David Kanigan: Inspiration, Ideas & Information
And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling “This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this!” And each day, it’s up to you, to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say “No. This is what’s important.
~ Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You
Credits: Quote – Thank you Mme Scherzo via I Wrote This For You: The Grand Distraction. ”I Wrote This For You” Book link @ Amazon. Photo: Impactlab.net
“As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to take a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilize it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years, we strive to attain the correct distance to objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed. It no longer meets any obstacles, everything is set, time races through our lives, the days pass by in a flash and before we know what is happening we are forty, fifty, fifty…Meaning requires content, content requires time, time requires resistance. Knowledge is distance, knowledge is status and the enemy of meaning.”
~ Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One (p.14-15)
It’s Tuesday.
I’m on the 6:22 am train to Grand Central.
One of few trips a month taking me back to Manhattan.
I drift away for a moment.
It has been six years.
Six years since I’ve changed Company. Changed routine. Changed my life.
Two hours a day of uninterrupted reading time.
To, near zero.
Churning through three books a week. 150 books a year.
To, near zero.
Lost. In a character. In a story. In another place. In another time. [Read more...]
I’m worried. I liked this. Don’t ask me how many times I hit go on this 8 second clip. Here’s how to pronounce “Synecdoche“. And, if the suspense is overwhelming and you want to know what “Synecdoche” means, the definition can be found here.
And if you are looking for a real word treat, check out this old post titled Words…. Loved this too.
Source: videohall
Related Posts: Synecdoche (jettiepoetry.wordpress.com)
I’ve heard the last sentence of this quote (many times) but never the entire passage. It has stuck with me for several weeks. And I had no idea who the woman, Maya Angelou, was. (I may be the only one on the planet. Francine/Joyce, don’t scold me.) So, I started with Wiki and then went to an Oprah Interview. What a life. What an inspiration. A few excerpts from Wiki and Oprah’s talk: [Read more...]
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
~ Dr. Seuss
Theodore Seuss Geisel was born today in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He attended Dartmouth College and Oxford. He was a perfectionist in his work and he would sometimes spend up to a year on a book. It was not uncommon for him to throw out 95% of his material until he settled on a theme for his book. Geisel’s first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected 27 times before it was finally published by Vanguard Press in 1937. The Cat in the Hat was published in 1957. Green Eggs and Ham in 1960. (Could it have been that long ago?) Geisel’s birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day.
“There is nothing I dislike.”
“These are the extraordinary words of the great teacher Linji; they are a lifetime koan for anyone who dares to take it on. Lifetime koans like this one never give up on you, luckily. ‘There is nothing I dislike’ is daring and fragrant and alive, and it is like this because it’s like this. ‘There is nothing I dislike’ rearranges us profoundly, when we offer ourselves to its energy, its scrutiny, its disturbance in us. [Read more...]
He’s Joe Queenan, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal. He started reading when he was 7 years old. Fifty-five years later, he has read 6,128 books. He “hopes to get through another 2,137 books before he dies.”
He often “reads dozens of books simultaneously.” “(He) starts a book in 1978 and finishes it 34 years later.”
He states that “a case can be made that people who read a preposterous number of books are not playing with a full deck. I prefer to think of us as dissatisfied customers. If you have read 6,000 books in your lifetime, or even 600, it’s probably because at some level you find ‘reality’ a bit of a disappointment.”
“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”
Other writing tips from my favorite authors:
Sources:
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When I read the title of this book, my head snapped back. I believe that “doing what you love” (or pursuing your passion) leads to you being effective and satisfied in your job and leading a satisfying life. Newport suggests that “following your passion is terrible advice” and that “skills trump passion in the quest for work you love.” I’ve bought the book and I’m starting to dig in.
Amazon’s book summary states that “Newport debunks the long-held belief that “follow your passion” is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed-preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping…Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.”
