When we mention kindness, people often think of others right away that sometimes we forget one of the most important people in our lives—ourselves. Benevolence can also be self-serving instead of being self-sacrificing. Host Alex Mandossian talks about the importance of being self-serving and how it can affect those people around you. Business doesn’t always have to be mind games. Dwelling in the spiritual space might be that breakthrough you’re looking for. He explores the different spiritual laws and it’s direct effect on the improvement of your business that will ultimately lead to success.
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What Is “Self-Serving” Benevolence?
In this episode, you’ll learn three key insights which I believe are critical to making you a highly skilled ethical influencer. I’m going to take a risk with this episode because you may think it’s a little woo-woo or maybe on the spiritual side.
This is a business podcast. That’s what our topic is about. How to grow your business, how to get to the next level. How to overcome those demons that are inside your head, maybe between your ears in that gray matter.
Anticipated rejection, maybe self-esteem that’s lower than necessary to get the next sale. Maybe the creative avoidance or procrastination that you may be struggling with.
We’re going to talk about the laws of cause and effect. In the Far East, they call it the Laws of Karma.
In this episode, you’ll learn the four laws of karma and how to align with them to take your business to a whole new level. You have to align with the laws of nature and wealth will follow. The next insight is the four karmic marketing segments you can serve each day. It takes less than 600 seconds and it will lead to wealth.
I’ve got $100,000 clients that I can attribute directly to this practice. It’s a habit. It’s simple. It’s not even spiritual. It’s self-serving for you. It’s benevolent to who you serve. That’s why we call it the self-serving benevolence principle.
The third insight is that karma is never about keeping score. If you keep score as it relates to the laws of cause and effect in the West and known as karma in the Far East, then it will make you miserable. It’s never about who you serve, it’s about serving. What goes around comes around.
You don’t have to keep score because you won’t know where it came from. There are many different nuances where you may not know where the effect came because of the cause that you put into play. Let me take this risk with you for the first time in public.
Michael’s Story
This is the true story of Michael. Michael is my mentor. He is still living. He was a Princeton honor student. He’s fluent in many languages, but years ago, he was faced with not one, not two, but three disasters. His mother died, his father died and his brother committed suicide.
When you’re faced with that trauma, I only look in versus looking out and wondering, “Why is this happening to me?” I want to get a deeper sense of purpose, “What’s the meaning behind all this?”
[bctt tweet=”Keeping score will make you miserable. It’s never about who you serve, it’s about serving.” username=”AlexMandossian”]
While he was at Princeton University, he met a gentleman who looked as though he were of Indian descent, from India. Michael was influenced to fly to India and meet this gentleman so that he could get a deeper understanding of why his mother, father and brother died within such a tight time period. Losing a significant part of your family suddenly.
Michael left school. He was truly an academic, high honor student. He just left. That wasn’t like him. When he landed in India, he couldn’t find his colleague, his student that he was supposed to look for. He was a little disgruntled. He mentions it in the story in the way he expressed it to me.
He found a taxi driver. The taxi driver had a family member who would rent a room. They have multiple jobs there in India. They’re entrepreneurial. I’ve been there three times. I teach there at three-day events called Guerilla Business Intensive.
The taxi driver took him to his family home. Michael rented a room and didn’t leave that room for a while. He asked the taxi driver, “I’m looking for Buddhists. Where can I find Buddhists? I heard that they could have the answers to my questions. I’ve lost family members. I’m in a pretty dark space.”
The way the story was expressed to me, the taxi driver looked at his watch and he said, “You’re about 1,000 years too late.” I don’t know if he was Muslim or if he was Hindu or what religious background the taxi driver was. I’m going to guess Hindu. The Hindu religion goes back many years before Buddhism.
Michael was not happy. These were the years where the Chinese had taken over Tibet. His holiness, the Dalai Lama, who I’ve got to share the stage one time in Calgary, Canada had fled many years before.
There was an area in Northern India by the Himalayan Mountains up there. It was a city called Dharamsala. There were a lot of Tibetan monks who would study there in the monasteries.
To go through the Tibetan discipline of Buddhism which goes back nearly 700 years, is like a twenty-year process in the monastery. Not only praying and meditating every single day but through the Dalai Lama or the Kadampa tradition as it’s known. The Mahayana Buddhism tradition which I’ve studied over 3,000 hours through my mentor Michael, it’s very involved.
