Navigate the Chaos
Leverage Your Mind, Body, and Spirit to Transform Your Life
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- How often are you brave with your life and believe you are worthy of your dreams?
Today is August 10 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often are you brave with your life and believe you are worth of your dreams?” On Friday, August 6, 2021, while participating in the Tokyo Summer Olympics, American track and field champion Allyson Felix wrote an Instagram post “I’m not afraid of losing. I lose much more than I win. That’s life and I think that’s how it’s supposed to be. I’ve found that I learn more from my losses and that I have gained much more value in the journey toward a goal than achieving that goal. I’ll line up, I’ll give my best and I will either win or lose and that doesn’t scare me.” Reflecting on her career on the night before her final individual Olympic final, Felix realized how she let her past performances define her worth. In a moment of clarity, self-care, and self-awareness, she proclaimed “I’ve been afraid that my worth is tied to whether or not I win or lose. But right now, I’ve decided to leave that fear behind. To understand that I am enough.” Felix ended her post by explaining that she entitled her post “Fear” for athletes who define themselves by their medal count, women who base their worth on their marital status or if they have children, and for anyone who thinks the people on TV are somehow different. “I get afraid just like you,” Felix added, “but you are so much more than enough. So, take off the weight of everyone else’s expectations of you. Know that there is freedom on the other side of your fear. Go out there and be brave with your life because you are worthy of your dreams.” As the only female track and field athlete to ever win six Olympic gold medals and the most decorated female Olympian in track and field history, with a total of 11 Olympic medals, Felix has navigated the chaos of being brave with her life and recognizing she is worthy of her dreams. Her life and career, however, also illustrates the necessity of creating new dreams, using one’s voice, and allowing life to unfold in ways previously unimagined. That’s what happened to Felix when she and her husband decided to start a family after her double-gold medal performance at the 2017 World Championships. Her contract with Nike was up at the end of that year, and she was pregnant in the early months of 2018. Negotiations were not going well, with Nike wanting to pay Felix 70 percent of what it had been paying her previously, despite no real decline in her performance. When she asked for pregnancy protections, and also for her pay to stay the same even if her performance wasn't up to her usual standard in the months after childbirth, Felix was told no. In 2018 Felix gave birth to her daughter Camryn, born premature at 32 weeks. After going through a difficult pregnancy and delivery, the Olympic champion started to share her story with other expecting parents to help raise awareness for the signs of pregnancy complications and highlighted how complications can happen to anyone at any time but there are places that you can access support and information. While Felix was adjusting to life as a mother and caring for her premature baby, she was also dealing with her longtime sponsor in Nike. In a May 22, 2019, New York Times op-ed entitled: “Allyson Felix: My Own Nike Pregnancy Story: I’ve been one of Nike’s most widely marketed athletes. If I can’t secure maternity protections, who can?” Felix accused Nike of penalizing her and other pregnant athletes, including World Championships medalist Alysia Montaño and Olympian Kara Goucher, in contract negotiations. The move was fraught. Felix risked losing her primary source of income and could have been blacklisted from major meets. Felix soon left Nike and signed with Athleta, becoming the women-focused apparel brand’s first athlete sponsor. As Felix dedicated her time to raising the profile of pregnancy complications, she was also raising her newborn baby and preparing for the 2021 Olympic games. She’s been open in the past about what she called "the enduring status quo around maternity.” She said that following the birth of her child she felt that she had to choose between a sport that she loves and her family. The publicity surrounding how Nike was treating Felix and other pregnant athletes demonstrated the power of her voice. As Felix recalled in an interview “I never would have thought that using my voice would have led to Nike changing their maternity policy for athletes and I definitely never would have thought it would lead to creating Saysh (@bysaysh), a community-centered lifestyle brand that creates products for, and by, women.” Felix used her voice so that pregnant women “never have to train at 4:30 a.m. while five months pregnant to hide their pregnancy from a sponsor. So that you won’t have to fight someone so much bigger than you for a right that should be basic. I took that on for you, and I didn’t do it alone, but it was for you.” How often are you brave with your life and believe you are worthy of your dreams? Is someone holding you back from feeling worthy of your dreams? Are you preventing yourself from being brave? Do you recognize how even world champions like Felix need to navigate the chaos? What steps can you take, no matter how small, to demonstrate to yourself you are brave, you are strong, and you are worthy of your dreams? Have you stopped dreaming? If so, why is that? Do you have as many dreams as you need two lifetimes to achieve? Has someone helped you find your voice? Have you helped someone find their voice?
- How often do your endings revolve around beginnings?
