The Art of Possibility – Rosamund Stone Zander, Benjamin Zander
12 incredibly helpful practices from a conductor and a psychotherapist that will transform the way you see the world and fuel your personal and professional success.
Just Take Right Action And Let Life Unfold
Resources and opportunities flourish when you generously include people in your passion for life. In orienting yourself towards abundance, you open up a new world of possibility in which you take bigger risks, pursue your dreams, and accept that you cannot always predict the outcome.
The Power of A Vision
Setting a vision for yourself can help you separate from the local and day-to-day noise. It can give you a guiding light to keep working towards.
A vision releases us from the weight and confusion of local problems and concerns and allows us to see the long clear line. A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from the objectives of the downward spiral.
Take Responsibility
When you accept responsibility for everything in your life, you are free to choose an empowering response that will allow you to conquer challenges and embrace opportunities.
Gracing yourself with responsibility for everything that happens in your life leaves your spirit whole, and leaves you free to choose again.
Bigger Dreams
You may give away short-term profits in pursuit of a bigger dream; you may take a long view without being able to predict the outcome. In the measurement world, you set a goal and strive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.
Success And Fear
Your success and fear of failure go hand-in-hand. Instead of being paralyzed by your fears, find ways to overcome them. When you can do this, you can use your fear as fuel for your growth.
If you want to give back, don’t worry too much about the outcome. Start giving back, and you’ll find that your contribution operates like a pebble in a pond.
It’s All Invented Anyways!
The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world are invented. So instead of continuing to live a disempowering narrative about how the world is against you, invent an empowering story that provides you meaning and enhances the quality of your life.
We can invent a story or a framework of meaning that enhances our quality of life and the lives of those around us.
Flip The Script
Every problem, every dilemma, and every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.
Choose Your Starting Place
When you’re in a bad place, go through the above series of questions. Start moving your mind through a pattern that will help you get to a new set of beliefs and choices.
When you start seeing the world as a place of abundance, instead of a place of scarcity, you can begin to experience the emotions that make being a human so amazing – joy, awe, passion, and compassion.
The River
Instead of living under the illusion that you can control all of the outcomes in your life, adopt a more fluid perspective. Imagine that your journey in the river of life comes with all kinds of joy and challenges. Be open to all of those experiences. And instead of resisting the river and missing the joy, just float down it gracefully.
Presence Is Positive, Resigned Acceptance Is Not
Being present isn’t the same as accepting the negative parts of your situation in a resigned manner. You can’t eliminate the negative in your life fully. But you can meet negative emotions with less resistance, and in doing so, you can be more present with your reality and more easily let go of these experiences that will certainly pass.
We Are Living Based On Obsolete Calculations
Too many people spend their time calculating their moves and believing the world is a scarce, scary, and cruel place. Often, our calculations are related to our childhood, where we form habits based on what we are recognized for. These habits carry into adulthood, and many of them are limiting beliefs and practices that prevent us from operating at our highest point of contribution.
Give people an A Grade
Imagine that you graded all of the people in your life. Think about the way the grade you give influences your willingness to listen and appreciate that person. You’ll notice that giving people an “A,” instead of a lower grade, will provide you with a greater capacity to listen, understand, and appreciate that person.
What You Focus On, Grows
The more attention you shine on a particular subject, the more evidence of it will grow.
If you focus on the negative in your life, it will flourish. But if you instead focus on the positive parts of your experience that you can be grateful for, you will find that life is a lot lighter than the alternative path.
Your Life Force
The Life Force for humankind is, perhaps, nothing more or less than the passionate energy to connect, express, and communicate. Enrollment is that life force at work, lighting sparks from person to person, scattering light in all directions. Sometimes the sparks ignite a blaze; sometimes they pass quietly, magically, almost imperceptibly, from one another to another.
Solve The Unsolvable
If you’re stuck with a seemingly unsolvable problem, flip the script. Try to see the problem through a new lens. More often than not, the problem will vanish and new opportunities will shine through.