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.

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.

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.

Familiarity

There's an old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt." And I think it's wrong, at least, as normally understood. I suspect that familiarity rather breeds a lack of awareness. The most familiar things, we look beyond. We rarely focus properly on them. We take them for granted. We ignore them. And that creates problems.

What's the closest, most familiar thing of all to each of us? Our own mental stream or theater of consciousness. The solitariness and uniqueness of our inner experience. Nobody else has my state of consciousness right now. Nobody else has yours. And we can know only as much about it as you might be prepared to share and reveal. But it can never be shared fully. The inner sanctum of you can never be fully put into words and conveyed to another person to the extent that they would know 100% what it's like to be you, to think like you, see like you, feel like you. 

And I don't think we spend enough time pondering that inner self. When the Greeks advised "Know Yourself" they meant all of our inner reality, including things normally hidden to our conscious states. But they also meant this. What is the flow of your experience, in your mental and spiritual hiddenness? What tonality of feeling or attitude colors the inner you throughout the day? Is it helping you to develop into the person you want to be, or is it holding you back? Is it conveying patterns into the future that belong to your past, but that will prevent the best outcomes you most desire? We ignore our inner lives to our great detriment.

And then, I think, the second ring of familiarity may be our bodies. We too often ignore one or more aspects of our physical being in ways that aren't conducive to health and flourishing. Sure, some people seem to fixate on their bodies. But most of us ignore some aspect of our physical needs that would benefit from more attention.

And then, think beyond yourself: The next ring of familiarity may be your immediate family. The things of the world that demand our attention, added to those that lure our attention, can easily cause us to overlook, and pay insufficient attention to, the closest people around us. And that's deeply detrimental, to us, and to them.

We need reminders now and then not to let the most familiar things in our lives go begging for our attention, which is almost always focused elsewhere. The stuff that's elsewhere will never enhance our lives well, unless we're taking care of the most intimate parts of our existence and experience. So my advice today is: Don't let familiarity breed either contempt or unawareness - or, rather, what may actually be the contempt that consists in habitual unawareness. Rather, use the intimacy and proximity of those closest things for proper exploration and cultivation, creating a sound and healthy foundation for all else.

Greatness - with Jay Forte

What does it take to be great? A new friend, Jay Forte, just interviewed me for a podcast on his website The Greatness Zone. I'm going to post a blog of his below on the topic, and let it direct any of you who might want to hear the interview to the place where you can. Here's Jay:

Who’s Your 'Go-To' To Learn How To Have A Great Life? - Jay Forte

With thousands of years of history, learning and wisdom available to us, who could you check with, what could you refer to or what wisdom could guide you to know how to live a great life? What does the wisdom of the philosophers have to say to you to help you live life like it matters – to live in your greatness zone?

I’ll be honest, I took philosophy in college because it was required – I didn’t have any burning interest in connect with what I felt to be outdated thinking from old dudes in togas. But as I got over my uninformed understanding of philosophy, I came face-to-face with profound guidance and wisdom in how to show up successfully and authentically to a constantly changing world. I now find I am a convert to incorporating wisdom from every generation to learn how to show up more successfully in the moments of life.

I thought I would share some of the profound wisdom that supports the message of The Greatness Zone and introduce you to the practical side of philosophy that has so much guidance for us in today’s wild world. Just maybe it will pique your interest to return to the wisdom of the philosophers as a go-to source for successful life wisdom.

“The archer must know what he’s trying to hit, then he must aim and control the weapon by his skill. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is heading for, no wind is the right wind.” ~ Seneca

So many of us just show up to life without a plan. A meaningful plan can only happen when we become aware of who we are and what is going on in our world. We can then start to notice what areas in life are for us – which areas align to our best abilities and passions. Once clear, we can direct ourselves into areas that matter – we can move forward on a plan to achieve our goals. Without the clarity, we roam aimless and live most of our lives searching for success and happiness, out of our greatness zones.

“Anyone is free who lives as he wishes to live.” ~ Epictetus 

We live in a noisy, loud and pushy world. The only time we are truly living authentically and free as the philosophers say, is when we are choosing how to live. Learning to listen to our own voice instead of the voices that say buy this, be this, live here, drive this, study this, own this, etc requires awareness of what our own voice sounds like. We can only access our own voice when we learn to disconnect and unplug from our world – to create some quiet. In that quiet, we are able to look inside ourselves to determine what matters to us. All important information will come from the inside out. Have a plan to connect to that information to know what you want in life. Then you will be free because you are living life on your terms.

