Business Tao with George Kao The opposite of #hustle -- joyful calm productivity
Is it possible to be emotionally relaxed and joyful, yet highly productive?
Think of a master in martial arts … they aren’t fretting, tense, worried, or stressed out. They have a relaxed focus, a calm strength, a powerful composure.
Their face might appear emotionless, yet their body expresses a wide range of motion, able to accomplish a great deal with both precision and flexibility.
Inside, they are experiencing clarity, confidence, and a calm joy.
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I’m not a martial arts master, but I have developed a sort of calm, joyful productivity within my own sphere of work: content creation, business coaching, and book writing.
While I was writing my first book, Authentic Content Marketing, a dear client asked me:
“As the grand finale [of your book’s completion] approaches, what are your feelings at this moment? Soon is the moment of ‘letting go’… any thoughts on that?”
My response:
I have never really “held on” to what the book’s results would be, so there is no “letting go.”
As for a “grand finale”… I don’t see it, I said to her, since I was already planning my second book, Joyful Productivity.
I now see each and every project as simply a mile marker on a lifelong journey of growing into greater service and deeper self-knowledge.
Joy occurs throughout the process… at the beginning, in the middle, and at the “end” of a project… and again onto the next project, with a calm and joyful heart.
There’s no anxiety about results, no gritting of teeth, no failure or success.
There’s only constant experimentation, the steady progress of learning, and consistent Self-exploration and service to the greater whole.
Recently I came across an Alan Watts lecture that summed this up beautifully:
What do you do if I say to you, "Take a hard look at me. Take a real hard look." Now what are you doing? What's the difference between a “hard look” and a “soft look?”
Why, with your hard look, you are straining the muscles around your eyes, and you're starting to stare.
If you stare at a distant image far away from you, you'll make it fuzzy. If you want to see it clearly you must close your eyes, imagine black for awhile, and then lazily and easily open them and you'll see the image. The light will come to you.
And what do you do if I say, "Now, listen carefully, listen very carefully to what I'm saying." You'll find you're beginning to strain yourself around the ears.
Supposing somebody says, "O.K. now, you've got to use your will, you've got to exercise strong will." That's the ego, isn't it?
What do you do when you exercise your will? You grit your teeth, you clench your fists. If you want to stop wayward emotions, you go uptight. You pull your stomach in, or hold your breath, or contract your rectal muscles. But all these activities have absolutely nothing to do with the efficient functioning of your nervous system.
Just as staring at images makes them fuzzy, listening...
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