There is a worthy start-of-the-week message in the excerpts from 800ceoread’s book review:
Thank you Maureen at Magnolia Beginnings for presenting me with The Booker Award. It’s a tall order to list my top 5 books of all time (so I’m giving you 11). And, I’ve excluded “self-help”, “business” and “autobiographies” from this list. Here we go:
My nominees for The Booker Award are listed below. If you choose to participate, the rules of the award are to: 1) Nominate 5-10 bloggers and let your recipients know. (2) Post The Booker Award picture. (3) Share your top 5 books of all time.
I’ve read books. Let’s say hundreds. Maybe more. (That’s not to brag, the point is coming.) Rather than focus on the wonderful books that I’ve read and the vast amounts of information, learning and pleasure that I’ve derived from this pastime, I spend an inordinate amount of time dwelling on the less than 1% of the books that I haven’t finished. The incomplete. My inability to finish.
Resting firmly on top of this list is Ulysses by James Joyce. That’s the cover on the right. The book, the same hideous cover, has been sitting next to my desk for eight years. It stares me down. It torments me. Here come the low guttural whispers: Quitter. Not capable. Not good enough. Over your head. Farm boy. Loser! Public school project.
I happened to come across a recent article in Publishers Weekly titled “The Top 10 Most Difficult Books” and the festering sore opens wide again.
“…The “Difficult Books” series is devoted to identifying the hardest and most frustrating books ever written, as well as what made them so hard and frustrating…If you can somehow read all 10, you probably ascend to the being immediately above Homo sapiens…”
Here we go. Intelligentsia slapping me around again. You want to hit nerve – - hit me here. Hit me. Neanderthal man immediately surfaces.
“For every hundred words I write, I spend about thirty to sixty minutes of editing and rewriting.” Jeff Goins
In Jeff Goins’ book titled You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One), Goins shares his secret sauce on becoming a writer. And this message never seems to get old (for me):
Jeff Goins is an author, blogger, and speaker. In 2011, his blog, goinswriter.com, was voted as one of the “Top 10 Blogs on Writing” and his writing has been featured on some of the most popular blogs including Copyblogger, Problogger and Zen Habits.
My book summary:
From HBR Blog Network: For Those Who Want to Lead, Read. (DK: I believe all of this to be true.)
“…For the first time in American history, “less than half of the U.S. adult American population is reading literature.”
“…This is terrible for leadership, where trends are even more pronounced. Business people seem to be reading less — particularly material unrelated to business. But deep, broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.”
“…And history is littered not only with great leaders who were avid readers and writers (remember, Winston Churchill won his Nobel prize in Literature, not Peace), but with business leaders who believed that deep, broad reading cultivated in them the knowledge, habits, and talents to improve their organizations.”
“…Evidence suggests reading can improve intelligence and lead to innovation and insight…reading makes you smarter through “a larger vocabulary and more world knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning skills.” Reading…is one of the quickest ways to acquire and assimilate new information.” [Read more...]
There was no air conditioning, central, window or otherwise. There were no large, five-speed oscillating fans. The one 12-inch fan in the house, hummed like a diesel and was in the kitchen where it kept Mom cool while she was preparing our meal. Dinner included a cool cucumber soup, vareneki and peach pie – - cucumbers individually pulled off the vines in the garden and plump, ripe peaches picked from our fruit trees. The oven, running all afternoon, added to the oppressive heat in the house.
We had one TV, with one channel, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Hockey Night in Canada (Saturday Nights) was one of the few programs worthy of watching. And, in any event, watching TV during the day was taboo. We had one radio station, and it was country. (So no radio.) There was no internet. No Playstation. No iPhones, iTunes, iPods, iPads, iAnthing. No desktops or laptops. No Barnes & Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks or Amazon. No Kindles, Nooks or Readers. The Public Library was miles away and I had never set my foot in it. We had a camera but that was off limits and of little interest. [Read more...]
