Happy New Year

Yeah, it's just another day, another trip around the sun. So what's the big deal about this being the first day of a new year?

The truth is that we need rituals. We need symbolic markers that help us to look back, and look forward. Most of life is behind us and in front of us. Yes, we should live in the present moment, the only one we actually have. But we do so best by learning from the past and integrating each moment we now have into the coming future, in a way that's wise.

Markers help us to reflect - birthdays, anniversaries, and new year celebrations. What's just happened? What do we want next? How can we change and adapt to make new things possible?

The past is not supposed to define us, but to empower us, to push us along on our adventures. Do you want to lose some weight? Would you like to achieve a better balance between work and life? A new year gives you a starting point to begin to make those differences. Start today in small ways, and as little things add up, big changes can happen. It's up to us. We're never merely victims. We can all be victors, if we learn the importance of the little things, and the habits they can form.

May 2015 bring you all that you desire and deserve. May 2014 have prepared you well for this great new year!

The Only Real Secret

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace Like a River.

Peace. Tranquillity. Equanimity. Unperturbedness. Zen Calm.

We can picture it by imagining the surface of a pond on a windless day. No ripples. No movement.

But then, a famous Christian hymn features the interesting phrase, "Peace like a river." And that's surprising. A river isn't still. It moves. It flows.

When I hear the word 'river,' I immediately see in my mind's eye a wide expanse, big rocks, and hugely turbulent rapids throwing white spray high into the air, and a large raft of unsuspecting tourists screaming for their lives as they're tossed around like a toy, while the fast current takes them toward a quickly approaching abyss, a massive waterfall they'll never survive ... Ok, maybe I've watched too many action movies. I admit it. I can even see the helicopter swooping down to pluck the desperate people from their doom. Peace like a river? No, I'm sorry.

So why do we have that phrase?

Calm water can soon become stagnant. Moving water is always renewed. And that's the key to this image. I live near a big river, the only large river in North Carolina that empties directly into the ocean. There aren't any rapids in sight. There's a calm flow forward. And that's what matters here. A river brings fresh waters, constantly. A river is ever-renewing. A river flows through any point along it. It nurtures and feeds all life along it.

What we want in our lives is renewable peace, a flow of inner tranquillity that will nurture us, no matter what's going on. We need an ever fresh source of inner flow that can't be stopped by worry, anxiety, anger, or fear. The old hymn says, "I've got peace like a river in my soul." So it's possible to get that. And here's my advice during this holiday season. If you have this sort of peace within you, then savor it. If you don't, then seek it. And when you find it, then share it.

Thankfulness and Thanksgiving

Thankfulness is a perception, and then an attitude, and then an emotion. It’s first a form of awareness, or recognition, and then a sense of appreciation. It's a deep and layered thing. Thanksgiving is the act of expressing that inner recognition and gratitude.

We’re surrounded by blessings all the time, things to be recognized as such, and appreciated. At its best, thankfulness is a joyous response of gratitude to these things. It's a recognition of goodness that then makes more goodness possible. So it’s not just responsive, it’s also creative. Let me say that again, and with feeling.

Thankfulness is not just responsive. It's also creative.

In fact, it could be that thankfulness is the most deeply hidden source for creative love, and loving creativity that exists.

What do you have to be thankful for today? How many blessings do you enjoy?

Conscious life itself is the primal blessing - a metaphysically rare and wondrous thing. We had no claim on this life prior to existing. It's the ultimate product of grace.

Be thankful, then, for your life, whatever it may look like at present, for it is always a journey in transition and motion that makes possible great things yet to come. 

Be thankful for your blessings. They help you to experience the nurturing side of love. 

Be thankful for your trials. They help you to experience the challenging side of love.

Both blessings and trials can be doorways into a fuller life, if used properly.

And that just means that even our trials can end up being blessings.

Thankfulness can be spontaneous, or it can be a choice. Either way, it will enhance your life, and your day. It will also touch those around you.

If you don't feel it naturally welling up in you each day, choose to embody it. Choose that way forward. It alone creates the best.

Impact First, Then Income

My motto for my work has always been simple: 

Impact First, Then Income.

