Wisdom for Big Challenges

Last night, I was in another great Morehead-Cain Zoom session with one of my MC cousins, this time George Hodgin, UNC Class of 09, who began his short chat by describing an experience he once had at 2 AM, 60 miles from the Pakistan border, hearing the crunch of gravel under his boots as he led a group through the dark for his first time as team leader. He was in his twenty-fifth year, a quarter of a century young, and for most of us what happened in the next seconds would have aged us through the rest of that century. His night vision goggles picked up a shape ahead, what turned out quickly to be a human shape that instantly turned and started spraying George and his men with automatic weapon fire. That was the challenging start of a mission of overwhelming success that ended with George getting his entire SEAL team back to base completely uninjured and ready for the next adventure.

After seven years as a SEAL, George decided to go to Stanford Business School. But the change at first was tough. As a SEAL he had experienced a daily sense of fulfillment from a clear purpose and with great camaraderie. That wasn’t all reproduced automatically in a business school setting. At first, he didn’t have a compelling, clear sense of purpose, or great partners in the challenge like the guys who had been on his team. He learned some important advice for anything we do. Last night he put it like this: “Find a partner to pick you up when you fall.” It’s Biblical, and it’s the principle used by Batman when he sheds the loner MO to take on a sidekick known to us as Robin.

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him who is alone when he falls; for he does not have another to help him." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Speaking of the Dark Knight, in a masterful series on Batman entitled “Hush”, superstar writer Jeph Loeb quotes Aristotle: “Without friends, no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.” Friends, colleagues, comrades, good partners: This may be the most commonly overlooked secret to success in anything we do. It’s no surprise to me that the oldest western war epic, The Iliad, is really about the power of partnership and what happens when it isn’t properly maintained. The Odyssey is then about the power of purpose and its importance to help us get through the greatest difficulties we face.

George’s favorite professor at Stanford one day wrote this on the board:

"Regret for what you have done can be tempered by time. Regret for what you haven't done is inconsolable."

It lit a fire. George needed a new sense of purpose and new partners, or at least a challenge from a friend. One of his SEAL pals was struggling with injuries and the opioids used to treat his pain. The man wanted to use the known properties of marijuana as a safer alternative, but there wasn’t any medically available. And doctors couldn't even do legal research on what might work. So my MC cousin quickly went on to succeed at Stanford Biz, a daunting task in itself, did a tremendous amount of research on the health relevant properties of marijuana, and has now taken on a new major challenge: to become the first federally approved legal provider of medical marijuana, nationwide. But federal agencies can be tougher than the Taliban. They’re uninterested. They drag their feet. They produce obstacles instead of solutions. But George says, “I have to be an optimist.” It turns out that SEALS don’t quit. No surprise there. And they’re opportunistic, always looking for the hidden doorway, or the covered path forward that others might not see. And I learned a few other things in our session.

There’s a common misconception that Navy SEALS are successful because they’re very good at doing enormously complex things. But George says the truth is rather that they do the basics best. I like the old football analogy. It’s not trick plays. It’s being the best at blocking, tackling, catching, and running. Be better than anyone else at the basics. That's the secret.

And you don’t have to go out on night patrol in Afghanistan to experience fear. There’s plenty of it readily available in our business lives, and in our personal affairs. George says the key is to manage it and your other emotions well. “You are not your emotions.” You are the person who can manage and control your emotions. But fear can be instructive. When you feel it, ask what’s causing it, exactly. It may be able to speak to you on a deep level about something you need to notice or address. Then act on it or move beyond it.

George points out that having pre-established procedures, like a checklist, is immensely helpful. When you’re doing combat scuba and you suddenly hear a boat above you that’s not supposed to be there and there's an instant visceral reaction that could get in your way, you need to fall back on procedures and checklists. Yeah, thanks George, I’ve had exactly the same experience. Just kidding. But we all have our own shocks and reactions of fear from things we didn’t expect. It always goes better if you have something to fall back on, some rehearsed way of responding, at least inwardly.

And even in a business meeting, the 4x4x4 rule can help with anxiety or stress. Breathe in for four seconds. Hold it for four. Breathe out for four. Use your breath to calm your heart and head and center yourself for the challenge.

I love this. George gave us one of his favorite analogies. We’re almost always juggling too many balls in the air. Just don’t drop the glass one.

Don’t drop what’s actually most important, dearest, and perhaps preciously fragile, in your pursuit of any success. Know which balls can be dropped, which will bounce and be fine, and which must be protected most of all. In a great zoom session today with bankers, I mentioned this advice and mused that for most of us, those glass balls may be faith, family, or friends, perhaps proper self care, and likely our basic integrity.

George Hodgin is like Steve Jobs in taking on big challenges, problems that are as big as his heart and head, his spirit, and his talents. And he’s learned the joy of the journey. It’s not the mission accomplished that brings the delight, but the deed well done in the doing.

And I could go on. Lots. But it’s fifteen hundred hours and by the ROE, I’ve got to pull chocks right now and get outa here. The only easy day was yesterday. Hooyah.

