I'm an Optimist!

I’m an unusual philosopher in several respects. First, I have no beard, toga or tweed jacket. Second, I don't work at a college or university, where most of us are safely confined. But my focus today is on the fact that, even stranger, I’m an optimist.

Survey the history of philosophy and you won’t find many of us smiley faces in the mix.  Thomas Hobbes was no barrel of laughs with a rosy view of things. Schopenhauer was perhaps King of the Pessimists. Kierkegaard was often referred to as "the gloomy Dane." Sartre is famous for his characteristic statement that “Hell is other people.” Ouch. And, you know: Check the news. The world is full of problems - overflowing with difficulties. So, how do I manage to be an optimist, swimming against so strong a tide? Why, for that matter, should anyone with a mind at all be an optimist?

First, I should qualify my confession. I'm often a short term pessimist but always a mid-to-long term optimist. Short term, any crazy thing can happen. Given time, though, things will work out. That's my view. And because the long and mid term encompasses the short term, I'm - all things considered, in the end, and ultimately - an optimist. So I choose the metaphysical smile.

Here's the thing. The same problems exist around the world that always have. But the evil practices and stupid things going on now more widely condemned than ever before. And yet, they still exist. Enlightenment is a rough and curving road, with many back turns and hills, and detours along the way. And of course, as one especially insightful individual once said, “There will always be wars and rumors of war.”

Human aggression seems to be so deeply embedded in our nature that no reasonable person could ever expect it to disappear. Renowned physicist and Expert on Many Things Stephen Hawking recently said that aggression is the greatest threat to our continued existence that there is. As an optimist, do I then think it will just go away? No. But I believe it can be redirected.

Right now, as in all the rest of our history, human aggression is directed primarily toward people. And I don’t think we need to end it. But we need to redirect it toward problems rather than people. If we could get especially the young men around the world and their supporters to go after the problems we all face with the energy and aggression by which they fight and go to war, the world would be a better place pretty quickly.

We don’t need a world with no aggression. We need a world of aggressive problem solvers. And that’s a good thing. In a wise and prescient novel, The Thanatos Syndrome, the late Walker Percy envisioned a place where drugs were put into the water supply to reduce aggression and hostility. The unexpected side effect was that many other things were reduced as well, including creativity. It’s nice to dream of a world where no aggression at all exists. But a more reasonably expected one is where it’s redirected. Will it ever happen? Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, I remain an optimist. The world is full of problems like this, but I'm convinced we're here to be problem solvers.

Intense Living

How intensely do you live? It's well known, and often experienced, that we can eat without attending to the taste and feel of what we're consuming. We're watching TV or talking or reading and just mindlessly chewing our food with no conscious awareness of it whatsoever. We can even drive on automatic pilot, realizing now and then that we haven't payed any conscious attention to what's gone on, along the way. It's amazing the road isn't littered with the wreckage of mindlessness.

But when we stop and attend, our experience changes radically. How much do you do that? How present are you? Where is your focused attention throughout the day? Most of us live without intensely attending, which means we take up time and space without the effects we're here to have, for most of our moments. We're missing The Big Show that's here for us all. 

And when we don't fully notice, we can't fully act in the best and highest ways. In the end, we're here to enjoy the show, but also to perform in it our own best roles.

Don't miss the moment. You have an all access ticket. Don't sleep through The Big Show. Pay attention. Relish it. Feel it. Absorb it. Throw yourself into it. Luxuriate in it. That's what it's for.

Today.

Find What Matters

Have you noticed that advertisements are becoming more philosophical? I've blogged the noble sentiments of a recent Cadillac ad. Now let me post the content of an ad for Spyder.com:

Find what matters and free yourself from the rest. That's invincibility.

Why invincibility? Because when you focus on what matters, you really can't be defeated. All failures either feed you or take you out of the game. You won't stay in it to lose. What matters most, of course, are the matters of creative love, or loving creativity, as I explored in the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business, a book that was published in 1997, but that reflects what only now many leaders in the corporate world are beginning to realize. 

Focus matters. A focus on the right things matters more. Freeing yourself from the rest is the most liberating act, and ongoing habit, that you can develop. And it's a key to your highest potential - the only route to the only invincibility there is.

Dare Greatly

In a Cadillac advertisement on the back page of the new edition of Esquire, we find this:

It is not the critic who counts: The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

It's an inspiring, shortened version of a famous statement by Theodore Roosevelt, worth representing in its entirety, because it's worthwhile to read and ponder the words again, and the additional thoughts and images that we all need to keep in view:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote vividly about a boxer who was bruised and bloodied in the ring, knocked down, but not knocked out, as being the only one who could bring to the next contest the deep confidence that never comes until you've had your teeth rattled and had the breath pounded out of you and outlasted the onslaught. The challenges, bumps, and bruises of life are to be used by us to strengthen our souls, and they alone prepare us for becoming and being the best we're capable of being. So, when they come, use them well, and proudly. 

In the end, it's not the critics, but the struggling creators, who prevail.