Here are links to notable blogging/writing posts in the past week:
Kurt Harden @ Cultural Offering with I Love a Tradition and Ray Visokski @ A Simple Village Undertaker with Officially A Tradition where they invite bloggers to a face-to-face meeting in Newark. (I was reading too fast. I thought they meant Newark, NJ which would have been a no-brainer. The idea has me thinkin’. Maybe something smaller and more local? Yes, Brenna, me too – way (way) out of comfort zone. On the other hand, YOLO?)
Madame Scherzo: The 10 Most Commonly Misunderstood Words In English. (Got me on “Enormity” and several others.)
Michael Hyatt: 15 Resources For Pro Bloggers (Or those who want to be). (I’m not a Mac user but there are solid tips in his post.)
Caitlin Kelly @ Broadside: BlogHer 2012 — was it worth it? “Three days of full-on intensity, 5,000 bloggers in one midtown Manhattan hotel, about 80 percent of whom — maybe 90 percent — were female, and under the age of 40…”
| ME |
| Me: Monday. (Big Plans. Big Things. Big Hopes. Get started.) |
| Me: Tuesday. (Meetings. Calls. Emails. Set aside big things.) |
| Me: Wednesday. (More meetings. More Calls. More Emails. Full of…little things.) |
| Me: Thursday. (Where you taking me today pal? Going to play big? Or little?) |
| Me: Friday. (Start planning for Big today.) |
From NY Times Sunday Book Review by Colson Whitehead: A few excerpts:
Rule No. 1: Show and Tell.
Rule No. 2: Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can’t rush inspiration…you can’t force it. Once your subject finds you, it’s like falling in love. It will be your constant companion…Your ideal subject should be like a stalker with limitless resources…
Rule No. 3: Write what you know…listen to your heart. Ask your heart, Is it true? And if it is, let it be. Once the lawyers sign off, you’re good to go…
Rule No. 4: Never use three words when one will do. Be concise. Don’t fall in love with the gentle trilling of your mellifluous sentences…
The Gentlest and Greatest Friend of Moon and Winds. Basho, 1644 – 1694
Many years ago there went wandering through Japan, sometimes on the back of a horse, sometimes afoot, in poor pilgrim’s clothes, the kindest, most simple hearted of men…Basho, friend of moon and winds. Though Basho was born of one of the noblest classes in Japan, and might have been welcome in palaces, he chose to wander, and to be comrade and teacher of men and women, boys and girls in all different stations of life, from the lowest to the highest. Basho bathed in the running brooks, rested in shady valleys, sought shelter from sudden rains under some tree on the moor, and sighed with the country folk as he watched the cherry blossoms in their last pink shower, fluttering down from the trees. Now he slept at some country inn, 
stumbling in at its door at nightfall, wearied from long hours of travelling, yet never too tired to note the lovely wisteria vine, drooping its delicate lavender blossoms over the veranda. Sometimes he slept in the poor hut of a peasant, but most often his bed was out-of-doors, and his pillow a stone.
When Basho came upon a little violet hiding shyly in the grass on a mountain pathway, it whispered its secret to him. “Modesty, gentleness, and simplicity!” it said. “These are the truly beautiful things.”
Glistening drops of dew on the petal of a flower had voice and a song for him likewise. “Purity,” they sang, “is the loveliest thing in life.
The pine tree, fresh and ever green amid winter’s harshest storms, spoke staunchly of hardy manhood; the mountains had their message of patience, the moon its song of glory! Rivers, forests, waterfalls, all told their secrets to Basho, and these secrets that Nature revealed to him, he loved to show to others, for the whole of living of life was to him one great poem, as of some holy service in the shadow of a temple.
“Real poetry,” said Basho, “is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.” And whenever he saw one of his young students being rude, in a fit of anger, or otherwise acting unworthily, he would gently lay his hand on the arm of the youth and say; “But this is not poetry! This is not poetry.”
~ Olive Beaupré Miller, A children’s book titled Little Pictures of Japan originally published in 1925
Source: artemisdreaming via madamescherzo
Nora Ephron (May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) “was an American journalist, screenwriter, novelist, producer, director and blogger. She was best known for her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle.” More than 800 celebrated her memorial at the Lincoln Center yesterday. R.I.P. Nora…
Source: hiscalifornia via abirdeyeview
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9:15 pm. June 26, 2012.