“Discover your talents. Develop those talents. Deploy your talents in the world for the good of others as well as yourself." ~ Tom Morris 

Tom, today’s profound practical philosopher, calls this "3D living" – discover, develop, deploy. Your talents are your gifts – your unique abilities that help you create your roadmap for a life that both suits you and one that brings your best to all you do. We are not great at everything; however we are amazing at some things. Discover, develop and deploy those things and you will find yourself in your greatness zone. This is the key living a successful, happy and impactful life.

There is wisdom everywhere – guidance to help you show up big to life, or as I say, to live in your greatness zone. Build on the wisdom of others – they advance your progress and help you find direction. They remind you to look within, not without, for guidance, direction and purpose. They remind you to both treasure yourself and to see the value in others. They have it all going on – and we could be a more significant society and world if we listened more to what has been shared. Find your favorite philosopher and build on that wisdom to live each day in your greatness zone.

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LISTEN – The PODCAST 

Episode 24 – How To Have A Great Life - Tom Morris, Practical Philosopher, Speaker, Educator and Mentor

In my powerful and inspiring conversation with today’s entertaining, wise and practical philosopher, Tom Morris, we talk about what greatness is and how the wisdom of the philosophers provides guidance how to have a great life today. Always passionate, lively, entertaining and wise, Tom has activated a love of philosophy in his classes as a professor at Notre Dame and shares the practical relevance of philosophy in running extraordinary organizations.

This conversation is loaded with powerful and practical wisdom including the 3D living approach, what Michelangelo and wood carvers teach us about focus, why “know yourself” is the key to finding your next adventure in life and how to access all the information you need to have a great life. There are too many Morris gems to list so make a commitment to bring a note pad, a great cup of coffee and listen to this one. You’ll play this one over and over. Brilliant.

Click here to listen to the podcast. Click here to download the podcast from iTunes. Click here to connect to Tom.

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Wild Advice

In last Sunday's New York Times, the authors of the books Wild and Gone Girl were interviewed together. In the course of the conversations, Cheryl Strayed, author of "Wild" said:

The story I wrote has an ancient tradition in literature, man against nature, the hero’s journey. I was conscious of the narratives that I was both taking part in and also countering because the variation on the theme is: It was a woman, and it wasn’t “versus.” I say the wild felt like home to me. It wasn’t me trying to conquer it; it was me living in it. So much about “Wild” is about acceptance and surrender and vulnerability. To me that’s the greatest strength, not this conquering kind of narrative that we have embedded in our bones.

That got me to thinking. How much of personal growth and achievement advice is about conquering? A lot, actually. In America, especially, where the self help literature really got going, back in the last century and before that, we're all about action, fighting for what's right, changing what we don't like, conquering the next foe, battling the obstacle we'll face on our way to our goal. But it could well be that "acceptance, surrender, and vulnerability" are much more important in any heroic quest than we normally suppose. And we forget that to our detriment.

There's a famous woodcarver who has said that average carvers often fight the wood, and try to force it into what they have in mind; whereas master carvers "listen to the grain" they're working with, and truly partner with the wood for the greatest results. Could it be that every situation has its grain, and that we need to accept that fact, surrender to it, to some extent, and be vulnerable to learn and change and adapt? Could it be that this is as important to any heroic quest as the determination and will to fight and struggle? 

Cheryl Strayed offers us some wild advice that's well worth pondering.

To see her book, click here.

The Two Hardest Things

We're told that the holiest spot in ancient Greece, the Oracle at Delphi, had two inscriptions of advice chiseled into marble to welcome all visitors, who typically came for advice. They were:

Know Yourself.

Nothing in Excess.

The longer I live, the more I come to appreciate the depth and practicality of these two recommendations. Ironically, knowing yourself may be the hardest thing in the world. And why? Nothing is closer to you than your own self. But it's protected by layers of obliviousness and self-deception. Getting to really know yourself is like peeling back the layers of an onion. And it might bring tears. But nothing is more important for living a good, successful, and happy life.