Thought and Action

I saw this photo on LinkedIn today, with an inscription wishing us all a brave new week. I loved it, and then began to think. I wrote a comment and now will expand a bit.

I love this picture for many reasons. For one, it shows the importance of paying attention to the gaps. Don't just look at what's there before you, put in place prior to your arrival, but also attend carefully to what's not there. Every plan and path forward has gaps. And you're much better off seeing them in advance rather than, unaware, stepping into them.

Second, this is an image that can give many people inner chills. And that's good. Even when you don't do extreme sports and outdoor challenges like the one depicted, you can metaphorically confront a version of the same sort of fear as you try anything new and daunting. All genuine adventures are surrounded by fog and fraught with danger and seem to promise a precipitous fall if things don't go just right. So, it's only the equally brave and careful who can reliably get to the other side. Thought and action together work best. And those with the vision to see the unseen most often gain the most of both.

My Favorite Book. Ever.

Yesterday, in a magazine interview over the phone, the writer asked me, “What’s your favorite book?” I actually get asked that a lot and never before knew what to say. I have lots of favorites. But I just may have discovered my favorite novel of all time and perhaps even my single favorite book, excluding of course, The Bible, which should never be a part of such comparisons in the first place, for several reasons. And I’ve learned that my new favorite book is considered a classic, though I’ve never heard of it before. It looks like a book for children, and in particular, for little girls. But it’s out now in a beautiful edition that the former little girl in our home had owned for years. Anna Bond, a family friend at Rifle Paper Company in Winter Park, Florida designed the new cover. Look them up if you don’t know their amazing work.

Anyway, the book is A Little Princess, by Frances Hobson Burnett, and was first published in 1905. It portrays the unlikely adventures of a young girl in London who, after living a charmed first stretch of life, is thrust into challenging, bleak and difficult circumstances beyond anything she could have anticipated. And yet, she uses the amazing power of the imagination, and the equally great power of good manners, and ultimately true kindness, to prevail over all. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever come across on inner resilience and the power of the mind. It’s charming, and even heartwarming, but most of all, it’s deeply wise.

Let me give you a sample, although excerpts can’t really convey the impact of the expertly told story, whose lessons often come through in subtle ways. In one scene, the headmistress of her school, Miss Minchin, speaks to young Sara, the elegant princess of our title, with great harshness, heaping on untrue and unfair accusations, while Sara listens without any sign of anger, hurt, agitation, or reply. She then muses over her own restraint, and especially on the fact that, unlike most people, she doesn’t answer the unjust accusations.

"As to answering, though," said Sara, trying to console herself, "I don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to say a word—just to look at them and THINK. Miss Minchin turns pale with rage when I do it, Miss Amelia looks frightened, and so do the girls. When you will not fly into a passion, people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in—that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies. I scarcely ever do. (Puffin Edition, 147)

And another, longer, passage, after a particularly shocking development:

Then a thought came back to her which made the color rise in her cheek and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little body and lifted her head.

 "Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off."

 This was not a new thought, but quite an old one, by this time. It had consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and acid things said to her; or, if she heard them, did not care for them at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such times she did not know that Sara was saying to herself: "You don't know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, vulgar old thing, and don't know any better."

 This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else; and queer and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it and it was a good thing for her. While the thought held possession of her, she could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. "A princess must be polite," she said to herself.

 And so when the servants, taking their tone from their mistress, were insolent and ordered her about, she would hold her head erect and reply to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her.

 "She's got more airs and graces than if she come from Buckingham Palace, that young one," said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. "I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never forgets her manners. 'If you please, cook'; 'Will you be so kind, cook?' 'I beg your pardon, cook'; 'May I trouble you, cook?' She drops 'em about the kitchen as if they was nothing." (pages 164-5)

Our Princess thinks of herself as protected by a sort of benevolent magic. She once says, "Somehow, something always happens," she cried, "just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worst thing never QUITE comes." (page 220)

If you treat yourself to this magnificent little book, you’ll be glad, and you'll feel Sara's Magic.

http://amzn.to/2pebli9

A Philosophy for Success

I’m a philosopher. That gives me access to the wisdom of the ages – as well as an answer that completely perplexes people when they ask what I do for a living. But, on airplanes, and at parties, after the puzzlement subsides, people often ask me, within a few minutes, if the great thinkers of the past had any good advice about life, or life success, that we can use now. The answer is yes. From Plato and Aristotle on, the wisest people have left us powerful advice for success in anything we do. It boils down to seven universal conditions. I've alluded to this or talked about it in this blog before. Let's take a brief overview. Reminders can be helpful.

The 7 Cs of Success

For the most satisfying and sustainable forms of success, we need:

(1) A clear CONCEPTION of what we want, a vivid vision, a goal clearly imagined.

(2) A strong CONFIDENCE that we can attain that goal.

(3) A focused CONCENTRATION on what it takes to reach the goal.

(4) A stubborn CONSISTENCY in pursuing our vision.

