Aristotle in the Kitchen

My wife visited the town of Napa with our granddaughter, to hang out with our son and his wife for a week. They had just toured the gardens of The French Laundry restaurant and were pulling out of their parking space when she suddenly noticed that someone in chef attire had appeared in the garden. "Look, one of the chefs!" She announced. And our son said, "That's not just one of the chefs. I think that's the man himself."

"Turn the car around!"

She jumped out and briskly approached the famous Thomas Keller, who was speaking to his culinary gardener. Her first words, as reported by our grand daughter, were, "You're like a god to me." He was gracious in response, and friendly in his reaction to the unexpected visit. They shook hands and all posed for a couple of photographs amid the vegetables.

Why is he so widely admired? Why has Keller's restaurant The French Laundry been such a mythical dining destination for so long? What's also responsible for the excellence also of his restaurant and bakery Bouchon, the equally estimable Ad Hoc, and his New York outpost, Per Se, as well as other venues around the country?

From the testimony of those who work closely with him, Thomas Keller lives the excellence he teaches, and in every way. He embodies the positive spirit that pervades his enterprises. His staff talk about his attention to detail, his work ethic, his mentoring, his nurture, and how he builds their confidence, not only about their work, but in everything they do. Their core values go with them in and out of the kitchen, throughout the entirety of their daily lives. When the chef hires people, he tells them that it's his goal to make them better than he is. And they say they love working with him. It's a community of excellence in the best way, and results in what the gardener called magic.

It's interesting for me, as a philosopher, to note that, in the kitchen of The French Laundry, prominently displayed, is Aristotle's statement:

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

And that's the truth. Every leader makes excellence a habit. Any person who customarily creates something extraordinary does so, too. Habit, you see, is character, and as another philosopher, Heraclitus, once said, "Character is destiny."

A great short video, well worth watching, about Chef Keller and how this works, in the Napa Valley and beyond, can be found at http://youtu.be/0CElD6fkouQ.

Courage in 5 Tweets

I was looking through my little book Twisdom and came across a few old tweets on courage, a topic I've mentioned recently in responding to a blog post comment. These tweets struck me anew and generated some nice additional pondering, so I thought I'd share them today. 

1. The courageous souls around us are here to remind us what we’re here to be.

2. Only courage will crack the thick shell of possibility and yield us the treasures within.

3. Courage is willing to walk in darkness while shining a light for others to follow.

4. Courage is something we have deep down in us when we need it – if we’ll just reach for it and act!

5. Courage is the power of choice even in the face of fear.

 It was number two that really got me thinking. How much possibility is unrealized in the world and in our lives, because we're not bold or brave enough to crack the shell around it? In the coming year, let's be courageous in little things as well as in big things. We need it. And so does the world. And that leads me to number three.

Shine your light.

How To Handle Rejection

A book that's taken me eight years to finish, going through 24 versions, and six different titles,  has finally become, perhaps, my favorite nonfiction book I've ever had the joy and honor to conceive and write. And, so far, it's been rejected by potential publishers, in one version or another, 45 times.

My record before this was 36 rejections, for my first book, one that I wrote when I was twenty-one years old. The 37th editor who saw that manuscript said yes, and so I was a published author at age twenty-two, because I didn't give up. 

After that early stutter-start as an author, though, I've hardly ever tasted the disappointment of no. Instead, I came to enjoy a rare three-decade streak of unusual publishing success, producing twenty nonfiction books that launched me first into a great academic career, and then into a wild adventure as a public philosopher. 

The new book that no one wants to publish is all about the wisdom of the great practical philosophers on how to respond to change, and especially, how to deal with difficulty. And with it, I've suddenly experienced a very big change. I've never had such difficulty with any project. But the nice irony is that I've been able to use the advice of the book throughout the process of dealing with publishers, and I've learned how well all the wisdom of the ages works. I've attained a level of inner resilience and sustained confidence through it all to make Seneca or Marcus Aurelius proud.

Remember the old adage: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Everyone says it, but no one says how to do it. The philosophers have great advice on this. So, the new book is called Plato's Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great. Editors at the major publishers have said that it's elegantly written, and that it contains important ideas. They've praised my past work, my present "platform" and the impact my books have, both in this country and around the world. They just worry that the new book would not be "big enough" for them, which in publisher-speak apparently means that it would not grab enough media attention and sell enough copies for all of us to retire and buy Kardashian-style Bentleys.