Growing up in the Christian church as an Armenian Apostolic which is like Greek Orthodox, we didn’t study the bible like Protestants do in the Protestant tradition. We studied it enough. That’s only one book. The Buddhists have five sacred books. They’re amazing. It’s complex and involved.
What’s central to the Buddhist tradition, one of the two key principles is karma. That’s what they call it in the east, here they call it karma. Yoga is a spiritual tradition in the Far East. It’s not athletic or it’s not physical, it’s about spirituality. Nirvana, that’s a Sanskrit word. Sanskrit is not a written language. It’s a spoken language going back over 5,000 years from ancient India. That is ancient. It was a rock group. The Americans don’t know it the same way. The Far East knows it which is purely spiritual.
Self-Serving Benevolence: The law of likeness is you can’t take an apple seed, plant it and have it turn into a pear tree.
Michael ended up going out there. He ended up studying his Root Lama. In the Tibetan tradition, a Lama is a mentor. In Greece, they call it mentor. In the US, they call it a coach. In Tibet, they call it lama. It’s not an animal. It’s like your mentor, the person who is your role model. Who looks after you to make sure that you’re ascending to get a Geshe. A Geshe degree is like a PhD in Mahayana Buddhism. It takes about twenty years.
Through the study of Khen Rinpoche who is Islam, Michael got his Geshe level degree and started teaching. He was fluent in the Tibetan language. He was fluent in Russian, fluent in English, a few other languages as well. It’s incredible with the epistemology of language and learning language quickly.
He came back to New Jersey. There was a Mongolian Monastery with the same tradition of Buddhism. He studied there. One day Khen, his lama who was one of the great lamas in all of Tibetan Buddhism at the time. Through that great lineage and I’ll say in England, they call it a guide. In France, they call it tutor. In Japan, they call it sensei. In China, they call it shifu. In Italy, they call it maestro. Whatever you call it. In India they call it guru, but it’s called lama in Tibet.
I’m mentioning this because people have different traditions. Michael’s lama had a dream and he told Michael to go into the diamond business. To go into New York City and start a diamond business. Michael was pushing back on this. He said, “Rinpoche, I don’t know a diamond from a golf ball.” That’s what he said in his story.
He said, “I don’t know anything about business. I’ve been praying and meditating, and been in monastery and studying Buddhism for the past twenty years. I’m a scholar in Buddhism.” His lama didn’t change his course.
Michael finally gave in. If you know something about the diamond business, you can take out maybe $2 million or $3 million of inventory in your hip pocket. In New York City it usually is a family-based business. They’re typically of Jewish descent.
I remember I bought my diamond for my former wife from the west side on 45th street. I happened to buy it from an Armenian because I’m Armenian. There are a lot of Hasidic Jews in that area. Their tradition is diamond cutting in the diamond business.
They are centers of creating amazing and polishing diamonds. Not just finding them like from South Africa. Where they’re finally cut and they’re finished. In New York City, I went to the diamond district. If you know New York City, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I bought a diamond for my former wife. To be a member of that community, if you come from a Protestant family, not a Hasidic Jewish family the chances of you getting in are nothing.
Michael got in with two other people. It was called the Andin Corporation. It grew quickly utilizing four simple principles and the four Laws of Karma. The four Laws of Karma that I’m about to teach you. The four different principles you can use every single day and it takes less than ten minutes a day.
This company is, in the history of Manhattan, the fastest growing manufacturing company. Over 10,000 employees by the time it was sold. Warren Buffett bought it, utilizing the principles that Michael learned as a Buddhist monk.
[bctt tweet=”If you make your client successful, they’ll make you successful. What goes around comes around.” username=”AlexMandossian”]
The Four Laws Of Karma
Does that interest you? Wouldn’t it make it sense to at least learn what he learned? This is after applying the karmic marketing strategies that I’m going to reveal. This is what I learned. There are four Laws of Karma and they’re logical. The first law is the Law of Expansion. The Law of Expansion means everything big was once small. It takes time to get big.
Whether it’s the University of the Big Bang or it’s an oak tree through an acorn. A watermelon through a watermelon seed or an apple tree through an apple seed, it doesn’t matter. Everything big was once small. It takes time to grow.
A bamboo shoot takes about three to five years to grow underground before you can even see it. It’s likened to be the fastest growing plant on earth. It doesn’t grow fast initially because it’s growing underneath building its foundation. What that means to business is if you want a big business, then you’ve got to first be small. You have to act small. You can think big but you’ve got to act small. If you act big, you may lose a lot of money like I did in 1989, which is the first story I told in episode one.
