Great News About "Mastery"

是好消息

  by Lance Giroux

July 27.  Scottsdale AZ.  Spent the afternoon with Emily Fraim, George Leonard's daughter and Trustee of the Leonard Family Trust.  Surprise!  She handed me two copies of George's book Mastery.  So?  They're written in Chinese.  Wow!  She followed that gift with, "I think it's also now being printed other languages too." Double wow.  (More about that next time.)

Mastery, now in Chinese (simplified); thank you Sterling Lord - George's publishing agent who continues to serve the Trust, owners of the copyrights to all George's written works, including his scripted simulation many readers here have personally encountered: The Samurai Game® (TSG).

While George and Annie, his wife, were alive I pushed them to have Mastery published in languages beyond English and German, especially Chinese.  To me it seemed natural and paramount, having walked neighborhood parks these past years, morning and night throughout PR China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and SE Asia to witness thousands of people engaged in embodied mindfulness practices - tai chi, walking meditations, sword work, breath work, etc.  These practices directly reflect what Mastery brings to the surface and promotes. 

Think "people": 1.35 billion in PR China, add 618 million in SE Asia, plus 24 million in Taiwan, and another 7 million in Honk Kong.  That's a big bunch of folks.  Even if only a small percentage of them were to have the opportunity to gain from this book, that small percentage is significant.  Mastery has never gone out of print and has never been absent from brick and mortar bookstores since it was first published in 1991.  Twenty-three years in continuous publication is an exceptionally long time for a paperback of this nature.

A special smile to Keith Bentz, who, to my knowledge, was the first individual to legally produce The Samurai Game® (TSG) in Hong Kong and Taipei - and with that effort the work of George Leonard was introduced into the greater Asia region.

Legally deliver?  Yes.  Why say this, because illegal TSG knock-offs have sprung up throughout Asia, Mexico, and elsewhere - even in the USA.  Read my blog about shenanigans of this type.  In this regard Mastery in Chinese is again great news; and a definite boon to the legacy of George Leonard.  Those who read Mastery, even if they attended a rip-off, will make the connections for themselves.  People are smart.  They know the difference between what's real and what's fake.  Sad though, given TSG revolves around a code of honor - Bushido in Japansese / Wushitao in Chinese / The Way of the Warriorin English / Camino del Guerrero in Spanish.

Large populations are now being served with TSG, and stand to benefit with Mastery.  Twenty-one of the current sixty-some authorized facilitators live along an arc that stretches from Chengdu, China to Taipei to Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and then continues south to Brisbane, Australia.  Having Mastery available in both English and Chinese allows for a significant impact.  Think "lessons learned and lessons applied".  Who gains?  Families, companies, universities, elementary schools, training organizations.

Mastery. The Samurai Game®.  Yin.  Yang.  Connection.  One body.  It doesn't matter the starting gate; all one needs to do is step on the path.  Read Mastery and you deepen an intellectual understanding of what is expressed through TSG.  Participate in TSG and you vault into action to embody what is articulated through Mastery.  

Mastery has been promoted in every TSG event that I've been involved with throughout Asia and SE Asia over these past eleven years.  People ask, "When can we get it in our language?"  Now they can. 

Same thing is true multiple time zones away.  The word is spreading in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla and on.  The demand continues.  Inquiries for TSG andMastery are now coming from Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina - thanks to diligence and unselfishness of some really good people, e.g. Jenaro Pleigo of Mexico City and the others living in Mexico who have followed his footsteps.

Back to Asia.  Caroline Su wanted to get Masterytranslated to Chinese so bad she began hammering me about it every time I traveled to Taipei.  Likewise, Lyric Chan of PR China.  A few months ago, when he visited Petaluma for facilitator training, what did he grill us for to compliment his work?  Mastery.  Was it Caroline or was it Lyric who lit the final fuse that eventually burned a path to light a fire under some publisher in the region.  We don't yet know, and that doesn't matter.  What matters: it has happened.

Hopefully Sterling Lord's efforts will expand to translations in other languages, and assist the expansion of George's work through TSG now underway in Russia; well launched and spreading thanks to Konstantin Volzhan and Marina Klimova.  Numerous TSG's have been conducted in Tyumen, Moscow, and Rostov-on-Don over the past year.  This November I go to Samara.  A journey continues. 

