A Big Surprise About Success

One of my biggest wisdom bombs: For over thirty years, I've studied conceptions of success throughout human history, and have analyzed advice about success from nearly every historical period, across cultures. And it never really occurred to me until recently that, as important as the enterprise of proper goal setting and attainment is for the individual or the group to leave a positive mark on the world and contribute to its betterment, the growth that comes from the struggle is every bit as important, and sometimes more so.

The whole structure of human attainment in the end is a spiritual thing, and it's supposed to be about individual and community growth in spiritual maturity, across all the dimensions of our lives. It's meant to be a difficult and joyous adventure, embraced and shared with others. Apparent failures on the surface often hide deep success down below. We're brought into the world as amazing creatures, and that's supposed to be the starting point of an equally astonishing growth. Many get it wrong, and have done so for thousands of years. But there is hope that more of us can catch on and deepen the process, and attain through our mistakes and struggles the glorious ends for which we were made. And yeah, there's a word you don't see often. But you should. Because that's the nature of the intended journey we're on. So remember, it's not so much what you get in life as how you grow that matters most in everything you do.

Bring the Light

Be someone who brings the light. I'm tempted to think a purpose of the dark is to raise up light-bearers among us. It's a noble task to which we're called, one that gives benefit to many. We all steer through our lives by the glows of illumination sprinkled about us, some near and others far. If you have a lamp to light, spark its flame and hold it high.

Out on a Limb

Wisdom often finds itself out on a limb, doing and saying contrarian things. Love your enemies. Become like a little child. Most things aren't what they seem. Selfishness is self defeating. Pure giving is the best getting. Joy is at the bottom of the jar. Humility is the path to positive power. Vulnerability is strength. Stoop to rise. Serve to rule.

But everything great has its imitators and counterfeits. Publishers discovered years ago that confidently contrarian announcements got attention, sparked controversy, and could sell books by the millions. Whatever was common sense or received opinion was wrong, backwards, upside down. "We've always thought X; but a series of clever experiments recently proved Y instead, the very opposite of X. We've always been wrong! Buy this new book to see how."

Beware the charlatans, the con-men, the flim-flammers simply out to make a buck. They end up sawing off the limb they're sitting on. But real wisdom retains its perch. Wait. How then do we know the difference? Well, what lasts? What echoes through the centuries and when lived makes people better, deeper, and more loving? That's the test. But to apply it takes a measure of, well, you know: wisdom. And yet, only a dollop, a modicum, an open leaning forward with a modest discernment, and that will get you more. Guaranteed. And to learn more about this unexpected insight, buy my books. Just kidding.

The Wisdom Edge

The main character in a seventies movie once remarked in existential exasperation, "Don't you realize what a thread we're all hanging by?" The metaphor may change, but the reality is the same. We live on something like an edge at all times, near a precipice, whether we realize it or not. The wise are those who know exactly what the situation is, and where they are, and possess an inner calm about it, along with an agility of balance and correction to deal with anything that may come. Agitation never helps. Fear can be self defeating. A peace deep in the spirit is the sole fount and fulcrum from which good things may arise and even endure, despite the age of the thread or the bare breadth of the edge.

The Weeds of the Soul

When you’re out in nature and in a philosophical mood, it’s amazing how many moral and spiritual lessons you can get if you pay attention. I like to go out in the morning now and then and drop down on my hands and knees in the backyard to weed. It strikes me that the stuff we don’t want in our yards and gardens grows quickly and profusely on its own, and with no help or encouragement from us. That’s a lot like our personal vices: irritation, irascibility, lust, greed, pride, envy, laziness, and any form of harmfully addictive tendencies, to name just a few. We don’t decide to cultivate them, plant them in our souls and work intentionally to nurture them. They’re the weeds of the soul.

So, if we want a nice landscape, we weed. It used to be that when I noticed a stray weed in a place I’d worked hard to clear earlier in the day, I got mildly frustrated. Now I just get busy. Weeds grow. The ones we don’t uproot today, we’ll pull tomorrow. You rarely get it all done at once. And I used to be overwhelmed seeing how many needed my attention in certain stretches of the back. Now I simply know my coming days will allow me to get out into nature again and do something needed, something that’s good. Plus, the exercise itself is its own thing, and beneficial.

