The Schopenhauer Plan and You

If there is any merit or importance attaching to a man’s career, if he lays himself out carefully for some special work, it is all the more necessary and advisable for him to turn his attention now and then to its plan, that is to say, the miniature sketch of its general outlines ... If he maps out important work for himself on great lines, a glance at this miniature plan of his life will, more than anything else, stimulate, rouse, and enable him, urge him on to action, and keep him from false paths.  Arthur Schopenhauer

Authorities on success have recommended for decades that we all write down goals for ourselves, and that we frequently review what we’ve written. More recently, personal growth experts have suggested that individuals and families as well as businesses create mission statements to express what they see themselves here in this world to accomplish. The great nineteenth century German philosopher Schopenhauer said something interesting about the importance of laying out a big picture plan for our lives or careers. It serves to focus and refocus us amid the demands and distractions of life.  It stimulates us, ennobles us, and motivates us to do what we ought to do, and helps clarify what we ought to avoid. It can act as a useful reminder of our own sense of who we are and what we should be about.

Let's go through the philosopher's list. Do you have a plan for yourself that will:

Stimulate you - Catch your interest, grab your attention, wake you up;

Rouse you - Get you excited, elicit your passion, work you up;

Enable you - Offer you guidance, help, and assistance;

Urge you on to action - Suggest what's next and get you moving;

Keep you from false paths - Help with consistency and focus?

What do you hope to accomplish? How would you like to see it happen? Take the philosopher’s advice today, if you haven’t done this already, and sketch out in miniature a big picture plan for your life or work, or even the next challenge you face. Consider it a first draft. And go back to it tomorrow for expansion or change. Then use it as an adaptable map for moving forward.

Rational Plans in a CrAzY wOrLd

When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances fit in with them.  Sir William Osler (1849-1919)

Have you ever despaired of making plans and setting long term goals in a rapidly changing world? Long ago, I once asked my CPA how I could plan rationally for retirement.  She said “Unfortunately, that’s impossible.” I now have a new accountant. 

That old CPA’s worry was that things change too fast and too unpredictably to allow for reasonable advance planning. But the best plans resiliently anticipate a changing future. The best plans themselves often need to be changed and tweaked in light of what develops, and what we come to discover as we implement them. But it's amazing how often a well thought through and resilient plan will fit in with developments that could never have been anticipated with any degree of specificity or certainty. Osler was right. Circumstances will somehow fit them.

When a good plan is laid out in a rich and complex world, it can indeed sometimes surprise us how well things work out. So don’t hesistate to plan for the future. Just plan to adapt as your plan develops.

The Meaning of Life

We know what it is for a word to have a meaning, or a gesture, or even a look. But what is it for a life to have a meaning -- or for life itself to have one? We speaking of the meaning of life, but exactly what are we referring to?

Certainly, each of us is free to decide what shape our lives will take, in terms of our values and decisions, our aims and our actions. We can say, or think, such things as: The meaning of my life is to serve others. Or: The meaning of my life is to pursue pleasure. Or: The meaning of my life is to gain as much money and power and status as I can. We can choose goals and purposes. But what, if anything, can make those choices and purposes themselves meaningful? Are all such choices equal? Or are some such choices in better alignment with something objective, some contour of reality that our lives are best lived by, some principle that should guide us if we want truly meaningful lives?

When I was writing the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors, which, despite its business title, is just as much about personal happiness and fulfillment as it is about organizational excellence, I wanted to include a chapter on "Business and the Meaning of Life." To do so helpfully, I had to answer the question for myself as to whether there is an overall meaning of life, and if so, what exactly it is. In the sense of meaning I was pursuing, it would have to be something that would give purpose and sense to our choices at the deepest possible level. It would have to be congruent with some noble aim, or intent, that might have been recognized by the deepest philosophies and spiritual literatures throughout history, however obliquely. After monumental reading and thinking, analysis and imagination, I hit on what I thought, and still think, distills all the world's best wisdom on the issue.