My primary concern is a positive impact. My secondary concern is a positive cash flow. And that matters, because the prioritization I try to maintain will suggest certain activities and discourage others. As a philosopher, writer, and speaker, I want to make a difference for other people, as well as myself, and my family. I want to put giving over receiving, spreading over gathering. Of course, finances matter. They matter a lot. But other things matter even more. And it's those other things that should be our ultimate guides.

But, I can almost hear a question, which is even, perhaps, a skeptical hesitation: Is this sort of perspective simply a luxury for the few - to think first about making a difference and only second about making a dollar? My answer is: No, I truly don't think so. No matter where we are in life or what we're facing, it's important to focus first on the contribution we're making, on the good we're doing. That's ultimately the best way to get help, or a job, or a promotion, or the big payday that most of us would like to see. But it's also right for its own sake. We're here to give more than we get, and to leave the world a little better than we found it.

I'm convinced that coming at the equation from the other end is always a mistake. Those who think first about making money and only second about making a difference will eventually encounter trouble in some form. And they'll risk not becoming the best they're capable of being.

Even if you work focally with money in a field like financial services, it's important to see beyond the the market and the monthly report. We all work with people. And that should fundamentally guide us. What's the real human benefit of your work? Is it everything it could be? is it what it should be? Will a certain decision enhance my impact, or only my income? Those are the questions we all need to ask. Money without meaning is empty.

How am I using my talents, my abilities, and my opportunities? What difference am I making for other people? Could I do more? Could I do better? Those are the fundamental issues. And then matters of finance can helpfully be raised. Income is necessary for most of us, and profit is good, if it fits properly into our overall lives and values.

Don't let the tail wag the dog. Put first things first. Focus on what you can do to bless and benefit those around you, and you'll see good come back to you in surprising ways.. 

A Royalty of the Spirit, Relevant to All

There are, among us, certain spiritual people who seem to be in touch with something more, something that lights them up and guides them and inspires them with love and compassion and wisdom, and even knowledge of an extraordinary sort. But it isn’t just a small group of spiritual adepts who have the ability to receive insight and guidance through meditative stillness and prayer, and an open heart of eager willingness. All of us represent a royalty of the spirit who have come into this exotically strange, terrible, and wonderful world with a birthright that we often don't acknowledge, understand, or assert. And yet, still, there are times when a man or a woman, or even, and perhaps more often, a boy or a girl, will be struck with a message from beyond the visible, tangible world of the senses, just out of the blue, and with no preparation or anticipation. It could be a word of encouragement, or direction, or even warning. When it occurs, it can seem to come from outside us, and yet at the same time, from deep within us.

This actually happens, I think, to all of us at some points in our earliest years, but we often later lose our memories of these experiences, because they’re not reinforced for us by the surrounding culture. We’re not encouraged to become all that we can be, in the full range of our capacities, or to do all that we can do. And so, some of our innate abilities, a crucial part of what I like to think of as our royal inheritance, will atrophy and grow weak over time. But they’ll never disappear. They can’t be utterly extinguished. That would mean the annihilation of the soul itself. And yet they can be hobbled and starved and buried under the debris of triviality and of those worldly pressures that we too often refer to as the practical demands of life – as if life has any demands greater and more practical than that we be the best of who we are. We too easily and commonly adapt ourselves to the lowest ways of the kingdom of this world, in patterns of activity and thought that are perhaps unproblematic in themselves, but only as long as they don’t eclipse what’s higher. And yet, we too often allow them to make us forget the royal palace of the spirit, and the aligned rights, duties, and priviledges that exist in connection with it, deep within us, even though it is they that most essentially define who we are.

Despite all this, those of us who do recognize and honor the realm of the spirit should never be too quick to divide the world between an elite group of higher functioning individuals, who seek to partake of everything within the spirit that’s available to us, and, on the other hand, the majority of humanity, who seem to live as self-imposed exiles from their own royalty, and act as if they are mere commoners of the spirit. There is, instead, a vast spectrum of openness and experience represented in the world. Truly spiritual, and remarkably advanced souls certainly exist, at one end of the sweep of human experience, with the most sadly dimmed and brutish personalities at the far end. An ordinary person, who’s never as ordinary as he or she might seem, to superficial and external appearances, is always capable of more depth and breadth than any casual acquaintance, colleague, or sometimes even a good friend, might expect.

