Philosophy and Business

Philosophy: Etymologically, it's the love of wisdom. And an object of love is an interesting thing. When you lack it, you pursue it. When you find it, you embrace it. Such love has its own fascination. It's not a soft, warm, glow of feeling, or a giddy infatuation. It's a committed pursuit, an arduous adventure, a voyage, a quest, a stripping away of illusion and everything that's false to get to the beauty of truth, goodness, and unity. The excitement of the pursuit can be great, but the thrill of discovery is even greater. And then the deep satisfaction of using real wisdom and seeing it work to build something stunning can be overwhelming.

True philosophy dips into the mystical to bring us the greatest of the practical. True philosophy breaks all idols and opens us to the absolute numinous behind and within all things. True philosophy empowers us uniquely.

I can't imagine great business devoid of great philosophy. And that's the missing link for so many who have extraordinary products or services or structures to enable new ways of living, but have not yet grasped the deepest wisdom that could propel them to that epoch making world changing success that we sometimes see. That's why I recently wrote up a little book on Steve Jobs: Socrates in Silicon Valley. It's an example of what we can discover when we look at the use of philosophical ideas and techniques and realizations in the world of business. Even for people like Steve, who had so much going against him inwardly in the deep and convoluted wrinkles of his personal struggles, a few philosophical realizations could conquer all. Plato brought us the idea of the philosopher king. I like the idea of the philosopher business builder, as well.

In the end, it's not about how to make your money, but how to make your impact, your difference, and even your soul. Why should we ever settle for anything less?

The Paradox of Our Time

There is a great paradox in the human experience right now. We've never understood leadership better and we've never had worse leaders. We're inundated with books on success and yet failure is everywhere. Never have there been as many courses, essays, and studies stressing the importance of ethics, and yet unethical conduct not only surrounds us but threatens to take us under. We've never understood better the need for unity in our world, and yet we've perhaps never been so divided in so many ways. We live in an age of medical miracles, but far too many struggle to have any access to basic healthcare. We're poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink. Nations threaten nations at a time when there could be no winners. Knowing that we face imminent existential problems as a species, we dawdle and deny and postpone doing anything.

In every case, at the core of each of these paradoxes we see people valuing position over purpose, status over service, and money over meaning. Warring egos become warring ideologies. We need to turn that around. There's no benefit to being King of the World if the world is in ashes. And it strikes me that our fundamental attitudes are key for any likely transformation. Only the right values and commitments can pull us out of this global and cultural tailspin. And that can arise only from a worldview that values Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity above narrow considerations of self-interest. Working for a true revolution in human hearts and populations is the only way to break the paradoxes than now hold us back and threaten our existence. We can't let the human adventure come to such a sad impasse that we're surrounded with riches and resources that we're unable to use because of the turmoil in too many souls. It's my job as a practical philosopher to point this out. But it's everyone's job to help turn it all around.

The Coming Train

Near Clio, South Carolina
It's a clear fall day, 1960
and I'm eight and I've never
been so far from home.

I'm outside my uncle's house
that badly needs paint
in the hot dry country
that's desolate and remote.

And in his front yard,
if you can call it a yard
since it's all dirty white sand
and tall scattered weeds

There's an old railroad track
crossing the yard too close
to the porch and you can stand
on it and gaze for miles each way.

And then I see a distant train
coming toward me with its light
dim in the distance but I know
it's really bright and it scares me

And I want to cross the track
if I have time to get back again
on the side by the house before
the dark awesome force arrives.

It's an urge to run across that
no-boy's land if I dare, but why
should I care about it at all? And
as the train approaches closer

I feel the pressure inside me
to cross or not to cross.
Will I do it or try it, as the
opportunity rushes on by?

Can I catch it—the chance, not
the train—or will I wait a second
too long and dash just to be dashed
and end my world in that strange place?

And now I know I can cross tracks,
but it’s not always good, and not
ever healthy to wait too long to make
the choice if you might want to return.

Give Your Best. Consistently.

I'm editing a book manuscript on what a successful life is, in our time. In the book I'm interacting extensively with six great thinkers throughout the centuries, including Lao Tsu, Confucius, Cicero, and Emerson. In a passage on Confucius, while explicating some of ideas, I made a point that I'd like to pass along today.  We enter amid the passage. So here goes.

<<When there’s action to be taken, give your best. This is great, basic advice for any endeavor. Early in my career as a public speaker, someone occasionally would tell me in advance of a talk, “This is a really important group”—as if I should take care to be on my game for this one. My response was always, “Every group is a really important group.”  And I meant it. Whether I’m earning the equivalent of a year’s academic salary from speaking to an international group of powerful leaders for an hour, or I’m giving a free talk to a local school or charity, I can’t even conceive of not doing my very best.  

Each group I speak to is, in my estimation and for the duration of that presentation, the single most important gathering of people on earth—regardless of their worldly status as measured by any other standards. I have my own standards. That group is of unrivalled importance to me. The same goes for sitting at home alone with a book, or typing away at the computer. My level of commitment is always the same. Why? First, it’s a matter of personal identity and professional honor. I am who I am. And my work is what it is. No external circumstance can change that. I bring to any situation the utmost of respect for all the people involved, or even potentially involved.

But there’s a second reason as well. A consistent effort in all things on a daily basis can make a huge difference to the ultimate outcomes we experience. Consistency is akin to what military thinkers call “a force multiplier.” It’s a source of leverageand power. And yet, it’s oddly and surprisingly rare to come across this quality in people’s lives – which truly astonishes me. Whether we think of consistency as harmony, fidelity, or constancy, this characteristic is as vital as it is widely ignored in our day.>>

Great Summer Read!

I just read a book you will love. It has 35 short chapters written by some of the most successful public people over the past few decades—in sports, journalism, politics, and many other walks of life. The book is What Made me Who I Am, and is brought to us by Bernie Swain, a co-founder of the famous Washington Speakers Bureau. The book starts with Bernie’s own story of overcoming all odds and creating a mammoth enterprise that has benefitted millions of people, and yet started out in the cramped space of an office supply closet, which was his first office.