The meaning of life is creative love, or loving creativity. A life that is organized in disregard of this objective requirement will, to the extent that it departs from this, lack full and proper meaning of the deepest and most positive sort. A life that aligns with it will be, to that extent, a meaningful and fulfilling existence.

There's a deep sense in which the phrase "creative love" is a redundancy, because I believe that all genuine love is essentially creative. But it's a useful redundancy, reminding us of something crucial. The phrase "loving creativity" is not redundant in this way, since it is certainly possible to be creative in unloving, cruel, and even sadistic ways. The creativity that is at the core of life's meaning is a type of activity that expresses love.

So. In my view, the meaning of life is creative love, or loving creativity. When we live in harmony with this eternal value, we live great, meaningful, and fulfilling lives. When we don't, we don't. Our chief challenge, day to day, is to be loving in creative ways, and creative in loving ways. And when we do that, everything else can fall into place.

For a further elaboration of this and what it means, you can consult the book, available in many libraries, or my more recent book, Philosophy for Dummies, available at almost every large bookstore.

Your Life and Your Thoughts

Your life is what your thoughts make it.  Marcus Aurelius

Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius had some of his greatest insights about life while he was away from the palace and out on military campaigns. He would always stay up just late enough to reflect on the lessons of the day. Every night he'd ask: "What have I learned today?"  And he’d write down the answer. Marcus seemed to believe that if you and I live life with eyes wide open, we can learn something every day. He also believed that if we don't write it down, we'll likely forget it. So he made notes on life. Sometimes just a sentence, sometimes a paragraph. Those notes went on to become one of the best selling books in all of history, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, a book I recommend to everyone.

I think it’s metaphorically true of all of us that, like the emperor, we learn the most on the battlefields of life, out in the world struggling to accomplish something worthwhile. If more of us would adopt his habit of ending the day with a meditative reflection on what we've learned from what we've experienced, we’d all be much better philosophers and wiser adventurers in life.

In my own opinion, this wise man's greatest message for us now is simple: What's most important in life is not so much what happens to us, but how we think about what happens to us. Our inner attitudes and thoughts are ultimately most crucial for the development of our careers in this world. With the right thoughts, we can thrive and accomplish amazing things, even in the midst of trouble and challenge.

How are you thinking about your own life now? Your life is indeed in so many ways what your thoughts make it. So, see to it that you make it as great as it can be, starting from inside your own heart and mind. That's the royal path to better living. Today.

Luck and Diligence

The author of the great novel, Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes, once wrote:

"Diligence is the mother of good fortune."

Some people just look lucky. Whatever they touch turns to gold. They meet all the right people, they have tremendous success, they appear always to be in the right place at the right time. 

But Cervantes has a hint for all of us. Luck doesn’t just randomly find the same people over and over and lavish them with good things. The individuals who seem most consistently lucky tend to be people who are most consistently diligent in developing their talents and pursuing their dreams. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “diligence” as “persistent effort or work” and then as “industrious character.”  In a secondary usage, from French, it can mean a public stage-coach or conveyance. That's interesting, since only diligence can reliably carry us down the road to frequent meetings with good fortune.

Cultivate diligence in all your endeavors, and get ready to enjoy the benefits of good fortune. Luck can be yours if you prepare yourself for it.

Today.

Your Uncanny Power to Know

The world is an ocean of information. Waves of it surround us. There’s knowledge everywhere. You just have go be able to read it, to connect with it, to take it in.

Most people float, or, at best, ride a wave now and then. As you swim in this ocean, you should take some time to dive deep. We can know much more than most people think we can know. You yourself may sometimes realize that you know things that may seem impossible for you to be aware of, at least, through "normal" channels. You have hints, glimmers, intuitions. Sometimes, you ignore them. Often, you just wonder where they're coming from.

What's important is to listen. Feel. Really look, deeply. And take the hints you're given.