The second law is the Law of Likeness. The Law of Likeness is you can’t take an apple seed, plant it and have it turn into a pear tree. You can’t take a human being as a seed, a sperm and have it turn into a dog. You can’t take the dog seed and have it turn into a human being. There’s the law of likeness. Your business, you can’t take the rules of running a manufacturing company and run it as if it had the sales margins of a debt company. In the Law of the Likeness, it applies to business as does expansion.
There’s the Law of Effect. It means that every cause has an effect. If I put my finger in a pool of water and there are ripples, the effect are the ripples. The Law of Effect means if you’re creating a cause such as creating an investment for your business. The effect doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. The effect means it’s just an effect, but every cause has an effect.
There’s the Law of Cause. It’s different than the Law of Effect. The Law of Cause says, “Every effect, everything that you see right now has a cause.” Your business, wherever you are right now with your business, with your income, with your paycheck, you caused that.
That’s why taking 100% responsibility of that is not too woo-woo or spiritual. It’s making no excuses and taking responsibility as in Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles. Take 100% responsibility of your life. The Law of Expansion, the Law of Likeness, the Law of Effect and the Law of Cause. Those are the four laws.
The Four Karmic Marketing Segments
The four karmic marketing segments, this is how I built my premium business of $100,000 clients. I personally don’t know anyone with as many 100% clients that I have. $100,000 is a whole lot of money. I’ve had several dozen over the years. I’ve had lots of $60,000 clients and $30,000 clients. The margins are good. I don’t work with them painstakingly. I work in a tight time frame.
They are 100% responsible with living with their Law of Expansion, Likeness, Effect and Cause. I’m going to tell you how I did it because this is what Michael taught me. This is what he taught his company. He taught his sales team this in diamonds. He taught his management this. He’s taught other businesses such as Bumble and bumble and many other well-known companies that I’m not going to name drop.
Imagine that in the middle of this nest which is a circle, there’s you. There’s this little circle of you. We’ll call that little you. Imagine there’s this spoke or line that is at 3:00 and at the end, there’s a little circle. At the end of that circle, you put the word clients. That’s at 3:00. Imagine there’s another line that’s radiating out like a spoke from a hub of a wheel, and that spoke goes at 6:00. It goes down a bit. There’s another circle at the end of that and that’s called your suppliers.
Self-Serving Benevolence: Karma disappoints you if you keep score. Serve intentionally, not randomly, and plant those karmic seeds on fertile soil.
At 9:00 imagine there’s yet another spoke that’s going horizontally toward the west. There’s a circle at the end of it. It’s called team. That’s your team. At 12:00, a spoke radiating out. There are only four spokes with a circle at the top. That is called the world. If you go to MarketingOnline.com/km you’ll see this. I want you to picture it in your mind’s eye.
If you make your client successful, they’ll make you successful. What goes around comes around. You have to do this four for four every day, it takes about ten minutes. You don’t have to do it back to back. For clients, every single day, I call one up. I wish one happy birthday. I check in with one, I see how they’re doing and I give them a testimonial for their business.
Those are not random acts of kindness. Those are intentional acts of appreciation and I get excited on what client I’m going to focus on each day. It takes about two minutes for an email or a phone call. Sometimes it takes four minutes because we’re playing phone tag. That’s at 3:00, at 6:00, going downward there’s the supplier. The supplier or the vendor is the most abused and overlooked aspect of these four different segments of karmic marketing.
If you make them successful, they’ll make you successful. Every single day I will pick one to appreciate them. If I’m writing a check to GEICO Insurance, which is a supplier of mine. It doesn’t have to be for my core business. Doesn’t GEICO supply me insurance? How about my healthcare? How about my electrical bill? Those are suppliers. What if I wrote a little thank you note when I’m writing them the check? What if I write them an email with appreciation?
To my own suppliers, what if I have an appreciation event? Like I do every year at Wizard Academy with my good friend Roy H. Williams. I invite a few speakers. I don’t make money from it, I break even. It cost me about $40,000 and I’d make $40,000 from what people paid to stay there. It’s a customer and supplier appreciation event.
I invite my best suppliers because they are connected to other customers. I can get referrals. If I acknowledge one of my representatives there and contact the CEO. If I give them referrals of friends of mine, that’s intentional acts of appreciation. What goes around comes around.
