The first time I recall thinking about the relationship between discipline and freedom was when learning scales as a primary school age piano student. The simple idea that the routine and disciplined monotony installed competency that couldn’t be fast-tracked, was potent.

Some years later I was standing in front of a packed auditorium of Japanese high school students attempting to argue (in Japanese) that the ‘training’ justification for the strict code associated with secondary schooling (such as wearing ridiculously uncomfortable high-collar uniforms) was pointless. I am embarrassed at my teenage naivety. Even though I learned an extraordinary amount about cultural differences, while at school in Gifu, at the time that didn’t extend to appreciating the richness of an economic society that celebrated the common good ahead of individual achievement.

Last week I joined a small group of people invited by my squiggly mate Steve to watch Man on Wire, the true story of Phillipe Petit’s, incredible performance – 45 minutes running, laughing, lying, dancing and kneeling on a wire strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in NYC. Standout achievements like this are frequently the combination of unusual ambition and unreasonableness, married with relentless discipline. Certainly in Phillipe’s case, the lifetime of practise and mental toughness was the foundation for what could have looked like frivolous adventuresomeness.

The social freedoms that have changed our western world over the last 40 years have failed to deliver inner freedom. Our ideological commitment to removing restrictions and allowing people ‘choice’ has disappointed those who imagined we would be happier and more content as a result. Instead we work longer, break-up more often, suicide more frequently, and strive more for greater freedom.

Perhaps it’s time to recapture discipline as a foundation for freedom.

In business, some disciplines are imposed. There are things that just have to be done. The disciplines that set people apart are typically unseen and discretionary. Physical; diet and exercise. Intellectual; what I take in, and what I produce, how I make decisions. Emotional; commitments to attitudes, restraints, and inner reflection.

Life is a marathon. Inner and outer worlds tend to align. Achieving our dreams in the outer world will only happen if we are disciplined in our inner world. We might aspire to dance unencumbered on a wire, but if we haven’t put in a lifetime of backyard practice, the ‘courage to transfer our weight from the building onto the wire’ will desert us. And that looks ugly.

There are no shortcuts.

Business leadership is relentlessly demanding. You can never do enough. There are always more people to contact, more administration to do, more business development to find time for. You always need more projects. The hours are never enough.

For many years I have been fascinated by the relationship between ambition and contentment, and have tried to live in the middle of the tension. On the one hand I want to help change the world by initiating and contributing to generative projects. If there is a word that captures what this has looked and felt like for me it is ‘striving’.

On the other hand, I find little more attractive than the deep peace that is associated with people who are completely at home in their skin and their corner of the world – as it is. People who ooze satisfaction with ‘being’ rather than doing, who ‘smell the roses’ as a lifestyle rather than as weekend recreation.

Superficially, ambition and contentment might appear incompatible. I think not. What I am learning is that it is the constant ‘striving’ that robs life of peace and contentment, not the ambition. Let me try to explain …

A long time ago when computer use grew exponentially in the workplace, before we understood how good OH&S applied, Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) became a common phenomena. I was a sceptic until someone asked me to imagine tying small weights to the five fingers of my hand, then holding my hand out and attempting to hold it there for long periods of time. Strain.

Leadership ‘striving’ has a similar psychological effect. It is not necessarily the big challenges that wear us down, on the contrary, they typically fire us up. It is the constant, relentless striving, the chasing the carrot on the end of the stick that jades us. Over the last couple of months I have been attempting to turn off the striving, while not letting go of the big picture ambitions. There are a few things that help:

1. Taking time to reflect on what I have accomplished, rather than always focussing on the undone.

2. Making friends with the idea of ‘enough’

3. Finding or creating the spaces where I can simply be, not do.

As I write I know how much people assume the stages of life affect some of this. Most notably, parents of young children can feel like there is little room for peace. But it is a mindset thing. When our four kids were young, Maria was always so good at helping me appreciate the stage we were in, avoiding the trap of living for the illusionary freedom of the ‘the next stage’. As the lyrics of a Waifs tune that I’m sure I’ve quoted in this blog before say, “Take it in, now is the day that will not come again … and it’s here for the living, take it in.”

Or what about the words of advice I got many years ago on the subject of marriage? … “never marry someone who you wouldn’t be happy sharing the rest of your life even if they don’t change from the way they are now.”

I think healthy leadership is similar; working vigorously for a different future, but fully engaged, peaceful and alive in the reality of today.

