"This is probably the most important book you will ever read"
One of Michael Ray's students
You achieve something, conquer certain peaks, looking back with a sense of pride. Victory screams with happiness under your feet. Here it is - the dream, the goal of your whole life. Now you can die in peace. But how long will this continue? Perhaps tomorrow you will think "It was such a trifle" or "Why did I do this." What's the catch? Why do dreams turn into shameful mistakes, and ideals into caricatures? Perhaps it was an ordinary desire, in its prosaic nature too reminiscent of some kind of mediocrity? It was not the highest goal of your life at all. Forget about her forever. Find a higher goal, define it. Understand what it is worth living for, in the name of what every moment lasts. The answer to questions about the search for the main goal of your life is given by an outstanding scientific psychologist and author of several bestsellers - Michael Ray. His book is called The Highest Goal. The secret that keeps you going every minute."
About the book “The Highest Goal. The secret that keeps you going every minute”
It tells how to find that very elusive, sometimes illusory, higher goal, the mission of your whole life. The author of the book, named by Fast Company magazine as one of the most creative people on earth, will have a very profound effect on you. It will help you find your higher purpose, find that secret source of inspiration through which you will find answers to all important questions. In the book you will find actionable exercises, stories and simple life advice from Michael Ray. The latter will boldly lead you along the path to the highest goal.
What do you need to take with you on this trail? Author of the book "The Highest Goal. The Secret That Keeps You Up Every Minute” provides some necessary guidance. First, you must choose your life path. There are two options here. You can listen to those around you and start drawing your dream. It will turn out a pretty, but completely ordinary picture. Or you choose the second way. What does he look like? As follows: you put a completely blank canvas, pick up a brush and paint a picture that reflects yourself. It may not please everyone, but its creator will be in unsurpassed delight. This picture is your highest goal. Second, understand the role of anxiety in life.
Try to spend half an hour every day on excitement. Worry, worry. Reasons are in themselves, because there are no absolutely careless people. The rest of the time, try not to let experiences into your own consciousness and you will see how real life is without worries. Thirdly, let's rest your head, meditate.
Throw absolutely all thoughts out of your head, do not think about anything. This practice will help you find your own harmony and understanding of what is happening around. In addition, learn to live in your own, incomprehensible time. Sounds weird? And you try! Forget about time for one day, don't look at the clock. Listen to your clock, try to live and work in the way that suits you in the time continuum. Of course, it will seem difficult, especially being in the workplace, but believe me, you will learn a lot. Take action, achieve the highest goals and read Michael Ray's masterpiece book. You will definitely find out what it is - the highest goal, dream and achievement of your whole life.
The author of The Highest Purpose writes easily and clearly. He gives extremely clear instructions, exercises and practices. This is a kind of manual, more precisely, something higher than it. After all, the theories you mentioned are not axioms. Find your way, your unique method, your path. The reader will want to learn more and more, look for missing pages. That's what this book is about - your search, research, and goals.
Michael Ray
The highest goal. The secret that keeps you going every minute
THE HIGHEST GOAL
The Secret That Sustains You in Every Moment
Berrett Koehler Publishers
Published with permission from Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
© Michael Ray, 2004
© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. LLC "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2014
All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.
Legal support of the publishing house is provided by the law firm "Vegas-Lex"
© Electronic version of the book prepared by Litres (www.litres.ru)* * *
To my students and teachers:
May the flow of goodness never dry up
The real joy of life is to have a purpose, the importance of which you yourself understand ... to be natural and strong, and not one of a bunch of neurotics and whiners who complain that life does not care about their happiness.
Bernard Show
Joy is the highest goal.
Chinese proverb
Foreword
On a warm September evening in 1982, I studied my class schedule for my second year MBA at Stanford. In addition to production strategy and corporate finance, there was a course called Creativity in Business. "That's an oxymoron," flashed through my head. I added this course at the very end to somehow balance the too dry analytical subjects.
And at 15:20 I leisurely entered the auditorium and sat down in an empty seat. While waiting for teachers Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers to start the seminar, my classmates and I talked to each other, talked about our summer work, and exchanged opinions about the class schedule.