You’ll hear from Olympic Gold Medalist Mary Lou Retton about how she great up in a small coal mining town in West Virginia and found her way to inspiring the world with her gymnastic exploits. The very things she was criticized for as a child (always jumping and cartwheeling and such) became the keys to her future greatness. Even her small stature, which had seemed a weakness, became in gymnastics a strength.

Terry Bradshaw went from a southern university football team where he was on top of the world, to being a first round draft pick in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers and then, in his words, he got to the big city and managed to “hit the ground stumbling.” He tells about the early failures and terrible humiliations he suffered in the big show before turning things around, in a way that provides a lesson for us all.

Madeline Albright, Tony Blair, Tom Brokaw, James Carville, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lou Holts, Mike Krzyzewski (and I still can’t believe that’s how you spell it), Colin Powell and a big cast of other great people tell you their stories, and reveal the inflection points where tragedy could become triumph, or failure could turn into fame and fortune, largely through attitudes of service, hard work, and persistence.

I was endlessly fascinated and inspired by these stories. I think you will be, too. They’ll give you a bigger and broader sense of the possibilities for your own life, and especially when things are not going great. These high achievers were not ashamed to speak of their flaws and failures, their heartbreaks and mistakes and turnarounds.

You know how, every now and then, you come across a passage in a book and have to run and tell someone about what you just read? There were dozens of places like that. I’m sure my wife got tired of me telling her the story of the girl who went from homeless to Harvard, or what it was like for Scott O’Grady to be shot down behind enemy lines and evade adversaries for days, murderers who would shoot him on site, and often walked within a few feet of where he was hidden. How do you keep cool in a life or death situation? How do you succeed? This book is full of amazing stories that will wow you and motivate you. I wish I could tell you about 20 of the stories right now!

Bernie Swain himself has meant a lot to me. Because of him and his great colleagues, I’ve shared the stage or the program as a speaker with many of the great people whose words are featured in this book, and so many inspirational others. In the early days of my career, I was always coming home to tell my wife that I had shared the podium with Colin Powell, or General Norman Schwarzkopf, or President George HW Bush and Barbara, or James Carville and Mary Matalin, or Mary Lou Retton, or Tom Peters, or Tom Brokaw. And I’d tell her about the thunderstorms that kept me from getting to Dallas in time for a talk and how the football great Terry Bradshaw drove across town to fill my slot so there wouldn’t be a blank stage for an hour. Or that I had just spoken on a program with an astronaut, or the Blue Angels, or The Thunderbirds, or the coach who just won the National Championship, or The Super Bowl, or the World Series. In my early days out of the classroom, Bernie and his associates made it all possible. And now, so many of his friends and my fellow speakers tell stories here that will delight you as they have me, throughout the years. Treat yourself to a great read!

http://amzn.to/2q7CYsh

Our Choices, Our Lives.

With graduation time here again, there's something well worth our reflection. In ancient Rome, only the upper classes had much choice as to occupation. And Cicero pointed out that the age at which such fortunate youth were supposed to choose their path in life was precisely a time when they were least prepared to understand the range of their options and the consequences of their choices. Interestingly, the same truth holds today.

When my friends were seeking to pick their major at UNC, they would most often ask themselves, "What do I want to do for the rest of my life?" And many froze in fear that they'd choose wrongly. My father taught me that, by contrast, and in a Ciceronian mode, "You never have to ask what you want to do for the rest of your life, only what you want to do next. The rest of your life will take care of itself, as a result of these much smaller choices."

In my novel, The Oasis Within, young Walid Shabeezar has just turned thirteen. And as he crosses the desert with his uncle and a group of friends, he discovers something about his family and himself that he had never imagined. The discovery then confronts him with an unanticipated choice. There are certain expectations for him. Will he agree to accept them, or not?

A famous literary agent who read the first draft of the book worried to me about Walid. She said, "But he doesn't really have a choice. He does what he's expected to do. And that just seems unfair." But is it unfair at all?

For most of history, young men and women grew up to do the exact work they had seen their parents do. Hunters became hunters, farmers became farmers, and homemakers engaged in home economics. A blacksmith's son would also begin to shoe horses. A shopkeeper's child would learn that trade, as well. But in more recent decades in the developed world, there has come to be an increasing range of options open to us all. And that's become a problem. Some well-known psychological experiments have shown that if you give people too many choices, our ability to choose at all breaks down. Faced with a display of 100 different jellies in their grocery store, people simply walk away. Confronted by 12, they may make a choice.

Mondrian once said that for a painter contemplating a blank canvas, the first brush stroke is always the hardest, because it eliminates countless other possibilities.

If a young man follows his father's work, or a young woman her mother's, or there is a continuity crossing the gender divide, yet taking family activity into the next generation, has such a person abdicated choice? In my view, not necessarily at all.

Let's consider for a moment the most extreme case. A couple wants to pass on to their children a business they've created. And all but one of the siblings prefer instead to do other things. Will the youngest then face a level of pressure that eliminates any real freedom of choice? Certainly not. Of course, the young person may opt to do something different, however challenging that may be. But suppose, by contrast, that this young adult child does agree to take on the family business and tradition. There are clearly two ways to do "what's expected of you." One way is to defer unwillingly, give in, and allow the choice to be made for you. This is of course a path to resentment and diminishment. But there is another way. And that is to freely embrace what's set before you, and take it up as your own chosen path. In this modality, you take emotional and existential ownership of what's been offered you, and you make it your own. It's a path of career choice that nowadays is rare, but there's nothing inappropriate or inauthentic about it when it's done in full knowledge of options, and with courage as well as compassion.

In like manner, many of us feel a sense of mission in what we're doing. I've felt that since one day in college, when, on a walkway near the math building at UNC, I experienced a sense of calling that was not yet fully specific, but almost an alert that I had a special mission upcoming, one that was soon to be assigned to me. This experience gave me great hope and confidence and enthusiasm about the future. And I immediately embraced whatever this specific mission would be, wholeheartedly and with great gratitude.

