Are You the Captain of Your Soul? The Choices One Makes

In the poem, "Invictus" by English poet, William Ernest Henley, the last stanza reads as follows:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

South African President Nelson Mandela found solace and affirmation in this poem during his decades in Robben Island Prison as others controlled his circumstances and even whether he lived or died. He made a choice that no one would strip his dignity nor take away his mastery of his own soul. He would own his decisions and actions and never blame them upon external circumstance.

Just a few decades earlier in the hell of Auschwitz, Dr. Viktor Frankl had found refuge from the otherworldly hell by cultivating his inner life. He also resisted the temptation to allow circumstances to determine the choices he made for himself.

In his book, Man's Search For Meaning, he speaks of the brutality, the deprivation of freedom, sleep and food and the temptation to fall into hopelessness. Underneath it all was a fight for survival that laid open one's soul.

"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity -even under the most difficult circumstances- to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult decision may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his suffering or not."

Who knows what the future holds. A few of us will need to face circumstances as bleak as those faced by Nelson Mandela or Viktor Frankl, but most of us will not. We will be tested on a soul level when faced with divorce or substance abuse. We will be challenged when we have an opportunity to take unfair advantage of a situation to pocket extra money. We will lower our standards, behave selfishly or be creatively unethical because of the pressures of a situation with consequences.

Just as the fight for survival or unjust imprisonment could be used as an excuse for rage and the unleashing of evil, we will have good reasons for our own failures to captain our souls. I am not writing for the evil nor am I writing for the perfect.

In July of 2002, my wife of 16 years asked for a divorce. While we had been struggling in our relationship for a period of time; I still loved her, was committed to our marriage and cared deeply about our three children. This divorce demand was a relief in terms of getting the issue out into the open but was also an internal seismic event. I began my education in divorce and sought counseling help to gain both assistance and perspective. This unwanted destruction of my marriage became the most significant opportunity for me to become and remain the captain of my soul but it was a struggle to do so.

Divorce in America is common and has become a spectator sport. Many people will take sides and then encourage the participant they are rooting for to be selfish or to dole out punishment. It is hard not to feel victimized by circumstances that you can not control. The disruption of your life and the losses to what you've built are real, even if you make it all the way through the process while doing your best to be a good person. It is even harder to regain your sense of optimism and inner peace. Inner peace is the compass, the source of bearing, and optimism for the future is the prevailing wind, the power to move forward, for the captain of the soul.

We did finally divorce after five years of separation, a period in which our children moved most of the way to adulthood. The failure remains a disappointment, but today I primarily give weight to my failure to provide my children with something better. I truly wanted to provide my children with something better than my own parents failed marriage and the broken apart family that resulted. Alas, all that one can control is one's choices and subsequent actions. My choices and actions will need to suffice as a small legacy to my children.

I have also chosen to remain the captain of my soul in professional situations. Years ago, I attended a meeting where the executives were discussing upcoming projects. The head of facilities reviewed a project he had been working on for six months and was about to implement to install new electronic door hardware on about 350 doors in our major facility for a cost of $200,000. The hardware was on its way and the installers were set to go. At the time of the meeting I had no responsibility for the facility. Because of past work, I knew that at least some of the doors had fire proof cores that contained asbestos. I spoke up and raised the issue. I asked if they had tested the doors. My boss very much wanted the project to move forward and began to voice his disapproval. In an agitated manner he dismissed my concerns and told the manager to go forward with the project. I strongly objected until they agreed to put the project on hold until the doors were all tested. 

After the meeting, my boss invited me into his office and chastised me for both having "higher" standards and for imposing those standards on others. Who did I think I was to be setting standards for others? He demanded to know. I had delayed a project and embarrassed him in a meeting, but I had also prevented the inadvertent release of asbestos particles into the air due to sawing or drilling into those doors. My relationship with this person slowly and steadily spiraled downward from that point and led to me leaving a good position and decent paying job, but I remained the captain of my soul.

This is not about perfection. I lay no such claim as I am clearly a faulty human being not a divine entity.

It is more of a life stance. The leader, the creator, the artist, the builder all must choose not to be the victim of circumstance. My life is not a "reaction" it is rather a chosen "action".