How does this work? We don't yet know. But that it works, we do. Don't cut yourself off from the currents and eddies of insight you may most need right now. There's always a new tide. Be open. And do what every great religious tradition, at its heart, advises: Pay attention. Then act appropriately. You may be amazed at what can happen. 

Skill and Confidence

"Skill and confidence make an unconquered army." - George Herbert

Skill by itself may never accomplish much. Don’t you know very talented people who never manage to turn their talents into success? A skilled person with no self confidence will not likely try anything new and difficult. And every path to major success involves the new and difficult.

But confidence by itself can be downright dangerous. Confidence without skill is a recipe for disaster. It’s the combination of skill and confidence that makes for great achievements.

Make sure that the people around you understand this. Our skills and our attitudes are equally important for our overall success in life.

In Praise of Hard Work. No. Really.

Ok. First of all, I have absolutely nothing against having a new idea go viral overnight and waking up to discover I have a new reality TV show, 5 million Twitter followers, a private jet, and a seven figure endorsement deal from the Library Association. That would be my definition of sweet (as defined also in dictionaries available nationwide in your local public library - I'd get 10K just for adding that little factoid. But I digress). Instant success has its charms. But, there is a nubby weave behind the smooth tapestry of most outsized success. And that, right now, is my concern.

Let me read to you from the actual paper version of today's New York Times Book Review. Turning through it, I came across a page entitled "Devilish Audacity" where John Simon reviews a new biography of Sir Lawrence Olivier (Olivier, by Philip Ziegler), who was said by many to be the greatest actor of his time (in addition to "the most dashing of actors" and "the most seductive of human beings" - among many other superlatives). Simon helpfully summarizes an important point in the new book about Olivier:

He was a tireless worker: It took him two years to learn how to move onstage, and another two, how to laugh.

That got my attention, and I would have laughed aloud, aside from the realization that I may not have worked hard enough as of yet on that particular vocal and facial expression of astonished surprise. Then, this:

On stage and on screen, he could give an impression of openness, brilliance, lightness, and speed. In fact, he was the opposite. His great strength was that of the ox. He always reminded me of a countryman, of a ... peasant taking his time .... Once a conception had taken root in him, no power could change the direction in which the ox would pull the cart.

Impressive. And suggestive. Behind many forms of flashy, flamboyant success, there is a lot of dogged, ox-like, hard work. Two years to learn to move on stage? Two years to learn to laugh? Yes. And as we go out onto our own dramatic stages, at work, or at home, or in the community, we should not allow ourselves to forget the hard work that alone will lift any performance to a distinctive level of power. In an age that celebrates the fruits of work without equally honoring or encouraging the work itself that typically makes those delights possible, we need to remind ourselves that the greatest never get that way without a lot of hard, hard work.

But if you love what you're doing, you can enjoy even the greatest efforts. The hard work itself can be a suitable and satisfying outlet for your energy. And - who knows? You can't really rule out that reality TV show.

Hope and Action

I've often been asked what I think the single most important quality is for success in life. Sometimes, I'm posed with the question of what is the distinguishing feature of highly successful people. And, in both cases, it comes to the same thing. To express it, let me quote a passage from the novel, The Life of Pi, page 168.

I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.

There was much I had to do.

The worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. That is one of the most common mistakes in our time. We hope that a ship will come and rescue us - or a talent scout, an agent, a producer, a business builder, a venture capitalist, a friend with contacts. And in the meantime, we do too little.

There are many qualities involved in success, and several characteristics shared by highly successful people. But if I was forced to pick just one, it would be the tendency or proclivity toward action - an action orientation to life and work: taking the risk, trying that one thing, talking to that other person, putting in the extra hours.

Of course, we've all heard about the importance of working smart and not just hard. But what do they both have in common? Working. Action.

And it's especially important, as Pi shows us, when you've got a tiger by the tail.

What action can you take today, to move closer to your goal?