It’s important for us to realize that the garden of our hearts, the landscape of our souls, needs similar attention and work. Every day, try to weed a little. And while you’re paying attention, also check on the good stuff. A little water here, some organic fertilizer there, and it’s heartening what a bit of care can accomplish. But there’s always work to do, which is not something to be regretted, or to sprout new weeds in your spirit, but to be embraced as a reality of why we’re here in the first place. The inner exercise itself keeps you sharp.

The Garden is vitally important in the Biblical narrative, and it’s an equally crucial metaphor in our own stories.

A Good Life

I woke up early this morning with these thoughts rolling through my head and had to write them down.

A Good Life. We all want to live a good life. But what does that mean? I suspect that at the core it’s fairly simple.

We all want a life in which we make our proper difference in the world and it makes its proper difference in us.

We seek the journey and result that our being here makes a positive impact for good, however small it may seem, since there is no such thing as small in the realm of the spirit.

We want to be and become with appropriate action, wonder, and most of all, love.

We hope to serve as a blessing to others wherever we are, and to the broader natural world.

And we want to grow into some version of our better or higher or even best self, in the circumstances given us and that we form throughout this adventure.

We may not have all the words for these things explicitly in our minds along the way, and we may not keep consistently on track, but this is what we are born to aspire to, and what's always hidden away in the bottom of our hearts. And all of this, seasoned with gratitude, hope, and compassion along the way, is, I think, a good life.

Your Comfort Zone: Part Two

The other day I posted a challenge to the commonly heard advice that to deal with change and attain excellence, we all need to get out of our comfort zones, and keep doing that. The classic motivational advice makes a comfort zone sound like quicksand, or a dead end street. I suggested instead that the very best people in every field learn to expand their comfort zone and take it with them wherever they go. They don't leave it, they stretch it and carry it with them on any new adventure. I wanted to share an interesting conversation about this that just took place on LinkedIn.

Candice Frost, Director with the Army G2 Intelligence, reposted my thoughts and wrote: <<Insightful points made here and have me rethinking my advice on being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Tom Morris reframes how we look at this advice and instead states that experts, “created a superior and special zone of comfort in being and doing the very best in their various fields of endeavor.” He also focuses on expanding your zone of comfort. How have you grown/expanded your #comfortzone?>>

I replied: <<Hi Candice! Thanks for the kind words. Maybe the way this works is that when we're new to mastering the inner game of life, or even midway in our work on that skill set, we do have to experience discomfort now and then, and get comfortable doing that, but when we're farther down the path of our development, we bring our comfort with us wherever we go. Or to put it another way, getting comfortable with discomfort is likely a necessary stage along the way to where you ultimately want to be, always carrying your comfort zone with you as one of your more important inner possessions. So you are naturally comfortable at what makes others uncomfortable. I'm sure your advice has been great for where most people are, to get them to the next step, and that's so needed. I just like to identify what our ultimate aims are or should be for the true inner and outer excellence to which we aspire ! Let's keep philosophizing. Some of the most crucial passages in my latest book, Plato's Lemonade Stand resonate deeply with these new ideas about comfort zones. I hope you can see it!>>

Then, Sara Helfer, a Strategic Analyst at the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff weighed in, as a reply to Candice: <<Insightful and something I've been grappling with lately. What is our comfort zone versus an area of strong expertise? What is the point of diminishing returns in discomfort? That is, when is something just a bad fit? How long do you wait for something to "break in" and get comfortable? These are rhetorical - I presume everyone will have different answers to these.>>

Candice responded: <<Sara, well stated. I'm advising new intelligence professionals to understand they'll have to focus on areas where they're often ill equipped to advise/understand as a SME. That's why collaboration is so critical. Of course, when this issue arises often, you've got to get on board quick and rapidly learn.>>

I weighed in: <<Hi Sara. Great questions. To me, an “area of strong expertise” is an "outer" range of structures and processes, facts and systems, reflected in us by the relevant inner skills, knowledge, and even wisdom. Let's call that peak expertise. The comfort zone is the emotional and attitudinal proper reflection of all that. The importance of the comfort is that a peak performer isn’t nagged by discomfort, uncertainty, unease, or an obstructive self consciousness in performing his or her duties. A bad fit in a job or with a task happens when peak expertise never develops and doesn't look like it's going to, and those inner emotions and attitudes never properly grow to what they should be for the flow of top excellence. A really unfortunate situation is where there is a bad fit between person and task, but his or her emotions and attitudes of comfort, assurance, and confidence grow IMPROPERLY, and without the relevant developing expertise. As to how long it takes to develop peak expertise, or even a modicum of it, and the naturally attached emotions and attitudes, that can vary a lot with person and task.>>

