My stumbling - immune to the dice roll of fortune
I’m slowly learning the importance of not allowing my emotions to get too high because that means they can swing just as low. There’s a lot of wisdom in the idea of keeping an even “keel.” Of keeping a steady state.
I admit, this past week an exciting opportunity was within grasp… and it vanished. Poof!
It’s fun to have things line up and get the instant gratification of winning a big job or maybe getting a deal inked to increase the success of the business in one big leap. These results or successes are outside of one’s control.
Business just like life does not and will not always be smooth or land in our favor. Sometimes people will even outright LIE!
Why don’t people do what they say they are going to do?
I need to constantly remind myself: we live in a fallen world. People are people. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself in Meditations: “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly.... “[referring to the outside world NOT our team]” Marcus Aurelius never allowed his scarce energy to be wasted on the disappointment of people. Hope for the best but brush off the inevitable disappointment of people.
Getting through dips. Making the main thing the main thing. That’s what the greats do. Think Marcus Aurelius, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., Florence Nightingale, Fredrick Douglass, Winston Churchill, Viktor Frankl, George Marshall, Beethoven and many more.
The greats show up regardless of the outcomes. It’s about the work and doing the work. Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius’s adopted father & mentor, writes, “self-reliance and indisputable immunity to the dice rolls of fortune”. The greats are all about the process. “Immune” to the outcome. It’s nice when the outcomes are in our favor but that does not affect the effort or the process for the greats.
The obsessive focus of becoming and doing one’s best.
It’s a humbling reminder of how Viktor Frankl REALLY felt before he poured his soul into his world altering teachings after the Holocaust. He revealed to his friends:
I am unspeakably tired, unspeakably sad, unspeakably lonely... In the camp, you really believed you had reached the low point of life - and then, when you came back, you were forced to see that things had not lasted, everything that had sustained you had been destroyed, that at the time when you have become human again, you could sink into an even more bottomless suffering.
Frankl pushed through rock bottom. I cannot fathom the darkness he was feeling when he wrote the above. He said YES to life. He said YES to doing his work. He said YES to serve those around him. Frankl had the discipline and resolve to persist to share his gifts with the world.
Frankl is an extreme example of pushing through but it gives so much perspective to the dips of business. Maybe the dip(s) we are facing are not as bad as they feel.
The dice will not always roll on double sixes. The roll of the dice is not why we are here. It’s great when the dice land in our favor but the focus is on the process and the work itself. It’s the act of showing up give our best. That’s the real victory.
I am on my way back from VA where I celebrated Thanksgiving with family. I had a solid week to reflect on the year of 2022. I am so very grateful for us being on this journey together.
There will undoubtedly be many dips ahead but also many days of cheering each other on building an organization of excellence TOGETHER.
Day by day. Step by step. Brick by brick.