Striking From Center
Sorry I have been gone, it has been busy. Little one is a joy, mom is doing very well, and the rest of the kids are great. Everyone is coming to my house for Christmas, so looking forward to a great holiday.
Life is good.
Every week time is spent on the floor meditating, spent in the open practicing with Katana, Sai and Jian, spent hammering the hands against stone. I am sticking with it, though the bad weather slows some of it up.
So what in fact is the practical value of all this training?
Care for a quick story?
I have spent my entire working life in organizations managing processes and people, which really means managing people. If you can properly manage people, setting the right environment, then you really can do anything and the processes take care of themselves. If you cannot handle people fairly and competently, all the technical/ systems knowledge will not avail you and sooner or later you will fail.
Now for most of us, what gets in the way of being an effective manager is our own internal issues. Without a well defined, authentic core and true center, we are prone to fears and anxieties, and that leads to anger and erratic behavior, which leads to unnecessary drama and suffering ( to paraphrase the world's third most famous muppet :-)). I am on the periphery right now of a manager who has been given his dream job and is about to completely screw it up, for no other reason than his fears and insecurities and phoniness create attending pathological behaviors that he cannot even see and are creating his downfall.
If you can learn to draw and cut, precisely, and add to that the meditative life that lets you see your self in a true light, you will develop three things:
Serenity
Perception
Internal force
And if you have those, you will have a strong center, and fears and anxieties will recede. When you reach this place, you will no longer see people as threats, or yourself as weak, and with work you will learn grace, and acceptance. (and you will stop trying to manipulate everyone like a spoiled child).
If you get to that place, then you will find that you can see people and situations as they are, and not as you fear. You will handle people properly, with fairness and with compassion and with honest firmness. You will not be perfect, and you will make mistakes, but you will not fear that either.
And a calmer, fairer, more mature you will be able to effortlessly accomplish things that other managers cannot seem to even begin. And you will do so without so much drama.
No brag, just fact. Becoming a better person through the way makes you a more effective person.
Too bad this guy never got the memo.
Life is good.
Every week time is spent on the floor meditating, spent in the open practicing with Katana, Sai and Jian, spent hammering the hands against stone. I am sticking with it, though the bad weather slows some of it up.
So what in fact is the practical value of all this training?
Care for a quick story?
I have spent my entire working life in organizations managing processes and people, which really means managing people. If you can properly manage people, setting the right environment, then you really can do anything and the processes take care of themselves. If you cannot handle people fairly and competently, all the technical/ systems knowledge will not avail you and sooner or later you will fail.
Now for most of us, what gets in the way of being an effective manager is our own internal issues. Without a well defined, authentic core and true center, we are prone to fears and anxieties, and that leads to anger and erratic behavior, which leads to unnecessary drama and suffering ( to paraphrase the world's third most famous muppet :-)). I am on the periphery right now of a manager who has been given his dream job and is about to completely screw it up, for no other reason than his fears and insecurities and phoniness create attending pathological behaviors that he cannot even see and are creating his downfall.
If you can learn to draw and cut, precisely, and add to that the meditative life that lets you see your self in a true light, you will develop three things:
Serenity
Perception
Internal force
And if you have those, you will have a strong center, and fears and anxieties will recede. When you reach this place, you will no longer see people as threats, or yourself as weak, and with work you will learn grace, and acceptance. (and you will stop trying to manipulate everyone like a spoiled child).
If you get to that place, then you will find that you can see people and situations as they are, and not as you fear. You will handle people properly, with fairness and with compassion and with honest firmness. You will not be perfect, and you will make mistakes, but you will not fear that either.
And a calmer, fairer, more mature you will be able to effortlessly accomplish things that other managers cannot seem to even begin. And you will do so without so much drama.
No brag, just fact. Becoming a better person through the way makes you a more effective person.
Too bad this guy never got the memo.
posted by Maurice_Basilius at 4:21 PM
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