INNERTREK™ Founder's Page
Welcome to the InnerTrek Founder’s Page. I appreciate
your taking the time to read our very first edition. In the
future each issue will include practical self-improvement
tips for business, community and youth as well as some valuable
discussion and insights into the cultivation of wisdom.
I thought it would be helpful to begin with an explanation
of why InnerTrek was formed and what its goals are. In my
experience, some entrepreneurs start their companies to take
advantage of an existing market. Others start a business
because they feel they have a product or idea valuable enough
to establish a new market. I founded InnerTrek with both
schemes in mind, for certainly the services InnerTrek has
to offer are very recognizable, but the approach is something
truly unique.
For over twenty years I have been in the field of professional
development and leadership consulting and training specializing
in executive relationship, sales communication and organizational
teamwork. Despite the economic woes of the past couple of
years, the demand for employee development remains strong
and the market for most types of business and leadership
consulting has expanded. Companies continue to pump millions
of dollars into consulting organizations in order to develop
more effective business strategies, change strategies, sales
strategies, selling techniques, presentation skills or teambuilding.
I have been fortunate enough to have been a beneficiary of
this market and am very grateful.
I am also, by nature, an inquisitive, often skeptical person,
one who is compelled to uncover truth and meaning in life.
In view of all the economic woes of the past several years,
I had to ask myself if what we consultants do really makes
a difference. I have seen new companies go under, old companies
try to restructure; I have watched and worked with the parade
of executives that come and go; I have witnessed the attempts
to turn widget “salespeople” who sold a line
of products into widget “sales consultants” who
sell a process; and I have seen the looks on the faces of
a workforce that has survived the first three rounds of unanticipated
layoffs.
The answer I came up with was, yes, the consulting does
work, but only to a point. There seems to be a critical piece
of the puzzle missing, because, despite all the effort so
many have put into the struggle, so many more continue to
be feeling a lot of pain. I took some time off to ponder
and research this question and arrived at an answer — one
that resonates and provided the impetus for forming InnerTrek.
The missing piece of the puzzle is wisdom. It appears we
have forgotten how important it is to cultivate wisdom. Wisdom
is the One, as ancient Greek mathematicians referred to it,
from which the Many follow. It is only through the cultivation
of individual wisdom in our personal and business lives that
the seeds of collective wisdom are sown that ultimately produce
the fruit that provides our societies with healthy nourishment.
The very health of our businesses, communities and youth
are threatened by this lack of wisdom. InnerTrek has been
formed to do something about it.
There are many kinds of wisdom. There is the spiritual wisdom
that many of us associate with God, or Christ, or Sophia,
or Brahma, or Jaweh, or Allah, or the universe, or from embracing
Nothingness. There is the professional wisdom or know-how
that an expert in a particular field acquires over the years.
There is the emotional wisdom that comes from experiencing
ourselves or supporting someone else who is going through
a particularly difficult life challenge. There is the creative
wisdom of artists, comedians, actors, musicians and writers,
who seem to be able to walk so comfortably on the edge. There
is the psychological wisdom from those who wade into unconscious
waters to unravel the mysteries of our inner lives. There
is the body wisdom that our athletes, dancers, trapeze artists,
doctors, masseurs and physical therapists utilize. There
is the wisdom of nature whose secrets our scientists, naturalists,
astronomers and physicists continue to uncover. There is
the wisdom you see in the face of a newborn baby or that
just getting older seems to bring. And then there is what
I call practical wisdom, the kind of wisdom that, if we are
open to it and willing to do a little work, offers its gift
in the pivotal moments we encounter everyday in our business
and personal lives.
Practical wisdom is borne of a healthy examination of our
inner processes, an openness to learning new outer behaviors,
and above all the unwavering personal courage to stand in
the midst of the tension that naturally comes from self examination
and learning new ways of doing and saying things. Rollo May,
the psychologist and philosopher whom I admired greatly,
wrote in The Courage to Create, that,
We cannot will to have insights. We cannot will creativity.
But we can will to give ourselves to the encounter with intensity
of dedication and commitment. The deeper aspects of awareness
are activated to the extent that the person is committed
to the encounter.
We cannot will wisdom either, but we can will ourselves
to the encounter by opening our eyes to what we do and say
in the “pivotal situations” we experience each
day. For example, an executive may continually avoid working
directly with another executive because of personal differences
that seem irresolvable. Or, in key meetings with other salespeople,
a seasoned salesperson may often deride a new approach to
selling that has been instituted to move the organization
to a new level of doing business. In another situation, a
community activist who seems to want everything his or her
way resorts to extreme measures of confrontation, while a
governmental body seems to stubbornly stand by unresponsive
and self-serving bureaucratic policies. Or, a high school
youth, with the normal drive to experiment, rebel and belong,
uncharacteristically becomes involved in an unhealthy activity
because of difficulties confronting the pressure of peers.
In avoiding the encounter, especially in pivotal situations
that repeat themselves day after day, we instead develop “workarounds” or
rationalizations that become so habitual we begin to think
of the “workaround” as the normal way of operating.
Think of the “workarounds” you have had to develop
and learned to accept in using your computer, network or
software. The sense of triumph we may feel anytime we create
successful “workarounds”, masks the tremendous
waste and inefficiency we are now living with. But, more
importantly, the “workarounds” make it impossible
for an individual or an organization to achieve any level
of synergy. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole
only when those parts are pure and unencumbered with “workarounds”.
And without synergy supplying the energy and means to move
to the next level, individuals and organizations lose the
ability to innovate. Synergy only occurs when personal motivation
and initiative are high, individual behavior is focused and
effective and confidence abounds. Synergy only occurs when
the habitual “workarounds” and rationalizations
that occur in pivotal situations are properly encountered
so that the practical wisdom that comes out of that encounter
is released.
At InnerTrek, we believe that if you identify regularly
occurring pivotal situations and encounter those situations
through an interactive and integrated program of learning
that is comprised of relevant inner work, related outer skill
development and challenging parallel activities that encourage
and promote courage, you can cultivate the kind of practical
wisdom that ultimately breeds synergy in the workplace, community
or school.
Robert M. Figari, M.A.
Founder
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