Today is August 9 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do your endings revolve around beginnings?” An inevitable part of traveling our life’s path is the frequency of endings and the potentiality of beginnings. The ending of relationships allows new bonds to form, the closure of one employment position invites a new job, and the death of a loved one allows life to be viewed in a new lens. Those who navigate the chaos come to realize how endings revolve around beginnings. Those who put in the daily grind required to translate their dreams into reality appreciate author Anne Lamott’s observation: “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” Endings are the dark periods in our lives while beginnings represent hope. The key is to realize the cycle of life while navigating the chaos often includes holding on to the power of hope and beginnings during dark periods, or endings. In The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember , Fred Rogers echoed a similar thought to Lamott and wrote “Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else. I've felt that many times. My hope for all of us is that ‘the miles we go before we sleep’ will be filled with all the feelings that come from deep caring - delight, sadness, joy, wisdom - and that in all the endings of our life, we will be able to see the new beginnings.” American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director Sam Shepard understood the value of creating an authentic ending revolving towards another beginning. His body of work spanned over half a century. He won ten Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most won by any writer or director. Shepard wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff . He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation." Shepard's plays are chiefly known for their bleak, poetic, often surrealist elements, black humor, and rootless characters living on the outskirts of American society. His style evolved over the years, from the absurdism of his early Off-Off-Broadway work to the realism of Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class (both 1978). As Dwight Garner noted in a New York Times December 6, 2017, article “Shepard composed his last novel Spy of the First Person while battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, even sometimes dictating passages to family and friends. This novel’s themes are echt Shepard: fathers and sons; shifting identities and competing versions of reality; a sense that there are watchers and there are watchees in this world of dusty gravitas.” On endings and beginnings Shepard wrote “I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing, and endings are a disaster. The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.” Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Manager Tommy Lasorda navigated the chaos and learned firsthand how endings revolve around beginnings in his transition from player to manager. The Norristown, Pennsylvania native joined the Dodgers’ coaching staff in 1966 as the manager of the Pocatello Chiefs in the rookie leagues after his brief pitching career ended almost as soon as it started. He continued to coach in the minor leagues until 1973 - a run that was highlighted by three Pioneer League titles from 1966-68 with the Ogden Dodgers and a championship with the AAA Albuquerque Dukes in 1972. Lasorda parlayed his minor league coaching success into an opportunity to serve as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ third-base coach on Hall of Fame manager Walter Alston’s staff. Although Lasorda received opportunities to manage elsewhere, he served as third-base coach for the Dodgers for the better part of four seasons, before taking over the managerial duties when Alston retired on September 29, 1976. During his remarkable career he compiled a 1,599–1,439 record as Dodgers manager, won two World Series championships in (1981 and 1988), four National League pennants, and eight division titles in his 20-year career as the Dodgers manager. If Lasorda had been a better player, if he decided to manage elsewhere, or if he failed to realize that the end of his playing career was the beginning of his coaching career, he would have traveled a completely different path in life. How often do you recognize that an ending revolves around a beginning? How often do you remind yourself hope begins in the dark? How often do you remind yourself not to give up? When you are the end of something, how often do you ask yourself if you are really at the beginning of something else? How often do you work on creating authentic endings where you are already revolving towards another beginning?
- How often are you engaging in daring ventures from a secure base?
Today is August 8 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often are you engaging in daring ventures from a secure base?” Those who navigate the chaos understand the value of engaging in one daring venture after another from a secure base. Such a process allows for one to return safely and re-energize for the next adventure. Since navigating the chaos often takes years, and in some cases, decades, having a secure base is an important strategy to consider. The observation originated from British child psychologist John Bowlby. In his 1988 publication A Secure Base , Bowlby wrote that “life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base.” The two most common examples of this strategy in motion are the parent-child relationship and the leader-employee connection. In the parent-child relationship, the home serves as a secure base, or safe zone, where the children can always return for renewal and reassurance throughout their developing years, indeed for their whole lives. As these early attachments flourish, a positive foundation is laid for all development that will follow. And this development comes partly because of those "series of daring adventures." For the child to develop they need to move from one stage of experience, behavior, and accomplishment to the next. Traversing from one stage to the next demands children experience discomfort, disequilibrium, and diligence, all of which can be gained through daring ventures from a secure base. In short, the less secure one’s base, the less chance one might have to experience daring ventures. Conversely, the more secure a child feels the more likely they will engage in daring ventures to learn, grow, and develop. As David Brooks wrote in a March 29, 2007, New York Times editorial "people with a secure base are more free to take risks and explore the possibilities of their world." As you navigate the chaos it is important to remind yourself that leveraging your mind, body, and spirit empowers you to create a secure base for those around you. The same strategy of engaging in daring ventures from a secure based can by hypothesized for the leader-employee connection. What good is an employee if they feel as though they will be fired if they make a mistake, miss a day of work, or question their boss? Some leaders like Kimo Kippen, Founder of Aloha Learning Advisors and former CLO at Hilton and Vice President of Learning at Marriott recognize the necessity for employees to feel safe. Kippen noted "This whole level of wholeness is a place where I am able to show up as a full human being with all of my gifts to the table to be a part of this organization. That leads to a great feeling of inclusiveness because what it allows me then to do is to bring this real, authentic self to the table and to really love the work that I do." Sadly, some leaders create a culture where mistakes are discouraged, or worse yet, forbidden, and employees have no security at all. One such example is Volkswagen and its 2015 diesel engine debacle. According to many company executives, former CEO, Martin Winterkorn, was demanding, authoritarian and abhorred failure; he also fostered a climate of fear. A key part of Volkswagen’s aggressive growth strategy was a new diesel engine that would deliver low emissions and high efficiency. The problem was that, as the engine came into production, it failed to meet the goals Winterkorn had publicly stated it would. Too afraid to bring this failure to their boss, the engineers covered up the problem, leading to billions of dollars in losses and damage to the brand. Winterkorn resigned from Volkswagen on September 23, 2015, several days after an emissions cheating scandal was revealed that concerned the company's diesel cars. He resigned as chairman of Audi on November 11, 2015, after further information associated with the scandal was revealed regarding VW's gasoline-powered engines Winterkorn was criminally indicted over the emissions cheating scandal in the United States on May 3, 2018, on charges of fraud and conspiracy. In April 2019 he was criminally indicted on charges of fraud in Germany. This ‘secure base’ approach to life is similar to the belief by French novelist Gustave Flaubert “Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.” As you put in the daily grind to translate one dream after another, remind yourself of the tremendous potential you have in ‘being violent and original in your work’ if you have a secure base from which to operate. How often do you create a regular and orderly life, or a secure base, so that you can go on daring adventures and be original in your work? Have you created a secured base for your children or loved ones so they may go experience daring ventures and return safely? Can you be regular and orderly in one area of your life and original in another? Has your lack of a secure base held you back from engaging in daring ventures? Have you found a way to pursue a daring adventure without a secure base? What can you do to help either create a secure base or find one to use? How often are you afraid of making or admitting a mistake because you work or live in an environment that discourages them? How often do you allow yourself to be ‘violent and original in your work?’