When you’re intentionally appreciating one of these four, better yet all four going four for four, you will get back. What goes around comes around. It’s the Law of Karma. You don’t even have to believe in it. If you believe in it, it works even better.
What about your team? I get them a free foot massage. I’ll ask them, “Tell me three things that are under $50 that are things that you enjoy doing?” Sometimes I’ll give them a night out, dinner, gift certificate with babysitting. Sometimes I’ll do a full day’s pay or I’ll do the most valuable driver award each week at our weekly huddles. That’s how I appreciate my team. Those are things that I do.
I have this list of things that I do for them. I do it once a day. If I appreciate them on our Slack and I say, “Great job. That’s an A player right there. That’s some great play.”
The fourth is the world which is at 12:00. It’s the line that goes up with a circle at the end of it. I’ll fill a parking meter that’s expired with a quarter. I have a lot of tall bridges around me. I’m on the bay area. I’ll pay for the person back of me. They won’t know what they’re doing that they come up and they go, “Why did you do that?” I say, “I don’t do it for you, I do it for me.” It is self-serving benevolence.
[bctt tweet=”Business leaders who know but don’t do still don’t know.” username=”AlexMandossian”]
If I see a cigarette butt while I’m walking my dog Minnie, I’ll pick it up and I’ll throw it in the wastebasket and then I set the intention. This may sound corny to you but I do it and it’s worth. I say, “I throw this cigarette butt away in honor of attracting more $100,000 clients.” Self-serving benevolence, that’s my spiritual practice and the list goes on, clients, suppliers, team and world.
That’s what I have for you. The Alexism is that business leaders who know but don’t do, still don’t know. Business leaders who know but don’t do, still don’t know. What does this have to do with ethical influence?
Most people I know that think about karma, or think about serving others, they keep score. The Law of Karma, cause and effect, doesn’t keep score on who you gave it to. It only looks at karmic seeds that have been planted the right way. Many people serve and they say, “I never get back.”
You don’t get back because you’re planting watermelon seeds on concrete. You have to plant it in fertile soil. You’ve got to align with the four Laws of Karma, Expansion, Likeness, Cause and Effect. If you do this for 600 seconds a day, each one takes about two minutes. You plant these seeds in fertile soil, they’ll start sprouting all at once and you’ll have momentum.
A review about the insights you and I discovered in this episode. Number one, the four Laws of Karma. They are logic, they are natural, and they’re worth aligning with. Give them a try and don’t tell anybody because people will think you’re weird until you become a millionaire and then you can tell them what you did, like I’m doing right now. I’m not being funny.
The next is the four karmic marketing segments that you serve ten minutes a day, 600 seconds. Do one good thing for a client, intentional act of appreciation. Do one good thing for a supplier, for a team member and for the world who’s outside of your client’s suppliers or team and watch what will happen to your business.
You’ll feel better even if you’re miserable because you’re in deep debt or maybe you’re having a conflict with your spouse, your kids or a fellow worker. It will make you feel better. Remember, karma disappoints you if you keep score. Serve intentionally, not randomly, and plant those karmic seeds on fertile soil.
You can look more of this up on Google. You don’t have to get into Buddhism to learn this. Remember, these insights will only work for you if you work them.
Speaking of reviews, this is the self-serving part. The benevolent part I got done with. I taught you those laws. The self-serving part is to give me a review and a rating on iTunes, AllSellingAside.com/iTunes. I’m asking for it.
The reason I’m asking for it is because I deserve it. If you’re with me for this long, you can go on iTunes, give me your biggest takeaway or a-ha moment for this episode and then write a review and rate it a five star.
Let’s say you didn’t think that this episode was five stars, then don’t give me a rating. Find another episode, read it. There are plenty there and then give me five stars on that one. I want the a-ha. I want the takeaway from the episode itself and not on the podcast. I don’t like general reviews. I’d like specific and episodes are specific.
This episode, number 26 is about self-serving benevolence. It is a principle of life. As a final gift, this is episode 26 of All Selling Aside. Get a complimentary book called Alexisms: Useful Life Lessons from a Recovering Serial Entrepreneur. You can get it for free at AlexismsBook.com or you can pay for it at Amazon. If you go to Amazon give me a review there. We have a Kindle version and we have a softcover. You can get it under $10.
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