Ideals and Obstacles

Kindness. Mercy. Encouragement. Generosity of spirit. These are all moral ideals that I've written on recently. But there's an interesting thing about ideals. We never embody them perfectly. They may be perfect. But we're not. We fall short.

The value of ideals in our lives is in how we use them. They should be inspirational and aspirational - they should remind us, encourage us in the right direction, and often correct us.

The proper response to an ideal is to remember it and seek to live it. But we all encounter obstacles to the perfect embodiment of any ideal. We have our own psychological quirks and wounds, and some are buried deep beneath our conscious awareness. We have drives, and ticks, and sensitivities, and felt needs that can make it difficult to satisfy the strict guidance of our highest values. Something you went through in your childhood, or much more recently, could make it difficult for you, in some situations, to act in accordance with the golden rule, or your own best aspirations, in your treatment of another person, in action, gesture, or tone. 

Does that make you a hypocrite, for not always living what you might espouse? No, it just shows that you're a normal, fallible human.

Some people get all tied up in self-recriminations and guilt because of this problem. And those things then can become further obstacles.

How then should we respond to our own failures?

The first and most fundamental applications of kindness, mercy, encouragement, and generosity of spirit are always to yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be corrective and yet merciful toward your own failings. Encourage yourself along the path laid out by your ideals. And be generous to yourself as you seek and struggle and stumble along the road of improvement. Accord your own spirit the high value that you want and need to accord to others. That will create the conditions within you by which you can, increasingly, be these things to others, in even the most difficult of circumstances.

Love yourself properly, and you can then love others properly.

That's the real ideal.

Be Like Water

The great Chinese philosophers have had a wonderful and vivid image for how we should deal with times of great change. They ask us to consider the element of water and the image, in particular, of moving water.

Here's the first question they pose: What happens to moving water when it comes across an obstacle? The answer is obvious. It most often goes around the obstacle, or over it, or under it. Running water can radically change its course in order to find a way forward.

Now, let’s consider a second question. It's one that I enjoyed asking my beginning philosophy students at Notre Dame long ago: What’s stronger: water, or stone? Many of my students would just look perplexed and answer without thinking: “How can you even ask that? Surely, stone is stronger. It’s heavy and massive, hard, dense, and solid. It has real substance. And water is just soft and liquid.” Indeed, you can throw a stone into a container of water and displace the liquid instantly, loudly splashing it out. But consider the issue more deeply. Dripping water can wear down a stone. It can cut completely through a heavy, massive object. A torrent of it can roll huge boulders out of the way, or eventually smash them to bits. Because of this, many Chinese philosophers say: Be like water.

Flow toward your chosen destination with the powerful flexibility and harmony of water. This is a trait of life’s most successful people, in every sense of the word. Be flexible, adaptive, and patient in dealing with and defeating, or circumventing, any substantial obstacles that might stand in your path. And by doing this, you can be a confident force for positive action in the world.

As you set goals and move forward, you should be prepared to change in many ways, and yet remain consistently yourself, as the person you essentially are. Consistency at its best involves both flexibility and firmness. Water does what it does because it is what it is.

This powerful image can be extended. Think for a moment about how much water can change in changing circumstances. When the temperature drops enough, this substance can transform from a liquid to a solid. It can also morph from solid to liquid to steam, when someone turns up the heat. And yet, throughout these astonishing transformations, it never abandons its true nature. 

The lesson in this is clear. We should change as circumstances demand, flex to overcome any obstacles in our way, even radically transform what we do and how we do it in order to take full advantage of new opportunities, but, in all things, we must also stay true to who we essentially are. We should always retain our true nature and fundamental character. And that’s fine, because we human beings are essentially flexible and resilient creatures at our core who, while we’re always at our best when we hold firmly to the best changeless ideals and principles, can creatively adjust and adapt as circumstances around us change. That is the form of consistency that counts the most.

To quote the late Kung-Fu expert and former philosophy major, Bruce Lee: "Be like water."

