The Art of Possibility

Transforming Professional and Personal Life

By: Rosamund Zander & Benjamin Zander

ISBN: 978-0-87584-770-2

READ: May 2020

RATING: 8/10

Summary: A delightful read that opens up new ways of thinking. This book is inspiring to intuitives, but may frustrate those who are more sensing. It operates in a language of concept and possibility. Still the practices do get practical enough to implement. I especially enjoyed the concepts “It’s all Invented,” “Being a Contribution,” and “Being the Board.” While the book is a secular read many of the practices can help us live out the call of Jesus to be a disciple and to make disciples. I think that being a contribution over and over again is a great way to describe effective discipleship, for instance. So, it’s certainly worth the read. The negative side of the book is that the stories can get a bit long and they are rooted in music, so if you don’t know a ton about music theory a couple feel a bit technical. Still, well worth your time to pick this one up!

Chapter titles are: Introduction An Invitation to Possibility, Launching the Journey The Practices 1. It’s All Invented 2. Stepping into a Universe of Possibility 3. Giving an A 4. Being a Contribution 5. Leading from Any Chair 6. Rule Number 6 7. The Way Things Are 8. Giving Way to Passion 9. Lighting a Spark 10. Being the Board 11. Creating Frameworks for Possibility 12. Telling the WE Story, Coda

Launching the Journey:

“…the objective of this book is to provide the reader the means to lift off from that world of struggle and sail into a vast universe of possibility.” Pg. 1

“Our conviction is that much, much more is possible that people ordinarily think.” Pg. 2

“Our customary mind-set about who we are may even undermine our ability to have a say in the way things go from here. So, this is a book with suggestions for novel ways of defining ourselves, others and the world we live in—ways that may be more apt for the challenges of our time. It uses the metaphor of music, and relies on all the arts.” Pg. 3

“Art, after all, is about rearranging us, creating surprising juxtapositions, emotional openings, startling presences, flight paths to the eternal.” Pg. 3

“The history of transformational phenomena—the internet, for example, or paradigm shifts in science, or the spread of a new religion—suggests that transformation happens less by arguing cogently for something new than by generating active, ongoing practices that shift a culture’s experience of the basis for reality.” Pg. 4

Practices in Possibility:

Chapter 1: It’s All Invented

“A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying, ‘SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES.’ The other writes back triumphantly, ‘GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES.’” Pg. 9

“Each scout comes to the scene with his own perspective; each returns telling a different tale. Indeed, all of life comes to us in narrative form; it’s a story we tell.” Pg. 9

“The world comes into our consciousness in the form of a map already drawn, a story already told, a hypothesis, a construction of our own making.” Pg. 10

“The ‘real world’ is a construct, and some of the peculiarities of scientific thought become more intelligible when this fact is recognized…Einstein himself in 1926 told Heisenberg it was nonsense to found a theory on observable facts alone: ‘In reality the very opposite happens. It is theory which decides what we can observe.’” – Neuroscientist Donald O. Hebb, pg. 11

“We see a map of the world, no the world itself.” Pg. 11

“Fundamentally, it is a map that has to do with our very survival; it evolved to provide as a priority, information on immediate dangers to life and limb, the ability to distinguish friends and foes, the wherewithal to find food and resources and opportunities for procreation. The world appears to us sorted and packaged in this way, substantially enriched by the categories of culture we live in, by learning, and by the meanings we form out of the unique journey each of us travels.” pg. 11

“our minds are also designed to string events into story lines, whether or not there is any connection between the parts.” Pg. 12

“It is these sorts of phenomena that we are referring to when we use the catchphrase for this chapter it’s all invested. What we mean is, ‘It’s all invested anyway, so we might as well invest a story or a framework of meaning that enhances our quality of life and the life of those around us.” Pg. 12

**NINE DOT ILLUSTRATION**

“The frames our minds create define—and confine—what we perceive to be possible. Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.” Pg. 14

Chapter 2: Stepping into a Universe of Possibility

“All the manifestations of the world of measurement…all are based on a single assumption that is hidden from our awareness. The assumption is that life is about staying alive and making it through—surviving in a world of scarcity and peril.” Pg. 18

“We grow up in a world of measurement, and in this world, we get to know each other and things by measuring them, and by comparing and contrasting them.” Pg. 18

“Unimpeded on a daily basis by the concern for survival, free from the generalized assumption of scarcity, a person stands in the great space of possibility in a posture of openness, with an unfettered imagination for what can be.” Pg. 19