As hard as self knowledge has been for me, avoiding excess has been even tougher. I'll eat too much, drink too much, work too much, exercise too much, and talk too much. I may even blog too much. But that's me. I'm lucky I lived through my twenties, with all the stupid excessive things I did. And I'm just coming off two months' worth of muscle strains from taking a perfectly good exercise in the gym, and doing an insane amount of it in an excessively short time.

Aristotle nailed it. Excellence is always somehow about identifying the too little and the too much and equally avoiding them both. Virtue, as he said, or strength, in a more modern idiom, is about finding what's just right. 

And the two recommendations at the Oracle are of course connected. You don't know yourself unless you understand your limits and what counts for you in any domain as "excess." And you can't avoid excess unless you truly know yourself, what motivates you, what prompts you, and when you're most likely to make bad decisions that cross the line.

So here we are millennia later, and I can't think of much better advice than what was carved out of that marble so long ago. Maybe these ancient admonitions could be the basis for some 2015 New Year's Resolutions. Maybe they'd be good guides for the days to come. But, knowing myself as I do, I have to avoid implementing them ... excessively.

Dump the Grump

In a recent op ed in the New York Times, Arthur C. Brooks tells an interesting story. He spoke not long ago at a Mormon university, Brigham Young, and his hosts gave him all sorts of BYU branded paraphernalia, including a very nice briefcase with the school's name on it. At first, he says, as a non-Morman and not a graduate of the school, he hesitated carrying it, but it was really nice, and so he finally started to travel with it. And something strange happened. Carrying around the name of a Mormon school, he began to reflect on the virtues that Mormons are known for, like friendliness and courtesy. And, without ever deciding to, he found himself becoming more friendly and courteous, and helpful to people in airports. He came to realize that he had started acting like the people who gave him the briefcase.  He even felt happier, he says, "almost like magic." And, he writes:

But it wasn’t magic. Psychologists study a phenomenon called “moral elevation,” an emotional state that leads us to act virtuously when exposed to the virtue of others. In experiments, participants who are brought face to face with others’ gratitude or giving behavior are more likely to display those virtues themselves.

He's right. Exposure is morally contagious. What we're associated with, or around a lot, gets under our skin, and into our personalities. There's a bunch of research showing that we become like the people we're around, in a good or bad way. Hang out with cheerful, friendly, optimistic and upbeat people, and you'll tend to become one of them. Hang out with grumps, and you'll end up in the dumps. 

There's an easy solution. Dump the grump. Ok, not the cat, but you know what I mean. Read better stuff. Take care what you watch continually on tv. As a result, you may not only act better, but feel better, "almost like magic."

What Makes Your Life Feel Rich?

On Thursday, November 20, 2014, a great teacher left this life. David Menasche had taught eleventh graders at Coral Reef High School in Miami for 16 years. In 2006, at the age of 34, he was diagnosed with a fatal form of brain cancer and told he had months to live. But he fought on for 8 more years. 

Right after the diagnosis, he returned to the classroom, which he called his “sanctuary,” and told his students that he wanted to spend the time he had left with them. Early this year, he explained his choice to continue to teach by saying:

For me, teaching wasn't about making a living. It was my life.

Nothing made me happier or more content than standing in front of a classroom and sharing the works of writers such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Jack Kerouac, Tupac Shakur and Gwendolyn Brooks and watching my students "catch" my passion for language and literature.

I loved watching these 15- and 16-year-olds grapple with their first major life decisions -- future careers, relationships, where to live, which colleges to attend, what to study-- at the same moment they're learning to drive and getting their first jobs and experimenting with identity and independence.

No matter how sick he felt, he was in the classroom. He was in these kids’ lives. But in 2012, he had a major stroke, or catastrophic seizure that left him partly crippled and mostly blind. He had to retire from the work he loved. But he didn’t have to abandon his students. In fact, he hatched a plan to visit former students around the country, to see what, if any, impact his work had effected in their lives. He announced his plan on Facebook and immediately had 50 invitations within 48 hours. He ended up traveling more than 8,000 miles to visit hundreds of his former students. And they shared with him their memories from class. His teaching had mattered. It had touched their lives. But most of all, they remembered the personal conversations they had shared with him while in school. He wrote,

As I had hoped, they recalled favorite lessons and books from class, but, to my great surprise, it was our personal time together that seemed to have meant the most to them. Those brief, intimate interludes between lessons when we shared heartaches and vulnerabilities and victories were the times my students remembered. And it was through them I realized that those very human moments, when we connected on a deep and personal level, were what made my life feel so rich, then and now. My students had taught me the greatest lesson of all. They taught me that what matters is not so much about what we learn in class, but what we feel in our hearts.