Plutarch, Me, and You

The ancient philosopher Plutarch was once asked why he hung out with so many leaders and philosophized with them so much. He said, basically, "I could spend my time digging a single well to bring water to one home, or I could help build an aqueduct to bring it to many. When I work with leaders, I'm able, with them, to convey insight to a great many others."

I love being a philosopher. I love philosophizing with anyone. I can enjoy sitting for hours in deep conversation with one person. But there are times when, philosophizing with a group of leaders, I really understand Plutarch's perspective.

Last week, my wife and I were in London for a meeting with Hewlett Packard's Board of Advisors for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia - CIOs and CTOs from major HP customers. These were individuals who as chief information or chief technology officers steer some of the biggest companies in the world toward what will be our amazing technological future. And I get to hang out with them, listen to the sic-fi realities of what's coming in five or ten years, or more, and then talk with them about the wisdom of the past three thousand years, the insights that we need to use to help get us to that future in all the best ways. I learn so much. It's astonishingly fun. And I'm able to share that clear water of ancient wisdom with a room full of leaders whose own aqueducts can bring it to cities and countries of people around the globe. It's a treat, and a great honor.

Sometimes we have to work hard to dig one needed well, a well that will bring cold clear water into our own lives, or into our family's life. And at other times we should focus on an aqueduct that can bring water to many - at work, in church, throughout our neighborhoods or communities, and in many other ways. Each service is important. But when you can magnify the good, spreading it out to many, there is a special Plutarchian joy that's good to feel.

So when you have a chance: Spread wisdom. Spread joy.

The Strangeness of It All

What was the first truly unsettling thing you learned in school? Other than how babies are made and enter the world. For me, it was being told that the sky isn't really blue and the grass isn't really green. Nothing is actually a color. It's all in our minds.

Say what?

That striped dress burning up the internet recently? Gold and white. No, black and blue. No, bronze and white. Actually, nothing. I think that factoid freaked me out more than anything else in my early education. And then along came the philosophers with their distinction between primary qualities that are inherent in things and secondary qualities like color that aren't.

Imagine how blown my mind was when I started reading physics and even some of the most solid primary qualities like extension seemed evanescent. If you don't already know about stuff like entanglement and superposition, and you Google it, you end up going "What?"

We ordinarily think we have a lock on what the world is all about, and how to navigate through it. But with a little meditation on the true strangeness of it all, I open up in new ways. We're surrounded by mystery and uncertainty. And I think that makes two things important. First, humility. Second, boldness. As Socrates insisted long ago, we don't know as much as we think we do. Humility is appropriate to our condition. But equipped with minds and bodies as we are, we must be here to do stuff. And: Since we dance in the great unknown, we might as well be bold.

Create freely. Do well. And why not bring love into the material world like it really matters? In a cosmic existential reality where the physical environment around us looks less solid all along, love just might be the most solid thing around. Amen?

A New World Order

We live in a world order that seems to have come to us out of prehistory. It's in the air we breathe - along with a lot of other stuff that's been produced by it. It's the motivational structure behind what most people do, most of the time. It's a world order that's all about position, power, and possessions. It's been responsible for most of the achievements, discoveries, and inventions throughout human history. But it's a recipe for resentment, aggression, and conflict. It's a zero sum mindset - those who want more have to take from others, who end up with less.

An old friend from college, Ed Brenegar, recently visited for part of a day, on a pilgrimage to see several east coast friends before he moves soon from Asheville, NC to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We sat and talked for hours about philosophy, life, and the spirit. We reflected on this old world order of position, power, and possessions that's beginning to look spiritually threadbare and not merely problematic, but actually self destructive over the long run. And we ruminated on what would be a better alternative - a spiritual vision of creativity, contribution, and service where our aspirations are guided more by love and compassion than by lust and acquisition. We wondered together if we're in a time of transition from one to the other, or whether a better world order of care and concern is just a dream.

What motivates you? Is it just a desire for position, power, or possessions? Or is it something more, something deeper and more lasting? There is something better for us, something calling out to us that will not at all diminish our drive to create and improve, but will put it onto better foundations. There is, of course, nothing wrong with position, power, and possessions. They're all great things, if used well. But they should never be the sole motivating forces in our lives, or the metrics by which we measure value. There is, indeed, something more.

Self-Help! in India

A man named David wrote me a year ago, and then again recently. He’s an avid reader of self help books and lives in India. The books didn’t work they way he had hoped. I asked if I could blog this exchange without using his name. He said it would be fine to use it. So here it is. What would you say?

From: David. Sent: Thu, Mar 6, 2014 10:11 am Subject: Career Advice

Dear Sir, I just read your book True Success (7 Cs of Success) and I found it really helpful. I also watched some of your videos on you tube. I am David, I am from India, 40 years of age. As far as I remember I have never been too ambitious and I have not found my true passion yet. I have tried several jobs and since last 8-9 years I have been pretty stable in a Sales job.

Last year in March I lost my job, but I didn't loose hope and found another job, but at a second level below my last position. ( I was working as Regional Manager handling multiple branches in a bigger area, whereas the current position I got was as Branch head in the same industry handling only one branch).

