The Age of Greed
Conscious leaders can lead us to a new Age of Generosity
The crypto world is reeling this week due to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The company was recently valued at $32 billion and was considered a major player in the crypto space. But last week everything changed when it filed for bankruptcy. Millions, if not billions, of investor funds may never be recovered.
It was revealed that a major reason for FTX’s colossal demise was the company’s use of investor funds for risky loans and trades. Essentially, FTX was dipping into its customers’ accounts. As with anything in life, with high risk comes potentially high reward. But in FTX’s case, it looks like one thing was behind their imprudent and potentially criminal actions: greed.
This reminded me of a conversation I had with a spiritual teacher a few years ago. I was lamenting the state of the world and how all the governments and financial systems just seem to be focused on themselves and not on actually making the world better. She said, “Meredith, we live in the Age of Greed.” The phrase stuck with me because it so aptly summarizes too many of our institutions and the people who lead them.
Some will argue that as long as human beings exist, we will always live in the Age of Greed, but one of the goals of conscious leadership is to flip this paradigm and create the Age of Generosity.
Creating this new epoch means each of us focusing on BE-ing the change we want to see. It’s easy to blame others for the greed and avarice we witness every day. But by each of us focusing on raising our own level of consciousness we can shift the entire world.
How do we do this?
Examine where you may be greedy or selfish. This isn’t just financial. It could be in relationships or with your time. How can you be more generous and selfless?
In his book Conscious Leadership, John Mackey talks about the need for conscious leaders to become more excellent people, “more mature, evolved, and self-aware.” In other words, we need to focus on becoming the most conscious, self-aware we can be if we want to create a more conscious workplace and world.
Don’t make profit the only measure of success. Mackey also observes that while profit is an important measure of a company’s health, it is not the only measure of success. “Profit is an important thing; but it’s not the most important thing. Organizations work every day to make money, but they exist to deliver on their purpose.”
Live in a spirit of generosity. When you lead a company that grows very quickly—like FTX—it can be easy to fall into the self-absorbed trap of greed. Leaders have to be constantly on guard that their ego doesn’t take over and start making greed-centered decisions. These leaders need to be constantly working on themselves.
Mackey shares the story of Jonathan Keyser, a commercial real estate broker who described himself as a “ruthless prick” early in his career. He realized he was stressed, and had lost himself in the “backstabbing drudge” of his industry. After hearing a speaker share the idea of “planting seeds” through building relationships and giving generously, he realized something needed to change—him. “He knew the transformation would begin with him.” According to Keyser, “I went to work reinventing myself.” He had to “unlearn the bad habits of a decade of relentless self-interest.”
The results were remarkable. After committing to helping everyone he met, his business began to flourish. And work was no longer a battle. It was a joy to help others and then watch those relationship seeds he’d planted grow into not just business success, but community flourishing.
As Mackey notes, generosity is essential for conscious leadership and transforming the world. “That which we give to others, we give first to ourselves.” “Once we consciously recognize that generosity is beneficial not only to the person who is receiving it but also to the one giving, the desire to give will only grow and deepen within us.”
There will be more FTX-type crashes as long as low-conscious leaders focus on their own selfish desires. But we can start to make a change by focusing on our individual conscious growth and then seek ways to share with others the generosity we develop within ourselves.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
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The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
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