There is another thing I will add into the mix of managing the tension. Relentless ambition becomes a treadmill when we lose the capacity to make constant changes in response to our environment. Hard work that loses sight of a defined outcome is just a program of constant meaningless activity. Clarity of outcome is the key to agility.

So, a potted view of how to stay well while navigating the demands of leadership has three prongs:

1. Work towards a better reality: ambition

2. Contentment with my lot: peace

3. Focus on outcomes not activity: agility

May you be ambitious, peaceful and agile.

A meander through a bookshop is always good fodder for covetousness. This weekend my favourite foodies, Allan Campion and Michelle Curtis’ new kitchen companion has jump started my Christmas list. I was less taken by the newest collection of business leadership material. Not because it is any less read-worthy, I think I’m just getting jaded. Is there anything new under the sun?

What is leadership anyway? Or more importantly, why does it remain such an important topic?

I think of it as the capacity to create a reality for people that would not have otherwise existed. It remains a critical skill because there are more and more arenas for which more of the same will not be good enough.

I thought the cover of last week’s Economist was brilliant. The swankering, thoughtful (then) presidential nominee captured on a blank canvas. What a picture of leadership!

But it is equally appropriate to learn about leadership in more mundane contexts. For example, peddling home from the gym yesterday morning, I was contemplating the day ahead … nothing particularly compelling or attractive. An opportunity to create a different reality, which in the end turned out to be a simple picnic with Maria and two of our kids on the waterfront at Williamstown. Extremely pleasant.

One of the things I love about Maria is her belief in choice; the idea that there are a multitude of options available. There are two things that prevent us from making creative and liberating decisions:

1. We are comfortable and stuck at the same time … it is so much easier to keep doing the same thing.

2. We are typically reluctant to embrace the consequences and risks associated with alternative choices.

We could move to the country. We could change jobs. We could consume less. We could branch out. We could develop a new product, or even a new way of doing business. Things do not have to be this way. In this society, money usually ends up being king, the reason we don’t do stuff. Of course money is needed for certain choices, but we give it too much control.

Leadership is impossible if we believe that the current reality is a given. Leaders do not take tomorrow as a given. If we are going to realise our desires to live without regrets, it is fundamental that we find ways to make (leadership) decisions that create new trajectories on our lives.

The streets were nearly empty this morning. Its a strange weekend in Melbourne this one, ahead of the first Tuesday in November when the nation stops to watch a horse race. The familiarity of Red Symonds and Andrew Denton being smart with each other on the radio was comforting as I was gee-ing up for this Monday sandwiched between off-days.

But by the time I reached Roslin, Ergo’s house in the city, my vision was blurring … its been a while since I’ve been afflicted with a migraine. I grabbed a banana and some medication for breakfast and settled into a lounge chair in our little library, turned the light off and closed my eyes waiting for my head to regain some normality.

Once I could leave my eyes open comfortably I started scanning the bookshelf in front of me. I perched on every single book and remembered. Each title / author reminded me of a season in life long-gone. Life can be chronicled in many ways, by music, with photos, maybe clothes, even gadgets. The deepest for me is books, or more precisely authors because for me reading a book is a conversation with the writer. Paul Hiebert, Walter Brueggemann, Tom Wright, Eugene Peterson were prominent virtual soul mates from very formative days.

My virtual soul mates come from a different world today, but I am grateful for the wisdom and prophetic voice of these sages. They remind me of who I am, of the story of which I am a part, what is important and what matters.

Business leaders are charged with important public functions, but we execute those functions as people. We are not soul-less, history-less servants of profit. Things do not always go to (business) plan, in fact they frequently do not. Last week the financial crisis hit us at Ergo with some contracts being pulled. Not surprising, but sooner than we might have anticipated.

It will strike us all. In an informal conversation recently with the MD of a major Australian company, I was inspired to hear the resilience and positivity with which he spoke, even though recent legislation and the economic crisis will king hit their revenue. But he spoke with confidence, knowing he had nothing in the past to shrink from and that he had the personal fortitude to lead with integrity. Character.

The point? In the uncertain economic times we face, it will serve us well to remember who we are as people. What are the values we hold dear? What are the character anchors that will hold us steady when the circumstances knock us around and render our business goals from twelve months ago void.

It will continue to serve me well to remind myself of who I am, my journey to this point, so that I can frame these times as they are, another opportunity to learn by leading with integrity.