David wrote a book full of the lessons he learned and taught along the way. It’s called The Priority List: A Teacher’s Final Quest to Discover Life’s Greatest Lessons. It will be soon made into a movie, and Steve Carell will play the teacher who cared so much.

In this Thanksgiving Season, I urge you to think about what makes your life feel rich, and to cultivate more of those moments. Teacher David Menasche learned that it’s all about the very human moments we share and that can resonate for years. His realizations are confirmed and deeply reflected in another book just published by one of my good friends, Matt Hamm. Matt’s book is entitled Redefine Rich, and is available early in a special first release edition through his website, www.MattHam.com. Go check it out. Read. Reflect. And perhaps, this holiday season can be one in which you deepen your life with the things that matter the most, the priorities that will make you feel richer than ever.

Joy

Joy. It's a big concept bottled up in a little word. It's a big thing available to each of us.

One of the major surprises I had when I was studying the stoic philosophers, Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, years ago, in preparation for my book The Stoic Art of Living, was that they were so different from what 'stoic' and 'stoicism' has come to mean in the popular mind. Most people think that being stoic is all about not feeling anything - that it's almost like philosophical anesthesia. But it's not.

The stoics wanted to help us to keep from being disturbed by fleeting emotions so that our natural joy could rise to the surface and be experienced and lived. Negative emotions like resentment, and bitterness, and anger can obviously prevent an experience of joy. But the additional insight of the stoics was that unreasonably strong positive emotions could, too, like that "irrational exuberance" that can come from hearing what we think is great good news. When we get too worried, or too excited, we can become unhinged from reality and our own inner poise and healthiness. The stoics seemed to think that if we could avoid such unsettling emotions, negative or positive, we could become peaceful enough in our surface consciousness as to allow a deep joy that is our birthright to bubble up into our souls and truly bless us.

Joy is not the same thing as happiness. It's not giddiness. It's not mere pleasantness. It's deeper and higher and more abiding. Most of us have felt it, at some time, if only in a momentarily taste or touch of it. But some seem to live it enduringly. Do you have it in your life right now? If not, why not? What's getting in the way? What obstacle to your joy could be removed or eliminated?

At its best, therapy removes obstacles to joy. At its best, self examination prepares the soil for joy.

What gives you joy? Can you integrate more of that into your life this week? Or even today?

It's meant to be yours. And it can enhance everything else you feel, and do.

"Working for the Mob was Great." A Reflection on Modern Business.

Here's my best recollection of a conversation the other day in Las Vegas. My conversation partner was an older man, a well spoken and intelligent individual with a natural ease and friendliness, who was taking me to the airport in a new black luxury SUV. He pointed to a building.

"That's where I used to work, over there, long ago, and for many years. It's the Venetian now, but it used to be The Sands and the Desert Inn. Back in the old days, you'd see all the great stars there - everybody who was anybody."

"What did you do there? What was your job?"

"I was a casino dealer for the first few years, and then walked the floor. Those were the days."

"Really?"

"Yeah. That was when the mobsters ran everything. They built Vegas. And they knew what they were doing. Working for the mob was great."

"Wait. What do you mean?"

"They treated you like family. They cared about everybody who worked there. I mean, you had to sign a one page paper when you got your job, and it had that picture of the monkeys on it - you know, the famous 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil' - and you had to sign it and promise your silence. But, they really took care of you. You got paid really well. And the boss, a well known underworld guy, he'd call you at home every week. I mean, every week. 'How ya doing, how's the family? You got your rent covered, or your payments? You got enough groceries in the house?' And if anybody got pregnant, or if your wife got pregnant, he'd phone and say 'Congratulations on the news. And, hey. Don't worry about it. It's all paid for. The doctor visits, the hospital, everything. No worries.' And then the corporations took over, and they didn't care about anybody. Cut the costs, do your job, get lost. In the old days, it was like a big family."