Knock on a door long enough, it opens.  

A good and important thing, and something worth sharing.

Mastery.  Published in Chinese. 

J  是好消息(This is GREAT news)

© Lance Giroux, August 2014

In Memory of George Leonard

February 1, 2010

I walk into Peet’s Coffee.
A young woman, Jamie, serves my usual: small decaf and zucchini bread.
The tattoo on her wrist reads: “To Heaven and Hell – Follow Your Heart”
A deep voice in my mind whispers, “Say Alert!”
It is the voice of George Leonard.

The Retrospect
Kahlil Gibran’s (1883-1931) The Prophet speaks to the philosophy of an imagined Almustafa. In magnificent prose it touches on timeless topics of significance and substance: giving and law, reason and passion, children and marriage, freedom and pain, self-knowledge and friendship, good and evil, and finally death. Then, it says farewell. The Prophet opens with Almustafa standing and overlooking Orphalese, his beloved city, contemplating his life, now nearing its end.

[H]e climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship coming with the mist. Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul. But as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart: How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. -- -- The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.

Gibran, a Lebanese immigrant, published The Prophet in 1923, from Boston where he lived. It has been in print ever since. In August of that year, and a thousand to the south, the family line of Aaron Burr, an American politician and Revolutionary War patriot and third Vice President of the United States produced a new child. As with the words of Gibran and his Almustafa, the words and writings of this son-of-the-south would over a lifetime be recognized as wise, profound and significant. His actions would influence millions. His philosophy would touch the heart of the lowly, the average and the advanced. His name: George Burr Leonard. He passed away Tuesday, January 6, 2010, at his home in Mill Valley, California. He was 86.

The Man
George Leonard’s love for letters and music spanned a lifetime, as did his love for country, freedom and people. As a youth he had his own swing band. He served America in combat as an A-20 fighter-bomber pilot in WWII, and again during the Korean War, this time as an air intelligence officer. After the wars he advanced in one of his many passions, writing, and became an award-winning editor for Look Magazine. His articles covered the Civil Rights movement in the US before it was safe or popular to do so. He rubbed shoulders with Martin Luther King, Jr., and shared office space with Bobbie Kennedy. He chronicled the rise of the Iron Curtain (literally) in Eastern Europe – driving its length by car and probing its turf on foot. That he contributed extensively for Esquire would be an understatement. He remains that magazine’s most prolific writer. His twelve books included "Mastery", "The Ultimate Athlete", "The Silent Pulse", "Education and Ecstasy", "The Transformation", "The Way of Aikido", "Walking on the Edge of the World" and others. As with The Prophet, “Mastery” has never gone out of print; it is read today around the world and in easily found bookstores throughout the US.

He developed, practiced and taught a method of self-understanding and study, Leonard Energy Training. He presided over Esalen Institute’s board of directors www.esalen.org and co-founded ITP International www.itp-international.org with Esalen’s founder, Michael Murphy. At the time of his passing he was Esalen’s president emeritus. Recognized by Time magazine as the father of the human potential movement in the US, he in fact coined the phrase "the human potential movement."

At age 47, George Leonard began to study a Japanese martial art, Aikido. A few years later he co-founded the Aikido of Tamalpais dojo www.tam-aikido.org in Mill Valley, California, with two others who were on similar paths: Richard Strozzi-Heckler and Wendy Palmer – both now recognized globally for their work in realm of the human potential and as Aikido teachers (sensei). He advanced to the rank of fifth-degree blackbelt, and regularly trained and taught the art until well past his 80th year. He remains perhaps the most authored Aikido sensei in the world. Except for Kisshomaru Ueshiba, son of legendary Morihei Ueshiba O’Sensei who developed Aikido, it could be argued that George Leonard, more than any other human being, influenced more people in the world to take up, examine and practice this martial discipline. His purpose: self-awareness and peaceful resolution to conflict.

The Connection
The lens through which I knew and experienced George took root in 1990. I encountered a leadership and team effectiveness simulation he had created. He once explained, “I had been thinking of communicating the value of life’s vividness and this just kind of came to me on an afternoon walk from my home to the dojo. It was influenced by encounters I had had with old war buddies, my study of the Japanese culture, and of course, Aikido. I suspended the class I was going to teach and asked everyone if they wanted to play a game for a little while. They said OK. A week later they were emotionally still in it and I knew something special was going on here.” He would later copyright, name and trademark this as The Samurai Game® www.SamuraiGame.org.