I then responded to the reply Candice made to Sara: << Candice, I like what you say here. I've come to think that collaboration and partnership is crucial in mastery or any form of challenging success. I see Homer's Iliad as all about the power of partnership, when it's working and when it's not. The partnership between Agamemnon and Achilles breaking down is crucial for the story. So are all the small partnerships formed throughout the tale (Ajax, despite his immense individual strength, calls friends over in fierce fights and together they prevail). Beowulf is about what happens when you never learn to partner with others collaboratively. Aristotle actually saw the peak of human power and good (in the Politics) as - in my words summing his thoughts - "People in Parnership for a shared Purpose." And the Odyssey is all about the power of purpose! Great stuff to ponder!>>

Eric Potvin, a former CIA Special Agent, replies to the original reposting by Candice: <<Ma'am, Thanks for sharing this thought-provoking and insightful article. Tom Morris uses logic and reasoning to create a perfect argument for comfort zone expansion. There is no doubt in my mind that most people suffer from some level of "Imposter Syndrome" and the advice provided in this article will help others find comfort in their new environments. Ultimately, the application of what you know now in an environment of unfamiliarity can help overcome uncomfortable situations. When I deployed to Afghanistan for the first time, I recalled my successes in Iraq and applied the same team leadership skills and report production techniques to accomplish the mission in a completely new geographical, cultural, and altogether different environment. Until I read this article, I had not reflected upon the "how" I did that. Not to say I did it perfectly, but it was a helpful way to take what I know now and apply it to what I wanted to accomplish. Thanks again for posting!>>

Then, me to Eric: <<Eric! Very well and wisely said. Thanks for your kind words. As a philosopher, I admire a lot that goes on in the world of self-help and motivation, but often find the thinking to be imprecise and limited, as good and useful as it might be to many people. As a philosopher who loves the practical side of wisdom, I like to weigh in and try to tighten things up, perhaps provide a broader perspective, and look at some of the ultimate issues that lead to excellence. Thanks for your own reflections that resonate so well with what I've been thinking.>>

And the band plays on. To me, this epitomizes social media at its best. People from different backgrounds thinking hard together about things that matter, living Aristotle's vision of excellence. Don't you wish it were all that way?

Doors Around

There are always doors around. Most may be closed. Some are locked. A few will attract your attention. And there will be an occasional one with a distinctive color or scintillating feature, perhaps the nob, that practically asks you to reach out and take and turn it to see what's beyond. Sometimes curiosity will do the job. At other moments, a measure of courage is required. The doors in life are every bit as important as the rooms, structures, and spaces they guard. Often, it's good to knock first. But follow your best intuition at all times. This may be the door you've hoped and waited for, as it has been awaiting you.

Just remember: Opportunity won't always knock. It's often up to you, and me.

An Aperture. A doorway.

Sometimes, there's a breech in the stone, an unexpected crack in the wall of the cave, and a whole universe opens up. It could be a book or a heard sentence, or a film, or a song, a poem, or even some fleeting aspect of a day in nature. It could be almost anything that for a moment opens up a new and spectacular view of what's out there, or in here, or around and beyond. Find a way to capture and save that amazing glimpse.

A character in my novels talks about taking a wisdom bucket wherever we go, for precisely this reason. He says that waters of insight can fall from the heavens like rain suddenly at any time and we need a way to capture those moments to use later and share. So keep a snapshot in your head or a small bucket in your heart and you won't forget, but can pass on to others what you've so wonderfully seen.

