Or: If you kill your neighbor so you can feel good about yourself, does that make you bad person?
Read the book Leadership and Self-deception, written by The Arbinger Institute (who would name their child that?) and TAKE NOTES
The expectation in our discussion is that you will reference specific passages from the book and let that those passages direct your remarks, questions, and insights.
What surprised you? confused you? inspired you? was said beautifully? did you disagree with? reminded you of something else? made sense? gave you insight? blew your mind? made you sick?
Next year we will watch a movie that contains the following line: “We read to know we are not alone.”
The goal in Vanguard is to introduce you to some the greatest minds and the greatest ideas that humans have conceived: their hopes, their dreams, their revelations, their errors, their longings, their discoveries, their stories. An encounter with these people and their ideas invites you to be a participant in what has been called The Great Conversation. The miracle of recorded media (whether it be in print, audio, or visual format) allows you to sit at the table with bards and philosophers, teachers and tyrants, the best and the worst of humanity and to consider in the quiet of your own mind and the company of your friends what is worthy of adoption in your life and what is not.
You only have so much time — you cannot give a lifetime to every possible idea.
Let your reading and watching and listening become a tool to sift through the myriads of choices that are placed before you and to harvest from the wisdom of the past what you should and should not give your life to.
Time is the most renewable resource we have — every day ours clock are replenished and we get another 16-20 hours to do with what we will
Time is a the ultimate renewable
Until is runs out
Learn from the wisdom of the ages. Don’t think you have to make every mistake and re-invent every wheel.
Pay attention
Take notes
Ask questions
Experiment on the word
Their minds, captured for us in accessible media, is one of the greatest gifts we have
Take it seriously
And after you have heard them out?
Write back
Tell them what you thought and what puzzled you. Tell them what you loved and how they helped you. Express gratitude for the time they took to record and to express themselves in clear writing. Ask them to clarify, to expand, to restate, and to update.
Though you are unlikely to receive a response (or “Like”) from Odysseus or Don Quixote, Jesus is listening
He reads every heart and listens to every prayer
And He has has promised that “by the power of the Holy Ghost, you can know the truth of all things.”
But you must seek, ask, and knock.
Get in the habit of doing this
EVERY
TIME
YOU READ
It is a habit that will bless you and your people all your life.
