Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week:
Let’s run a thought experiment…
Imagine a world in which organizations are typified by selfishness, manipulation, secrecy, and a single-minded focus on winning.
Winning at all costs is the key indicator of success.
Imagine that members of such organizations are characterized by gaming the system, cheating is normalized, the end justifies the means as is treating people in the system as dispensable and replaceable, leading to distrust, anxiety, self-absorption, fear, burnout, and feelings of abuse.
For the sake of contrast, now imagine another world in which organizations are typified by the values they embody, character mattering, and winning honorably both on and off the field, through collaboration, virtuousness, vitality, and meaningfulness.
Human well-being and growing the whole person and team are key indicators of success.
Imagine that members of such organizations are characterized by trustworthiness, resilience, wisdom, humility, and high levels of positive energy. Social relationships and interactions are characterized by compassion, loyalty, honesty, respect, and forgiveness with theories of excellence exploring, transcendence, positive deviance, extraordinary performance, and positive spirals of flourishing.
So, which definition of success do you think most of us are striving for?
How about you?
When it comes to activities outside of family, my first love is martial arts.
I have been practicing and teaching traditional martial arts focused on self-development through self-defense for the last 43 years teaching at UC San Diego. Here, I have worked on creating a community of practice, where the biggest opponent at the end of the day, is not out there, but in here.
It is yourself.
Those you train with are there to help you grow, and yes even the instructors are lifelong learners, honing their craft and developing themselves and others through the student/teacher relationship.
Winning the national championships in traditional karate several times and that “success” allowing me to compete and place in the top three in the world, representing the United States in two world championships and the Pan American games is interestingly not the high-water mark of my training.
It’s growing people who understand the importance of character.
Here there is an ascendancy of winning from best to worst:
- Honorable Win
- Honorable Loss
- Dishonorable Win
- Dishonorable Loss
An adage in martial arts is “On time is late”
Why?
When you are late you are prone to make an excuse or tell a small (white) lie to save face.
Telling a small lie is the gateway drug to telling a bigger lie which can make cheating feel justified and next thing you know you have normalized, “if you are not cheating, you are not trying!”
Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Our self-talk is a powerful determinant of who we are and what we become.
Stories are powerful, and the most powerful stories are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Teach your children & parents well, do good work, and see you next week!
Love,
Neville
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And so philanthropy means love of humanity.
That’s really who a philanthropist is – one who acts out of love for humankind.
Happy Soul Food Friday! 