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What do I love about: The Diamond Cutter?
The diamond cutter provides an answer to almost every problem we encounter in life. It is a guidebook to help you establish good imprints that ultimately shape your future.
What do I not love about: The Diamond Cutter?
Zilch
Who should read: The Diamond Cutter?
Anyone who is constantly looking for ways to be better and live a fulfilling life
Who should not read: The Diamond Cutter?
Zilch
Notes about The Diamond Cutter
- The diamond cutter is a written record of a teaching given by the Budha over 2,500 years ago
- The hardness of diamond is in nature the closest that any single object in the universe can come to an absolute. It has the greatness hardness there is
- And so a diamond is significant in a second way-as a metaphor for that one thing which is truly absolute
- The greatest businesspeople have a deep inner capacity-they hunger, as we all do, but perhaps more strongly-for a true spiritual life
- Nothing that ever happened to us is a good thing or a bad thing from its own side
- The way we see things is coming from ourselves. Whether we experience another person at work as irritating or inspiring is a matter of our own perceptions, which is proved by the fact that other people at work see the individual in different, even opposite ways
- Money itself is created by maintaining a generous state of mind
- Be wary of your natural reaction to a problem. It may simply perpetuate the problem
- There are 3 different ways of planting an imprint: action, words and thoughts. By far the most important of these is thoughts; the deepest imprints are created by attitudes alone
- Things themselves are being produced by your imprints- the world around you, the people around you and even the way you are yourself, all of these things are a creation of your own past actions, words, and thoughts- good or bad done to others
- Things come from nothing, everything’s just random
- Try to feel empathy with anyone who is having a problem even a competitor
- Be good to people on your way up; you might meet them on the way down
- The capacity of the human mind is completely limitless
- Nothing is the way it is from its own side, or else everything would seem exactly the same to everybody. The way things seem to you is caused by seeds or imprints that you put in your mind earlier, when you did or said or thought something good or bad about another person
- Find time to break up the usual routine; to get some time to think about WHY rather than HOW with the work- time to plan, time to reflect, and perhaps most important time to get a new input, new source of inspiration
- The human mind is so powerful that you can teach anyone how to do just about any job in the world fairly quickly but it takes years to break bad personal habits and characteristics like lying or a lack of concern for others, and these ruin a worker long before any lack of technical skill
- Children are one of the greatest sources of creative inspiration. Also people who volunteer on the weekends are the most stable and creative employees of all
- Circle days: It is time-off, hours of quiet and reflection. Inspiration that just happens are from imprints you put in your mind from clear silence and the closeness to great minds and the willing service of others around you
- Under the influence of silence, your mind will be working more clearly and strongly than ever before. Keep your mind on the fact that it is not just your career at stake; it is your health; your peace of mind; your happiness; and your creativity
- An object becomes good or bad according to your perceptions, and these perceptions are dictated very precisely by the good or bad imprints you put in your mind in the past.
- Problems themselves are the highest opportunity we can ever have. If things go well all the time, it is the worst thing that can happen
- Pain pushes us to find out what really drives the world around us, and if it leads us to discover the laws of the hidden potential and imprints, it is the best thing that could have happened to us
- Business and personal failure, depends entirely upon how we have behaved toward others in the past
- Money by itself is completely meaningless if we cannot enjoy its use. Remember regardless of how well you succeed in making money and then maintaining the clear heart to enjoy it properly, you must one day come to the end of your business, and even your life
- You cannot resolve to see that your life has meaning unless you are able to see yourself in the final hours of your life
- Really good employees will continue to drive themselves until they hurt themselves and it takes great wisdom and self-control on the part of managers to know when to force people to slow down, even when the operation will suffer as a result.
- We make money only by giving it away to others.
3 Principles to live by:
- Your business must be successful; it should make money. A person with greater resources can do much better in the world than one without
- You should enjoy the money; Learn to keep your minds and bodies in good health while you make money
- Your years of doing business must have some meaning
45 Business Problems and their real solutions:
- Company finances are unstable, in a state of constant flux
Solution: Be more willing to share your profits with those who have helped you produce them and be very strict about never making a single penny through any improper action - Capital investments like manufacturing equipment, computers or vehicles tend to become quickly outmoded or unreliable
Solution: Stop being envious of other peoples business, concentrate on making your own company innovative - Your position in the company is unstable and you seem to be losing your authority
Solution: Be careful never to treat others around you with arrogance; come down to their level, sit with the troops, listen t those who work with you - You find yourself unable to enjoy the money and things you have worked so hard for.
