The Agile Tao Podcast Preview

Taoism is a philosophy that can be summed up as:

All that is, was and will be is one and now.

Agility is a philosophy that may be summed up as:

Act as one, react to now.

I love both and see them as one, yet for years I felt alone in making this connection.

Then, a few years back, I met Peter Merel and his beautiful book: the Agile Tao (you can find it here).

The book of Tao was written (or collected) about 2500 years ago, it is a set of beautiful poems, yet bringing it to a 21st-century English-speaker poses a huge challenge! Weaving words around things that are nameless is a nearly-impossible task. Hundreds (or more) translations exist, each with its unique word-choices and (more importantly) its unique mindset. And while most translations revolve around a new-age mystical mindset - Peter's translation addresses the agile mindset, bringing Taoism closer to the world of business and software development.

This book is intended to understand the words of Lau-Tzu in a business context (in the broadest meaning of "business"). It brings these ancient pieces of guidance that speak of harmony, acceptance, and flow into the world of transactions, innovation, leadership, politics, and teamwork.

I've found this attempt fascinating, it was unlike any other translation I've read - both in its brave and fresh refactoring approach and its precise word choices. in the deep respect to the Tao and the courage to distill a new perspective out of it.

After reading the book for a year, I've invited Peter to do a podcast, in each chapter we'd read a single poem and try to understand it together, hence making the book more accessible to the public. Yet each time we attempted to start, we've found the result not as bright as we'd like it to be, which often resulted in Peter refactoring the book a bit: changing word-choices, reordering the chapters, changing the cover-art, etc.

Since the last draft almost passed our acceptance criteria, I've decided it is ready for your feedback: let us know what you think. as we consider this to be our first demo - any input is precious!

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I leave you with a beautiful excerpt from the book.

Most of you know this quote: "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." yet this version brings a new angle to it...

A journey of a thousand miles begins at the spot under one’s feet.

Before you start advancing, take the time to appreciate where you are.

We are starting this journey where we are, and finally releasing our beta recording, please let us know what you think of it, what you liked and what can be improved.

I wish you a fascinating journey!

An update: Since I published this, we decided to start publishing the podcast! please help us share it, and don't hesitate to give us an awesome review if you like it!