The Power of Mercy

My guess is that you haven't thought much about mercy recently. And it may be quite important, to be so overlooked.

In too much of our history, power has been associated with aggression, force, and revenge. On this perspective, the good avenge their friends. They take what they want, and they celebrate their own strength.

According to this view, the strong choose to take, and the weak are forced to give. In so many of our ancient stories, across cultures, a certain warrior ethic that draws this map prevails. And for those who incline to think that business is war, the same can be thought to hold true.

But there is another ancient ethic that's very different. It finds ultimate nobility lying deep within the unexpected sphere of humility, and presents the highest power as associated with kindness and mercy. In this vision, the sovereign is a servant. The enlightened warrior is a protector of all that should be safe. And love is what finally conquers hate. Justice is important, indeed. And so is mercy. In fact, within this other tradition, justice is understood in such a way as to involve, essentially, the powerful seasoning of mercy.

I'm sure you recognize right away that these are things we don't often enough think about in the context of our work together in the modern world.

In Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, Portia represents this second ethic, this alternative and powerful perspective, and says, quite poetically:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, 

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown; 

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway; 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 

It is an attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice.

Mercy seasoning justice: What can this mean for our ongoing work with other people in a corporate context, or in our individual life and business dealings?

Are we as concerned about mercy as we are about justice? Are we able to forgive whenever we can, and allow the people around us some needed room to grow? Mercy never condones or coddles, but it's meant ultimately to enable the better things that are possible. It's a realistic approach to the imperfections of life in the world, and always sees the potential in people. It's never to be unrealistic or unjust, irrational or self-defeating, indulgent or dumb. 

It's a quality, or tonality of action, that we do well to remember, as we deal with the rough and tumble of life. And then, we and others can be doubly blessed.

Oh, and by the way, I wrote on this topic in some different but harmonious ways in the Hufington Post four years ago. For the meditation, click here.

How We Treat Others

How we treat others is really, in the end, how we treat ourselves. Our outer conduct always has inner results.

In a great little passage from Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, the Prince addresses his colleague Polonius about some theatrical players who are visiting, and we get this exchange.

Hamlet: Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Polonius: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet: God's bodkin, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Notice the evolution of the reasoning Hamlet uses with his friend. At first, he asks Polonius to "use" or treat the players well, and appeals to his self-interest in a fairly superficial way, pointing out that these are people whose job is, in part, to broadcast news and gossip far and wide, and that they'll certainly tell tales of Polonius, depending on how he treats them. If he treats them well, he will be well spoken of everywhere they go, and if the opposite, then his reputation will surely suffer. But Polonius objects, on what look at first to be moral grounds. He won't treat them well just because he'd benefit from that - he'll hold to higher ground and treat them the way they deserve to be treated. Duty, from this point of view, is always related to desert.

Hamlet feigns shock at that declaration, and jokingly points out that, on this principle, any of us would be lucky to escape a public whipping. He then suggests that the better course is not to treat others in accordance with their character or merits, but rather in accordance with our own honor and dignity.

The high path of moral action is to act well toward others because of who we are, not just in response to who they are.

Our actions should express our higher nature, and there are four distinct benefits from that.

First, by acting out of honor and dignity and treating others well, we set a high moral tone of kind action, rather than just responding to others in kind. We are moral leaders, rather than just reactive puppets who allow our own conduct to be dictated by others.

Second, by acting well, we reinforce our own ideals and higher tendencies. Whenever we act, we never just do, we always become. Third, kindness, generosity, and mercy do, in fact, more often than not, generate the good report of others, and this reputation indeed will serve us well in the hearts and minds of other good people.

And, fourth, we should be reminded of the words once spoken by Goethe, when he said:

Treat others as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they're capable of being.

By treating others well, we make gains, however small, in surrounding ourselves with the sort of people who are good company and good partners in making great things happen.

When we do well, things tend to go well in many ways.

