Warren G Bennis (1925 -2014 (89years)) — An Invented Life

“Everyone is tested by life, but only a few extract strength and wisdom from their most trying experiences. They are the ones we call leaders”.

-Warren G Bennis, Harvard Business Review — Crucibles of Leadership

I enjoy reading what makes people tick. I enjoy reading about the trials that these tick people have had to go through. When I write about events and the stories we make out of these events, it is because success and failure are two sides of the same coin, but those who exemplify the kind of life we call success have one ingrained ability that the others don’t — THEY INVENT THEIR LIVES, THEY TELL THEIR STORIES THE WAY THEY WANT, NOT THE WAY THE STORIES OCCUR FOR THEM.

The way a thing occurs to you and the way it actually is are very distinct disciplines. When I get to the office in the morning and say good morning to my boss and he doesn’t answer me, that is what happened — he did not answer me. When I go about the rest of my day feeling like I am no good and the boss doesn’t like me, I have invented a day that is inimical to the goals I set out to achieve when I left my house. The trick is to reinvent the goals and objectives that I set out for the day when I woke up. In the flash of a moment, it could occur to me that my boss is angry with me, but that is only because I have what the English novelist Colin Wilson calls a…