The captain knows that the ocean is unpredictable and unforgiving, beautiful and sometimes deadly but the ocean is also the source of life and container where life is lived.

To be the master of your fate and be the captain of your soul, you must embrace the suffering that comes your way and remain brave, unselfish and dignified in its very presence. Be bowed to God but not to your own circumstances.

Power to Destroy Always Greater than the Power to Create

While we spend much of our time attempting to create what matters most or build upon the things we have invested our love, time or money into; it is none-the-less important to remember that at any point in time, our ability to destroy exceeds our ability to create.


This power dynamic, unfortunately appears to be a universal truth. For any individual or group, the instantaneous capacity to destroy exceeds the instantaneous capacity to create.
It takes at least two people to build a relationship, yet only one to destroy it. Twenty years of good will can be undermined in an afternoon. It's kind of scary when you think about all the implications of this principle. Relationship building and the development of intimacy take time and trust, there really is no short-cut. Once one person in a relationship gives up, for whatever reason a long-term relationship is in deep danger. The power is now completely in the hands of the person willing to destroy the relationship not the person attempting to save it.
If you read the 9-11 Commission report, the most stunning thing is how a group of about 30 people spent two years and about $500,000 to put together and pull-off an event that took 3,000 lives, caused $10 Billion in direct damages, shattered our sense of security and unleashed a decade of war. Look at the imbalance of their effort to destroy and our efforts to restore what was lost.
I am not writing about this topic to depress your senses or call upon your destructive impulses but rather to highlight the challenge that creators face when they begin to make progress and have in-fact empowered themselves. When trying to create, you will face many roadblocks and negative feedback. Do not let impatience or frustration draw out your anger.
When you feel angry, regardless of cause, it is always best to carefully choose your response. You may need to take a breather by going for a run or walk to avoid reacting to the situation.
Anger at its best is a call to energize for self-defense but anger at its worst is reckless lashing out that usually inflicts far more damage to our creative efforts and relationships than it dies to our target.
In other articles where I examined developing a personal vision, the focal point of our creative efforts, it was important to note that creating a vision is choice with consequences. In fact, in order to create, you must accept all of the consequences of your choice.
Let's return to anger, the power to destroy and the creative empowered path.
When angry, it is important to revisit both the long-term results that are encompassed within your vision -and- to examine the values and beliefs which inform your spiritual path. When the impulse to destroy rears its ugly head, it is more important to take a stroll on your spiritual path than it is to force progress or undermine your vision.

Materialism: Salt, Fat, Sugar and Limits

Human-beings naturally consume too much salt, sugar and fat when it is plentiful. Science tells us that these three items were both needed for survival -and- were generally scarce in the natural environment during most of human existence. Therefore, we are genetically designed to detect and enjoy the taste of foods containing salt, sugar or fat to help ensure that we seek and ingest at least the minimal quantities for survival.

The dominant feature of snack food is their content of sugar/salt/fat. Remember the Lay's Potato Chip add, "Bet you can't eat just one"? It is possibly the most truthful add slogan of all time. It is true that once, that salty chip hits your tongue, you do crave more.

What happens when we eat too much sugar, salt or fat? Data suggests that we increase our chances of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and heart attacks if we consume too much of these items amongst other things. This provides good long term reasons not to overindulge in these items and yet our taste buds and cravings make limiting these items a hard thing to do.

Materialism is similar to salt, fat and sugar as a dominant driver in human behavior. If truth is, “what works in the world”, then materialism is partially true. Materialism run amok causes social, spiritual and well-being problems just as too much sugar or fat would cause a health problem.

The partial truth of materialism is similar to the eating of potato chips. The first bit of material wealth does meet our survival needs and provide some security. The next bit brings us some comfort. The bit after that brings us a little luxury and then a little more. After a while there is a disconnection between the desire to have more material wealth and the unintended consequences and limitations of material wealth.

Material wealth can be consumed, invested in the ownership of assets or given away to friends, family or others such as charitable organizations. The government will take its fair share of your material wealth as well. I am not opposed to the accumulation of material wealth. A common quote that is misquoted is "money is the root of all evil" when in fact the truer quote is, "the love of money is the root of all evil".

