The central lesson of The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life by Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally is a bit like the Golden Rule. Remember that one? Goes something like “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Yes, it’s just like that, but then if the Golden Rule added, “because that is creating what will be done unto you”.

It sounds to me like the concept of karma explained in a different way, the Tibetan Buddhist way. It explains a mechanism for karma, that by doing the actions, especially with awareness of what you are doing, you plant seeds in your mind. The seeds grow and eventually ripen and bring you the fruits.

Geshe Michael Roach, author of the main part of the book, is a Buddhist monk who lived in a monastery in intensive training for 12 years after college until his teacher told him to go out into the “real world,” into business. So he continued to live in the monastery in New Jersey (who else finds the idea of a monastery in NJ hilarious?) and commuted to the diamond district in New York City, where he helped build a new diamond company into a hundred million dollar business using Buddhist principles.

Part of the book is like a memoir (my second-favorite book genre) and it is well written. I never thought I’d be interested in knowing how diamonds are cut or anything else about the diamond business, but I found it fascinating, and yet not detracting from the idea of the book, the practical principles by which we can become wealthy and improve our lives in other ways too.

This is a business book that explains convincingly that all success in business is a result of the kindness you have done to others. That means that all those mean bastards out there making a killing are simply reaping the seeds they have sown in the past, and that current seeds of their greed and selfishness will not bring them continued fortune.

The book explains how you can control it all due to the Buddhist principle of emptiness, the “hidden potential of things”. Objects and persons have this quality too. Nothing is either all good or all bad; instead it all depends how you look at it. And every problem can be an opportunity if you get in touch with its emptiness.

The Diamond Cutter is the kind of book to read again and again. I know I have not absorbed or even remembered most of the advice in here, so I plan to come back to it at some point, and also read the sequel, Karmic Management. There is much advice to work on, like refraining from gossip with the result that people take your input seriously. Like helping others succeed in their jobs, which plants seeds for success in your own career. And like supporting others in their love relationships, which plants seeds for growing your own. Sometimes the work can be a challenge, like when you’re sitting across from the lovey-dovey couple in the coffee shop and trying to find them adorable rather than annoying. But practice makes perfect or, until then at least, better.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been co-teaching a course with a friend of mine. The course is called, “Ready, Set, Go: Tools for Positive Life Change,” and one of her contributions to the “Ready” part was teaching about feng shui, with the idea that clearing the crap out of our space gives us room to make positive change in our lives. Perfect. Two areas of my bedroom have really been bugging me in their stubborn tendency to accumulate, er, stuff. And now that I’m un(der)employed and have both the time to tackle it as well as the slight desperation of wanting to get things going in the prosperity and career departments, the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Even better that she lent me the book, “Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life: How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect and Happiness” by Karen Rauch Carter.

What a fun book. I was hooked right away. Even though last week I was waking up in the middle of the night with PMS insomnia (been slacking on my acupressure – see Woman Heal Thyself) I hardly cared because there was nothing more enjoyable for me to do than read about the nine areas of your living space/life and how to activate them. And so it happened that in the middle of the night, I’d be compelled to rise out of my bed to do some seemingly trivial act like grabbing my plum colored journal from across the room and bringing it to my nightstand, all because I needed some purple in my prosperity corner. I diligently took notes in my little “goals” book, creating effectively nine “to-do” lists.

As I make changes prescribed in my “to-do” lists, I write the date beside the item, so I can “scientifically” keep records and be able to notice a) when my life changes and b) what changes in my environment may be responsible. It is not exactly a controlled experiment as I am really changing many things at once, so all my scientific note-taking may well be in vain! Just now while writing this review, I took a five-minute break to tie red ribbon around the apartment’s outgoing drainpipes so as to prevent chi from leaking out.

As your space (and your life) is divided into nine areas, so is the book divided, and this makes it easy, after you read the introductory chapter, to hone in on the areas you are giving top priority. I didn’t do it this way; because I so enjoyed the book I just read it cover to cover. I made some improvements in almost every area, every area if you include the deep cleaning, with the vacuum cleaner edging attachment and everything (oh yeah!). I have to say the chi is flowing a lot better now. I’m really enjoying my bedroom, and every time I step in there I marvel at how nice and neat everything looks. And I love my “love and relationships” corner, all nicely pinked out (see pic).

Love and relationship corner, nicely pinked, paired, and hearted up.

In each of the nine sections Rauch provides a list of “power tools” and “hazardous materials”, the sort of “do’s” and “don’ts” of stuff to have and not have in that area of your space, and each section ends with a short list of “immediate action items” for that area. These make the book very easy to read and to use to make changes. I also really enjoyed the stories of clients’ issues, how they were caused by the space, and how their lives changed, sometimes dramatically, when Rauch helped them make changes. Hey, this would make a great reality TV show! (Perhaps it already is one?)