I got this position in the month of June 2013 but within a month I resigned as I could not feel comfortable going back in the hierarchy and it was suffocating as I thought it would take another 2-3 years for me to get back to my same position which I was in my last job as Regional manager. Whereas, my friends/colleagues and my juniors were at a better position. Even though the salary was good I didn't think twice before resigning as I was very confident in getting another job at my level, but this proved to be wrong as since last 7-8 months I have tried everything but not landed any job. (It’s good that I had a saving so I can still take care of another 3-4 months).

My confidence is also getting low as days are just passing by. I would like some advice from you so that I can implement the same and get my career on track. Regards,

David

To: David Re: Career Advice From: tomvmorris Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 11:42:10 -0500

Hi David! I'm glad you read True Success and have enjoyed it. A nice follow-up might be The Art of Achievement, which examines arts or skilled behaviors connected with each of the 7 Cs - and especially in times of transition such as you find yourself in now. It sounds like you're ready for the next adventure. I hope these books can help.

Remember in True Success there was a section about goal setting, and a suggestion about making lists: What do I like about my life now? What do I not like about my life right now? Sometimes, that can start creative thought about what you want to preserve and what you want to change.

I understand the frustration you experienced when you were running a single branch rather than a region. We all experience temporary fluctuations in our trajectories in the world. There are ups and there are downs. You can be a successful individual whether you are having success right now in all the ways you want it, or not. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. You're sometimes running, sometimes walking, sometimes, stopped, bent over catching your breath or drinking water. Then you start up again.

When you lost the regional position and gained the local job, that didn't lower your value or worth. But I'm sure you felt a blow to your self esteem. It didn't seem fair, when others you knew continued to prosper, despite having no more merit than you. Almost everyone lives through this, and perhaps several times.

If you love the industry, I would take any job in it that allowed me to show excellence at that level, whatever it is. Excellence always rises, and you can't predict how quickly or slowly.

You are a young man. I say that as a 62 year old about to have a birthday. You have many great adventures ahead of you. Don't be afraid to start the next one in a small way. For a great soul, no job is small. You make it great. Then you expand your territory.

Difficulties easily erode our confidence. But the confidence that most matters always has to come from the fire inside you, the fire that uses obstacles as more fuel and grows from its experiences.

If that's the C that's the hardest for you right now, Confidence, then use the others to build it. That's the way the framework can function. The more you apply the other conditions, the more confidence will grow.

Don't be discouraged! Everyone has hard times. Those are the times that grow up and strengthen us!

I would network with others, apply for anything that would have looked interesting to the younger you, and prepare to expand the job to reflect who you truly are!

Let me know if I can help in any way. Tom Morris

From: David RE: Career Advice Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 22:55:00 +0530

Dear Sir, Thanks for the valuable advice. I would definitely implement your suggestions. All the best for your future goals and aspirations. Regards,

David

A YEAR PASSES

From: David Sent: Wed, Mar 11, 2015 8:34 am Subject: RE: Career Advice

Sir, I hope you remember the last conversation we had last year. Well I did take up a job after that, it was an educational institute. As my job is in sales I have to achieve the targets. After working there for 6 months due to non performance I had to quit again. Last month I got a job in the same industry but in another city. I worked for almost a month but nothing felt right from the day one. The bosses were rude and on top of it I was torn between family and job. I had not shifted my family to the new location. It was difficult and in the end I quit without even taking my salary.

You must be wondering why I am sharing this with you, sometimes a third person can be a good judge.

Sometimes I think may be because of reading of all these self-help books, where they tell you to go and achieve the stars, amass more wealth.

I started my career in accounts but then after reading such books I thought I was playing safe and may be I need to do something great. I switched my career to sales thinking that I would move the career ladder faster. As you know sales is a roller coaster ride. It’s a tough job and now after almost 15 years it is very difficult to change the careers from sales to some other department.

Now I have started to feel like a failure. My brother who is younger to me works in accounts. His organization has sent him to USA. He would be earning in dollars and that too at a steady job. The frustration is mounting. Will appreciate some good advice from you. Thanks in advance.

David from India

What would you suggest?

To David Wed, Mar 11, 2015

David: Could you tell me which self help books you've read? TM

From: David

Sir, Unlimited power, Awaken the giant within you, Think and grow rich, some books by norman vincent peale, psycho cybernetics, seven habits and more. Mostly books on achieving success and wealth. I think the more u run after success, success deludes you. I have tried affirmations, creative visualization, nlp. I have also tried listening to paul mckenna, and morry method, subliminal messaging, but it didn't help. I know some of my friends they don't know anything of this stuff but still they are successful. Well may be it would not be proper to blame self help books, but take responsibility and move forward.

May be I need to change my attitude towards work. I think inspite of reading all this positive stuff I have become negative. Like for instance in my last job I had argument with one of my boss on the second day. I started thinking anytime in future they will fire me. One more mistake and I will be out of job. At the same time staying in a new city, away from my family and spending on rent and food, and top of it having a hyper boss, the stress was unbearable and I just decided to quit and come back.