Materialism raises the accumulation of material wealth above all other things as it tends to assign value only according to direct financial measurements of income and assets. With the great support of advertising, personal attributes are associated with the possession of certain material goods. "Success" is defined by the car you drive, the town you live in or the clothes you wear without any consideration to your sense of happiness, peacefulness or self-fulfillment through creative expression.

The path to building a legacy is a three-fold path as first consideration is given to the focal point of your creative expression, “creating what matters most” and second consideration is given to, living a life that affirms your beliefs and values on a daily basis. These are never separated from but purposefully placed above the third essential ingredient which is earning enough money to support your efforts.

Yoga and Buddha: Connection and Disconnection on Your Path

I have found it interesting that the focus of the two great spiritual practices to come out of India, Buddhist meditation and the practice of Yoga have such a surface level difference in focus.
Suffering and transcendence of suffering are the focal point of much Buddhist meditative practice whereas the focal point of yoga is yoking yourself to the world and your experience. In Buddhism a focus on your ability to disconnect yourself from your personal experience is emphasized. In yoga a focus on fully connecting yourself to your experience and manipulating your experience is emphasized.

I know that there is much in common with both practices from a philosophical and cultural context but they take very different approaches to get to similar destinations. Connection and disconnection is a common theme whether we are compared to a wave in an ocean, temporarily separate but eternally connected or we conduct experiments using posture, breath and focus.
I find Buddhist practice to share more common ground with the practice of the Catholicism that I was raised in than most yogic practice with the exception of Bhakti Yoga. I am not specifically speaking of the Catholic Mass or Liturgy but rather that of devotional practice.
In the past twenty years, as I have worked to find my place in the world and to live each day along a spiritual path, I have softened in my judgment of others and in organized religions and have focused more upon the prayers that connect me to God or the divine nature of the world, a purposeful disconnection from what is occurring here and now.
But I have also purposely connected to the here and now by more directly living by a set of expressed values.

Spiritual Path: Develoment of Personality or Character?

Several of my previous blog topics; an orientation towards solutions, technology connects and disconnects and being of value, have gotten me thinking about a concept from a book I read in 1990, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey. The concept that I was thinking about this week was the difference between character development and personality development.

Covey contended that much of what was going on in the self-improvement field in the 1980's was really oriented towards personality development whereas back in an earlier time in America, people such as Benjamin Franklin espoused character development. Character development's goal is to cultivate a virtuous life and be of service to others. Personality development's goal is to sell yourself to others for personal benefit. Development of both types has benefits in the short term but our spiritual growth demands we follow the basics of character development.

In many ways, the entertainment industry, "Hollywood", is the most successful industry in the United States over the past 100 years. I am not speaking in terms of financial performance here but rather in terms of cultural dominance. There are plenty of industries which have been more profitable, but the entertainment industry has successfully positioned itself on top psychologically, due to its ability to bestow celebrity. It has made celebrity the most desired attribute in our society ahead of even wealth.

Celebrity is an extrapolation of personality development as everyone knows that celebrities have a public "persona" that is different than the actual person and their private life. It is clear with a celebrity that it is the image of the person that is being sold, marketed and the image is what is really attractive to others. It is no wonder that personality development gurus such as Tony Robbins have intertwined their own celebrity with their methods of helping other's develop.

This past October, there were three fatalities during a sweat lodge ceremony being conducted by James Arthur Ray at the Angel Valley Retreat Center in Sedona, Arizona. Mr. Ray was running a "Spiritual Warrior" retreat where participants paid $9,695 per person to spend a long weekend with the self-help guru and author. Mr. Ray gained celebrity through his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live and the Today show. He fled to his home in California while the participants in his Warrior program were still heading to the hospital in Flagstaff. Mr. Ray has been charged with three counts of manslaughter.

I do not know Mr. Ray, what I know about his personality is that he presented himself very well and built a successful business based upon people wanting to spend time with him. What I know about his character is his reaction to illness and death during his ceremony.

I have not sought development from people who are out on the self-promotion tour. I have mostly sought to foster my development from people who live both a principled and accomplished life. I am indeed interested in principles and accomplishments rather than merely one or the other.