Seneca on Difficulties and Confidence

Difficulties and confidence: On a superficial consideration, they might seem to be inversely related - the more you have of one, the less you'll have of the other. But allow me to quote one of my favorite philosophers, the prominent first century Roman lawyer, and advisor to very successful people, Seneca. These are his thoughts, in my own translation from The Stoic Art of Living:

"The powers we have can never inspire in us a genuine inner self-confidence until we have confronted many difficulties along the way, and even now and then have had to struggle fiercely with them. This is the only way our true spirit can ever really be tested - the inner spirit we have that will never consent to be ruled by outer forces. The nature of such a spirit can be seen in the fact that no prizefighter can go into a contest with high spirits if he has never been beaten black and blue. The only man who can enter the ring with confidence is one who has seen his own blood, had felt his teeth rattled by an opponent's fist, has been tripped up and has experienced the full force of an adversary's charge, who has been knocked down in body, but not in spirit - one who, as often as he falls, gets up again with greater determination than ever." (Epistulae Morales, I.75)

In another place, Seneca goes so far as to say:

"Disaster is virtue's opportunity."

Disaster. Catastrophe. Failure. Disappointment. It's all about how we react to difficulties. Do they weaken us and take us down, or strengthen us and build us up? To an amazing extent, and within an extraordinarily wide range of circumstances, that's largely up to us. And in responding well to the trouble we face in our own lives, we can be an example to others of what it's like to be knocked down, but not knocked out.

Trust The Process

We have this tendency, most of us, to want things in the world to operate like a classic light switch, on or off. You want to change a bad habit? Cut the switch off. Done. You want a new skill? Click the switch on. You got it.

But, of course, life is mostly about process. As Aristotle realized long ago, we're all in a state of becoming. As we pursue goals, we're engaged in a process of transformation, altering not just the world around us, but ourselves, along the way.

If you want a light switch image for making things happen, try the modern dimmer switch, where you can start seeing positive results with the least little bit of illumination and gradually, over a sweep of effort and time, however brief in this little symbol, increase the results to a blaze of light where you then glow, along with your circumstances.

Almost everything in the world is a process. We're in a hurry for results. But if we're moving in the right direction, there's one thing we need, one thing we often forget. We need to trust the process, however slow or indirect it might seem. We can certainly improve the process, in many cases, and where we can, we should. But in order to be motivated to do even that, we need to trust the process. We need to honor the truth, or reality, of process itself.

We value doing. Most of us value being. More of us need to value becoming.

Trust the process.

That's your thought for today, as your process unfolds.

Pondering Tenacious Curiosity

Recently, I wrote in praise of curiosity ("The Secret Source of Creative Success" - to be found about a dozen blogs below). Today, I have an addendum. A friend yesterday sent me a link to a New York Times article on a 76 year old mathematician who happens to be a billionaire, and a good deal richer than others in the world of business whose names are nearly household words. Plus, he's a really nice guy who gives to worthy causes.

In the article, Jim Simons gradually reveals the key to his success. It's tenacious curiosity.

Curiosity can sometimes be like a bubble, forming quickly and popping just as fast. I wonder, we think, and then something interrupts us, ending our momentary intrigue. And the fleeting interest results in nothing. But in some people, curiosity can be like a plant, or a tree, springing forth from a seed of wonder, and then continuing to grow, and becoming strong. It's more like persistence, and dogged pursuit in this state of attention and concern that can lead to something great.

Clearly, curiosity won't help us much if it has an ephemerally short shelf life. It's tenacious curiosity that gives rise to patient investigations and what Simons credits as his ultimate secret weapon to seal the deal in his investigations - the proclivity to ponder.

Now, let's face it, pondering is not high up on the list of activities we're encouraged to engage in at the current cultural moment. To many people, it would seem as practical as yodeling, but without all the noise. And yet, it's behind breakthrough creativity, in math, science, business, art, and life.

