Well, I’m doing it again.
For those who don’t know, I founded CleverSet, a leader in the hosted in-site product recommendation space, sold to ATG, Inc in 2008 and now available as ATG Automated Recommendations.
Beginnings are an opportunity for reflection and alignment of near and longer-term life goals. Some thoughts follow that arose while hacking on a demo page while listening to Credence Clearwater’s Lodi: “… if I had a dime for every time I played through a set while the audience sat there too drunk to hear … Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again…” (paraphrase)
Integrity, Commitment, Ambition, and Right livelihood…
Integrity is about staying true to, and continually communicating, the core of your belief and vision despite obstacles (ie, CCR’s despair about inability to connect with audience) and/or temptations to cheapen it, e.g. by resorting to unjustified marketing hype.
Commitment is the choice to continually pursue your vision despite challenges.
Continuous commitment to pursuing one’s vision with integrity is simultaneous with continuous deepening and clarification of one’s vision and strengthening integrity. That’s why action in the world, not just retreat to a monastery, is the more appropriate path for most of us. (St. Francis was horrified when, after preaching, the entire crowd rushed up ready to abandon everything and follow him, barefoot and homeless).
Ambition is what one is stuck with, it’s who you are. No right or wrong here. Some people are born with or develop more ambition than others. You have some choice where to focus it, but it’s very hard to reset the basic level of one’s ambition. Ambition is part of what one needs to have integrity with respect to, it can’t be denied.
Honest livelihood: A means of generating income that is pursued with integrity and commitment.
Almost any vision that doesn’t hurt others, when pursued with integrity and commitment, is not only personally fulfilling, but, if one is lucky, can also be a source of honest livelihood.
Oh – and, “vision” doesn’t have to be spelled with a capital “V”. Visions come in all sizes.