The Canterbury Tales

I like to read old books. I just read Pater Ackroyd’s masterful prose retelling of The Canterbury Tales, first penned by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late fourteenth century. With all the wild naughty stories of mistaken identity, folly, fornication, and flatulence, you have to remind yourself that you’re reading stuff written two hundred years before Shakespeare and six centuries before such storytellers as Neil Simon and John Updike. It’s a “retelling” published by Viking not long ago, which is a touch beyond a loose translation or tight paraphrase, simply because not everyone wants to wade through:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

But my favorite lines in the original prologue, sampled here, are:

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages …

The 436 pages of tales are full of wisdom about our earthly plight, as well as its entertainments and wonders. A group of random pilgrims is traveling through England on their way to a holy site, when one of the group suggests they all tell engaging stories to help pass the time. And they’re off to the racy races. Who knew? But under all the off-color marvel and merriment, there is indeed a lot of insight. In The Knight’s Tale, you come across this rumination on how little we know, and the wisdom of not rushing to judgment. He says:

<<Why do so many people complain of the actions of providence, or the decisions of God Himself, when their eventual fate is better than they could have imagined? Some men long for riches, but at the expense of their health and even of their lives. Some men desire to escape from prison, as I once did, only to be murdered in the households of their kin. We do not know the answers to our prayers. We fare as one who wanders drunk through the streets; he knows that he has a house, somewhere, but he cannot remember the name of the street. His is a long and wayward journey. So do we fare in this fallen world. We search for felicity down every lane and alley, but often enough we take the wrong path.>> (38)

And consider these cautionary words on the wheel of fortune, the ups and downs of life, spoken by “The Man of Law” among them who tends to emphasize the lows:

<<Woe is always the consequence of bliss. Sorrow follows prosperity, and suffering succeeds joy. That is the way of the world. Follow this advice for the sake of your well-being. If you ever experience happiness, keep in mind the day when it will end. Nothing abides.>> (127)

Debbie Downer has an ancestor. Later he says again:

<<The joys of this world do not endure. Life changes, like the tide. After the brightness of the day, comes the darkness of the night.>> (143)

And later, the Squire, in his own tale, remarks:

<<But nothing lasts forever. Fortune turns the wheel.>> (273)

And later, the Monk says:

<<Who can trust the dice that Fortune throws? Anyone who makes his way in the difficult world must know that misfortune and disaster are always at hand. The only remedy is self-knowledge. Beware of Dame Fortune. When she wants to mislead, or to deceive, she chooses the least predictable path.>> (357)

And later, the Nun’s Priest, in his tale says:

<<The end of joy is always woe. God knows that happiness in this world is fleeting.>> (382)

You want to say, "Cheer up! It goes the other way, too!"

On the topic of wealth and poverty, the Wife of Bath speaks about rags and riches in a way that could get us talking for an hour. She says:

<<Seneca and other philosophers tell us that cheerful and willing poverty is a great blessing. Whoever is satisfied with a slender purse, even though he does not have a shirt on his back, I hold rich indeed. He who is greedy is wretched; he longs for that which he cannot have. He that has nothing, and wants nothing, is a man of wealth; you may call him a knave, but I call him a spiritual knight. Poverty sings. You may know that quotation from Juvenal, to the effect that a poor man whistles and dances before thieves. Poverty may seem hateful but it is in truth a blessing. It encourages hard work. It teaches the wise man patience. It teaches the patient man wisdom. It may seem miserable. It may be a state no one wishes. But it brings us closer to God. It brings us self-knowledge. >> (174)

The Clerk speaks about the masses of people in his time, and in a way that may resonate a bit too much in our own day:

<<Oh, fickle people, people of the wind, unsteady and unfaithful! You are as ever changing as a weathervane. You delight only in novelty. You wax and wane as does the moon. You gape and chatter, much to your own cost. Your opinions are worthless, and your behavior proves that you are never to be trusted. Only a fool would believe anything you say.>> (228)

And the Pardoner could be speaking for certain self proclaimed religious figures in our time, if they would ever confess to their own methods, when he says:

<<That is how I retaliate against those who defame me. I spit out my venom under the cover of holiness. I seem virtuous, but seeming is not being. I will tell you the truth in one sentence. I preach only for money. I want their silver pence. That is why my theme has always been, and always will be, the same. “Greed is the root of all evil.” It is suitable, don’t you think. I preach against the very vices I practice! It saves time. And even though I may be guilty of that sin, I persuade other folk to repent with much wailing and lamenting. But that is really not my intention. I will say it one more time. I preach only for the cash.>> (309)

And in the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, a fake expert is unmasked, a sharp conman who seems to be able to fool an inordinate number of otherwise normal people. The teller of this tale tells us of the man, a real life individual, and thereby anticipates several bestselling authors and gurus of our time:

<<No one would be able to describe his infinite tricks and subtleties. You could live a thousand years and not be able to fathom all of his craft. No one is his equal in falsehood. He is so sly in his use of words, so slippery in his language, that he can make a fool of anyone he talks to. He could beguile the devil, even though he is one himself. He has duped many people, and will carry on deceiving them as long as he lives. Yet this is the curious thing. Men travel for miles to consult and converse with him; little do they realize he is a swindler in disguise.>> (412)

But perhaps that’s enough. I’ll save all the bawdy salacious bits and pieces of narrative for your own deep dive into this breezy and often insightful text. But don't say I didn't warn you!

