ZenLeader

The purpose of this website is to explore what it is to live a satisfied life.  This exploration emphasizes leadership both as a key aspect of and as an evolving capacity sourced by a satisfied life.  If you share my fascination with a created life of persistent contentment then you will be interested in the perusing the material provided here.  If you share my passion for leadership especially the type of leadership implied by a foundation in satisfaction this is a place for you to weigh ideas, consider models, share your thoughts, and identify resources.

I have been living for a number of years within a commitment to remain continuously satisfied.  To that end I am sharing my insights, successes, failures, and opinions as part of the website content.  The articles below provide a foundation and framework for living and leading in satisfaction.  I am elucidating the key concepts in blog posts.  Additionally, as I build the body of work I will add references, and links.  Feel free to provide comments on the blog entries or reach out directly through the contact link.

Dying Satisfied

Eight years ago I, in a flippant, off the cuff way, committed to dying satisfied.  I wanted to experience what it would be like to live a life focused on satisfaction.  The interesting thing about dying is that it is the ultimate unscheduled yet inevitable event.  Although we all know that we will at some point die most of us have no idea when that might happen.  If you are committed to being a specific way at an unavoidable event, for which the occurrence is shrouded in ambiguity, your only option is to adopt that way of being as a full time expression.

Thus began my adventures in satisfaction.  At first I thought I would try it out for a month and then move on to something else.  One month became another, then another.  A month long commtiment eventually became a life quest.

Early on, when I talked to people about my commitment they often misunderstood me to mean that I was on a quest for hedonism and instant gratification.   Nothing could have been further from the truth.  I have found that chasing instant gratification quickly becomes boring and ultimately unsatisfying.  Because continuous hedonism kills my satisfaction buzz, I need longer term commitments with a willingness to delay gratification to get my satisfaction groove on.  Virtually all personal and professional goals work that way – commit to an objective, put in effort to achieve the objective, and eventually achieve it.  Unfortunately, I and most people can easily fall into the trap of believing that satisfaction comes only once the objective is met.  In that model, satisfaction would occur occasionally and for only fleeting moments.  Thus, focusing solely on goals does not support my criteria for dying satisfied.

If both the pursuit of instant gratification hedonism and delaying goals-based gratification break the satisfaction bank what is left?  As it turns out most of us spend the bulk of our time on the journey of life between planning and achieving goals of every color from building a company to shaping a culture to making dinner.  Therefore, the quest for satisfaction requires surrendering to the odyssey.   This capacity to be satisfied with the journey means that choosing the right journey is paramount to ongoing satisfaction.  The experience one has on any particular journey is flavored by its attributes – people, terrain, supporting resources, pit stops, twists, turns, surprises, opportunities, and challenges.  In choosing a journey you are choosing all of the attributes as well.  The trick is to find a way to be satisfied with the whole package of individual aspects – the pleasant, the unpleasant, and the indifferent.

My life then has become an accumulation of carefully crafted and often simultaneous journeys of varying complexity, depth and meaning.  They have been and continue to be journeys of relationship, profession, parenthood, friendship, romance, artistic exploration, philosophical inquiry, self discovery and oh so much more.

On these sojourns I have picked up a few guidelines that help me to continually grow my capacity for satisfaction.  Following these guidelines help me to both make better choices about the paths I follow and to increase my ability to find satisfaction in any one moment.  The CliffsNotes version of those guidelines are:

• Choose the life you have.  (see 1/19/10 blog article)
• Set your life compass toward your commitments and values.  (see 1/25/10 blog article)
• Be a sandcastle builder. (see 2/2/10 blog article)
• Express yourself as the unique individual you are. (see 2/9/10 blog article)
• Be intentional.  (see 2/16/10 blog article)
• Stay in the moment.  (see 2/25/10 blog article)
• Travel light.  Leave your resentments behind.
• Embrace your worthiness.
• Maintain your balance through moderation.
• Strive to provide unconditional love and acceptance for everyone including yourself.
• Keep courage as your close traveling companion.
• Everything is important.
• Be the author of your own life experience by choosing a meaning that inspires you and fills you with passion.
• Be the architect of your own great life by playing in all of the realms of manifestation.
• Establish a structure for grounding.
• Judge wisely and effectively.
• Nurture your capacity to execute.
• Generate and use empowering rituals as long as they are needed and useful.
• Create a sanctuary away from turbulence and chaos.

I have lots to say about each of those points.  But to keep this webpage relatively uncluttered I will be talking about each of them in posts to come.

Satisfaction Leadership

A leader is simply defined as someone who rules or guides or inspires others.  By that definition almost all of us assume a leadership role at some point.  Some of us spend most of our time leading.

By its nature leadership lives in the domain of human connection.  Where ever two or more human beings are together examining choices and making decisions leadership is required.  In fact, to be empowered as individuals we need to use our leadership capacities just to lead ourselves.  That makes the demands for and of leadership nearly ubiquitous.  Given its omnipresent nature why isn’t leadership more a part of our communal dialog?  Shouldn’t it be part of early childhood education along with the three Rs?

Historically, even before Sun Tzu wrote the “Art of War” leadership models have developed from a narrow locus such as business, emergency services, military, politics, religion, and so on.  Over the years some of the specific concepts of these models have been generalized and integrated into other models.  During the last forty years more general models have developed.  The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership® Theory is one such model that focuses on two fundamental concepts – Leadership Style and the individual or group’s Maturity level.  All of these meditations are focused externally on behaviors, styles and actions.  While the external focus is important as it has addressed the “where the rubber hits the road” aspect of leadership, there has been precious little attention paid to developing the qualities of a leader.  Even less consideration has been made of leadership applied at the individual level.  As it turns out, all leadership is local.

This site focuses on developing those attributes both in terms of practical behaviors and actions, and in terms of personal leadership growth and development.  The metric for leadership in this framework is satisfaction – the satisfaction of both the leader and those being led.  Consider it a focus on leadership that continually creates satisfaction for yourself and those that you impact.