Solution: Stop comparing yourself to others, Be your own person and just enjoy what you have - No matter how big or interesting your business gets, you always have the feeling that it is not enough; you feel driven by a sense of dissatisfaction
Solution: Same as 4 - The employees and management around you always seem to be fighting with one another
Solution: Be careful never to engage in the kind of talk that has, as either its expressed or implicit aim, splitting up other people - You always tend to have problems with your business partner; you fall out with them over and over, no matter how often you change them
Solution: Same as 6 - You find yourself second guessing your own decisions, you are developing an inability to be decisive in business matters
Solution: Represent yourself as you are. Maintain a high degree of integrity then your mind and business will be crisp, decisive and effective - You want to make a purchase of another company; you see a business opportunity that’s sure fire but which is going to need some cash, and you are having trouble raising it.
Solution: Stop being such a cheapskate in your business dealings and your personal life. Give, give, give to others; make sure deals are win-win for both sides. - External failures such as bad weather or city infrastructure problems are hurting your business.
Solution: Remember that whether an event impacts you in a positive or negative way is not something which is coming from the event itself; it is obviously, if you think about it even for a minute, something that is coming from your perception - You find yourself unable to concentrate or keep your mind focused when faced with a challenging business situation or decision
Solution: Spend your time each day putting your mind, peacefully and in a concentrated way, on the larger questions of life - You find yourself unable to grasp broad business concepts, or market patterns or dynamics like whole manufacturing processes or systems
Solution: Face up to the deficiencies in your own broad viewpoint about why greater thigs in the world happen. 1) everything happens from something else 2)the world around you, everything in it, is the result of the conscious effort of a very powerful being basically beyond our immediate experience3) nothing is random, nothing is accident, and we have no one outside ourselves to blame for our own world - Rents are too high! Can’t find a building to put that new branch location in.
Solution: Make sure that you help others find places to stay when they need them. - Companies and individuals in your business world whom you consider especially reputable and capable seem hesitant to connect with you
Solution: This imprint is planted by choosing associates poorly - The competition is ruthless, and always seems to get the upper hand when you go head-to-head with it
Solution: One of the main causes for this particular phenomenon is speaking harshly to others - Over and over, when you get deep into a deal with anybody, he or she seems to turn around and stab you in the back
Solution: Try to feel empathy with anyone who is having a problem even a competitor. Be good to people on the way up; you might meet them again on the way down - You think up a major project, design it down to the last detail, work hard to get it up and running, and then it simply flops
Solution: The key to success is a state of mind, a state of understanding principles - People around you don’t step forward to help you when you most need it
Solution: Try to step into every situation where you could help out- whether it is offering an aspirin to someone or pitching it last minute to help colleagues - You find yourself unable to control your temper; you get angry at employees, suppliers, customers, the weather, the phone; and just about anything else
Solution: If we really want to succeed on any level, we must seek to stamp out unhappiness in every form, and within any mind- even in those of people who compete with us for the next promotion, or in the marketplace. - The market and business atmosphere is chaotic; it seems to go up and down without any sense or logic
Solution: It is not true that there are limited resources, and that only a certain number of people can be wealthy at any given time. We have to be visionary to create vast new wealth, not restrict ourselves and our future to what has existed up to now. - Corruption is a problem in your business; in its regulation by government, in the way companies interact, in the way individual employees behave.
