Never Eat Alone

31. Welcome to the Co

We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.

here has never been a better time to reach out and co

Rugged individualism may have ruled for much of the nineteenth and twentieth century. But community and alliances will rule in the twenty-first century. In the digital era, when the Internet has broken down geographic boundaries and co

We've taken some lumps getting back to this fundamental truth. All the changes, all the fads, all the technologies of the last decade too often foundered on the human factor, leading the business world to treat people less as human beings than as just so many bits and bytes. We placed our faith in gadgets, processes, new organizational structures, stock market prices. When these things didn't deliver on their promise, we returned to us, you, and me.

Life is about work, work is about life, and both are about people. "The most exciting breakthrough of the twenty-first century will occur not because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human," said the futurist John Naisbitt. Technology has proved no substitute for personal relationships. To the contrary, it seems to be enhancing them. Look around you and you'll see this expanded view of what it means to be human, and how we interact with one another, in action. Here's just a small sampling:

• The hottest trend these days is found in social-networking software tools, and services like Spoke Software, Plaxo, and Linkedln. People are now finding new ways to use technology to co

• Blogs, part of the same phenomenon, are allowing passionate individuals with good content to reach literally millions of other people. These self-sustaining communities are flourishing. In the future, as personal branding continues to solidify itself as a mainstay in the economy, blogs will become as ubiquitous as resumes.

• Social scientists are making remarkable discoveries about the power of social networks. Recent research findings are proving that people who are more co

• Old-style labor unions and guilds are showing signs of revitalization. As the outsourcing of jobs outside the United States continues, and more and more of us become free agents, Americans are finding strength in membership to something larger than themselves. We're giving our loyalty and our trust not to companies but to our peers.

That's just a small taste of what's to come. We are in the formative stages of a new era of co

Certainly, some of us will tally success in terms of income and promotions. Others will cite their newfound celebrity or the exciting expertise that they've amassed. For others still, it will be the fabulous di

But will such success feel empty? Instead of being surrounded by a loving family and a trusted circle of friends, will you only have colleagues and clients?

Sooner or later, in one way or another, we all will ask ourselves these questions. Moreover, we'll look back on our life and wonder, What is my legacy? What have I done that is meaningful?

How many of you can recall the names of the last three CEOs of General Motors, IBM, or Wal-Mart? Are you struggling to come up with names? Now try and recall three important figures in the Civil Rights Movement. Ah, here people usually can name six or more.

Ultimately, making your mark as a co

It's fu

That day came. I was in my mid-twenties and I proudly bought the finest, most expensive button-down shirt Brooks Brothers sold. The next day I wore that shirt into work as if it were a rare, emerald-studded gown from the Victorian era. Then I washed it. I remember pulling my shirt from the washer and—gasp!—two buttons had fallen off. I kid you not. This, I asked myself, is what I've been waiting for all my life?

As noted author and speaker Rabbi Harold Kushner once wisely wrote, "Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it."

But it would take many more missing buttons before I truly started to ask myself what meaning, exactly, my soul was hungry for.

That time finally came with what I call my own personal minirevolution. Revolutions sometimes begin in the least likely of places with the least likely of heroes. Who could imagine that a small Indian man with a very strong accent could challenge what I wanted out of life and how I was going to attain it? Or that doing nothing and remaining silent for ten days, rather than trying to do everything all at once, could change the course of my life?

The first shot in my revolution happened, in all places, while I was in Switzerland for The World Economic Forum, attending an oversubscribed talk entitled, simply, "Happiness." The room was jam-packed with the world's rich and powerful—a clear indication that there were others in my midst who had experienced a few missing buttons of their own.

We were gathered together to hear a short, stout, and thoroughly happy-looking man named S. N. Goenka deliver a speech on how he, as a businessman-turned-guru, found health and happiness through an ancient tradition of meditation known as Vipassana.