Only two editors, after various nice comments, added a clear concern. 

One said, "It's a little too prescriptive."

The other said, "It's not prescriptive enough."

Here's what I do. I don't let a spate of difficulty or rejection derail me. And you shouldn't either. The gatekeepers of any industry or enterprise are typically most comfortable with what they already know. And they may not know you, or understand what you're doing with your new idea, product, or process. But that doesn't determine the value of what you're doing, or how you should do it.

Creativity sometimes has a long road to walk. Dust off your shoes and keep walking.

Have your ideas been rejected? Have you been shot down? Well, remember that the Beatles were rejected and told, early on, that guitar music was "on the way out." The Dixie Chicks were advised to give up. They'd never make it in music. J.K. Rowling was informed over and over that there would be no market for her books about a kid named Harry Potter. And just yesterday, I read a book about one of my favorite movies ever - The Princess Bride - and how every major studio turned it down for 13 years, until my old friend Norman Lear paid to have it filmed by his friend Rob Reiner, who persisted despite all the difficulties. And the movie barely sold tickets when it came out, a seeming rejection at the box office as well, before it went on to become a classic.

Just do like all these creative people did. Keep doing what you you think is best.

That's what I do.

A Christmas Message on Bouncing High

We benefit from people sharing their success stories with us. We want to know: How did it happen? What did they do? Could they predict the process in advance, or were there surprises?

We benefit from people sharing their failure stories with us. We want to know: How did it happen? What did they do? Could they predict the process in advance, or were there surprises?

I've been a student of success for a very long time. And along the way, I've come to grasp the vital importance of understanding failure as a crucial part of any worthwhile adventure. In this world, success is often hard to attain, and failure's easy to stumble into. But what's easy can teach us about what's hard. Rather than being embarrassed about failure, we need to acknowledge it, embrace it, and learn from it. It's the world's most common course for the growth and excellence we all aspire to achieve.

Christmas is, in principle, a holiday in which we Christians celebrate a great experiment, an adventure, really, that seemed to end, thirty-some years after the original Christmas day, in tragic failure. But in that apparent failure, were the seeds of ultimate success. We're told that God, the Source of All, transformed the terrible into the wonderful. And that's how it can go for us, as well.

Wise people have given us some advice about this. They've said: Fail often, fail well, fail forward. Avoid only those failures that would take you out of the game altogether. And, while this, in principle, is great advice, we often overestimate the damage that a certain failure would create, and we shy away from trying. We forget our inner resilience that sometimes only failure reveals.

So, today's advice is simple. Be the little ball that bounces high whenever it hits bottom hard.

Don't fear failure. Fear only a refusal to learn from it and transform it to the success whose seeds it contains.

Merry Christmas.

Socrates and The Two Big Strengths

Socrates had two famous students: Plato, of course, but also Xenophon (pronounced as if started with a 'Z'). Plato was more theoretical and literary. Xenophon was more practical, and was actually a pretty amazing leader. In fact, the great management guru Peter Drucker once said that one of Xenophon's books, The Education of Cyrus, was the greatest book on leadership ever written. And having read it now three times, I think he was probably right. But I have a different concern today. And so, let me get to it.

Xenophon explained that what made Socrates such an impressive person was, first, his amazing degree of self-control. Xenophon actually thought of that quality as the basis for all the other many virtues, or strengths, that Socrates displayed. Then, he said, the second most important quality his teacher exhibited was consistency - that he was always thoroughly himself, genuinely and authentically.

Self-Control. Think about it for a second. It's the action or habit of resisting any pressures not to be or do what we know to be right. It's the quality we need to exercise in order to stay consistent with our beliefs, values, and sense of self. It's the ability to stand up to the pull of pleasure or the push of pain when either of these factors threatens to diminish our lives.

Pain and pleasure play big roles in our lives. Most people fight serious battles, accordingly, with fear and desire. Self-control is what it takes to win those battles. Some pains are properly to be feared and avoided. Some pleasures are rightly to be desired and sought. Self-control keeps us safely on our path, helping us to face what we should and reject what would be inconsistent to embrace. It prevents the damage that could happen if we were to act in improper and self-defeating ways, outside the borders of what's right for us, as the individuals we are.

I'm not sure that there is any such thing as perfect self-control in an imperfect world. But I've learned that the more of it we have, the better and stronger we are as we face the challenges and opportunities of life, and as we continue to create ourselves through our choices.

