#139: Book Pairings and Zen

Summer has been creeping down from the equator and it feels like it has eventually reached Cape Town. The nights are still cool, but the days are sunny, albeit only warm not melting, and a touch breezy.

If you’re here during summer, get your hands on some of Wild at Heart’s Buchu cordial – it is all sorts of complex fynbos deliciousness. It will make you as happy as a honeybird. In a quirky twist, they don’t seem to have much of a web presence, but you can find them at the wonderful Olive Branch Deli, which a Diagon Alley for foodies. Olive Branch also stocks El Burro’s delicious Jamaica cordial, which admittedly I spice up with some of the Karoo’s Leonista Reposado.

Darn, I nearly managed to give you entirely non-alcoholic drink recommendations, but it would have been an injustice not to tell you about the deliciousness that gets unlocked when the donkey gets infused with the lion’s energy.

/strategy 

My intention was to introduce you to psychiatrist and practicing Buddhist, Mark Epstein’s The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life, and then Brandon Roberts’ LinkedIn post distracted me.

He asked, “What are your go-to book pairings?”

So, we’re taking a quick segue into some of the pairings I share with my clients. If you have a moment, please let me what yours are.

For anyone building a business, my cornerstone is Jim Collins and Bill Lazier’s B.E. 2.0 (it has the advantage of integrating all of Collins’ research over the last 30 years). Reed Hastings says that he read the first edition 6 times in 6 months when starting Netflix (and he still reads it once a year to remind himself of its principles).

For troubleshooting bureaucracy, I add either Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall’s Nine Lies About Work or Peter Tollman and Yves Morieux’s How To Manage Complexity without Getting Complicated. Nine Lies is also fantastic for research-informed principles of good leadership.

For case studies, I like Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace’s Creativity Inc or Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer’s No Rules Rules. Both do a great job of explaining the principles that were used to build Pixar and Netflix, as well as exploring how reality is often so much messier and what to do then. Occasionally I suggest Robert Iger’s Ride of a Lifetime. It has the virtue of being an easy read and Iger’s descriptions of how he handled the politics of winning the Disney CEO job and acquiring Pixar, Marvel and Lucas Films is an unprecedented insight into boardroom realpolitik.

For leadership, I add Jerry Colonna’s Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up. It is a great blend of philosophy and pragmatism. If the person is really pressed for time, I suggest Jim Collins’ The Ten Lessons I Learned from Peter Drucker. If that hooks them, I then send them to Drucker’s The Effective Executive. I haven’t yet read Tony Fadell’s Build, but people I respect say that it is fantastic.

For inspiration, I might suggest Nobel Prize Winner Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed or Es’kia Mphahlele’s Down Second Avenue, both of whom are exemplars of what it means to build a life of meaning in the face of great adversity.

For businesses that are moving quickly, I’ll suggest Amy Edmondson’s the fearless organisation. Her case studies of how businesses get it wrong, putting their people under pressure and then triggering all manner of unethical and ineffective behaviour, makes one shiver and pause.

This brings us back, thankfully, to Epstein.

He describes his patients’ journeys with him as ‘learning by unlearning’, the therapeutic process seeks to increase their awareness of the systems and explanations they have created for themselves, and then to disrupt those images to create new possibilities.

Each of the above pairings might do that for you and your business. They provide a way of making that which seems permanent and immutable into something more flexible, more permeable, and more open to creativity and change.

Epstein puts it beautifully, “Problems are not hard and fast, selves are not static and motionless, even memory is nothing we can be certain about. The Zen of therapy wants to get things moving again. It wants to open things up, make people less sure of themselves, and in the process release some of the energy that has become stuck in the mud. Rational explanations have their place, but irrational breakthroughs, are invigorating because they alert us to capacities, we do not know we have.”

Sometimes the best strategic move is to explore the irrational, to find the invigorating. Yes, sober-minded analysis is powerful, but it doesn’t always give the creative disruption we might need.

/self

The Zen of Therapy explores how Epstein’s Buddhism informs his psychiatric work. He compares and contrasts the two, whilst sharing examples of how they blend into in his work.

He tells us about his conversation with Fred, a patient who wants him to recommend a meditation app.

Epstein’s response is refreshing, “I tell Fred how simple meditation can be. ‘You really don’t need the apps. Meditation is doing nothing. Just sit there and watch your mind. It’s purposeless,’ I say. ‘As soon as someone tells you how to do it, you will have expectations for what is supposed to happen. Meditation is about opening a window into yourself with no expectations of what you will find. That’s how it can be surprising. You just sit there. Try not to complicate it.’”

He explains that he wants Fred to let go of perfectionism, and he felt that an app would add just another layer of ‘things to get right’. With this approach mindfulness is not a box to be checked, it is living life.

Later in the book, Epstein observes that “The division between meditation and real life is artificial. Doing each thing with full attention turns everything into a meditation.”

/soul 

Epstein shares this Zen parable.

“A monk asked, ‘What is the substance of the true person?’
The Master said, ‘Spring, summer, autumn, winter.’
The monk said, ‘In that case, it is hard for me to understand.’
The Master said, ‘You asked about the substance of the true person, didn’t you?’”

I hope that made you smile.

All the best for your week.

Karl

PS: I have written about most of the books I mentioned today. If you explore my blog here and select the relevant author’s name, you’ll find what you need.

PPS: Last weekend took me to see the debut of Nadia Davids’ phenomenal play Hold Still.  She sets in motion a vortex fueled by intergenerational trauma, love, and hope. Watching it will make you a better human. Click here for my amateur take on it, and here to know what it’s about.