‘Old age offers the opportunity to integrate and bring together the multiplicity of directions that you have travelled.  It is a time when you can bring the circle of your life together to where your longing can be awakened and new possibilities come alive for you.’*

‘[T]he confrontational question introduces new ideas, concepts, hypotheses, options, etc. that clients must now deal with.’**

Novo Nordisk decided there wasn’t a lot of room for improvement when it came to insulin quality.  Instead, the company turned its attention to improving the experience of the insulin user, including introducing the novopen, and so ‘transformed the company from an insulin producer to a diabetes care company.’^

Apparently, there was lots more improvement to seek out, different questions to be asked, and new doors to walk through.

It’s the same for all of us – we just sometimes need another person, or a group of people, to help us

We are at our best, and life is bigger, when we’re seeking, asking, and knocking, towards creating the future rather than repeating the past.

Though, if it was this simple, everyone would be doing it, but they’re not – because it’s hard.  Daniel Kahneman highlights what goes wrong when we give up seeking, asking, or knocking towards what we do not know:

‘The familiar [thinking] processes of WYSIATI [what you see is all there is] and substitution [with an easier question] produce both competition neglect and the above average effect.’^^

In other words, “We don’t have to improve; we’re doing better than most.”

This is a choice, of course.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  We’re more capable than we know of becoming ‘creative nonconformists, … difference makers, aliveness activists, catalysts for change.’*^

(*From John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara.)
(**From Edgar Schein’s Helping.)
(^From Chan Kim and Renée Maugborne’s Blue Ocean Strategy.)
(^^From Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.)
(*^From Brian McLaren’s We Make the Road by Walking.)