Do you have to manage people or things in your working life?
I would expect the answer to this to be 'yes', unless you've discovered a way of life I can't even conceive of! Assuming you do have to manage people and things, it makes sense to get increasingly good at this, so that you get ever better at creating the results you want. And usually the goal of getting the results you want is to increase your sense of happiness and fulfillment.

The Common Trap
We assume that succeeding in our goals will lead to ever increasing happiness and fulfillment. Usually, however, what it leads to is fleeting happiness and fulfillment, as opposed to sustained and deepening happiness and fulfillment. We get a 'hit' of feeling great from achieving our goals, however this quickly fades, so we then we get working towards the next goal.

We've fallen into the trap of putting too much energy and focus into trying to get all external elements lining up just right, and then keeping them that way. It's like being one of those people who spin plates; they only ever have a split second when all the plates are spinning perfectly, then they have to run around expending more energy on each plate again to maintain the picture. The net result is a constant expenditure of energy, with only fleeting moments of satisfaction and success, and increasing exhaustion. This is what I call living from the outside in.

The Way Out
Our materialistic, competitive culture leads us into this lopsided focus. No blame; it's just our current consensus way of life. We've got an implicit agreement to look outside ourselves to get things to create the feelings we want inside ourselves. What's being overlooked is that we also have a huge capacity to work directly with our inside world to create the feelings of happiness and fulfillment that we are really after.

The inside components that we can upgrade, to create greater happiness and fulfillment are our perceptions, our beliefs and our assumptions. This might sounds like a tall order.... 'get thee into therapy'.... but it doesn't have to be. There is a single pattern shift that acts as both a foundation and a catalyst to enabling us to do this inner upgrading. And that is, to share our experience, strength and hope. When we replace looking at the outside world and blaming, criticising, making wrong and judging with coming from the inside out and sharing our expeirence, strength and hope, then we automatically start to upgrade not only our own inner world, but we also support others in upgrading their own.

So How Does this Relate to the Business World?
Let's say you are a manager, and let's say your team are the plates we were talking about earlier (sorry team, you're plates just for a moment); wouldn't it be better to support the plates in learning how to spin themselves? This is what you will be do by shifting your pattern to one of sharing experience, strength and hope.