Fast Company, which is a business magazine focused on technology, business, and design, launched an interview with Peter Koestenbaum, a classically trained philosopher who has written several books and one of his books, "Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness" (Jossey-Bass, 1991), is well-known and has been translated into numerous languages, and now he is creating a new book, temporarily titled "Diamond Reverse Engineering." In this interview, Koestenbaum’s explanations clarified the mystery of how those ancient queries exert on the modern life.
Discussion
Quote: “They ended up going to Cairo, but their relationship had been transformed: She understood that his career was important to her; he recommitted to his values as a participant in the family. What matters is not what they ended up choosing, but how.”
This is a good example of how people, in reality, cope with the polarity and end up with the happy ending. On one hand, the young husband got a promotion, which has to transfer to Cairo; on the other hand, his new wife and little baby did not want to move together. This couple has no feasible compromise but they think back to the initials, changing their attitude in the end. Even though, they decided to go to Cairo, their relationship has already transformed into a higher level, growing up and becoming more thoughtful. The most important thing is not the result what they choose but the process how they convert into.
Quote: “This was Freud's definition of psychoneurosis: We limit how we live so that we can limit the amount of anxiety that we experience.”
People, who lack of courage, confront one of the enormous problems in life is self-limitation, which means we build a defense mechanism to protect us from heading the anxiety situation. Hence, the folks stop thinking creative, stop doing risky, and limit the potential in order to live on the edge and seek temporary peace. It’s really pathetic that people lose the will to transform and even don’t try it one time for living a better lives.
Quote: ”The best leaders operate in four dimensions: vision, reality, ethics, and courage.”
First of all, reality, the opposite of vision, is one of the dimensions that related most to me. I am a person who has the big picture, planning the long-term goal, but I would like to put more emphasis on the practical things, which I could make effort on it right now. For example, when I was very little, I was trained to take part in a running match, and in fact I did not think I would win the match since compared with the competitors I was too short. Nevertheless, I practiced a lot because this is the only thing I could work hard on it and finally I win the champion. I has not believed that I did it until now.
Furthermore, courage is the goal that I pursue but the one that I am short of. Take my personal experience as an example, few weeks ago, my friend she asked me for help of her photograph project and she demand me for being a stylist in this project. I am afraid that I’m not good enough to take over it so I rejected her asking. My friend kept encouraging me and gave me a lot of confidence, after that I promised to join this project and really did a good job. It was because I lacked of courage to make things happen and limited my competence. From now on, I have to believe in myself and sharpen my capability to be a better me.
Those four dimensions that the best leaders should possess tightly connect to our team. Though it’s such an impossible mission, to an individual, to embrace four dimensions at once, each of our team members own at least one dimension and we would be a powerful and potent team when we get together.
Conclusion
Every individual has the will