Unlike any other effectiveness simulation then or now, the Samurai Game® sources its strength from participants; becoming a sort of human chess match wherein players are also the pieces bound by rules which, like haiku, constrain yet offer unlimited possibilities for expression. Within the game a lifetime can be experienced. With Aikido as its foundation, it begs individual understanding of integrity, respect, compassion and decisiveness; and it demands honorable interaction and blending with opponents without the certainty of a favorable outcome. For the sake of a singular purpose all are asked, as George would often say, to “engage wholeheartedly and generously” and win or lose (metaphorically live or die) - to honorably serve others, particularly the opponent.

In 1995, the connection took a large step. He agreed to become one of the founding Associates of Allied Ronin. I was (and am) humbled and will be forever grateful. Five years later, because of an important need he had been expressing, I began to directly serve him and his Trust for the purpose of strengthening the training and certification of those who would seek to facilitate this simulation. We led many Games together, most at his dojo in Mill Valley, preceded and followed by meetings, innumerable phone conversations and lots of fun and laughs. The standards for facilitator training and certification were enhanced and codified. With this he and his wife, Annie, became for my dreams – some personal, others professional – close allies and dear friends. George was always available to listen to the deeply personal, some happy, some agonizing. He was always willing to reveal himself as well. He understood that that which is personal is what lives are anchored to, resonate with and revolve around. Anchor, resonate and revolve: words not haphazardly chosen. He acted with a heart seeking to understand.

I once nervously suggested to him that the Samurai Game was his greatest creation, a rather bold statement, given his contributions as an author. I offered that it would be great it to take it around the world. His reply, “Why not?!” Looking back, it was he and the Game that began to take me around the world - to witness things and be with people that in my wildest dreams never thought possible.

The Impact
Today almost forty certified facilitators serve his traditions and requests through this simulation. These are sons and daughters of the world; citizens of Mexico and Poland, PR China and Taiwan, the UK and SE Asia, Australia and the United States. Some are well-seasoned group process facilitators. Some own their own training and consulting organizations. Some are college professors. Some are renowned authors. A lawyer and an engineer. Some work with youth-at-risk who walk the edge of life and death and are confined to institutions. Some are simple men and women, relatively unknown, who have no great following, yet possess the heart to serve and assist people. Today, others seek to join their ranks.

The Game, once only an afternoon thought, has been repeatedly delivered on every continent with the exception of Antarctica and South America. Its use and popularity are growing. With it George Leonard has touched through action the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around the world – including those at the United Nations Secretariat, AIESEC International and it 90 some country constituencies, AT&T, Societe Generale’ Corporate & Investment Banking, US Army Special Forces, Vantage Corporation in PR China, Nokia, Verizon Wireless, the Julia Morgan School for Girls, Brandeis-Hillel School, the Horizon Academy, Texas A&M University, University of Nevada, University of San Francisco, the Organizational Behavior Teacher Society – and hundreds of other organizations. Indirectly, millions of people have felt its impact. Enhanced are their individual and group awareness, and their connection with a strong internal ethical code. Far reaching when compared to the few hundred meters that distanced George’s Locust Street home from his dojo off East Blithedale Street in Mill Valley.

The Words
On October 6, 2006, a surprise email arrived from Steve Fujitani of Honolulu, who I hadn’t seen or heard from in nine years. It read:
"So, here I am, years after playing the Samurai Game and it starts to come back, all the wonderful truths and ah-hahs ... then I find something I wrote to my kids dated November 1997 when I played it with you. All the wisdom shared about leadership, fears, agendas and truths ... I look forward to continuing the journey, as I'm sure are many others who've truly experienced the Game.

Sometimes life's greatest ah-hah's take an eternity to make themselves apparent, but... hey, as long as we get past the outer layers, right? I played [it] in 1997, but I feel a though I just woke up - again. Sailing's always been my passion, but skippering my own boat out on the deep blue was a real fear, as was the restaurant (Souvaly Thai Cuisine) I'm now opening. In retrospect, I think the leadership training and the Samurai Game played a big part in overcoming the phobias we unnecessarily weave into things, preventing us from achievement we'd otherwise never know."