Did I not have a choice? Certainly, I did. But I responded ultimately to something that felt given to me, and yet I took my own ownership of the adventure to come, and have so ever since. There's a false view of freedom that we have to make up everything ourselves from scratch in order to preserve the entirety of our integrity. But there's another perspective in accordance with which authenticity means respecting who you most deeply are and what you're most deeply given to do, and then working with that to the utmost of your ability.

I hope for our current graduates that they can come to make such choices well, and in the way that will lead to a deep sense of gratification and fulfillment for them, as well as a greater good for us all.

Dinner with Jeb Bush

I had chicken. He had a baked sweet potato with kale or something else equally exciting.

So. Yeah. I was having dinner with Jeb Bush the other night, along with a few friends, and was explaining to him that I'm not at a university any more, but for 22 years have been an independent philosopher. He said, "Wait. People PAY you for that?" I should have said, "Not enough." But I just said, "Yeah, for a long time now." He couldn't quite wrap his mind around it, even though he's often said to be the bright son in the family. He had to ask again: "Let me get clear on this. You can make a living by just being a philosopher?" Yeah. I know. It's strange. But, hey, so far: Mission Accomplished.

And yet, like Socrates, I'd do it even if nobody ever paid me a penny. I'd surely have to do something else in addition, as many philosophers of the past did. Even Socrates had bills to pay. You need a new toga now and then. Or a tunic. But the vital issues of our lives, the ultimate questions of this life and beyond, are just that important to me. And it's also important for me to share the answers I get with anyone who will listen. For the first two years that I unexpectedly became a public speaker to business and civic groups, like Ralph Waldo Emerson about a century and a half ago, I spoke without any charge. It was fun. And meaningful. I just wanted to do some good. And Notre Dame was paying the bills. Barely. But then the fun activity turned into a thriving business and allowed me to move back to my home state near family and live at the coast, like Epictetus when he himself was freed from the grind. Full time pondering at the beach. It's hard to beat.

And I really appreciate you all who read these little postings, now and then, where I often just put up small ideas that have occurred to me as I sit at my computer. I can't always be out giving talks across the country. I love to be at home. And posting like this gives me a chance to still interact during the day, even when I'm mostly writing or editing a book. So thanks for reading and commenting. I think this way of doing philosophy would make more sense to Jeb, because no money whatsoever is exchanged over it. Just like politics, right? Cheers!

More Random Morning Thoughts

Too many people condemn things they don't understand, mistaking a lack of grasp for a grasp of lack.

Sympathetic understanding is a spiritual discipline that can be transformative.

We’re here to expand our perspectives, our knowledge, our wisdom, our compassion, and thus our souls.

Depending on your outer circumstances for your inner peace is always a mistake. The turbulence of events around us can never produce the calm we need.

True peace comes from deep within, but can never bubble all the way to the surface if there are obstacles in the way. I should regularly ask what obstacles are in my heart.

The oasis within each of us needs cultivation. And only we can do the inner work to keep it in good condition.

Harmony strengthens. Disharmony weakens. A proper pursuit of truth, goodness, beauty, and unity is thus not unrelated to our other goals.

Souls can be tuned together, as we sometimes see on championship sports teams or, much more rarely, in business. Such harmony is peak power and a way of joy.

Soul-Sucking Work

A friend said today that he works in a soul sucking environment. And I decided to pass on to him a paraphrase of some advice a guy named Boethius got in the year 524. He was also in a soul sucking situation, sitting in prison on a false charge, lamenting his fate, and Philosophy came to visit him—in the form of a beautiful lady. She brought him a great and useful perspective on his fall from wealth and political prominence into the small stark cell that now held him, as he awaited an unjust execution. And he wrote up the advice that comforted him in a small book that still speaks to us today, a book called The Consolation of Philosophy.

So here's my wild and loose paraphrase of the big picture advice for anyone who feels like they're in "a soul sucking environment," and working for hostile people.

If they've got a straw, don't be a soda. Don't even be a shake. Be instead, a thick steak. Don't fit into any straw. Your soul is not anyone else's to take away.

So, Ok, Lady Philosophy is a little more detailed. But that's what it comes down to. When we build up our own inner wisdom and virtue, no environment can suck away our vital spirits, or the essence of our soul. We become transformative instead. And then, perhaps the environment will stop sucking. At least, for us. But if they go for a knife and fork, take care.

The Keynote Philosopher

This is the season when I begin to fill in my speaking schedule for the year. It always makes me smile. I look back in great enjoyment of all the audiences in the past 12 to 24 months, and look ahead to all the good that can be accomplished with the most practical philosophy in the context of modern business throughout 2017. I've done the joyous work of a public philosopher now for more than 25 years. And I love to see how the wisdom of the ages always has a huge positive impact. 

I want to thank all of you who have invited me in the past to speak to your group, whether it was an audience of 10 people or 10,000. It's always a great experience, from an hour keynote to half a day's workshop. If you have a meeting coming up and would like to talk about my being a part of it, come by www.TomVMorris.com, look over the topics I most often address, scan recent clients and testimonials, and let me know about your group. As a contemporary thinker myself, I can always tailor a presentation to exactly your needs, or create a new talk around your chief concerns.

All the time, people ask me such things as: Did the great thinkers of the past have any secrets about dealing with challenging change? Can you explain how such a difficult person as Steve Jobs had such incredible success in his lifetime? Is there any deep philosophical insight available on the issue of life balance? What makes for the best and most powerful company cultures? What creates loyalty inside a business, and with clients? What do our leaders need to know right now about the deepest wellsprings of human nature? How can we best deal with the various uncertainties we face?

In our time of great change, challenge, and immense uncertainty, we all need the sure guidance of ideas that have stood the test of time. The best wisdom of the past can lead us into the future like nothing else. And we can have a great time together considering the insights that we may need right now. For me, it's always a special experience. There's nothing like telling a story, laughing a lot together, and then seeing the wisdom of the great philosophers honored so often with a long, loud standing ovation. Plato would be pleased.

