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.
Showing posts with label suzuki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suzuki. Show all posts
Monday, February 8, 2010
Monday, September 28, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Searching For Wisdom at the Source: Character & Talent
In the mid 1990s, I began a more rigorous and purposeful search for wisdom. My search led me in two different directions. One direction was the research being done in the areas of human effectiveness, happiness and fulfillment. I will discuss this research in another post. The other was looking at the words and work of a handful of renowned experts who were still making contributions in their 70s, 80s and 90s. I wanted to learn from people with real experiential wisdom.
My criteria for the list was three fold:
1) exceptional professional contribution in an area of interest to me.
2) age 70 or older
3) availability of writing or interviews where the person discussed both their career and "living their life".
Some of the people on my short list are:
Shinichi Suzuki creator of the Suzuki method of talent education and the Suzuki School in Matsumoto, Japan
Margaret Mead, ground-breaking Anthropologist
W. Edwards Deming, Statistician and Quality Management expert
R. Buckminster Fuller, Architect and designer
Joseph Campbell, Teacher and Mythologist
Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Founder of the Sisters of Mercy
While I will not discuss my entire list nor even everyone I've just mentioned above in this blog, I will continue to incorporate these elders into both my sense of wisdom and the wisdom in this blog on a regular basis.
In exploring options for music lessons for my children, I went from superficial to deep knowledge of Dr. Shin-ichi Suzuki. While Dr. Suzuki (now deceased) is best known for his impact on music education, his work encompassed a new view of education, a new definition of talent and a deep compassion for children and their potential. He developed a parent-child-teacher model that is hard work for the parent, but defines supportive roles for everyone involved in a child's education, that is often lacking in our education system.
Dr. Suzuki's definition of talent was remarkable along two different planes of thought. First was his perspective that talent (the ability to produce a proper and beautiful result) was not something you were "born" with but rather it was something that could be nurtured and developed.
Whether the arts, athletics or academic performance we all too often confuse what is easy to master by a specific individual with talent and what is difficult to master by an individual with lack of talent. This was part of how Dr. Suzuki developed a system which created "world class" musicians at remarkably young ages.
The second plane of thought that was enlightening was the areas to which talent education could be applied and therefore expanded what was considered to be "talent". Dr. Suzuki specifically defined character as a talent which could be nurtured and developed.
His methods not only address learning the correct way to do something but also the way to unlearn incorrect methods or behaviors. When it comes to character development, unlearning improper behavior is often the thorny sticking point. In the United States there is a huge difference between knowing what is "right" or "wrong" and rigorously applying that understanding to our own behavior. It is easy to do the "right" thing when there are no adverse consequences to doing so.
A person, who handles things well in a supportive environment, may or may not possess fine character. That which is most needed by our society though is people who do the "right" thing when it is difficult to do so. Many business and political leaders in the past decade or so have squandered their opportunity to make a difference and their reputations due to failures in their character rather than in their intellect or abilities.
South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford and New York Governor, Elliot Spitzer both damaged their reputations and families when they seemingly had incredible opportunities to impact the future of their respective states and the possibly the nation. Whether adultery, tax evasion or accepting bribes many of our leaders have failed to develop character in the ways that they have developed other skills and talents.
The Legacy Path, choosing and creating your personal legacy, does not require perfection, but it does require acknowledging ones mistakes and learning from them. One must not distance themselves from the negative feedback or the consequences of their failures. The roots of learning and developing character come from making small mistakes and correcting them no matter how embarrassing or painful. The talent of character comes from daily practice of values within a spiritual path guided by a set of beliefs.
There is a Jesuit motto that I often use; "repetitio est mater estudiorum" or "repetition is the mother of learning". I have added my own corollary to this; "Suffering is the Father of Learning". The real question for us becomes not, will we develop character, but rather how much pain must we endure before we practice the restraint that character demands.
The exercise of restraint to facilitate more powerful and more meaningful action, the acknowledgement of one’s mistakes and failures based on an internal compass that is more sensitive than societies accepted norms and the ability to accept failure with humility and forgiveness and try again without forgetting are key parts of developing the talent of character.