“In the realm of possibility, we gain our knowledge by invention….We speak with the awareness that language creates categories of meaning that open up new worlds to explore. Life appears as variety, pattern, and shimmering movement, inviting us in every moment to engage. The pie is enormous, and if you take a slice, the pie is whole again.” Pg. 20

“…we are saying that, on the whole, you are more likely to extend your business and have a fulfilled life if you have the attitude that there are always new customers out there waiting to be enrolled rather than that money, customers, and ideas are in short supply.” Pg. 21

“On the whole, resources are likely to come to you in greater abundance when you are generous and inclusive and engage people in your passion for life.” pg. 21

“In the measurement world, you set a goal and strive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.” Pg. 21

“What is the practice that orients you to a universe of possibility?...ask yourself: How are my thoughts and actions, in this moment, reflections of the measurement world?” pg. 22

Chapter 3: Giving Yourself an A

“We call this practice giving an A. It is an enlivening way of approaching people that promises to transform you as well as them. It is a shift in attitude that makes it possible for you speak freely about your own thoughts and feelings while, at the same time, you support others to be all they dream of being. The practice of giving an A transports your relationships from a world of measurement into a universe of possibility.” Pg. 26

“The A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.” Pg. 26

Class example. Every student will get an A, but hey must write a detailed letter to the professor telling the story of what will have happened to get that extraordinary grade. Then they simply live into that. The A is assured. pg. 26-32

“He had realized that it’s all invented, it’s all a game….So we might as well choose to invest something that brightens our life and the lives of the people around us.” Pg. 33

“The lesson I learned is that the player who looks least engaged may be the most committed member of the group. A cynic, after all, is a passionate person who does not want to be disappointed again.” Pg. 39

“…the secret is not to speak into a person’s cynicism, but to speak to her passion.” Pg. 39

“The practice of giving the A both invents and recognizes a universal desire in people to contribute to others, no matter how many barriers there are to its expression.” Pg. 39

“How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are but assessments made by a child? We can replace the narratives, that hold us back by inventing wiser stories, free from childish fears, and in doing so, disperse long-held psychological stumbling blocks.” Pg. 46

Chapter 4: Being a Contribution

“…life is revealed as a place to contribute and we as contributors.” Pg. 56

“I saw the whole thing was made up and that the game of success was just that, a game. I realized I could invent another game.” Pg. 57

“I settled on a game called I am a contribution. Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side. It is not arrived at by comparison. All at once I found that the fearful question, ‘Is it enough?’ and the even more fearful question, ‘Am I loved for who I am, or for what I have accomplished?’ could both be replaced by the joyful question, ‘How will I be a contribution today?’” pg. 57

“Naming your activities as a game breaks their hold on you and puts you in charge.” Pg. 59

“The practice of this chapter is inventing oneself as a contribution, and others as well. The steps to the practice are these: 1. Declare yourself to be a contribution. 2. Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why. The contribution game appears to have remarkable powers for transforming conflicts into rewarding experiences.” Pg. 59

“When you play the contribution game, it is never a single individual who is transformed.” Pg. 61

“In order to be a great performer you have to be unfettered by stage nerves.” Pg. 62

“Naming oneself and others as a contribution produces a shift away from self-concern and engages u in a relationship with others that is an arena for making a difference.” Pg. 63

Chapter 5: Leading from Any Chair

--

Chapter 6: Rule Number 6

“Rule number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so goddamn seriously.’” Pg. 79

“The practice of this chapter is to lighten up, which may well light up those around you.” Pg. 80

“This calculating self is concerned for its survival in a world of scarcity.” Pg. 81

“…we portray the calculating self as a ladder with a downward spiral. The ladder refers to the worldview that life is about making progress, striving for success, and positioning oneself in the hierarchy. The downward spiral represents, among other things, the slippage that occurs when we try to control people and circumstances to give ourselves a boost.” pg. 83

“As the calculating self tumbles out of control, it intensifies its efforts to climb back up and get in charge, and the cycle goes round and round. How do we learn to recognize the often-charming, always-scheming, sometimes-anxious, frequently conniving calculating self? One good way is to ask ourselves, ‘What would have to change for me to be completely fulfilled.’” Pg. 83

“When one person peels away layers of opinion, entitlement, pride, and inflated self-description, others instantly feel connection. As one person has the grace to follow rule #6, others often follow.” Pg. 89

“Such is the nature of the central self, a term we use to embrace the remarkably generative, prolific, and creative nature of ourselves and the world.” Pg. 90