On February 1, 2010, a message arrived through Face Book from Marta Bruske, past president of AIESEC Poland. It read:
I was intending to get in touch with you so many times for last few years and somehow never managed. I feel really ashamed I waited with writing this email for so long :) There has been so many things that happened since we last met on the conference in Poland. I spend last years looking for the right place for me. I lived in Brussels and London for some time. Last year I came back to Warsaw and finally I got some time to join AIKIDO trainings.

I was thinking about it since ' samuray game' in Netherlands. I guess I just had to wait for the right moment to come. I am still a newee in this area. Practicing not even a year but enjoying the learning a lot :) I joined Aikido Kobayashi dojo.

How is samuray game evolving? I still live this experience (even though it has been so many years ago!) and I know that many people who played it feel the same. I owe you big THANK you for that! - Best Wishes! Marta

The Thought and Thanks
Today we live with technologies that advance in complexity and capacity each moment. Their speed and application increase exponentially. We no sooner purchase the newest gadget than we are encouraged to buy the next. Why? Because we are informed that we need to. What was the latest and greatest a moment ago is now passé. We are told (and subsequently we begin to think) these technologies can make life easier and better. In reality, our problems and potentials are not unlike those of Kahlil Gibran’s era. Resolving human conflict, living with dignity, being honesty, acting honorably, offering respect to others and especially to one’s contrary – these are not things purchased. These are the rhythms of the breath of life; rhythms that cannot be bought and sold; rhythms that must be felt and heard, spoken to, developed and practiced. They form the ongoing challenge and responsibility of individuals and communities who seek constructive approaches to life rather an addiction to acquisition.

Our world wants answers to issues not unlike those faced by the people who sought advice from Gibran’s ancient, mystical and imagined Almustafa, the Prophet. Now, as then, many desire to acknowledge only themselves as the source of their own success, boasting or seeking to be self-made. Unfortunately they confuse and blur the line between being independent and disconnected. We sadly tend to forget the impact that others before us have had when fortune knocks on our door; yet we do remember the impact of others when misfortune stands in its place. Yes, individually we must raise our own sails to catch the winds of grace that blow. But the winds of grace that touch our lives issue forth from the inspired breath of those whose feet have trod valleys and shorelines before us.

All human beings stand beneath the shadows and in the shade of others. Some of us resent and resist this. They see shadows and shade to be limiting. Shadows are produced by obstructions to light. Shade is cold. The worry of these unfortunates is that they might live an unseen life. I had the fortune to meet and walk with a man in his shadow; a shadow beneath which I and countless others found warmth; a shadow that, paradoxically, offered and continues to offer illumination.

George Leonard’s life (1923–2010) will be memorialized at a service on Sunday, February 28, 2010, at the Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto, Mill Valley, California, from 3:00 pm until 6:00 pm. Tax deductible contributions may be made in his name at www.itp-international.org.

“What will count in the long run
is not just what we learn to do
but what we are willing to be.
The most promising adventure is worth joining
only if it contributes to the common good.”
-George Leonard (2006, The Silent Pulse, p.191)

A Case for Long Term Purposeful Practice

“I will tell you what I am talking about,” he [Malcolm] said. “Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can’t be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline.”
- Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park – p. 306

May 28, 2008
I found myself yesterday sitting in a small boardroom on a local university campus. Asked there by the Dean of Students, I attended a meeting with senior administrators. Their interest was (and remains) the potential that experiential education in general, and the Samurai Game® in particular, might hold for incoming freshmen - The Class of 2012. The school seeks engaging ways to deepen one’s understanding of the need for sincere commitment and an investment of self in the educational process - something that is life-long. “Young people today, especially in our country, have grown up believing they deserve an A,” said one of the administrators. “We have a generation that has never really faced loss. Many arrive on our campus believing that an education is something they are entitled to rather than something they have to earn.”

As much as I attempted to remain in the “here and now” at the meeting, I found a part of me reflecting on: (1) the news of the day, and (2) a meeting I had had just prior to this one, a meeting filled with lessons - seemingly timeless – for anyone, any organization, and any culture.

