Wk4 Reading – Art of Possibility [9-12]
What a great read this week! The Zander’s manage to remind us about positive things in such a delightful manner. This week we cover passion, apologies, blame and a host of other heavier type aspects of discussion but shared with stories and a refreshing view.
The start of this weeks reading grabbed me – mainly because the story about Some things are just better done in person was one of my childhood memories as well! Great to see some thing echoed throughout the world. It really covers engaging others with the possibilities. They key trait to this though is not cajoling them into joining in, but by opening up the doors to share the way. One of the stories Ben shares is great in the way it unfolded – the trip to London to get a company on board with his companies desire for sponsorship turning into Ben enrolling into their plan for education!
This truly comes up a lot in education, especially as we move up into possibly more administrative/political arenas – you cannot always insist on the way things may be carried out – but by really being committed to what we do we can get others on board supportively more readily! Ben’s school tale in London is the best example of this – awesome things happen if we share our passion and share possibilities with others.
We move on later to discuss being the board – seeing ourselves as the framework for all that happens in our lives. This was a great twist – as almost universally I think folks view themselves as pieces on the board – moving around in response to stimuli and such. What a refreshing change to take the active role and understand that our life itself is the stage upon which all things happen instead of just reacting to the moves of others.
They also cover the whole aspect of blame – of apologizing – but in a refreshing manner that is also a different approach than we may do out of habit. It is not to say that others have no fault in things that go wrong – but that a kernel of all faults lay within us as well. What could we have done differently to avoided getting into the conflicting situation? Making the act of apologizing not being a sign of our remorse over an action, but instead taking it as responsibility in our part. These are all great things to remember when we interact with others throughout our lives and open up doors of possibility!
I am grateful for the chance I’ve had this month to read The Art of Possibility – it is not the normal sort of book I delve into as I am an avid non-fiction fan in the form of history books. This pushed me outside of that and was a wonderfully refreshing reminder of things we can keep in mind in OUR lives and enjoy more satisfaction.
Response:
@ Lionel
I, too, had kind of an eye opener with this book as well. At the beginning, I just really could not get into it, but as I worked my way through it, I saw the different aspects that the book was trying to impart on us. Assigning blame tends to be something that most of us fall into easily, especially when the mistake also affects us. Sadly, this is another one of those things we are taught early on as we are shown that we have to be competitive with one another. It is amazing just how easily we can fall back into this situation as it has become habit to us the older we are. I found these four chapters to be very insightful and I see from your post here that you pretty much had the exact same experience as I did when I read them. Very insightful post, Lionel! I am glad you enjoyed the journey through the book.
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