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Home  > Resources  > Philosophies We're influenced by flow and even surfing--and, the following ideas about these interrelated influences in successful people's lives: Index To This Page 1.  Fear, Failure, Tenacity, Odd Ducks, and Self Reliance 2.  What's Important?  Can What Counts Be Counted? 3.  Fire, Work, & Fun  4.  Fire, Filling Vessels, Education, & Flow 5.  Flow, Time, & Life Loved or Squandered More Philosophies Via Poems, Pictures, Etc. Teaching Philosophies for SEE Flow? Surfing? FooteWorks? 1.   Fear, Failure, Tenacity,  Odd Ducks, and Self Reliance   Every great revolution was once a private opinion.    --Ralph Waldo Emerson  We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents... God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.     --Ralph Waldo Emerson  Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.   --Bertrand Russell Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.    --Albert Einstein Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.   --Albert Einstein I was told over and over again that I would never be successful, that I was not going to be competitive and the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do was shrug and say 'We'll just have to see'.   --Dick Fosbury  (Won an Olympic gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Games after he invented a revolutionary high-jump technique--the "Fosbury Flop"--which he demonstratives at right.)               Why, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.   --Thomas A. Edison  The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything - and it works.     --William Strong I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.    --Albert Einstein Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.     --Winston Churchill Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.  It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body.  It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.   --Winston Churchill Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.   --Albert Einstein I believe that one of the characteristics of the human race - possibly the one that is primarily responsible for its course of evolution - is that it has grown by creatively responding to failure."   --Glen Seaborg, (Nobel Prize winning nuclear chemist) Referring to biological processes in Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization, Kevin Kelly writes:  "Maximize the fringes...Diversity favors remote borders, the outskirts, hidden corners...and isolated clusters...A healthy fringe speeds adaptation, increases resilience, and is almost always the source of innovation."   --Quoted in:  Tom Peters, The Pursuit of WOW!   To 'nurture the crazies' (my constant refrain) is to invite discord--and, usually, failure.  But not to nurture the crazies is to flatly guarantee failure.   --Tom Peters, The Pursuit of WOW! Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.   --"Think Different" Advertisement, Apple Computers Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.     --Cecil Beaton Linus Pauling decided to devote himself whole-heartedly... to this goal of a peaceful world, learning about international relations, international law, treaties, histories, the peace movement and other subjects relating to the whole question of how to abolish war from the world     --Lecture by Pierre Laszlo    In 1960, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) headed by Senator Thomas Dodd, issued a subpoena to Pauling to answer questions about Communist infiltration of the campaign against nuclear testing.  At Pauling's request the hearings were open and they soon turned into a public relations fiasco for Dodd and the SISS. This was partly because the members of the SISS had not done their homework and partly because it gave Pauling the excuse to lecture them about elementary civic rights and duties...   --Jack D. Dunitz, in Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences The circulation of petitions is an important part of our democratic process. If it is abolished or inhibited, it would be a step towards a police state.     --Linus Pauling Pauling's bold and tenacious fight for peace culminated in his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962.  This second Nobel Prize (the first was in Chemistry in 1954), made Pauling the only winner in Nobel history, of two unshared Nobel Prizes (note: in very different fields).  Moreover, some have speculated that Pauling might have beat Watson and Crick in the momentous discovery of DNA's double helix structure, had Pauling been allowed to attend a 1952 London conference and seen, as Watson and Crick did, Rosalind Franklin's crucial DNA x-ray diffraction photos.  But the U.S. State Department blocked Pauling's visit by denying him a passport, on the grounds that allowing him to travel was "Not in the best interests of the United States."  (Facts surrounding the much larger story of the race to understand DNA, are detailed in this excellent web-based summary at Oregon State University. My fellow college roommates, neighbors, and I had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of having Dr. Pauling and his wife, Ava Helen (impressive in her own right), over for dinner in our trailer on the Stanford campus.  