There are depths behind depths, and layers beneath layers and, if we could only see all the people around us through eyes that know and remember this, the world would look so different to us, and more like it indeed most fundamentally is.

Grace and Mercy

Grace is defined as unmerited favor. It involves giving others, and sometimes even lavishing on them, something they don't literally deserve or have a claim to receive. It means going beyond what could be expected, and acting from the boundless resource of love.

Mercy is typically defined as compassion, or forbearance. It involves not dishing out to others something negative or harshly judgmental that they might actually deserve. It involves a certain restraint, or a holding back, with a sense of another's intrinsic value, born only of love. Mercy finds a better way.

Grace and mercy. How often do we speak of such things? Really? And yet, they are surely among the most important things of all. Do we cultivate these amazing dispositions with our thoughts and actions, daily? Or do we merely admire them from afar and hope to be their beneficiaries, rather than dedicating ourselves to being their conduits into the world?

Go to a movie, turn on a TV, or sample what's happening online, in news comments, and social media, beyond your closest circle of friends. How much grace and mercy do you experience?

Too many of us are dipped into a toxic mix every day and then wonder why we don't shine.

Each of us is here, I believe, to be a blessing to others, and never a curse. How then do we manage that? By living with grace and mercy. Expose yourself to others who live this way. Read of these things. Think on them. Use your imagination well. Ask: "How can I be a vehicle for grace and mercy to others?" Avoid the poisonous brew spread abroad by those who are strangers to these concepts. And, in a famous twist on the golden rule, treat others as if they were what they ought to be, and you can help them become what they're capable of being.

That way, you'll be a blessing, and never a curse, to those around you, to our broader world, and perhaps, most important of all, to yourself.

So go live a little grace and mercy.

Today.

Patience and Waiting

Last time, we began to examine the view that patience is a virtue, by looking at the strengths of patience and the undesirable elements of impatience.

The patient person:

1. Subjectively has inner peace, confidence, and poise

2. Objectively has a calm demeanor and waits, when needed

The impatient person:

1. Subjectively has eagerness, anxiety, frustration, and even anger

2. Objectively has an action orientation, determination, persistence, but can also express frustration and anger

The subjective side of impatience is mostly negative. The objective side looks mostly positive, aside from the negative expression of unpleasant emotions. 

And yet, consider those positive qualities that an impatient person can possess, like a tendency to take action and persist. They can have unfortunate implications in certain situations.  An impatient person may act when waiting is better, and mess up everything in the process.  But then, a patient person may wait when acting is better, and miss an important opportunity in the process. So, what’s it best to be: patient or impatient? 

A virtue, by the way, is by definition a quality or habitual disposition that it’s always good to have. And haven’t we just seen that there are circumstances in which patience and impatience each are bad?

No, actually, not at all. Look again at our characterization of patience, subjectively and objectively. There are no circumstances in which those qualities would be bad to have. The patient person can wait when needed. The only negative sort of example we were able to give assumed waiting when it was both unneeded and counter-productive. The patient person can even share all the objectively positive qualities of the impatient go-getter: that action orientation, the persistence, determination, and even creativity in trying new things in pursuit of a goal. She just does all that with an inner calm that strengthens her and that the impatient person lacks.

Patience does look like a virtue. And impatience looks like a vice. Who needs all that negative emotion? But remember Aristotle's understanding of a virtue. Every virtue has two corresponding vices, a "too little" and a "too much." Connected to patience, the too little is obviously impatience. What's the too much? Clearly the tendency to wait even when waiting is not good, the tendency to simply quit and hope when beneficial action is still needed. We might jokingly say that such a person is "too patient," but that wouldn't literally be true, if patience is indeed a virtue and involves waiting only when it's needed.

So, in the end the only real puzzle is determining when it’s best to wait, and when it’s best to press ahead. And, as I mentioned last time, that requires discernment or wisdom. But more can be said as well. If you're in a situation where you're trying to make something happen, and it's not going as well or quickly as you wanted, you need to know whether to wait a bit longer or to act anew to push things along. You need to ask questions like these:

The Waiting Check List

1. Have I already done all I reasonably think I can do?

2. Is it even a little bit likely that further action would be counterproductive or alienating to others whose goodwill or assistance I might need?