(5) An emotional COMMITMENT to the importance of what we're doing.

(6) A good CHARACTER to guide us and keep us on a proper course.

(7) A CAPACITY TO ENJOY the process along the way.

There are certainly other tips associated with success, but every other one is just a version or application of one of these in specific situations. The 7 Cs give us the most universal, logical, and comprehensive framework for success. So, let’s take a quick look at each. 

(1) A clear CONCEPTION. In any facet of our lives, we need to think through as clearly as possible what we want to accomplish. True success starts with a clear inner vision. The world as we find it is just raw material for what we can make it. We’re meant to be artists with our energies and our lives. The only way to do that well is to structure our actions around clear goals.

(2) A strong CONFIDENCE. Inner attitude is a key to outer results. Harvard psychologist William James learned long ago that confidence can have powerful effects. In any new enterprise, we need upfront, resilient faith in our prospects. James called that "precursive faith" - faith that runs ahead of the evidence. Sometimes we have to work hard for this attitude. But it’s worth the work, because it raises our probability for success. The best confidence comes from careful preparation and then augments it with a can-do perspective. It’s no guarantee of success. But it is a chief contributor to it.

(3) A focused CONCENTRATION. Success at anything challenging comes from planning your work and then working your plan. A focused concentration generates new perceptual abilities. Concentrating your thought and energy toward a clear goal, you begin to see things that will help with it. This focus involves planning, acting, and adjusting along the way. Even a flawed plan can get you going and lead to a better one. A focused concentration of thought and action is key.

(4) A stubborn CONSISTENCY. The word ‘consistency’ comes from two Greek roots, a verb meaning “to stand” and a particle meaning “together.” Consistency is all about standing together. Do my actions stand together with my words? Do the people I work with stand together? This is what true consistency is all about. It’s a matter of unifying your energy in a single direction. It’s also known as harmony. Inconsistency defuses power. Consistency moves us toward our goals.

(5) An emotional COMMITMENT. Passion is the core of extraordinary success. Truly caring. It’s a key to overcoming difficulties, seizing opportunities, and getting other people excited about their work. Too much goal setting in in business is done just with the intellect and not the heart. We need both to guide us and keep us functioning at the peak of our abilities, despite the obstacles we inevitably face. 

(6) A good CHARACTER. Character inspires trust. And trust is necessary for people to work together well. But good character does more than provide for strong partnerships. It has an effect on each individual’s own freedom and insight. Bad character corrupts and blinds. Good character makes sustainable success more likely. In the end, character is all about strength.

(7) A CAPACITY TO ENJOY. The more you can enjoy the process of what you’re doing, the better the results tend to be. It’s easier to set creative goals. Confidence will come more naturally. And so on. A capacity to enjoy the process is linked to every other facilitator of success.

These conditions are deeply interconnected. They constitute a unified framework of tools for most fulfilling forms of achievement. It's been my joy to speak and write on them in books like True Success and The Art of Achievement, as well as The Stoic Art of Living and the ebook The 7 Cs of Success. I've been able to ponder them and discover their surprising depths for over 25 years. They can help us make our proper mark in the world. So, why should we ever settle for anything less?

The Wow Factor, Vegas-Style

Las Vegas is the World Capital of Attention Grabbing Overstimulation. In such a ramped up mega cacophony of sights and sounds, it's hard for anything or anyone to stand out for more than twenty seconds. That's why I was so surprised, on Fremont Street, in downtown Vegas the other night, to see an outdoor bartender quietly but flamboyantly wowing thirsty partiers who had been wandering up and down the avenue. He was an individual who truly stood out. And that's not easy, in his context. Every ten feet, there's a superhero, a breakdancer, a contortionist, a magician, musician, or a barely garbed man or woman, sometimes in a minimalistic historical costume, soliciting your attention and financial compliments. Have your picture taken with a Chippendales Dancer. Eat a Chili Dog with Darth Vader or Mr. T. How can anyone compete?

The treat of the evening was watching this one silent bar man skillfully juggling bottles and putting on a real show with each drink order, whether he got the applause and thanks he deserved or not. His skill, focus, and untiring commitment to make each customer feel special formed together a cluster of qualities that were a rare delight to see.

The noise level on Fremont can be mind-numbing. The light show projected onto the high canopy ninety feet above the street, playing off the apparently millions of neon signs also blinking from all sides, can be the ultimate distraction from any human performer. But this one guy just continued to do his thing, undaunted by the massive competition for attention that swirled all around him. Most mere mortals serving the whole range of humanity under the endless sonic assault of high decibel chaos from all directions would just hunker down, do the job, and try to get through the shift. Not this guy. You almost forgot the noise and the wild freak show flowing all around you, as he plied his craft and smoothly performed for each customer. Watching him reminded me of something important.

It's not our circumstances or our competition that determines our level of excellence or success; it's our inner commitment to what we do, and to the people we serve. 

We should never let challenges shut us down, but raise us up to peak performance. In the end, it's up to us. For a look at our man in Vegas, play the few seconds below.