All present were struck by the uncommon love and synergy between this unforgettable couple.  Dr. Pauling's wisdom, intellectual breadth, courage, and kindness were equally uncommon--as was his obvious excitement to explain even the most complex answer to any student's question, in ways that everyone in the room could understand.   --Tom Foote During recent years my work on the theory of resonance in chemistry has been under attack in Russia.  Russian chemists have been forbidden to make use of this theory in their scientific work.  The action of the State Department in refusing me a passport represents a different way of interfering with the progress of science and restricting the freedom of the individual citizen.   --Linus Pauling. April 22, 1952 The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.    --Albert Einstein  It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.   --Voltaire   (As the following two links suggest, the U.S. government worked to complicate the lives of both Einstein and Pauling.) At the age of 33, alone in a hotel room, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in one evening.  While others then edited it--in its final form, it was still mainly Jefferson's work--a work later signed (at considerable risk) by the founding fathers.  Deemed bold, radical--some thought crazy, at the time, that  document is now one of world history's most significant, influential, and, enduring. When Time Magazine's "Man of the Century," Albert Einstein, first published his big ideas in the early 1900's, e.g.,  that light behaved as if made of particles, not waves; that matter causes space to curve;  that as matter approaches the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity; that a moving ruler's intervals shrink ("length contraction");  that a moving clock ticks slower ("time dilation"); and, that energy is related to matter by the equation:         E=MC2    --some thought he was a little nuts (especially after learning that he had developed these concepts mostly with just pencil, chalk, and "thought experiments."). Remarkably, subsequent technologies have enabled the empirical testing of Einstein's theories--and, verified most of them. The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once    --Albert Einstein  Speaking of Einstein, the late, great, physicist, Richard Feynman admitted: "I still can't see how he thought of it."  Scientists had no means to prove it all--until much later, with the advent of huge and expensive equipment;  e.g., particle accelerators, super-colliders, space-based telescopes--and, much to Einstein's ultimate disappointment, the atom bomb.  While Einstein helped urge Roosevelt to develop the bomb--so that the Germans would not beat us to it--he forever regretted that urging after we dropped the bomb on the Japanese.  Yes, much like Linus Pauling, Einstein had a strong moral compass--that he acted on, e.g., by urging a ban on nuclear weaponry, denouncing McCarthyism and pleading, in his many non-scientific writings, for more human understanding, and an end to bigotry, racism, hatred, and war.  The moral?  Every idea (even--indeed, especially, your own!), deserves respect and consideration no matter how contrary to the times, the culture, public opinion--or, the group (and its stifling "group-think").   Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string...Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age...To be great is to be misunderstood.   --Ralph Waldo Emerson In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.   --Ralph Waldo Emerson Tom Peters, pushes further, arguing the stranger the  idea better.  He sets his own strange (but thought provoking!) examples, as we see below: Get fired. If you're not pushing hard enough to get fired you're not pushing hard enough. More than once is OK.   --Tom Peters, Liberation Management You have to be willing to blow up your business.     --Tom Peters, The Pursuit of WOW! Pursue failure. Failure is success' only launching pad. The bigger the goof the better.   --Tom Peters, Liberation Management Project stuck in a rut?  Look through your Rolodex. Who's the oddest duck in there? Call her/him. Invite her/him to lunch. Pick her/his brain for a couple of hours about your project.     --Tom Peters, The Brand You50 2.   What's Important?  Can What Counts Be Counted? Education is what's left over once you've forgotten the facts.   -- Albert Einstein (Paraphrasing.)  We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit.   --Aristotle  We know that even we, who have used and taught this leadership/research stuff for years--even we might forget the details, the formulas, the often alienating minutia.  What we retain, value, and use the most, however, is what has become a habit with us, a part of us, what most interests us--what are often the most valuable, most practical themes, theories ("There's nothing more practical than a good theory!"--author?), core concepts, how they all interrelate--and, above all, how they relate to your problem.  It follows that after we have researched your problem, our immediate value is not any ability to immediately recall textbook detail, but rather, to quickly, intuitively, see the bigger picture of how root causes and core components of your problem might appropriately relate to core solutions we've used before--or, solutions we need to adapt, or brainstorm, or create from scratch. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.    --Albert Einstein (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton) The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children; the quality of their education; or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate, or the intelligence or integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither wit nor our courage. Neither our vision, our wisdom, or our learning.  Neither our compassion nor devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.   --Robert F. Kennedy, in a speech to students at Kansas University, March 18, 1968. Typically that which is most often first measured (and given disproportionately higher, undeserved, weight) is that which is easiest to measure, i.e., that which is most quantifiable (e.g., GNP, sales, profits, market share, stock price, assets, equity).  That which is key to the core of what's really going on within countries, companies, teams, and individuals, is often that which is hardest to measure (e.g., creativity, enthusiasm, joy, injustice, fear, despair, alienation)--and,  therefore, less likely to ever be considered.  We at FooteWorks.US prefer to start with the essence, the most important forces really affecting your problem (and most likely to most quickly lead us to the real solution)--not, merely the forces easiest to measure.   If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.  Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.   --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (June 29, 1900 - July 31, 1944).  French writer, poet, and aviator, best known for his book, The Little Prince. 3.  Fire, Work, & Fun  I never worked a day in my life.  It was all fun.   --Thomas Alva Edison  Mine is a life full of joy in the midst of incessant work.     --Mohandas K. "Mahatma" Gandhi Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will.   --Mahatma Gandhi Sometime during the two-year curriculum, every MBA student ought to hear it clearly stated that numbers, techniques, and analysis are all side matters. What is central to business is the joy of creating. --Peter Robinson,  The Red Herring Your attitude determines your altitude.   --Author? The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.  --Charles Swindoll   Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.   --Ralph Waldo Emerson Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.   --Dale Carnegie The most glowing successes are but reflections of the inner fire.   --Author?           No one keeps up his enthusiasm automatically. Enthusiasm must be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, new efforts, new vision.  Compete with yourself; set your teeth and dive into the job of breaking your own record.  It is one's own fault if his enthusiasm is gone; he has failed to feed it.   --Papyrus 4.  Fire, Filling Vessels, Education, & Flow Education is much more the lighting of a fire than the filling of a vessel.  (Another version: The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.)   --Plutarch And yet another:  Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.  --William Butler Yeats Earl Woods did much to help light a fire within his son Tiger, at a very early age.  That fire has since exploded into Tiger's unstoppable desire to learn, to perfect, to win--and, to single-handedly do more for the game of golf--and all who enjoy it--than, perhaps, anyone.  (As of this writing, Tiger is also on track to accumulate more lifetime earnings than any sports person in history.) It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.   --Albert Einstein  After teaching for years, and defending a lengthy dissertation about teaching, I've finally and proudly confirmed the obvious:  Learning goes best when both teacher and learner are fired up about it.  Also obvious is that fire--in us and in everyone we help--is vital to our subsequent best focus,  flow, effectiveness, fulfillment, ( fun!), and finishing--on time and on budget.  Therefore lighting (or stoking) that fire within--even about the dullest challenge, is essential.  It's a challenge in itself--but one that ultimately fuels you to continue where we left off, building confidently, enthusiastically, upon a problem solved, to single-handedly tackle the biggest future problems (and, perhaps, to never need us again).     --Tom Foote 5.  Flow, Time, & Life Loved or Squandered Dost thou love life?  Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of.   --Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac Ben's wisdom is consistent with today's writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Indeed, after years of large-sample systematic study of precisely how we spend our time, Csikszentmihalyi writes that most of us, in fact, do squander it (and our capacities to think and to "flow"--or, in Franklin's words, to "love life"). Csikszentmihalyi writes:    "In the roughly one-third of the day that is free of obligations, in their precious 'leisure' time, most people in fact seem to use their minds as little as possible. The largest part of free time--almost half of it for American adults--is spent in front of the television."  More Philosophies Via Poems, Pictures, Etc.  Teaching Philosophies for SEE  Surfing? FooteWorks?