The Art of Possibility Summary

The Art of Possibility

By Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander

SUMMARY by Donna Schilder, MCC Leadership, Career, & Business Coach

(562)314-4807 Donna@DonnaSchilder.com

1. It’s all invented
   • What assumption am I making, that I’m not aware of, that gives me what I see?
   • What might I now invent, that I haven’t yet invented, that would give me other choices?

2. Stepping into a Universe of Possibility
   • How are my thoughts and actions at this moment reflections of the measurement world (survival, scarcity, competition, attachment, and anxiety)?
   • And how now?
   • How can I shake off the measurement world?

3. Giving an A
   • Write a letter about why you deserve an “A.”
   • You are an “A” student, so act like one.
   • Treat everyone as if you have given them an “A.”
   • Give the people who participated in your childhood an “A.”

4. Being a Contribution
   • Declare yourself to be a contribution to the world.
   • Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why

5. Leading from any Chair
   • Give your best no matter what your designated position.
   • As a leader:

Enable your orchestra (and the individual players within it) to play the phrases as beautifully as they can.
Listen for your player’s passion, and ask why if they don’t have any.
Ask your players how the piece could be better.
Give them eye contact when you use their ideas.
Let your players feel what it is like to lead.

6. Rule No. 6 – Don’t take Yourself so Seriously
   • How could I take myself less seriously?
   • What would have to change for me to be completely fulfilled?
   • Have the best sex ever

7. The Way Things Are
   • What is here now?
   • What else is here now?

8. Give Way to Passion
   • Notice where you are holding back, and let go.  Release those barriers of self that keep you separate and in control, and let the vital energy of passion surge through you, connecting you to all beyond.
   • Participate wholly.  Allow yourself to be a channel to shape the stream of passion into a new expression for the world.
   • Work beyond the “F—“ it.

9. Lighting the Spark
   • Enrollment is generating a spark of possibility for others to share.

Imagine people are an invitation for enrollment.
Stand ready to participate, willing to be moved and inspired.
Have no doubt that others are eager to catch the spark.
Don’t take it personally if they don’t catch the spark.

10. Being the Board
    • I am the framework for everything that happens in my life.
    • If I cannot be present without resistance to the way things are and act effectively, if I feel myself to be wronged, a loser, or a victim, I will tell myself that some assumption I have made is the source of my difficulty.
    • Ask yourself about an unwanted circumstance

How did this get on the board that I am?
How is it that I have become a context for that to occur?

11. Creating Frameworks for Possibility
    • Make a new distinction in the realm of possibility.  One that is a powerful substitute for the current framework that is generating the downward spiral.
    • Enter the territory.  Embody the new distinction in such a way that it becomes the framework for life around you.
    • Keep distinguishing what is “on the track” and what is “off the track” of your framework of possibility.

12. Telling the WE Story
    • Tell the WE story – the story of the unseen threads that connect us all, the story of possibility
    • Listen and look for the emerging entity
    • Ask what do WE want to have happen here?

What’s the best for US – all of each of us, and all of all of us?
What’s our next step to get there?