The Diamond Cutter: Geshe Michael Roach's Business Success Model

Geshe Michael Roach is a Princeton graduate and Buddhist monk. After graduation, he spent seven years studying Tibetan Buddhism. At the suggestion of his teacher, he joined a fledgling diamond company in New York to test his ideals in real life. He stayed with the business as a member of the core management team for seventeen years. The company started with two owners and two employees to a company of 100 million dollars in sales and 500 employees worldwide.

The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Strategies on Managing Your Business and Life (2000) tells the story of how Geshe Micheal Roach built the success of the company using the principles of ancient Tibetan Buddhism for his decision-making. In 2009, he started the Diamond Cutter Institute (DCI), a professional non-religious training company presenting a universal methodology for success in all areas of business, government and personal life. In 2019 DCI offered thirty-five classes in twenty-five countries.

Insights from The Diamond Cutter include the following:

• Taking care of others is the ultimate goal of business.
• There is no conflict between service to humanity and business success. Successful people have the resources to do good in the world. The very same people who are attracted to business are the ones that have the ability to appreciate spirituality.
• Honesty and integrity is the key to business success.
• Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything has a hidden potential. This is what Buddhists call "emptiness'. What is bad news to you may be good news to someone else. We must think of business setbacks not as bad but rather as challenges to deal with.
• We look forward to the end of our days in business and put ourselves in a position where we honestly say that our years in business had some meaning. We look back on our past business dealings with joy and satisfaction.
• We engage in "mental gardening" doing certain practical things that form new habits that will create a new reality for us.