For the book, click HERE.

Kindness

Kindness. In a surprising cultural time of snark, derision, and callous cruelty among people, it becomes a powerful and healthy counter-cultural act to be kind. If you use social media for any time and watch the news nightly, you'd almost think kindness was a foreign language, or perhaps the hardest thing in the world. And it's the very opposite. It's built into our nature as one of the requirements for proper spiritual growth and inner fulfillment. When we show kindness to others, we certainly benefit them, as well as the general tenor of society, but the deeper reality is that we cultivate our own garden in a beautiful way. So I often ask myself: Why wouldn't everyone want to do this? Nasty benefits no one. Kindness is good for all.

The Path

Half of life is covered by the advice: Let go. Be Open.

The other is addressed by the words: Stay firm. Be Brave.

Following both pairs of reminders, each in its way, is the path. Discerning the proper time and aspect for each is wisdom. Both are ultimately best applied, in their own apt forms, at every time. And the sun will rise on you with new energy each day.

Summer Reading

Finally! Summer Reading! What if you could read something this summer that would transport you far far away from the problems of our day and into a world rich with action, adventure, romance, comedy, and real wisdom coming at you from all sides? What if a super fun read could deepen your worldview, help you with your thoughts and emotions, and prepare you better for everything life brings your way? Not many books will do all that, but one fictional series will: Walid and the Mysteries of Phi.

The books came to me like a movie in my mental theater, surround sound and all. Now, they're my favorite thing I've ever done as a philosopher. Set in Egypt in 1934and 1935, they're a magic carpet ride to a new source of optimism and hope, which is actually the oldest source of all.

One of my favorite contemporary philosophers, who works in the areas of physics and cosmology, has said that reading these books gave him a “palpable sense of goodness” and restored to his life some of the magic that had long been missing. Other readers have compared the novels to Indiana Jones and Harry Potter and Lawrence of Arabia meeting Plato and Aristotle. A few have invoked The Alchemist and The Little Prince. I always smile with gratitude. But they’re really different, a one of a kind ride, and will give you a story that may last in your heart and mind for the rest of your life.

Please try some of these books and let me know what you think. To look at them and snag some easily, go to www.TomVMorris.com/novels/ or visit TheOasisWithin.com. The book The Oasis Within is a short prologue or prelude to the series. And then, the door gets blown open for the swirl of story and adventure. I hope you can have the experience and then tell me about it.

Two Paths in Life

I've been reading Truman Capote this weekend, Breakfast at Tiffany's and three of his better known short stories—A Christmas Memory, The Diamond Guitar, and House of Flowers. In the widely acclaimed Breakfast, Capote brings to life a character very much like Thackeray's famous Becky Sharp, a poor girl born with beauty and a hedonistic lust for adventure among the culture's markers of money, status, and power, an ingenue perfect for the 1940's but seen at every time, a creature who learns to augment her physical attributes with a shrewd and manipulative charm that men can't seem to resist. Holly Golightly, of course, is the belle of Truman's ball.

At one point, explaining some of her tendencies to our narrator, who lives in the same apartment building as the enigmatic young woman, Holly recounts her many ways of turning herself around when she's feeling bad. She admits she's spent too much money buying and consulting astrological charts to read her future and says:

"It's a bore. But the answer is good things only happen to you if you're good. Good? Honest is more what I mean. Not law-type honest—I'd rob a grave, I'd steal two bits off a dead man's eyes if I thought it would contribute to the day's enjoyment—but unto-thyself-type honest. Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I'd rather have cancer than a dishonest heart. Which isn't being pious. Just practical." (Modern Library, p. 79)

Holly's authenticity, her "honesty" is wholly in service to her own perceived self interest, and seems to magnify her unfortunate personality tendencies and character weaknesses to the extent that she's never actually happy, or long in the possession of good things, but always chasing happiness in deluded ways.