Shin-ichi Suzuki, whom I have mentioned in earlier blogs, believed that character was a skill (talent) to be nurtured and developed in others. While Suzuki gained world-wide recognition through the training and development of young musicians, he always saw his primary focus as developing fine human beings. In the books "Nurtured by Love" and "Ability Development from Age Zero", Suzuki writes with deep passion about how teachers and parents can work together to develop a fine character in their children. It will not surprise you that character is best developed in children when adults model values as they work towards results.

I would urge each of you reading this blog to choose to develop your character as you work towards creating results. Do this, even if there is less to show in the short term. When you work hard towards achievement with a process and discipline that respects people and honors values there will be an enduring quality to your accomplishments. You will build yourself as you build your creation and be a full person not a persona.

Peace in an Internal Storm: Creation and Destruction

The holidays and year end create both excitement and disappointment, the weeks are filled with emotional highs and lows. The day after Christmas (I was raised Catholic, so that is our family focal point and tradition) is said to be one of the most depressing days in America. For some, the depression starts before the Holidays and for others it begins the moment that the last present is opened.

For many, the holidays are a stark reminder of the difference between an idealized vision of how our lives should be and the reality of the how we live most days. It is important to note that the holidays merely bring to our consciousness an underlying truth that escapes our attention most of the time. The truth is that the reality of our lives and the envisioned results that we want for ourselves are not the same much of the time.


Our families and friends and our connection or disconnection to them becomes a major part of the fabric of our end of year holiday experience. Aloneness plays tag with loneliness if we are apart from our loved ones. Not only is anxiety in the air, but so is reflection. This is for many a time to build energy into resolutions to change in the coming year.

The challenge here is twofold. On one hand, the difference between current reality and a desired result is empowering. It empowers one through the very tension that is experienced. On the other hand, the emotions that are brought up can be difficult to both feel and endure.

The cycle of creation and destruction of love and loss has been studied deeply by both students and teachers on a spiritual path. While it can be explained simply, whether in Buddhist or Western terms, it is quite another matter to live through it.

How can you remain a fully engaged and compassionate person and not be overwhelmed by both these internal storms?

The person committed to creating must be open to the true difference between reality and desired results, but must build inner strength to function when the awareness of the gap between the two causes pain in the heart. Inner strength comes from being both attached to life and yet detached from our efforts. Some efforts succeed and other efforts fail. Some help us move forward in creating and others take us backwards and yet we are only guaranteed to fail when we cease in our efforts.

Putting forth a good effort, an effort which fully reflects your passion, your values and your creativity, is all that you can control and all that really matters. Paying attention to the results but accepting that the world in which you create lies completely out of your control and only marginally open to your influence. Treating the failure of results as an opportunity to learn and then applying learning tools such as critical thinking and analysis will keep you moving. Even so you will need to rest and rejuvenate and find a peaceful place to do so.

Peace is found at the center of the storm. Peace is found when we both acknowledge the grace we receive every day and accept the eventual loss of every thing we possess or attempt to possess. We move out to create and experience both creation and destruction. We move inward to find peace and experience ourselves.

Build or find a small place or space where you can retreat to during these times and then pay attention to the signs and signals that it is time to go there. When you can find peace alone with yourself you are on the path of building inner strength as well as cultivating the experience of inner peace.

Spiritual Practice Releases You From Reactivity

While there has been hype and mysticism as well as cultural miscommunication, yoga has gained mainstream popularity in the United States because it works. That is, when hatha yoga is practiced people experience benefits.

The benefits of spiritual practice are not limited to yoga nor even alternative paths as all of the great religions have within them traditions and practices that have been handed down through the generations by the the more serious devotees of each religion. The catholic practice of praying the Rosary is an example of such a spiritual practice.

Yoga's roots 5000 years ago in India have given us a body of practices that have been refined over hundreds of generations. Active experimentation has led to the adoption and discarding of elements based upon the their active testing and the observed benefits of each specific practice. The teacher-based lineage of practice playing out over time have presented us with many flavors of yogic practice and in the United States someone interested in yoga has a variety of options.

When doing hatha yoga, the body is manipulated into postures (asanas) and your breathing is manipulated as well. The specific manipulations both stimulate and relax various systems in the bodies as you work muscles, oxygenate blood, massage organs and glands and then relax. An experience is created using just your body and breath. For many this experience is transformative even if only temporarily.

