In a continuation of my last two posts HERE and HERE, I wanted to continue with the practices outlined in The Art of Possibility.

Practice Number Five – Lead from Any Chair

This practice states that leaders can emerge from anywhere. It also states that we can lead from any chair.  Just because you’re the lowest paid person in your organization, doesn’t mean you can’t emerge as a leader.

Rosamund and Ben suggest that you MUST emerge as a leader to live a life of possibility.

Leading isn’t as hard as it sounds. Through your actions, you can inspire, enable, and encourage others to act towards a common goal. That’s the goal of leading.

If you’re the leader of your organization, it’s your duty to listen to everyone. Many organizations end up with a lot of silent observers. These are people who’ve been forced into submission and feel they need to keep quiet and not challenge the powers that be. Give them the floor! You may learn something important.

Practice Number Six – Rule Number 6

This may be my favorite practice of all.

Rule Number 6 is about chillaxin’ and not taking ourselves so damn seriously.

When we conform to a world of survival, which we mentioned yesterday,  we set assumptions about ourselves and take ourselves way too seriously. By setting these assumptions, we define our limits and this constricts us from living a life of unlimited possibilities.

When you lighten up, you can begin to look at other’s viewpoints, then and only then can you begin to see new possibilities.

In this chapter, the authors introduce us to our “calculating self,” and our “central self.”

Our calculating self is concerned with our survival in a world of measurement.

Our central self is generous, creative, and compassionate and concerned with a life of unlimited possibility.

Practice Number Seven – The Way Things Are

The authors talk about the downward spiral. When something happens, we often get flustered and appease our feelings with  the way things “should” have been.

This should have happened.

That should have happened.

This shouldn’t have happened.

That shouldn’t have happened.

Lighten up. It happened. Relax. Breath. Suck it up. Stop taking yourself to damn seriously.

Understand that if it happened then this is the way things are.

It (whatever it is) happened. Therefore,  should doesn’t matter anymore. Now, and only now, can you begin to see the possibilities around you.

Things happen and that’s the way things are. What possibilities are now showing themselves  because “it” happened?

Practice Number Eight – Giving Way to Passion

Giving way to passion is about your participation in life. It’s about throwing yourself completely into whatever you’re doing and allowing your passion to flow like music. Setting boundaries in your life will constrict you from giving way to passion.

The authors provide a metaphor of a winter river’s ice thawing for spring. The river does not stop because of the constraints of the ice. The river breaks through and smashes the ice. It moves on. The river is not constricted by the boundary of the ice.

We’ve got to become a force like nature and tap into the energy the world provides. We do this not by holding back, but rather by leaning in, letting go, and enjoying the ride.

Participate wholly in life. You’ve got one shot at life. Give in and let energy guide you into a new realm of possibilities.

More tomorrow….

Today, I wanted to continue on with yesterday’s post and share a few more of the concepts from The Art of Possibility.

Practice Number Two – Stepping into a Universe of Possibilities

I love this practice. Once we realize it’s all invented, what’s the next step?

Well the next step is to take the leap and step into a Universe of Possibilities. Right now, most of us live in a “world of measurements.” We have various measurements in place to show us, at any moment, just how on-track our lives actually are.

We use measurements like success and money to determine if we’re actually on-track.

The drawback of the “world of measurements,” is that we’re more or less living in an invented universe of survival.

We believe that “things” are finite in the measurement world. We need more money, more time, more of this, more of that…

When we step into the Universe of Possibilities we remove all the obstacles and constraints of the measurement world.

So here’s an example: In the measurement world we might say, “I want to get a good job and make a lot of money.” Of course, with that stated goal, we also believe that we’ll need to overcome the various obstacles in our way that limit our finite resources, such as lack of time, skills, and money.

More or less, we’re limited by the invented obstacles of the measurement world.

In the Universe of Possibilities, we replace living in survival mode with living in possibility mode. There are no obstacles. Only abundance and possibility. You set the context and let life unfold without any finite assumptions in mind.

Practice Number Three – Giving an A

Where was this book back when I was in school?

Ben Zander saw that his music student’s creativity and expression of their art was being held back by the anxiety of getting a decent grade. Students followed the rules so they could achieve a decent grade rather than taking chances or risks. The anxiety of doing something that went against the grain wasn’t worth it to them. Especially when living in a measurement world.

