Why did I write this book?
I wrote this book to take you on a journey by looking through the lenses of a CEO, an entrepreneur, and a Monk. The successes or failures of CEOs and entrepreneurs have been told in a lot of literature, yet, their inner thoughts, worries, temptations, and insecurities remain privy only to those who have lived it. Most of us were just normal people working hard to attain success and happiness, occasionally craving for only a thin sliver of Steve Jobs’s creativity, Bill Gates’s wealth, Jack Welch’s leadership style, or the Dalai Lama’s wisdom. Some people have aspired to be CEOs and to be their own boss as entrepreneurs, yet wanted to have the pure mind and kind heart of a spiritual mentor. Is that possible? Of course! But how? That’s what this book will uncover for you. Who It Is For This book is written for those who are searching for the fine balance between material Success and inner Happiness. Are you the trailblazing executive? Adventurous gunslinging entrepreneur? Dreamy-eyed traveller? Or just stressed out, overworked, and wondering ‘What the heck am I doing this for?’ |
What Is In thIs Book
This book contains stories inspired by the lives of CEOs, entrepreneurs, and friends whom I have had the privilege to meet, interview, coach, and work with over the last thirty years as a business person. In researching for spiritual inspiration, I had met monks who were Abbots, Teachers, and Mentors — from a personal perspective of being a student, a writer, a friend, and a neophyte monk. This book also contains interpretations of stories from my personal journeys to Thailand interacting with Dhammakaya Monks, and to Taipei’s largest Mahayana Buddhist temple; and from the personal stories of a friend’s twenty-five-year journey transforming from a Mahayana monk to attaining a PhD in Theravada Buddhism from Sri Lanka. In our search for happiness, most people cannot escape the three poisons that defile our minds or souls. They are Greed, Anger, and Ignorance. In this book, the characters are not immune to these defilements despite their achievements of financial success, freedom, and inner peace. I have mixed the discourse of some of these teachings from a monk into a conversational format of questions and answers. I hope that this will provide an easier way to learn these topics, which are often written in large volumes of thick books interspersed with ancient words used to preserve their authenticity, but making them hard to read. In this book I have covered conversations on several topics: Ego and Self in Chapter 3; Meditation, Love, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity in Chapter 4; Anger in Chapter 5; the Mind/Soul in Chapter 6; and Karma in Chapters 8 and 9. The scholars of Buddhism will find that this book does not offer the depth and purity of Buddhist teachings. For me — and possibly many everyday seekers out there — I found learning Buddhism from reading books a difficult process. Not everyone can live socially connected, think like a monk, dedicate time to studying the Dhamma, practise meditation five times a day, and manage a successful business. This was one of the reasons I wrote this book — to introduce the key concepts from the teachings of Buddha and how I found the balance creating success, contentment, and achieving inner happiness at the same time. One has to read, practise, read, practise, read, etc... continuously in order to acquire wisdom. Wisdom will come when we practise these principles. |
When we meditate, the clarity of mind will lead us to a higher wisdom. It has been said; ‘Knowledge is knowing; wisdom is acting on the knowledge at the appropriate moment’.
In writing this book, I also wanted the reader to receive some practical ‘how to’ business methods. Hence, I have introduced a life-priority-setting exercise and a team-building methodology embedded into the story. In Chapter 6, you will find the Life Inventory exercise which uncovers an individual’s life’s priority, called the Triple Gems. In Chapter 8, the CEO shares a powerful methodology called The Results Pathway for driving high performance teams. This is not a religious book and I did not intend for it to advocate alignment to any specific religious beliefs or practices. The character of the Buddhist monk, Matt, allowed me to introduce a dimension of spiritualism and philosophy, which is pivotal for the topic of happiness, temptations, contentment, sins, karma, and the moral behavioural foundation from Precepts and Commandments. In the business world, these ‘behavioural foundations’ may show up as a company’s Strategic Thrusts, Core Tenets, Focus Execution Pillars, or Core Values. In the broad topic of spiritualism, I am sure I might have stepped over into some sensitive areas where some readers’ opinions or beliefs may differ. With utmost sincerity and humility, I apologise. Life is too short to debate on whose belief is right, as each person’s belief is their reality. I merely seek to share my experiences through these characters and how they achieved the transformation in their lives by letting go beliefs and emptying their cup first; a simple process, yet not easy to follow through on. |
Disclaimer: ‘This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.’
Really? Coincidental? What if I don’t believe in coincidences? Well, I know that the characters in this book are purely fictional, but I cannot guarantee that you won’t find anyone who resembles some description of them, in parts or whole. I did not intend to embarrass or expose anyone specifically, but if you identified someone who resembles the descriptions or has been in a similar situation, you better let them read this book! It could be an old encounter from my previous incarnation, before this lifetime, through the countless cycles of rebirths. Some names of places and organisations in this book are real and exist today while some have been changed to maintain some anonymity. If you found places in the book familiar because you had visited them in person or in a dream, or just felt goosebumps reading about it, trust your gut feeling; it’s probably a déjà vu moment, a place that you had visited in your previous life. Nothing in our life’s encounter is a coincidence, that’s provided you believe in the Law of Karma. If there are legal claims — hopefully these won’t happen — trying to explain the Law of Karma (Chapter 8) in the courts of law in any jurisdiction would require an argument using Theoretical Rationality against Practical Rationality (Chapter 9), which I doubt would make rationale sense to any judge, unless I persuaded the judge to learn meditation first. Anyway, believe in whatever you want, they are just coincidences ... or are they?
I hope you will read with an open mind, without arguing for or against any religious differences. Allow yourself to travel on the journey of these characters, imagine yourself walking alongside them. You might see someone familiar on this journey too, as I have. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I have had living it.