Zeke, our four-year old Vizsla, has excellent hearing and smell. But not for the bird hunting discipline that he was bred for – - but for California Blue Diamond Smokehouse Almonds. From a room away, he can hear a 1/2 turn on the top of the plastic Almond container. If he’s outside and comes inside, his nose goes 911 when he sniffs a whiff of a single nut.
Zeke and I have a routine each night. He waits for Dad’s snack time before bed time when Dad and Zeke share a heaping handful of almonds. Most days, it’s one for Zeke, one for Dad, one for Zeke, one for Dad. (OK, sometimes Dad cheats on the allocation when Zeke isn’t looking. OK, OK, more than sometimes.)
Zeke wolfs down his Almond without breaking his eye lock with Dad. No chewing. Straight down the gullet. 1 Almond. 2 Almonds. 3 Almonds. Same pattern. He gives me the same desperate look that he might miss out on his share if he breaks his stare. (Those eyes are telling me that he knows that I’m cheating him out of his allocation.)
I proceed to tell him that “maybe you should chew your almonds and enjoy them rather than just scarfing them down without tasting them – maybe you won’t keep begging for more.” (I’m no different that you other dog owners. I believe he understands me but he just doesn’t want to cooperate.)
Source: thechaffandthewind via madamescherzo
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Ray Bradbury, 91, died on Tuesday. Bradbury, a celebrated fiction writer, is best known for Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles & The Illustrated Man. Brain Pickings had a terrific post on a speech he gave at a writer’s symposium. While his speech was directed to writers, there is an important message here for all of us. A few choice excerpts:
…Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it…It’s not work. If it’s work, stop and do something else…
…People are always saying “Well, what do we do about a sudden blockage in your writing?…You’re being warned…Your subconscious is saying “I don’t like you anymore. You’re writing about things I don’t give a damn for”.
…I’ve never worked a day in my life…The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: “Am I being joyful?” And if you’ve got a writer’s block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you’re writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.
Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)
If you are interested in a personal perspective on Bradbury, check out Christian Fahey’s post at The Upside: Ray Bradbury: An Appreciation
Sources: Quote explore-blog; Artwork by Lou Romano via louromano.blogspot.com via Mme Scherzo
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LET’S GO! LET’S GO! LET’S GO!
Source: headlikeanorange
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Sendak, in his quote below, summarizes my operating philosophy.
I’m certainly not the most intelligent leader. (Thundering applause in the stadium from my team – - in complete agreement.)
And, not the best strategic operator. Or even possess average analytical skills compared to the crackerjacks I’m surrounded by. (Roof coming off stadium – Team giddy in agreement.)
However. However, as to “fierce honesty” – FIERCE HONESTY, there’s no doubting the boss on his proclamation of competence in this area. (You can now hear a pin drop. With murmurs and grumbling oozing out of the rafters.)
Don’t let your team down.
Don’t let your team members get unfairly punished.
Don’t let your team “be dealt with a boring, simpering, crushing-of-the-spirit kind of way.”
In other words, L-E-A-D.
From Clay Christensen’s Life Lessons, Bloomberg Businessweek. By Bradford Wieners
"…How Will You Measure Your Life? is sharpest on staying motivated in your career and, above all, on parenting…To understand a company’s strategy, look at what they actually do rather than what they say they do. The same logic applies to one’s life. For example, ambitious people will reliably tell you that family, or being a mother or father, is the most important thing in their lives. Yet when pressed to choose between racing home to deal with a chaotic pre-bedtime scene and staying another hour at the office to solve a problem, they will usually keep working. It’s these small everyday decisions that reveal if you’re following a path to being the best possible spouse and parent. If your family matters to you, when you think about all the choices you’ve made with your time in a week, does your family come out on top?"