Plato's student Aristotle, who spent a lot of time analyzing human strengths, seemed to think that the chief virtue or strength we have is courage, without which none of the other virtues will ever be exercised in difficult circumstances. And how does courage function? It aids us in self-control, in doing what we know to be right, regardless of the difficulties and dangers that might face us. And that, in turn, yields consistency. But then, when you're a generally consistent person in your habits and history, that aids you greatly in exercising self-control. Again, perfection isn't the goal. But practice is the key.

So, according to Xenophon, the two chief qualities of Socrates, the basis building blocks of his greatness, were self-control and consistency. Properly understood, they can be such building blocks for us, as well.

The Only Real Secret

Impact. Excellence. Legendary greatness. Happiness. Contentment. Fulfillment. A wonderful life and legacy.

Whatever ideal states you seek, there are people who for a price will tell you the five or seven secrets, or, perhaps the one that will deliver all. And when you learn these secrets, or this one big thing, you quickly discover that they aren't secrets after all. Either they're true and widely known. Or they're false and better ignored.

The only real secret is this: Get out of your own way.

We all have inner blockages to the ideal states we aspire to achieve. There was a childhood wounding. There's seething anger. There's a lack of education. There's an inability to really connect with others in a loving and compassionate way. There's self imposed stress. There's anxiety that will not let go. Your self esteem isn't what it should be. You don't have the confidence you need. You have this drive to be important, or the center of attention, or loved by everyone.

Get out of your own way. Uproot the obstacle. Tame the wild animal. Then, the purpose and passion and energy and excellence can flow through you. You can't attain any ideal without being a conduit to something greater than yourself. This is the universal testimony of those recognized as greatest in pretty much every field of human endeavor.

In basketball, a bad free-throw shooter has to practice and practice and practice and practice, so that the power of habit will come to smooth out his rough edges, and set up new inner patterns to allow him to get out of his own way.

A salesperson who blows ever call has to tame the inner worry and get out of her own way so that her personality and product can shine. So does an entrepreneur. So does an author.

We think we need to develop and grow. And we do. But the secret is that done right, these things help us to get out of our own way, so that we can shine with an authenticity we could never just manufacture. Be a conduit. Be a door. Get out of your own way, and enjoy the amazing results.

Anticipating the Future

The future is hidden by mist and fog.

Psychologists have recently been telling us that we're really bad at predicting how certain future outcomes of our actions will affect us and feel to us at the time they bear fruit. We ask ourselves, "If I do A, will that make me happy?" Or "If I do B, and C results, will that give me what I really want?" We try to imagine what a different or new or remote set of circumstances will feel like, and apparently, we almost always get it wrong.

There are two reasons we get it wrong. First, the future is uncertain. No one can really anticipate it, in all its details. Futurists have a history of howling failures. That's part of why they keep pointing us to the future - in the past, they haven't looked too good! Some things are predictable. Many are not, and they often interrupt our best planning and anticipating.

The second major cause of failure in anticipating the future consequences of our actions is that we're always extrapolating from the situation and mindset we're in, and that inevitably colors and distorts what we project the future to be. We view the future through present lenses. The problem is that hope and fear, desire and worry, along with ignorance and selective attention, can individually, or together, tint those lenses much more than we're aware.

This presents a problem. It seems to be the core of wisdom to think through the future consequences of our actions. But if our thinking, in so far as it projects future states, which imagining consequences always does, is inevitably flawed, then what are we supposed to do?

Fortunately, for understanding various possible futures, we're not forced to rely only on our own imaginations and projective abilities. We have the testimony of a great many people who have already lived through the consequences of every generally described action, or set of actions, imaginable. Although the details of life, society, and our options change continually, because of technology and politics, and for many other reasons, human nature has always been basically the same. That's why it's important to listen to people who have already experienced what we're thinking about doing. They can tell us how it actually felt to experience creating a small business, declaring bankruptcy, taking out a huge loan, getting married to someone very different from them, or very alike, having children, or separating from a friend or associate or family member who has changed in unfortunate ways.

Whatever situation you now contemplate, it's a specific instance of a general type that people have experienced before. That's why it's important to talk to wise people, and read the advice of wise people who have gone down this road before us. They can help tutor our otherwise unreliable imaginations, and guide us into the level of caution or action appropriate to our situation.