The topics that have been the most enthusiastically received in the past year include:

True Success: The Art of Achievement in Times of Change

Plato's Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great

The Four Foundations of Greatness

The Essential Jobs@Work: Leadership Secrets from Steve Jobs

It's an amazing experience to follow in the footsteps of Ralph Waldo Emerson in traveling the country and various parts of the world, speaking to companies, associations, civic groups, universities, and conventions of all kinds, as well as to small gatherings of CEOs and leaders across industries. I see the same needs in every context, because human nature is universal. And so are our challenges. It's amazing what we can learn from Lao Tsu, or Aristotle, or Seneca, or Emerson himself that may be just the thing to give us the edge we need now. And in every situation, I'm thrilled to be the keynote philosopher who can make a difference.

Hill A and Hill B Insight

This past week, I had a new and very different insight connected with a story I’ve told many times. It involved a novel interpretation of a powerpoint drawing I’ve long used to illustrate the story. The point I normally use the drawing to make is the philosophical advice that we should not allow what is very good to keep us from what is best. While a vision of the best should never be an enemy of the good and prevent our enjoyment of it, in its own time, the comfort and proper pride of something good we’ve attained should also not keep us from exploring new heights of achievement. Life is supposed to be a series of adventures. A first good form of success shouldn’t imprison us, but rather empower us to go on and try even higher, or richer, levels of achievement.

The powerpoint slide in question shows two hills, as above, one of medium height and another some distance away that’s of much greater height. I call the shorter one, Hill A, and the taller one, Hill B. And here’s the usual story.

Imagine that you’re on a hike out in the woods and you’re leading a group of people. Suppose you set it as your goal to get to the highest point in the area, from which you’ll be able to survey all the surrounding terrain. And imagine that the highest point you can now see is the peak of Hill A. Whether it’s fog, or mist, or just perspective that blocks any other view, that’s the highest peak you can see from where you are initially. So, in order to attain your goal, you lead the group up Hill A. It’s a struggle. You slip and fall and pull yourselves back up, and finally you get to the top, from which vantage point you can now suddenly see the much higher Hill B. 

At this point in the story, I like to ask: If your goal is to get to the highest point in the area, and you now stand atop Hill A, where you can suddenly see that the highest point is really on Hill B, then what’s the first thing you’ll have to do to attain your true goal? And people inevitably answer, “Go downhill.” And I reply that, yes, they’re right. I also point out that when any leader suggests such a thing, nearly everyone on the team will tend to say or think, “No! It took us a long time to get up Hill A! It’s perfectly fine up here! We’re plenty high! We can see a lot from where we already are! We shouldn’t have to go downhill now at all! We should just stay and enjoy where we are.” It’s nearly universal. Nobody wants to go downhill.

My usual point is that many businesses, individuals, and even families are stuck on their own Hill A, because of the common reluctance to go downhill—which metaphorically represents changing what you’ve just been doing, leaving behind what might be a perfectly good success that you’ve had, and launching into the risk of trying something new and even better. Of course, any new journey will in its initial stage involve getting out of the proverbial comfort zone, and putting yourself into a new position where you’re deserting something good. Because of this, too many companies get stuck in their first form of success and nobody wants to go downhill, which is the only way to change, adapt, and discover new and better forms of achievement. And so the world passes them by. Champions, however, love a challenge, and are open to start the downhill trek as the first and necessary stage in any new and bigger ascent.

The novel insight I just had was simple and revelatory. A panel discussion right before I spoke recently and used this story was on the topic of adversity and overcoming failures in business. I then realized that there’s another way to use my drawing. Many people high up on Hill A get shoved off their place of success by circumstances and are pushed down the side, whether by economic factors they had never anticipated, or the actions of competitors, or changes in the industry. What they were doing and so proud of succeeding at is no longer available, and they find themselves tumbling down the side of Hill A.

Here’s the flash of good news: The sooner you can reframe the descent down Hill A as the first stage in a possible ascent of a higher Hill B, the sooner you turn that downward trajectory into something great: PROGRESS. You’re no longer just tumbling down, you’re moving forward. 

When you set new goals during bad times, you begin to take charge of what you can control, and leave aside what you can’t control. And you can then expand that circle. Tough times can become positive transitions if you make them so. Adversity can contain within itself a gift, and even a momentum that can take you to somewhere great, if you’ll just intervene by reframing your situation and setting new goals. This is stoic wisdom. It’s philosophical insight that you can use. So, whether you’re flourishing or falling, look for the next higher hill, and set a goal to get there.

Dreams and Unconscious Creativity

The unconscious mind works in strange and sometimes wonderful ways. The other night, I was awakened by a loud thunderstorm passing over the beach. I law awake in the dark room listening to the booms that echoed over us. Then I fell back asleep and dreamed.

In the dream my old friend Norman Lear was taping some segments for a TV show. He asked me on camera, "Why are so many classic fairy tales so violent?" It was a question I had never been asked, and had never really contemplated. But as a philosopher, you can ask me anything and I'll start thinking about it—even in a dream.

In my most confident dream demeanor, I spontaneously answered that the classic fairy tales, like the grim fables of the Brothers Grimm, and also like many ancient myths and modern superhero stories, serve to prepare young people as well as the rest of us for a world that's challenging, sometimes scary, and always uncertain. These stories are like flight simulators for pilots, who are exposed virtually to every emergency situation imaginable so that in real life, if ever confronted with one, they can respond more calmly and with prior practice as to how to act and what to do. Now, it's not as if we're likely to come across an old lady in the woods who bakes little kids into pies for her oven, or a frightening wolf that's just eaten a grandmother, or a fire breathing dragon. But we will have scares and difficulties and unanticipated challenges in our lives, and we need to be ready to meet and overcome them.

Many old stories prepare us for this. And some give us the assurance or inspiration that we can stand up to danger and prevail, even against terrible odds and awful scenarios.