As Dr. Suzuki often said when the musical talents of his students received applause and recognition. The goal of education in my school is not to produce fine musicians but rather fine human beings. Imagine how much greater the impact upon our organizations, institutions and society when those who are highly skilled in performance ability are also highly skilled in personal character.
My criteria for the list was three fold:
1) exceptional professional contribution in an area of interest to me.
2) age 70 or older
3) availability of writing or interviews where the person discussed both their career and "living their life".
Some of the people on my short list are:
Shinichi Suzuki creator of the Suzuki method of talent education and the Suzuki School in Matsumoto, Japan
Margaret Mead, ground-breaking Anthropologist
W. Edwards Deming, Statistician and Quality Management expert
R. Buckminster Fuller, Architect and designer
Joseph Campbell, Teacher and Mythologist
Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Founder of the Sisters of Mercy
While I will not discuss my entire list nor even everyone I've just mentioned above in this blog, I will continue to incorporate these elders into both my sense of wisdom and the wisdom in this blog on a regular basis.
In exploring options for music lessons for my children, I went from superficial to deep knowledge of Dr. Shin-ichi Suzuki. While Dr. Suzuki (now deceased) is best known for his impact on music education, his work encompassed a new view of education, a new definition of talent and a deep compassion for children and their potential. He developed a parent-child-teacher model that is hard work for the parent, but defines supportive roles for everyone involved in a child's education, that is often lacking in our education system.
Dr. Suzuki's definition of talent was remarkable along two different planes of thought. First was his perspective that talent (the ability to produce a proper and beautiful result) was not something you were "born" with but rather it was something that could be nurtured and developed.
Whether the arts, athletics or academic performance we all too often confuse what is easy to master by a specific individual with talent and what is difficult to master by an individual with lack of talent. This was part of how Dr. Suzuki developed a system which created "world class" musicians at remarkably young ages.
The second plane of thought that was enlightening was the areas to which talent education could be applied and therefore expanded what was considered to be "talent". Dr. Suzuki specifically defined character as a talent which could be nurtured and developed.
His methods not only address learning the correct way to do something but also the way to unlearn incorrect methods or behaviors. When it comes to character development, unlearning improper behavior is often the thorny sticking point. In the United States there is a huge difference between knowing what is "right" or "wrong" and rigorously applying that understanding to our own behavior. It is easy to do the "right" thing when there are no adverse consequences to doing so.
A person, who handles things well in a supportive environment, may or may not possess fine character. That which is most needed by our society though is people who do the "right" thing when it is difficult to do so. Many business and political leaders in the past decade or so have squandered their opportunity to make a difference and their reputations due to failures in their character rather than in their intellect or abilities.
South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford and New York Governor, Elliot Spitzer both damaged their reputations and families when they seemingly had incredible opportunities to impact the future of their respective states and the possibly the nation. Whether adultery, tax evasion or accepting bribes many of our leaders have failed to develop character in the ways that they have developed other skills and talents.
The Legacy Path, choosing and creating your personal legacy, does not require perfection, but it does require acknowledging ones mistakes and learning from them. One must not distance themselves from the negative feedback or the consequences of their failures. The roots of learning and developing character come from making small mistakes and correcting them no matter how embarrassing or painful. The talent of character comes from daily practice of values within a spiritual path guided by a set of beliefs.
There is a Jesuit motto that I often use; "repetitio est mater estudiorum" or "repetition is the mother of learning". I have added my own corollary to this; "Suffering is the Father of Learning". The real question for us becomes not, will we develop character, but rather how much pain must we endure before we practice the restraint that character demands.
The exercise of restraint to facilitate more powerful and more meaningful action, the acknowledgement of one’s mistakes and failures based on an internal compass that is more sensitive than societies accepted norms and the ability to accept failure with humility and forgiveness and try again without forgetting are key parts of developing the talent of character.
As Dr. Suzuki often said when the musical talents of his students received applause and recognition. The goal of education in my school is not to produce fine musicians but rather fine human beings. Imagine how much greater the impact upon our organizations, institutions and society when those who are highly skilled in performance ability are also highly skilled in personal character.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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.
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.
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