The answer: Go deep and hold the paradoxes.

This wisdom comes from Philosopher Peter Koestenbaum, who works with business leaders trying to lead more effectively. In an article “Do You Have the Will to Lead? in February’s issue of Fast Company (here is the full article), Koestenbaum proposes you must answer the deep questions inside.

Philosopher Peter Koestenbaum poses the truly big questions: How do we act when risks seem overwhelming? What does it mean to be a successful human being?
His agenda: to apply the power of philosophy to the big question of the day — how to reconcile the often-brutal realities of business with basic human values — and to create a new language of effective leadership. “Unless the distant goals of meaning, greatness, and destiny are addressed,” Koestenbaum insists, “we can’t make an intelligent decision about what to do tomorrow morning — much less set strategy for a company or for a human life. Nothing is more practical than for people to deepen themselves. The more you understand the human condition, the more effective you are as a businessperson. Human depth makes business sense.” 

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This post was originally created in December 2006.  It is re-posted here by popular demand.

Disquiet and the Holidays

Alister Sim as Scrooge
1951
www.cedmagic.com

I want to just go to an island without colored light-strings, department store carols, or the TV screaming at me to buy stuff at 1am for the best deals. I don’t want to watch all my favorite shows get mushy and sugary with fake snow and jingle bells in their soundtracks.

I actually seem angry when I daydream about Christmases past. I can’t seem to connect to anything good about it at all. So strange! I remember last Christmas when I was singing carols, buying Starbucks for strangers and loving every ritual and icon. What’s wrong with me?

Have you ever felt that way? Felt totally out of step with where everyone else seemed to be? Like the whole world was happy and you weren’t?

After working with my Disquietâ„¢ for years now, I recognize what is happening and know what to do. But in holidays past, I was confused and worried. And that only added about a ton of weight to an already overwhelming load of unease.

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A friend sent me this. It is a gift of great wisdom and relevant to working with the Disquiet. I thought it appropriate to share in its entirety at Thanksgiving. Jose Stevens is a healer, shaman and teacher.

The Human ToolBox
by Jose Stevens

The human experience comes with a secret toolbox preloaded with three exceptional tools for healing and accelerating growth. These tools are user friendly and quite ordinary but are often overlooked as being simplistic and not respectable, especially in the world of science and particularly in the field of Western Psychology. Even those who know about the tools tend to misinterpret them or fail to understand their true significance. So here in this article we are going to focus on these three tools and explore the territory covered by each.

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Jean Browman, at Happy Monk, posted an article that caught my eye after she sent me the link (Thanks Jean!). She is kicking off an important discussion that I want to grow here as well. So I posted part of her article below and threw in my 2 cents. I’d like your thoughts as well.

At Home In the Universe

Like all of my [Jean's] posts, this one is presented as food for thought, and hopefully to start a conversation. Does this picture resonate with you at all? For instance, have you ever felt you looked at things differently from other people…that a part of you was alone in the universe? If so, what was your reaction? Were you frightened… depressed… exhilarated… lonely? What did you do?

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My client was really struggling with feeling lost in his life. A senior executive, he had a successful career, healthy family, a huge house in the country, took vacations…he had all that comes with the good life. The American Dream. And he felt absolutely dead inside. A zombie.

If you read my site you will learn about a particular aspect of Disquiet: one which emerges when someone is at the top of their game, has all the trappings of having made it, and yet, does not feel connected to that success.

Often they feel nothing, dead inside. They have long forgotten why they worked so hard to get what they dreamed of and now feel no sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. I have found this theme among many of my clients. I call it the Empty Success Syndromeâ„¢.

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I am re-posting this earlier article because this is such a good resouce for men with Disquiet. It is now standard issue for my clients.

A book I highly recommend for understanding and working with the Disquiet is Thomas Moore’s latest book, “The Dark Nights of the Soul, a Guide to Finding Your Way Thorough Life’s Ordeals” This is a great book by a great writer. Some you may know him from an earlier important work, “Care of the Soul ” .

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