Where you place your emphasis determines in large measure the quality and impact of your life.

Consider this for a moment. Every situation that comes your way will contain a mixture of orderly and chaotic elements. Fear or react to the chaos and you will tend to perpetuate the chaos, if not add to it. Appreciate the order already there – no matter how small a fraction of the total situation it may be – and you greatly improve the chances of you being part of the solution and not the problem.

Human beings are generally driven to bring order out of chaos. This compulsion is behind the development of every great civilization in history, it fuels the spirit of invention and it is the driving force behind every person who seeks to refine his expression in relation to the living of life.

Rather than worry, complain about or dwell on the chaotic elements in your life, choose instead to apply your mental, emotional and physical energies in a way that eventually brings order out of the chaos. Find the openings, look for agreement, and encourage reconciliation instead of whining about the limitations, struggling with resistance and fomenting discord.

Those who excel at bringing order out of chaos are those who understand what to emphasize and what to downplay. It’s actually not that difficult when you get out of the habit of reacting first and thinking later. Think before you act, with the goal of bringing order out of chaos and you will greatly improve your quality of life.

I had two conversations yesterday that carried a common thread. While I was the common denominator in both, the principle outlined came from my riding coach and a new business associate, not from me. I couldn’t help but notice the coincidence and I am compelled to share it with you this morning. When you understand this principle, you will save yourself a lot of wasted time and energy.

The basic principle is this: you can only move from the known to the unknown. When you get stuck or get off track, you typically have to go back a step to find the flat spot in understanding that is preventing you form moving forward, find a way to fill it in and then try again.

I’ve experienced this in conversations as well as in the development of my skills as a rider and my horse’s ability to perform as a riding horse. When you’re speaking with someone and something is said that you don’t understand – be it a word, a concept or a reference – that disconnect becomes an obstacle to the smooth flow of conversation. You might continue on, but part of your mind will be stuck and likely bumping into the wall of misunderstanding until it is either resolved or you forget about it altogether.

When training a horse, you find that difficulties in a particular gait, say the canter, are often the result of improper preparation of the horse by the rider (e.g. a poor transition from trot to canter stemming from a lack of rhythm, balance, etc. in the trot). To correct the canter you may have to go back to the fundamentals to determine the missing element in the foundation.

Some develop the habit of disregarding the disconnect and pushing through, but such an approach inevitably leads to failure when the demands are increased and the pressure intensifies. Others take the opposite approach and shut down when they get stuck. From that point forward, learning and growth cease in relation to that point.

Take note when you get stuck or are off track. Don’t dwell on it or obsess about it, just relax, wait for a moment to see if understanding comes as a result of the bigger picture in which the element is set and if it doesn’t, go back to the point of deviation and reset the foundation.

You cannot move from the unknown to the known. You can only move from the known to the unknown. It’s a simple principle that, properly applied, will make you much more effective in living.

“Man must realize that he was not placed in the world, as a finality, something fixed, limited, restricted and unchangeable. He was entrusted with himself as infinite possibility, as mere raw material to fashion as he will for better or for worse as he may determine. It is part of his glorious gift of freedom, his responsibility of trusteeship. For what a man has he is dependent on others, but what he is depends on him alone. We may counsel another, help him, inspire him to live his life, but we cannot live that life for him. That is his individual problem, in accord with his vision and his ideals; the battle is his and the final victory or defeat, with its responsibility to himself and to other is his.” ~ William George Jordan

I love the opportunity to work in a corporate environment as it provides an endless array of opportunities to discover how to live life. There are routines that bring comfort, surprises that compel personal growth, relationships requiring constant maintenance and more, all within the walls of the office.

Every day is an opportunity to fashion yourself for the better. Your personal habits, the way you carry yourself, the manner in which you handle the daily challenges that come your way can be up for review every moment of every day. Why limit yourself to a life of stagnation, where nothing’s ventured and nothing changes?

Dare to live a little today. The possibilities are endless!