"So, you're saying that working for the mob was better than working for the modern corporations that have taken over?"

"Yes, sir, that's what I'm saying. They cared about you. They wanted you to be happy."

"They cared more about their people?"

"Totally. And they knew that happy people do better work."

"Well, that's true. But let me make sure I'm clear on this. You're sure that it was really better working for the mob than for a modern company?"

"Yeah. No question."

"Wow."

Corporate leaders and wise guys, take note.

Inner Conditions for Knowing

Some people will just never understand you, no matter how hard you try to make yourself known.

There are personal conditions, requirements, preliminaries, for understanding and knowing. And, conversely, there are inner obstacles to both. On one level, this is obvious. There are things that little children can't know or understand. We can teach a four year old to say, "Business can't be about just profit maximization." But she won't really know or understand what she's saying. Likewise for "Mommy's a comptroller."

What we often forget is that we've come across here a universal truth. Throughout life, there are conditions for knowing. Not everything can be gotten from a book, or the internet, or an app. If you've never been to Manhattan, or Helsinki, you can't really know those places. You can read about them and gather endless facts. But there is a different sort of knowledge that only being there confers. At a certain level, you can understand a lot about tennis or golf through just reading enough books and watching the sport played. But there is a form of knowledge you don't have unless you've played a lot. There's other knowledge you can access unless you've played really well. The top pros understand the game in a way that weekend amateurs can't.

I'm convinced that there are also spiritual or moral conditions for knowing. We interpret the world, in part, through who we already are. A thoroughly selfish person can't recognize and know real altruism when it's staring him in the face. A person suspecting enemies and jealous detractors everywhere finds it nearly impossible to experience real friendship. An angry person sees life through a different lens than the one used by a happy person.

At different stages, and in different conditions, we have access to different things about the world. Technology will never provide universal access to all truth, no matter how much can be encoded. Our own growth will give us a form of access that can't be replicated in any other way.

So, we should remember that growth brings access. There are plateaus in life, and we can easily forget that, no matter where we are now, in our own inner lives and personal accomplishments, further growth is awaiting us, and it will bring greater knowledge and understanding. We shouldn't expect to have it all figured out already. There are endless adventures that await us.

So: Think growth today. And seek to develop, however slightly, the inner conditions for new understanding. Expand your existential territory. That's a good part of why you're here.

The Tools of Success

There are certain universal tools for success in any task, job, or role we play in our lives. I've been speaking for 25 years on a framework of such tools that I long ago isolated and extracted from the world's wisdom literature, with a focus on the insights of the most practical philosophers who have contemplated the contours of our lives. I've also written often on what I call The 7 Cs of Success. And, in brief, they are:

The 7 Cs: For true success in any challenge or opportunity, we need:

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

2. A strong CONFIDENCE that we can attain the goal

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

4. A stubborn CONSISTENCY in pursuing our vision

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

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

7. A CAPACITY TO ENJOY the process along the way

This simple framework of seven universal conditions was initially fairly difficult to identify and articulate, in all its proper details. I was looking for universality and logical connectedness. But understanding it is far easier than applying it effectively, which is really 90% of success.

Ideas and implementation are both important. But, ultimately, it's the implementation of ideas like these that makes all the difference. The tools of success, like any tools, have to be used in order to facilitate real world achievement, and they have to be used well. Plus, what results is just as much reliant on the materials of construction as on the tools used. 

Imagine yourself a carpenter. Your tools are the universal conditions for success. Your materials are your talents, skills, knowledge, and opportunities, as well as your relationships. What you create from those materials will demand a good use of appropriate tools. And that's up to you. 

Using the 7 Cs well involves understanding your situation, and also deeply understanding your self. We all have various strengths and limitations within us, obstacles and facilitators of some of these universal conditions. What holds you back? What drives you forward? Knowing yourself well positions use to use these tools well. That's why the philosophers have always encouraged self-knowledge, without which we end up without the particular structures we need for full and happy lives.

Greatness

Do you aspire to greatness? Or does that question just strike you as silly, or almost embarrassing? 