Wisdom is available. Use it well. That will help you in making all your most important decisions and will give you new lenses to help you see through the mist and fog up ahead.

Conditions for Accountability

"Accountability tends to exist more in relationships characterized by proximity (face2face), longevity, and density (mutual friends, etc)." A Tweet from Twisdom, by me, TomV.

I was looking through my little book Twisdom today and came across some tweets that resonate and provoke subsequent thought. This one is about personal accountability, and claims that it's enhance by three things.

1. Proximity: We feel more accountability to people when we live and work in their physical presence. That's why it's easy for so many people to interact badly online, at a distance from those they may be dismissing, or insulting.

2. Longevity: We tend to feel more accountable to people the longer we've known them and interacted with them. In a fragmented and fluid world, with people coming and going so much, it's hard for relationships to put down the roots needed for a deep sense of responsibility.

3. Density: More accountability exists between any two people when their relationship exists in a supportive matrix or network of other relationships. If I know your spouse, and your brother, and your kids, and some of your co-workers and neighbors, all those additional connections, all that added "density" of our relationship, enhances and encourages responsibility and accountability. When people know each other in a social vacuum, it's easier for them to act in inappropriate, unproductive, or improper ways.

Never Rush to Judgment

Think back to Thanksgiving for a moment. It's easy to imagine. You've done all your shopping for a great Thanksgiving dinner. You've had lists with you at the grocery store, and you've checked them off, just to be sure you got everything. You've even started prep cooking a day or two in advance. You've made sure that it will all go smoothly. Then, you wake up on Thanksgiving Day and realize you're missing one ingredient you thought you had - pumpkin spice. You can't believe you have to get dressed to go out first thing and take the time on such a busy day to drive all the way to the store for this one little item. How will you get everything done in time? Many of us would feel disappointed in ourselves, for our oversight, and maybe even frustrated or irritated at the extra trip. "I can't believe what an idiot I am! What a waste of time!"

Lisa Quam, a wife and mother in Washington state, had this happen to her this year. I don't know what she was feeling as she made her way to the store, but once there, she decided to also buy a newspaper, and a lottery ticket, something she only does on "special occasions." And if you don't already know the rest of the story, you can probably guess at least the outlines of it by now. Two weeks later, she discovered that she had won 90 million dollars.

When I came across this story the other day, it reminded me of how much time and energy we waste on thoughts and feelings that are unnecessary. We feel disappointed, or irritated, or even angry at a situation that ends up being very different from what we initially supposed, or that has positive consequences we never could have expected. That's why the most practical philosophers have urged us, in every age, never to rush to judgment about what can seem on the surface to be negative situations. A wise person maintains a spirit of calm acceptance in most circumstances, and even a mild curiosity about the unexpected and the initially unwanted.

Who knows when a small inconvenience could be your ticket to something great?

Beginner's Mind, Master's Mind

"A good surfer is happy to get a good ride. A great surfer creates a great ride." - Don Sharp

My workout partner Don and I were sitting around today after the time of physical exercise, and we ended up talking about surfing, tennis, basketball, woodcarving, and what it takes to get into The Zone in any activity.

When you first learn a new sport, or any new activity, your head is full of the rules, and the techniques and tips you've learned. They guide you into the new performance. But, as long as they're consciously in your head, they also inhibit your performance. You focus on them, and on whatever they direct you to notice and do. That process can get you from the level of beginner to a higher plane. But it can't take you all the way to mastery.

The master is no longer rehearsing and consulting rules and tips. He or she is picking up details in a mostly unconscious way, and adapting, adjusting, and using those details to create something new. A surfer who is advanced can let go of the self conscious mental chatter that the beginner needs. He or she becomes one with the wave and with the ride.

Don tells me that after a great couple of hours in the surf, he sometimes has trouble remembering the details. It's almost as if all the conscious processes of noticing and remembering were turned off. Thinking gives way to being. The unconscious takes over. And then, great things happen.

How do you get to this point? Practice. Experience. Immersion. Doing. And then, eventually, you'll enter the promised land of being.

May you have the great blessing to do something where you can just be.

Our Desires and the World

"Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished." - Daniel Gilbert.

It's often been said that there are two big-scale strategies for living:

1. Seek to conform the world to your desires.

2. Seek to conform your desires to the world.

The idea behind the choice is that unhappiness resides in a gap between our desires and the way things are in the world around us. If we can eliminate the gap, theorists reason, unhappiness will vanish with it. And, obviously, the two strategies outlined in such stark simplicity are two ways of effecting that elimination.