Humor, as well as helpfulness, makes a great self-help book in my opinion, and that is one of this book’s strengths. She pops in the funny when you’re least expecting it, which makes it all the funnier. In the section for Creativity and Children, when discussing that fire is a hazardous material, and triangular objects because they resemble fire, she says, “Eat your bowl of Doritos somewhere else.” In the section on things that can impact your sleep, the last paragraph says only, “If you have mirrors on the ceiling, get out of the seventies.”

Feng shui does all seem a bit like magic, I have to admit. But I can understand the power of intention and putting positive focus on something you want to improve in your life. Also I can understand the utility of changing something physically to anchor that intention, to bring it into physical reality. Further, it is fun moving your stuff, and I know from my background in educational kinesiology that playful positive emotions helps focus our attention in a positive way.

So I haven’t seen definitive results yet, although perhaps a little patience would be appropriate – I made most changes in the past last week and a half. I have gotten a few promising work calls, and one new steady client. The scientist in me knows that it’s very possible this would have happened anyway, and that it’s impossible to determine if the feng shui helped. But I have some belief that it’s working, and anyway it was a fun process and motivated me to deep clean (just before Chinese New Year too, which my Chinese friend informs me is very good).

Over the years I’ve read a few other feng shui books; this one is by far the most fun to read, the least overwhelming, and the easiest to use to make practical changes.

It’s time to talk about money.  This month’s book, The Wealthy Spirit:  Daily Affirmations for Financial Stress Reduction by Chellie Campbell, is a delightful, inspiring and practical read.  After a short introduction, the book follows a page-a-day format – one page for every day of the year.  The top of each page starts out with a quote, followed by the day’s lesson (often a little story or anecdote) and then an affirmation, meant to be repeated mentally many times throughout the day.  I never page-a-dayed it, though, because like a potato chip, I couldn’t stop at one!

The affirmation idea is based on the Law of Attraction, essentially “like attracts like”.  In other words, you attract what you’re thinking about.  But wait, you might say, I think about money plenty, but can barely make ends meet!  Well, if your thoughts are constant worries about how you are going to pay your bills, then they are more about NOT having money than having it, and they only perpetuate your state of lacking funds. To paraphrase a quote from the book (off a sign at the Pig ‘N Whistle Coffee Shop), “As you go through life, whatever your goal, keep your eye on the doughnut and not on the hole”.  Positive thinking.

Chellie Campbell started out as an actress, then ran a book keeping business, and then in 1990 married her financial experience with her performance abilities, creating a workshop for financial stress-reduction.  The once-a-week eight-session workshop became so successful it became her full-time business.  It was so popular that her students’ word-of-mouth created demand for the program all over the country, which led her to write The Wealthy Spirit to help those who couldn’t come to LA for the workshop.  (Or those, like me, who’d be reluctant to fork over the big bucks for it!)

Campbell excels at teaching with a story, and many of the day’s lessons illustrate points by telling stories about what she does in her workshops, about amazing things that happen to clients using the affirmations, and stories from her own life experience.  It has helped Campbell’s knowledge and credibility that her life has not been one success after another.  She’s had to come back from addiction, abuse and bankruptcy, and shares with us the valuable lessons she learned.

I first read this book about 5 years ago, the first year that I was teaching only part-time and tutoring on the side.  I chose a few affirmations to say daily, a practice that absolutely helped me ask for and receive more money for tutoring.  Also, at the end of the year when I received a full-time job offer, it gave me the confidence to ask for more money (which I received, 10% more), though I did not have a full-time job at the time and was therefore seemingly not in a great place to negotiate.

The teachings are based on the law of attraction, but it’s not about saying affirmations and having money magically appear (though in some of her stories that happens too!)  You have to “send out ships”, in other words do the legwork to get you where you want to be financially, or career-wise, or anything-wise.  The metaphor refers to the days when English businessmen built big ships and loaded them up with goods to trade in the east.  The ships might not come back in with the money for months or even a year or two (or sometimes never), but what is sure is that ships only come in when you send them out!  The affirmations put you in the right frame of mind to attract the wealth; they raise your energy so you put it towards sending out ships.

The wisdom in “The Wealthy Spirit” goes beyond the financial.  For example, as Campell says, “We are only in charge of sending out ships.  God is in charge of which ones come in.”  In other words, let go of results.  Your focus must be on sending the ships out, which is exactly the main lesson of the Bhagavad Gita.  Just keep sending them out.  Another example I like is the “Glad Game”, taught to Campell by her mother.  When you’re feeling down, if you have a setback, you can allow a little time for self pity, but then turn it around by making a game of thinking up things about the situation to be glad and thankful about.  It will lift your mood!  The book also includes lessons for having a well-balanced life, and having fun.  Some are about taking time off, and how it makes you more, rather than less, productive.

Campbell also talks about budgeting (in a way that actually makes it appealing) and other practical strategies for managing your money, such as a plan for paying off credit cards.  Not everything in the book is applicable to everyone’s financial life.  For example, she talks a lot about drumming up business by phone, and there are obviously professions in which that sort of activity is unnecessary.  However, if you are in sales or in business for yourself (or would like to be), buying this book is money well spent.