Really? Coincidental? What if I don’t believe in coincidences? Well, I know that the characters in this book are purely fictional, but I cannot guarantee that you won’t find anyone who resembles some description of them, in parts or whole. I did not intend to embarrass or expose anyone specifically, but if you identified someone who resembles the descriptions or has been in a similar situation, you better let them read this book! It could be an old encounter from my previous incarnation, before this lifetime, through the countless cycles of rebirths. Some names of places and organisations in this book are real and exist today while some have been changed to maintain some anonymity. If you found places in the book familiar because you had visited them in person or in a dream, or just felt goosebumps reading about it, trust your gut feeling; it’s probably a déjà vu moment, a place that you had visited in your previous life. Nothing in our life’s encounter is a coincidence, that’s provided you believe in the Law of Karma. If there are legal claims — hopefully these won’t happen — trying to explain the Law of Karma (Chapter 8) in the courts of law in any jurisdiction would require an argument using Theoretical Rationality against Practical Rationality (Chapter 9), which I doubt would make rationale sense to any judge, unless I persuaded the judge to learn meditation first. Anyway, believe in whatever you want, they are just coincidences ... or are they?
I hope you will read with an open mind, without arguing for or against any religious differences. Allow yourself to travel on the journey of these characters, imagine yourself walking alongside them. You might see someone familiar on this journey too, as I have. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I have had living it.
Our encounters in this life are not coincidences. the people who appear in our lives are
the result of our wishes and Kammic actions from our previous existence. Meeting them here is our Reunion with them. so, make the best of this life, build good merits, and perform good deeds.
Be generous, sympathetic, compassionate, and share loving kindness to all.
Have the courage to make good positive wishes for yourselves and for others, daily.
May you discover success on this journey, find your Triple Gems to attain inner peace, and experience the blissful joy of ... happiness.
- Alex Butt -
the result of our wishes and Kammic actions from our previous existence. Meeting them here is our Reunion with them. so, make the best of this life, build good merits, and perform good deeds.
Be generous, sympathetic, compassionate, and share loving kindness to all.
Have the courage to make good positive wishes for yourselves and for others, daily.
May you discover success on this journey, find your Triple Gems to attain inner peace, and experience the blissful joy of ... happiness.
- Alex Butt -
About Alex Butt
Alex has transformed himself from a 24-year multinational executive into a successful entrepreneur, executive coach, and a writer. Through GLIDES Consulting, he delivered. Through GLIDES Consulting, he delivered Workshops and Coaching sessions to help organisation build Culture of Accountability and provide the methods to Transform groups into high performance teams. His clients base extends to local companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand as well as companies with international operations in Asia, USA, Germany, China, India, Australia etc.
In 2017 Alex was ordained as a Theravada Buddhist Monk in Thailand. For 45 days he left behind his secular life, business, family and detached from the world to find inner peace. As a coach and business consultant, letting go of control of his life, time, schedule, speech and thoughts was one of the most difficult stage of his self development. He emerged from monkhood in September 2017 to write a book, A CEO, an Entrepreneur, a Tourist and the Monk. While its not a chronicle of his life, it has many pertinent questions that helped him discover the Balance between success and happiness.
Summary biodata of Alex Butt
ACADEMIC1992-1985- University of Manitoba, Canada.
Bachelor of Computer Science, Honors. 1990- Singapore Institute of Management. Graduate Diploma in Financial Management. 2005 - NLP Comprehensive, Colorado, USA. Certified Practitioner Neural Linguistic Programming. |
CAREER1986 - 1986: Honeywell Malaysia Sdn Bhd. Systems Engineer.
1986 - 1992. Hewlett-Packard . Response Center Engineer. Response Center Supervisor. Regional Channel Support Manager. 1992 - 2009: Microsoft Corporation. Regional Technical Manager - SE Asia. Developer Evangelist Director. Marketing Director. Managing Director Microsoft Malaysia. Asia Pacific Regional General Manager OEM business unit. |
ENTREPRENEUR2010 - current: GLIDES Consulting. Executive Coaching, Leadership Training, Hi-Po Programs.
2010 - 2018: GLIDES UNITED FRANCHISE ASIA. Master Franchisee of Signarama, Transworld Business Advisor, United Franchise Group (USA). 2010-2018 : Master Franchisee. SIGNARAMA ASIA. 13 Franchise locations in Singapore Malaysia Indonesia. |
PROFESSIONALYPO - Young President Organisation. A global organisation for leaders. The premier leadership organization of chief executives in the world.
FLA - Franchise and Licensing AssociationSingapore. Vice President and Honorary Secretary. To nurture and develop Singapore's franchising and licensing industry. AUTHOR: Public Speaker and book author. |
With deep experience as a CEO, Entrepreneur, and Tourist, I can say that Butt nailed the personality of these characters. Living so called "happiness" in my other roles, I was eager to hear from the Monk's perspective. You will lol as they respond to Monk Matt's teachings. This read is a profoundly thought-provoking path to reach what many of us are chasing.... happiness. For those of us with busy lives, Butt offers up a "fastpass" to Nirvana. A must read. |
I learnt a lot and really admire how the book had managed to explain the teachings of Buddhism in a natural way, integrating very well in the worldly life. Really love the idea of the book, and I believe, the world needs a book like this. It can be both spiritual, as well as very practical for someone who wants to start making real changes in life! |
This book has a nice display of opposing characters that all of us can instantly identify with, as I am sure we'd have connected with these personalities at some stage of our lives. It certainly gives a different dimension on how we can deal with the everyday issues that we face in today’s fast-paced world and lists the remedial steps that we can adopt to make it somewhat more amenable. Definitely a must-read for anyone striving to succeed and make an impact in this world. |