First - The News of The Day (that really isn’t “news”). They come, as they have for quite some years, in sound bites, and I can hear them in the recesses of my mind while the three administrators talk. Sound bites of the day -- • The market is up … the market is down. • Countrywide Financial is sinking, Oh my … what will become of us now? • Scott McClellan’s new book tells all about the current administration • Average price of gas is now $4.20/gal in northern California. -- As this all runs through my mind I recall a scene from the film, Good Night and Good Luck, in which Edward R. Morrow (David Strathairn) advises us to pay attention, remain vigilant and keep sharp our thinking skills lest we, individually and collectively, slip into a lazy mental fog; a fog created by information, mis-information and news (not really news) offered up by a medium that has become more connected to the products (and ideas) marketed than to the people it was designed to serve. Hence, news and information becomes neither news or information, rather a series of sales pitches wherein the national psyche, the marketplace and individual thought merge into a consciousness demanding quick fixes- and we believe that there is one way things are destined to (or should) be and we’ve got to get there fast, and with this (whatever it is) solution we will remain there and that way into the hereafter. My memory flashes on a recent radio program and I hear the commentator’s words as he discusses the geographical shape of our planet’s continents, “ … and when the continental plates stopped drifting …. “ When I heard those words on the radio I recall saying to myself, “Stopped drifting? Say’s who? When did Earth’s plates stop drifting? Aren’t they drifting still?” Language is a powerful thing and creates foundations that hold current reality. But what happens when a foundation is full of holes?

Are we (you and I) living in a national consciousness that honestly thinks we can (or should) arrive at a place and time (or that maybe we already have) wherein change and challenge and chaos, responsibility and accountability, effort and study and investment are no longer the order of the day? In other words, in which we and/or our children are entitled to a great life that is pre-ordained or chosen simply because we (or they) are, after all, special? Says who? Thinking of the many months spent outside the US the past five years and a lot of that in China, I recall a proverb – “Life is hard, then you die.” Dr. M. Scott Peck’s words come to mind, words that form the opening lines of his book The Road Less Traveled - “Life is difficult. This is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no long difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

At the January 2008 Allied Ronin Leaders’ Retreat we viewed the film “Enron- The Smartest Guys in the Room”. If you haven’t seen this film, you may want to. If you have seen it, watch it again. It contains more than one sitting can digest. You and I lived through the Enron debacle, but do we understand its lessons? If so, are we vigorously applying them today? Enron, its rise and fall, still affects us dramatically. There is strong argument that the mentality and practices that fostered the ill effects of Enron’s collapse remain alive and well and in force throughout much of our social, political and corporate cultures - right now. Think! What attitudes, ideas and ideals drove this organization, its partners, leaders, managers, agents, proponents and investors to act as they did? How is this reflected in our schools and institutions? And how is this then reflected in the sub-prime mortgage crisis that is gripping our world today? Most importantly - where and how are similar attitudes, ideas and ideals showing up on a micro scale, i.e. around town and in the neighborhoods in which you live? What can you do about this on a practiced and practical basis?

Next – The Meeting (that really was “a meeting”). Just prior to arriving on the campus I had the good fortune to spend some time with George and Annie Leonard. We met for tea at their Mill Valley home and talked for an hour about a test of mine that occurred the preceding weekend … a test that on one hand culminated an eight-year phase of training, and on the other hand begins of a phase of training that hopefully will last the rest of my life. At some point Annie had to go to an appointment, leaving George and I alone, and he turned to me and asked, “Would you like to come to my study and see a few things?” On the walk up the stairs he offered, “You know, I never thought I would be an old person.” George Leonard, the life-long teacher, one more time saying something to me … giving me (following him up an incline of stairs reminiscent of “the master’s path” outlined in his book) a lesson to remember as I too add years to my life.