- How often do you fight for your next inch?
Today is August 7 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you fight for your next inch?" Al Pacino's speech in Any Given Sunday , a 1999 American sports drama film directed by Oliver Stone, reminds everyone what is required. Playing the role of veteran professional football coach Tony D'Amato, Pacino provides one of the most inspirational speeches in sports film history in a four-minute locker room talk where he tells his players “You find out life's this game of inches… in either game, life or football, the margin for error is so small. I mean one half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it one half second too slow too fast you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us… when we add up all those inches that's gonna make the difference between winning and losing; between living and dying. And in any fight it's the guy who's willing to die who's gonna win that edge and I know if I'm gonna have any life in me it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that edge that's what living is - the six inches in front of your face.” Today’s reflection reminds us that hard word in and of itself is often insufficient to help you navigate the chaos and translate one dream after another into reality. Hard work is indeed important. F. Diane Barth wrote in "The Great Myth of Hard Work" an August 2012 Psychology Today article: “The myth that we can achieve anything we want if we just work hard enough, then, is just that – a myth. The hard work is accepting that everyone and everything has limitations. And finding ways to accept that limitations are just part of being human – not signs of failure.” Jeff Shannon, an executive coach, and author of Hard Work is Not Enough: The Surprising Truth about Being Believable at Work . believes ‘hard work is a good start.’ This is especially true for anyone launching a new career, regardless of age, as hard work can certainly help establish you in your organization or industry. If you desire to move up and grow, however, hard work is not going to be enough. As Shannon noted: “At a certain point you look around and realize, wow, everyone works hard at this level. Expertise and hard work just become the expectation and will not help you up the ladder.” Fighting for your next inch to go beyond what others are doing; that makes the difference. A reporter once asked American professional boxer, activist, and poet Mohamed Ali “How many sit-ups do you do?” Ali responded “I don’t count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. When I feel pain, that’s when I start counting, because that’s when it really counts." Ali clearly fought for every inch in his professional career. In a 2019 speech Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled Ali’s story and said “Now think about it. He doesn’t start counting. That is working hard. And so, you can’t get around the hard work. It doesn’t matter who it is.” This story reminds us to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time. First, you need to work hard and continually discover new limits to what it means to work hard. Afterall, Ali never counted his sit-ups until he started to feel pain and that would change over time. Second, you need to acknowledge the absolute necessity to fight for every inch. You should remind yourself what Schwarzenegger said and that is ‘no one gets around the hard work.’ Today’s reflection ends on one additional nuance here and that is the difference between working at 99% capacity versus 100% capacity. In an Instagram post from July 2021, Marine, best-selling author, and motivational speaker David Goggins talked about this and said “It’s a very scary situation when you are confronted with trying to find more of yourself. When you believe you have given everything you have, your mind becomes dark. You believe that quitting or failure is imminent. The choices and options you have in front of you start to shrink. This makes it very easy to abandon ship. Before you abandon ship, know this…there is always one more door that you haven’t opened. Behind that door may lie failure and disappointment BUT it may also have success and accomplishment. If you never open that door because you are extremely tired, exhausted, and feeling like you have given everything you have, you will never give yourself the chance to find your true capabilities. In trying to find your true capabilities, it’s inevitable that you will meet failure and disappointment head on. This is the part that deters people from opening that door. The difference between giving 99% and 100% is a lot bigger than what we think. To find just that 1% more requires all of us to open that final door. Never be fooled by a 99% effort!” How often do you catch yourself doing whatever it takes to fight for your next inch? How often do you remind yourself that hard work is necessary but digging deep and fighting for every inch along your life path is going to make the difference between success and failure? When do you start counting? How do you respond when the pain starts to kick-in? Can you stay in the darkness long enough that your eyes adjust to the dark? When you believe you have given everything you have, can you push yourself just one step further? Have you ever pushed yourself to a new limitation? How did you respond? Do you believe you have untapped potential yet to be realized? Can you encounter failure yet continue? Have you considered your capacity at 99% compared to 100%?
- How often do you approach, or pass, the edge?