Zander’s solution was to give every student an “A” the first day of class with only one stipulation. They each had to write a letter and postdate it to the end of the semester. The letter had to explain what they had learned over the year and during the semester. The students were setting their own possibilities, and the next move was to simply let life unfold.

When the pressure to receive a letter on a piece of paper was off the table, something beautiful happened. The students began to take risks and go beyond their assumed level of success.

The goal of giving yourself an “A” is an important step into the Universe of Possibilities.  Its purpose is about giving your life the direction of possibilities it needs to move towards the end goal (without the pressure to attain some sort of superficial measurement).

Practice Number Four – Being a Contribution

In the book, the authors tell the story of a lady walking on a beach that was littered with thousands of stranded starfish that had been swept in with the tide. One by one, the lady picked up the starfish and threw them back into the ocean.

A man walked by and told the lady that what she was doing was hopeless. He told her that what she was doing didn’t matter.

The lady replied that it may might not matter to all of the starfish, but it certainly mattered to the few she could help.

The practice of being a contributor is about understanding that you are a gift to others. Throwing yourself into this practice opens a wide range of possibilities.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Declare yourself a contributor.
2. Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, even though you may not understand how or why.

More tomorrow…

This weekend, I finished a book from the 100 Best Business Books of All Time that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for about two years. The book is the The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.

Life is funny that way. About two years ago, while aimlessly wondering through my local bookstore, I picked up this book without knowing anything about it. And with that, I  did nothing with it until now.

Yes, by some odd coincidence, the book has shown up on the list that I’ve been choosing my reading from. Go figure.

What a shame that such a beautiful book has been in my possession for this long, and I never took more than a few minutes to look at it. Regardless, I’m glad I was finally persuaded to pick the book up and read it.

Rosamund and Ben suggest that our lives are essentially created narratives or stories based on the assumptions we carry with us in life. Thus, we use our assumptions to limit our possibilities about where we can go or what we can achieve.

This book is about letting go of all of those assumptions.

Yes. Literally letting go of all the assumptions we carry about what reality is.  Assumptions for example – of who we are. This can be difficult. When we reach adulthood, most of us feel we have a pretty good grasp on our identities and our possibilities. We know what we’re good at, and where we could use improvement. We, in turn, set limits based on these assumptions.

Rosamund and Ben suggest letting go of it all. They provide 12 steps or “practices” to guide us in opening-up our lives to a journey of unlimited possibilities.

Over the next few days, I’ll share a variety of the practices from this very important book.

Practice Number One – It’s All Invented

The book tells the story of a tribe who assumed the world ended shortly beyond the river where they lived. Once a visitor came, left, and crossed the river. He exceeded the distance of where they believed their world ended. The tribe could not see the man waving goodbye, even though he was still in sight.

The world we perceive is the one that’s been invented based on our beliefs, cultures, and upbringing, to name a few. Other people and other societies see an entirely different world.
The tribe couldn’t see the man in plain view simply because he was beyond  the world they perceived and believed in. We would have seen him without issue.

We believe that we see everything with our own eyes, but what are we actually missing? What could we possibly see by abandoning those limiting factors?

Possibility.

I’ve heard the following story a thousand times and more recently Seth Godin shared the story during his presentation in Toronto. The story is also found in The Art of Possibility and again in Linchpin.

It goes something like this….

A man notices Pablo Picasso sitting next to him on a train. He couldn’t believe it. There he is. The master himself.

He approaches Mr. Picasso and their dialogue goes something like this….

Man: Mr. Picasso, it’s an honor to meet you. Your paintings are magnificent, but they do not offer a realistic interpretation of real life. Why don’t you make paintings that accurately show the world as it is?

Picasso sits quietly and then responds.

Picasso: May I ask what you think reality looks like?

Then man reaches into his wallet and pulls out a picture of his wife.

Man: Well, like this! This is my wife.

Picasso: Hmm.. But she is very small, and flat too!

Our possibilities in life are  limited because we have invented a set of assumptions about how the world is. Imagine what we might see, if we were to remove those limiting beliefs and look out beyond them.

Until tomorrow….

I’ve spent the last six days vacationing with my  friends and family down in South Carolina.

It’s been nice to take a week-long break from blogging….But, I’ll be back at it on Monday.

See you then.

P.S. Here’s an old post which I did in my first few months of blogging back in 2006. You might like it.