Now that I have come back I think, have I made a mistake, in this tough market I did get a job, should I be more tough mentally, should I have more patience, should I have the mentality of not quitting at any cost. Well I think this is the time for some introspection and action, so that I do not fall in this trap again.

Thanks for the time and yes your blog is really wonderful.

One more question what do you think of Ayn Rands philosophy. Few years back I was very much motivated by her books fountain head and atlas shrugged. Thanks and regards. David

To David Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2015 09:21:50 -0400

Hi David. This is a temporary learning period you're going through. Many good people go through such a period, and come out of it with lots more wisdom about themselves and life.

The self help books too often don't recognize that people have very different talents, and that the contours of success can be as different for them as their talents. Not everyone can be a CEO. What would the world do with 6 billion CEOs and no one else? Not everyone SHOULD be a CEO. Not everyone can be a painter, or a journalist, or an accounts manager. When the self help books tell you to AIM HIGH, they usually assume that it means lots of money, or an exalted corporate status, or outsized power. But why should everyone aspire to that? It makes no sense. Some of us have talents that are of tremendous value to those around us, but our culture doesn't reward those talents with big money. So what?

The best advice is to know yourself. Find what you enjoy. Discover how you can use your time and talents to benefit others, in however large or small a way. Then do that. The proper rewards will follow. And many of those rewards will involve your own self esteem, fulfillment and happiness. Why should success mean the same results for everyone who has it? Why should you have to be miserable to work toward someone else's view of success?

You have tried an experiment. And like most experiments, there is a sense in which it didn't work. But in a deeper sense it did work. It told you what not to do. It reminded you of the importance of family. It showed you what doesn't feel right.

I've written extensively about seven universal conditions for success. They can act as a checklist for a possible goal or job. Then, once you've picked the goal or job, they can support your work toward it.

When I tell people to aim high, I mean for them to seek to be the best that THEY can be, with THEIR talents and interests. A janitor at The University of Notre Dame was the noblest man on campus, in my view. He thought of his job not just as cleaning a building but as creating conditions for excellence. He was a custodian of souls. His friendly and positive energy lifted up everyone around him. Most of the people in the building had PhDs, but they went to him to talk about difficulties and hurts and challenges. He was in the right job to make his proper difference. It's too bad he wasn't paid a lot of money for it. But if he had been, he would have given it away to poorer people. Why is money the measure? It isn't. It never has been. It just sells self help books.

Use what you've learned on these recent adventures to launch out in one that's better for YOU. That's self help. Use your wisdom for your good and the good of those you care about.

You can start almost anywhere. As you've learned, some adventures are short. Some are longer. Each one can teach us. You're learning a lot.

We should never judge jobs by external standards. Jobs don't make people important. People make jobs important.

You have greatly important work ahead of you. Let me know how it goes.

Believe in yourself. Your ability to articulate your journey makes me sure that the future can be very good for you.

Good Wishes! Tom Morris

Relationships and Transactions

There are two very different ways to live in the world. And these ways of living generate mindsets, habits of thought, action, feeling, and attitude. Each, in a sense, creates a world of its own. You live in either:

1. A Transaction World

or

2. A Relationship World.

A transaction world is all about buying and selling and trading. It's like a game where pieces are moved around on a board. A relationship world, by contrast, is all about developing bonds between people. It's about exploring, discovering, and creating new realities and experiences together. 

The transaction mentality views life as being about events and things that bring money, power, status, fame, and stuff your way, to whatever large or small an extent.

The relationship mentality views life as being about people and our connections with them. 

In a transaction world, people are either hindrances or helps. They're to be used or avoided. They're always managed and never really honored. In a relationship world, people are intrinsically valuable and are co-creators of value. They're respected and honored, encouraged and developed, cheered on, and praised whenever possible.

In a transaction world, it's things that are loved. In a relationship world, it's people.

The biggest mistake ever made about business is to think of it as all about transactions. It's always really about relationships. And here's the most important truth: Relationships rule the world. The transactions we engage in will never sustain us and deeply satisfy us unless they cultivate the relationships we really need.

If you live in a transaction world, you need to make a change. Consider cultivating a transition into the other world that awaits you. Life is supposed to be about people.

Leaders: Cultivate Your People!

I had lunch with a younger friend today. He runs an office for a major insurance company. In his first year, out of 800 agents in the state, he went from being unranked to being 29th to 52nd to 7th and then all the way up to Number 3, at the top of the mountain. He was a hero. He was made to feel important, celebrated, and held up to others as an example. Then he felt a calling to write a book and speak to groups of people, to share the wisdom about life that he had been learning. So, while continuing to work hard at insurance, he also had to devote time to the writing and speaking. A great book resulted. And his speaking is taking off. Meanwhile, though, his statewide ranking fell to 84th.

