Mark Silver
You know, this love is a business strategy. You know, you could turn that around a business as a love strategy. You know, it's like every single context that we're in is another place to find love.

Jeff Ma
Hello, and welcome to Love as Business Strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business. We want to tackle those topics that most business leaders tend to shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. And we're here to have conversations and hear stories about how real people in real businesses operates. I'm your host, Jeff Ma. And I'm joined by my co host, Mohammad Anwar. Hello, how you doing today?

Mohammad Anwar
Hey, Jeff, good to be here.

Jeff Ma
Yes, good to have you. And today's guest I'm really excited about. He's the founder of HeartofBusiness.com, Mark Silver. And Mark is not only an entrepreneur, but also a coach, a consultant, a mentor, and spiritual healer, I'm super excited to get a chance to have this opportunity to talk about love as a business strategy, but from an angle we don't typically get a chance to focus on, which is the more spiritual side of things. And I think it's really important to have that conversation. So, Mark, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the show.

Mark Silver
I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much. And I've been enjoying the heck out of your book, it's really have it here, it's right over here. I'll step off screen for a second. But anyway, I just really, I appreciate the context and the stories and the vulnerability that you presented in this in the book and I see that so yes, thank you.

Jeff Ma
Appreciate that. And, and before we go anywhere, we have to do our, our icebreaker question. And Mark, you're lucky I brought Mohammad with me, I make him go first. Yes. And he's gonna hate this question already know, because I know him very well, Mohammad. If I were to put you up on stage at a talent show right now, what would you perform? What would you do?

Mohammad Anwar
You know, I have stage fright.

Jeff Ma
What's your talent, though? Let us have it. What's your talent? Mark, you know, you're gonna have your time to prepare me

Mohammad Anwar
A bodybuilding show.

Jeff Ma
actually knew that would be.

Mohammad Anwar
Yeah, maybe that

Jeff Ma
okay. Yeah, you spend enough time in the gym for that to count. Okay. Mark, same question. If I were to put you on stage at a talent show right now, what would you do?

Mark Silver
That's so interesting. I guess, just someone randomly, I could pull out a very old thing that I haven't done in quite some time, which is juggling. And I in college would had a, my dog is asking to come in. We would juggle flaming torches back and forth. And at this point, it would be a little dangerous, because I haven't done in a long time. And you know, we would need fire extinguishers. But that might be the thing.

Jeff Ma
Well, you can start with bowling pins. That's awesome. Like, that's serious. That's legit serious juggling when things are on fire so you must have been good.

Mark Silver
The secret is, is that it's not any different. It just looks impressive.

Jeff Ma
Or just the failure is more consequential like it is. Awesome. So I'm going to start at the very basic level here for the audience, but also for our conversation. Mark, just tell us about yourself like start, like tell us about who you are, what your passions are.

Ah,well in the context of this conversation. My part of my perspective and my experience, and my study of history is that capitalism has been a terrible, terrible thing for the planet and for our cultures and for our humanity. And commerce and other forms of exchange and trade have existed as long as man has been around humans humanity's been around. But the but the form that this kind of predatory corporate capitalism, just and so it takes a lot for us to work against some of the structures that dehumanize us some of the laws that say you must put profits first and these kinds of things that it's harder to, to center love and center humanity. And so my passion in a work environment, you know, in the business environment is that it's that it's not the only thing that's needed, but the healing in business is a big part is a significant part of what's needed. If If we're going to be in a healthier place in the world and and so that's a that's a huge part of my passion. I have other passions I you know, I have a family of kids, I love woodworking, when we're on the land, I love gardening. And so, you know, there's there's a lot of that that is infused by that. And but yeah, I just we make so many choices, you know, as you outlined in your book, like all these choices that are made, that don't benefit anyone except the financial benefit. It's not even really the heart or the holistic benefit, but the financial benefit of a few people at the top to the incredible pain of so many others. And yeah, I'm on a I've been working that for a long time. And yeah, if that says anything.

Yeah. No, that's, that's definitely a powerful, you know, passion and mission to be around. I'm curious, like, I guess what, paint a little bit of the path that brought you here, I guess, like, get to know your how you got here?

