Wk 4 Reponse to Jen Kubeczko's Post

Jen Posted:

Benjamin Zander’s Art of Possibility has filled me with enthusiasm and new vision for being a quality leader. He has this to say in Chapter 10: “We often use reward and punishment to regulate accountability – the carrot and the stick… Apportioning blame works well enough to keep order in a relatively homogeneous society that boasts commonly accepted values and where everyone is enrolled in playing his part. It appeals to our instinctive sense of fairness. However, its effectiveness is likely to be circumscribed in communities of divergent cultures and widely varied resources.”
Wow. WOW. So that’s perhaps why I loved living in Japan so much. It was ordered. I knew my role, and we all worked together, “enrolled” in our efforts to support the community and the country by succeeding in our places. America is not homogeneous. Not even close. Were we ever? That’s a good research topic. But, I have strayed. Back to the reading: Instead of being a piece of a game such as chess, Zander says to be the board itself, the “framework for the game of life around you.” (p. 146) Yes! Now being the board gives you the “power to transform your experience of any unwanted condition into one with which you care to live.” Keep in mind he says “your experience and not the condition itself.”
The action of the game, the point is that you now make room for “all the possible moves.”
Think on THAT people.

I replied:

Hey Jen great post! Something that occurred to me as I read your post is the term “rat race”. This is used to describe the quest in society to try to make it to the top of your field. While I have no problems with achievement, and think it is a normal and healthy thing to try to better ones self, ponder the other implication of the “rat race”. Rats race in a maze. A path that you must follow. Only the right choices will lead you out, an you have to do them faster than everyone else.
Well, what if you choose not to race? What if you decide there is another way and don’t want to play that game. I think this is what Chapter 10 is all about.
I like this book.