I came across a post this morning on a blog that I follow called Making Things Happen – and then proceeded to poach the graphics and twist the idea a bit for the weekend. (I wasn’t looking to “get fired up” this morning.) What was a bit of a head scratcher is that I had to work to get to 10. (There’s a message to me in that pondering as well.) Here’s my top 10. Your top three would be???
Related Posts:
Image sourced and idea adapted from Making Things Happen
Quote Source: explore-blog
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The Wall Street Journal: Photo-Op: Color Field:
“Everybody dreams of soaring like an eagle, but few consider that they probably wouldn’t be alone in the sky. The 200 photographs in John Downer’s ‘EarthFlight‘ offer the exultant wing-to-wing camaraderie enjoyed otherwise only by fighter pilots and birds themselves, juxtaposing graceful avians aloft and stunning landscapes beneath. To infiltrate the flocks, Downer and his team used…hang gliders, ultralight aircraft and the ‘vulturecam,’ a miniature remote-controlled plane disguised as a bird. Even more unusual were the tiny cameras they mounted on the backs of trained birds, such as a bald eagle that banked and wheeled above the Grand Canyon…Six continents and all four seasons are represented: A squadron of barnacle geese cross wintry fields on the south coast of Sweden, the pale shading of their feathers mirroring the snow cover below; a common crane (above) surveys the bright stripes of a Dutch tulip farm in the spring…(and) Hovering over the roofs of Rome, a cloud of starlings forms a dark calligraphic blob like something from a painting by Miró—a startling reminder that birds are always there, whether we notice them from the ground or not.”
“To me, there’s something sacred about reading a blog post on someone else’s site. It’s like visiting a friend’s house for a quick meal ‘round the breakfast table. It’s personal — you’re in their space, and the environment is uniquely suited for idea exchange and uninterrupted conversation. In many ways, we should be treating our blogs like our breakfast tables. Be welcoming & gracious when you host, and kind & respectful when visiting.”
This inspiring story is about Bruce Lee, a legendary martial art master. From: The Art of Expressing the Human Body. (Bruce Lee, John Little).
Here’s a few excerpts:
“Lee realized early on that in order for us to fulfill our physical potential, we had to approach our exercise endeavors progressively and fight against the desire to pack it all in and retire to the sofa and the television where we could escape from our ‘duty’ of self-actualization by partaking in its opposite – that is, shutting off our minds and allowing our muscles to atrophy. Lee wanted to learn as much about his mind and body as possible. He wanted to know what he was truly capable of, rather than settling for what he already knew he could accomplish. To this end, he viewed each training session as a learning experience, an opportunity for improvement to take himself to a new level. As a result, he had a keen eye for spotting people who were selling themselves short by either slacking off in their training or by underestimating what their true capabilities were.
Stirling Silliphant (a student of Lee’s) related an interesting story that perfectly embodies Lee’s attitude toward progressive resistance in cardiovascular training, as well as his refusal to let a person – in this case Silliphant – underestimate his own physical potential:”
A friend (thanks GP) shared a Financial Times article titled “Reasons to Be Cheerful. Seriously.” The article struck a chord. I read another similar themed article called “Defying the Doomsayers” in a book review in the Wall Street Journal.
Turn on the TV or radio or read the newspaper and you have a deluge of darkness. Joblessness. Poverty. Politics. Iran. Afghanistan. Kony. Poaching. Extinction of endangered species. Deforestation of rainforests. Racism. Global Warming. Violent crime. Hazings. Gas Prices. Poor test results for U.S. high school students. Cheating on college entrance exams. Steroid use. Corruption. Terrorism. Medicinal commercials for depression, constipation, virility, hair loss, anxiety, ADD and on and on and on. Is it any wonder that we are the most fully medicated generation to have existed?
As the FT article states: “If it bleeds, it leads” (the news broadcasts). One might conclude from the media that we are three steps shy of Apocalypse.
Solution? Turn off the tele. Feed your mind a more constructive source of fuel. And as the WSJ article closes: “The best way to predict the future, is to create it yourself.”