3. Could my timetable itself be unreasonable, and based on insufficient considerations?

4. Am I possibly operating under any false assumptions about the need for things to happen now?

5. Could waiting patiently for a while allow me to do or develop other good things that impatient action would prevent?

If you get at least one "Yes" here, you have an indication that patient waiting might be good. The more affirmative answers, the more likely you should be patient and wait. For at least a while. But we always have to do cost/benefit analyses along the way. Waiting for a day or a week or a month can be desirable in situations where waiting a year or three years may not be, and could even be counterproductive. The more you know about your situation and what you're trying to make happen, the better you'll be able to do such analyses. But always ask yourself questions like these, above. And try to avoid the negative subjectives involved in the impatient mindset. A patient person can act with persistence, determination, and creativity, pushing and reminding, but without the detrimental emotions tied up with impatience. He or she just knows how to release and relax, and maintain the peaceful being that is behind masterful doing over the long run.

Patience, properly understood, can be an important virtue in an active life.

Making Little Plans

I got an email in my box just the other day with the big title, appropriately all in bold:

Make No Little Plans. Think Big.

And it struck me immediately how commonplace such a piece of advice is, nowadays.  A culture of hype, superlatives, and grandiosity has gradually developed around those of us interested in personal growth, self-improvement, success, and spiritual development. And in this culture, it's sometimes amazing what people will actually say with a straight face, or an enthusiastic one.

I'm convinced that the real truth in life is exciting enough. We don't need to cavort in fields of hyperbole and exaggeration in order to get psyched and excited about our genuine prospects in this world. Not everything has to be the equivalent of a high wire act over the Grand Canyon, or between buildings in Chicago. You don't have to become a billionaire, or change the face of the world. Sure, some people launch rockets. And some rockets explode. And not everybody should aim for outer space, in the first place.

Sometimes, it's good to make small plans. And maybe, the best thing you can do, in some situations, is to think small. And I'm not talking nanotech here. Because, in many circumstances, little things can make a crucial difference. Often, it's just the difference that's needed - in a relationship, in an office, at home, or with a client. Yes, we do live in a world of grand gestures and huge plans, with plenty of seminars, books and videos to tell us how to be gigantic, and enormously admired. But aren't we often touched and impressed with the little kindness, the small gesture, the tiny act of grace and love that might convey something deep and wonderful? And who's to say that small and quiet lives in this world can't capture the greatest spiritual beauty to be experienced? If they're lived well.

And that's what it's all about in the end, isn't it? Quality, not quantity. Magic over magnitude, grace over grandiosity. But if it's right for you, aim as high as you can imagine, and make big plans. In the end, the right plans for you end up being the biggest and best, however big or small they might seem to someone else.

I'll Rise Up and Fly

When I was young

I thought I could fly.

If I ran just right,

I’d rise into the sky

and go over the yard and

the house and the trees

until, floating a bit

I’d catch a good breeze

and neighbors would see

and squint into the sun

and say “Come here and look

at what this kid has done!”

I'd continue to rise

and with such a big smile that

my grin could be viewed

at least for a mile.

And even today,

I think, if I try,

the time may yet come

when I'll rise up and fly.

Desire Beats Talent Any Time

"Desire beats talent any time." Mary Wells - Famous Talented Advertising Executive.

And this is my take:

Talent is potential. Desire is an actualizer of that potential.

Skill is potential. Passion is an actualizer of that potential.

Knowledge is potential. Vision is an actualizer of that potential.

Relationship is potential. Leadership is an actualizer of that potential.

Talent, skill, knowledge, and relationship are inert things without desire, passion, vision, and leadership.

Desire, passion, vision, and leadership are empty things without talent, skill, knowledge, and relationship.

There is a yin and yang with what we can call potentiators and actuators. Cultivate both sides. Start where you are, and then grow what you need.