“When you look at people’s central selves and conduct an honest conversation, a culture forms that is hard to resist. For the calculating self to emerge in this culture is as difficult as to hum a tune in B minor while the chorus around you is singing in C major.” Pg. 94

“Unlike the calculating self, the central self is neither a pattern of action or a set of strategies.” Pg. 95

“From the perspective of the central self, life moves with fluidity like a constantly varying river, and so do we. Confident that it can deal with whatever comes its way, it sees itself as permeable rather than vulnerable, and stays open to influence, to the new and to the unknown. Under no illusion that it can control the movement of the river, it joins rather than resists its bountiful flow.” Pg. 96

“This new universe is cooperative in nature, and pulls for the realization of all our cooperative desires.” pg. 97

Chapter 7: The Way Things Are

“The practice in this chapter is an antidote both to the hopeless resignation of the cow and to the spluttering resistance of the duck. It is to be present to the way things are, including our feelings about the way things are. This practice can help us clarify the next step that will take us in the direction we say we want to go.” Pg. 100

“It simply means, being present without resistance: being present to what is happening and present to your reactions, no matter how intense.” pg. 100

“Indeed, the capacity to be present to everything that is happening without resistance, creates possibility.” Pg. 101

“When our attention is primarily directed to how wrong things are, we lost our power to act effectively. We may have difficulty understanding the total context, discussing what to do next, or we may overlook the people who ‘should not have done what they did’ as we think about a solution.” Pg. 104

“The practice of the way things are is a reality check on the runaway imagination of the calculating self.” Pg. 109

“Imagine if we were to faithfully whisper the immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., ‘I have a dream…,’ as a preface to our every next remark. Speaking in possibility springs from the appreciation that what we say creates a reality; how we define things sets a framework for life to unfold.” Pg. 110

“The practice of being with the way things are allows us to alight in a place of openness, where ‘the truth’ readies us for the next step, and the sky opens up.” Pg. 111

Chapter 8: Giving Way to Passion

“Places in the wild draw many of us to experience a vitality greater than our own, but it may take an act of surrender to let the gates give way between ourselves and nature.” Pg. 114

“Life flows when we put our attention on the larger patterns of which we are a part…” pg. 117

“When one rises above a work to see the long line, the overarching structure, one can see and hear a new meaning, often far beyond the meaning viewed from the ground.” Pg. 117

“We pose the question again: ‘Where is the electric socket for possibility, the access to the energy of transformation?’” pg. 121

Chapter 9: Lighting a Spark

“Certain things in life are better done in person.” Pg. 125

“Enrollment is the art and practice of generating a spark of possibility for others to share.” Pg. 125

“So, the practice of enrollment is about giving yourself as a possibility to others and being ready, in turn, to catch their spark. It is about playing together as partners in a field of light. And the steps to the practice are: 1. Imagine that the people are an invitation for enrollment. 2. Stand ready to participate, willing to be moved and inspired. 3. Offer that which lights you up. 4. Have no doubt that others are eager to catch the spark.” Pg. 126

“The practice of enrollment, on the other hand, is about generating possibility and lighting its spark in others. It is not about the quarters. The sudden realization that we were all trapped in a box of scarcity, unable to act effectively over a matter that cost no more than fifty cents enabled me to step into a universe of possibility—the only place from which you can enroll other people. This may seem like an easy leap, but how often when we are caught behind a driver who has veered into the exact-change lane by mistake do we sit there honking and fuming? Why not jump out of our car and toss two quarters in the bin?” pg. 128

Chapter 10: Being the Board

“In this one, you rename yourself as the board on which the whole game is being played.” Pg. 141

“However, inasmuch as I blame you for a miserable vacation or a wall of silence—to that degree, in exactly that proportion, I lose my power. I lost my ability to steer the situation in another direction, to learn from it, or to put us in a good relationship with each other. Indeed, I lose any leverage I may have had, because there is nothing I can do about your mistakes—only about mine.” Pg. 142

“So, the first part of the practice is to declare: ‘I am the framework for everything that happens in my life.’” Pg. 142

“Grace come from owning the risks we take in a world by and large immune to our control.” Pg. 143

“Gracing yourself with responsibility for everything that happens in your life leaves your spirit whole, and leaves you free to choose again.” Pg. 143

“The type of responsibility we are most familiar with is the sort that we apportion to ourselves and others.” Pg. 145

