Just row

Abstract

To learn anything outside of our usual experience is to try on a new way of being. Doing something new--dealing with change--calls for a commitment to be where you are, to be present in the experiment, even while you are uncertain about the outcome. Being present and committed to the moment is as essential in management or self-management as it is in rowing a boat. How, for instance, can you tell the difference between intuition and fear? In the midst of a crisis, a change, a white water passage, a "learning opportunity," what if you get this gut feeling that something is wrong? If the feeling goes away when you drop into the present, into your body, and "just row," it's not an intuition, it's fear. The opportunity is to know the difference between opinion and intuition, between judgments and experience. Because judgments and opinions carry extraordinarily high price tags.