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Guiding Principles

Traveler, there is no path, the path is made by walking. Antonio Machado

The answers to the most important questions we have about our life and work lie in ourselves.

As I grew up with questions about the universe and my life, I turned to the experts. I read thousands of books took dozens of seminars and workshops engaged many therapists, only to discover in the end that the vast majority of the most important answers lay within me. I have discovered that the most value I can deliver is in crafting the best questions for another, rather than giving them my best advice.

Human beings, at their very core, are basically good. When I experience people whose behavior I judge bad, I choose to reconsider their behavior in light of everything that has happened and is happening in their life. This does not excuse bad behavior. But it helps me see behind it.

Human being are a great problem solvers. When they have enough data. Often we have the wrong data or no data. Or incorrect data, and we end up solving the wrong problem. All of our problem solving is jeopardized when we are in a hurry, impatient and not looking a bigger picture and a longer term. In addition, dozens of human biases and stereotypes can interfere with good decision making. It is extremely valuable to be conscious of these biases and stereotypes so we are not entrapped by them. See the section on the site: Recognizing Bias

Courage to take at least one step into the unknown, is the foundation of much progress towards an improved life, improved understanding and success. Fear of the unknown or of fear of an anticipated future is one of the major barriers to all human progress.

Mastering fear maybe a better phrase than the word courage. At times we may think that courage means fearless, which is untrue. Being fearless is usually stupid. The challenge for us is the step over the fear, move through the fear, moving forward in spite of the fear.

Perseverance more than any other human quality seems to be a major contributor to success. I see examples of this in the arts, business, sports scientific research, exploration and personal growth.

There’s an extensive exploration of Courage and Comfort In the Resources below.

Teddy Rooseveldt said: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Surrender is a powerful gateway for learning and becoming. I always thought surrender meant submission to someone else’s authority. When I began whitewater canoeing (before kayaks were even on the scene) one of the skills was to surrender to the way the river ran. There was no way that we were going to change the flow or speed or turbulence. But if we surrendered and accepted, what is, we could learn to use the river’s motion and eddies to navigate the rapids and sometimes even pause with no effort in the middle of the rapids by hooking into an upstream eddy. Somewhat akin to the surfer surrendering to the wave. You don’t change the water; you read it and let it change you. By surrendering you tap into the flow of energy around you. Paradoxically surrender increases control.

When everything falls apart, that’s when the adventure begins. Scott Peck’s famous book The Road Less Traveled, which provides four superb principles for success in life and work, begins  with this statement “Life is full of problems”. You might say “that that’s not fair”, or  “ that’s not the way it should be”. The author encourages us to accept  problems as the very nature of life and then get on with the process of addressing them. When individuado not accept that the nature of life is problems, they are apt to focus on complaining rather than solving problems.

When you look and obstacles and problems in your life and work as the adventure of light, it conveys an optimistic view that there will be solutions and resolutions no matter how difficult they are to see at the moment.