The thZen of Mike Tythson

Strategic is growing, and stress has really been mounting. My now wife and I just got married and recovering from the expense of that, while continuing to manage growth in my very high stakes industry (business development), is a lot. I plan and I plan and whether things are looking up or going down, I find myself feeling overwhelmed often. Barely gripping on to a veneer of calm as to not spread the feeling to the people that depend on me.

It seemed that no matter how I planned things, the world didn't agree and this was really stressing me out. The idea of running a multi-operational company and sustaining peace of mind proved to be laughable pairing. The amount of people that rely on you as your success grows, and the fear of disappointing them can leave you feeling as if the walls and enclosing on you at all times. It can leave you feeling as if the world is pulling you apart. The internal doubt, fears, nerves, loneliness and pressure that congeals at the top of any organization. So in the chaos, it’s hard to imagine peace. The possibility of folding up your legs and humming oms with deadlines passing. Then, I saw this picture.

Saigon, Vietnam era, a monk sets himself on fire to protest the boiling war with the United States. Skin melting from the bone, the monk sustains perfect stillness. Suddenly, I had perspective.

Today I write this from a place of peace and gratitude that I didn’t have a week prior. I wanted to understand what created this level of mindfulness in the eye of greater pressure than I’ve ever felt, and this is what I was introduced to.

“Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face”

Mushin: Mind without mind

Mushin in Japanese means ‘mind like water’. The world around you and the events of your life are never solid, still, or predictable despite how far we go to increase the probability of them being that way. No matter how much you analyze, there’s always the unexpected. Mike Tyson says is best in the quote “everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face”.

I realized that all of my stress came from that fact that I believed these stressful things weren’t ‘supposed’ to happen. That my company’s growth is ‘supposed’ to reduce anxiety about our success. All this from an arrogant assumption that I lived in a predictable, solid, still or predictable world. What I decided to do is clutter my mind of any presumptions about the way things are supposed to be. To live in the moment and be the leader the moment requires me to be. I feel a lot better now, thanks Mike.

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