How many times a week do you get ticked off at a vendor? Whether you work in a company or on your own, your business depends on the services of another business. And many times, a vendor's problems become yours, appearing as missed deadlines, poor performance, additional costs, etc. Whatever the issue, the vendor didn't meet your expectations.
I have learned that this is a call for action. No, not in dismissing the vendor, but a call to pray for the vendor...to include his/her business in my daily meditations that affirm the law of harmony in operation for my business and the vendor's.
I used to feel so trapped by a vendor's poor performance: no time to switch, too hard to switch, paid a deposit, couldn't appeal to the Big Boss to bring some pressure because the vendor didn't work for the BIg Boss. And therein lay the problem. It seemed to me that the vendor didn't have the same goals as I did and his goals (and issues) were in conflict with my needs.
Years ago I figured out that nobody wants to do a bad job...but things happen to derail the best of intentions. And how do I handle this in my own life? I pray: to affirm the supremacy of Spirit in all things, to know that only good comes from Spirit and guides every creation of Spirit for the blessing of all. This always gives me peace and, without fail, in this peaceful state an idea will come to adjust and fix whatever has gone wrong.
So, instead of having what the BIble calls a "hardness of heart", I open my heart to include the vendor in my prayers to Spirit. Big change, I must say. Instead of having a "vendor relationship", we become (in my mind) "prayer partners." We are partners because we both desire the same thing: good benefits for our customers. And this desire for good is, to me, a simple open prayer.
The results in my businesses have been clear: more harmonious projects, blessings for the vendors, mutual respect and admiration. There have also been times when a vendor was replaced -- but even those situations were resolved harmoniously.
Real-time vendor issue
Right now I have a vendor performance issue I am praying about. The host for our site www.SpiritOnTheJob.com is DreamHost and they have been having lots of technical problems lately which is causing repeated slowness and denials of service for our users.
DreamHost is a very reputable hosting service that has been in business for almost 10 years. Their customer service staff is great, which I know because I am in constant communication with them. They are very upfront about the issues and are earnest in their work to fix the issues...but still, it is so disheartening when you are trying to build traffic and the users can't get to the site. And we are not the only site affected!
I have that trapped feeling again, so I know it is time to see DreamHost as my "prayer partner." We are united in our desire for good, to help our users/customers achieve their highest potential. This selflessness clears my view of the situation so I see it in its natural harmonious state. When I truly believe that this harmonious state is supreme over all conditions the situation adjusts to reflect this harmony...even technology! Technology has no mind to resist the all-powerful Spirit. In fact, the only intelligence in operation is the divine Spirit-Mind which supplies the ideas for creating and maintaining technology. So technology serves the creations of Spirit.
Neither DreamHost's customers (me!) nor SpiritOnTheJob.com's customers can be affected by anything that opposes Spirit-Mind. Why? Because Spirit-Mind is supremely powerful.
Whatever the engineers of DreamHost need to know, Spirit-Mind will provide it for the blessing of all of us. These beneficial ideas -- facts, actually -- cannot be hidden from them since every good idea is known to Mind, and these already-present facts will come into view and override whatever distortions are getting in the way. When the desire to do good and do right is present, it is like an open channel receiving all right ideas from Mind. This is the law of universal harmony. I have seen it operate and adjust technological issues many times when I headed up a large, multi-platform IT department.
So this is how I am supporting my prayer-partner, DreamHost. No anger, no frustration -- only confidence in the allness of Spirit-Mind to communicate all right ideas to whoever needs them right now.
Who wants to be an ally to partner with DreamHost?
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