Talents are like ships, enabling us to cross great oceans of possibility.  But they need steering.

Character helps us to navigate months, even years of uncertainty; find our way when we’re blown off-course, makes it possible to deal with the mutinies, and to face the absolute unknown.

What character does is to grow our capacity to deal with complexity.  In particular, we’re able to overcome the voices of judgement, cynicism, and fear with the positives of openness, compassion, and courage.*

Ros and Ben Zander’s idea of giving people an A is all about openness winning over judgement.**  Then cynicism has nothing to feed on and is overcome by compassion.  When something matters to us, then we find courage overcoming fear – in the movie The Cobbler, Adam Sandler inherits a stitching machine that enables him to step inside the world of anyone whose shoes are repaired on it, but the lesson is: “It’s a privilege to walk in another man’s shoes, but it’s also a responsibility.”^

There’s nothing mysterious about character development; it’s hundreds of choices and actions which take us from self to others, from possessing to giving, and from knowing to learning.

‘Character is formed in the crucible of faithfulness and refined through the gauntlet of perseverance.  Remember, the shape of our character is the shape of our future.’^^

(*See Otto Scharmer’s Theory U.)
(**See Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.) 
(^Check out the words of Walk a Mile in My Shoes: sung here by Bryan Ferry.)
(^^From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)

“I did the best I could with what I had.”*

‘Resistance has no strength of its own; its power derives derives entirely from our fear of it.’**

The sky is an endless nondescript grey.  The clouds are indistinct, slightly more grey over there than there.  Hardly an auspicious day to do something remarkable.

At some point, though, we have to begin.

‘There is a point when you’re not supposed to be full of potential; you’re supposed to be full of talent, capacity, product.’^

The thing that turns what I have into the best I can do is faithfulness: faithfulness replaces same old same old (SOSO), releasing imagination in practices and habits which ignore the grey skies, the grey thinking, the grey people – understanding what’s important is not out there, but what’s in here.

Whatever the climactic conditions of the day, you’re someone who’s always full of light and colour.  It’s time.

‘In order for imagination to flourish, there must be an opportunity to see things as other than they currently are or appear to be.  This begins with a simple question: What if?”^^

(*Justice Thurgood Marshall, quoted in Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)
(**From Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art.)
(^From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)
(^^John Seely Brown, quoted in Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question.)

‘You are created for more than just existing.’*

‘If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe.’**

After twelve years working for General Motors, Sandi Wheaton was made redundant.  Connecting with her love of photography – something she had only pursued in her spare time – Wheaton took off on a road trip along Route 66, capturing 60,000 images by her journey’s conclusion.^

From childhood to adulthood, composer Gustav Mahler’s life was full of tragedy and difficulty, yet:

‘Mahler thought that he should put everything in life in his symphonies – so anything that can be imagined can be heard in them if you listen carefully enough.’^^

Two stories for navigating life, created by people who were not prepared to be victims of stories others write for them.  The stories make something more out of the things that fill our lives, and we’re all capable of creating them.

On the way, we meet people whose lives change us and for whom our lives bring change.

(*From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)
(**From Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.)
(^Sandi Wheaton’s story is told in Chris Guillebeau’s The Happiness of Pursuit.)
(^^From Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)

‘It’s certainly possible to get by in life without dedication.  The craftsman represents the special human condition of being engaged.’*

The former General Electric CEO Jack Welch tells the story of a GE employee’s comment on changes the company was implementing, which would include employees in the creative processes.**   My memory’s a little rusty, but basically the employee said, “You’ve paid me for 25 years to use my hands, and all that time you could have had my mind for free.”

Richard Sennett tells us that Aristotle uses the word cheirotechnon for craftsman, meaning “handworker,” but this replaced the earlier word demioergos, referring to people ‘who combined head and hand.’*

When a culture separates head and hand, making it normal for many of its citizens to be “hand people” only, innovation is removed – people become valued for only how quickly they can react to the needs and instructions of managers and employers. But when people are allowed to be “head and hand people” there’s the possibility for them of anticipating, designing, and transforming – towards a more imaginative future.

The person who pursues their craft knows that joy doesn’t come from external reward but from within.

What a crying shame if people move through life without appreciating they can write a different story – one that connects heads and hearts, identifying and developing their craft (and there are as many crafts as there are people), towards making the future dance.

Sometimes all it takes is for desperate people find each other.

(*From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.)
(**The story comes from either Jack Welch’s Straight From the Gut, or Winning.)
(Today’s doodle honours Lesley and Clive, two people who have recently encouraged me in my doodling.)

‘The Self wishes to create to evolve.  The Ego likes things just the way they are.’*

For forty days we’ve been exploring how and what to let go of in order to let a new something and new Self come, to emerge.

I’ve no idea what this might mean, only that there are possibilities in front of me I couldn’t sense before.  I know I’ve been given an “A” and I’m turning up to find out what this can mean.**

Turning up is part of what it means to have an A attitude.  It means the only thing I’m prepared to make a final judgement on is that I have and A, so I keep my mind open.  It means taking a long view, that nothing is going to happen in a hurry, but a lot might happen slowly.  It is an exodus, quest, odyssey.

When we’re on this kind of journey, there’ll be part of us screaming for conclusion: “I want to know what this is.  When will I arrive?  I want to know exactly what’s involved.”  All we know about what lies before us, though, is that we have the whisper of an idea which excites us, and, the journey will change us.

‘Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.’^

(*From Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art.)
(**The concept of giving people an “A” before they’ve done anything is explored in Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)
(^From Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.)