Today is August 6 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you approach, or pass, the edge?” In her 2009 novel Handle with Care , American fiction writer Jodi Picoult wrote “I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.” Challenging themselves to do more than they previously thought possible, the edge remains ever present and beckons those destined to seek it as the lighthouse provides a ray of hope in the darkness. The edge reminds us of our potential. The edge invites anyone willing to look deep inside of themselves. It is important to remember in today’s reflection how the edge will look different for everyone. In some situations, the edge might be having the courage to tell someone you love them when you have been wanting to do so for a long time. For others, the edge might be applying for a job that might be considered out of reach but they do so anyway. The edge is going to make you uncomfortable; it will exhaust you, and it will challenge you to change your assumptions about how the world works. One of the greatest American writers of the last few decades, Hunter S. Thompson, navigated the chaos and explored the edge throughout his writing career. In his critically acclaimed Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, Thompson wrote “The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others-the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still Out there.” As Patrick Doyle wrote in Rolling Stone “Thompson lived and wrote on the edge in a style that would come to be called Gonzo journalism. That term captured his lifestyle, but it didn’t really do justice to Thompson’s command of language, his fearless reporting, or his fearsome intellect.” Thompson was born in Louisville, Kentucky, served in the Air Force, and worked as a journalist in Puerto Rico before moving to San Francisco, where an article about the Hells Angels turned into a book project. He spent almost two years riding with the outlaw motorcycle gang, and in 1966 he published a bestseller that took readers deep inside a subculture largely inaccessible to the outside world. In 1970, he wrote an unconventional magazine feature titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" for Scanlan's Monthly , which both raised his profile and established him as a writer with counterculture credibility. It also set him on a path to establishing his own subgenre of New Journalism that he called "Gonzo", which was essentially an ongoing experiment in which the writer becomes a central figure and even a participant in the events of the narrative. Thompson remains best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), a book first serialized in Rolling Stone in which he grapples with the implications of what he considered the failure of the 1960s counterculture movement. In The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, Thompson proclaimed “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’” The concept of living life on the edge, and maybe even going over it ever now and then, often appears in popular culture. One example is from the 1992 film The Bodyguard starring Whitney Houston (as Rachel Marron – a rising pop singer) and Kevin Costner (as Frank Farmer – as her new bodyguard). In one scene late in the film, Marron and Farmer are sitting outside at night, she looks up at the stars and tells him “I didn't get to this place in my life by doing the smart thing every time. (Frank nods) How 'bout you, Frank Farmer? Out there on the edge... did you ever do something that didn't make too much sense, except maybe inside you? In your stomach somewhere? Something that wasn't smart? (She looks at him) I'll bet you have plenty. I'll bet you do. Nobody gets really good without it. And you're good. I know that.” The edge is there. It is waiting patiently. It never moves. The question is, will you go near it? Will you get close to it? Or will you go over it? As with each daily question and strategy for navigating the chaos, approaching, or passing the edge may be better left for others. Today’s strategy is an option; just like the other 364 posts in this Navigate the Chaos series. How often do you ‘risk being terrified of falling over the edge only to discover the place you had only seen in your dreams?’ How often do you remind yourself that the edge is still out there waiting for you? Do you agree with Thompson in that life ‘should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely but rather to skid in totally worn out?’ How often have you thought about your desire to be good at what you do and the need to approach, or pass, the edge in order to get there? Do you know anyone who has taken the risk and gone over the proverbial edge of life?
- How often do you resemble water?
Today is August 5 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you resemble water?” American poet Wallace Stevens once noted “Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.” Learning to navigate the chaos may require you to take a different shape, be pliable, or remain flexible in order to deal with a life situation. Leveraging your mind, body, and spirit is central to doing so. Such a process, however, like so much of the strategies discussed in this Navigate the Chaos series, is easier said than done. Decades later, Hong Kong American martial artist, actor, director, martial arts instructor, and philosopher Bruce Lee made the following observation “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup; it becomes the cup. You put water into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. You put it into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. Now water can flow, or it can crash! Be water, my friend.” Both Stevens and Lee understood the value of applying water’s characteristics to human behavior as a viable strategy to navigate the chaos. They both realized the benefit of being like water and becoming flexible for a given life situation. These and other modern references to water, however, have their origins in the ancient Chinese text the Tao Te Ching written around 400 BC and traditionally credited to the sage Laozi (also spelled Lao Tzu meaning Old Master). Lao Tzu likened an individual’s path through life as being like water. In chapter 8 of the “Tao Te Ching”, he described the ideal character a person should have and wrote “The best character is like water. The water’s goodness is that it benefits the myriad things but does not quarrel, and it willingly goes to where others hate. Thus, it is almost like the Tao.” Laozi in the Tao Te Ching explains that the Tao is not a name for a thing, but the underlying natural order of the Universe. In her 2020 book Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee, his daughter Shannon Lee wrote “The ‘be Water’ quote begins with the prompt ‘Empty your mind.’ This first request is perhaps the most important one in our process because it sets us up for everything that comes next. My father believed that this act – of leaving behind the burdens of one’s preconceived opinions and conclusions – had in itself a liberating power. In fact, if this step is the only one you actively work on for a while, you will expand your life considerably. Emptiness refers to a state of openness and neutrality. When your mind is crowded with thoughts and information about all the things you’ve learned and how you feel about them, there isn’t room for much else. You’ve given up access to new possibilities and points of view; you’ve limited yourself. In order to learn new information, we must first make room to let that information in. This allowance of new information can only occur if we empty our minds. We in the West think of nothingness as a void, a non-existence. In Eastern philosophy and modern physical science, nothingness – no-thingness-is a form of process, ever moving – like water.” To navigate the chaos today’s reflection offers the option of resembling water. What is interesting and unique about today’s post is a daughter’s reflection upon the words, actions, and life of her father. In her introduction to the book Shannon reminded readers that “you don’t need to be Bruce Lee in order to make the most out of your life and Bruce Lee doesn’t want you to be him; he would want you to be the best version of yourself.” Practicing the art of living well certainly involves being the best version of yourself. Unpacking the ‘be like water’ philosophy of Bruce Lee, when coupled with the keen observations of his daughter Shannon, provide the following list of questions to consider for today’s reflection. How often can you empty your mind? Do you find yourself rigid or pliable, formless, and shapeless, like water? Have you considered the impact emptying your mind can have on the rest of your day? Do you feel imprisoned by your thoughts? If so, what have you done lately to liberate yourself from your own thoughts? How often do you leave behind the burdens of one’s preconceived opinions and conclusions? Have you given yourself permission to accept how emptiness refers to a state of openness and neutrality? How often do you find your mind too crowded to take in a new thought? What can you do today to clear your mind and create a state of no-thingness? How often do you remind yourself the difference between nothingness and no-thingness? Are you working towards being the best version of yourself or do you catch yourself mimicking others?