One of my favorite books in the late '80s was Attaining Personal Greatness, by Melanie Brown. It's actually one of my favorite success and personal growth books of all time, and I bet you haven't heard of it. That's too often the way things go. It's great (appropriately) but not well known. You can buy it on Amazon now for a penny. I quickly learned not to carry it around with the title showing, lest I elicit comments like "Oh. Have you attained it yet?" Or, "How's that going?" (with a raised eyebrows and a finger pointing toward the title).

Can you even imagine the concept broached in a speed dating situation: "What are your interests and plans?" - "Well, greatness. I'd like to attain personal greatness." - "Ok. NEXT!"

I did a podcast interview yesterday with a great guy who seems to be a real kindred spirit, Jay Forte, author of the book The Greatness Zone, and proprietor of the website named, appropriately, The Greatness Zone. He said that when he told his kids about the book, they advised him that he desperately needed a different title - that nobody is going to go around googling "greatness," or even binging it, or Yahooing, or whatever.

But I did. A quick google of the word 'greatness' reveals that it got used a lot in the year 1800, but that since then, it's been on a long downhill decline, which has only recently begun to reverse. The word 'awesome' by contrast had almost no usage in 1800, but experienced a marked increase of usage beginning after 1900, and spiking in the 1990s, until relatively recently, when it slowly began to become "not so great, or awesome, after all."

Our word 'great' has an interesting ancestry. In Old English, it was pronounced like "Greet." In Dutch, the root was 'groot.'  In German, 'gross' - but we'll pass over that one. In Old Saxon, it was 'grot', meaning, of course, something very different from 'rot'. These terms each tended to imply "big" or "tall" or "thick" or "stout." They were words of distinctive magnitude. In Middle English, there was a related verb, greaten, that meant "to grow, to increase, to become larger, or develop." And that's a key to the modern meaning.

Greatness is the result of a proper development, or appropriate growth, far beyond the norm. We speak of great musicians, great painters, great leaders, a great product, great service, and great art. The great is the wonderful and rare, the exceptional, the extraordinary that's far beyond the range of the ordinary. Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with what's ordinary, except when that word far too often comes to mean mediocre, subpar, poor, or even not really that good.

Nobody's born wanting to be a failure. Few people aspire to mediocrity. But is it Ok to shoot beyond good? Is it fine, or even commendable, or rather, obnoxiously elitist, and even narcissistic, to strive for greatness?

I happen to think that, in life and in the many roles we play within it, greatness is first and foremost a spiritual condition, an expansion of skill, ability, and performance that involves bringing something or someone to a special form of heightened completeness. It arises from innate gifts but develops through passion and persistence and a refusal to be stopped short of what's possible. Greatness is an achievement and pinnacle concept. And it's a realizable ideal.

Greatness isn't the same thing as perfection. Great men and women often have great flaws, or imperfections. But greatness requires the ability to learn from mistakes and challenges and failures along the way. And its measure is context relative. A great hotdog doesn't have to compete with a great painting in the realm of the aesthetic. Great work in college may be judged differently from great work in a professional context at the apex of an industry, or discipline. 

Perhaps, we can each aspire to our own personal form of greatness, at any given time, dependent on our talents, interests, values, and opportunities. Your proper greatness now, or in ten years, need not get you on the cover of Time Magazine, or invited to a sit-down with Oprah. But it will ennoble and elevate you and those around you, when it's done right. And it could even be what you're here for.

Just be careful how you talk about it, if you're first aspiring to it, or well on your way.

Who Will Cry When You're Gone?

Who will cry when they first learn you're gone?

Ok, I don't want to be the philosophical version of Debbie Downer here, but we need a second day on the topic of death, I think, but only obliquely, and as the source of a question. Yesterday, I mentioned an announcement in church of a great man's impending departure. Immediately, tissues and hankies were visible all over the sanctuary, as people dabbed their eyes. And that caused me to reflect on a very sad fact. There are top leaders in the world of business who seemed to have nothing more than an acquaintance relationship to their own family members. Their time is always spent elsewhere, and their energy. And at work, they're all business. They don't go around touching the hearts of others.

The people who will cry when they first learn that you're gone will be the people whose hearts you've touched with kindness and love, with affection and concern, with support and encouragement. How many are there? That, to me, is a measure of a life well lived. And we don't all measure up as we would like. But as long as we're still here, we can do something about it.

I think it's interesting to use what I like to call "The Inner Circle Principle." Your life can be imagined as contained within concentric circles. Family and best friends are the closest, innermost circle. Then, there are increasingly remote orbs of friends, co workers, neighbors and other acquaintances who also surround you. Ideally, you should be touching people's hearts in every contact you have. They deserve that. And so do you. But as a practical matter, it can help to concentrate first on the inner circle of people in your life - family and close friends. Are you acting toward them with kindness and love, affection and concern, support and encouragement? Are you paying attention, and doing the little things that will help them and touch their hearts? Or are you always in a hurry, distracted, and needed elsewhere for "important things"? These are the important things.

Give people what they most deeply need while you're here, and you'll make them wish you would stay on and on. And then, when they do learn that you've left for a distant shore, some tissues and hankies will likely appear to signal the good memories that you've left in their hearts.

Burn Bright While You're Here

In our informal Methodist church at the beach yesterday, the head minister told us at the start of the service that the oldest member of our ministerial staff had just suffered a major stroke and was now with hospice for what would most likely be his final hours. This man, The Reverend P. D. Midget, though in his nineties, had always seemed to have a timeless youth and vigor about him. Today, I realized that I had always assumed he'd be with us for a lot longer, despite his advanced age. He was a great harmonica player, and could do a fine job as well on the mandolin or banjo. He had recently had a smaller stroke, and in rehab had written and performed an upbeat song about it all that amazed everyone at the hospital. A graduate of Duke Divinity School, long ago, he was a keen reader and thinker, and could reenact episodes from the lives of historical figures in a dramatic way that was unexpectedly moving. He was an unusually kind and loving man, and always had a quick smile and a word of encouragement for anyone who crossed his path. I really enjoyed every conversation I had ever had with him, and now wish there had been a lot more of them.

In giving the announcement concerning this unexpected turn of events, our minister mentioned that he had already overseen the funerals of eight people in the past eleven days. And for a church of our size, that's pretty unusual. This two facts together were a powerful reminder of the fleeting nature of our time in this world, which is something that we usually keep out of mind. But it can be greatly useful to remember. As Woody Allen's character, in one of his movies long ago, said to a friend: "Don't you realize what a thread we're all hanging by?"

Consider an interesting passage from Ernest Hemingway's book, The Sun Also Rises. 

Just eleven pages into it, you'll come across this brief conversation that starts with Robert Cohn, Princeton graduate and amateur boxer, speaking to his old friend Jake, the narrator, in a bar - where it seems, interestingly, that philosophizing about life often takes place:

"Listen, Jake," he leaned forward on the bar.  "Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it?  Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?"

"Yes, every once in a while."

"Do you know that in about thirty-five years more we'll be dead?"

"What the hell, Robert,' I said, "What the hell?"

"I'm serious."

"It's one thing I don't worry about," I said.

"You ought to."

As we all know, but mostly, like Jake, tend not to think about very much, life is a limited-time offer. This is an interesting point of reflection for all of us who are already in mid-life or beyond. But it's an important fact for any of us, however young or old. Are we making the most of our time on earth? Are we using our talents in the best ways, and taking advantage of the opportunities that come to us each day? Are we enjoying the adventure? Are we touching the lives of others in positive ways? Or are we letting ourselves be held back and worn down by our own inner reactions to things that are sometimes outside our control?

There's a lesson we can glean from Woody Allen, and Hemingway's characters, and my old friend. Burn bright while you're here. It won't be forever. Remember this, and make your best difference while you can.

Life as Exploration and Discovery

"Life has its own hidden forces which you can discover only by living." Soren Kierkegaard.

Habit can be a subtle anesthetic. We need to wake up and shake it off.

Life is supposed to be a series of adventures - one big adventure, full of many smaller ones. Every day is meant to be a classroom for the spirit. Living well means learning every day.

Most people become content with surface living, caught up with appearances and fairly superficial routines. That's not supposed to be the way it goes. We've all been dropped into this strange mysterious world to be its explorers, its adventurers, and its collaborative creators. If we live the way we're meant to live, we discover those hidden forces Kierkegaard was alluding to, and we can then use them in powerful ways.

So, live adventurously. Discover what's hidden. And use it well.

Today.