In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Jennifer Porter wrote: When they grow older their memories play tricks with the past.Īnd when we’re in the middle, living our lives, running our companies, managing our teams, that’s the most critical time for reflection. When they are young their eyes are on a distant horizon. Sadly, not many people can achieve the related mood of perfect serenity. But aren’t all the great truths of life trite? To be tranquil is to be able to sit quietly and enjoy today without a nod to the past or a glance toward the future. Serenity-or tranquility -is perhaps the greatest virtue in life. We can’t wonder if we don’t have quiet time. What makes your imagination race? What gives you wonder ? We just mentioned General Eisenhower and the power of imagination over sheer data earlier this week. I’m very concerned that our society is much more interested in information than wonder. I don’t think we get that very much any more. “A lot of people who have allowed me to have some silence. I was treated to a short video of Mister Rogers (aren’t all of his messages so simple yet so profound?) talking to Charlie Rose in which he reflected on our boisterous world: They’ll be eagerly anticipating what’s coming next. People will be on the edge of their seats. Try it in a meeting some time, when you have control of the floor. Why? Because it lets people soak in what I’m saying (some of it is deep). There are too many speakers who are so excited to share everything they know, and they let everything pour forth at the speed of sound. Some people are afraid of silence when they’re on a stage in front of an audience. When I give speeches, one of the tactics I use is the long pause. When an interviewer is comfortable with silence, it gives them time to think and it leaves the interviewee an opportunity to fill the gap, which can lead to more revealing answers. In an interview on Stay Tuned with Preet, New Yorker editor David Remnick said silence is an interviewer’s best tool. Plus the ability to be comfortable with it and to make use of it. Well, over the course of the last few days, I’ve come across disparate pieces of content that all point in the right direction. What’s a well-meaning but fuddled individual to do? I recently wrote: " We used to consume the news. In some ways, that seems like a luxury today, when the life cycle of a tweet is hours or even minutes.Ĭampaigns, emails to employees, quarterly earnings calls, tweets, texts, Stories (from Snapchat or copycats Instagram/Facebook) - not to mention the insanity of the news cycle - they’re constantly surrounding us, threatening to drown us in a sea of information. He said:Įven then - nearly sixty years ago - he knew that what was being chronicled for print in The New York Times was here and then gone in the space of a day. I found it in A Writer’s Life by Gay Talese, in which he wrote about being a newspaper journalist (circa 1960). Knowing the meaning of ephemeral (temporary) or ephemera (memorabilia expected to have short-term popularity) and the context in which it was used, I could discern it. If you’re anything like me, you probably haven’t heard or seen it used before, but you can discern what it means. I came across just such a word last week: ephemerons. I enjoy creating turns of phrase (like saying how the legal department is the one that puts the ‘no’ in innovation), listening to those who know how to wield the English language, and the discovery of odd and arcane words.
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