But. of course, this, like many things that are often said, is just wrong. It presumes that our desires are either perfectly Ok as they are, at any given time, and should be imposed on the world around us, or that they are always wrong, in some sense, and in need of replacement by alternatives that reflect the way things already are. The truth is more balanced and more liberating than either alternative would suggest.

At any given time, for the vast majority of us, some of our desires are altogether proper, and some aren't. Of the latter, some aren't realistic regarding what's possible, others are not right for who we are, and still others are just, in some other sense, wrong ill-formed, or ill-advised. There's an old motivational adage, "If you can dream it, you can do it." But this saying, on top of its magical thinking, brackets the question of whether a particular dream should be ushered into reality.

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert had it right. We're all works in progress. That means that we can and should change. But so should the world around us. We're all in a state of becoming. And so is the world. We're here to learn and to make, to grow and to influence. Some of our desires should be the basis for goals, and for changing the world around us. Some of them should be merely the basis for new levels of self knowledge, and then should be set aside as we grow and mature and become more perceptive.

The potter molds the clay. The clay molds the potter. The former is quick and clear. The latter is slow and subtle.

We properly seek to conform the world to some of our desires. And we properly seek to conform other desires to what we learn from the world. Then, we also rightly develop new desires and insightful aspirations that will transform us within, and perhaps, in that way, allow us to creatively transform the world around us, as well. But this insight doesn't as easily fit onto a bumper sticker or T shirt. And it's important to realize that we need not desire it to.

Nerves and Performance

I was watching The Voice on NBC, and right before a commercial, there was a shot of one of the performers backstage and someone was messing with his microphone and his hair, and it made me remember all the many times I've been backstage, ready to step out in front of 2,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 people, and someone has been readjusting a microphone or straightening my jacket or otherwise tugging at me, and asking "Are you ready?" And I've said "Yeah, I'm ready" and I've thought, "I was born ready. I can't wait to do this." There may be flutters and an elevated heart rate backstage, but I'll only be getting ready to have a great time.

Years ago, when I felt my heart rate go up, I used to think "Uh, Oh. I'm getting nervous." Then, one day, it occurred to me to say to myself, "Good. I'm getting ready." There is an energy to being ready. Most interpret it as nerves. A few see it as preparation, readiness, the fuel of excellence. Good things can happen when we're ready. Sometimes, even great things.

So, the next time something big is about to happen, and everybody else is fluttering around and you feel your heart beat increase, smile within and say to yourself, "I'm getting ready. This is going to be great!" And, then, more likely, it will be.

Fly Fishing Lessons for Life

"I've learned a thing or two about human behavior on trout streams. I've discovered that patience serves better than haste, that silence is a virtue, and concentration it's own reward, and that I, at least, like to fish alone; trout fishing should not become a contest." - From Charles Kuralt, America,and his time in Montana.

A friend gave me the book by Charles Kuralt,the great volume just quoted, America, in 1996. I'm just now reading it for the first time and enjoying it immensely. Kuralt had just recently retired from CBS Television where he was such a great teacher. He decided to travel our country, living for a month in each of many different places across the nation. He spends his first month of the new year, January, in New Orleans, then goes to Key West, Florida for a second month. Then he's on to Charleston, SC, and Connecticut, North Carolina, Alaska, Minnesota, Maine, Montana, and other great spots.

What's most amazing about the book are the people he meets and visits along the way, many of whom live in remote circumstances, and enjoy their lives in exemplary ways. The wisdom of ordinary people, and especially those who live outside the mainstream of pop culture, can be extraordinary.

I began with the quote I did because of what it praises:

Patience. Silence. Concentration. Solitude. And acting in a non-competitive way, doing something for its own sake, and for no intrinsic reason.

We need to incorporate more of these things into our lives. When we do so, we'll thrive and flourish, feeling a sense of fulfillment that's nearly impossible amid haste, noise, distraction, and an elbowing, pushing crowd of people trying to get ahead of each other, and us. It's hard to capture these elusive things in our world of hustle and flash. But they will bless us, when we make room for them.

So please remember today the benefits of patience, silence, concentration, solitude, and the rare art of doing for its own sake. Give yourself the room to just be. Then your natural joy, your proper bliss, can bubble forth and bless your spirit, allowing you to go on to bless others, in turn.