- How often are you working enough so inspiration can find you?
Today is August 4 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often are you working enough so inspiration can find you?” Painter Chuck Close memorably scoffed “Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Even though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint. Despite his injury he shows up and gets to work so inspiration can find him. In her advice to aspiring writers, novelist Isabelle Allende echoed “Show up, show up, show up and after a while the muse shows up, too.” Allende should know all about showing up as she writes on a computer, working Monday through Saturday, 9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. in the hopes that inspiration finds her. Legendary composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky put it similarly in an 1878 letter to his benefactress: “A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.” Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death; the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein; and the collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck, who was his patron even though they never actually met each other. Amidst one personal crisis after another he continued working so inspiration would find him. Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, noted “inspiration exists but it has to find you working.” Hungarian photographer Brassaï engaged in a 30-year-long interview series with Picasso and published his collection in Conversations with Picasso. In one of those conversations Brassaï asked whether the painter’s ideas come to him “by chance or by design.” Picasso’s response illustrated his wisdom on cracking creative block: “I don’t have a clue. Ideas are simply starting points. I can rarely set them down as they come to my mind. As soon as I start to work, others well up in my pen. To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing… When I find myself facing a blank page, that’s always going through my head. What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas.” There are several critical issues here for those traveling their path and navigating the chaos. First, one of the greatest artists in the last century had no specific process for creating art. Second, once Picasso began to work ideas then started to come to him. And third, what he discovered as he began drawing was of greater interest than his own ideas. The key is to start so inspiration knows to find you working. Amidst personal crisis, health concerns, and external events out of your control, how often do you find your working so inspiration can find you? Have a bias towards action. And remain open to the process of discovery along the way. It is also important to note that his lack of a specific approach allowed him to change his style throughout his life and experiment with different theories, techniques, and ideas. Translating your dreams into reality relies more upon your ability to adapt, change, and evolve more than it does following a script, blueprint, or recipe for success. Give yourself permission to experiment and change as you travel your path of navigating the chaos. Another way of considering today’s reflection is to recall the words of 20th century American artist Jasper Johns who explained his process of creating art by stating: “It's simple, you just take something and do something to it, and then do something else to it. Keep doing this, and pretty soon you've got something.” Born in 1930 in Augusta, Georgia, Johns grew up in rural South Carolina. The paintings of his deceased grandmother, hung in his grandfather's house where he lived until the age of nine, provided his only exposure to art in his childhood. Johns began drawing at a very young age, with a vague intention of wanting to become an artist. After high school, Johns spent three semesters at the University of South Carolina. Urged by his teachers to study in New York, he moved north and spent one semester at the Parsons School of Design in 1948. However, Parsons was not the ideal fit for Johns, and he left the school, rendering him eligible for the draft. In 1951, he was drafted into the army and spent two years in service during the Korean War at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and in Sendai, Japan. After his discharge from the U.S. Army in May 1953, Johns headed to New York. As curator Carolyn Lanchner relays in her 2009 book Jasper Johns, it was time, according to the painter, “to stop becoming and to be an artist.” He destroyed all his previous pieces and held down jobs in the city to fund his progress, shifting as a night clerk at Marboro, a bookstore near Carnegie Hall. Teaming up with fellow artist Robert Rauschenberg, he also designed department store window displays for Tiffany & Co. In 1954, he was hit by one of the most famous inspiration dreams in art history, Flag (1954–55). Over the next six decades he would make extraordinary contributions as an American painter, sculptor and printmaker associated with Abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and Pop art. For his achievements, President Obama awarded Johns the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 2011. Are you waiting around doing nothing and hoping inspiration strikes you like a bolt of lightning? How often do you just show up and get to work? Can you start working and then capture the new ideas as they flow out of you? How often do you find yourself waiting to start until you have all of the answers? Can you do something, then do something to that, and then do something to that?
- How often are you easy to love?
Today is August 3 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often are you easy to love?” John Cazale was an American actor who appeared in five films over seven years, all of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and The Deer Hunter (1978), with the two Godfather films and The Deer Hunter winning. Cazale started as a theater actor in New York City during the 1960s, ranging from regional, to off-Broadway, to Broadway acting alongside Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, and Sam Waterston. To earn income during this time Cazale also worked as a cab driver and messenger. His theatrical work eventually led him to be discovered by casting director Fred Roos who suggested him to director Francis Ford Coppola for the role of Fredo Corleone in The Godfather. After acting in four critically acclaimed films The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Cazale went back to theater in 1976. In the summer of that year, Cazale starred at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park with Sam Waterston in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. His leading lady was the recent Yale School of Drama graduate Meryl Streep. The two would begin a romantic relationship soon after starting to work together. Streep was 29 years old, a gosling in the New York theater world and would eventually move in to his loft on Franklin Street. He was 14 years her senior and a legend among his peers. As Maureen Callahan wrote “Of the two, Cazale was the famous one, but they were still starving artists. Cazale would take Streep to dinner in Little Italy, where restaurant owners, awed to have Fredo in the room, insisted they eat for free. They were the envy of the New York theater world — she the most naturally gifted actress in generations, he the most naturally gifted actor, until one day in May 1977.” During his rehearsals for the Greek tragedy Agamemnon , Cazale had been feeling ill enough to miss performances. Theater producer Joseph Papp was concerned enough to get Cazale an emergency