Oh, and by the way, after great initial success working for someone else, Mary Wells, whom I quoted above, created her own firm of Wells, Rich, Greene, and with great talent and desire they went on to have such iconic ad hits as

• Plop plop, fizz fizz - Alka-Seltzer
• I can't believe I ate the whole thing (winner of the 1971 Clio Award) - Alka-Seltzer
• Try it, you'll like it - Alka-Seltzer
• I ♥ New York
• Trust the Midas touch
• At Ford, Quality is Job 1
• Flick your Bic
• Raise your hand if you're Sure - Sure deodorant
• Friends don't let friends drive drunk  - Public Service Announcement

Friends don't let friends allow their talent, skill, knowledge, or relationship potential to lie fallow. 

Potential begs to be actualized. Actualize some today.

An Opportunistic Cat

I know one opportunistic cat. His name is Odie. Whenever he sees a new open box or drawer, or a platter left out in the kitchen, he'll find a way to get into it or onto it. Sometimes, it's amazing what he can do. We'll see where he's perched himself, and look around for the means he must have used and find ourselves saying "How did he do that?" But, do it, he does.

Odie is an ongoing lesson to me about the opportunistic mentality. He already has certain CATegories in mind (sorry) - a box, drawer, bucket, laundry basket, or basket of any kind, or a large bowl or anything that can contain him for a momentary repose. And whenever one of these things appears, his focus on getting to it and into it, or onto it, is so intense and unwavering that he inevitably finds a way. He always finds a way, even where there doesn't seem to be one.

I was reorganizing three sock drawers the other day, and as soon as I had cleaned one out and turned around, I discovered to my great surprise that he had managed to find a way that I could not at all retrace, into the open drawer. That's the power of a clear goal and a focused concentration on what it may take to attain the goal. That's the opportunistic mindset at work.

What's your goal now? How opportunistic are you being about it. The opportunistic mindset is often a CATalist to success. Yeah, I couldn't resist it, either.

Greatness and the Spirit

"Greatness is a spiritual condition." Matthew Arnold.

Matthew Arnold was an insightful student of philosophy, literature, and theology in the nineteenth century. Some of his essays are of timeless value. He saw deeply into the nature of greatness of every kind. The outer is always a result of the inner. Physical greatness, intellectual greatness, or greatness of any kind is ultimately a matter of the spirit. Greatness in any form is a spiritual condition. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the fount of all sustainable excellence.

How is the spirit of your enterprise? Of your company? Of your family? How is your own spirit? If you don't tend the inner garden, the outer fruit will not grow and ripen. 

Set aside some time to examine the spiritual state of your life and work. And identify one thing that you can do for your own spiritual health. Then begin to do it. 

Today.

Love and Ease

"When your will is ready, your feet are light." George Herbert.

No job is harder than the one you don’t want to do. And no job is easier than one you love. Skill building is important in any profession. But will building is the key. John Ruskin once said, “When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.” 

How do you prepare your will, what the philosophers called “volition,” for the job at hand? How can you move the will to love what you're doing? 

The answer is simple. You do whatever you can to match yourself to a task that's right for you. And then you use your imagination. You envision its ultimate good. You put it into perspective, within the context of what you already love and care most deeply about. Only the heart can move the will in the deepest and most enduring ways. So prepare for your work by using your imagination to tend to your heart. Use the imagination well, and the heart will follow. And then, eventually, it will lead.

We can always find a reason for not liking, or not doing, a task we need to do. We can build up resentment, irritation, frustration, and even hatred by how we think. Or we can mentally put ourselves into a totally different state of being and doing. Its finally up to each of us. If you feel good about your work, it will feel much easier to you. Remind yourself of this simple truth when things seem tough, and pass on the insight to anyone you see struggling along.

Today.

Quality

"By the work, you know the workman." Jean de La Fountaine.

Cause and effect. A great guitarist plays a great solo. A master mechanic gets a car to purr. An original thinker writes original books. A salesperson who cares shows that care in her preparations, and serves her client like no one else. 

The old view was that this is a matter of pride. Our jobs never define us. But the quality of the work we do will disclose us, reveal us, and give us away. It will also not just show who we are today, but in great part determine who we'll be tomorrow.

Do we do our best? Do we strive for excellence every day?

The great philosophers would have us recognize that all our choices define who we are. We're known for the quality we bring to the world. Let's remember that and pour our hearts into everything we do.

Today. 

And tomorrow.