I woke up from this dream and my answers to the camera amazed at how my unconscious mind had knit together a variety of disparate experiences I had gone through over the previous weeks. My wife and I had been watching a Food Network competition show called Food Network Star, where the contestants trying to get their own television show were often asked to explain something for the first time in front of a camera. Ah. I had also recently been in touch with my old friend Norman Lear, the great television producer and creator. And my wife and I had just watched, back-to-back the movies "Joy" and "The Martian" where individuals are challenged in scary and daunting ways and, against overwhelming odds, manage to prevail. I had just been invited to help out on camera for a television special on superheroes in American history. And I had also been asked to speak to a large group of physicians about dealing with the career stress that results from all the challenges and uncertainties of modern medical practice. And all these unrelated things managed to bring elements into my dream.

That's one of the powers of the unconscious mind—it can knit together apparently unrelated things into insights and ideas we can use right away. It's a great cauldron of creativity. But we have to give it time to work, and then a way to bring its treasures into our conscious minds. Sometimes sitting meditation is just the thing. Sometimes, a mindful walk down the street is all it takes. Getting beyond the chatter and beneath the clutter of our everyday thoughts, moving them aside, turning down the volume, allows the great inventions or discoveries of our unconscious mind to bubble up into consciousness in a way that can often offer great guidance.

Open the door to your unconscious mind, and you may find that you have treasures of wisdom that surprise you.

Philosophy's Bad Rap and a Slightly Better One

Philosophy has a bad reputation as remote from the world—arcane, esoteric and impractical. And you can certainly philosophize in that way. But I don't recommend it. In my view, the best philosophy searches out and embraces the deepest wisdom for living and working in the world.

My new philosophy friend Ryan Stelzer, co-founder of the Boston based philosophical consulting firm Strategy of Mind, just posted a nice piece on LinkedIn about how the top fashion designer Brunello Cucinelli uses philosophy and great literature to enhance the life of his business, by sparking the lives of his associates. Cucinelli started his firm with an investment equal to about $550 US dollars and now has a personal wealth of over a billion. And he does things the right way. His success displays the wisdom of good philosophy, well applied. In fact, he often cites the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius as among his favorite philosophy books.

In a fun reply to Stelzer's nice essay, I did a quick rap recommending philosophy. And just now, I augmented my silliness to make it clear that I'm not puffing just any philosophy, but only the good stuff. I've blogged poems, essays, book reviews, quotes and tweets before. So here's my first rap. Do this in the voice of Wyclif Jean or your favorite kindred performer, for full effect. So Ok then. Turn up the speakers, and go:

Cucinelli style philosophy is, you know, a part of me, even more than luxury, a necessity in complexity if you see the humanity of a wisdom trip, better than a cool sip of bubbly Moet down in hot San Tropez, live another day with the insights of the ages and the thoughts of all the sages, if you look in the book that has the right hook you can throw out the crook who might have shook you and be shocking you and blocking you with his big Mercedes—go and tell the ladies that the tonic is Platonic and you can please with Socrates every day that you play with philosophy to make the rules and leave the fools who think it’s all just numbers don’t you ever wonder what kind of thunder will come from going deep with thoughts that keep coming at us all these years, overcoming fears, wiping tears, and making for careers—whatever you’re selling, whether grape jelly or Brunello Cucinelli.

Word. When I plug philosophy it’s the best and not the rest I use to feather up my nest but it’s sad how the bad sometime gets prime whether you’re a penny or a dime and takes the heart outa you and what you do since it got a wrong start with old Descartes who put that horse before the cart and laid it all on me, but with him it was he, the ego don’t you know that cogito where it then ergo starts to blow the whole thing up, and ‘sup with that, I smell a rat and take it to the mat cause that ego ain’t no amigo, just be free go back to Plato and a full throttle OG my man Aristotle—you got to bottle that stuff and be tough with true blue virtue and I’ll just geek and give the Greek, ARATAY is the word for the day and that’s how you say it, live it, give it, play it for Rene and we can see a better way and you know, hey, ditch the Yugo and gimme dubs I’m a Maserati hero wrapped up in Cucinelli. Yo.

Power and Happiness

What's the proper role of power in our lives? How should we think of it? How is it to be used?

A few days ago, I spoke to an amazing group of people in New York City—the Chief Information and Chief Technology Officers from over twenty major companies like 3M, AOL, CITI, NBC Universal, The Bank of New York, DreamWorks, 20Th Century Fox, and Halliburton. It was quite a band of philosophers.
 
In our session, we considered Aristotle’s view that the secret of human motivation is to be found in the fact that, in everything we do, all of us seek happiness, or wellbeing. If we can understand what this means, we have a leverage in our work and in our lives that’s otherwise unavailable.

And so, with this claim in mind, we quickly examined together three basic views of happiness—as pleasure, peace, or participation in something that brings fulfillment. This last contention, I believe, can actually encompass and extend the importance of both pleasure and peace in a life of happiness. Fulfilling work brings pleasure. And it also encourages a measure of inner peace. Fundamentally happy people then tend to be more committed and more creative in their work together. So my suggestion was that it’s important to explore what makes for fulfilling work and fulfilling relationships. That may give us the foundations for a great work culture that will attract and retain top talent, and provide a safe place where that talent can flourish in innovative ways.
 
My initial claim was then that we all encounter the world each day along four dimensions of experience:
 
The Intellectual Dimension, that aims at Truth
The Aesthetic Dimension, that aims at Beauty
The Moral Dimension, that aims at Goodness
The Spiritual Dimension, that aims at Unity
 
Accordingly, we do our best work together when we respect and nurture these four dimensions and these four ideals of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, which then turn out to be Four Foundations of Greatness.

During our session, as we were contemplating these four concepts, one participant asked me an interesting question: “What about Power?” No one had ever asked that before.
 
We were focused on Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. But the philosopher Machiavelli once claimed that the entire goal of human life is the acquisition, use, expansion, and maintenance of power. Regardless of the accuracy of his philosophy as a statement about life, we certainly have to be concerned, in leadership positions, about power in all those ways.
 
So what about power? Is there another dimension of human experience with the target, or ideal, of power? Should The Four Foundations instead be Five? If not, how is power to be understood?
 