appointment with his own doctor on the Upper East Side. Within days, Streep and Cazale were sitting in the doctor’s office with Joe and Gail Papp. The diagnosis: Cazale had terminal lung cancer. It had spread throughout his body. Cazale dropped out of Agamemnon immediately. Streep and Cazale tried to keep the severity of his condition between them. Even Cazale’s brother, Stephen, didn’t realize how bad it was until one day, after the three of them had lunch in Chinatown, Cazale stopped on the sidewalk and spat up blood. With medical bills pilling up, Streep reluctantly took a lead role in the nine-hour TV miniseries “Holocaust” solely for the money. The show was filmed in Austria and Cazale was too weak to go. For two and a half months Streep was separated from her dying boyfriend. With Streep unavailable, fellow actor Al Pacino took Cazale to radiation treatments. Upon her return Streep stayed by Cazale’s side as he performed in what would become his last film, The Deer Hunter starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, and Streep. All scenes involving Cazale, who had terminal cancer, were filmed first. Because of his illness the studio wanted to dismiss him but Streep and director Michael Cimino threatened to walk away if they did. He was also uninsurable, and according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted Cazale in the film. This was Cazale's last film, as he died shortly after filming wrapped. Cazale never saw the finished film Streep said of his death: "I didn't get over it. I don't want to get over it. No matter what you do, the pain is always there in some recess of your mind, and it affects everything that happens afterwards. I think you can assimilate the pain and go on without making an obsession of it.” When speaking to the New York Times during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Godfather , Pacino revealed that he didn’t believe Cazale ever got the credit he deserved for his contribution to Coppola’s movies. “John Cazale, in general, was one of the great actors of our time — that time, any time. I learned so much from him. I did a lot of theatre and three films with him. He was inspiring; he just was. And he didn’t get credit for any of it. He was in five films, all Oscar-nominated films, and he was great in all of them. He was particularly great in Godfather II, and I don’t think he got that kind of recognition.” His close friend and frequent collaborator, Israel Horovitz, wrote a eulogy, published in The Village Voice on March 27, 1978. In it, he said: “John Cazale happens once in a lifetime. He was an invention, a small perfection. It is no wonder his friends feel such anger upon waking from their sleep to discover that Cazale sleeps on with kings and counselors, with Booth and Kean, with Jimmy Dean, with Bernhardt, Guitry, and Duse, with Stanislavsky, with Groucho, Benny, and Allen. He will make fast friends in his new place. He is easy to love.” How often are you easy to love? How often are you loved by others? How often do others look up to you? How often do you make fast friends? How often do you take a chance on love and being loved?
- How often do you commit to a lifetime of creating yourself?
Today is August 2 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you commit to a lifetime of creating yourself?” Answers for today’s question will generally fall into one of the following five categories: I do not have to create a new self for I am perfect I have already created a new self and am done with that Creating a new self is too much work so I will stay as is for now I am as mature as possible, so this is an insulting question I am committed to a lifetime of creating myself Those who leverage their mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos commit to a lifetime of creating their future self and subscribe to the observation of French philosopher Henri Bergson "To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." Let us unpack the quote for a better understanding and to ask some additional questions. First, “to exist is to change.” Navigating the chaos will require you to travel outside of your comfort zone, think differently, and challenge your own assumptions to change. Change is common and synonymous with development or maturity. Do you agree with the statement “to exist is to change?” How often are you committed to change? Are you striving for the status quo so much that you fail to realize the association between change and maturity? Second, “to change is to mature.” Too often maturity is related to acting one’s age when it should instead emphasize one’s ability to change to exist and continue navigating the chaos. Do you agree with the statement “to change is to mature?” What does maturity mean to you? What does it look like? How often do you reflect upon the relationship between change and maturity? Lastly, “to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” Our ability to navigate the chaos depends upon our maturity, which, in turn, allows us to create ourselves throughout our entire lives. This endless creation of one’s self, however, requires a steadfast belief that we are not here to live up to other people’s expectations. Psychiatrist Fritz Perls was so concerned about this concept that he created the "Gestalt prayer" a 56-word statement that is taken as a classic expression of Gestalt therapy as a way of life model of which Dr. Perls was a founder. The key idea of the statement is the focus on living in response to one's own needs, without projecting onto or taking introjects from others. In psychoanalysis, introjection refers to an unconscious process wherein one takes components of another person's identity, such as feelings, experiences, and cognitive functioning, and transfers them inside themselves, making such experiences part of their new psychic structure. The full prayer reads “I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.” For those putting in the daily grind of translating their dreams into reality, they understand the importance of being mature enough to ‘do their own thing’ to create one’s self endlessly. Canadian psychoanalyst and organizational consultant Elliott Jaques is one such example. J Jacques coined the term “midlife crisis,” in a 1965 paper. Jaques wrote that during this period, individuals come face-to-face with their limitations, their restricted possibilities, and their mortality. In his own midlife and beyond Jaques remained opened to the possibilities of what life had to offer and wrote 12 books in the 38 years between the publication of his paper that coined the term “midlife crisis,” and his death in 2003 at age 86. He also married Kathryn Cason and the coupled founded a consulting company devoted to the dissemination of their ideas. As Carlo Strenger and Arie Ruttenberg reported in a Harvard Business Review post “Elliott Jaques, you might say, lived twice. By the end of his first life, in his mid-forties, he had earned two doctorates, one in medicine and another in psychology. He had gone through psychoanalytic training and had gained a lot of experience as both an organizational consultant and a psychoanalyst. In his second life, Jaques became a truly independent thinker. He greatly expanded the range of organizations with which he worked, and he created the concepts and theories for which he is most famous. He formulated some of his most original ideas in the late 1990s, when he was in his late seventies and early eighties.” How often are you creating your future self? Who or what is holding you back from creating your future self? What small step can you take today to help create your future self?
- How often do you foreclose future thinking?