When I say that yoga works, I mean that it transforms one's primary experience from the external to the inner world. It does so by detaching the inner experience from being a mere reaction to the external world and allowing the inner experience to be a more direct experience of yourself in your true natural state of being. Experiencing your own body through your own senses without judgement or reaction is a powerful and surprisingly novel experience for many.

Although yoga is unique in many ways, its capacity to release you from reactivity is not. Reactivity is what happens when a human being (with an ego) struggles for happiness or joy in a challenging if not downright hostile world. It is also a reaction to the suffering that comes from loss of love, of loved ones and your own fears of mortality.

I think it is important to note that a spiritual practice is not just a temporal release from the pressure of the world but rather a true spiritual discipline also builds inner richness and inner strength. Which are keys both happiness and self-empowerment.

Fear is Self Limiting or Self Defeating

Whether it is marriage, a career, a business or school; the fear of failure often leads to behavior which short cuts real success and ultimately leads to either to a stagnant mediocrity or a complete disaster.

Between my first post-college job at International Paper Company and attending graduate school at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), I went to Europe for a five week journey. In the second week of the trip, while riding the bullet train from Venice to Florence, I noticed the headlines of the newspaper of a fellow passenger. The headline declared; "Il Tragedio Spazio". It was January of 1986 and later that day, I would learn more about the explosion which destroyed the space shuttle, "Challenger".

The cause of the shuttle failure was quite simple, hot gas from the engine exhaust had leaked sideways against a fuel tank until the fuel in the tank overheated and the tank exploded. Why the disaster happened is not as straightforward.

The shuttle is a highly engineered system and Morton-Thiokol designed the "O" rings that created seals in the engine exhaust system. It had designed these rings to create a seal and maintain it across a range of temperatures, as specified by NASA. The engineers that designed the system knew that at cold temperatures, the rings lost their ability to create a seal as they became hard and brittle.

In the years before the disaster, NASA had fallen from the eminence it had achieved in the 1960s. The shuttle fleet had been prone to both incessant delays and been perceived by the public as expensive and unnecessary. To reinvigorate its image, NASA opened spots on the shuttle to foreign astronauts and representatives of the public. The January 1986 Challenger launch was going to be broadcast to school children across America as the first "teacher" in space was on board and with all eyes watching, it would show NASA to be the competent and efficient agency it sought to be.

As the weather forecast for the launch window became clear and record cold temperatures were possible, behind the scenes the engineers at Morton-Thiokol began to raise warnings. The investigation would show that NASA, anxious to avoid another "delay", had pressured Morton-Thiokol to sign off on the safety of the launch. Within Morton-Thiokol, there had been pressure applied to the engineers to sign-off as well. The NASA administration's fear of looking bad in the public eye, Morton-Thiokol's fear of angering an important customer and the ripple of fear in saying "no" up the chain of command led to a preventable disaster.

Most "fear" based decisions do not lead to war or disaster but they have negative impacts that are tangible.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, failure and learning go hand in hand. Yet we treat failure as something to be avoided at all costs. Those who can not accept their own failures and learn from them are condemned to mediocrity. What should take weeks, takes years or never happens.

Math is an area where I have always been somewhat proficient. Although I struggled with calculus in college as it was boring memorization, I started using statistics as a quality professional and obtained an MS in Applied Statistics. Years later, I ended up teaching three different math and statistics courses at SUNY Empire State College.

My "adult" math students were typically full of fear regarding math. Many had failed math in either high school or earlier in college. Many only took my course because they needed one math course to graduate. After years of teaching in this environment, I realized that I could really help my students, if I could diagnose their specific math deficiencies early in the course. The quickest way to do this was to have the students attempt to solve problems of various difficulties and show their work. No matter how I explained the reasoning and that the correctness of their answers had no bearing on their course grade, there were a handful of students who simply would not do the exercise. They were not willing to expose their deficiencies to me even if it interfered with their ultimate success. Nearly all of these students did not complete the course. The projection of our fears stops not only stops reasonable risk-taking but also stops much growth and learning.

