Tom Morris - The Art of Achievement: Mastering The 7 Cs of Success in Business and Life

OTHER BOOKS BY TOM MORRIS

Making Sense of It All

God and the Philosophers

True Success

If Aristotle Ran General Motors

Philosophy for Dummies

The Art of Achievement: Mastering The 7 Cs of Success in Business and Life , copyright 2002 by Tom Morris. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC

an Andrews McMeel Universal company

1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morris, Thomas V.

The art of achievement : mastering the 7 Cs of success in business and life / Tom Morris.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7407-2201-8

1. SuccessPsychological aspects. I. Title.

BF637.S8 M67 2002

158.1dc21 2001053267

Book design by Lisa Martin

ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail the Andrews McMeel Publishing Special Sales Department:

TO MARY

For your encouragement, straight talk, and cute shoes

CONTENTS

PREFACE

This book is about the ancient art of achievement. Its about making good things happen in business and in life. Its also a book of philosophy such as you may never have seen before. It will lay out some of the most practical and powerful guidance for living ever articulated by the worlds great thinkers. Its all about growth, excellence, and the experience of a deep satisfaction in everything we do. Its ultimately about making our mark in this world by mastering some of the most effective tools that have ever been devised for creative and fulfilling achievement.

The greatest philosophers of the past have left us a huge bank account of wisdom for successful living, but most people dont even know it exists. We are the proper inheritors of these great thinkers, but we tend to approach life with just our own resources and whatever insights we can pick up from the people around us. We need more. As a contemporary philosopher, Ive discovered this ancient wealth of wisdom, and Ive seen the difference it can make for anyones life. In these pages I want to share some of it with you.

SEVEN CONDITIONS AND SEVEN ARTS

For at least the past twenty-five hundred years, the best diagnosticians of the human condition have given us insights about seven universal conditions of success that must be used if we want to put ourselves into the best possible position to accomplish our dreams. Associated with each condition is an art. This book is about mastering those seven conditions and seven arts.

Were all capable of becoming artists in nearly everything we do. This is an essential realization for experiencing the sort of personal growth and lifelong adventure that is most productive of innovative, long-term success. Satisfying achievement is always an artistic accomplishment.

By artist I mean of course everyone who has tried to create something which was not here before him, with no other tools and material than the uncommerciable ones of the human spirit.

William Faulkner (897962)

I should make clear how Im using the concept of art. To be an artist, you dont have to hold a brush, bend metal, chisel rock, or play a musical instrument. Any creation of human skill is a work of art. Creating a great business, or a great career, is art. Developing your own talents, or cultivating a wonderful family life, is an art. Art transforms what is. Its the creative impulse in every human heart. The nature of our success will depend on the artistry of our actions day to day.

The ancient philosopher Aristotle (384322 B.C. ) had his own take on this. In his characteristically convoluted way he said:

The business of every art is to bring something into existence, and the practice of an art involves the study of how to bring into existence anything that is capable of having such an existence and has its efficient cause in the maker and not in itself.

To put it simply, our success in life ultimately will depend on what we know, what we do, and what we become as a result. As Aristotle saw, we cant reasonably expect to attain the highest and most significant forms of success without studying and mastering the art of achievement.

Art is not a thing: it is a way.

Elbert Hubbard (18561915)

THE REAL SECRET OF SUCCESS

There are no scientific laws or magical formulas for success. Publishers cant figure out what produces a bestseller. Toymakers cant predict the next fad. Some well thought out ventures succeed and others that seem just as promising dont.

Fortune may smile on you today and pull the rug out from under you tomorrow. Human beings have free will, and the responses of other people to what we do can never be completely assured. The individuals we most want to reach may embrace our projects or not, despite all our best efforts.

People have always searched for some form of achievement alchemya ritual to practice, an incantation to perform, a series of actions that will guarantee the exact form of success they seek. Many secrets have been proclaimed, but not one has proved to be as reliable as promised.

Superstition, which is widespread among the nations, has taken advantage of human weakness to cast its spell over the mind of almost every man.

Cicero (10643 B.C. )

There is no technology of success, and there is nothing weirdly mystical about it, either. No magic talismans or voodoo incantations can alter the realities we face in the world. No simple formulas can force the hand of fortune. Real achievement doesnt happen that way. Its not a matter of science or magic. But it is a matter of art. This is the real secret of success. There is a performance art to achievement. In fact, there are several.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow believed that Art is power. And I agree. In this book, well look at the forms of art that can empower us to live more successfully, more fully, and more meaningfully, in our work as well as in the more private spheres of our personal experience.

NO ONE IS STUCK

Not long ago, when I was checking in to a Florida hotel, a bellman walked up and asked whether I had ever taught at Notre Dame. I replied yes, I had for many years. He said, Notre Dame is in Indiana, right? I told him it is, in South Bend. Well, he said, there was a guy from Indiana here a few weeks ago. He had been a farmer all his life, and had never traveled. The farm went bust and he ended up as a salesman. He came here on his first sales conference. The first plane ride of his life, the first hotel visit. Amazing. He arrived with his boss, they checked in, and his boss told him to go upstairs, put his bags in the room, and meet him back in the lobby in five minutes. He went up. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. Finally the boss grabs a house phone, calls up, and says, Hey, whats going on? Its been twenty minutes and weve got a session to get to! The fellow from Indiana said, Im stuck and I dont know what to do. Im in my room and there are only three doors. Ones a bathroom, ones a closet, and the other one has a sign on it that says, Do Not Disturb!