Freedom is now or never.

Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that, in the busyness of our daily struggle to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul's break for freedom.

Thinking can be lateral or "sweaty". For the latter you're better off in an office and following a routine but for the former you have to be "out of your mind", so to speak. So although I recognize the merits of hard work, I find that my work goes stale if I don't go off wandering around the world every few weeks. My friends think I'm a gipsy, but that's when I do "part 1" of my best work.

We must know that it is not enough just to see what the Mind is, we must put into practice all that makes it up in our daily life. We may talk about it glibly, we may write books to explain it, but that is far from being enough. However much we may talk about water and describe it quite intelligently, that does not make it real water. So with fire. Mere talking of it will not make the mouth burn. To know what they are means to experience them in actual concreteness. A book on cooking will not cure our hunger. To feel satisfied we must have actual food. So long as we do not go beyond mere talking, we are not true knowers.

It boils down to studenthood-in-perpetuity / curiosity-in-perpetuity / applied fanatic restlessness. That is, a belief that life is . . . ONE BIG LEARNING EXPERIENCE. Something mysterious happens to a curious, fully engaged mind -- and it happens as often as not, subconsciously. Strange little sparks are set off, connections made, insights triggered. The results: an exponentially increased ability to tune up / reinvent / WOW-ize today's project at work.

Is leadership inherent or trainable? Both. You are born with characteristics that reside deep inside you: drive, an ability to influence and motivate, perseverance. But you have to develop those qualities through actual leadership experiences. A key quality is adaptability--facing unexpected obstacles, falling short of goals, reading the context, and changing your approach. Absent that, leaders will continue to repeat mistakes and will not grow and develop. That leads me to the essence of the question "Why is it so hard to lead yourself?" The answer, in my experience, lies in the differences between your idealized self--how you see yourself and how you want to be seen--and your real self. The key to growing as a leader is to narrow that gap by developing a deep self-awareness that comes from straight feedback and honest exploration of yourself, followed by a concerted effort to make changes.

Ultimately one must abandon the path to enlightenment. If you still define yourself as a Buddhist, you are not a buddha yet.