The Role of Presence in the Connection between Productivity and Profit

In this four-part series regarding Productivity for Profit, we focus today on the second of three factors that can hinder productivity from turning profit, viz., your lack of presence.

Productive is our natural way of being as human beings. It’s more stressful to NOT be productive. And yet, we can get into unnatural, unproductive relationship with life, because we’re profoundly angry or sad, because we’re distracted or misled, or sometimes because it’s easier than facing the fearsome world out there.

Perhaps the reason we resist productivity most often is we’ve seen it can lead to harm, burn-out, or waste of time, money, and effort. This happens when there is a lack of clarity regarding how our activity connects to profits. Clarity is required (at all three levels: well-being, presence, and purpose) to ensure productivity is for profits (vs at a cost). If any of these three levels is impacted negatively, then the result will be some form of “negative productivity.”

Presence?

Nothing is produced in the past; it’s over and done. Nothing is produced in the future; it isn’t here yet. The only place anything is ever produced is in the present moment. Hence, the importance of a clear (corporate) mind.

Most of the distractions that take us out of the present are fears of failure or change, inadequacy, defamation, etc.. They lead to costs (negative profits), like inapprorpriate reactions (that turn folks off), expensive work-arounds, or legal issues. These need to be addressed responsibly.

When they’re cleared, your natural curiosity shows up regarding these connections between productivity and profit:

1. how to improve (Relationship building requires practice; it’s not a state, it’s a potential future.)
2. what others need (in order to share in?the success)
3. the impact our productivity is having out there (profitable or not).

You'd have to be present to inquire and see--in the moment things wobble--how to improve a relationship, what others need, and the impact your efforts are having out there in the world.

When you notice you're not profiting from all the work you're putting in, and that it's because you're not picking up on these three essential connections between productivity and profit; then it's time to get out of your head: do something like take a walk to shift attention to the senses. (They only function in the present.) However you choose to break up the preoccupation with your own thoughts, practice mindfulness.

See Chapter 15, "Presence: Listening Can Shift Your Greatest Challenge," in Leadership as Relation, for more tools to bring you back to--and stay in--the present.

On July 17th, Part Four in this Productivity for Profit series will take up the third factor that can lead productivity away from profitability to "negative productivity," viz.: misalignment with purpose.?

PS: Get you copy of?Leadership as Relation?now available?in ebook, paperback, and hardcover format: https://tinyurl.com/2s3p53hu. Audio is coming later this summer.?

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Sincerely, Martin Kettelhut, PhD 303 747 4449 [email protected] https://www.listeningisthekey.com/