By contrast, a character in the immensely wonderful story A Christmas Memory seems to embody goodness and simplicity. The narrator here is a young boy growing up in the country in a house of adults, one of whom, an outsider to the others, becomes his best friend. He says:

<<Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880s, when she was still a child. She is still a child.>> (ML 144)

They bake fruitcakes to give away for the holidays, and go hunt down a tree to decorate together. They make kites for each other as Christmas presents. They collect pennies and the occasional dime for treats. She gives Buddy a dime each week so he can go to a picture show in town. He says about her, in a wonderful passage:

<<My friend has never been to a picture show, nor does she intend to: "I'd rather hear you tell the story, Buddy. That way I can imagine it more. Besides, a person my age shouldn't squander their eyes. When the Lord comes, let me see him clear." In addition to never having seen a movie, she has never: eaten in a restaurant, traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except funny papers and the Bible, worn cosmetics, cursed, wished someone harm, told a lie on purpose, let a hungry dog go hungry. Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this county (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger, tell ghost stories (we both believe in ghosts) so tingling they chill you in July, talk to herself, take walks in the rain, grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of old-time Indian cure, including a magical wart remover.>>

This is one of the most wonderful stories ever written about the simple life and the real and deepest honesty that's not merely a second order true-to-yourself-whoever-you-are thing, but a matter of fidelity to the highest and best that life, in true authenticity, offers. Truman had a talent. But his early sufferings ended up pushing him along the path of Holly Golightly, rather than Buddy's childhood and properly childlike friend. And that was a tragedy that need not have been. And yet, having experienced both sides of life, he can describe them powerfully well.

For the book, click HERE.

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.

Wonders and Mysteries

The Extended Reflection: We are wonders amid mysteries, real enigmas ourselves. We ought to carry a modicum of astonishment with us all throughout our day, adorned with compassion and even a spirit of celebration. Imagine what we could do if we came to realize who we most deeply are. It's a journey well worth taking. In fact, to miss it would be almost as much a puzzle as a tragedy. You are here, now. Dig deep into what that may mean. Aristotle told us that philosophy begins in wonder. Philosophy: The love of wisdom. A fascinating object of love, but like others. When you lack it, you pursue it. When you have it, you embrace it. Always in wonder.

This is a theme in the short novel The Oasis Within. It’s a book about attaining the inner peace and power that are actually ours by birthright, and give us the recipe for making our proper difference in the world. I hope you get to see it soon and then join what the character Ali calls “the fellowship of the mind” across space and time.

Self Trust and Joy

A Vital Lesson Well Learned. I experienced the most amazing Zoom session Wednesday night as a viewer. The people who made college possible for me, the prestigious Morehead-Cain Foundation, has a network of former and present scholars around the world in every sort of profession and job (Frank Bruni of the New York Times, Alan Murray who runs Fortune and Time, Inc, our current and great North Carolina governor, the best selling novelist Shilpi Somaya, British television producer James Dean, and on and on). All are graduates of UNC Chapel Hill and keep in touch across space and time in various ways.

This week’s evening event was the second in a series of group Zoom sessions (I sadly had to miss the first) where our Morehead-Cain “cousins” - as we call each other - will variously speak on topics from our own lives. Last night, our speaker was Tom Thriveni, the accomplished Writer for The Late Late Show with James Corden (that super talented dude who also rides around and does Carpool Karaoke with top vocalists like Adele). Tom spent the hour talking about his life journey and how he learned self-trust, which is a big challenge for a lot of us, regardless of where we are in life. It was one of my favorite chats ever.

Tom’s parents came to America from India and worked hard to create a good life for their children, whom they hoped would get great educations and go into solid professions where their futures would be assured and they wouldn’t have to take the sorts of risks their parents had embraced in order to begin a new life here. Tom was on track. Great university. Econ major. But then a wild summer internship with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show sparked a flame. And he knew what he wanted to do. But it was too risky. So he became an investment banker instead and then went into private equity as impressive stepping stones to eventually attending Harvard Business School and then of course ruling the world from a corner office high up in a tall building somewhere in the world, and thereby making his parents both proud and unworried for his future. But investment banking and private equity weren’t for him. The pressure, the long hours, and the not at all loving the work put him in the hospital for brain surgery. Yeah. More than the normal work headache. Brain surgery. Maybe two of the scariest words in English. It went well. So he became a comedy writer. Obviously. The surgeons removed all the grey cell investment banker-equity neurons and his remaining synapses naturally reverted to jokes.