One final aspect of fear in its full expression is cheating. Whether in sports, politics, academics, business or relationships; individuals who let their fear of failure overwhelm their good judgement are incredibly prone to cheating.

When the cheating is ultimately exposed to the public eye as regularly happens, the failure they hoped to avoid is often multiplied ten or a hundred fold. What is often most apparent to outsiders is the sheer stupidity of the "cheaters" actions as the potential rewards of cheating are grossly outweighed by the downside implications of their actions.

In a week or a month, the cheater destroys their reputation, which has often taken decades to build. If others, have been complicit, their individual and corporate identities are quite often destroyed as well.

None of us are immune to fear of failure and I certainly am not. When you sense that your fears are exerting their influence by either limiting your deep desire to act or keeping you yoked to a spirit and wellness destroying situation, you need to step back and get some perspective.

Finding a wise counsel or someone who can be a true sounding board is key. A "true" sounding board will neither let you plunge off a cliff nor will they tolerate excuses that let you off the hook for being a responsible, moral and ethical adult.

I love the Ridley Scott movie, The Kingdom of Heaven, which tells the story of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and the legendary Muslim General Salahadin who battle for control of Jerusalem at the end of the first crusade. In the movie there is a discussion between, Balian, the new Baron of Ibelin and one of the Knights of Hospitaller, a religious and military order.

Balian is questioning what he sees occurring and is trying to be a good follower of Christ. The Hospitaller Knight has spent many years in Jerusalem defending the city and helping the poor and distressed pilgrims who go there. The knight advises him as follows:
"Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness, what god desires, is here [in your head] and here [in your heart] and by what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man - or not."

Fear of failure not severe moral defect, is the reason many of us fail to take "right action". Courage is ultimately about taking action in spite of our fears not the elimination of fear. Living a meaningful life, also requires living a life of goodness and each and every day is an opportunity to express your values and beliefs or deny them.

As Dr. Shin-Ichi Suzuki (see my earlier blog) reminds us, the only difference between the capabilities of our strong hand and our weak hand is daily attention and practice. Ten years from now, with daily attention and practice, you will have made amazing progress in terms of both overcoming fear and living a life of goodness if you work this path.

You will have also shed much of your self-limiting behavior and created the capability and opportunity to create something of meaning in your life.

When Vision and Spiritual Path Cross: Ethics and Morality

For those people fortunate enough to find a profession or career that fulfills both their pragmatic need to earn a living and also an opportunity to fulfill their creative vision, going to work each day can become an enriching experience.

In the late eighties through mid-nineties, I was doing road warrior corporate consulting. We were primarily in the field of technological and cultural change in support of continuous improvement. On the technology end, we worked in the areas of Total Quality Management (TQM) and World Class Manufacturing (WCM) but to create the culture to support the changes in decision-making and behavior, we strongly worked on leadership development and team building. We purchased a library of corporate training videos to make points, provide insights and entertain. In this library were several Tom Peters video productions.

Tom (whom I only met once on a flight from O'Hare to Hartford, CT) was a former McKinsey consultant turned author/columnist. His independent career took off when he co-authored the business best seller, "In Search of Excellence" in the early 1980s with Bob Waterman. Mr. Peters gave high energy presentations featuring interviews with business leaders who were doing astounding things. Two leaders that Mr. Peters featured, who profoundly struck my attention were Ralph Stayer, then owner of Johnsonville Sausage and Harry Quadracci, the founder and owner of Quad Graphics.

Both of these business owners had gotten far better results by giving up much of their personal control of the day-to-day operations of their companies to teams of employees. They both focused upon education, personal growth and accountability for obtaining those results. This combination of nurturing human development and holding clear accountability for results is still profound.

Mr. Stayer was fairly philosophical, he said something like this; "never work for someone who has stopped learning and from whom you can not learn something."

Mr. Quadracci was a high energy character and he said it like it was. He said in the video something to this effect. "Have fun and work hard. Whatever you do, be professional about it and never do business with someone you do not like. If you do not like someone, it is because you do not trust them. Sooner or later untrustworthy people will screw you over."