Today is August 1 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you foreclose future thinking?” Those who leverage their mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos and translate one dream after another into reality seldom foreclose future thinking. If you want to challenge yourself today, monitor how many times you predict the future. Take notes on your phone or use pen and paper. Regardless of how you track your words, study how closely you predict the following: a)that X will not happen; b)that you tried X before and it did not work then so it will not work in the future, c)you know person X and they will say no, d)or simply, you just know that X will not happen because you know no one who experienced it. When you predict the future to a negative outcome, you are foreclosing future thinking. Those who navigate the chaos seldom foreclose future thinking. Today’s’ reflection reminds us, no matter how difficult it may be, to stop predicting the future and instead, remain open minded. In his April 2, 2012, New York Times editorial David Brooks emphasized this need to remain open minded when he wrote: "The fact is, we are all terrible at imagining how we will feel in the future. We exaggerate how much the future will be like the present. We underestimate the power of temperament to gradually pull us up from the lowest lows. And if our capacities for imagining the future are bad in normal times, they are horrible in moments of stress and suffering. Given these weaknesses, it seems wrong to make a decision that will foreclose future thinking. It seems wrong to imagine that you have mastery over everything you will feel and believe. It's better to respect the future, to remain humbly open to your own unfolding." Today’s reflection question and exercise challenges us to dissect Brooks’ quote, one of my favorites in the Navigate the Chaos series. Consider the following set of questions and ripples within this reflection as this post examines seven different elements of his quote. “The fact is, we are all terrible at imagining how we will feel in the future.” How often do you project how you will feel in the future? Why are you doing this? Have you ever estimated your future feelings and then, upon reaching that moment your feelings are completely different than what you expected? · Did you even remember those feelings you had about that present moment (what used to be the future) all those days ago? “We exaggerate how much the future will be like the present.” Why must the future be like the present? Are you so out of touch with reality that you lack the capacity to understand change is a constant? Do you catch yourself longing for this consistent feeling? Are you afraid that the future will make you feel worse than the present? Why? Could the future not be better than the present? Does the unknown of the future make you so paralyzed that you are frozen in the present moment? “We underestimate the power of temperament to gradually pull us up from the lowest lows.” Why do you underestimate yourself? Why do you lack the capacity to trust your ability to stand upon falling? How often in your life have you underestimated yourself? Who in your life has made you underestimate yourself? Perhaps the question should be ‘why have you allowed others to underestimate yourself?’ “And if our capacities for imagining the future are bad in normal times, they are horrible in moments of stress and suffering.” At your darkest moments why are you spending energy needed for recovery trying to predict the future? What good does that do? Instead of thinking about the future, some indeterminate amount of time, why not concentrate on your next step; after all it is the only one you can see in the dark? How often do you catch yourself predicting the future when you are stressed? Do you understand doing so limits your capacity to grow? “Given these weaknesses, it seems wrong to make a decision that will foreclose future thinking.” How often do you make decisions that foreclose future thinking? Do you understand that deciding in the present moment regarding the future has implications that may very well limit your potential? Have you thought about your responsibility to your future self? Do you acknowledge you have a responsibility to your future self? “It seems wrong to imagine that you have mastery over everything you will feel and believe.” How often do you believe you have control over everything? How often do you accept your inability to control your feelings and beliefs? Are you so consumed by controlling every aspect of life you forget to live? Why must you cling to control so tightly? Do you believe that having less control makes you weak? If so, why is that and where does that thinking come from? “It's better to respect the future, to remain humbly open to your own unfolding." Do you remain humble to your own development? Do you believe you have more to offer? Do you understand that even in your darkest moments you have the potential to unfold, to grow, and to blossom in the future?
- How often do you recognize the space between stimulus and response?
Today is July 31 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you recognize the space between stimulus and response?” Brazilian author Paulo Coelho noted “Your problem isn’t the problem. Your reaction is the problem.” In the book Your Reactions Are Showing J. Allan Petersen went further and noted “The person who reacts with anger and bitterness is being controlled by the person who offended him. How often do we let people control us in our daily life? You may be surprised to learn that your reactions to the situations you face daily may say a great deal more about you than your actions say.” Anyone navigating the chaos has had to learn how to respond to any number of stimuli in their personal life and professional career. Each day affords us hundreds of stimuli to respond to from an interaction with a coworker, to an exchange between a family member, or a situation at a store. The most common stimuli are what people say to you, what happens to those you love, and external events. While you are unable to control any stimulus, you most certainly can control your response. And doing so requires that you recognize the space between stimulus and response. Those who translate their dreams into reality work hard at developing the appropriate response for a given stimuli. In 1969 Stephen Covey was on sabbatical from Brigham Young University to write a book. While wandering through the stacks of a university library in Hawaii one day he pulled down a book from its position on the shelf, opened it, and read three lines that dramatically changed his life. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” These three lines would eventually form the foundation for his work The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Often attributed to Viktor E. Frankl, the exact origins of this quote remain in question. Covey never identified the publication in which he first read those three lines back in 1969 but researchers suggest two possibilities: Thomas Walton’s 1917 The Use of Motives in Teaching Morals and Religion or Rollo May’s 1963 essay “Freedom and Responsibility Re-Examined” published in a collection called Behavioral Science and Guidance: Proposals and Perspectives. In The Use of Motives Walton wrote: “Personality has three main parts: (1) the receiving portion (receptors) that looks out on stimuli (attention and appreciation are its great functions); (2) a responding side (effectors) that looks toward behavior or response; and (3) that which lies between stimulus and response whose function is to correlate and adjust behavior to stimulus. This third region is where our real personal values lie. This is where we grow most.” Some five decades later May would write in Freedom and Responsibility Re-Examined : “Freedom is thus not the opposite to determinism. Freedom is the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one, to pause between stimulus and response and thus to throw his weight, however slight it may be, on the side of one particular response among several possible ones.” In 1989 Stephen R. Covey published the bestselling self-help book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People which included a discussion of Viktor Frankl who was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. “They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Victor Frankl himself was a self-aware being who could look on as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.” Covey reiterated the point above several times in the book, but he was not presenting a quotation from Victor Frankl. Actor Mariska Hargitay worked intentionally on her reaction when she got rejected for the show ER. She prepared so well for her audition the casting agent said she was too good for the role. Instead of blaming the casting director, she leveraged her connections, did not take no for an answer, and went the extra mile to explain why she was the right actress for the role. It worked. Her work on ER helped launch Mariska’s career where she would eventually go on to star in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit for over 20 seasons. When she got rejected from ER initially, she could have easily moved on to the next audition; or she could have reacted in a negative manner. Instead, she tempered her reaction and in so doing altered her career trajectory. Remember, how you respond matters. Your awareness to stimuli matters. Your ability to recognize the space between stimulus and response, and in some cases, even create that space, will often determine your ability to navigate the chaos. How often do you recognize the space between stimulus and response? How often do you remind yourself that you often have the capacity to create space between the stimulus and response? How often can you respond with intention? How often do you help others see the space between stimulus and response? How often do you leverage your response for personal growth? How often do you recognition that your reaction to a situation is the problem more so than the situation itself?