Energy is Eternal Delight

"Energy is eternal delight." William Blake.

Printer, painter, poet and mystic, William Blake knew what he was talking about. Samuel Smiles once praised energy and described its place in life like this: “It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle of enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is the mainspring of what is called force of character, and the sustaining power of all great action.”

Do you have that experience of eternal delight that Blake refers to, the motivating enthusiasm that Smiles so values?  If the answer is "no" or "rarely" then you should ask yourself some questions.

Are you well rested? Do you eat right? Do you exercize every day? Do you meditate or pray? Those are what philosophers call facilitating but not sufficient conditions for that inner magic that moves the world. The most important ingredient is a cause to believe in. Deeply.

Are you doing something you really believe in? If not, why not? Find a way to get a big picture for your work. Connect it to the meaning of life. Connect it to something noble. Or change what you do to something you can view in this way. Then you’ll experience the energy that's always at the heart of great endeavors. 

So get some rest. Eat right. Move around. Calm your spirit. And believe. Then surf on the good energy that can flow though you. 

Today.

The NaySayers in Life

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." Walter Bagehot.

I once sat next to a man on an airplane who told me of his days as a high school baseball player and his dreams of professional ball. “You’re pretty good, but you’ll never make it to the pros,” people in his hometown would tell him. But then he made it to the pros and heard people say: “Enjoy it while you can in the Minors, but you’ll never make it to into the Major Leagues.” When he did make it to The Show, he had to listen to the newest verse of the old song: "There's no shame in sitting on the bench." But he didn't want to sit and watch. And he played, and then heard, “Don't even think about home runs, you’re lucky to be there at all.” 

But Willie Stargell would not believe the naysayers. And he took great pleasure in every home run he ever hit, each one of the 475. This Hall of Famer would have missed out on a lot if he had listened to the people around him who had no idea who he really was, deep down inside.

That day on the airplane, I showed Willie Stargell my laminated wallet card on The 7 Cs of Success. He read each condition carefully, and then said, "You nailed it with these ideas. You're the first person to ever explain to me how I became successful as a baseball player. I did each of these things you outline here, and I did them intuitively, instinctively, but I never could have put them into words. Thank you for this. This is a great gift to me."

The whole conversation was a great gift to me.

Remember that naysayers will always be with us. Even our best friends will sometimes warn us about how hard and unlikely our goals may appear, not wanting us to set ourselves up for disappointment. They just don't realize that we're often really setting ourselves up for success. The dream comes first, then the goal, then the work, but always, the belief and confidence deep inside. 

You have to know your own strength and follow your own heart, believing in your own sense of mission in life.  Then you can hit your own home runs, and take pleasure in the results. So step up to the plate.

Today.

The Joy of the Journey

There’s a special joy in doing what you’re meant to do. 

This week, so far, I’ve travelled to Colorado Springs for a talk at the great Broadmoor hotel, speaking to 450 business owners. The hotel itself is spectacular, and I always seem to be put in the West Building, which is quiet and beautiful, with serene views outside the window of my suite. To get to the main building, where I had dinner last night with one of the top speaking agents in the country, a really great individual who also has an unexpected and interesting background as a songwriter, with tunes, so far, in eighteen films, I had to walk on a path bisecting a scenic lake, mounting a gently sloping footbridge in the middle, surrounded by mountains. The temperature was perfect. The evening was magical. 

Who knew that being a freelance philosopher could put me in so many wonderful places, where the glories of nature are on such magnificent display? And the people I meet along the way enrich my life immensely.

And then came the talk, the speech for which I had made the journey. I had forty minutes, a relatively short time these days for philosophy, but it was ethereal. We pondered, we analyzed, we laughed, and we explored the wisdom of the ages on one of the most important topics of all - how each of us can have our best impact on the world in the short span of years that we have, and how we can have true success, deeply satisfying and sustainable success that fulfills us, in everything we do.

It was a treat to represent the great philosophers, east and west, and to add my own interpretive frameworks. And everyone who was there went away with a laminated wallet card on the ideas we talked about. I’ve given out these cards on each of my topics, for more than twenty years. I’ve probably handed out millions as little gifts. And as a result, people stop me in airports and hotels, and in other places, and pull out their wallets and show me the card that they say they got six or nine or twelve years ago at a talk they heard me give and still remember. What a kick! Those little laminated wallet cards are almost the paper version of tweets, but they last, and can be carried about and kept and referred to again and again. The way tweets stand to blogs, these little cards stand to books, and have a special magic all their own.

