Marcus Weston, a senior instructor at The Kabbalah Center, weighs in on how the spiritual teachings of Kabbalah can pave the way for your business to succeed.

Business and spirituality are concepts that seemingly don’t go hand-in-hand, with the former relying heavily on numbers, profits, and sales, while the latter focuses on something more abstract. Something bigger at play. But in reality, spirituality adds soul to a business—giving purpose and guidance in day-to-day decision-making. A sense of purpose that goes beyond wealth-building and performance points.

That, by definition, is workplace spirituality.

For workplace spirituality to exist, however, there need to be four pillars: life, meaningful work, a relationship with the community, and an alignment of values. But how do these all come into play?

Spirituality adds purpose to life. It nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work, which takes place in the context of how we relate with other people in the community. This encourages a close alignment between personal and organizational values—all of which encompass workplace spirituality.

How all this can lead to the success of your business, however, is another story. And to share more about this concept, we ask Marcus Weston, a senior instructor at the Kabbalah Center, to reveal how he was able to connect consciousness and spirituality to businesses and individuals everywhere—thus leading to success. 

Where it All Began

Although foremost known as an international speaker and mentor to leaders in the realm of business, politics, show business, and sports, Marcus Weston’s career first began in international finance.

“Once I left university, I went straight to investment banking—working for the likes of Citibank and Goldman Sachs. And soon after, I opened my business, which was a recruitment consultancy and headhunting company operated out of India, London, [and] New York,” Marcus explains in an exclusive interview with The Business Manual.

“At some point, a mentor of mine—a very trusted friend—came to me [and] said, ‘Marcus, you are building an empire, but you yet are not an emperor.’ And that hurt,” he adds.

This led to some retrospection, which led him to attend a class that his mentor recommended. That way, he can “start to work on yourself, and watch your business work for you.”

“So I did. I walked into my first class at the Kabbalah Center. And the second I walked in, it wowed me into changes that changed my entire life,” Marcus says.

Having been enlightened about how core values can unlock huge business growth and revenues, Marcus then sold his business in 2001 and devoted himself to teaching full-time—his passion now focused on changing the consciousness and culture of businesses in order to unleash new levels of purpose and performance.

It is important to note that all this took place 25 years ago when the concept of workplace spirituality was novel. “I think because of who I was at the time, its first impact was purely financial,” he explains. “It made me money and that was [what] I wanted in my mid-20s. And that was all important to me.”

“Over the course of time, it spilled over into quite a dramatic family interaction that brought me significantly closer to my parents, my family, [and] my siblings, and eventually culminated in my relationship with my beautiful wife and kids and living happily ever after,” he adds when asked how the teachings of Kabbalah improved his life.

How Kabbalah and Business Interconnect

But what is Kabbalah? An esoteric method with ties to Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah refers to the study of fundamental laws that support existence and non-existence. “Kabbalah is very simply 4,000 years of inspiration. It’s a 4,000-year-old pathway of self-awareness, self-development, and ultimately self-mastery,” Marcus points out. “It is a spiritual non-religious wisdom—hence whatever your belief system is, you can benefit from it.”

From a business perspective, this means “simply applying [the teachings to your] business, as organizational growth and change are inseparable from personal change.”

According to Marcus, integrating the teachings of Kabbalah into your business means understanding one focal point. That it all boils down to wanting to change and embracing change. “Companies can’t change. People change,” he says simply. “And when companies start to realize that their own strategic intervention has to marry a very tactical self-discovery of the people executing that change, then growth happens.”

“And for me, that was very particular,” he continues. “I saw a very direct correlation between the changes I was personally making and the changes the organization did. It was a very clear correlation between my personal growth and my financial growth. It was like I was able to handle more money. I was able to attract more wealth. And it was difficult sometimes to attract money—to remove its side effects, to connect to the world that you have, and to uniquely retain that wealth.”

Those, according to the senior instructor, are the four things that were covered by his spiritual work in the Kabbalah Center. “Over decades, I’ve done particular work for different brands—from Facebook to the Asian Development Bank here…and the biggest financial institutions and corporations in the world to literally local startups,” he shares.

“And the simplest way that I’ve helped them is by teaching them to clearly associate their own conscious growth to their team’s performance [and] to their company’s results.”

Incorporating the Teachings of Kabbalah in Business

After a shift in mindset, Marcus notes that integrating the teachings of Kabbalah in your business means understanding various Kabbalah concepts.

The Five Worlds

“The first world is Challenge Mastery, [which] represents growth and financial gain and its results and performance,” Marcus explains. “It’s important that the people of any company understand life’s every test because when you can understand and leverage everyday challenges into growth, then the success of the business or team is commensurate.”