Here’s what I think. Power is not to be considered as an equally fundamental and fifth foundation of greatness, largely because, so far as I can see, there is no distinctive and fundamental dimension of human experience whose target or ideal it is. But it’s extremely important in its own way. And it’s related to our framework in a different and fascinating manner.
 
Power determines how the Four Foundations of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity are accessed and managed. Power is what allows to you get to the Truth and then give it to others. Without the requisite power, you often can’t unearth the truth you need, and you can’t make it widely understood, or make sure it's used in the best ways. But then, of course, there’s also a converse implication. Power allows you to obscure the truth and hide it. And this applies in analogous ways to Beauty, Goodness, and Unity.

In all cases, power is about accessing and managing these ideals, and thereby determining whether or how those around you experience them. It's about the possibility of getting things done, in harmony with Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, or not.
 
For a leader, power exists along a spectrum, and at each point, has degrees. That spectrum ranges from Influence to Force. There are degrees of influence just like there are degrees of force. You can be more or less persuasive in inspiring people to do things. That’s influence. And you can be more or less effective in making people do things. That’s force. The type and degree of power you have, along with how you choose to exercise it, can affect deeply the consideration of how you’re able to access and manage, and then respect and nurture Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity in your organization, among your colleagues, and in your life.
 
We also spoke in our session about the famous Golden Rule. When we can create a culture where we all tend to treat others the way we’d want to be treated, with respect to Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, I believe we become better at using and sharing the power we have available. And we can in that way actually expand it well.

As the philosopher Francis Bacon once told us, a bit metaphorically, knowledge (our grasp of truth) is power. It can certainly bring power. The more we expand the available knowledge in our organizations, the more we expand the power we collectively have to do great things. We can then help others to attain, exercise, and maintain their own power in all the best ways. And we then enjoy a vibrant culture where, as leaders, we’re helping others to achieve peaks of performance in our work together that would otherwise be impossible to attain. We’ll attract great people. And we will tend to retain them in a type of enterprise they won’t want to leave. Through the use of philosophical wisdom, we’ll thereby provide the greener pastures that the best people always aspire to find. And that’s a nice result of power, indeed.
 
 

The Power of What You Wear

When I was a graduate student at Yale and got my first part time job teaching at the nearby University of New Haven, I was really nervous about commanding a classroom by myself. I had no track record as a teacher. I had no evidence I could be great at this. It's one thing to be a top learner, and another to pass it on, although as I was later to learn, the two are deeply connected. We never really master something at the deepest level until we've taught it to others. But that's another blog.

At the time I was an avid runner. I did about six miles a day through the woods of Connecticut. And it made me feel great. After hours of intellectual work in the morning, I'd lace up my New Balance running shoes and go out on the road where I'd often experience the first exhilaration of the day. After ten or fifteen minutes, I'd be inwardly flying, in total flow, and expanding my consciousness. It was great. My enjoyment of those runs was such that even lacing up my shoes beforehand gave me a confident tingle of anticipation forthe great stuff that was soon to come.

I don't know how I decided to do it, but it occurred to me one day that I had this great pair of light tan tall leather hiking boots. I decided I'd wear them to teach, and that each day, as I laced them up and tied them on, I'd visualize a great class, smiling students, laughs, intellectual revelations, and a great experience had by all. It got to the point where just putting on those boots gave me a sense of power and confidence. They became my superhero boots.

Years later, I was a professor at Notre Dame. Like most of my colleagues, I taught in wrinkled khakis and tennis shirts, wearing whatever shoes the weather demanded. But one semester while I was on leave of absence, which was a coveted opportunity to focus on creative work, I was supposed to write a couple of books. And it wasn't happening. I'd sit down and draw a blank. And this went on day after day. My mother had modeled some in her youth, and often bought me suits I'd never wear, except when it was really necessary. One day, it came to me out of the blue that maybe if I dressed up in a suit and tie before showing up to write, I'd be taking myself more seriously as a writer. So I did. And the wildest thing happeed. Ideas poured forth. The muse liked what I had on. So I continued the practice.

Then when I returned to the classroom, I decided that I'd show my students special respect by dressing up for them. Their presence became the special occasion. And they loved it. At the time, it was very different for a professor my age to show up in a suite and tie, or s sport coat and bright bow tie. I then brought into the classroom the new power I had discovered in the study while writing. When I dressed like it was an important occasion, it became one. And I found new power for the challenge.

Does this always work? Some new psychological studies seem to indicate there may be more to it than we might suppose. There's been a recent claim that wearing a suit may even help you think in a more formal and abstract way, transcending the details of what you confront and reaching out creatively to new insights.

Of course, I'm telling you this as I sit at my desk in a crazy tie-dyed T shirt and khaki shorts. So, don't get carried away. But still, consider that how you dress may send signals, not only to others, but also to your own subconscious. And perhaps you can set up the signals as I've done a few times in my life. Then, when you're entering an uncertain or challenging situation, those shoes, or that suit, or that lucky tie may just give you a boost.

So, maybe I need to go change.

Dan Lyons, "Disrupted," and Startup Culture

I just read Dan Lyons' new book Disrupted: My Misadventures in the Startup Bubble. The first half of the book had me laughing out loud, again and again. The second half had me worrying about current dangers to rational business culture, and our overall economy.

Dan was a senior tech editor and writer at Newsweek, following a stint at Forbes. He had interviewed and met many of the main players in the tech world over the years, and pretty much thought he had a good feel for what was going on in the realm of tech startups. Young people were creating companies with sometimes crazy ideas, making serious money in the early funding stages, and finally real fortunes in taking those companies public, whether they ever made a profit or not. When Dan's job was terminated at Newsweek, he decided to enter into this world where big money could be made. He was hired by a Boston company called HubSpot. And the book is about his surprising time there.

When I first read the great novel Don Quixote, I remember thinking that some people would see the title character as the paradigm of a creative visionary, seeing things that others could never even dream or imagine. They would become Sancho Panzas of the Don, excited loyal followers hoping to get their own little island of fantasy rewards from faithfully following along on the journey. Others, of course, would view Senior Quixote right away as an unhinged madman, a delusional character who will easily ruin the life of anyone crazy or gullible enough to follow him.

