Closing the Gap: Arete

Based on the first episode, I had some assumptions that listening to and experiencing this conversation would be motivating and transformational...and I was right! One focus was the Greek notion of Arête - translated by Brian Johnson as striving to live at your highest potential moment to moment to moment.

Brian points out that in the 21st Century business and capitalism is the air we breathe. Some living questions that have guided Brian: How can we find ourselves in each moment and realize there is no separation between personal life and business? What do we do during the day to bring in money for ourselves and create value for others? Who am I, what am a passionate about, and how can I get paid to do this?

Too few people in our society believe that it is possible to live a life we want. Instead, the norm has been to follow a mechanism. Duff notes that it takes courage just to ask the questions  like: What do I want and What can I give? The beautiful thing is as soon as we ask, our brain starts working on it. We are not taught to ask what do we want, what can we do? Happily, I can say this is changing for me and many others!

If we can understand enough of ourselves and our strengths and gifts...then we can effectively align our personal values with our professional work and passion. What I am thankful for and humbled by is my good fortune and ability to follow my passion to an extent. Perhaps I will expand on this at some point, but just know I am extremely grateful for this current situation.

We have to continually ask these questions...and show up and live them each moment. This is exactly where I am now, and have been for a while. The way we can live these questions seem to get subtler and more complex while getting simpler at the same time. Though actively holding these questions when the personal identity is difficult to define can be awkward and challenging.

Personal relevant questions for me are also: What do I want to create in my organization/community? What unique impact can I make? What can we move towards? How can we reach our highest collective potential? How can we grow our capacity?

When we are actively seeking alignment in personal and collective realms, our work and lives take on different energy and are often very inspiring.

Relating conscious business to the Hero's Journey...we are all faced with the world and its challenges and needs. For those of us who realize that we are not separate from the world, we are in for an emotional ride and a seemingly lonely challenge at times. So when we realize that our self discovery and livelihood depends on that of the world, what can we create?

My work is to discover what I am capable of...to devote my heart-energy to rediscovering this until I know what it is and can therefore share it with the world. I expect this to never end. My mission: to reduce the gap of what I am doing and what I am capable of, to live to my fullest.

There is so much we could go into here, but I have to also mention the genius zone.

Theo inquires, can we create a society where everyone can live in their genius zone? Can you personally? Can I? Duff made the great point, that most of us listening to the podcast can potentially live out our genius to a pretty full extent. We have multiple options! If we had a society where leaders are truly living our genius, and were taught the moment we are born to discover who we are and what we are here to do...what would that be like? How can we move towards that? I think that connecting individuals and organizations that are both challenging and supporting each other to self actualize is a key...and this can happen when individuals are relating from a variety of developmental levels and typologies.  

I think these questions lead nicely into Holacracy which offers just the space and structure for individuals and organizations to do so! Thanks for your contribution Duff, Brian, and Theo!