must stop to consider what potential they really have for us. Even competitors can be seen as fairy godmothers challenging us to find the correct path to greater accomplishment. It is a matter of perception. With the right state of mind, we can turn our problems into opportunities.

We should look ahead to the inevitable end of our days in business, and put ourselves in a position where we can honestly say our years in business had some meaning. The idea here is to anticipate our future, and move in a direction that will allow us to look back on our past with total joy and satisfaction.

The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies for Managing Your Business and Your Life by Geshe Michael Roach (Author)

List Price: $23.95 through Barnes and Noble

Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours

About The Author

Janet K. Ilacqua is a freelance writer based in Tracy, California. She specializes in academic writing and ghostwriting of books and manuals for individuals and small businesses. For more information about her services, check her website at http://www.writeupondemand.com.

jilacqua@aol.com

---

The Rise of Corporate Chair Massages

Employers have rapidly begun to understand the importance of stress relief in the workplace. Stress free employees have a higher retention rate and higher rates of productivity.... Read More

Five Ways to Turn Resistance into Opportunity

Resistance. It isn't something people cherish or enjoy encountering. We experience resistance everywhere at work:People don't like that idea.People don't want the work flow to change.Someone doesn't... Read More

The Top 10 Requirements for Your Business to Become and Remain Profitable

We live in a relentlessly competitive world. The daily pressure to work "better, cheaper and faster" can make even talented business owners and entrepreneurs lose site of... Read More

Enhancing the Motivational Climate of Your Workplace

It has been well documented that employees' productivity and job quality increase when we are made to feel welcome at work. In other words, when the motivational... Read More

Increase In-House Nursing Homes Collections

The following nursing home collections report outlines 11 guidelines you can follow to increase the amount of in-house long term care collections your facility collects.1] Have A... Read More

Seven Cs to Avoid Procedure Writing Errors

You do your best to make sure your organization is operating as effectively as possible. But if your policies and procedures are incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent, then... Read More

Terrible Meetings - Ten Ways to Spot Them!

Sometimes, better than giving advice about how to run things well, it can be useful to have a hit list to notice to help you identify when... Read More

Solve Problems Permanently - Ask WHY

As Albert Einstein said:-"The significant problems we face today, cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."Problems don't go... Read More

Coaching Employees in the Workplace

After a full week of training, you are still a little nervous about your new job. All of the information you need to digest, the new environment... Read More

The Fairness of Office Politics... Integrity and Political Motivation!

I hear many complaints daily about the "unfairness" of politics in corporate America. Employees say that their managers "lie" or issue "personal attacks" against them. Indeed, based... Read More

Focus On the Prize

People talk to me about making personal and professional changes in their life. I hear comments about how hard they think it will be, concerns about their... Read More

Issue Management Methodology for Tracking Project Issues

1. What is an Issue?An issue is an incident, circumstance, problem or inquiry that affects or potentially affects the timely delivery of the project, product or service,... Read More

Innovation Management ? changing the world!

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem... Read More

Offshore This! (Outsourcing Tech Support Overseas)

So I call my telephone company and someone picks up 15,000 miles away. I asked the rep where she's from. She said, "I am from Mary-Land sir.... Read More

Shrinkage Control

What has been your store's shrinkage experience for the last two years? What will it be this year? If it has not been as good as it... Read More

Toxic Bosses

What's everyone's favorite topic around the water cooler? Bad bosses! You know, the ones who make life in the office unbearable? Here are some of the more... Read More

Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have a Complete Agenda

Most agendas for a meeting look like this.* Budget* Payroll* Staff* Sales* VutszxtnSome people would tell me, "That's a perfectly good agenda. I know what all of... Read More

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

Today's successful organizations are the ones which carry on open and honest communications with their employees. If employees know and understand the mission, they will help communicate... Read More

Bar Charts Brought to Life: Index of Interactive Information for HTML and PDF

Bar Charts and the Information ChallengeWhether one is an unknown entrepreneur or Donald Trump, an elementary school teacher or a university president, a 6th grader researching other... Read More

Tales From the Corporate Frontlines: Managerial Influence

This article relates to the Manager/Supervisor competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. This competency evaluates an employee's feelings regarding their direct manager or supervisor. The manager/supervisor... Read More

Phone Sex is Bad for Business

On August 3rd/2005, Reuters reported that a German man had colluded with a phone sex operator to defraud his employer's company out of approximately 16,000 Euro or... Read More

Bye-Bye Boring Meetings! Make Yours Remarkable!

It's the middle of the night. You've woken up with a brilliant idea on how to improve the way your business product is delivered to your customers.... Read More

25 Great Ways to Find the Right People and Not Break the Bank

Are you trying to hire dozens of hourly workers or a senior executive? Where do you look and how do you get the word out? There are... Read More

Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Improving Workplace Safety

This article relates to the Safety and Working Environment competency and explores how your employees feel with regard to their physical and environmental working conditions, the quality... Read More

Ten Steps to Take the Work out of Work ? Replicate Yourself!

They say that management can be a lonely place. A manager has to lead from the front, make challenging demands of their people and if part of... Read More

The Permissive Environment is the Suspect

The permissive and participatory conduct which most employees take for granted, eventually escalates into the more serious assaultive behavior commonly referred to as employee on employee workplace... Read More