“Mom. Dad. I have news.” Oh, no. The conversation. The previous such chat, involving cranial cutting as it did, wasn’t a great precedent. How not to end up back in the hospital? How could he face this? But back up. How could he face the world of comedy, which of course is not known for any guarantees concerning corner offices in tall buildings, world power, and impressive wealth. But Tom had developed a trick. Whenever he confronts a daunting new possibility, something he really wants to do but that has a failure rate percentage with numbers that better reflect normal body temperature, nowadays around 98.3% or something, he uses his imagination. He’ll ask himself “What’s the worst that can happen?” And in pretty much every case where he has ever employed the question (apart, of course, from the brain surgery), the answer has been a version of: “I’ll do something very interesting and fail and come away with some great stories to tell.”

And he has learned something else along the way. Great people make what they do look easy and natural. But whenever we tackle something big and new to us, it doesn’t typically feel easy or particularly natural in the early stages. And so people give up. Tom figured out that something’s being really hard at first doesn’t mean that you’re not supposed to do it, or that you’re not meant to do it, or that it’s not for you. This is exactly what anything challenging and interesting is supposed to feel like at first. That “natural” free throw shooter? Yeah, he makes it look easy after those three million practice shots we never saw.

Tom also learned a third thing. As if these two aren’t enough for that corner office, at least metaphorically speaking. Because, yeah, in comedy you learn to work with metaphor. It beats brain surgery. At least on one end of the surgical scenario. He learned that success isn’t about big titles, major status, and great sounding attainments. He said something profound: “The process is the joy.” And that’s a powerful secret.

The joy isn’t in being named “Writer” for a major television show and being known for the signature monologues that make America, and often the world, laugh. It’s about the process. But then when he described his normal day and what the process is like, I could see that, first, it’s a good thing he’s a lot younger than me to work the hours he does, and second that to enjoy a process that hard is living proof he’s found his thing. Nothing makes it easy. But the fit with his passion makes it great.

Thanks, Tom Thriveni, Writer, Great Zoomer, and Philosopher of Life!

Your Worldview

Your worldview is the structure of ideas, values, assumptions, beliefs, hopes, dreams, aspirations, desires, emotions, attitudes, and ideals within which you live. It's the home of your wisdom and virtue. Some such homes of the soul are bigger than others. Some are better built and sturdier than others. Far too many are tiny cold bare and uncomfortable shacks, when they need not be. We use the materials around us to do our building. Some people just move into the lodgings of others. But we all have choices.

Your worldview is how you interface with the broader world. Will it be a place of preparation and restoration, a base camp for all your highest ascents and adventures, or a mere fortress against what you don't like or trust? We build our own worldviews, stone by stone. Take care what you construct and the shape in which you keep it.

Three Kinds of People

There's an old philosophy joke, more illuminating than actually funny, unsurprisingly like almost every philosophy joke. It specifies that there are three kinds of people in the world: (1) Those that watch things happen, (2) Those that make things happen, and (3) Those who wander around saying "What happened?" The astute advice we’re then given is to be firmly and reliably in the second category. Make things happen. It’s cool bumper sticker level wisdom. But the problem is that it's not exactly right, is it?

We should be at various times in each of these categories: observing, creating, and seeking. Anything else is a one dimensional life, and will be full of problems. Take it all in. Use what you see. Inquire further. Observe, make, seek. Today's wisdom nugget.

Now I've got some watching, making, and some very serious asking to do. I bet you do, too.

The Seeds of Wisdom

Each day, our personal experience sows what can be seeds of wisdom in our lives. And then when we listen, the words of others, past or present, based on their own journeys ,can serve in this same way. But what will result? That's all in the soil. Are you good soil? Am I?

Good soil is full of life, it's dynamic, a partner to the seed, working together with it for the increase intended. Let's commit to seeking always to be good soil, so that what our experience sows may grow real wisdom to be reaped in the challenges and opportunities to come.

I reflect on this metaphor throughout an entire chapter in the new book, Plato’s Lemonade Stand. If you get a chance to see it soon, please let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your insights, which can serve as even more seeds for wisdom to grow in my own life.

The book is HERE.