Curious about Ambiguity: One of Leonardo da Vinci’s Steps to Genius

“Definition of Ambiguity: The quality or state of being ambiguous; doubtfulness or uncertainty, particularly as to the signification of language, arising from its admitting of more than one meaning; an equivocal word or expression.”

“Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.” - Sigmund Freud

Last week I mentioned Michael J. Gelb’s fascinating book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Everyday Genius. I have finished it, but am so impressed with it that I have ordered a copy for myself and several for gifts. It includes many excellent exercises that I haven’t had a chance to pursue.

Anyway, what does this have to do with ambiguity? Leonardo embraced ambiguity and Gelb uses it in defining one of the “Seven Steps.”

Even though I didn’t find an overabundance of quotations, the ones I did find and will share with you are positive, creative and eye-opening.

In general:

• “On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.” - Adam Smith
• “I'm a participant in the doctrine of constructive ambiguity.” - Vernon A. Walters
• “If I take refuge in ambiguity, I assure you that it's quite conscious.” - Kingman Brewster
• “The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements (as well as one's deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity.” - Paul Tillich
• “I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.” - Carl Sandburg

In the area of creativity and artistry:

• “Ambiguity is necessary in some of my stories, not in all. In those, it certainly contributes to the richness of the story. I doubt that thematic closure is never attainable.” - Gene Wolfe
• “The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing.” - Ralph Ellison
• “The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.” - Scott Turow
• “People ask me if I left the lyrics open to ambiguity. Of course I did. I wanted to make a whole series of complex statements. The lyrics had to do with the state of society at the time.” - Don McLean

In politics and journalism:

• “The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.” - Alexander Haig
• “My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernization since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity.” - Kenzaburo Oe
• “How is a reporter supposed to feel about ambiguity? As a human, you react to the overwhelming tragedy of it.” - Jessica Savitch

How do you feel about ambiguity? Do you make use of it? I am a storyteller, and often after I have finished telling, listeners will ask, “Was that true?” Rather than disappointing them and, I feel, hurting the story, I will answer rather ambiguously. “What do you think?” or “Every story has some truth.”

Complexity and ambiguity do go “hand in hand.” I feel that if we examine our lives and our work, we will discover that our days are filled with them. So chew on these last quotations and do let me know what you think.

“You know, people who almost- yeah, there's a slight reluctance there - but there's also an ambiguity. What are their morals? What is their code of living? What are they really doing here? And it is just interesting because it is never black or white.” - Matt Robinson

“But also because ambiguity haunts one's mind and ambiguity... it's out of ambiguities that we make choices.” - Dennis C. G. Potter

Curious about Intelligence: The Kinds, Uses and Scope

“I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.” - Abigail Adams

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” - Salvador Dali

I was moved and inspired to write this week’s blog on Intelligence, because I just started a fascinating and motivating book. Even though I have just begun, I am already enthralled with How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci - Seven Steps to Genius Every Day written by Michael J. Gelb.

As Gelb points out in this Introduction and Preface, the last three decades have brought about a great deal of brain research and attention to Multiple Intelligences. In 1983, Howard Gardner, Professor of Education at Harvard wrote Frames of Minds, which listed seven Intelligences. Today, eight are now listed.

The eight are: Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Musical, Bodily-kinesthetic, Spatial, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Naturalistic. If you are as interested in and curious about Intelligence, as I am, you might visit the following websites: click HERE to read all about Howard Gardner and HERE to find out more about the Multiple Intelligences. I even took a Learning Style Test HERE (the report is only $8.95). You will also find a link to a free assessment of your Multiple Intelligence Inventory (which I also took).

It’s time for a few of the incredible number of Intelligence quotations I found. These are the thoughts in general about Intelligence:

• “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” - Lao Tzu
• “A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence.” - Barbara Walters
• “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” - Michael Jordan
• “To lack intelligence is to be in the ring blindfolded.” - David M. Shoup
• “There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.” - Ronald Reagan
• “Without consciousness and intelligence, the universe would lack meaning.” - Clifford D. Simak
• “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

How about another side to Intelligence - having it, keeping it, using it and not taking advantage of it?

• “Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.” - Leonardo da Vinci
• “Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.” - Thomas Szasz
• “I'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.” - Alice Walker
• “Intelligence, in diapers, is invisible. And when it matures, out the window it flies. We have to pounce on it earlier.” - Stanislaw Lec
• “We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.” - Bertrand Russell
• “An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.” - Laurence J. Peter
• “Many difficulties which nature throws in our way, may be smoothed away by the exercise of intelligence.” - Titus Livius (59-17 BC)
• “I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” - Antonio Gramsci

And, then there are those quotations I share with you for extra thinking and chewing this coming week:

“Action is the real measure of intelligence.” - Napoleon Hill

“Kindness and intelligence don't always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships.” - Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.” - Thomas A. Edison

Let me know what you think. And, do have an Intelligent week!

Curious about Growth: How Do You Manage It and/or Is It Important?

Definition: The process of growing; the gradual increase of an animal or a vegetable body; the development from a seed, germ, or root, to full size or maturity; increase in size, number, frequency, strength, etc.; augmentation; advancement; production; prevalence or influence; as, the growth of trade; the growth of power; the growth of intemperance.