Philosophy, Aristotle said, begins in wonder. Philo - the love of. Sophia - wisdom, or insight. All creativity begins in curiosity, or wonder, and the highest creations then come from sustaining that state of mind and heart, while also putting to work the power of pondering - turning ideas around in our thoughts, contemplating various aspects of them, consulting our deepest intuitions, and opening ourselves almost meditatively to greater insight.

So, my augmented recommendation today is to cultivate in yourself a tenacious curiosity, coupled with the profound power of pondering.

And when people question you for simply sitting still, staring out the nearest window, in silent consideration of the thoughts that your curiosity has sparked, you can tell them your philosopher recommended it as your key to the next great thing you'll do.

Ponder the possibilities.

A Simple Luxury: Everyday Beauty

Every morning, we get these push notifications from social media - this person has requested or accepted a LinkedIn connection, that person has endorsed you, there is a new comment on your post, and you have new followers on Twitter. Going through the first run of emails for the day, I usually brush by these quickly. But today, a name caught my eye. I have a new Twitter follower who is the founder and CEO of one of the world's most interesting companies, and one that I especially admire. 

In 1988, Peter Stas and his wife Aletta Bax launched the Swiss watchmaking firm of Frederique Constant. Their vision was simple and brilliant: craft beautiful, elegant watches that would be useful works of art, and accessible to more people than the already existing high-end timepieces for which Switzerland had long been known.

If you are fortunate enough to have artwork in your home that you love - paintings, drawings, sculpture, beautiful rugs, china, or pottery - I hope you enjoy each piece nearly every time you pass it, or sit near it. And if you have easy access to a great museum, or gallery, you can visit to enjoy whatever is on display, sometimes created by the most talented of artists in history, or perhaps in your region of the world. But what about the rest of your time? Are you in touch with beauty in an ongoing way? I've come to believe quite firmly that there is a deep aesthetic dimension to our experience of the world, every day, and that we need frequent contact with beauty, in many of its various forms, in order to be our best, feel our best, and flourish in the most complete ways.

A beautiful watch is a small work of art, inside and out, that can go with you nearly everywhere, available throughout the day to add just a spark of the aesthetic to your experience. But the most beautiful watches, for the past half century, have become exorbitantly expensive, and have, in many circles, turned into rare luxuries whose value has subtly shifted, from intrinsically valuable works of art, to often primarily social signifiers - signs that set their wearers apart as members of the cultural elite, the "one percenters" with power, money, and status. Too many people who purchase such amazing, small handmade machines of intricate elegance that sit on the wrist and provide some of the most important information we can gain, do so these days primarily for show, to prove something, to indicate their level of financial attainment and membership in a rarified club of peers. Luxury, in step with this, has become almost synonymous with inaccessibility, the unaffordable and out of reach for the majority of people who could genuinely enjoy that experience of using the goods and services typically thought of as luxuries.

Peter rightly saw that this has gotten all out of joint. Luxury, at its heart, is meant to be primarily about ease and enjoyment, not social display and status achievement. So he and Aletta set out to create beautiful watches, useful works of art that could travel with you throughout your day, and be accessible luxuries, valued primarily for their mastery of craftsmanship and aesthetic qualities, not simply for their brand symbolism, flash, or bling. But of course, beauty has its own flash and bling. And now their brand, Frederique Constant, has become known for its purity of concern with luxury in its original sense, providing ease and enjoyment, which, of course, for most of us must involve reliability, something else they view as of peak importance. They significantly underprice their competition, not by cutting corners on quality, but by focusing on what really matters, and on what they most want to accomplish. And they provide beauty to more of the world, as a result.

Welcome to my little philosophy family, Peter! You believe in the right things!

You can follow Peter on Twitter, where he exists as @pcstas.