Solution: Consciously take joy in the success of everyone around - As your corporate career moves on through the years, you notice small health problems cropping up and steadily starting to become more serious
Solution: Your concern for the welfare of those around you in your firm has to reach a point where it is a natural part of your life-it has to come to you as automatically as a well-practiced on the piano, hands gliding across the keys of their own accord, unwatched-In order for your own health to be affected. - The market strategies that used to work for you do not succeed anymore
Solution: Avoid small-change ethics, avoid even the slightest stretch of your integrity, and you will find that your traditional business approach continues to work just fine. - You find yourself feeling down more often, whether or not the business is doing well. You start to get little bouts of depression or self-doubt
Solution: The imprint is caused by encouraging those who work for you to have less than total integrity in all their dealings on your behalf. And a kind of confidence and joy in your work comes when you support integrity in every employee in your firm, from top to bottom. - The people around you, whether fellow employees or managers, customers or suppliers, never believe what you have to say, even though you are telling the truth.
Solution: Be strictly accurate in your words. - Whenever you undertake any form of cooperative effort- be it a group project, a partnership for some business goal, or the merger of your company with another- it doesn’t seem to work out.
Solution: Total inner honesty and especially awareness that you are being totally honest, leads to a great peace of mind and plants firm imprints in your subconscious which later float up to the conscious mind as the perception of great unity and success in whatever cooperative work you might undertake with others - You work in an industry where people cheat each other a lot
Solution: Be completely straightforward in all your business dealings yourself - Your boss often speaks to you in an insulting way
Solution: Refuse on a consistent basis to respond to negativity with negativity then you will see these kinds of people leave your life - You find that years in the business world are taking an undesirable toll on your personal appearance
Solution: Be extremely diligent in watching your own mind for the slightest trace of anger towards another person - Regardless of how well you do in your work, the people around you are always criticizing you
Solution: Be very sensitive about paying attention to how your actions and words affect those around you - Projects you hand out to subordinates never get done.
Solution: Take special care to facilitate the work of other people around you in the company - The business projects you undertake have smooth sailings at first and then turn sour
Solution: Maintain on a constant basis, thoughts of gratitude - In the course of your work you are exposed to an unpleasant environment
Solution: Clean out any kind of sexual harassment or lewdness going on at any level - People around you are unreliable
Solution: Be constant and dependable in a very specific context i.e marriage or family commitment - You have no financial independence; you can’t be your own person- you can’t make decisions about the things you have earned, especially, without consulting others.
Solution: Respect the property and space of others very strictly - In your everyday business dealings, the people around you- customers, suppliers and employees tend to mislead you
Solution: Be very sensitive to any feelings of pride that you may be a victim of and avoid the trap of living for the recognition of others - No one in the company respects what you have to say; every suggestion you make is ignored or considered stupid
Solution: Be very strict, much more than other people about not engaging in frivolous chatter - You find yourself afflicted by a lack of confidence; you used to feel very sure of yourself, and now you feel the opposite
Solution: Avoid useless and meaningless talk. Make sure to talk about only things you intend to pull off - You find yourself unable to take your well-deserved rest; you have trouble relaxing, and never really enjoy a vacation- real leisure is beyond you.
Solution: Similar to 38. Speak only when it is meaningful to do so - You have a noticeable problem with timing
Solution: Make sure to do what you say you will do and speak not of something you have no real intention of accomplishing - No one listens when you ask them to do something
Solution: Think carefully before you open your mouth to speak; by always coming out with something to say which is of benefit and real meaning to the people around you - People in your company seem to fight with each other a lot
Solution: Go out of your way to bring other people together, wherever and whenever you can, and in very minor ways- all day long - You live in a business and social climate where integrity is simply not respected; where only fools are strictly ethical every hour of their business day- where “Nice guys finish last”
Solution: Train yourself strictly in integrity itself, in the forceful logic behind integrity, and then just sit back and enjoy the change in your own industry as it happens - You find yourself losing your touch for business, nuts seem harder to crack now, you have trouble keeping up with the changes around you, you seem slower than you used to be when you grapple with complex business challenges
Solution: Understand how imprints work to create the world around us and then act on this understanding by following the path of personal integrity - The principles of justice don’t seem to apply to your life: whenever you are wronged, be it by a fellow employee or by a competitor, the authorities never seem to give you the help and protection that you were hoping for
Solution: Take the time and the trouble to acquaint yourself with the fact that your world is a creation of your integrity or lack of it - You are slowly coming to the realization that over the length of your career in the business world, the level of your own integrity has noticeably and disturbingly dropped.
Solution: Work hard to overcome your natural resistance to the kind of thinking presented in this book