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Ground Truth and Mindful Leadership
An excerpt from Practice #1 - Love the Work - in Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader. The practice “Love the work” refers to answering the call of mindful leadership and developing a mindfulness practice in order to see more clearly. This sounds straightforward....
Endless Changes
A short verse from Dongshan, a 6th century Chinese Zen teacher: Not getting caught by it is or it isn't Do you have the courage to be at peace with it? Everyone wants to leave the endless changes But when we stop bending and fitting our lives We come and sit by the...
Our Guides Along The Journey
I’ve been enjoying re-reading The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell, published in 1949, describing the similar archetypal path of humans, throughout time and across cultures. The first three parts of this path are named as: - the call to adventure...
Seven factors of cultivating freedom
The Buddhist tradition names what are called the seven factors of enlightenment. Enlightenment is a fancy word for finding more freedom, real confidence, and emotional flexibility. These factors are meant to be practiced, not just during meditation practice but...
Practicing With Paradox
I have come to believe that embracing and responding to paradox — turning our assumptions upside down, expecting the unexpected, comfortably holding two opposing viewpoints at the same time, resolving conflicting requirements, and so on — is the key to waking up to...
Just Avoid Picking And Choosing
A coaching client of mine, a successful entrepreneur and scientist, once showed me his happiness assessment. Every day he ranked on a scale from 1 to 10 how he was performing on a variety of areas: work, relationship, spiritual practice, hobbies, exercise, and a few others. He would then calculate an average of these numbers to determine his daily overall happiness quotient. He showed me a chart he kept, tracking the daily rises and falls of this measure. It looked much like the Dow Jones stock market index, with its various trends up and down, seesawing between deep valleys and steep climbs.
I admired his effort to pay attention and measure his level of happiness. This can be a useful self-awareness tool. He used this tool to determine which parts of his life needed more focus and attention. You, too, could use this approach to provide a quick, daily snapshot.