“I think that our fundamental belief is that for us growth is a way of life and we have to grow at all times.” - Mukesh Ambani

This is the time of year - the beginning of September - that I almost consider as a mini-New-Year. It is the time for “re-booting” so to speak. Children start back to school, students that haven’t been coming to my fitness classes in the summer start showing up again, and I re-evaluate my business/life and set the plans, goals, and intentions for the rest of the year.

It is an exciting time for growth in many areas!

William Butler Yeats wrote, “Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.

How about you? Do you have new subjects and skills to learn? New intentions to achieve? New relationships to establish?

I do feel that one of the biggest challenges today is to fit it all in. I received a thought provoking e-mail yesterday from the brilliant businessman, Rich Schefren. He suggested that we cut down on our “Input to Increase Our Output.” He pointed out - and rightly so - that we are so bombarded with information (and, it is good and useful information) that we don’t have enough time or energy to devote to what we are trying to create - our output.

I am in total agreement, and starting today - because I have set important growth intentions for the next four months - I will cut back on thoroughly reading every e-newsletter and print magazine I receive daily, weekly and monthly. I will also forego the many, many, many teleseminars I attend. The majority are recorded and can be downloaded - then listened to as I fix dinner and do other chores. I am not saying that I haven’t and don’t learn and grow from this input, but something has to give.

Now for a few of the great quotations. You can imagine the plethora that are concerned with and applaud “growth.” I had a real challenge picking some to share with you.

• “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” - Leo Tolstoy
• “Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.” - Morihei Ueshiba
• “Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.” - Jean Vanier
• “The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” - Lao Tzu
• “Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.” - Oscar Wilde

A few other takes on growth:

• “With each passage of human growth we must shed a protective structure like a hardy crustacean. We are left exposed and vulnerable - but also yeasty and embryonic again, capable of stretching in ways we hadn't known before.” - Gail Sheehy
• “Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.” - Ronald Reagan
• “Adversity precedes growth.” - Rosemarie Rossetti
• “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” - Virginia Satir

Three more to think about this coming week:

• “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself.” - John Dewey
• “Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” - James Cash Penney
• “The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.” - Charles Handy

So, do you have a strategy for your growth? I would love to hear about it.

Curious about Fundamentals: So Easily Overlooked, But So Important in Every Way

“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.” - Jim Rohn

Definition of Fundamental:

1. Pertaining to the foundation or basis; serving for the foundation. Hence: Essential, as an element, principle, or law; important; original; elementary; as, a fundamental truth; a fundamental axiom.
2. A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article, which serves as the groundwork of a system; essential part.

I love and/or live to read, but I ardently love and/or live to listen - yes, I am an auditory learner! That’s why I have recently been in my glory signing up for teleseminars. It seems that during every week there are a plethora of choices from Monday through Thursday.

What does this have to do with Fundamentals? Lots! Because it doesn’t matter what the topic is, every presenter who has been successful stresses the importance of starting with the Fundamentals - the foundation, basics, and the essential principles.

One doesn’t build a house without a foundation and plan. So, we shouldn’t jump into a business or any endeavor, for that matter, without the Fundamentals. I love the following quotations that speak directly to this:

• “They instilled in me how to do things the right way, having good fundamentals, having good work habits - and even how to put on my socks.” - Ryne Sandberg
• “Perhaps the single most important element in mastering the techniques and tactics of racing is experience. But once you have the fundamentals, acquiring the experience is a matter of time.” - Greg LeMond
• “But you know, the fundamentals of how you build a product and how you approach the customers and solve their problems have not changed.” - Scott Cook

Oftentimes, I feel that the fundamentals sound straightforward and simple, so we tend to overlook their importance. An example would be the new idea that excites us. We are so in love with it, we don’t take time to check out the fundamentals. We just rush ahead and create the product/business of the idea.

• Is there a group of people that want and need this product (especially want it)?
• Do they have the means to purchase it (even if they want it, it won’t do any good if they can’t afford it)?
• How will we get in touch with them (let them know it is available)?

Others who suggest the importance of engaging and starting with the fundamentals:

• “Return to the fundamentals of politics - sell our story door to door.” - Richard J. Daley
• “I had to spend countless hours, above and beyond the basic time, to try and perfect the fundamentals.” - Julius Erving
• “I wrote two plotted books, got some of the fundamentals of storytelling down, then... it's sort of like taking the training wheels off, trying to write a book that's fun in the same way without relying on quite such mechanical or external beats.” - Jonathan Franzen
• “Figure out what you want to focus on when you're 12 and 13, and then start to learn the real fundamentals.” - Brett Hull

What are the fundamentals of your field of business and/or interests? How can you put them to use to lead you to success?

Here are some thoughts and the fundamentals for you to consider and work on this week:

• “We need leadership on the fundamentals of eating right, exercising, and not smoking.” - Donna Shalala
• “No one can give another human being the soul of an artist, the sensibility of a writer, or the passion to put words on paper that is the gift and the curse of those who fashion poetry and prose. But it's ludicrous to suggest and short- sighted to believe that the fundamentals of fiction can't be taught.” - Elizabeth George
• “I believe in evolution and I think when it comes to business and the roots of business and the fundamentals of business, I don't think that ever changes. I think the idea of change is an illusion, but in nature it's necessary to change and perhaps business is a part of nature. I'm not totally sure.” - Elliott Gould

And finally:

“Higher education must lead the march back to the fundamentals of human relationships, to the old discovery that is ever new, that man does not live by bread alone.” - John Hannah