The insurance executives over him in the corporate ranks made it clear that they were not pleased. "You're a top 20 guy, not a top 80 guy." He then continued to operate in the top ten percent, even when also busy writing and speaking. But that was now considered a failure - for him. He got chiding and angry phone calls, and unpleasant, pressure filled visits. He was pressed heavily to forget the writing and speaking, and just do his job and produce his numbers, back in the stratosphere of achievement where he was clearly able to function.

One day, an executive visited his office while he was out with a client, and sat at his desk. A coworker thought it was his manager and came into the room saying his name. The executive corrected him and said he was just visiting, but while in the room, thought he might write a book. And this was apparently said with great sarcasm.

This says a lot to me about monumentally stupid business practices. When you have a superbly talented person running an office, and he discovers a side of himself that he wants to develop, then a great leader should encourage that development, while counseling the individual on how he might integrate it into his ongoing business life. But too many corporate executives shoot for predictability rather than true greatness among their people. Great people do great business. Whole people who feel appreciated, respected, and nurtured can work with a loyalty and edge that no one else can duplicate.

My friend should have been encouraged and supported in what he was doing. He should have been applauded even if his new interest were music or sculpture, or long distance running. But it was writing and speaking on topics that can help other people to be great - including people in his own company. So it's not like this development is in any way irrelevant to his business and the corporation, nationally - in fact, quite the opposite. His bosses could have cultivated a talent that would be able to benefit them all in numerous ways, but chose to deal with him instead with harshness, pressure, criticism, and even sarcasm. Do they really think this is the best way to get him to take his work with them to the next level? I was astonished to hear about it. It was, to me, inconceivable to me that people in executive positions could be so dumb. My exceptional friend told me all this with a calm and accepting demeanor, but intimated that he couldn't see continuing on under such conditions, over the long term. Who could?

Too many leaders are really idiots about talent. They view everything with tunnel vision. They want, in my friend's words, "just racehorses who will continue to improve their times." Their vision for what they're doing is far too narrow, and their treatment of others is self defeating.

So, please let me make an appeal to those who are in leadership positions. We want whole people, flourishing people to work with us, not just one-dimensional obsessives. Granted, a few one-dimentional obsessives can be quite productive. But you should never try to fill your organization full of them. 

Whole people can chart new territory, and do new things, and bring us a sort of greatness we never could have predicted, but only if we encourage and support them. If my friend had been encouraged and supported, I have no doubt that, after this initially demanding period of launching his new activities, he could have been back to his top spot in the state, or higher, and with a belief in the company that would have been contagious. He could have told their story with gusto, far and wide. They could have become a "Most Admired Place" to work. 

The executives in question lost a rare and precious opportunity to make something spectacular happen, for their mutual good.

Extraordinary People

A few days ago, I just finished writing a second draft of a little book about the philosophical underpinnings of the extraordinary success experienced by Apple founder Steve Jobs. Then I found out that this week a new book is being published about him, a biography that might correct some of the impressions we all had when reading Walter Isaacson's authorized tome. The new one is called Becoming Steve Jobs. And it promises a more rounded portrait of a man who didn't just scream at people, but was a more complex character who changed modern life for all of us. I look forward to it.

Then, hours later, I read an article about Elon Musk, the young developer of PayPal, Tesla cars, and SpaceX, a guy who's just started with his own entrepreneurial magic, and may be the real life version of comic book and movie character Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man. Elon has taught himself physics, astrophysics and many other things, while most of us where sitting on the sofa and watching The Voice or Modern Family.

I was once in one of Henry Ford's former homes right outside Detroit. The caretaker was talking to me about how Henry used to sit around with his buddies Thomas Edison and the tire guy Firestone and dream up new ways to change the world. What can we learn from such people? 

We're not all world transforming visionaries. But we can all have visions for our lives and the world around us. We can accomplish more than we might suspect. And all that stands between us and the legacy we can create is habit, inertia, easy comfort, and distraction - all things that can be overcome with just a little effort.

We might not invent a new technology, or revolutionize industries, or fly people to Mars. But if we try, we can create more extraordinariness around us than we might ever have imagined. The magic is in us. That's why we're here. We just have to act like the pioneers we're meant to be, in whatever domain and on whatever level. Whether the results will get into the national papers and onto the covers of magazines isn't the test of our worth. We can feel whether we're doing what we're here to do. If you don't feel it, then give yourself the chance to dream and do. And then value your creative best by the right standards.

The Examined Life

I recently quoted Socrates. "The unexamined life is not worth living." He believed that self examination is a key to wisdom and virtue, to getting our bearings in life, and to moving forward in the right direction.

And I agree. But we need to balance his insight with our own. "The unlived life is not worth examining." We can't spend all our time in front of an existential mirror. We need to get out of the  self reflective head space in order to go out into the world and do something great. Self examination can be very helpful. It's necessary. But too much self reflection can gum us up.

A high school jazz teacher once told me how often he walks by a practice room and hears a student playing much better than he would have thought possible, but that if the student becomes aware of him outside the door, the performance will go dramatically downhill at once. The student becomes too self aware of his own playing as an object of assessment. Excellence in many endeavors requires rather a sort of self forgetfulness, almost a thoughtlessness that is possible only because of all the prior thought and deliberate effort that has paved its way. We need to get out of our own heads, and free ourselves from too much self awareness if we are to be our best at anything.

