Having started a company based upon the word “joy” (Joie de Vivre Hospitality), I’ve always been drawn to the difference between happiness and joy which is summed-up perfectly in J.D. Salinger’s quote, “Happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.” Happiness is often circumstantial while overflowing joy comes from within. And, that joy, especially later in life, comes from serving others.
Psychologist Viktor Frankl, after suffering through living in a concentration camp, famously wrote that early in life, he held onto the question, “What can I expect from life?” but, later in life, he shifted a few words to, “What does life expect of me?” What task in life is waiting for me?
This has been on my mind recently because of my stage-3 prostate cancer. What does life expect of me in this time? And, here’s my answer: Life expects me to be joyous in taking care of myself while role modeling what it means to give back with my one, wild and precious life. In the first year of his eighties, the polymathic philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) wrote about how to grow old with this life-magnifying advice:
“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”
While Russell’s advice relates to curating a broad expanse of a life, as a leader, this speaks to me. It suggests that my role as a “servant leader” is to support those younger than me. To offer my wisdom far and wide. To let this wisdom overrun the banks of my ego and move beyond my personal ROI, Return on Investment, to a new kind of ROI, Ripple of Impact.
How can you expand your Ripple of Impact? That’s what we’re focusing on in two back-to-back Santa Fe workshops I’m leading next week.
Starting this Sunday, February 22, for 4 days, I’ll be co-leading a workshop with the sage leadership guide Rand Stagen from the highly-regarded Stagen Leadership Academy called The Pursuit of Higher Ground with a fascinating cohort who’ve already signed up (have just a few spots left). And, then, on Thursday, February 26 for 3 days, I’ll be leading Chip’s Wisdom Weekend: Turning Experience into Impact focused on why wisdom is the greatest skill a leader can offer as they get older. Come to one or both workshops, back-to-back.
-Chip