“But if you name yourself as the board itself, you can turn all your attention to what you want to see happen, with none paid to what you need to win or fight or fix.” Pg. 146

“You, as the board, make room for all the moves, for the capture of the knight and the accident, for your miserable childhood and the circumstances of your parents’ lives, for your need and another’s refusal. Why? Because that is what is there. It is the way things are.” Pg. 146

“The practice of being the board is about making a difference.” Pg. 148

“In the fault game your attention is focused on actions—what was done or not done by you or others. When you name yourself as the board your attention turns to repairing a breakdown in relationship. That is why apologies come so easily.” Pg. 149

“You can always find within yourself the source of any problem you have.” Pg. 152

“this practice launches you on a soaring journey of transformation and development with others, a completely different route than the one of managing relationships to avoid conflict.” Pg. 159

Chapter 11: Creating Frameworks for Possibility

“The foremost challenge for leaders today, we suggest, is to maintain the clarity to stand confidently in the abundant universe of possibility, no matter how fierce the competition, no matter how stark the necessity to go for the short-term goal, no matter how fearful people are, and no matter how urgently the wolf may appear to howl at the door.” Pg. 162

“Yet, we do have the capacity to override the hidden assumptions of peril that give us the world we see.”

“The ‘leader of possibility’ invigorates the lines of affiliation and compassion from person to person in the face of the tyranny of fear.” Pg. 162

“The practice of this chapter is to invent and sustain frameworks that bring forth possibility.” Pg. 163

“The steps to the practice of framing possibility are: 1. Make a new distinction in the realm of possibility: one that is a powerful substitute for the current framework of meaning that is generating the downward spiral. 2. Enter the territory. Embody the new distinction in such a way that it becomes the framework for the life around you. 3. Keep distinguishing what is ‘on the track’ and what is ‘off the track’ of your framework for possibility.” Pg. 163

“In the realm of possibility, there is no division between ideas and action, mind and body, dream and reality.” Pg. 164

“Sooner or later things tumble into the dualistic structures of right and wrong and spiral downward.” Pg. 165

“What distinction shall we make here that will bring possibility to the situations?” pg. 166

“Purpose, commitment, and vision are distinctions that radiate possibility.” Pg. 166

“A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from objectives of the downward spiral.” Pg. 169

“A vision fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire with which any human being can resonate. It is an idea to which no one could logically respond, ‘what about me?’” pg. 169

“A vision is a stated as a picture for all time, using no numbers, measures, or comparatives.” Pg. 169

“A vision is a long line of possibility radiating outward. It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.” Pg. 170

“Complexity, tension, and dissonance can give life to an organization as they can to music, but they do not present a coherent structure unless you can hear the home key, or connect to a vision. When a vision is leading an organization, it is instantly and steadily accessible to all members of the group. A vision is the organization’s own toes to nose. It becomes the source of responsible, on-track participation.” Pg. 172

“My answer was that money has a way of showing up around contribution because money is one of the currencies through which people show they are enrolled in the possibility you are offering.” Pg. 173

“Talk about the dreams and aspirations in common, talk about spirit, talk about being.” Pg. 175

“The practice of framing possibility calls upon us to use our minds in a manner that is counterintuitive: to think in terms of the contexts that govern us rather than evidence we see before our eyes.” Pg. 178

“Nelson Mandela is reported to have addressed these words of Marianne Williamson’s to the world at large.

‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous—

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people

Won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone,

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously

Give other people permission to do the same.’” Pg. 178-179

Chapter 12: Telling the WE Story

“”By telling the WE story, an individual becomes a conduit for this new inclusive entity, wearing its eyes and ears, feeling its heart, thinking its thoughts, inquiring into what is best for US.” Pg. 183

“The steps to the WE practice as these: 1. Tell the WE story – the story of the unseen threads that connect us all, the story of possibility. 2. Listen and look for the emerging entity. 3. Ask ‘What do WE want to have happen here? What’s best for US and What’s OUR next step?’” pg. 183-184

“The practice of the WE gives us a method for reclaiming ‘The Other’ as one of us.” Pg. 1865

“They do not give people the chance to want what the story of the WE says we are thirsting for: connecting to others through our dreams and visions.” Pg. 187

“…the story that we really are our central selves longing to connect, seeking a structure that supports us to dissolve the barriers.” Pg. 193

“While visions go in and out of favor, the WE remains, holding our heartbeat, moving on the impulse of the long melodic line of human possibility.” Pg. 194

“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of human pride.” Pg. 197, William James.