Soft Sell = Compassion: A Commercial Paradigm Shift

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Compassion and commerce may seem self-contradictory like an oxymoron: for example, “deafening silence” or “poor little rich girl.” Compassionate commerce seems to be a self-nullifying idea, at least in the way compassion and commerce have been understood and experienced.

So how can marketing and selling and compassion be a perfect self-supporting way to do business?

The definition of compassion that most people would agree with is:

A deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.

And that understanding suggests feelings like pity, charity, condolence, mercy, or sorrow.

From this point of view putting compassion and commerce in the same sentence subverts if not destroys the intention of each.

However, is there a way that compassion and commerce can be mutually supportive so that the marketplace can evolve in a more humane and loving direction?

In the Buddhist world-view compassion is based on an understanding of the relatedness of all things. Furthermore, that we are all related is also now accepted as the core reality of modern physics.

As we said in the post below, The Net of Gems, the Sanskrit term, Tat Tvam Asi, which means Thou Art That, clearly states that we are all one in relatedness.

If compassion means an awareness and appreciation of the reality that we are all related, all connected, all interdependent – and even more deeply and intimately, we are all made of the same stuff, what Carl Sagan called “Star Stuff” — then I truly am you and you truly are me.

What happens to commerce, to marketing and selling, from this point of view?

It means that if you are selling something to someone else, that other person, through our psycho-spiritual, deeply material relatedness IS YOU. Not just poetry. That person is you. Not just sentiment. That person is you.

Are we different from one another? Without a doubt. That we are all different is the signature statement of creation. But we are not separate.

The hydrogen and nitrogen present at the Big Bang, which, according to physics can neither be created nor destroyed, is IN YOU. It makes up some of who you are as it does for every other living creature on this planet (as well as that which we call non-living – rocks and clouds, etc).

So as a marketer as well as a customer, when you enter the marketplace, do you do so with an awareness of the relatedness of all things – the relationship you already and deeply have with whomever you’re doing business with?

Your awareness of and your acting from our universal relatedness IS your compassion. Not sentimentality which is always overly reactive and overly emotional, but behaving from an enlightened self-interest — not just for you as a separate individual, but you as a member of the deeply intimate reality we all share and co-create.

So compassion and commerce are not an oxymoron. They are mutually supportive, mutually appreciative, deeply connected, and mutually cognizant and alive to the reality of Tat Tvam Asi – Thou Art That.

Because It’s All in the Connection,

Judith & Jim

Come join the Soft Sell  love-based marketing evolution.  Go to “The Heart of Marketing” for our #1 bestseller as well as over 50 Free bonuses just for ordering. Thanks – J & J.