Mark Silver
Yeah, well, it's kind of funny. Um, I, I was, Oh, my God, what, which which parts to weave in. But the story that's popping up right now is that I, I'm, uh, I was born in the 60s, I'm titled The 80s. And I was, I happen to fall into the Junior Achievement, I don't even know if they still exist. But it was like this young capitalists, you know, thing, and, you know, the majority of those kinds of projects where, you know, build coffee mug holders and sell them. But I kind of mean, the group that we're in, I had the idea, it's like, why don't we be the middle person, let's go to T shirt companies and go to organizations and kind of, like, sell T shirts in the, you know, anyway, we, we made a huge profit we made, like, we were like, ahead of every other J chapter by like, 2,000% are huge. I mean, it was just, it was, and I said, Wow, we made all this money. And we really did nothing. Like we didn't do any of the work, we didn't really provide like, there wasn't, there was no reason for us to have made that money. And and it just opened my eyes to kind of a dynamic in business. And I mean, I grew up in business, my grandfather had a small business, my parents had a small retail store. That was my grandfather's and it's, um, and so I have a huge respect for small business. And I have a huge respect for people that are trying to make, you know, doing a beautiful thing in the world to, you know, be of service to provide something that people need, but I just saw how you get twisted. And I always had a strong social activist, kind of been I was an activist, I would, both in nonprofits and and eventually, I became a paramedic, but it just kind of came around, when I realized that there were friends of ours that were self employed, who just didn't know how to be in, they didn't know how to make a living doing really beautiful work like organic gardeners and permaculturists, and designers and other people. And I was like, Oh, I kind of know more than I think I did in this realm. And I was helping them be successful, but I was also helping them kind of work with the emotional issues that came up around charging for their services or marketing themselves or, and, and then that came together with the training that I did with my Sufi teachers, this kind of weaving together of certain really profound spiritual truths and realities of, of how the world works. With the world of business, and, you know, that's a very brief kind of, you know, shotgun summary of, you know, for like a, you know, 20 plus year journey, but it's, um, it's been really stunning, that business acts like every, the thing in our company is like, every act of business can be an act of love. And to have stumbled with that and made so many mistakes and walk the path and figured it out and mentors and all of the practicing and then seeing like, it's really true, like every act of business can be an act of love. And if it's not an act of love, it's not really worth doing like it doesn't like it's, it's, it's unnecessary. I used to put up a question mark, like, maybe it's unnecessary or you know, it might not be necessary, but after 20 plus years of this, I can say that if there's not love, it's not necessary, it can be thrown out.

Mohammad Anwar
Mark, would you be able to describe some acts of business that are acts of love? For our knowledge? So we get a perspective in correlation to what are not acts of love?

Mark Silver
Yeah. Well, so for instance, like, a realm that many people are aware of is marketing, right? Marketing is often not love. It's often about manipulation. You know, there was a whole thing that happened in the, in the beginning of the new science of art and science of psychology. And the earliest psychologists were hired, you know, by Madison Avenue, you know, the earliest Madison Avenue firms to manipulate people into buying, like that's like that's like in the history of marketing and advertising. And they always talk about talk about the pain points, talk about the pain points. And the way that it's often done, is in a way that is, in many ways bordering on or full on traumatize like, re traumatizing, like, like bringing up negative emotions till people are so agitated that they purchase in order to relieve the pain, the discomfort, however, there's a there's actually a jewel of truth in that is that the things that we're struggling with, we deeply want to be witnessed, we deeply want to be seen in that, but without judgment without the judgment that we're broken unless we buy the right thing. And so there's a way to bring marketing, and yes, speak about the pain, but speak about it from a place of deep empathy and witnessing and saying, Yeah, I see you, you're probably struggling with this, you know, like, if you're like, if you're if you're this kind of a person, and you're handling this kind of a situation. Yeah, this is probably hard. And you're probably struggling with that. And you can bring the love in a way that it doesn't make people agitated, it allows them to take a breath and slow down and open up a listening space. And then from that more resourced space, they can then make a discernment about oh, is what you're offering actually helpful for my situation? Do I resonate, you know, they can be in a decision making process, that's not so activated. But instead, it's because the love is there. People are drawn towards it, and then can make a reasonable decision. And I find that, you know, in our business, again, we've been doing this for 20 years return a profit, we're doing fine. We find that people don't necessarily buy as quickly or as impulsively. But when they do buy, they stick around, and they stick around for the long term. And they're repeat customers, and we have deep relationships of trust with them, even when we make the inevitable mistakes, like everybody does. Mm hmm.

Mohammad Anwar
Got it. So in, you know, going to your website, use you speak about can small business be done effectively, without losing your spiritual center, or all your savings? Can you elaborate on that? Like, why did you, you know, place a statement like that, what have you seen? Why did you want to bring that out?