PS. And by the way: Search your shelves for some old book you haven't read yet. You may be surprised at what you can find within its covers.

Judging People

"Judge people not by what they are, but by what they strive to become." - F. Dostoyevsky

That's an interesting recommendation, isn't it? We're always judging people by what they are. And that seems almost too obvious a procedure to have any wise alternative. We size people up by looking at what they do, listening to what they say, and weighing more heavily their actions over mere words, we categorize and label. "He's a good guy." "She's someone I can depend on." "He's a nut."

But Dostoyevsky, one of our great novelists and analysts of human behavior, has another take on this. He seems to believe, like Aristotle, that we're always in a state of becoming. And he means to take this seriously. He wants us to ask of another person, not simply what he or she is right now, or what he or she has been in the past, but what, to the best of our ability to detect, this person is striving to become. Note that he's not asking merely what a person seems to be becoming, or hopes to become, but what that person is actively striving to become. And striving is a matter of real effort and persistent aspiration. It's not wishing. It's a matter of climbing some high hill. And that's deeply interesting. For one thing, not everyone seems to strive at all. And this in itself can be telling.

But there may be a problem with this advice. Such a thing as personal striving is sometimes harder to identify than other normal facts, isn't it? Most of the hills we climb aren't physical. They're not always easily visible. It's not just a matter of surface appearances. And it's certainly not just a matter of what people say. Such judgment may require looking more deeply and discerning more completely.

On those occasions when it's really important to size up another person, I think our advisor is right, however challenging his recommendation might be. We should take into consideration an individual's dreams and desires, his or her aims and aspirations, and especially their strivings - what they give earnest and persistent effort to. Because then, perhaps, we'll better capture what they'll most likely be when we really need them, down the road a bit.

It's an interesting idea, isn't it?

Means and Ends and a Cat

As a philosopher, I learn in many ways. Early this morning, I came to an important realization.

Our cat likes to jump on my bedside table at 5:20AM and rub his face against a lamp shade, bumping it loudly into the wall. The purpose is to wake me up to feed him, or let him out of the room to roam or play with his adopted brother, the upstairs cat, or sometimes I think he just wants to see if he can get me up. I'm not usually ready to get up at 5:20. And if I pick him up off the table, or brush him gently off, to stop the racket and save the lamp, he just jumps back up and goes at it again. The second or third time, he typically begins throwing books off the table, one or two at a time. Yesterday, he started with a red leather moleskin diary, then a paperback novel, then a hardcover, and finally a large hardcover. And I won't even list the pens and other assorted items he tosses onto the floor. He must have jumped onto the table 12 times. And there was quite a lot of stuff on the floor, as a result.

My daughter suggested that I use a large spray bottle of water, which she's learned he doesn't like. She suspected that would stop him. So I filled the bottle and placed it on the table at bedtime last night. When the expected 5:20 wake up event happened this morning before dawn, I emerged from a deep sleep, fumbled to get the bottle in my hand, finally managing it, and in the pitch dark, I squeezed the spray handle as hard as I could, and successfully squirted a huge amount of water right into the middle of my own face. 

Well, that was a surprise that woke me up more fully than the cat. I couldn't believe what I had done. I also couldn't believe what happened next. 

The cat loudly jumped off the table and went to the far side of the large bedroom, where he then stayed. I guess, at that point, he didn't know what I'd do next. Or it could be that he just didn't want to see me drench myself again, altruist that he may, deep down, be.

The moral of the story is that, sometimes, even when our actions and plans seem to fail as means to an end, the end can nonetheless still be attained. Therefore, we shouldn't prematurely label an effort a failure just because it misfires in some strange way. The ultimately desired end may yet ensue. Curiosity may take the cat off to a safe distance where he can view the proceedings in greater safety. 

What's the old saying? God works in mysterious ways. So does the world. There are more ways things can develop than we initially might imagine. Even spraying yourself with cold water in the face in the dark is not necessarily the minor cat-astrophe it may at first seem.

Philosophers and Sophists

What's the difference between a philosopher and a sophist? In the ancient world, the sophists were well trained and highly educated people who offered to teach others and help them to attain their goals. And they did this as a well-paying occupation. Their own wealth was their main, or sometimes, only goal. But Socrates, by contrast, the first famous philosopher who tackled life questions with others, the paradigmatic philosopher, notoriously refused payment for his services and, as a consequence, went around barefoot.

