Pete Spence wrote a fantastic blog post on Performing in a self-organizing world recently and it sparked some thoughts of my own.

I’ve recently been reading ‘The Art of Happiness’ by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and one of the lines of inquiry I’ve most enjoyed in the book is that compassion ultimately leads to happiness. Taking this line of thought one step further, we can see that to achieve high performance, be it in your sport, your work or your personal life, requires compassion. I believe that these two topics intersect – that by practicing a high level of mindfulness and compassion in the situations you are placed, you can adequately deal with the complexity of self organizing systems – thus performing.

From the book:

“Compassion can be roughly defined in terms of a state of mind that is nonviolent, non-harming, and non-aggresive. It is a mental attitude based on the wish for others to be free of their suffering and is associated with a sense of commitment, responsibility, and respect towards the other.”

And on garnering a compassionate attitude, even when faced with resentment.

“Now, in general compassion, when you are taking on anothers suffering, you may also initially experience a certain degree of dis-comfortableness or un-bearableness. But in the case of compassion, the feeling is much different, underlying the uncomfortable feeling is a very high level of alertness and determination because you are voluntarily and deliberately accepting anothers suffering for a higher purpose. There is a feeling of connectedness and commitment, a willingness to reach out to others, a feeling of freshness rather than dullness.

This is similar to the case of an athlete. While undergoing rigorous training, an athlete may suffer a lot – working out, sweating, straining. I think it can be quite a painful and exhausting experience. But the athlete would take it as a great accomplishment, an experience associated with a sense of joy. But if the same person was subject to some other physical work that was not part of his athletic training, the the athlete would think ‘Oh, why have I been subjected to this terrible ordeal?’ So the mental attitude makes a tremendous difference”

It seems to me that maintaining and cultivating an attitude of compassion is therefor required to act in a self organizing system. How else can we work completely without an actor or instigator, if we do not trust one another?

What do you think?

Today has been a very productive day! After attending Mindful on the weekend, and then catching up with a few people after the event, I’ve come back up here to Sydney with a rather expanded balloon. Jan Stewart wrote the other day about how peak experiences can expand your level of consciousness, before you shrink back close to your previous level. What’s lovely is that after such experiences as Mindful, you never quite shrink all the way back. Just like how a balloon never quite returns to normal once you blow it up and let the air out.

I feel like I’ve grown that little bit more, and that I understand my ‘mind, mindless, mindful’ selves a lot more than before the event. The key is, continuing to keep the balloon expanded through mindful practice of the takeaways from the day. So what have I been doing today?

1. Dropbox, finally.

I register for Dropbox fully today. I’ve had an account for years, but never really learned how to use it. Ross Hill and I were chatting with Bryony Cole over breakfast on Monday morning and it came up that Fred Wilson had recently moved all of his stuff into the cloud. Ross had been using Dropbox for a while, and it just struck me a simple thing I could do. So I have. I’ll move all of my files slowly over in the next week. I’ve already made a great start. One of the important aspects that came out of Mindful was resilience, and my laptop and it’s encompassed files have always been one of those things I’ve ‘meant’ to back up/secure. It’s amazingly powerful to have done that today.

2. I bought a journal.

I was lucky enough to have an expansive coffee with Ron Laurie, one of the speakers from Mindful, on Monday afternoon at Kinfolk. I really resonated with Ron’s talk, and was grateful that he was able to spend some more time with me and walk me through a few of the finer points of his thinking. One of the great questions Ron asked me towards the end of our chat was “Do you journal, Steve?”

I’ve often bought ‘visual diaries’ and used them for notes, thoughts, tasks – the whole gamut. But I haven’t done that for a while now, and Ron’s idea nudged me into thinking it was probably a very good idea to start again. So, this morning on the way to work, I bought a journal for my ‘mindful’ thoughts. It feels an enormous relief just knowing I have an outlet there, waiting.

3. #deepdive

One of the parts of the day I really enjoyed was the meditation session Xavier Shay ran in the morning, and briefly in the afternoon when the Open Space session got a little too heavy for everyone. I enjoyed a #deepdive tonight, and look forward to picking up that practice again. I listen to a recording I have of Craig Hassed, to help me through the beginning stages of re-engaging with it. It’s worth watching and listening to Craig’s stuff on the Lantern Mental Health YouTube channel when you have the mind space. It’s a great place to begin your practice.