Mark Silver
Yeah, thank you for asking that. So, you know, on one hand, there's this world that sees that thinks that spirituality doesn't belong in business or in money in financial matters. Like, there's spirituality over here. And then there's business, you just have to do business, you know, whatever it is, and then you can get back to your spirituality on Friday, or Saturday or Sunday, or whatever their day of worship is, you know, on the other hand, I see a lot of people who carry spirituality in their heart. Maybe it's at the heart of the work that they do we work with people that are healers, or have an explicit spiritual approach in what they do. But they feel like that's the work that I do, I can't bring that into the business. Like I can't do that in business. And there's, you know, I've seen the, the, the landscape of spirituality and business change quite a lot over the last couple decades. It used to be something very, very tiny, and then it's become more and more well accepted. But there's kind of this popular spiritual approach that is what I call the gas tank approach. You go and you fill up on spirituality on the cushion, even if you're sitting in your office. And then you go and do business until the gas tank runs out, and then you go fill up again. And this piece about like, you know, if the acts of business are an act of love, then you don't run out. You're not using up your tank like if I'm, if I'm trying to do business from an manipulative way that's going to hurt my heart. A lot of people, we work with the integrity in them, they can't even do it, they can't even approach doing marketing that way. So they don't do marketing and their business struggles. But the people who do do it end up feeling gross and disconnected. And it just, it feels terrible. But if it's an act of love, then it actually feels good, you feel like you're actually helping people whether or not they're purchasing from you, you feel like you're doing some good in the world, regardless of what the outcome is, and, and your heart is in service, like our acts are in service, like spirituality is not one of those things that just lives out there, right? It's like a lived spirituality is meant to be an expression of generosity and expression of love and expression of groundedness and a way of, of helping each other, you know, make this world a more beautiful place to make life really worth living. And business has to, you know, is already a part of that. It's just that when we deny that reality, it feels so deadening. You know, like the descriptions were so telling, you know, the experience that you had with the layoffs are that, you know, it's like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's like you do that and you feel disconnected from some essential part of yourself. That's, that's not worth doing. And the consequences are terrible for the business, also.

Mohammad Anwar
Agreed. And I'll share a little bit about myself personally, as relates to what you're talking about. So obviously, I am a practicing Muslim or aspire to practice. And one of the struggles that I have seen personally for myself is outside of work, I tried to be the spiritual person practicing my faith, and then I come to work. And I'm like, oh, there's no place for how to be practicing my faith at work. And I looked at them as two different things. And I always was in the battle of, Am I losing my faith by doing more work? Or am I, if I go work on my faith? Is it at odds with the business I'm running. So it doesn't seem to be a win win? Because if I really want to practice service of humanity, and then I go into a business, and the first thing I take is a business decision that costs a person's job, then how am I practicing my faith, they cannot coexist. It's a battle of your soul, determining how do I live my life with the belief system I have, and then work every day and be totally opposite to what I'm supposed to practice. And that's been a struggle for me, as a business owner. I haven't been able to bring my full self to work, I haven't been able to practice what I believe in. And I feel there are a lot of people out there who have very different beliefs, different belief systems and practices where they're unable to bring their full self to work as a result of that, because work is not meant to be a part of your spiritual life or your faith system or what not. And one of my spiritual mentors actually is the one who encouraged me and said, You don't have to necessarily do the rituals that are prescribed by your belief for your faith to really refill the tank as you talked about, but you could technically bring it into your day to day action, every day's interaction, how you treat people, how you behave with one another and how you make the right decisions, because it's the right thing to do in your workplace and live out your spirituality through work and not have to keep it separate. So when you when you when I read that I was like, Oh, that hits home. Yeah, so that's how I brought that out. So read that.

