Making Our Mark On the World

Hi everyone! Blogging this morning from the beautiful Wilmington, NC airport, preparing to board. I wanted to tell you about something interesting that came to light in the past few days.

The journal Nature reported this week that paintings of hands and animals in seven limestone caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may be the oldest human art yet discovered. It's estimated that the people who did these simple paintings put their mark on the stone walls more than 39,000 years ago.

Since the beginning, human beings have wanted to make their mark in the world, to say "I was here!" I love it that so many of the paintings were outlines of hands. "This is me." Or, "This is my son." Or, This is my mate."

Those artists could have had no idea that we'd be talking about the hands and the animals they painted, more than 39,000 years after they made those simple, but inspired markings.

Likewise, we have no idea how far and wide our simple daily acts may reach and what impact they may have on others. The cave painters could never have predicted that their work would move us in 2014 to reflect on our own lives, and on how we make our own marks on the world.

And their lessons are many. One is that the smallest things can leap and fly across space and time with amazing results. Try to remember that in the little things you do.

Today.

The Joy of the Journey

There’s a special joy in doing what you’re meant to do. 

This week, so far, I’ve travelled to Colorado Springs for a talk at the great Broadmoor hotel, speaking to 450 business owners. The hotel itself is spectacular, and I always seem to be put in the West Building, which is quiet and beautiful, with serene views outside the window of my suite. To get to the main building, where I had dinner last night with one of the top speaking agents in the country, a really great individual who also has an unexpected and interesting background as a songwriter, with tunes, so far, in eighteen films, I had to walk on a path bisecting a scenic lake, mounting a gently sloping footbridge in the middle, surrounded by mountains. The temperature was perfect. The evening was magical. 

Who knew that being a freelance philosopher could put me in so many wonderful places, where the glories of nature are on such magnificent display? And the people I meet along the way enrich my life immensely.

And then came the talk, the speech for which I had made the journey. I had forty minutes, a relatively short time these days for philosophy, but it was ethereal. We pondered, we analyzed, we laughed, and we explored the wisdom of the ages on one of the most important topics of all - how each of us can have our best impact on the world in the short span of years that we have, and how we can have true success, deeply satisfying and sustainable success that fulfills us, in everything we do.

It was a treat to represent the great philosophers, east and west, and to add my own interpretive frameworks. And everyone who was there went away with a laminated wallet card on the ideas we talked about. I’ve given out these cards on each of my topics, for more than twenty years. I’ve probably handed out millions as little gifts. And as a result, people stop me in airports and hotels, and in other places, and pull out their wallets and show me the card that they say they got six or nine or twelve years ago at a talk they heard me give and still remember. What a kick! Those little laminated wallet cards are almost the paper version of tweets, but they last, and can be carried about and kept and referred to again and again. The way tweets stand to blogs, these little cards stand to books, and have a special magic all their own.

My talk at the Broadmoor was, as such a thing almost always is, a joy, What Emerson would have called an ecstasy, and an honor. In the whirlwind of time allowed on a busy meeting day, we ranged through space and time, appropriating the insights of the ages for our own lives, and thinking anew about what we want from our time, and our efforts. 

It’s always a new experience for me. I never memorize talks and hit the play button in front of an audience. I do like the great jazz guys and improvise around a framework. I surprise myself. I sometimes say things I’ve never even thought before, but in that moment, I realize a new truth and pass it on to others.

Now, I’ll have two days at home, and then a quick trip to Florida, to philosophize again, for a small group of executives who make sure the lights stay on at such places as Google and NASA, operations where power reliability is crucial. We’ll get to talk about the life wisdom that’s also powerful and always reliable. And that will keep the lights on for them, as it does for me.

I tell you this today in hopes that you are also, in your own way, participating in the joy of living your proper mission and adventure. And if you haven’t quite found that yet, let me encourage you that it awaits you and can be both lived and loved.

So examine your own experience. You’re here to do great things, and to have great joys. I want that for you.

Today.

The Inner Game of Everything

Imagine two outer actions, which would appear exactly the same to an onlooker. In one case, the act springs from a routine in a job that's long lost its luster. And if we could walk into that office and ask the guy involved in that action, he might tell us that he was excited about his job at first. It was his big break. It was an entry level job, but in a big company. The building was beautiful. His colleagues were smart and ambitious. He seemed to have his foot firmly in the door of greatness. But the culture around him soon became clear. It was all about the sale, all about the money. Profits were the air they breathed. But breathing that air, and only that, every day over time, had taken a toll. He had lost the true excitement of the early days. The enchantment was gone. It had gradually become a matter of pressure, and routine. He now still kept up the pace, and all relevant appearances, and did the work, but it was almost automatic, and without any inner soul.

The other guy, across town, the one performing apparently the same outer action - say, reaching for a phone, or filling out a form, or making an entry into his computer - lives and works each day with a strong sense of purpose, and a real passion for what he's doing. He's with great people who think and feel the same way. They have a camaraderie and a sense of mission for the work they do. They're building something new together. They're making a difference.

I submit that the two identical looking actions of these different individuals are really not the same at all. One of the actions is ennobled by the inner state from which it springs. The other is not. And this is not some flaky mumbo-jumbo mysticism. It's a difference that makes a difference. One action embodies something almost magical, and it will, eventually, if not right away, have seriously different results, on many dimensions, regardless of how small an act it is.