“The great men of the world have ever been its men of vision, men of imagination, of ideals and of inspiration. They ever hold their heads high, and see above, through, and beyond the limitations of their time and environment. They will see with the poet’s imagination, the prophet’s intuition, the philosopher’s reasoning.

Vision sees a mighty forest of oaks in a handful of acorns. Vision sees a glowing revelation of the ideal as the birthright of the most sordid and seemingly hopeless real. Vision sees far down the coming years the culmination of the logic of events where others may not note even a trend or tendency. Vision sees the sunburst of the final triumph of right at the very hour when all seems wrapped in the darkness of doubt and failure.” ~ William George Jordan

As I sat watching the Republican presidential debate the evening before last, one of the central questions on my mind was whether the men on stage where men of substantive vision or men who delivered a plausible yet hollow semblance of true vision. The situation could hardly be more challenging, where members of the same party have to vie against one another in full view of the nation and of the opposition to sort out who is most fit to lead, all the while positioning themselves for a run against the opposing candidate, who presently holds the keys to the White House and the strings to a lot of people’s purses.

The question remained unanswered at the end of the debate but I must say that I find their passion, courage and tenacity led me to ask myself if I am doing all that I can to articulate a vision through my thoughts, words and deeds. If I understand anything it is this one thing: that there cannot be real growth, true development without vision. It is as true for the individual as it is for any grouping of individuals. It is true for you, for me and it is true for humanity as a whole. Where there is vision, the people flourish.

The privilege of vision, of imagination, of ideals and of inspiration is available to everyone on earth. Most people seem content to follow the vision of another, in some cases living vicariously through them, but you cannot truly live if you have not yet developed your capacity to articulate and actualize your vision. Living without vision is not living, it is existing.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. True vision is not manufactured by the mind alone. While it is crafted in the workshop of the mind and tempered by the fires of the heart, it comes from a place that few know anything about. How do you find this place? There are many ways, but one of the most direct routes involves learning to think, to truly think for oneself.

The human mind is a marvelous thing, but it tends to crystallize that which would flow naturally, gracefully and abundantly into expression. There are many things that frustrate this flow and they are easily identifiable. Fears, prejudices, rigidly held opinions, and arbitrary intentions top the list, their common denominator being unrelieved tension. Each of these qualities of being are restrictive in nature, man-made diuretics that increase the excretion of the waters of truth from the mind and heart, leaving the womb of creation, of original thought, of true vision and inspiration, an arid and desolate place.

It’s not simply enough to relax, however, for the mind and heart must be trained and toned to recognize the currents of true inspiration and vision from the ubiquitous extraneous and mixed impulses that tend to fill the hearts and minds of most people who are busy being busy, establishing a name for themselves or simply reacting to that which is round about. If you are reacting to the world around you, you are already one step behind. What you see, hear, taste and smell already happened, so when you react to those things you are struggling with the past. Again, you are existing, not living.

Living is the process whereby vision is articulated and all things are made new. You have an opportunity, nay, the responsibility to make all things new in the world you center. Anything less is technically beneath you, though most people set the bar so low in their existing that it is hard to get much of anything beneath them.

Dare to share your vision for the world we steward together. Dare to transcend that which has heretofore kept the real you imprisoned and hidden from sight. Don’t be afraid to fail and more importantly, don’t be afraid to succeed.

The world needs you!

There is a game called by many different names that is played around the world. Where I grew up we called it “Operator.” The game is simple, but revealing. One person whispers a message to another and the message is passed through the entire group until it reaches the last player, who then announces the message out loud to the entire group. The final message rarely resembles the first, despite the best intentions of those involved.

When I consider human history, part of me wonders if we haven’t been involved in a massive and long-standing game of Operator since the earliest days. Was our original purpose articulated initially but lost through cumulative error over time? In recent times, say during the last 100 years or so, we’ve moved through a period of massive change where the baton of morality was largely passed from those who safeguarded scripture to those who engineered culture. The purpose of life was whispered from the mouth of the former to the ears of the latter and the message was very likely changed in the process.