In his study sat a model of an A-20 aircraft – the attack fighter/bomber he flew in combat. Adjacent to the model were pictures from his youth - the cockpit, the uniform, the comrades. On the wall more pictures: him with his clarinet alongside a friend holding a flute; a photo with one of the other co-founders of Esalen Institute www.Esalen.com. “Pull up that chair,” he said, “and let’s take a look at some of this stuff.” And we did. First edition copies of his books, including those that have been translated into foreign languages. Pictures taken in flight (by him) during wartime missions. Awards from Look Magazine acknowledging his enormous contribution. Scrapbooks with his original articles scooping the Civil Rights movement in America’s Deep South, a South into which he was born and a South that was transformed in part by his writing. I had no idea of the personal contact and relationship he had had with Martin Luther King, Jr., or Bobby Kennedy. But there it all was in black and white and color. Another section held the complete chronicle of the work he had done, along with one photographer, probing the Iron Curtain … actually traveling and approaching a 6,000 mile expanse of territory to see what it (and the then Soviet Block forces who guarded it) were made of. Just before I left he pointed to his current book-in-progress and invited a look there too. Yes, he’s still at it, or as he said earlier that day as we talked about the tests one faces in life and about continuing to write about them, “As long as there’s a spark in here (tapping his chest) I’m going to continue.” As I departed he said, “I’ll see you later.” George Leonard, the life-long learner reminding me (and you) of the need to grow, study, contribute … and practice … no matter what.

As I left Mill Valley and headed over to the university campus my overwhelming thoughts were of times we had spent together, in person and on the phone, talking about values and the need for long- term purposeful practices. Today, as I write these words, in front of me sits a copy of his 1991 book, Mastery – still in print, still in bookstores, still in demand seventeen years after its first publication. I flip to page twenty-seven and the chapter titled, America’s War Against Mastery. Words written almost two decades ago jump out at me:

“Our society is now organized around an economic system that seemingly demands a continuing high level of consumer spending.”
[Sound familiar?]
“Try paying close attention to television commercials. What values do they espouse? …. Some … to fear. Some to logic. Some to snobbery. Some to pure hedonism (on a miserable winter day in a city a young couple chances upon a travel agency; their eyes focus on a replica of a credit card on the window and they are instantly transported to a dreamy tropical paradise).”
[I chuckle to think what Leonard would have written had ED and Viagra or Ciealis commercials been on TV when he wrote the book; advertisements encouraging us to be always ready for when the mood is right; advertisements with disclaimers that of necessity must accompany when offered to a litigious and entitled society - in case, after four hours, we find ourselves still highly engaged in (and physically unable to get out of) the mood!]

“And the sitcoms (etc.) … on the same hyped-up schedule: (1) If you make smart –assed one-liners for a half hour, everything will work out fine in time for the closing commercials. (2) People are quite nasty, don’t work hard, and get rich quickly. (3) No problem is so serious that it can’t be resolved in the wink of an eye as soon as the gleaming barrel of a handgun appears. (4) The weirdest fantasy you can think of can be realized instantly and without effort.”
Do these words from Mastery apply today? They sure do. We know that our lives and pocketbooks will soon adjust to HDTV – becoming not only be the norm, but the necessity. And what is popular on the tube (actually the flat screen) these days? The Apprentice, Survivor, Dancing With The Stars, Crime Scene Investigation, Dog the Bounty Hunter, The Biggest Loser and American Idol.

Go back to those four items cited above relating to: one-liners, everything will work out, nasty people, get-rich-quick thinking, gleaming gun barrels, and weird fantasies. Then think of today’s TV shows, so popular that the episodes are discussed in detail on talk radio the day following as if their significance really matters to the world at large. Two generations are being fed Britney and Paris for breakfast, lunch and supper – yet know not the location of Myanmar nor the kind of the international backlash facing nations that dare to host privatized military forces, e.g. Blackwater. We were warned about this kind of indulgence by Eisenhower, Morrow and others. Alas, ask on the street who they were and you’ll get blank stares by bucket loads.

Questions Worth Reflecting Upon And Worth Answering. What are your practices? Are you aware of them? For what purpose are you practicing these things? What results will your practices produce … short term and long term? Beyond yourself, who else is attending to your practices? Are you sure? Who is following in your footsteps … the examples you are setting? Do you know? Who and what is being influenced by the practices you live by?

“Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone [e.g. the black belt in karate] has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won’t use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won’t abuse it.

But [the kind of power your chase] is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. --– There is no mastery: old [masters] are ignored. --– There is only a get-rich-quick, make-a-name-for-yourself-fast philosophy. …
And because you can stand on the shoulders of giants, you can accomplish something quickly. You don’t even know exactly what you have done, but already you have reported it, patented it, and sold it. And the buyer will have even less discipline than you. The buyer simply purchases the power, like any commodity. The buyer doesn’t even conceive that any discipline might be necessary.”

Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park – p. 306 - 307