Mark Silver
Well, it's so beautiful, what you say. I mean, I was raised Jewish and then I took shahada 22 years ago, 21 years ago. And then it's, um, I always found it really I was part of this Muslim Sufi discussion. And they said, you know, they all say about following the stuff, the sooner the practices of the, of the Prophet li Salam. For those who aren't Muslim, the Prophet Muhammad, just this, this thing in Islam about following the example of the Prophet, and they said, Well, maybe we should also be following an example of the prophet before he came, you know, in his preparation to become a prophet, and he was a merchant aalameen You know, it's like he was in business. And he worked for a woman who became his wife, who was a very wealthy merchant, and he would did it was so much beauty that he became known as the trusted one, right? It's like that was that was like the, the essence of what's there. There's a and I think, you know, similar stories are in every path, you know, the Buddhist path has a story about the diamond cutter. And there's I mean, there's some there's some really beautiful pieces about this and so many paths about right livelihood, there's, um, I remember there was a, a story, a Sufi story that a Sufi teacher was asking his students, you know, do you want me to, you know, he had some food? And he said, Should I distribute this to you as God does? Or is the human does? And everybody said, as God does and so he gave some a lot, and some little and some none at all. And they're like, what, what is this? What is this? And it's like, isn't this true? Isn't this how God distributes things, and then it's our job to then you know, if you get a lot, you're like, the purpose isn't to then guard that and keep it the purpose is to live the divine quality of the generous one, and share it with those who don't have. And there's like, there's, there's so many teachings there about how to be in business in beautiful ways, and how to be in life in beautiful ways. And I just, I'm, it's so inspiring. I'm, I feel really grateful that in our business community, there are people of so many different paths, and religions, and some no religion at all, and all over the place. And, and yet, we all connect, because these ideas are so universal, you know, this message of love and oneness has come to every people on the earth, in every time. And, and business is not something special or separate from that it's not meant to it's not excluded, it doesn't have an exclusion. You know, like we need to live, live the love that's in our hearts. And when we spend that much time at work, and we and we're and the business has such a role in it doesn't have the only role but it has a significant role in forming how our culture and our how our societies work, we can't leave it out. It's critical that it's included in that.

Mohammad Anwar
Totally, I totally agree. And I think something you shared, like the These lessons are there in every, you know, different faith, faiths. In the perspective, all these stories have the same lessons. Unfortunately, in today's world, it might seem very difficult to make that applicable. So we hear these stories like you shared the Sufis, story, and the Buddha's stories and all these different stories in there. We listen to them, and we get inspired by it, but maybe not inspired by it enough to make it a part of today's life. We listen to it, we fill up our hearts with positivity. But maybe we fail to practice that in our day to day and at our workplace. And I feel with the work that you're doing. I and what we're aspiring to do is to be able to be examples of today that are relatable to today's generation today's audience and not resolved to only the stories of 1000s of years ago, are the lessons from 1000s of years ago, we need to create examples of how you can practice love in the workplace and be profitable, you can put people at the center of business and be profitable, right and create a better environment, community and serve humanity while still making money.

Mark Silver
is so possible like for instance, we went through a deep process as the owner of the business and obviously I mean, we're a tiny business compared to you all, there's just a handful of us involved with this. But I went through this deep process of like of our business and pricing model. And I, I made the decision not 100% but probably 95% of the offers that we have out in the world are priced it will be called pay from the heart where we acknowledge our needs, and we acknowledge what are sustainable prices at minimum prices for us. But we let the client choose how much they're going to pay. And we say you know if paying even the minimum amount would create the danger you know danger of depriving you or risk putting at risk your food and shelter, pay less than the minimum. And we continue to be profitable because it's based in a in a faith and an experience that human beings want to do the right thing when you're good to them. They want people want to be good to you. They want to be generous. And we have people who pay more, we have people who pay $1. And it all works out, it all works out. And we can make these decisions that can feel scary in the beginning, but it creates such goodwill. And believe me, the recommendations and referrals we get from our clients are, I mean, I'm so humbled by what they say and who they send to us, because they know they can trust us. And they know that we're not just milking them for money. And there's so many places where we can make choices like that, that live out a different reality. And that not only as you say, like, they're examples like I, I take the risk of showing trust in you, that lifts the heart. And people return that trust. There's always a few people that you know, maybe they're in trauma, or maybe they've had experience, it's like, they take advantage. So what they pay it what how are they taking advantage? They pay us $1? We're already it's okay. It doesn't hurt us. And you know, and if we had higher costs than that we would set the minimum higher so that we wouldn't be injured. But it's, it's, it's so possible to be the first to extend our heart and see the response come back.

Mohammad Anwar
Absolutely.

