The Secret to High Performance and Fulfilment

           

Filmed at the Royal College of Music on 25th October 2013.



Psychologist Daniel Goleman shot to fame with his groundbreaking bestseller Emotional Intelligence. The premise of the book, now widely accepted, is that raw intelligence alone is not a sure predictor of success in life. A greater role is played by 'softer' skills such as self-control, self-motivation, empathy and good interpersonal relationships.



Now Goleman comes to Intelligence Squared for an exclusive talk on the themes of his latest book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Attention, he will argue, is an underrated asset for high achievers in any field. Incorporating findings from neuroscience, Goleman will show why we need three kinds of focus: inner, for self-awareness; other, for the empathy that builds effective relationships; and outer, for understanding the larger systems in which organisations operate. Those who excel rely on Smart Practices such as mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and positive emotions that help improve habits, add new skills, and sustain excellence.

Fighting Genocide and a Crime against Humanity: Cardinal Lavigerie and the African Slave Trade

No discussion about the abolition of the African Slave Trade in the 19th century can make much sense without recalling the entire four- or five-hundred-year history of the phenomenon itself. What seems to be a widespread, deliberate, though subtle, effort towards collective amnesia in this matter – the inclination to erase out of consciousness and from common memory the experience of slavery, particularly in Africa – makes the obligation to remember a fundamental one. Given the extent and depth of the experience and its consequences on the African continent and its peoples right up to the present, and definitely, as evidence seems to indicate, for the future as well, it baffles the mind, and is actually immoral, that people would suggest that the Slave Trade was merely as “an incident in history,” and that the quicker it is forgotten the better it will be for the continent. On the contrary, it appears much more logical and ethical to insist that the reality of the slave trade and slavery be accorded a more prominent part than has been the case so far, not only in the African civic education system, but also in the process of Christian evangelization and catechesis. 

Laurenti Magesa

Laurenti Magesa

Read the full document (Pdf) >>
Document presented at Tangaza College (February 2013) with the occassion of the Symposium of the 125th Anniversary Anti-Slavery Campaign.

Breathing Forgiveness

Vengeance seems so logical, but it doesn’t really work: It doesn’t advance human history or us. The wonder of the resurrection stories in the Gospels is that Jesus has no punitive attitude toward the authorities or his cowardly followers; and the followers themselves never call for any kind of holy war against those who killed their leader. Something new has clearly transpired in history. This is not the common and expected story line. All Jesus does is breathe forgiveness (John 20:22).



It’s interesting that Jesus identifies forgiveness with breathing, the one thing that we have done constantly since we were born and will do until we die. He says God’s forgiveness is like breathing. Forgiveness is not apparently something God does, it is who God is. 

Richard Rohr

Violence Ends when Comparison Ends

If you think someone else is enlightened, you think way too much.

If you believe you're enlightened and others are not, you're fast asleep.

If you 'spiritually' compare yourself with anyone else, inferiority and superiority are born, arrogance and jealousy arise, and these are the seeds of all violence.

Violence ends when comparison ends, and we embrace each other exactly as we are, and our imperfections are seen through the eyes of perfection, and we step down from our thrones and out of our unworthiness.

Jeff Foster

Ego's First Split: Self and Others

Mysticism is when God’s presence becomes experiential for you, as opposed to intellectual. Mystics are not talking about belief systems, but rather a felt sense of Mystery.  A hallmark of mystics is the integration within themselves of what I have identified as the Ego’s Four Splits. To create our mental ego, our false self, there are Four Splits that the mind goes through. I’m going to very simply describe the Four Splits for you and show you how, in embracing the way of the mystics and people like Francis, we just might “get it” earlier than at the very end of our lives.

The First Split is the split between my self and your self.  “I’m here, and you’re over there.”  We would call that dualistic consciousness. We learn to see this way as children, and most of us live with it for the rest of our days.  In the first half of life (and for many, into the chronological second half of life), we spend most of our time just accentuating and accessorizing that separate self.  “This is me. That’s you.  I’m better than you; you’re smarter than me. I’m better looking than you; you’re wealthier than me.” It’s all about separation, and using the self as the central reference point.  The modern word we use for this Split is the ego. This is the first Split to form, and usually the last to die.

When Jesus commands us to love our neighbor and to love the enemy, he’s training us in overcoming this split. What you do to another, you do to yourself. What you do to the neighbor, you do to Christ. “You are one in God, and one in me,” so it becomes what Julian of Norwich calls “Oneing”: overcoming the splits, little by little, so in the end there’s just One. As Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” The whole point of Christianity is the experience of unity with creation, with the neighbor, with the enemy, and with God. This creates a basis for universal mysticism. God is not so far away. God is not so transcendent. God is not found in glory, but in humility. It really re-positions the spiritual journey. Now the goal is the bottom, not the top.

Richard Rohr