I teach others and help them to attain their goals. And I'm often well paid for it. So what makes me a philosopher, rather than a sophist? I was actually asked this question recently, at a college. And I enjoyed answering it.

It's true that Socrates refused to charge anyone for what he did. And it may be no coincidence that he had a very unhappy wife. I'm just saying. But in many ways, I can't imagine that he was the easiest and most practical guy to live with.

He could, however, be the life of the party. And he often was. His capacity for both wine and wisdom was legendary. And yet, he would never tolerate sloppy thinking. Certain sophists of the age, by contrast, were said to be willing to use any sort of thinking to help their clients win and attain whatever their desire might be.

Throughout history, the sophists of ancient Greece have had a pretty shady reputation as professionally amoral, hired guns of the mind. They would reportedly help people to attain any goal, by and large, regardless of what it was. They would advocate any case, promote any cause, and empower any person, if the money was right and wealth would flow. 

Philosophers, for the most part, have walked on the side of the angels, whether they believed in angels or not. They may sometimes have had reputations as prolix and obscure, complex and abstract, otherworldly and out of touch, but they have, for the most part, seemed to be purer souls in their focus and work. But why exactly? That's the key.

The sophists were much more concerned about how than about why. The philosophers have always been more cautious. They have wanted to help people reflect not just on how to attain their goals, but on why they are pursuing certain aims rather than others, and what, perhaps, might be best to seek, and again, why. They have certainly analyzed deeply all the relevant issues of how, but have always raised the question of why. And this is what I try to do. That's the reason, when you read any of my books on success, you'll come across a lot on what success is, and what it's not, and why we should be careful in what we focus on and pursue.

There's a new-old saying: "You can get anything you want, if you help enough other people to get what they want." On the surface, this sounds like great advice. And most who say it mean well, thereby counseling people to find a need and meet that need. But wants aren't the same as needs. And, as a matter of precision, the new-old saying is an example of sophistry. It's generally true, but equally dangerous.

The sophist wants to help you get whatever you want, and will assist you in doing so by giving other people whatever they want, without urging anyone involved in all this to reflect on whether what they happen to want right now is truly good for them, or not. And this is not wise. At certain points in life, for certain people, getting what they want may be disastrous. It could be that their wants need to be changed, not satisfied, or improved and refined, through the guidance of real wisdom. We can get what we want by helping others to get what they want, but should we always do that, regardless of the particular wants involved, and their consequences? The new-old saying can be used to motivate a drug dealer to provide more dangerous, destructive substances, and more liberally, for his customers. And that's clearly not the path of wisdom.

I love to help people attain their goals, but only if their goals are right for them and will bring them genuine fulfillment and happiness, not disaster and regret. So I help them to reflect on all the important issues. For a philosopher, understanding must precede and guide the best life accomplishments. Wisdom is everything. Then, true wealth will come. So I say:

Sophistry is not for me/I much prefer/Philosophy.

Self Improvement Experts

The great practical philosophers have always written self improvement, or self help, literature - books and essays and letters to friends, which end up being gifts to all of us. And yet, there are people in our day who sneer at the self improvement section in the bookstore, and sometimes it seems they think such matters are either beneath serious intellectual interest, or perhaps too obvious to belabor in book form. This attitude is a stark departure from the sentiment of the centuries on such matters.

I've quoted Vincent Van Gogh already once this week. Let me do it again. In this passage, he expresses a healthy attitude toward our need for advice, and toward those who would give it so us.

“Improvement in my life — should I not desire it or should I not be in need of improvement? I really want to improve. But it’s precisely because I yearn for it that I’m afraid of remedies that are worse than the disease. Can you blame a sick person if he looks the doctor straight in the eye and prefers not to be treated wrongly or by a quack?” - Vincent Van Gogh

Life is supposed to be a series of adventures. And really, shouldn't every adventure be a source of positive personal growth? Shouldn't we desire to improve our selves, our minds, our hearts, and our characters through these adventures? And it's natural to look for help in doing this. Van Gogh's passage here expresses well our need for growth and improvement and yet, he is also right that we should approach every advertised physician of the soul with wariness. We don't want the advice of a quack. Positive growth doesn't directly result from folly and falsehood. And there are certainly quacks among us who look like the true doctors of the soul they purport to be. Yet, there are also real sages as well. And not just the sages of past ages who have left us the treasure of their wisdom, but there are everyday sages around us now, some of whom write down their insights for us, in books, or blogs, or notes. There are many whose thoughts can help us on our way. But there are many others who are themselves lost and muddled while claiming to have just what we need.