As a public philosopher, I'm at my best when I'm least self aware. In a room speaking on a topic I've been asked to address, the true magic happens when I completely forget myself and become almost one with the room, the people, and the ideas flowing through my brain. I'm not apart from the experience, observing it. I'm just having it. I'm almost being it. And that's not a time at all for self examination.

So, like many things in life, self awareness, self reflection, and self examination can be great, and vitally important, when used properly. But we also have to know when to put those tools down and just live. Then, we also need to know when to take them up again - but that takes a measure of wisdom, which is basically the skill of living well.

Your Success

True Success is made of a distinctive fabric that will stretch or contract to your proper contours. It's essentially measured and made for you and by you. That's part of what makes the success of other people something you can often admire, but that you should never seek to copy in every respect. Your proper success will be contoured just for you.

The most universal advice on attaining your best will always honor this truth if it's based in real wisdom, and not grandiose hype. Let's face it. We live in a culture that celebrates grandiosity. But we can say of many grandiose people something very similar to what Kierkegaard once said of Hegel: They create majestic and ornate mansions that no one could live in happily. Too many of us are driven by an assumption that bigger is always better, and in every domain of life. 

I've been writing about Steve Jobs recently, composing a new book on the deep philosophy behind his outsized success. And the more you learn about Jobs, the more you feel that, while you are indeed in the presence of a variety of greatness, you're also in the presence of extreme and driven obsession. And you don't have to be obsessed to be successful. You don't even have to be totally unbalanced and one dimensional to be extraordinarily successful. But the highest peaks of world changing accomplishment are usually reached only by those who are indeed obsessed, nearly possessed unbalanced, and driven by things in their lives that will not give them either rest or peace. We often benefit from the great work of such people. But the rest of us don't have to aspire to be like them in order to reach our own proper forms of tremendous success that are contoured just right for us.

It's a nice reminder. When you seek to put on a garment of success that's cut wrong for you, it never fits well or feels good. Only your proper success, in whatever size and style is right for your talents, personality, commitments, and nature, will fulfill you deeply and feel great.

In case you want to ponder more on this topic, consult my books True Success, or The Art of Achievement. Then, to get the practical equivalent of a PhD on the topic, with massive insights from the great thinkers, east and west, go look at the new ebook, The 7 Cs of Success. And let me know what you think!

Your Heart Knows

Whatever you feel in your heart to do, try it, regardless of the outcome. Life is mostly about process, not results. The results may or may not come. That's not up to you. The process is. Entirely. And how much in life is? Trying is entirely, 100%, up to us.

Today, I heard some guy being interviewed on NPR. I listened for 20 minutes and never found out who was being interviewed. But one point he made is worth repeating. He tried what he loved, and with no expectation of success. He poured himself into it. He said that no one in his family had ever caught a break. They were poor and caught in low end jobs. No one had ever succeeded, financially, or in most other ways. But he couldn't help trying to do what his heart told him to do. And he succeeded, wildly. We can rise above our backgrounds. We can. We often do. And our parents, and grand parents, and their ancestors would most likely applaud us, if we're doing it right. But, ultimately, it's all about heart. Do you feel it in your heart? Do you feel like you have to do it? Then do it, regardless.

One of my old childhood friends is a song writer. Some people say he's the best song writer in the history of country music. He moved to Nashville at about age 20. He wrote songs like "The Gambler" and "Forever and Ever, Amen." Years later, I asked him what the competition was like when he got to Nashville. He said that, at the time, he didn't know, but that now, he realizes that about 3,000 song writers live there at any given point. I asked him how many make a living doing it. He said, less than 200. I then asked whether he knew the odds against him when he moved there. He said, "No. But it didn't matter. I had to do what I was doing. It was in my heart. I had no backup plan."

One of the greatest gifts of life is to do what you have to do, whether you think you'll be successful or not. Living who you are - that's the key. Responding to what's in your heart. And that's the secret to a great life.

In the photo today you see my old friend Don Schlitz with Mary Chapin Carpenter, doing what's in their hearts.

Our Mistakes

We're humans. Given a chance to screw up, we will.

That's a quote from Brent Scowcroft, former, and outstanding, Director of National Security for presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush. In a recent New York Times BooK Review Essay on a new biography of Scowcroft, the reviewer Daniel Kurtz-Phelan begins by saying:

In foreign policy, every success is just the start of the next crisis.

And isn't it that way in life, generally? We plan, work, strive and achieve, just to be confronted by a big problem we didn't see coming. And, along the way, we screw up. 

"Mistakes were made." That could be an epitaph for the human adventure. And how do you deal with mistakes or screw ups? Do you descend into the valley of despair, self-recrimination, and toxic guilt? I hope not. Just as much as I hope you don't just continue to dash blithely forth, oblivious to what you've done. 

Mistakes will be made. It's the human condition. The real question is whether they'll be continued, or at least interrupted by a proper response. Can we be learners? Will we be resilient? Even Sisyphus got back down to heave the stone again.