I've come to think that it's the inner that's always definitive of the outer, in everything. When the spirit is right, the enterprise is just different, and vastly more. Plato distinguished clearly between appearance and reality. We should all do so, as well. No matter what the appearances might be, it's what bubbles up inside us, what animates us in our minds and hearts, that makes all the difference.

Inner purpose, real passion, and the sort of commitment that embodies a spark of nobility simply brings something different into the world. Don't you think?

What will animate your actions today?

Freedom Riders and The Magic of Commitment

What brings people together with a special sense of excitement and meaning? What amps up motivation and commitment through the roof? What bonds people into great winning teams? I recently watched two PBS broadcasts about the civil rights movement in the United States, in the early sixties. The many student volunteers who rode buses from northern universities into the far land of Mississippi to engage in voter registration in the June of 1964 faced hostility, violence, and constant threats during a hot and scary summer. And now, decades later, looking back, they report that it was the time of their lives. They say things like, "When it was time to leave and go home, I knew that I'd never have an experience like that again, a sense of doing something to change the world, and a sense of extended family with people I'd probably never see again."

A friend of mine once talked with lots of veterans of World War Two and was surprised that he kept hearing them speak of their wartime experience as "the time of my life." They were being shot at and bombed, under the most difficult daily living conditions they had ever experienced. But they often reminisced about those days as something truly special. They spoke of bonds they made with guys who were very different from them in so many ways, but who became like a band of brothers.

Those two contexts clearly involved (1) a strong sense of purpose, (2) constant danger, and (3) a special bond that seemed to arise out of elements 1 and 2. It could be that from our collective early human history as hunters and gatherers, we developed a special experience of purpose amid danger, and an intensity of commitment in relationship to those who shared that purpose and that threat. It was a matter first of survival, and second, of flourishing. Those who did not bond and arise to overcome the odds did not survive. And we are the inheritors of those survivors.

It could well be that there is a deep motivational mindset that arises in such a context, which allows us, in turn, to rise to the occasion and do great things that go far beyond the mundane, and become almost magical.

You occasionally see it on sports teams, without the extremity of danger confronted by those in the civil rights movement, and those who have fought in wars. I saw in on one particular Notre Dame football team, during my many years there, the team that, interestingly, won the National Championship of 1988. So, it seems possible that the special bonding and motivation that we're talking about depend, not on danger itself, but on a sense of very high stakes. When the stakes are high enough, we respond. And, if that's true, then, in principle, we could create the conditions for this in our work lives. Why should it be that those who came back from the second world war, and those who returned to school or work from The Freedom Summer of 64, should never have that special experience of service again?

A friend just came back from the big rock music festival of the summer, in Dover, Delaware. He said of the 80,000 people around him that "They were all so happy to be there." They wanted to be there. They were there with a purpose. And, he said, "They were a happy bunch, as a result." They were part of something big, something they believed in, and they were there with a commitment that was "all in."

Why can't we create conditions in our companies where nearly everyone feels a sense of purpose, a sense of being part of something big, something that's going to "change the world" for the better in some way that makes them feel "all in"? When the purpose is great enough and the stakes are high enough, it can happen. Then, why do we ever settle for so much less?

Goals and Guiding Purposes

This week, I’ve shared some Weight Room Wisdom, accumulated from my daily workouts with friends. Now, granted, most people in a gym are typically in just another version of Plato’s Cave, working on appearances. But in our group, we tackle serious realities as well. I have one more story I’d like to share, from this week’s workouts.

Between sets of bicep curls, I was talking to a friend, Tim, about his career. He’s a very successful entrepreneur, living in a beautiful gated community, and getting ready to relocate to St. Kitts for an exciting new adventure, in his early fifties. Right out of college, he worked for a big maker of scientific instruments. And he was a great success. But the more he sold, the more pressure he came under. The sales manager would congratulate him on his spectacular results and set a target for 30% more sales for the upcoming year, even when it became nearly impossible to attain without sacrificing everything else in his life to the altar of More.

At 28, Tim decided to start his own company, largely to give himself the freedom to spend more time with his young family. The first four years were hard, but then success came, and it came in abundance. There was more to do, more to think about, and as the business expanded, his time gradually shifted back into something like the grind he had left. The natural thing for an entrepreneur who has struggled and is finally making money is, of course, to take full advantage of that fair wind and set new goals that will generate even more money, avidly pursuing the opportunity  to “make hay while the sun shines,” as the old adage has it.

But Tim realized what was happening and did a values check. What are my life purposes? What do I care about most? What really matters to me above all else? It wasn’t just more and more money, attained as quickly as possible. It was a balance that was right for him, with plenty of time for family, as well as a flourishing business. So he made some adjustments, and didn’t stop being successful, but stopped being pulled from his prime values.

That’s too rare in our time. For many decades, motivational speakers have talked about the importance of having goals, almost as if it doesn’t matter what they are, as long as we have some. And we’re told to dream big, which is good. But the problem often becomes that people dream what their surrounding culture dreams, whether it’s right for them or not. They set goals based on their most immediate desires, rather than according to their deepest values and highest purposes. And when you do that, attaining your goals can actually make your life worse, rather than better. Tim realized this, and made sure that his values and purposes, his deepest beliefs, always guided him in business. He eventually sold that original company and started a new one in a different field, and had great success again. And he did so by keeping his guiding purpose in view.

It’s a good reminder for us all.

With that in mind, have a great, productive, purposeful day.