When you go to the grocery store, you pick through the fruit and vegetables for good specimens. As long as you do the same in the bookstore, or library, or online, you can gain great help for that improvement that we all need, day to day, and that we all should seek.

The Rapture of Being Alive

I was just reading, on an airplane yesterday, a book manuscript by a new friend, and I came across a passage where he was quoting Joseph Campbell. Campbell, the great professor of mythology who popularized the phrase “Follow your bliss,” was surmising in the quoted prose that what most people are seeking for their lives isn’t necessarily a sense of meaning, but rather an experience of really being alive, and not just existing. The phrase that caught my eye was this: ‘so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.’

The rapture of being alive. Do you ever feel this? Do you ever feel something that could well be described this way?

I’ve felt this many times, in fact, too many to number. And it’s always a moment, or a time, of refreshment, re-invigoration, and even regeneration. When such a feeling comes over me, it’s almost like I’m being pulled back to a realization and a focus that I deeply need, but that I’ve drifted away from, silently nudged by the demands and vicissitudes of an active life. The suddenness of the rapture jerks me out of the everydayness of my ordinary sensibilities, and reminds me of the strange and mystical joy of being alive. And this, in turn, restores to me a perspective for everything I do.

It makes me wonder how I ever let this experience, this realization, this perspective, wane in the first place. It should be a constant, grounding sensibility underlying each of my waking moments. There should be a “Wow!” underneath and around everything.

It’s all about keeping the cosmic wonder alive. It should be the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the magic we take in every second of every day.

I suspect that, to the extent that we can manage this, it will make everything better and easier - the choices, the challenges, the opportunities and difficulties. There is magic and wonder in everything. We can’t consider the biggest cosmic and metaphysical truths without realizing this. But to feel it, to sense it, and to live with the realization every day - to capture the rapture in the ordinary course of things - is to me not a substitute for a sense of meaning, but the only way to get a true fix on the deep and rich meaning there is to be found.

So, my advice: Go capture some of that rapture today.

Planning for 2015

Ok, it's December 8 and people are already preparing for 2015. They're getting a running start on the new year. How about you?

Here's part of an email I got a few days ago, one that made my morning glow more than it was already glowing. A highly successful individual in financial services wrote to me:

I’m currently rolling up my sleeves and working on my 2015 Business Plan and always reread “The Art of Achievement” at the end of the year to help me solidify my thinking and my plan. I would like to order the DVD. Thanks for the instructions.

Wow. A book of mine that was published more than a decade ago, The Art of Achievement, this correspondent reads every year before completing a new business plan for the coming twelve months. That's very gratifying.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why would anyone read a particular book every year?" Steve Jobs did. So do many others. The great scholar and popular Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, once said that a book that isn't worth reading twice wasn't worth reading once. But why The Art of Achievement? It's all about new adventures. It's about making the most of our inner resources as we set outer goals. It's based on the wisdom of the great thinkers about the sort of success that we really want in our lives. It arose from a lot of work, over many years, and I'm so glad it's doing good in people's lives.

So, if you want some wisdom for the coming year, think about joining my correspondent, and consult the great philosophers of the past on what it will take to make this new year count. It doesn't have to be through one of my books. Go snag The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, or the essays of Seneca, or The Portable Emerson. Or if you do want my own guided tour through many of them, go look at the ebook, The 7 Cs of Success, which will take you through the greatest who pondered success. The best practical philosophers of the past knew what you and I will need to make the future count.

Show Us Your Fire

Each of us should be a star, a blaze of light in the darkness with inner fire that's clear to all. Let me quote a master on this.

“Does what goes on inside show on the outside? Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney.” - Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh certainly showed his fire, and many have been warmed by it. And so, he was in a good position to write the words that I've quoted here. How about you and I? Do we show our fire? Is there just a little wisp of smoke wafting up? Or are we ablaze? Do we express our passions properly and well?

I love to be around people with fire in their hearts, people who care about things, those who burn with curiosity or commitment and so can warm the rest of us with their heat. If you think your fire has diminished to mere embers, find someone whose flame can reignite you. If you already have that blaze in your soul, then heed Van Gogh's words and let it show. We need your warmth. We need the light of your fire.