Give yourself a break. But don't let that prevent you from learning. We all make mistakes - sometimes whoppers. And we all can learn. There's a way to be a short term pessimist and a long term optimist. That's what I've been for a very long time. Any crazy thing can happen in the short term. But I'm very optimistic about the big picture.

This is actually a nice posture to adopt. Most critiques of optimism are actually objections against the viewpoint that can't tolerate any pain, and deludes itself to see sunshine in everything. I see sunshine, but not as a delusion - and mostly as a disinfectant of our stained mistakes. It's precisely my long term optimism that allows me to be a little pessimistic in the near term, and be prepared for almost any bad thing to happen. I'm ready for it. And I'm prepared to change it into something good.

How about you?

Sometimes, Play

I was in Maui. I had spoken three times during the week to a very large audience of international corporation presidents and their families. It was a lively group. In one of my talks, I had mentioned years before playing in bands. I can't remember how that came up, but somehow I used the reference to make a point, to illustrate some idea I was presenting. But I quickly forgot about even having made the reference, until the end of the week, when on the last night, a great band was playing on a big stage outdoors near the beach and under the star filled Hawaiian sky.

The organizer of the group, a company president from South Africa, I think, saw me somewhere toward the back of the crowd and yelled out, "Hey, Mate! You've GOT to play with the band!" I laughed and told him it had been too many years since I had done anything like that, and I wouldn't be any good anymore. But he continued to insist and took my arm and guided me toward the side of the stage. I could have gotten out of it, I'm sure, but from the look on his face, it just meant too much to him. So I put aside my rational doubts and any semblance of a reasonable concern to retain an intact professional image, and climbed the stairs, and at the top, someone handed me a guitar, and before I even realized what was happening, I was with the band, in the center of the stage, taking a lead break in whatever song they were doing. And everybody just went nuts. Some even rushed the stage, as you can see from the old photo above. When I finished the song and got down off the stage, the instigating global business leader gave me an enthusiastic high-five and shouted to me, "Now I believe everything you've said this week!"

My work as a philosopher was confirmed. Who knew? And I had a memory. And, yeah, it was fun. I'm glad I did it. You know what they say about risk and reward. Sometimes, you have to just lay aside your excuses and get up on the stage and play. Whatever that metaphorically means for you in your life and work, you just have to do it. You'll be glad. And maybe someone will see you do it, and appreciate you, or your normal work, in a new way.

Sometimes, play.

Friends and Flaws

A friend of mine has been reading my new novels in draft. He's probably read the first two books three or four times at this point. And the other day, he gave me pages and pages of typos he'd found. Really? I was certainly surprised. I've probably written, re-written, and edited these books at least six times through. And I had failed to catch some basic typos. 'They' was where 'the' should have been, 'if' and 'it' and 'is' got interchanged a few times, 'everyone' was doing without its 'y' - and other such things.

Why hadn't I seen these typos myself? I had been over the books so carefully. I had read them out loud. And still, I needed a friend to spot those tiny flaws that remained. Why?

The answer, as we all know, is simple. We often see what we expect to see, rather than what's there. And especially in the realm of the familiar, our eyes can be glazed over by our best intentions and hopes, or by prior habits and beliefs. The closer something is to us, the harder it is to see clearly. That's why we need friends, with different blind spots, habits, beliefs, and expectations to point out our flaws. Of course, enemies are eager to perform such a service. But they're as likely to be wrong as we are, or even more so. They're blinded by their resentment, or jealousy, or whatever has their tail in a knot. We benefit the most when friends are willing to look at us, or our productions, closely, and with good will, and help us to improve what we're doing.

The friend who has been reading my new productions has been one of the greatest encouragers I've ever known. "You're sitting on a goldmine with these books!" "I wish I had been able to read these in my twenties!" This gentleman, a business creator and former CEO who retired at age 43 to travel and compete in track and field events (often ranked number one or two in the world in shot put or javelin) has been a real friend to me. He's read my books looking for flaws, and has praised them along the way more than any of my other books have ever been praised. And at the same time, he's found those typos, and overly long sentences that needed to be cut down, and words where I was doing a British spelling, not the main American one. With nothing but good will, he's spotted the problems that allowed me to improve the final product immensely.

I suspect this can happen not just with book manuscripts but with issues of personality, character, and activity in the world. We all need friends who can help us see what's invisible to us, and thereby give us the chance to improve. The most effective self improvement may, after all, require the help of others. And that doesn't surprise me at all.

Give Yourself a Break

Dear Reader: I hope you give yourself a break now and then. You work hard. Life calls on you to do so many things. I know. I had a busy day, even though, yeah, I'm a philosopher, so keep that in mind. Nonetheless, a lot's going on this week. So I gave myself an hour this evening to just relax.

I sat out back on our upper patio. The lower patio adjoins a raised brick fish pond. From where I was, I could look down on it, and the great trees all around. I sat on a thickly cushioned chair, put my feet up on another one, and lit up a nice Nicaraguan cigar. I poured a small glass of Macallan 12 year single malt. And I just enjoyed my little piece of our beautiful world.