I was lucky enough in the early 1990s to have attended an intimate business dinner with Ralph Stayer, but I never met Harry Quadracci. Their shared belief in people and their potential for both growth and accountability were in stark contrast to a few organizations that I had worked with and for.

One of the toughest situations you will face in your work life is to work for a boss or have a customer that is dishonest or asks you to be dishonest. Even a job that is otherwise fulfilling can become a spirit crushing experience when you must chose between being ethical or moral and doing what is requested by someone who can punish you directly or indirectly.

Ethics and morality when applied require one to take right action and accept the consequences of right action. Most professions have a more codified set of ethics to illuminate specific issues and consequences commonly encountered in that profession. Ethics requires one to honor the spirit of an agreement/requirement and not just the letter of an agreement/requirement. Morality, while more a function one's specific religious upbringing than what one may learn in a civics class, requires one to take personal responsibility for the harm that one does to themselves as well as other people and property.

True legacy requires both ethical and moral action. It raises the bar but ensures the quality and longevity of your creative expression. Many leaders who accomplish results that are transient and quickly disappear have failed in their need to be ethical or moral. In getting to the desired result, they have sown the seeds of the very failure of the result they have sought.

A true historic survey shows that "the ends" never truly justify "the means" unless you give value only to momentary victory and temporal victors. While ethical and moral behavior may not be needed to destroy or defeat, they are needed to build and to govern and during times of change and transition, applied ethics and morality act as a glue to keep an organization or society cohesive and functioning.

When purposefully creating your envisioned product, that chosen and desired result, it is key to remember that the truth will either support you or it will wear at you. Your progress along your unique spiritual path will either empower your ability to create or it will undermine and diminish it.

Spiritual Path: The Real Meaning of Affirmation

During the past two decades or so, small books of daily affirmations became popular. Saturday Night Live lampooned these affirmations with the Stuart Smalley character played by Al Fraken. The term affirmation has been subjugated to the self-esteem and meditation movement for too long.

When you make a purposeful choice to follow a spiritual path, the term affirmation takes upon itself a very different meaning. Affirmation is transformed from something you tell yourself to how you live when you begin to purposely affirm your spiritual path through your actions each and every day.

While the destination you seek will be a reflection of your specific beliefs and the values you choose to affirm, your progress down the path is a direct function of daily practice.

Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, founder of the Suzuki School of Talent Education had a very simple example he used to demonstrate the value of daily practice. In his book, Nurtured by Love, he spoke of pointing out to his students that they now possessed a strong hand. (For most of us it's the right hand). Then he reminded them that on the day they were born, both of their hands had equal potential and equal ability.

He continued on, that each and every day they had paid more attention to their strong hand and practiced using it to do things requiring both skill and strength. They had developed their strong hand through simple actions and efforts on a daily basis. Today both hands still contained the same potential but the strong hand now had much greater ability as a result of thousands of days of focus and practice.

Although the American branch of Dr. Suzuki's school has focused almost exclusively upon music, the Japanese branch took upon itself a much broader curriculum including mathematics and more importantly character development. To read more about Dr. Suzuki and his philosophy, methods and accomplishments follow this link. http://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki/

I will use more examples from Dr. Suzuki in future blogs as I have found his compassion, wisdom and methods to be astoundingly effective in the transformation of individuals and development of true mastery.

One of the simplest decisions that I needed to make for myself was that I would not allow external circumstances or pressures to define how I express my values. Part of my spiritual path was to de-link my experience of external events from my internal sense of self. The de-linking was the hard part and it took years and it took help.

I attended a meeting a few months ago where I was subjected to the angry venting of frustration and some inappropriate statements were made by the frustrated person in front of a group of a half dozen people.

I did not react to the venting nor the inappropriateness of the comments, however I did respond by acknowledging the other person's frustration and then walking back through the process we had all followed together. I did not defend myself. I did not point out the inappropriateness of the comments. I did not allow this other person to dump their anger, frustration and inappropriateness into my soul.

If I have done my best, then I am at peace with the resulting successes or failures. I do not need to react to negative comments made by other people. If I choose to respond rather than react, then I have just a little bit of a chance of checking in to my values and affirming them. You will find no perfection with me but you will find someone committed to being at peace with myself and working on it every single day with small, medium and on rare occaision large acts of values affirmation.