For the last forty days, we’ve been exploring whys and ways for letting go so we can let come and receive what our futures can be.  Although the exploration hasn’t been linear or systematic, instead following thoughts wherever they have taken me, this does feel like a conclusion for me.

One of the switches we can make which effectively blocks this, is closing ourselves to what we need to receive from others, and asking of others what we need to do for ourselves.

The lives others live in a bigger world, the stories they have to tell, their words of encouragement, the new ideas they bring, the challenges they provide us with, are the things which open more to us.  One community named this more magis.*  Magis means to give everything and then to find we have even more to give.  In the more, there are many possibilities to explore.

When we take personal responsibility for doing certain things ourselves, we find there is a metamorphosis happening in us.  We are being transformed through the doing, we become.  This will never happen if we want someone else to do the hard work, even if the other is our god.

What we are growing is character.

We discover that our talent can only take us so far, whilst character takes who we are and what we have and move it into a powerful creativity beyond the malaise Ben Zander names second fiddle-itis.   This is something Zander sees falling on those who can’t be first violin, an cannot see how second fiddle can lead to incredible work.  We’ve all have been given an A up front and it’s our characters which understand the implication son this and make it possible for us to realise our A.**

If I may, I’ll conclude forty days of reflecting with a personal story.  I find myself thinking about sixteen years I spent in a “first violin” role that was mostly about administration – something I’m not very good at and have let go of.  The years were more about forming character, and letting go of the role has made it possible to let come my “second violin” role of life-whisperering.  Every day, I know I have to do the things I cannot give away to others, including being humble, grateful, and faithfully giving away who I am and what I have.

All of this leads me to say, I think what you are doing is amazing, but what you can be and do in the future is even more astonishing.  If there is any way I can be second violin supporting your first violin work, let me know.

(*See Chris Lowney’s account of the early Jesuits in Heroic Leadership.)
(**See Rosamund and Benjamin Zander’s The Art of Possibility.)

It feels like a whisper, compared to the gale-force powers around.

When a whisper is trained, though, it becomes a powerful thing – honed with humility, gratitude, and faithfulness, and tempered by courage, generosity, and wisdom.

‘The greatest art is an intersection of contrasts … pain and healing, despair and hope, darkness and light.’*

One group of whisperers used the training “circuit” of awareness, love, ingenuity, and courage, to develop their whispering into the lives of others.**

Whisperers know this, they know their power comes from within.  Facing the reality of who they are and who they can become, they see they can make a difference for others, innovate their particular talents for impact, and step into the vulnerability.

(*From Erwin McManus’s The Artisan Soul.)
(**Chris Lowney tells the story of the early Jesuits in his book Heroic Leadership.)

‘There are always more obstacles, bigger challenges.  You’re always fighting uphill.  Get used to it and train accordingly.’*

“Well, with this life you lead no one would have a sense of creativity.”**

Wisdom navigates a universe full of obstacles with vigour and generativeness and goodness.  Not so that we can overcome and forget the obstacles, but to use them as means to grow and develop.

Wisdom discovered and articulated by those who have gone before us provides us with ways to begin, until we find our own way.

Wisdom defines reality so it can discern possibilities which enables ways into the future to be discovered.^

Foolishness isn’t stupid so much as the failure or unwillingness to define reality, meaning it can only repeat the ways it knows, so, then, the future only repeats the past.

Wisdom knows, what lies on the other side of an obstacle isn’t a smooth path but imagination and creativity.

(*From Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.)
(**Erich Fromm to a Hollywood writer, in The Art of Listening.)
(^Based on Alex McManus’s leadership triad in Makers of Fire.)

‘If the thought of lack – whether it be money, recognition, or love – has become part of who you think you are, you will always experience lack.  Rather than acknowledge the good that is already in your life, all you see is lack.  Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.’*

‘The takers of this world always need more [but] the giver is always open-handed.’**

There comes a moment when we have to choose a story.

When we choose the story of abundance, it’s as though we’re entering a new life – life begins again.

“Choose” is a very small word to describe a journey that invites us to open our minds to see and understand more, then open our hearts to what we have and love, so that we are able to open our wills, our hands, becoming producers of goodness and beauty from the abundance we have found within.

Every day this moment of choice appears to us.

(*From Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth.)
(**From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)

“Well done, you.”

An expression of celebration.

Though, we don’t always take the opportunity.  There’s always the next thing to do.  No time to stop.   We have to keep things moving.

But what if celebration is important to us for the long term?

What if, as Erwin McManus suggests, gratitude leads to wholeness and wholeness leads to generosity and, with generosity, we find joy – deep enjoyment?*

‘But perseverance is something larger [than persistence].  It’s a long game … until the end.’**

What if, rather than waiting for the pay-off at some unknown point in the future, we were to set ourselves for a long journey of achieving many things, celebrating sooner and more often.

What if this was moving our life from one of persistence – gritted-teeth living – into perseverance – imaginatively expansive living?

And, wherever possible, celebrating with others.

‘I can tell that there is an undeniable relationship between happiness and resilience.  People who enjoy life make life more enjoyable for others.’^

What if another word for perseverance is resilience?  Or more than resilience, antifragility?^^  More than retaining our integrity under stress, we grow; we take the opportunity to create more than response?

What if, when you’ve done something positive, we take a moment or more to celebrate, to somehow say, “Well done, you!”

(*Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)
(**From Ryan Holliday’s The Obstacle is the Way.)
(^From Erwin McManus’s The Artisan Soul.)
(^^See Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile.)