27. Being

A Grieving Reflection Edition

(5 min read)

I took a pause last week to collect myself following the loss of my older brother.? We had a family vacation planned for months and the guilt of going vs. hanging with my nieces to close out my brother's estate weighed on me.?

The good thing about going to an island destination is realizing the tranquility of the ocean to stare at. The integration of being present with locals that see life through a different lens. On island time, not our time. Embracing the idea of “being” vs. “doing”. ?

We are always doing. We plan what to do.? We measure what we do.? We have systems for doing.? We have incentives and rewards for doing.? We strive for legacies that reflect what we did over our lifetime.? I get hired by companies to help them do more, while simultaneously being unique. ?

I struggled with how to just “be”.? Be in the moment.? Be in the place.? Be in my thoughts.? Be in my memories. Be there for my family as they are my true legacy.?

The irony of being is to embrace the waves, literally and figuratively as they seductively roll into shore.? Some are more violent than others, but they continue to come along in rhythm and cadence, nature's BPM (beat per minute).? They become a familiar pattern.? A pattern of life that speaks to you when you are just “being”.??

I peaked at an email post written by Chip Conley, who writes a daily post called the Wisdom Well for the Modern Elder Academy.? As if ordained by a higher order, that post was titled “Doing vs. Being”.? This quote jumped from the pages into my moment of “being”...

“Doing is never enough if you neglect Being. The ego knows nothing of Being but believes you will eventually be saved by doing. If you are in the grip of the ego, you believe that by doing more and more you will eventually accumulate enough 'doings' to make yourself feel complete at some point in the future. You won't. You will only lose yourself in doing. The entire civilization is losing itself in doing that is not rooted in Being and thus becomes futile.” - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

I brought several books along to read but gravitated to The Creative Act: A Way of Being , by Rick Rubin.? Rick is considered to be one of the best music producers in the world.? But, as you learn in the book, he is a philosopher who divines his elixir to help his musicians to create their art form.? That next level necessary to inspire “awe” from what could have been just otherwise.?

I found myself embracing “being”. Discovery was everywhere. Details. Angles. Nuances. It brought me back to a core belief that defines what makes my work so special to me.? The words on the page were flowing through me as if I had written them and I was now racing back to a sense of beginner's mind and those magical moments of awe throughout my life.? My kindle was becoming a sea of underlines...

“To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention…Looking for what draws us in and what pushes us away. Noticing what feeling tones arise and where they lead.? Attuned choice by attuned choice, your entire life is a form of self-expression. You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.”? ~ Rick Rubin

I reconnected with my musicality of being a nightclub DJ who moved people across the dance floor for hours at a time. I turned the power of music into energy that crept into the souls of the people on the dancefloor and standing on the sidelines. The joy of reading the room and molding it into a flow was the ultimate high.? The vinyl and turntables were my tools.? My ability to mix beats was endless, like the waves I was encountering.?

We went to a restaurant that looked out over the ocean into a sea of bobbing sailboat lights.? The restaurant had a cutting-edge DJ who mixed generations of tunes, blending between French and English versions of songs that had us singing and dancing in our seats as the food and wine flowed. I was immediately transported to another place, just being at one with our table.

In reflection, I realized I have always been an artist. My sense of being has always been about reading the room. The room became a stage. The stage became the world and the people living in it.? My tools have changed, but the mission - to achieve flow - be it a company and its voice or individuals and their purpose remain the same.?It is about "making a connection".

Today, I realize and transfer that energy to one company and one person at a time. I use words and belief systems to achieve a sense of being for my clients. Realizing your being is the power source for why we do what we do.? A company is merely a collection of humans.? And the human is the common currency that drives it all forward. ?

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NOW (How you are realizing this today)

1. Do your OKRs or KPIs measure and or account for “being”??

NEW (How you will realize this tomorrow)

1. How will you incorporate a sense of “being” in your organization in the next six months??
2. How will you bring your own sense of “being” to the world? To your work? To yourself by the end of the year?
3. Do your stakeholders share your sense of being? Why should they??

NEXT (I see a world in which)?

I see a world in which we will start to recognize that we are all artists and that being is what really drives the idea of doing.??

What I am reading, listening to, and viewing to shape my Next thinking.

• The Wisdom Wel l, by Chip Conley, and featured guest posts
• The Creative Act: A Way of Being , by Rick Rubin?

The Payoff?

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” ~ Robert Henri (as the epigraph in The Creative Act: A Way of Being)

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