The Inner Game of Everything

Imagine two outer actions, which would appear exactly the same to an onlooker. In one case, the act springs from a routine in a job that's long lost its luster. And if we could walk into that office and ask the guy involved in that action, he might tell us that he was excited about his job at first. It was his big break. It was an entry level job, but in a big company. The building was beautiful. His colleagues were smart and ambitious. He seemed to have his foot firmly in the door of greatness. But the culture around him soon became clear. It was all about the sale, all about the money. Profits were the air they breathed. But breathing that air, and only that, every day over time, had taken a toll. He had lost the true excitement of the early days. The enchantment was gone. It had gradually become a matter of pressure, and routine. He now still kept up the pace, and all relevant appearances, and did the work, but it was almost automatic, and without any inner soul.

The other guy, across town, the one performing apparently the same outer action - say, reaching for a phone, or filling out a form, or making an entry into his computer - lives and works each day with a strong sense of purpose, and a real passion for what he's doing. He's with great people who think and feel the same way. They have a camaraderie and a sense of mission for the work they do. They're building something new together. They're making a difference.

I submit that the two identical looking actions of these different individuals are really not the same at all. One of the actions is ennobled by the inner state from which it springs. The other is not. And this is not some flaky mumbo-jumbo mysticism. It's a difference that makes a difference. One action embodies something almost magical, and it will, eventually, if not right away, have seriously different results, on many dimensions, regardless of how small an act it is.

I've come to think that it's the inner that's always definitive of the outer, in everything. When the spirit is right, the enterprise is just different, and vastly more. Plato distinguished clearly between appearance and reality. We should all do so, as well. No matter what the appearances might be, it's what bubbles up inside us, what animates us in our minds and hearts, that makes all the difference.

Inner purpose, real passion, and the sort of commitment that embodies a spark of nobility simply brings something different into the world. Don't you think?

What will animate your actions today?

The Wild, Alluring, Unpredictable Next

We're called not to predict the future, but to create it. Uncertainty isn't an obstacle, but the canvass on which we all paint.

Will you, then, just copy what others have done, tracing the lines they've already laid down, and using colors long before mixed, in the hope that this will serve you well? Or rather, will you, perhaps, paint boldly something new?

What we learn from the past can help us to get past the past and move into the distinctive future that our present can best create.

Your Deepest Resource

The conscious mind is a high walled fortress, with only a few small gates, all under guard. Those guards are your prior beliefs, attitudes, interests, and fears. It's amazing how little of anything new these strong sentries will ever let through.

The unconscious mind, by contrast, is a vast garden surrounded by only a short and open fence. It absorbs energy and intelligence and deep truth from all around it.

The fortress is cut off and isolated. The garden is wonderfully connected. Hordes of small flying envoys tend its flowers and pollinate its plants. The radiance of something greater comes into it and elicits its growth. And it's always open to the rains that come down to nurture it and wash it clean.

You live in the fortress, but need what's in the garden. Without it, you'll never thrive. The good news is that there's a secret door to the garden. The bad news is that it's normally blocked by the clutter and debris of a noisy and busy life. The realization that you need to live with, every day, is that you can sweep aside the clutter. You can reduce the chatter of the conscious mind, and get beyond it, and open the secret door, not just in quiet meditation by a stream or in a dojo or in a closed room alone, but at your desk, in your car, or on the treadmill at the gym.

But there's a lot to let go, a lot to release. Guards will rush into the room and try to block the door, and they will tell you that it's for your own protection, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You need what's out there. And when you dismiss the guards, quiet the chatter, and remove the clutter, the door will open itself.

And then the light will shine in and you can find yourself suddenly, wonderfully, able to move into that wild garden of insight, and energy, and hope, and that distinctive form of love that alone connects us to the best we can be and do.

When I walk in the garden, I'm refreshed and inspired and emboldened to do something new. I grow. I see in new ways. I hear quiet whispers. And I connect up with so much that, for too long, I've let the clutter and the chatter and well-meaning guards keep from me.

How do you get into the garden? What happens when you're there?

I have a story about this that I'll tell soon.