The one thing missing in business - it explains a whole lot

How can you explain these things:

• A well designed website with well presented offers that doesn't attracts gobs of clients, and one that does. Why one and not the other?

• A service professional with little to no website presence that continually receives calls and referrals, and more often than not turns them down.

• A thriving business that begins to drop off slowly (or suddenly) for no apparent reason.

• An entrepreneur who by conventional standards has achieved success (money, lifestyle, recognition, visibility) yet feels an emptiness or dissatisfaction with life.

• Companies like Zappos or Land's End that create impeccable customer service, while the companies that copy them fail to achieve the same results.

In the world of business I don't think we have adequate answers to explain these things. Somebody might look into the specifics of any one of those situations above and give you an answer based on their expertise or perspective. And just as often as they are right, they would be wrong.We won't find a true answer in the practical-technical-functioning of their business. We also won't find a consistent answer through existing business measurements and assessment.I believe that the answer lies in the fact that we are missing an important aspect in the collective consciousness of business - specifically American business (which is all I can speak to from direct experience).

We are missing the concept and practice of the journey of mastery in business.

We readily talk about and aspire to excellence in business and might even call it mastery, but we are wrong to think we have achieved mastery just because we have many years of experience in something or are better at it than many others. 10,000 hours does not make a master.

A master has achieved more than the experience and technical proficiency of her skills.

We have oodles of programs and books and teachings on leadership and improving or creating better leaders but those teachings do not speak to the qualities of mastery. Again, they aim for developing excellence.

The journey of mastery implies growth beyond the development of excellence in your craft, expertise, skill or gift. It requires a continued and sustained practice of spiritual, mental, emotional and physical development.

This one concept alone explains each of the situations above. Each person and leader in each of those situations is being called to growth in either mental, emotional, spiritual or physical areas of their journey of mastery. It is not that one person or business did something 'more right' than another.

Our spiritual self is designed to grow and for those of us who opt to have our own business (no matter the size) we signed up to have our business be a mechanism for that growth. (Whether you realized it or not.)

Your business is your calling to your journey of mastery.

[hr]This entire concept is absent in the collective wisdom and teachings in business. AND the entire concept is one I'm exploring and developing. In fact it is something that is being pushed, pulled, shaken and exploded out of me.On the one hand I feel the pull (necessity, requirement, expectation, judgement?...) to be able to share with you the definitive qualities of a master along with the perfectly outlined steps on the path in a journey of mastery.And on the other hand I recognize that for now it is in development. I contemplate, I research, I read, I play with my kids, I work with my clients.It has to be enough right now for me to know that a few of my clients are indeed masters. Their experience and excellence in their craft is unparalleled. You feel it and know it when you work with them. Their spiritual, emotional and mental development is something they daily and actively practice. And I know that their work with me at this time is to help them develop and practice the physical as it is manifested in their business.And working with them helps me to know how right this concept is.What I can do is act on my desire to share, discuss and explore this conversation of masters and the journey of mastery. And do it on a larger scale.

So I've scheduled a free call for Friday, June 28, at 10:30 am CST.

Join me to learn more about the journey of mastery, the definition of a master and the way this is directly relevant to your business - and the practice of business as a whole.Sign up here to get the call details.And invite your business friends to join us.[hr]I leave you with this one contemplation:As the professional that you are in whatever walk or station of life you are in --- the next time you are making a decision, engaging with a client, deciding on a business detail, expressing your gift/craft/calling ask yourself this:

Am I expressing my mastery?

That question alone will change your perspective and your world. It will help you to align with and listen for your Divine guidance.What could be better?