You matter. You are here for a purpose, something you and only you can do. This world needs you. Not the you that goes to meetings or parties or classes and wants people to like you. I mean the you that wonders, in the empty moments, just who you are anyway, and where you might be going. The you that has looked up suddenly and for a brief second thought “I know what the world needs!”.

Remember that moment, if you can. If you can’t, watch for it, it will come again. Repeat to yourself, every moment you can remember: “I matter”. My dreams matter. My life matters. The work I want to do matters. The way I want to live matters. Every truth I speak matters. Every battle I fight against the darkness matters. Every step I take matters. Every act of love, for myself or for another, matters.

It does not matter if you are the most brilliant, the most witty, the most popular, or the most talented. It does not matter if what you say or do is the most profound, the most original, or the most revolutionary. It matters that you say what is in you to say, and do what is in you to do. Be brave enough to express what burns in your soul or sings in your heart and not be rich or famous for it.

Whatever it is you are here to do, know that it is needed, no matter what reception it gets. Know that you will reach the beauty you strive for even though your first attempts are clumsy or crude. Start where you are. It is enough.

The road to freedom is long and has pitfalls that you won’t see coming. You will be tested. When you are so tired and confused and frustrated that you just want to give up, remember: something is always better than nothing. Take one step, and then another. Write one page, write one song, draw one picture. You are alive, and you can create. That is everything.

Remember who you are. You are not this body, this mind, this set of ideas and beliefs and emotional responses. You are a power beyond words. You are the power to say something new, to create something different, to design and rework and lead and give voice to an idea. It is a precious gift. Use it.

Tags: big ideas by emma
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I was born a communist. But I got over it. Business is fun.

When I started, I definitely didn’t care about “creating a business”. I just wanted to make a living, and profit was just a way for me to get by.

As I’ve gotten more and more interested in business and developed my skill at it, I am more equally invested in the purpose of the business AND the profit – BUT, I’m not interested in the profit MORE than doing interesting and good things in the world.

I think of it like a game, where I only win if I do all three things:
a)    create an interesting and good thing that helps people
b)    really enjoy myself
c)     make a profit

So without a) and b) I lose. So I am motivated by c) but only in part. It’s part of the game, the business game, to make a profit. It’s part of my motivation. Like, playing basketball, you want to win. But if you don’t have fun, and the people around you don’t have fun, you lose, even if you win.

But can you imagine playing basketball where nobody wanted to win? Eh, boring.

It’s all about the balance. Profit isn’t evil. Profit out of whack with the joy and the service might become evil. But don’t blame profit. Blame the out-of-whack-ness.

Tags: big ideas by emma
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In the book Building Unity, Paul Werder defines community as “The process of two or more people accepting and transcending their differences, so they can communicate effectively for their common good.”

He describes learning Scott Peck’s model of group maturation which follows these steps (see also the Wikipedia article):

1. pseudocommunity - where people pretend to get along perfectly and cover up differences by acting like they don’t exist.
2. chaos - when pseudocommunity breaks down and people realize they can’t ignore their differences and conflict starts happening in an unproductive way.
3. emptiness - when people learn to empty themselves of their ego-resistance that is getting in the way of community. They give up in some way some part of themselves that is not conducive to community-building (i.e. stubbornness, being right).
4. true community - when people are in real empathy with each other, and there is a sense of mutual respect, acceptance, and working together.

These stages can also be seen in relationships - you meet, you fall in love, but eventually all your “stuff” comes out and you have to deal with it before you can create true acceptance and a real bond.

I’ve also read a study that compared the satisfaction levels among clients who had been in therapy for a period of time. They found that clients reported more satisfaction in cases where some incident had come up that had to be worked through between the client and the therapist themselves.

Successfully working through conflict creates trust and fosters a deeper level of interaction.

Unfortunately, most groups and organizations don’t get past stage 1 pseudocommunity. 

We have a cultural preference (or a cultural problem) of not engaging in any conflict, and it gets in the way of building real relationships with each other.

I’ve noticed that in business, it’s often seen as “not professional” to deal openly with conflict - there is an unspoken ideal that all business be conducted with calmness and any conflict be smoothed over immediately. Consequently, most business is conducted at stage 1, and never gets to the stage of true community.

Many people do not have the skills to enter stage 3 and 4 - or even the awareness that it exists.

Emptying-out is a spiritual process. It goes against our American rugged individualist psyche, which is very ego-centric.

We also just plain don’t have discussions about this sort of thing. Could you imagine how different Congress would be if both Republicans and Democrats had the goal of creating community rather than winning their position? What if your Senator sat down with himself and thought about emptying-out his ego-attachments that were getting in the way of communicating together for the common good?

My prescription: be more willing to engage with each other authentically, and examine your ego-attachments that are at play.

Let’s all create more community. Let’s deal directly with our differences. Let’s look at our stuff. Let’s start creating a culture where we can relate at level 4 much more often.

It’s easy to point at our culture and criticize it (hey, I just did that!), but it comes down to each of us anyway. We could all get better at stages 3 and 4. And the heart of stages 3 and 4 is learning to take responsibility for ourselves and what we truly want.

I recognize in myself a great deal of resistance to community. A lot of it, surprisingly, is a dislike of Stage 1 pseudocommunity. I can’t stand not dealing with things, and I’ve been in the situation where I’m in a group and it goes into stage 2 and then people quickly gloss things over and get us back to stage 1. Most people feel safer and more comfortable there; I often feel uncomfortable and strained.

My ego-emptying right now is to recognize that for some people, conflict has to happen at a calmer pace and tone or they really can’t do it. And that doesn’t mean they don’t want to discuss anything, it just means they get a lot more adrenaline with flat-out conflict. So I need to be mindful of different constitutions and not assume people are superficial and out to judge me when really they just want to take a breath and check in with themselves.

Another emptying-out I am working on is just my abject fear of being rejected and my automatic suppression of my authentic self. It’s subtle and most people wouldn’t even know it was happening, because I tend to be pretty open, but I notice it is still there.

What about you? Do you recognize barriers to community in yourself? What is your experience with building true community?

Tags: big ideas, healing by emma
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