When you put these two sounds together, interestingly, you have the same sound pattern found in the Hebrew word “Shalom” (Shaaaaloooom”), which means “peace,” “hello,” “goodbye,” and so much more. This is a perfect example of the mysteries that lie behind even the simplest things, like words.

One of Kabala's secrets lies in the concept of "Less is More," what follows is how this principle relates to business.

Less Is More

To understand the basics of “Less is More,” it is helpful to think about the concept of the telephone, for example. When the very first telephones were invented, they depended on copper wire to transmit sound. A hundred messages could run through a copper wire and people thought that miraculous. Then came the twisted pair—two thinner wires twisted together—that could carry a thousand voices at once. As the wires became thinner (fiber optic wire is thinner than a human hair) millions of calls could be carried at once. If thinner wire carries more messages, then a phone with no wire at all will carry even more. That's wireless telephony, and that's what it does. Cellular and digital technology transmits voice, video, and data at the speed of light, through wires that don't even exist.

Then you have the Internet, which is the mode of communication among millions, perhaps billions of people, but which doesn't exist at all in a tangible, physical sense. It's just the idea that every computer in the world can become part of a vast network and send messages by fiber optic cable, or wireless telephony, or by bouncing a signal off a satellite in space somewhere. It's really nothing. Nobody owns it. And that nothingness, which can itself be considered a Kabalistic concept, is what makes it the most powerful thing in the world. So as the technology progressed, it has become less and less physical, while gaining more and more power.

Along the same lines, consider a company like IBM. When they first started out, they produced only huge computer systems that filled entire rooms. In time, they began dividing their production between the super systems and the smaller PCs meant for individuals and not just companies. Today, nearly 50% of IBM’s business is not even based on the sales of physical computers at all, but in consulting, which is a totally cerebral product needed in today’s market.

As we have already seen, the Kabala teaches us that in order to gain, one must first limit oneself. You have to make room in yourself—by limiting yourself and your ego—in order to let other people and ideas into your consciousness. This act of restriction is what allows the proper amount of energy to be revealed. In addition, if we purposely filter out the negative, limiting the amount of energy we deal with altogether, we will gain in countless positive ways. This is what the idea of “Less is More” is all about, the constructive filtering out of the unnecessary parts of our lives, and specifically our businesses, which clutter our heads with useless processes and information, in order to produce a better final product, and be happier ourselves along the way.

In the first half of the 20th Century, the days of Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller among others, real wealth meant owning large, expensive, material things. Railroads, steel, oil and gold were the things that constituted wealth. Fast forward to the beginning of the 21st century. What makes up the wealth of the richest man in the world, Bill Gates? His wealth is in software. And what is software? Nothing, really, but a specific sequence of zeroes and ones that make up the code that computers use to turn switches off and on, off and on, in a sequence that accomplishes something. And if you think about how that wealth is expressed, it's not in dollar bills, or gold, not even in diamonds. Gates' wealth exists as a bunch of stock certificates. And even those certificates don't “exist” in a physical, literal sense. It's just known that Gates owns some number of shares representing a percentage of the company that owns those zeroes and ones. Gates' tangible assets, the objects he can actually touch and feel, represent a minuscule portion of his wealth. His real wealth is in the zeroes and ones on a computer somewhere that denote how many shares of stock he owns and what some hypothetical person would pay at any given moment for one of those shares.

If they were living today, Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller would be incredulous. Zeroes and ones signifying value? Zeroes and ones worth far more than railroads and oil fields? Yes, indeed. The world has gone (dare I say progressed?) from things that are huge and cumbersome to the smallest of the small—electrons expressing zeroes and ones—and as that has happened, as the material of wealth has become smaller and smaller, wealth itself has grown greater and greater. Less, indeed, is more.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)