- How often do you tell yourself that within you is an invincible summer?
Today is July 30 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “how often do you tell yourself that within you is an invincible summer?” Those who navigate the chaos understand what French philosopher Albert Camus wrote in Return to Tipasa “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” In his July 3, 2015, blog "On Albert Camus's 'Return to Tipasa:’” Humanities professor Dr. Antony Lyon wrote “In Return to Tipasa, Camus returns to Algeria for the second time since World War II. In his first trip, he went out to the ruins of Tipasa, an old Roman city, where he spent endless summer days when he was young, and he was disappointed with the experience. His first trip to Tipasa failed because he wanted it to be the same as when he was young.” When he returned to Tipasa the ruins had changed as they were fenced off with a guard now posted. These new developments destroyed the sense of being alone and free that young Camus had enjoyed there. Lyon noted “Of course, it’s more than that. Even if the ruins were the same, Camus was not. On this second pilgrimage, he’s more modest in his desire and seeks only a moment. For Camus, he is returning home; he has a relationship with this place. This is where he was young, and his hope, twenty years later, is that some of the freedom and innocence he knew then continued to rest in this space because he had stopped feeling it long ago.” Something transcendent happened to Camus in Tipasa on this return to Tipasa. We recognize the importance of the whole scene—of Tipasa and of Camus. The moment is a communion between humanity and nature. In this moment, Camus does not exactly change—he becomes more the person he always was. This is the key to understanding the transcendent moment in nature: You experience a change that is not really a change; you become what you already are. Those who translate their dreams into reality, who live with intention, and navigate the chaos understand they are becoming what they already are. They understand ‘in the depth of winter they learned that within them lay an invincible summer.’ This unfolding of their potential is a process of self-discovery that blossoms with each passing day. Austrian American actor, businessman, and former politician and professional bodybuilder Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger understood from his adolescence that within him lay an invincible summer. In a 2019 speech discussing his six rules for success, Schwarzenegger discussed how he envisioned his potential early on while in Austria. According to Schwarzenegger: “I was born in 1947 in Austria after the Second World War and I didn't really like Austria and could not wait to get out of there when I got older. I just could not see myself becoming a farmer or a worker in a factory or anything like that even though my parents wanted me to stay there and have a normal life. My father wanted me to become a police officer like he was and my mother wanted me just to stay there and marry a girl in the name of Heidi hopefully and have a bunch of kids and run around like the Von Trapp family in The Sound of Music but that was their vision not mine my vision was totally different.” To become what he already was, to allow his invincible summer to shine within, Schwarzenegger turned to body building. As he continued in his speech: “When people saw me in the gym working out so hard for five or six hours a day they would ask ‘why do you have always a smile on your face when others are working out just as hard as you do and they have a sour look in their face?’ I would tell them I am shooting for the Mr. Universe title so every rep that I do gets me closer to accomplishing the goal. To make this vision turn into reality every single set that I do every repetition every weight that I lift will get my step closer to my goal. Remember, work your ass off as there is no magic pill. You cannot get around the hard work that needs to get done. I couldn’t wait to do another 500-pound squat I couldn't wait it to another 500-pound bench press I couldn’t wait to do another 2,000 reps of sit-ups I couldn't wait for the next exercise. At the age of 20 I went to London and became the youngest ever to win the Mr. Universe title.” As he accomplished one goal after another, eventually turning his attention toward acting and politics, Schwarzenegger continued to allow his invincible summer to shine but grew to learn from failing. “Don't be afraid of failing because there's nothing wrong with failing. You have to fail in order to climb that ladder. There's no one that doesn't fail. We all fail. It's okay. What is not okay is that when you fail you stay down. Whoever stays down is a loser and winners will fail and get up, fail, and get up, fail, and get up, you always get up. So, relax, it's okay to fail. Just go all out and give it everything that you got. That's what it is all about; so, don't be afraid to fail.” Schwarzenegger understood that within him lay an invincible summer. How often do you? How often are you afraid of failing? How often do you maintain a vision for who you want to be? How often are you putting in the hard work each day to translate your dreams into reality? When you are down and feeling sorry for yourself, how often do you remind yourself that within you lay an invincible summer?