Nothing happened and we chatted some more. Still, the seminar did not start.
In the end, we realized that Michael and Rochelle were already in the audience, looking at us and waiting for something. The noise gradually died down as each group of students chatting one after another found teachers patiently waiting for us to pay attention to them. Finally, Rochelle Myers, a petite woman in long flowing robes with a large silver medallion on her chest, stood up and said in a barely audible, almost whispered voice, “Today you are embarking on a ten-week journey in search of your inner being.”
I immediately opened the general schedule to find a replacement for the course. My search was interrupted by Michael Ray, who offered us a meditation exercise. “Slowly take a deep breath,” Michael said. – Feel the energy rising in the toes of your right foot. Feel it rise up your leg. Focus all your attention on your right leg. Don't do anything, just feel your right leg…” It seemed to me that I made a big mistake.
That evening I told my wife Joanna that I had a great class schedule, "except for this course I'm about to quit." I told her about Rochelle in flowing robes and about Michael, who reminded me of Yogi Bear in a wrinkled professorial suit (later I learned that as a spiritual guide he really does yoga), who teaches us to meditate. I majored in applied mathematics in college and later worked at McKinsey. I enjoyed (which I still feel) engaged in data analysis and theoretical development. And here is…
Michael Ray
The highest goal. The secret that keeps you going every minute
THE HIGHEST GOAL
The Secret That Sustains You in Every Moment
Berrett Koehler Publishers
Published with permission from Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
© Michael Ray, 2004
© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. LLC "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2014
All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.
Legal support of the publishing house is provided by the law firm "Vegas-Lex"
* * *
To my students and teachers:
May the flow of goodness never dry up
The real joy of life is to have a purpose, the importance of which you yourself understand ... to be natural and strong, and not one of a bunch of neurotics and whiners who complain that life does not care about their happiness.
Bernard Show
Joy is the highest goal.
Chinese proverb
Foreword
On a warm September evening in 1982, I studied my class schedule for my second year MBA at Stanford. In addition to production strategy and corporate finance, there was a course called Creativity in Business. "That's an oxymoron," flashed through my head. I added this course at the very end to somehow balance the too dry analytical subjects.
And at 15:20 I leisurely entered the auditorium and sat down in an empty seat. While waiting for teachers Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers to start the seminar, my classmates and I talked to each other, talked about our summer work, and exchanged opinions about the class schedule.
Nothing happened and we chatted some more. Still, the seminar did not start.
In the end, we realized that Michael and Rochelle were already in the audience, looking at us and waiting for something. The noise gradually died down as each group of students chatting one after another found teachers patiently waiting for us to pay attention to them. Finally, Rochelle Myers, a petite woman in long flowing robes with a large silver medallion on her chest, stood up and said in a barely audible, almost whispered voice, “Today you are embarking on a ten-week journey in search of your inner being.”
I immediately opened the general schedule to find a replacement for the course. My search was interrupted by Michael Ray, who offered us a meditation exercise. “Slowly take a deep breath,” Michael said. – Feel the energy rising in the toes of your right foot. Feel it rise up your leg. Focus all your attention on your right leg. Don't do anything, just feel your right leg…” It seemed to me that I made a big mistake.
That evening I told my wife Joanna that I had a great class schedule, "except for this course I'm about to quit." I told her about Rochelle in flowing robes and about Michael, who reminded me of Yogi Bear in a wrinkled professorial suit (later I learned that as a spiritual guide he really does yoga), who teaches us to meditate. I majored in applied mathematics in college and later worked at McKinsey. I enjoyed (which I still feel) engaged in data analysis and theoretical development. And here is…
Joanna listened to my wailing, and then confidently said, “I think you will benefit from the Michael Ray course. Wait for him to refuse, maybe you like it?
She was right: I would not have reached such heights and my life would not have been so bright if not for this course. And I am not alone in this opinion. Not even a year goes by without one of the graduates noting how grateful he is to fate for having been able to take this course at one time. But then we did not know yet that we had already taken the first step in a life-long journey to finding our highest goal.