Here’s some excerpts that share an inspiring alternative view of the world – more inspiring than you will see on your nightly news and cable broadcasts or your morning paper:
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
- Franz Kafka
Sources:
Rule #1: You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.
Each day, read and consider these statements until they become part of your new thinking:
- My potential is undoubtedly greater than my current practice.
- My potential is limited only by my imagination. This I have hardly started to use fully.
- My potential is limited only by my degree of focus. I have hardly started to apply real focus yet.
- My practice, my imagination & my focus can only improve. I am determined that they will do so.
For Rule #2: How to Escape? Understand. Really Understand.
For the Free PDF of The Rules of Life
For the The Rules of Life Book (Amazon UK)
How one goes from this morning’s post on Charlie Brown and Snoopy and being-grateful-for-everything-dancing-and-whooping-it-up in the morning – to this topic in the evening – should give you a sense of my day. And it should also give you a sense of what I was reading on my train ride home from work. Yes, I question my own judgment on my forms of stress relief. Nonetheless, I made a commitment to me that I would post what was on my mind. So, this post is related to the “LIVE” part of “LEAD, LEARN, LIVE.” LIVE in capital letters. LIVE Forever.
WTMI* Factoid 1:
I am maniacal on subject of self-help and finding it in self-help books. (He who needs lots of help, hungrily seeks it out.)
WTMI* Factoid 2:
I’m a MWMC. (That’s Man-With-Mortality-Complex). I’m sayin’ like anxiety attacks – cold sweat – darkness. Fear of not waking up. THE END.
Conversely, there are few (very few) bouts of light on the subject. The most recent light being tied to a Steve Jobs story. (See Post Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow.)
So, when I saw a pre-release version of Stephen Cave’s new book: Immortality-The Quest To Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization – I thought maybe…just maybe, I tripped into the Holy Grail.
You know the pitch. Face your fears head on – and only then do you grow. Or Dorothy Thompson: “Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.” [Read more...]
Stedman Graham is the CEO of his own management, marketing and consulting firm. He is the author of ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers including You Can Make It Happen – A Nine-Step Plan For Success. “The nine-step plan is a life management system that teaches you how to organize your personal and professional life around your identity.” Yet, with all of his accomplishments, Graham may be best known for being Oprah Winfrey’s life partner.
The core premise of this book is “Your happiness and success in life flow from becoming clear about who you are and establishing your authentic identity – first inside yourself and then externally with the world…building your identity is about knowing what your calling is, learning how to do it well and creating value in the world.” Graham states that he feels “extraordinary people are simply ordinary people doing extraordinary things that matter to them. They relentless align all the elements of their life to support their pursuit of what has deep meaning to them.”
You can find my full book review titled “Chicken Soup for Your Identity” at this link on Amazon.
Here are two of my favorite excerpts from the book:
“The nectar that nurtured me turned me to poison.”
“Then what did you do?”
“What can one do in such circumstances? Accept it and go on. Please always remember that the secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt. To quote: ‘All things fall and are built again, and those that build them are gay.’”
“Yeats?” guessed Maneck.
The proofreader nodded, “You see, you cannot draw lines and compartments, and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.” He paused, considered what he had just said. “Yes,” he repeated. “In the end, it’s all a question of balance.”
~ Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
I’ve been wading (slowly) through this book. The core principles in Chapter Four (“Leading People Talent to Teams”) keep returning to my consciousness long since I’ve blown threw this chapter. Why? Why does it keep drifting back to needle me? Where does the time go in my day? What takes me away from my focus on my top performers? Why haven’t I spent more time building my bench? As they say, you can pay now or pay later. This book is getting under my skin and moving up the rating scale. Here’s a few excerpts from Chapter 4 of John Hamm’s book titled: Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required For the Practice of Great Leadership).
