4. Two Fundamental Truths
• No objectivity
• Humans are Irrational
• How does this apply to business or
life?
5. You Are What You Think
“If your mind is empty, it is always ready
for anything, it is open to everything. In
the beginner's mind there are many
possibilities, but in the expert's mind
there are few. ”
― Shunryu Suzuki
6. Living In The Present
• Can I change the past?
– (Spoiler alert: No)
• Should I worry about the future?
– (Define “worry”)
• How can I be mindful of the present?
• Directed versus peripheral vision
7. Living In The Present
• Time (through experience) shapes who we
are
• The stories we tell about ourselves
represent the past, which we think is fixed
and permanent but is also false
• We constantly curate a history for
ourselves that is very nice but is also
wildly subjective and not at all true
8. You Are What You Think
• The Universe is indifferent
• Most things are not good or bad, but
rather just are
• The foot feels the foot when it feels the
ground
9. The Tragedy of Belief
“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and
west; people create distinctions out of their
own minds and then believe them to be true.”
• Everything you know is a relative construct
• Believing that something is fated to happen
rejects all fundamental truth about the world
10. Relative Truth and The Work
• Living in the moment allows tasks of
great scope to become manageable
• Don’t see what has been done, only see
what has yet to be done
• “The jug fills drop by drop.”
11. Things Will Go Wrong
• The only mistakes you can make are:
– Not doing what you know best to do
– Not finishing what you start
– Not starting or acting
12. What is The Work?
• The Work is what you do
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring
comes and the grass grows by itself.” -
Lao Tzu
• Comparison is the thief of joy (knowing
yourself vs. knowing others = Perfect
Confidence)
• Wisdom via fruit salad?
13. The Truth of Impermanence
• Nothing lasts
• Everything changes
• The truth of The Work is in doing The
Work, and nothing else
14. How to face adversity?
Make hard choices?
“If you understand, things are just as they
are;
if you do not understand, things are just as
they are.”
15. How to be what you want to be
when you grow up? What about the
future?
“The masters in the art of living make little
distinction between their work and their
play, their labor and their leisure, their
minds and their bodies, their education and
their recreation, their love and their religion.
They hardly know which is which. They
simply pursue their vision of excellence in
whatever they do, leaving others to decide
whether they are working or playing. To
them they are always doing both.”
16. What about my plans? Am I not
destined for greatness?
"Before Enlightenment: chop wood, carry
water.
After Enlightenment: chop wood, carry
water."
17. Gust Avrakotos and
the Tale of the Zen Master
“There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets
a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how
wonderful. The boy got a horse!" And the Zen master
says, "we'll see."
Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks
his leg, and everyone in the village says, "How
terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see."
Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have
to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his
leg’s all messed up. And everybody in the village
says, "How wonderful.”
Notes de l'éditeur
You can’t change the past, you can only deal with the things you can actively do something about.You can plan for the future and do stuff right now that creates the kind of future you desire, but worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet is silly – an infinite number of unpredictable futures awaits
I say “tree” and we both think of trees but we think of different trees.
Stories: Clients unable to see, voting as irrational action, Delegating
If you think you are doomed to failure, then you are. If you think you are destined or great success, then that is true instead. This is not about the power of positive thinking or some bit of rah-rah speech, but rather it is about how you see the world and how that affects every decision you make and interaction you have. Be humble but confident.(Go back to money story, “knowing enough to be dangerous”)Perfect example of beginner’s mind – my 2 year old daughter
You can’t change the past, you can only deal with the things you can actively do something about.You can plan for the future and do stuff right now that creates the kind of future you desire, but worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet is silly – an infinite number of unpredictable futures awaits, because everything is a giant system
Who we are now seems fleeting and fragile, while who we were – whether as a business or an individual – seems more realThis is true about you as a leader, you as a company, you as a person. What is the biggest example of self-curation in human society today? Facebook.
To be, rather than to seem
Back to semiotics
Yesterday’s home runs don’t win tomorrow’s games – Zen Master Babe Ruth
Lao Tzu is the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step guy. He also said things like “He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.” Best line: “Life is like stepping foot into a boat that is about to go out to sea and sink.”Perfect Confidence is not knowing the right answer all the time, and it isn’t knowing what will happen, it is knowing yourself in the moment
Steve Jobs didn’t get this until he was dying
What you think about something ultimately doesn’t matter. Something is true whether you think it is true or not.
Put your excellence, your mindfulness, your passion, your purpose into everything you do, from the big tasks to the small, and you will create the world you want from your mind and thoughts. Do one thing at a time