Lyons' new book raises some interesting questions about the errant knight-founders of the current technology world. Who is a true visionary and who's just a madman? And, oh yeah, who might be simply an ordinary charlatan, but now with extraordinary tools of deceit? No one is riding an old horse or a small donkey, and "tilting at windmills." They're all riding the wave of the future, and many are getting crazy rich off the gullibility, hopes, and ambitions of others.

What struck me about Lyons' experiences is that he was exposed to grandiosity, silliness, incompetence, petty nastiness, cluelessness, craziness, well disguised cynicism, and even perhaps a real depth of psychopathic and sociopathic evil in the workplace. And it all, rolled together, makes some people rich.

We live in an unusual time, where magical thinking, new age superstition, hyperbole, and good old fashioned cheer-leading mixed in with a cultural expectation on the part of many younger people that everything should be entertaining and fun, all conspire together to allow our current Don Quixotes to become Pied Pipers on a massive scale. And of course, we see the Dons in contemporary politics as well as business, on every level.

The current snake oil salesmen don't work out of the backs of wagons or old trucks preaching the virtues of their elixirs to rubes on the street. They start companies, find VC funding, and create fun places to work where all their carefully selected Sancho Panzas can toil in hopes of "changing the world," or enriching themselves along the way.

I've been writing about the opposite way of running a business since the mid-nineties, in books such as True Success,  If Aristotle Ran General Motors and If Harry Potter Ran General Electric. And I happen to like fun, even silly fun every now and then. But I like even more business cultures that are built on the ancient transcendent ideals of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity - not as slogans, but as realities of day to day work. I believe in the Aristotelian virtues, the deepest elements of the Tao, and the Christian core concept, nearly lost today, of the power in humility.

I believe in real wisdom. And I see the slick criminals and grandiose madmen of our time as using faux wisdom, the counterfeits of real insights, and a deceptive rhetoric wrapped around genuine human needs to forward their own agendas and line their own pockets. As a philosopher who has been fighting for the right approaches for decades now, I urge younger thinkers to join me in providing the true knowledge and authentic insight that's needed by modern business, as we swim a sea now of not only sharks, but poisonous conceptual pollution as well.

Dan Lyons' book is an entertaining and eye-opening wake up call to anyone who cares about the deeply positive role that good business can play in the modern world. When you run into a modern Don Quixote recruiting your work, or soliciting your investment, or appealing for your business with sky-high rhetoric, you would be best off running in the opposite direction. Don't be misled.

The Joy of the Deeper Mind at Work

Joy awaits us all. When we work with the ordinary levels of our mind, everything's harder that it could be. When we clear away the clutter and get beyond the chatter of the normal conscious mind, joyous magic can happen.

I recently posted on social media that I had, a few days ago, finished the final major editing of the eight books that now exist in a series of novels that I've been working on for five years, since February 2011. It's the first experience of writing where I wasn't working hard in my conscious mind to think and compose. It was all a gift of the deeper mind, a layer of mentality or soul, if you will, that we all have, but that we don't often enough draw on, day to day.

These books and the stories they convey came to me, as I've said before, like a movie in my head, a translucent screening of an action and adventure story far beyond anything I could ever have created out of my ordinary operating resources. In fact, when I first started reading the manuscripts out loud to my wife, she interrupted to say, "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?" It was all that different from my nineteen previous books, all non-fiction.

One reviewer of the prologue to the series, The Oasis Within, suggested that a series of conversations between people crossing the desert wasn't that big a stretch for me, and not that far out of my comfort zone as a philosopher who is always talking about life wisdom. And he was right. But there are all these little details and plot points in Oasis that I never would have thought to develop. And there's a reason that The Oasis Within is a prologue to the new series and not a numbered volume of it. It's mostly great conversations. It prepares one of the characters for the action that's to come. And it prepared me for it, as well. But a younger reader, or a reader who just loves action can start with Book One of the series, Walid and the Mysteries of Phi, the book that's now recently out by the title The Golden Palace, which is full of action, adventure, mystery, and intrigue and brings us philosophy in an entirely new key. And all the other books are like that one in this regard, too. It's like slowly walking up to a door, and opening it, and what's inside takes you completely by surprise and launches you into an adventure that just won't stop.

Early in the process, when I learned to calm my conscious mind and just relax and release, the magic would happen. With the deeper mind at work, you feel more like a receptacle, or a conduit. I've mentioned here before, I think, Elizabeth Gilbert's new book Big Magic, where she tells several stories about this remarkable kind of creative experience. It's joyous and practically effortless in its level of self-perceived exertion. How often can we say of our job, paradoxically, that "It's the hardest I've ever worked" and "It's the easiest thing I've ever done" and "It's been pure joy" all at the same time?

This is a hallmark of the deeper mind at work. There is amazing persistence of accomplishment and a sense of ease, and an overflowing of joy to match. The joy is wondrous, deep and high, wide and focused, inner and outer somehow at the same time. It animates everything else you do. It's remarkable, and it's maybe meant to be our most natural state—when we've peeled away all else, all the accretions of consciousness and contrary emotion, when we get down, deep to our most fundamental resource, one that's both natural and transformative at the same time.

I heartily recommend working from your deeper mind and experiencing the joy that's there awaiting you. I'm hoping that another book will also come to me the same way. After a million and two thousand and five hundred and more words, I feel like I'm just getting started. And isn't that the way our work should feel?

On the Team: The NFL and You.

I’m sitting in the Little Rock Airport at Burger King. It’s 9:40 AM and time for lunch. Yeah, that’s how messed up you get when you travel too much. So, a guy in a brightly colored pro football team T-shirt walks by and stops when he sees another guy wearing a different team’s jersey. He gives the stranger a thumbs up and says, “You guys did real good the other day.” And then I hear:

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You got a great defense.”

“It’s been a surprise. We didn’t know we’d be this good.”

“Well it was a nice win.”