The Last Load, 1966, by Dale Nichols (Thank you Mme Scherzo)
“No man can be happy, efficient, creative at his work when he is unhappy with his situation and lives for another day. All of us are too prone to postpone our living until some nebulous time when “our ship will come in.” Nothing is so apt to inject dissatisfaction into our lives as this wasteful attitude toward the most perishable of all things we know – time. Today, this very day, is the most important time of all, for what we do today determines what we will be tomorrow. Therefore turn all your attention to your labors of the moment, absorb yourself, take your satisfactions from each thing you do, however humble in your mind. Nothing is small or petty in this life. The massive door of a vault swings on the apex of a tiny jewel, and men have become great through learning how to do well the lowliest of jobs.
- U.S. Anderson, Three Magic Words
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Related U.S. Andersen Posts:
“…Trust the power of allowing others to know you. Even though it can seem scary, and it requires the willingness to be vulnerable, it is the key to influence. The real you – no imitations and role playing – is what people want to know, and the real you is the person to whom they will commit…”
I had a series of separate meetings with professionals over a period of two days. (Including representation from our firm and two third-party firms.) All individuals conducted themselves professionally and exuded competence in their respective subject matter areas. Yet, after having some time to reflect on these meetings, two Leaders stood out. Two Leaders seemed to make the meeting come alive. They had executive presence. They had energy. They are fair but tough and resolute. They have fervent employee followership. (One not having a single regrettable employee resignation on the team in memory.)
However, that wasn’t the secret sauce.
THEY WERE AUTHENTIC…and AUTHENTIC LEADERS WIN. They were passionate about their vision. They have developed a reputation for execution and being in the trenches with their teams. They conduct themselves with humility. They share their anxieties and missteps. They have developed strong relationships with their teams at all levels. They don’t shade, color or hide from the truth.
So, when I finished the chapter on Authenticity in the new book I’m reading, I wasn’t surprised to find these two Leaders possessing the profile of “Unusually Excellent” Leaders. The book is authored by John Hamm and titled: Unusually Excellent: The Necessary Nine Skills Required For the Practice of Great Leadership). Here’s a few excerpts from the chapter:
Lawren Harris: Clouds, Lake Superior, 1923 - Oil on canvas (Winnipeg Art Gallery)
U.S. Andersen, Take 3 from The Magic in Your Mind.
“Will equals intellect.”
“…Benedict Spinoza wrote, “The will and intellect are one and the same thing.” In other words, we always do the thing that our understanding prompts us to do. Wishing does not make it so, and desire itself is only a key that unlocks the door of understanding. Knowledge moves the world. We cannot make ourselves or anybody else do anything that we are not capable of controlling through having a complete knowledge of all the factors involved. There is a law that follows all accomplishment, all attainment, all creation, all action, and that is the law of sacrifice. Nothing in this world is gained except by giving up something else, for nothing occupies and absorbs consciousness except that it displaces something else from that position; and whatever occupies consciousness receives the total energy and thought and imagination of the individual, absorbs him as it were, and tends to come into his life as a complete and whole thing. You do not achieve your goals simply by wanting it; you achieve it primarily through thinking about it. Through thinking about it, you grow into understanding of it, and it is this understanding that delivers that goal in the end…”
Related U.S. Andersen Posts:
Here’s “Take 2″ from U.S. Andersen. (See my prior post: Most people only exist, never truly are at all…). Andersen’s book The Magic In Your Mind was originally published in 1961 – - well before Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and Rhonda Byrne (The Secret) became household names. This man could write and he’s genius…his thought leadership is still as pertinent today as it was more than 40 years ago.