During the hour, three pairs of ducks flew over, honking goodbye to the day. I watched an industrious squirrel work on a truly impressive nest, high up in a tall magnolia tree. One of his friends chirped encouragement.

It was 82 degrees today with low humidity here at the coast. As the evening cooled, I watched pink and orange streak the bright blue sky above me. I enjoyed the solitude immensely, but also wished I had one of our periodic retreats going on and I could share the moment, and the goodies, with some brother and sister philosophers. I imagined us out on the deck of the nearby resort where we hold our sessions, overlooking the whitecaps of the ocean rolling in to lightly touch the broad sandy beach.

Don't forget to do something now and then to elicit those brain waves that make for transcendent rest and relaxation. I don't light up a cigar very often, or sip a malted beverage. But when I do, it's a special occasion. Give yourself your own version soon.

Self Doubt

Someone asked me to reflect on self doubt. And I was going to, a week ago, but I had doubts.

Confidence is a good thing, so self doubt is a bad thing, right? Well, it turns out not to be so simple, like much else in life.

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." He encouraged frequent and honest self-examination. How am I doing right now, as a blogger, a public speaker, a philosopher, an author, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a neighbor, a friend? How am I doing as a human being? The result of an honest self examination in any of our roles or activities can be one of either affirmation or doubt. We might conclude, "I'm doing great." Or: "I'm good. I just need to hang in there a little longer and success will be mine." Or we could see that, "I'm not doing so well in this. Maybe I'm outmatched. This might not be the challenge for me right now." Or the conclusion could be, "I'm on the right track but I need a little help in order to get the outcome I want."

Self-affirmation can be healthy. But then, so can self-doubt. People sometimes chase the wrong things, things that are not right for them. People can also drift in a direction that's not desirable. Self doubt can slow them down and turn them around. It can be a stimulus to additional work and learning. Or, it can be the bane of your existence.

Like almost anything else in the world, our evaluation of self doubt has to turn on the question of how it functions in our lives. Do we experience it in healthy doses, or in a pathological way? Is it an occasional phenomenon that helps us, or a default position that always nags us and even holds us back? Does it result from real self knowledge in the present, or from unresolved issues in the past?

Psychological research shows that proper doses of self doubt can lead to important efforts to improve. It can stimulate collaborations ("I don't think I can do this alone") and needed work in developing new knowledge or skill sets ("I don't yet think I know all that I need to know"). But it can't be allowed to dominate in a life. It should not be the overall tonality of our existence. We're not in the world mainly to refrain from things, but to do things, and to accomplish things. In case doubt is getting in your way, and not allowing you to be and do all that you would like to achieve, I have one piece of advice. Doubt your doubts.

Compassion

One reader, a prominent surgeon on the west coast, recently asked me to ponder compassion. He asked, "Is it dead?"

When you read the papers and watch the news, it can certainly look dead. The world seems full of hatred, anger, mean-spiritedness, resentment, bitterness, and cries for revenge. Comb through reader comments online for mainstream media. You don't have to go find dark corners of the internet to come across streams of vitriol and out-of-control nastiness. It seems to be a vile current in which far too much of humanity swims.

The great physicist Stephen Hawking recently said that in his view the chief threat to the continuation of life on earth is human aggression. From embattled areas in the middle east to the street corners of US cities, and even in the executive suites of too many global companies, there is often far more aggression on display than kindness, goodness, and gentleness.

Where can compassion be found? Whether you find your greatest insight into human nature in the scientific story of evolution, or in religious diagnoses of our condition, one thing is clear: Self centeredness is the main theme, whether in biology or the Bible, and even in Buddhist texts. The struggle to survive in a challenging environment encourages a focus on the self and its needs, along with an aggressiveness in meeting those needs and defending against any threat. On the evolutionary accounts, all life becomes hardwired in self and survival. And such things as cooperation, collaboration, community, and finally compassion, all arise within close kin groups for the sake of greater survival chances. But outside those groups, these noble things can be hard to find. There are parallel religious accounts that cite a drive for independence, control, and self assertion as the key to our problems. And none of these conditions is conducive to compassion.

What is compassion? A fellow feeling that interprets love as kindness. It's etymologically a "feeling along with" another that sees the other's needs and wants, weaknesses, and hopes, aspirations and desires with understanding and acceptance that undergirds and contextualizes any difference or moral judgment.

Compassion puts itself into the place of another, and acts with loving understanding. Compassion moves out of the self and into a mode of helping, serving, and lifting up those who are in any sort of need. And we're all in some sort of need, aren't we?

Compassion is most often too quiet to gain wide notice, or the attention of the media. It still lives, and takes place each day, and in sometimes quite unexpected places. There are locales stridently hostile to it. And there are other domains where it flourishes. But it's still a part of the mix of our world. I see it often. And I remind myself now and then to be more attentive to how I might let it flow through me.

I bet you do, too. And of course, the less we see it, the more we need to be it.