My talk at the Broadmoor was, as such a thing almost always is, a joy, What Emerson would have called an ecstasy, and an honor. In the whirlwind of time allowed on a busy meeting day, we ranged through space and time, appropriating the insights of the ages for our own lives, and thinking anew about what we want from our time, and our efforts. 

It’s always a new experience for me. I never memorize talks and hit the play button in front of an audience. I do like the great jazz guys and improvise around a framework. I surprise myself. I sometimes say things I’ve never even thought before, but in that moment, I realize a new truth and pass it on to others.

Now, I’ll have two days at home, and then a quick trip to Florida, to philosophize again, for a small group of executives who make sure the lights stay on at such places as Google and NASA, operations where power reliability is crucial. We’ll get to talk about the life wisdom that’s also powerful and always reliable. And that will keep the lights on for them, as it does for me.

I tell you this today in hopes that you are also, in your own way, participating in the joy of living your proper mission and adventure. And if you haven’t quite found that yet, let me encourage you that it awaits you and can be both lived and loved.

So examine your own experience. You’re here to do great things, and to have great joys. I want that for you.

Today.

How BIG Is Your Mess?

"Good order is the foundation of all good things." Edmund Burke.

When I was a philosophy professor, my office as was once described in Notre Dame Magazine as perhaps the messiest on campus. I liked to claim that the apparent disorder was just an extremely subtle and complex form of rational order beyond the comprehension of the casual glance. I was one of the early exponents of chaos theory. I was also a great rationalizer.

When I left the university and set up my own Morris Institute for Human Values, I quickly came to appreciate the value of order. A quirky, eccentric professor lost in the physical world can be not only tolerated, but even enjoyed within the safely protective environment of a major university. Out in the world, it’s a different matter. Any of us who are determined to create new forms of success have to respect the need for efficient access, clear records, and orderly procedures. If Architectural Digest wanted to photograph my office, it would still take me a few minutes, or - ok - maybe a few hours, over a period of days, to get it really nice looking, but it’s not the waste dump of resource materials and old book drafts that my chaotic professorial den once was.

How’s the order in your life? The degree of order and clear structure that you need will be a function of the person you are. Not everyone has to have labels on all drawers and a system for everything. There's a spectrum. But on the total mess end of the spectrum, I do believe that a measure of potential effectiveness is seriously inhibited, regardless of what absent minded creatives may think when they're ignoring it. 

Are you often wasting time looking for things that should be more rationally organized and more readily available? Would an uncluttered desk help you think better? And how about that old closet? Do you really have any idea what's in there? 

Philosophers have often been the closet organizers of the mind. We help people straighten up their thinking, get their ideas well ordered, and discover the treasures that may be hidden away within the deep and cluttered storage of their own minds.

Creativity flourishes best within a context of good order. So do we as people. Organize something, anything in your life, and enjoy the results that will come.

Today.

Mistakes and Rebounds

"It is the nature of every man to err, but only the fool persists in his error." Cicero.

There's only one form of perseverence that's wrong and self-destructive: perseverence in error. It’s unbelievable how many people come to realize that they’ve made a mistake and yet keep on doing what they’re doing, apparently unable or unwilling to stop and make a change. Are they afraid of being called quitters? Are they loathe to admit having made a mistake at all? The inability to own up to error and rechart the course forward has ruined many people’s lives, both personally and professionally. Epictetus said long ago, “No one who lives in error is free.”

Everyone makes mistakes. Most of us make some doozies. It’s all part of the enterprise of learning. It’s all part of human growth. And it’s natural. Don’t be embarassed about making mistakes. Really. The only thing worth being embarassed about is a refusal to learn from your mistakes and make the changes that you need to make. But that can change! Do you find yourself persevering in error of any kind? Or do you see someone around you engaging in that sort of self-defeating activity? Use this bit of Cicero’s wisdom as a simple reminder to help turn things around. The wise adapt and rebound. So go and do so.

Today.