“…It is astounding and sad to see the many thousands of people whose mental machinery keeps delivering to them the very effects they say they do not want. They bewail the fact that they are poor, but that doesn’t make them richer. They complain about their aches and pains but they keep right on being sick. They say that nobody likes them, which means they don’t like anybody. They aren’t bold, they aren’t aggressive, they aren’t imaginative; mental they quiver and quake and are bound to negative delusions. It simply doesn’t matter what the picture in your mind is, it is delivered nonetheless with the same amount of faithfulness and promptness if it is a picture of poverty or disease or fear or failure as it would be if it were a picture of wealth or health or courage or success…
…any picture we hold in our minds is bound to resolve in the material world. We cannot help ourselves in this. As long as we live and think, we will hold images in our minds, and these images develop into the things of our lives, and so long as we think in a certain way we must live a certain way, and no amount of willing or wishing will change it, only the vision we carry within…
…The law of life is this: All things both good and evil are constructed from an image held in mind…
“…Shakespeare’s Hamlet in his famed soliloquy pondered, “To be or not to be,” and thus faced squarely the primary challenge of life. Most people only exist, never truly are at all…
…We exist in order that we may become something more than we are, not through favorable circumstance or auspicious occurrence, but through an inner search for increased awareness. To be, to become, these are the commandments of evolving life, which is going somewhere, aspires to some unscaled heights, and the awakened soul answers the call, seeks, grows, expands. To do less is to sink into the reactive prison of the ego, with all its pain, suffering, limitation, decay, and death. The man who lives through reaction to the world about him is the victim of every change in his environment, now happy, now sad, now victorious, now defeated, affected but never affecting. He may live years in this manner, rapt with sensory perception and the ups and downs of his surface self, but one day pain so outweighs pleasure that he suddenly perceives his ego is illusory, a product of outside circumstances only. Then he either sinks into complete animal lethargy or, turning away from the senses, seeks inner awareness and self-mastery. Then he is on the road to really living, truly becoming; then he begins to uncover his real potential; then he discovers the miracle of his own consciousness, the magic in his mind.
Mastery over life is not attained by dominion over material things, but by mental perception of their true case and nature.”
- U.S. Anderson, The Magic In Your Mind (Book Review)
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Image: Winter Sun (Leonid Afremov) inspired by Michelle’s Post
My Son knows his Mother. His Father. His Sister. He is loved unconditionally. He sleeps in a warm, clean bed. He has not experienced hunger. Real hunger. Yet, some (many) others in this world…”not so much.”
Part 1 of this book is called “An Orphan Boy.” Beginning at 3 years old, Stephen Pemberton, is bounced from one foster family (who neglects him) to another – - The Robinsons…who can best be described as monstrous. He’s subjected to merciless beatings – - deliberate attempts to thwart his academic progress — and he’s hungry, always hungry. He’s not permitted to open the refrigerator – ever. He’s required to adhere to a series of Robinson Rules which include #1-You are to never tell anyone outside this house about what goes on here. #2-We aren’t your mother and father. You call us ma’am and sir. #4-You are dumb, and ugly. Something about you isn’t right. Everybody knows this. #7-We can beat you at any moment. #8-No one wants you, especially your own mother and father. Young Pemberton finds refuge in books. He is a reader. A kind soul, a neighbor, who sees a spark in this child – gifts him books. He’s forced to read in a cold, dank basement.
I came to live not just in fear but abject terror, the kind that rises up and takes over every sense of your being. Years later, long after the hunger and beatings were no longer residents of my mind, it would be that fear that would be that last to leave. [Read more...]
30 Lessons For Living: Tried & True Advice From the Wisest Americans
At 20, I wouldn’t have read it. I was in a hurry – learning, climbing. Mortality? Huh?
At 30, it’s family, career and it’s obligations – no time to contemplate. Little time to read.
At 40, I’m beginning to settle, mind is opening – I might have given this book a glance. But I’m wary.
At x0, (I can’t believe it or say it or type it). Where did the years go? My eyes are WIDE OPEN. I’m locked in on this book.
Cry with me as I die, but not for me. I’m crying because I will miss the precious moments of my life. No matters what happens to you, always remember to make the ordinary things sacred. Focus more on who you are with than what you do. Then, grandson, you will cry as I am not because you are dying but because you have so fully lived.
~ Grandma Leita Schlieman to her son and cancer survivor Paul Pearsall
“…You don’t need to wait for your turn at life’s inevitable traumas to learn the flourishing of those who thrive. You can realize the power of your own psychological immunity and “thriveability” right now. You can decide to live every moment of your life in thriving mode by taking a moment to experience some simple but important thriving tasks:
