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.

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.

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.

Redefining Luxury

We need to redefine luxury in our time. It's not about price. It's about quality.

In a world of mediocre stuff, made too often by people who really don't care, and of services that are offered, and barely, on automatic pilot, real quality produced by passionate people has become a rarity. I think it's become a luxury. The chairman of the philosophy department at Notre Dame, long ago, who went on to be the Dean of Arts and Letters at NYU, once told me about a friend of his who said, "I'll never be able to afford the best car in the world, but I can afford the best fountain pen." He wanted an experience of rare, top quality. And he got it.

I've had a couple of nice long rides in a new Rolls Royce. Ok, I get it. It was nice. But I like my Audi A8L just as much. It's eight years old and still surrounds me in luxury. It looks like, and performs like, it was made by people who care. Plus, my local Audi dealership, Audi Cape Fear, really cares. Their top notch service is a luxury. Thanks to AJ. Aliah, the owner, who shows everyone there how to care, and insists on the highest customer service, which is a true luxury in our time.

I've written here before, a couple of times, about Peter and Aletta Stas, founders of the Swiss watch maker Frederique Constant. Go look at their amazing creations. They've been a great example to me. Their motto is "accessible luxury." People often think of that as a paradox. Isn't luxury inherently inaccessible, because of price? When you define luxury in terms of exorbitant cost, of course it is. But that's an inappropriate definition. Our English word 'luxury' comes from Latin roots, and a word that long ago meant, in its time, excess, extravagance, profusion, or delicacy. In old French, it developed connotations of the sensual. But it never meant the unaffordable or inaccessible. A luxury item was one that went beyond the norm. It was somehow an extravagance, even a delicacy, involving an excess of attention and care and quality, beyond the norm. And that's still what it should mean, today. A luxury doesn't have to be available only to multi-millionaires, or billionaires.

We can extend to other people small luxuries all the time, if we really care, and want to go beyond the norm. Even larger luxuries can be provided, without a exorbitant cost.

In a season of gift giving, consider the ultimate luxury: A gift of your time and attention and care, delicately and extravagantly delivered with an exquisite consideration for the needs, wants, and concerns of the recipient. That, like a meticulously crafted and beautiful Frederique Constant watch, is an accessible luxury of great value.

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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Motivational Speakers

On several occasions, after being in one of my audiences, someone has said to me, "I've always hated motivational speakers." That's an interesting remark for me to hear, since I'm often described as a motivational speaker.

Fortunately, the next sentence, on each occasion, has been something like: "But this, I really, truly enjoyed." And then, some version of an explanation has followed: "This was the real thing, today - the real stuff, not just fluff."

One Harvard educated PBS producer, after telling me how much he dreaded being dragged to see a motivational talk, said to me, with great enthusiasm, "But this, I couldn't believe, it was so good. You dug deep into human nature. You nailed all the real stuff. This was genuine philosophy, not just empty cheerleading. I mean, it was inspirational and uplifting because it wasn't just a lot of hype. It was deep truth, presented simply, logically, and with a lot of fun." He didn't hold it against me that I was a Yale guy. 

I was relieved, and grateful for the positive words. But, hey, we all need a little cheerleading now and then. "Come on. You can do it. Head high. Just believe. Aim for the stars. Etc." But at other times, we do need much more. We need to understand the leverage points in human nature for making things happen. And ever since there have been written documents, wise people have put into writing what they discerned about those deep wells and resources we all have. Or, sometimes, their students have recorded their remarks, when they were not writers themselves, like Socrates, and Epictetus, the Buddha, and Jesus of Nazareth.

We benefit when we hear or read "the real stuff, not just fluff." The truth is exciting enough to give us hope and inspire us to move forward productively in our lives and our work. We don't need revved up hype to pump us up.

Some motivational speakers are indeed like parrots of fluff - human tape recorders of clever phrases ending with exclamation points. A few, sadly, are charlatans concerned only about their own success, not yours or mine. Some, unfortunately - and I say this as charitably as possible, and without feeling at all judgmental, but you likely know what I mean - are deluded careless thinkers. Sorry, but it's true. And some are wise, loving, and helpful guides to the heights of what we're capable of accomplishing and experiencing in this world, because they're grounded deeply in truth, and are motivated by love.

Brian Johnson, founder and proprietor of Entheos has a nice concept for the concerns of the wisest throughout history: Optimal Living. Anyone who can help us to that deserves our attention. And I include in that crowd such eminences as Aristotle, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tsu, Rumi, Hadrat Ali, Emerson, and even some much less celebrated people alive in our day.

In motivational matters, as in life, the adage holds true: Let the buyer/listener/reader beware. But if we're discerning, and follow the genuine breadcrumbs of wisdom left for us throughout the ages, we can indeed prosper and succeed, finding fulfillment and happiness along the way. Then, we become wisely motivated achievers of optimal living.

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.

My 40th Anniversary

Today is my 40th wedding anniversary. And it's also my wife's. Duh. I couldn't have done it without her. We fell in love in 1973, and were married on December 1, 1974, when I was 22 and she was ... younger.

I realize how rare a 40th anniversary is, these days. So, you might wonder: what's the secret?

To start with: Love is vital. Real love.

Forgiveness is just as important. A capacity to give and receive forgiveness is like a car's shock absorbers and overall suspension system - needed to get you over all the bumps and holes and to keep you from careening off the road. And this is especially needed on the wife's part. If I'm at all representative of my gender, husbands can be idiots at time, despite even PhDs in wisdom. 

Communication is also important. Ideally, it magnifies love and makes forgiveness not needed quite as often. Believing in the other person, and in who they most fundamentally are, is another key. Faith is probably the most important of all, at least in our experience - it transcends everything else.

I couldn't let the day pass without acknowledging this milestone here. Thank you, Mary Morris, for hanging in there and helping me to become the person I am now, a much better person - I promise.

Love. As always.

Oh, and you guys reading this - I wish this sort of experience for you - in quality, or quantity, or both!

Enough for now. I gotta go. Champagne awaits. Oh, and Pizza.

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."