Welcome to the latest Nitty Gritty Heart interview dealing with the intersection of heart and spirituality and the world of business.

Here’s where you can read about the inspiration and hear the debut interview with Pam Slim.

The intention is to help people integrate their sense of spirit and the business world, and to do it in a way that honors the details and numbers that businesses need to function, and honoring the non-linearity and non-logical wisdom that sometimes comes through the Divine.

Interview Number Two: Matthew Ray Scott

Matthew Ray Scott, managing director of the Strategic Incubator, is a former army officer, successful entrepreneur, a devoted father. He’s also here in Portland with me, so it’s a delight to be able to meet him for tea from time to time.

I knew I wanted to interview him when, during tea one day, he told me that his company never plans more than six months in advance, and does what strategic planning they do from a place of intuition and what “feels right.” Strange words perhaps from an extremely successful marketer who knows how to get the numbers and details lined up with extreme effectiveness.

He’s got quite a story to tell about his own journey with spirit and business, and I love how he describes where he landed. Plus you’ve got to hear his story about his father.

The interview runs about 30 minutes.

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Matthew’s blog is a delightfully entertaining way to learn about marketing and business, mainly because of the extremely creative way he brings video into it. I’m jazzed that I have tea with him where he’s going to show me some of his video tricks.

So check out the Strategic Incubator website, and subscribe to the blog. And of course you can follow Matthew on Twitter.

Listening to the interview, what did you learn about your own journey with your own nitty gritty heart?

Several times recently I’ve heard or read someone make a comment like, “I really need to learn business, beyond just being good at what I do.” And each time I think, “Oy! Allah…” like any good Jufi (Jewish Sufi) does when presented with the incomprehensible mysteries of life.

In this case, the incomprehensible mystery I was cross-culturally exclaiming about is business. How in the heck do you learn business? Do you need to take a course on how to manage a team? Do you need to figure out how to present a business plan to potential investors? Do you need to learn about payroll taxes?

It’s a huge topic, and so no wonder you might sigh along with me in your own cross-cultural way.

The article part of this article is mercifully short. The majority of it is a checklist, with a little bit of guidance to help you use it. I’ll be nice and give you the guidance now so when you read the checklist you won’t go insane. Continue reading →

As a business owner you hear it all the time, “You can do this, just put your head down and get the work done.”

So, you work hard and stay as present as possible, yet you take a misstep and get clobbered with the unexpected.

Your website goes down, mistakes with bookkeeping happen, or time lines that were underestimated leave you way, way behind.

And these unexpected turns have you questioning if you should even be in business.

Before you know it, you’re left frustrated and depleted, looking over your shoulder and wondering when your going to be blindsided into the next ditch. Continue reading →

Welcome to a series of interviews I’m calling “The Nitty Gritty Heart.” It has to do with the intersection of heart and spirituality and the world of business.

The inspiration for this series came a few years ago at a lunch I was having with a fairly well-known business teacher. He was known for teaching nuts and bolts strategy to his clients and customers, but admitted to me that he used a spiritual approach in his own business, but didn’t know how or if he should teach it.

My experience has been that many of the successful people around us do both: they bring in heart AND the details. But how?

The intention is to help people integrate their sense of spirit and the business world, and to do it in a way that honors the details and numbers that businesses need to function, and honoring the non-linearity and non-logical wisdom that sometimes comes through the Divine. And vice-versa. It’s summed up in the three deceptively simple questions I’m asking:

1. What’s your background in business?
2. What’s your experience with heart and spirituality?
3. How do you combine the two? When very detailed, nitty-gritty things need to get done in the business, and the numbers matter, or things fall apart, how do you use/trust heart and spirit in the process?

Intervew Number One: Pam Slim

Pam Slim is the award-winning author and blogger of Escape from Cubicle Nation. She’s worked in and with corporations, as well as with gang members, seeing surprising similarities in both.

She has a real grasp of what needs to happen in order to make business work, and her rallying cry is “Hating your job is not a business plan.”

Something else that is immediately evident when you meet her is Pam’s presence. She carries a clarity, strength, and vulnerability with her that is powerful. And it’s not surprising that she has real insights into spirituality and business.

The interview went about 30 minutes, and I think you’ll be fascinated the whole way through.

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Make sure you follow her blog and read her book.

And let me know how you liked the interview-was it helpful? I think I’m going to do a bunch of them- I have several more already scheduled. How do you integrate your heart and your business?

If you’re in the process of creating your marketing message, chances are you’re either avoiding working on it, or you’re caught in the endless cycle of tweaking to get the words exactly right. Painful.

Of course, there is one step beyond this, where you get up the courage to test it out on others. You call up a friend or two, or email them, and shyly share your marketing message.

Then you know why you didn’t want to share it. One person tells you, “I like it when you said ’special.’” Another says they’re offended by the use of the word “special.” A third gives you a complete rewrite.

And a whole horde of people just tell you they “like it.” “Yeah, I really like that. Nice job.”

Nice, sincere people giving you their honest opinions. About as useful as a wet paper sack on apple pickin’ day. Continue reading →

There’s a long, slow, ranty back-and-forth conversation happening around various blogs, and it has to do with earning a living.

The basic issue is that many people love to write and want to be writers, and so they start a blog. And they also want to make a living at it, basically because it’s easier to love writing when you’re good at it, and it’s easier to get good at it when you do it a LOT. And it’s easier to do it a lot when it’s your main gig. Especially when you love it.

Some really smart people have weighed in on the issue of making money while writing— all of whom are making money, good money, on the strength of their writing. Continue reading →

It happens all the time. Someone says, yes, they want to work with you, and then, somehow, it doesn’t happen. Their payment never arrives, things seem to get strange, or sticky, or complicated. And it just never happens.

Even after you’ve made a great heart connection and there’s been some real trust built, they still ding and ditch, say yes and poof into thin air.

What’s up with that?

Stage Diving Into Your Business

I spent my teen years in the punk rock scene. You know, ripped clothing, funny haircuts, loud and angry music. Stage diving.

Stage diving is an awesome twist on the whole “fall and catch me” trust exercise. You climb up onto the stage with the band, usually three to five feet above the floor. Then you dive out into the crowd. And they catch you. Continue reading →