However, the experience was not easy for an insecure simpleton obsessed with data operations. “When will we get any technology for creativity or management methods for creating innovative products? – I asked a couple of weeks after the start of the course. I longed for tools, technologies, methods—something practical and useful.
In response, Michael told a story about a businessman who came to the Master in search of enlightenment. They sat down to drink tea, and the businessman began to talk about his life: about problems and difficulties, about how he aspired to reach some heights, how he was looking for the right path, and meaning, and purpose, and ... and the Teacher remained silent and poured tea into his cup. It was already full, and the Teacher poured and poured, and already the tea overflowed, filled the saucer, then spilled onto the table and, finally, onto the man's knee.
"Hey! What are you doing?" the businessman shouted and jumped up, dusting off his trousers.
“Your cup is overflowing,” the Master replied. “You keep adding and adding and adding… to your life. Until you empty the cup, you will not find a place for enlightenment in yourself.”
Michael and Rochelle explained that we are not on a “journey” for new skills and knowledge: its goal is to remove barriers to creativity. They proceeded from the premise that there are no people who do not know how to create, but there are those whose talents have not yet been discovered. They wanted us to realize that each of us has a treasure chest in the attic - with creativity - and all we need to do is a thorough cleaning - remove all the rubbish that is littered with this chest in order to open it and look inside. The essence of the metaphor was the challenge to each of us: Turn your life into a work of art!»
In later years, I came to the conclusion that there are two approaches to life. The first, used by the majority, is the "children's coloring" path. You do what you are told. Walk along a well-trodden path. Act within the prescribed limits. And in the end you get a pretty, but ordinary picture. The second approach, which is chosen by a few, is the path of the artist: when they take a blank canvas and write a masterpiece. This path is more difficult, risky, uncertain and requires creativity. But this the only possibility make your life a work of art. Creating a masterpiece requires non-standard solutions, searching for a starting point, a guiding thread in the absence of convenient contours and lines of a ready-made set. Such attitudes are the highest goal, and this book will tell you how to build your life with the help of Michael's discoveries.
When I attended the course in 1982, Professor Ray had not yet defined the ultimate goal. Yet the idea was everywhere, like an overarching concept, a hidden framework of creative experience. Now, twenty years later, Michael has pinpointed the metaconcept and describes it in detail in these pages.
At the center of the process is the idea of rules for every day. These are mantras that you not only repeat day after day, but also follow them for a while (usually a week or a little longer). At Stanford, the day-to-day prescriptions gave us a hard time: “If it doesn’t work out right away, don’t push yourself. Be careful! Ask stupid questions. Destroy judgment, create curiosity. Don't think about it. Be ordinary."
But most complicated rule was: "Do what is easy, what is effortless and brings joy." Unfortunately, we had to follow it during the mid-year exams, so we immediately had problems: “If you only do what is effortless and brings joy, you will have to skip the exams. How to complete this task without failing the rest of the subjects?
I decided to think of exams as climbing pitch four on Naked Edge in Eldorado Canyon. Naked Edge is one of the most beautiful peaks in all North America; it is ideal for climbing, except for the fourth pitch. Every time I climb the Naked Edge, I dread this part of the route. It is necessary to squeeze into a crack widening downwards and crawl along the overhanging wall, as if inside a bell, with your legs sliding, which is why you keep sliding down, and your shoulders getting stuck in the narrow upper part of the fault. The unusual combination of claustrophobia and uncertainty is exacerbated by the fact that none of the protective devices are effective at this stage. (So if you fall out of the crevasse and lose some of your equipment, you will be flying downhill for a long time, breaking bones along the way.) Nevertheless, despite the highest difficulty of this stage of the route, I climbed the Naked Edge perhaps thirty times . Taken separately, the fourth rope is sheer hassle and tedious physical labor. Taken in the context of this amazing place, on a wonderful day, with a good partner, and given that rock climbing is my favorite sport, the fourth pitch is a true joy. I compared my exams with her and dealt with the problem.