While I can only speculate as to who whispered into the ears of the churches and various religions of the world in eras previous to their genesis, I have to wonder if the message was also changed at that point, deliberately or accidentally, as is so often the case.

What scares me a bit now is the fact that we have moved away from the deliberate use of culture as a means of conveying morality to a cultural free-for-all, where the voices of reason risk being lost in a busy and overextended world.

We live in a state where underlying meaning and purpose is often lost or at best unclear, yet we continue the outer rituals that previously served as vehicles for their expression and perpetuation. For those religiously inclined, prayer used to be a means of radiant expression, of reaffirming a shared vision with a higher purpose. Today it is primarily used as a platform for articulating wishes and wants, often in the form of demands (e.g. “Show me…,” “Tell me…,” “Give me…”). In a similar fashion, our educational system, which was forged in part to recalibrate the moral compass of the masses in a time where church attendance waned significantly, now finds itself capable as a conveyor of facts and data but increasingly impotent when it comes to fashioning a strong sense of morality.

Is giving everyone a megaphone on the internet the answer? I can’t imagine how. The only thing I’ve seen is that the noise has only gotten louder. Good things happen here and there as a result of the din, such as a repressive regime being overthrown here and there, but if my history is correct, that type of thing happened long before the internet. Am I a Luddite? No. Am I concerned to find a way to do my part to get back to the original message? Yes.

There is no shame in feeling like a voice crying in the wilderness. In fact, if you don’t feel that on occasion you have probably numbed yourself to the questions that you should probably be asking. Why are you here? Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing together?

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

I had the good pleasure of attending Cavalia’s Odysseo in Atlanta yesterday evening and the performance was riveting! Our tickets came with a tour of the stables and an opportunity to ask questions of the show’s Equestrian Director, Benjamin Aillaud, and my thoughts this morning center around an answer he gave to a member of the audience who asked about their training regimen.

M. Aillaud spoke about the training for the riders and acrobats, but it was the training for the show’s 35 stallions and 36 geldings that most piqued my interest. The training apparently took 1-3 years, depending on the horse, the greatest challenge being not teaching the tricks and sequences, but in maintaining their interest in performing. He mentioned – and here is what fascinated me – that 1/10 of their training time is spent practicing the routines and learning new cues and 9/10 of the time is spent on developing and refining the horses’ attitudes…a ratio that is I imagine required when working with 35 stallions in such close quarters.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels to an area in which I spend much of my time and energy: management. As a manager I find that most of my time is invested in fostering an environment that is conducive to the encouragement of positive, stable, nurturing and inspiring attitudes in those with whom I have the privilege of working. I’ve come to realize over the years that when you and those with you have the right attitude, anything can be accomplished. Moreover, accomplishment can be equated with fun…a rare relationship in this day and age.

When you surround yourself with high performers, with people who have dedicated themselves to excellence, there tends to be a lot of creative and kinetic energy floating around the office. That energy can spiral out of control very quickly, so it is important (as I imagine it is with the stallions at Cavalia) to manage it wisely. How to manage it is as much an art as a science. Here are a few approaches you might want to consider if your find yourself in the situation of managing a team full of star performers:

1. To keep them interested, you must provide them with work that challenges them. Boredom is the root of many ills in both horses and people. This is especially true of high output, high energy people.
2. How you handle the busy times is just as important as watching the low energy, potentially boring times. High energy people are particularly good at riding the waves of energy that move through an organization, but you have to be careful not to let the energy spin them out of control. They can do a lot of damage in a hurry.
3. Look to balance the high energy people in your organization with the “steady-Eddies.” Both are essential to maintaining balance (did you notice the ratio of stallions and geldings?) and to creating noteworthy performances.
4. Involve your high performers in the training and mentoring of others in the organization. This is one of the keys to overcoming the gravity of mediocrity and the siren’s call of entropy in organizational development.

If you get a chance to see the show, I would highly recommend it. In the meantime, if you would like to hear more about how we are working as a group of companies to create a spectacular working environment, feel free to stop by for a visit some time!