Do not tread harshly on the hearts of the people who love and care about you. We live in enough of an uncaring world -- we have an ethical responsibility to ourselves and to the people around us, especially to the people who are closest to us, not to make it worse.
The difference between a narcissistic person and a more well-balanced ethical person centres around the issue of empathy, caring, listening, and altruism: does the person listen intently, and care about other people -- or not.
The difference between a Narcississistic Capitalist and an Ethical-Moral Dialectic-Democratic Capitalist centres around the issue of character and integrity -- basically caring about other people, the people you work with, the people above and below you, the people you sell to -- or not. If you are in business and you treat the people you work with well, treat them with respect and dignity and caring, treat them fairly, then you are helping to lead Capitalism in the right direction, in the direction it needs to go. However, if you are like probably the majority of business men and women out there -- and seemingly growing every day -- then you need to get back to integrity and ethics basics, back to yourself, and back to your heart. When you leave for work each morning, don't check your heart at home. As the school slogan trumpets, but so few of our adult business and government role models lead the way in this domain: Character matters.
Caring matters. Integrity matters. Ethics matters. You can be the richest and/or most powerful business man or woman out there but at the end of the day you need to ask yourself: How many hearts have you trampled on to get to where you are now? Was it worth it? Can you sleep at night? Can you live with yourself? How many people have you helped? How many people have you poisoned, exploited, manipulated, walked over, to get where you are now. There are some good businesses and some good business people out there. I know. I've either seen them and/or heard about them, heard about what they do right. They treat people well and people flock to their business.
The cut-throaters, the manipulators, the exploiters...you can usually find out easily enough where they are and how they operate...They are the business owners with the constant turnover....the employees who keep walking in and out of their doors...they are the people whose customers eventually flock to the 'good businesses'...the businesses that keep their people, and whose employees respect and care for the owners who they work for.
I fully believe in the slogan: What goes around comes around?
If you are in business, whether its in managing and/or selling,
Pick the type of business person who you want to be...
And the type of legacy you want to leave behind you...
How do you want to be rememebered?
Choose -- and if you have chosen wrong --
Then, think and feel carefully.
And choose again.
-- dgb, May 13th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
