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Steve Beaumont – a third example of Spiritual Marketing in Action

Note from Shelagh: What fascinates me about Steve’s writing here is how he is embedding his own personal values into his company and how the company is then modelling those values in how they interact with their clients which in turn influences how their clients interact with their customers. A butterfly flaps it wings…..!

What route did I take on my spiritual journey?

I was brought up in a strict world of right and wrong; and wrong meant you received your daily portion of a “good hiding” as we say in Yorkshire. In my mind throughout these years of injustice, although at times I admit I fully deserved at least one of my “good hidings”, I battled with “it shouldn’t be this way”.

To cut a long story short, I didn’t know that I was fighting with or challenging “being”. I had never thought to investigate, study and at least enquire to the meaning of “being”. Or to what the definition of “being” in the classification Human Being might mean or be interpreted as.

My career took me into graphic design and then marketing. As my career as a designer developed I became known as an analytical designer. In that, I needed to know with what point of communication and message I was to design an advert or a brochure to, and to what final question was I to ask the viewer of the creation to respond to?

In the early days of commercial art moving to the more modern term of graphic design, to advertising there was very little of analytics that took place, marketing and strategy was for a business person that sat behind a business desk.

And, to me, a “creative”, there didn’t seem to be congruence between the freedom of creativity and the disciplines of business.

But what I knew; that there was something inside of me shouting out “there must be another way”.

It wasn’t even “this feels right or feels wrong”, as I had left that concept behind years since, but I had replaced right or wrong with “I’ll do it my way”.

To cut a very long story short; and to be totally honest “my way” had no foundation, no educational origin.  It was my knee jerk response to life, something to struggle with. So, having taken myself in my very early forties to look into a company that delivered transformational courses, I began to see that it was my soul and my being that had been speaking to me, you know “that little voice in your head”.

The voice that is right, wrong, caring, loving, vicious, remorseful, happy, sad and forever hopeful etc.

What I learnt over a five year period of intensive enquiry into being, and yes a process of retraining and of alignment to inner self, of learning about me. Was that I had never truly believed in listening to myself, I had never given those inner thoughts validity and I just took it all as noise. I had it so clear that my fears always got in the way that I could be nothing but those fears.

When I gained the skill to push my fears away, even though they snapped back instantly, I could see that there is an alternative way to be, and that is the Spiritual ME.

As a leader in our marketing company; I now know that to lead with my spiritual beingness, is to offer my true self and gives me confidence to stand in my own skin as if I was naked in the room.

I also get to see that I can give up trying to get somewhere, trying to be someone, tying to make my colleagues and employees do things my way.

What shows up in the space of spiritual leadership is an amazing range of strategic and creative solutions for our clients and non of it has to be my way. And you know what, we are more successful.

In taking on my spiritual self in a marketing company environment, I got to see that in marketing myself as a living being gave fuel to our corporate values.

I became aware that to provide inspiration and influence by being, that I can truly consider what it is like to be in the other peoples world. I can now comfortably ask my fellow design and marketing colleagues to consider other ways to approach issues and problems and questions that face our company every day.

There is no right or wrong, there is no way it must be done, there is no single solution to any question or problem.

The result is calm within our business, a freedom to be and we are authentic in what we say we are as a group of people projecting our corporate message.

That is we are open, honest and challenging and that is what our clients can count on. To quote Red Bull I would suggest that our corporate spirituality “gives us wings”.

It is my job to stand by my spiritual self and to provide inspiration for our team to express their own spirituality, even though they might not think they are. Our collective being doesn’t need to be recognised, it just needs to be.

In conclusion, what I now see, is that it is the spiritual me that leads people, it is the spiritual me that gives energy and inspiration to our environment. And that is all there is to do, the rest feels easy. The soul of our business is Rare. Our employees get it, our clients get it and we get it as a team, and not a word is spoken about it, as we continue to be Rare.

Born in Doncaster Yorkshire Steve Beaumont, founder of Rare Creative Group in Sheffield, became interested in spiritual marketing after many years in his journey to connect with his inner self. Art was his self expression at school, creative design became his profession, but that was not enough. Throughout the aggressive business environment of the Thatcher years in Britain, Steve became increasingly uncomfortable with the “grab it all for me” mentality of British life. Having struggled through business and private partnership breakups, and with fluctuating corporate and personal success, Steve took on the study of what it was like to be a Human Being. He spent 5 years working voluntarily with Landmark Education across the length and breadth of the UK, promoting the possibility of the people he spoke to enrolling into Landmarks transformational courses. Six years ago, Steve took his training into his business and soon became aware that he had an energised approach to business, in sharing with his business partner in developing a powerful team of highly skilled and creative people. His biggest challenge and surprise, was that in giving his business to others to develop, run and show direction, and giving up “trying to get somewhere” the business grew bigger and stronger quicker. By giving away ultimate control of his business and trusting people who had a higher level of skill than himself, he found a new power arrived in his life from within, this today he describes as his spirituality. His developed self belief is fuelled by his approach to spiritual marketing where Steve is passionate about what his spirituality provides in his quest to build a business that is acknowledged in all circles as being experts at their trade. Steve goes onto say “watch the political space of our nation, as new values come into play through new leaders of our political parties, I wouldn’t be surprised if from the coalition government or through the new opposition leader came references to our politicians leading our country with spiritual awareness”. We’ll see. Website (Rare Creative Group)

This post is about.: Business, marketing, Rare Creative Group, Spiritual Marketing, Spiritual Marketing Awareness Month, Spiritus

Posted by spiritus on October 26th, 2010 filed in Spiritual Marketing Awareness Month