Jeff Ma
Yeah, I, I always find it very interesting as I'm listening to the conversation, because you You're absolutely right. I feel like in the workplace, it's somewhat unspoken taboo to speak about spirituality, or faith or religion. It just is, in today's climate, especially just feels too divisive. It feels controversial, for some reason, and I, myself am agnostic. I've actually been Christian, I've been baptized at a younger age. And then I've been atheist, I've been around the block. But it doesn't mean that I don't understand spirituality, right. Like, I still think that there's spirituality built in into the human existence, no matter what you believe in on paper, or what, what book you read. And it's been so powerful, to be able to build relationships in the workplace that break down those barriers, building relationships with Muhammad as a Muslim, with a relationship with my co workers, who are Christian. And sometimes, having that healthy conversation and seeing the other perspective, has been a huge, huge part of my ability to bring then my whole self to the table. And so I think it's, I just think that when, like, we just don't have that conversation enough. I was excited to hear from you, Mark, because I think, I mean, you go to you build a business completely centered around it. But I think the reality of what's out there is it's something in between, right? Because we can't, we can't expect. I mean, the realities of the world is that there's still greed, there's still, there's still a lot to the long way to go to achieve something grand, but every little bit counts. And I love that we're able to have this conversation because I think I think it's super important that's coming from some someone that many would prescribe as not having faith or spirituality. Right. I think it's super important. I think it's, I think it's something that that needs to be to be out there. So I really, I really enjoy this topic. And I think it's just it's super under underrated in terms of importance in a workplace.

Mark Silver
I'm so grateful that you spoke that because I think that divisiveness comes out of a sense of, you know, when people feel insecure, and they feel like they need to make other people believe as they do in, you know, in order to feel confirmed in their own beliefs. And that's so you know, anybody would be turned off by that, you know, regardless of where they're coming from, or what but what faith it is, you know, it's like it says in the Quran, there's no compulsion in religion. And it's, and even the word religion in English doesn't really like that doesn't really capture what deen means, you know, it just, it's like we're it's, it's really, religion and is about for me how to access love. And there are so many different ways to access love. And it doesn't need any one particular path. You know, there can be someone who adhere strongly to the rules of the religion, and yet there's no love in their heart or there can be someone with no religion at all and their heart is full of love. And it's, I mean, that's really what we're talking about, you know, Allah the divine and from my perspective, is called the source of love. That's really what we're after. And, you know, this Love is a Business Strategy, you know, you could turn that around a business as a love strategy, you know, it's like, every single context that we're in, is another place to find love. And, and that's where I believe the richness comes from. And it's part of why I was so delighted to be invited on and so delighted with what you're what you're carrying in this book, because it's, it is so accessible, and it does speak in such down to earth. accessible ways, I'm, I'm lucky in a certain way. I mean, I chose it, that we work primarily with small businesses, you know, people that are self employed, or very, what are termed micro size businesses are just a handful of people. And so it's much easier to be really open about spirituality, than it is when you have a large corporation, and even like a large company that might be, you know, you know, you know, public, you know, a public company instead of privately owned, I know, there's so much care that needs to be taken with people's hearts. So people don't feel excluded or judged or less than or, and, and that is like a, that's another beautiful path to walk to bring that awareness in that in that environment also, and yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'm grateful for the work that you all are doing in the world.

Mohammad Anwar
Awesome, thank you. Yeah, thank

Jeff Ma
Thank you so much. I think, you know, we love like, the mission of this show has always been to connect, whether it's with experts, philosophers, academic academics. And yeah, I just think that this is an important conversation, because there's no, one way to have it, there's no right way to have it. And there's no, you know, expert in the field, per se, I know that we brought you in because of the work you do. But I think I was excited, because I think just having the conversation in any context. That is important. And it may be people can listen to this and have the courage to have those conversations themselves as well. And, and bring more of their whole selves to the table. Because in most cases, spirituality is, you know, number one for many people. And if you're in it, it makes you a big part of who you are. And and it's, it's surprising that yeah, it's impossible in many cases, to truly practice, you know, love as a business strategy, or even just keeping humanity in the workplace. If you're not, allowing this side to be there. And so, yeah, the mission accomplished for me here is just having this conversation. I really appreciate your perspective and like your journey here. And it's helped us just open up this, this, this part of the book, right.

Mark Silver
I mean, I'm really grateful to play a part in that. It's been awesome and joyous.

Jeff Ma
Yeah. Yep. So with that, Mark, really appreciate this conversation and really appreciate like I said, all that perspective. I want to thank Mohammad for your perspective and your vulnerability here today as well. And thank you to the listeners for for tuning in. Hopefully, this helps you think a little bit about yourself. introspect a little bit about your own what spirituality means to you and see if that plays a role in love in business as well. So yeah, check out our book, keep listening the podcast, subscribe and rate, tell a friend and thank you so much.