Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Space Exploration

August 20, 2015

I’ve been puttering in my garden. I love my garden. But I find puttering to be a challenge.

You see, I’m a big believer in action: Doing, achieving, accomplishing; moving like a shark lest I perish from inertia.

Steeped, as I am, in the cultural paradigm that, in order to succeed, I need to work longer, harder, faster, it is difficult for me to slow down.

Puttering sometimes seems aimless; pointless; wasteful.

But it’s not.

By puttering, I open up space for myself. I allow my mind to relax. I give myself the opportunity to think, reflect, create… and be.

Just be.

Every business leader we consult with, every professional we coach wants more time; they want – they yearn – for space.

The greatest crisis of our age is not terror in the world; it is the terror that we allow within ourselves.

The greatest crisis of our age is not that we don’t have enough, but that we have too much: too much information; too much noise; too much stimulation; too much to do.

The greatest crisis of our age is that we have lost touch with that that place of quiet, that still point within us.

We’ve lost the capacity to sit still, to be still, to know the beauty and the grandeur of the here and now.

We’ve lost the capacity to be: To just be.

When we give ourselves the gift of quiet, when we open up that space, our sense of possibility expands. We see the opportunities that we miss when we are racing to that imaginary finish line.

When we allow our minds – and our bodies – to relax – ideas flourish, insight lights, we create the ground for moments of “ah-ha.”

Commander Mark Divine, author of The Way of the Seal, teaches that we need the power of silence in order “to set the conditions to win.”

“Silence creates the space for you to think and thus see reality more clearly.”

“If you’ve ever noticed how good you feel after coming out of nature after an extended stay without your cell phone and laptop,” writes Divine, “here’s the reason why: It’s because you’ve slowed down enough to quiet your outer mind, allowing your inner wisdom to poke it’s head out a bit.”

And it is that inner wisdom that truly sets us apart; that allows us to excel and truly succeed at extraordinary levels.

Habit 7 in Stephen Covey’s celebrated business classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is Sharpen the Saw. “Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you,” Covey said.