Just when you thought the world’s collective business bookcase could bear no more weight, along comes a publication worth shoving aside some of the standards for. Business Mojo: Achieving Success Through Mystical Exploration, steers blessedly clear of the usual relentlessly practical and tiresomely predictable preoccupations of business literature and concentrates, instead, on, shall we say, less conventional approaches for achieving success on the corporate landscape.
The only prerequisite for appreciating the thing? An open mind.
This is a book, after all, that includes chapters called things like “Workplace Colors” and “Financial Spirituality.” Aimed equally at New Age aficionados and “business people who’ve never given thought to anything but the bottom line,” Business Mojo will “open your eyes to possibilities, and bridge the gap between the mystical and practical.” Or so sister and brother authors Judy and Dan Smith believe.
“We take business success in a different direction,” Judy Smith explains. While she acknowledges the necessity of such workaday considerations as marketing and sales, she urges businesspeople to consider the usefulness of other techniques, as well, like astrology, numerology, feng shui, visualization and so-called “business magic.”
If, for example, you balance a crystal on your office telephone, you’ll be rewarded with an influx of calls from prospective clients looking to spend money with your firm. By putting your incoming cheques in a red envelope for 24 hours, your demonstration of gratitude will assure further payments. And so on.
“The main thing,” says Judy Smith, who runs a bulk mailing firm near Philadelphia, “is, instead of concentrating on the basic guidelines of business and worrying about my finances and how I’m going to do certain things, I kind of ask the universe to provide those answers for me.”
Some tips from the book:
• Brush up on feng shui, the Chinese study of both seen and unseen energy, before setting up your office. Design a clean space that’s welcoming of visitors (always arrange your desk in the direction of the door) and free of clutter. “An environment that makes you happier is more conducive to creativity, positive thinking and effective working,” says Smith.
• Acquaint yourself with the numerological and astrological signs of your coworkers and business associates. Understanding how the language of numbers defines your colleagues’ strengths and weaknesses makes for more cohesive cooperation.
• Watch the calendar when deciding on a launch date for your company and pick a time most favoured by the lunar cycle. Some phases of the moon, the Smiths contend, are simply cursed for business-building activity.
• Keep all your computer and electronic cables tidy. Wrap them in plastic tubing or just conceal them with a piece of posterboard. “This isn’t just so your office looks neat,” says Smith. “Clusters of exposed wires represent confusion and disarray. The subconscious effect is real and powerful and can decrease your productivity.”
• And if it all sounds like a lot for the average small businessperson to apply, Smith encourages folks to adopt the new ideas in stages. “Start with your surroundings, and don’t focus on it intensely—just incorporate a little bit here and there.”