How Diversity Drives Success

Have you ever wondered how diversity plays a part in the success of companies?  Socialcast put together a visual look at how CEOs view the importance of diversity and inclusion.  They believe that diversity drives innovation, which is the key to success.  Do you agree?  Click on the image below to see the infographic that Socialcast created.

Aquifers of Understanding

The rain that falls on the earth’s surface takes several different journeys.  Some of it is collected by streams, rivers and lakes, and returned relatively quickly to the sea.  Some of it stays near the surface of the ground to be absorbed by plant life, and some of it takes a decades-long journey, down through dozens – sometimes hundreds – of feet of rock, arriving eventually at vast underground storage areas known as aquifers.  Freshwater aquifers charge extremely slowly and can take thousands of years to form.  We tap into them for industry and agriculture and they are critical to the prosperity of civilization as we know it.

Similar aquifers exist deep within the psyche of every human being. These aquifers contain not water, but a true understanding of one’s self.  This understanding is the product of events and experiences that have spent years working to penetrate layers of resistance before arriving into full consciousness.  The result of this slow, necessary distillation is a vast, silent reservoir of self-knowledge that is just as critical for human life as water.  It is a deep wellspring we can tap into when we have lost our bearings in the world, and urgently need to find our way.

There is one important thing to remember, though:  As rainfall may take decades to reach underground aquifers, so can it take a lifetime for deeper, fuller understanding to arrive in our own lives.   Nothing we do will hasten this process.  All we can do is try to be as patient, and as permeable, as possible.

Adrian Juric is Canadian Certified Counsellor.  He leads wilderness retreats for adults that use poetry and hiking to help individuals make sense of the transitions occurring in their lives.   See www.innerlandscapes.org for more info.

Identity and the Curve of Transformation

“The unfolding saga of life on all levels is one of constant transformation, constant changing of form,” says author, artist and playwright Julia Cameron.

Nature illustrates this principle in countless ways. The chambered Nautilus, for example, is a deep-water mollusk that builds a spiral-shaped shell for a home. Growing constantly, it can never remain for long in the chamber it lives in. Nor can it return to previous ones; they no longer fit. Instead, the Nautilus is constantly obliged to build a new chamber for itself to live in. And in so doing, it is, in a way, constantly arranging for its own disappearance in the world.

Whether we like it or not, our personal and career identities obey the same growth impulse. Some part of us is constantly disappearing around what poet David Whyte calls an ‘invisible curve of transformation’. Some part of us is constantly pushing ahead, in search of a meaning horizon that is broad enough to accommodate the expanded self that is asking to be born.

The form of disappearance in the world is met with deep existential dread by the ego, says Jungian analyst Murray Stein (Stein, Murray. In Midlife: A Jungian Perspective. Conn.: Spring Publications, 1983. p.86.). Not only does it spell the death of a secure way of being:

“…a person’s sense of direction forward is beclouded and obscured during liminality; life’s pathways to the future appear to be unmarked and even uncharted, and the future itself seems unimaginable in every conceivable direction.”

Still, this is a journey we must all make if a more robust form of identity is to emerge. It is a departure that must occur if a new Self is to be born. If we do not, says poet John O’Donohue, a person may “linger for years in spaces that are too small and shabby for the grandeur of their spirit.”
(O’Donohue, J. To Bless the Space Between Us:A Book of Blessings.New York: Doubleday, 2008.p.192)

Where are you on the curve of your career transformation? What has already happened in your life that you need to catch up with?”

Post contributed by Adrian Juric

Adrian Juric is Canadian Certified Counsellor. He leads wilderness retreats for adults that use poetry and hiking to help individuals make sense of the transitions occurring in their lives. See www.innerlandscapes.org for more info.