Communication, being key in every business dealing, makes up the second world. “I think most of us obstruct our communications severely and the Kabbalistic wisdom helps you unobstruct how you communicate to enhance your impact and influence in this world,” he explains.

“The third world [that] is just so powerful is teamwork. [This refers to] how to get others to change around you when you are going through profound change [and how others] evolve and transform and grow around you.” This, of course, refers to the collaborative dynamic that you have—not just with the people within your circle, but also with those around you. With suppliers, business partners…the works.

As for the fourth world, this pertains to something more introspective: the mastery of your own energy. “Energy management mastery,” Marcus notes. “I think most of us, we wobble. And every day is full of stress and disappointment and frustration and angst. And when you can master your own thoughts and your own mind, and your time, then you can start to master life in business.”

And finally, the fifth world. “The fifth world of self-mastery is leadership mastery. This is really how leaders are able to understand their souls’ purpose and live that in their business manifesting personal and corporate miracles,” he explains.

Doing Business With Purpose

Through the course of the interview, Marcus notes how businesses have been driven by profit and fame—with the very human aspect cast aside. And this shouldn’t be the case, given how he believes that businesses should be driven by purpose.

“I think the area that most companies severely lack is the human element,” Marcus opines. “And the human element is the place where every individual, every employee can manifest a miracle for the company.”

With that, he teaches three pillars that you, as a business owner, need to live by. “First is that you gotta approach business and life like nothing’s by coincidence. You cannot be a victim to anyone or anything,” he says simply. “[Second], you gotta learn how your thoughts, your words, and your actions are planting seeds, and the seeds that you sow will become the very tapestry that you bump into tomorrow—be it success or failure.”

“And [third], whatever happens, you have the internal faculty to leverage that chaos to [become] business miracles. Nothing’s by coincidence.”

On that note, he stresses that nothing’s by coincidence, you included. “If you are not by coincidence, the question is, what on earth is the point of you? The answer is that you’re here to grow, to evolve, [and] to change,” he says, noting that in that same vein, your business will not grow or change if it is not partially reinvented.

Resistance to Change as a Threat to Success

These principles have become the groundwork for what he has done for many businesses he’s worked with. “If nothing’s by coincidence…if the universe is throwing certain challenges at each one of us for the purpose of growth, wherever we resist that growth is detrimental to the business,” he notes.

But what hinders success? Resistance. “Resistance to change is the enemy of success. And if we can map this individually, where each individual in their own mindset resist change, then we create inflection points for business miracles [to happen].”

This means understanding the two forces inside you: the soul and the ego. “The soul is the divine talent base that each one of us individually has—the place where we are gifted and talented to share something unique in this world. And the ego is the sabotaging force. That energy [and] intelligence that surrounds our gifts and soul…that inhibits [the] highest performance and self-expression,” Marcus explains.

“If every individual in every company understands those two facets of self, their performance would double, and the results of every team and company would quadruple. It’s that simple. It’s not easy, but it’s that simple.”

Simply put, Marcus stresses that “The idea is your internal force of challenge will always be a perfect counterpart to external opportunity. The bigger the opportunity out there, the thicker the bridge to cross of an internal nature to earn that greatest success.”

This means doing away with internal barriers of resistance: confusion, anger, jealousy, and greed. “If you can see your ego [for] what it is, you can use your ego to identify, to transcend it. And that becomes the cause of your success,” he says.

“It’s not the frustration, commitment issues, or fear that is blocking you. It is that your success has sent you new opportunities and you are seeing what you overcome to reach it faster.”

Key Takeaways

It is important to note that Kabbalah is more of a guide—a way of life for your personal growth. Thus, its teachings are not set in stone, as they can vary from person to person. However, Marcus stresses that most of its teachings stem from looking within yourself—your soul and your ego—and modeling what you do for your business based on those insights.

This means asking yourself—how do you trade your time every day?

“Every one of us is trading time and energy time all day, every day,” Marcus explains. “Every one of us wakes up every morning with the same amount of currency—not financial, but time-based currency. Yes, each one of us has different resources in the world. But we wake up with the same 24 hours.”

“And everything in life is a trade,” he continues. “Everyone of us is trading our time and energy for something. The question is, what are you investing your 24 hours in? What you buy with your time is what you become. What you trade with your time in terms of the changes you make, the aspirations that you work hard towards…all this is what internally transforms yourself and your life.”

Text DIANE NICOLE GO

Photography ED SIMON of KLIQ, INC.