“Yeah, thanks, we needed it. And you guys are going to be Ok.”

“We got to work on offense a little more.”

“Yeah. It’ll happen. You’ll be fine.”

And so it went on, for a little longer, as if these semi-portly middle-aged men shuffling through the airport with roller-bags were themselves players or back office executives at their respective NFL teams. There was a sense of identity and belonging that got my attention. All the “you guys” and the “we” references spoke to a deep human need for affiliation. What’s really interesting is that we don’t often get that need met in our neighborhoods, or churches, or workplaces where we spend most of our time, but in connection with favored sporting teams.

Something that distinctively impressed me about these two men was their affable spirit. The other team was something to be respected, and even admired, and not at all disliked, and so was the fan of that team. They spoke of their respective tribes like they were really involved, first hand, in tribal activities. And I suppose they actually are, in their own ways. Not everyone who is part of the action has to be on the turf, wearing protective equipment.

We should remember this deep need for belonging, or for affiliation. If we can cultivate more of it at work, we can connect up with deep resources in the human spirit that need to be called into play for the best results to happen.

And then, who knows? We may make it to the playoffs.

The Megaphone of Power

The famous South African film director jumped out of his chair and ran up to me, stopping only when his nose was six inches from mine. "I'm right here. I'm this close," he nearly whispered to me. And then he held up his right thumb and index finger four inches apart and said, "I'm this big and I live in the lens of that camera. You're talking to somebody this big. Do you understand?"

Yeah. I suddenly understood. I was making television commercials for Disney's Winnie the Pooh, and I had never acted before in front of film cameras. I was speaking to fill the enormous sound stage. I needed only to reach the microphone. Later, I saw a great video on acting done by Michael Caine where he talks about people making a transition from stage to film. Actors accustomed to projecting back to the cheap seats and gesturing on a big scale had to become accustomed to a medium where a raised eyebrow might be all that it took to convey a point.

In today's New York Times, I came across a very good article by Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School, entitled, "When You're In Charge, Your Whisper May Feel Like a Shout." The point of the article was that when you're in a position of power or authority over others, your words tend to get amplified far more than you may realize. A whisper can sound like a shout. You have to watch what you casually say, because there's a megaphone effect at work, and you're not on the end where you hear the extra volume.

I had been a Notre Dame professor speaking in the early years without a microphone to hundreds of students in big auditoriums. My wife always had to remind me at home that I didn't need to project. Oratory was not required in the kitchen. And it wasn't just me. Winston Churchill knew a man who could not make the transition from public speaking to private conversation, and once said of him, "He addresses me as if I were a multitude." We're not always aware of our tone, or volume, when talking to others. Adam Galinsky's essay reminds us that when we're in charge, our words are large. We need to be aware of that, and modulate appropriately.

In my favorite blog, Brain Pickings, I came across a remark this morning that was once made by Gloria Steinem that's both related to this point and wise. She said,

One of the simplest paths to deep change is for the less powerful to speak as much as they listen, and for the more powerful to listen as much as they speak.

When we listen to people more, we learn better what they need to hear and how they need to hear it. And when we encourage them to speak up, we can become less likely to use our own voices, as leaders, in ways that are loud and alarming.

I'm a pubic speaker. But I've learned over the years that to do it well, I have to be just as good at being a public listener. Then I know what to say, and how to say it. I hope the same for you.

Unusual Places to Philosophize

I'm just back from a great national meeting in Orlando for ValMark Securities, where I had the chance yesterday to philosophize with hundreds of wonderful people, thanks to the sponsorship and support of Lincoln Financial. We were in a beautiful ballroom in one of the few top Orlando hotels I had never spoken in before. The Loews Portofino Bay was an elegant and perfect venue for relexing and exploring the wisdom of the ages.

And in the midst of that great environment, a question arose in conversation. Where was the most unusual place I'd ever spoken to an audience as a philosopher? I had to think. And I ended up with an interesting list. I've philosophized in such places as:

A private home in Texas, on the family's third floor, full-size basketball court, to 150 people

The middle of the Baltic Sea, in the ballroom of what seemed to me a titanic cruise ship, that later sank

The Detroit Lions Football Stadium, on the fifty yard line

Outside in a big field in Alabama, in 100 degrees, under a tent, after another big field talk out in the country near Roanoke Rapids, NC 

On a large, private Gulfstream Jet, pictured above, where I used a white board while speaking to 11 company presidents

In the Mecca in Milwaukee, where the Bucks used to play basketball, to 5,000 people

In an old Elk's Club in rural Illinios, where I was given the Key to the City by the Mayor but was told that no one ever locked anything anyway

In Camp Snoopy, inside The Mall of America

In an otherwise regular looking, fairly nondescript room whose most notable feature was that it was big enough that it could accommodate the 10,000 people philosophizing with me that day

In the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica, at a rural mountain lodge

In the middle of the East Carolina University Basketball Arena, to thousands of teachers

At a well known New York City Disco, on the dance floor, under the disco lights, and surrounded by an audience of hundreds of people around a balcony and on the floor holding drinks

There have also been many schools, churches, retreat centers, old buildings, glass buildings, high rise, low rise, and no rise locations amid all the ballrooms and convention centers along the way. 

The lesson I take from this when I relfect back over it all is that you can philosophize to good effect almost anywhere, and under nearly any circumstances. For over a hundred years, our culture has too often limited serious philosophy to college and university classrooms, where the discussions can sometimes rise so high in abstraction that they seem to lose all breathable air. But Cicero once praised Socrates in these words, or actually their Latin equivalent:

He was the first to call philosophy down from the sky and establish her in towns, and bring her into homes, and force her to investigate the life of men and women, ethical conduct, good and evil.

It's been my unexpected joy to be able to do something of the same in our own time, on my own level, and in my own way, redoing the job begun by the famous progenitor of public philosophy, a job that needs to be done anew in every century, in every generation. I feel a deep gratitude to all who have invited me to come and do it, in whatever circumstances. And I look forward to the locations yet to come! I hope you get to join me in one of them for some philosophical reflection on our lives.