The Highest Goal: A book review by Bob Morris

The Highest Goal: The Secret That Sustains You in Every Moment
Michael Ray
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2005)

In the Foreword, Jim Collins recalls his first encounter in 1982 with Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers, two Stanford professors who together taught a course for MBA students called Creativity in Business. (They later co-authored a book of that title based on the same course in which Collins had enrolled.) Myers quietly informed Collins and his classmates, “You are about to embark on a ten-week journey to discover your deepest inner essence.” Immediately Collins began to search for a replacement in the catalogue. Later, at his wife Joanne’s urging, Collins remained in the class and accepted “a fundamental challenge issued to all of us: Make your life itself a creative work of art.” More than two decades later, Ray offers in this volume a core process based on the meta-concept of “live-with heuristics” whose objective is to help a person achieve her or his “highest goal.”

Time out. Those who have read this commentary to this point may be tempted to move on, just as Collins once was. Please don’t. Hang in there just as Collins once did.

As Collins explains, there are certain “mantras of living” that one implements for a period of time (usually a week or more) and then reflects upon what has been experienced as a result. For example:

If at First You Don’t Succeed, Surrender
Pay Attention!
Ask Dumb Questions
Destroy Judgment, Create Curiosity
Don’t Think About It
Be Ordinary
Do Only What Is Easy, Effortless, and Enjoyable

At Ray’s urging, I came up with a few of my own:

Don’t Resist…Absorb
When Encountering Abstract Art, Don’t Look at It…Listen
Remember What Really Bothered Me Last Week [Note: I never can]
Each New Day Is a Mulligan [Note: I am an avid golfer]
When Hearing Music, Don’t Listen…See It

As Ray explains, he realized over time that the impact of his course, Personal Creativity in Business, went beyond its structure, procedures, and exercises. “It touched something very deep in people. They made discoveries about themselves that informed their actions and transformed their lives. Even though we never mention it in our teaching, they discovered their highest goal — the secret that would sustain them, come what may. As one participant put it years after taking the course, `This is transformation that works and lasts.’…[Students] learned — most early in life but many much later — through a crisis or through experiencing love and a connection to something higher that if they live for this connection, they keep growing closer to what is right for them. They are open to life and view it as an adventure.” Only by tapping their inner resources can they make their lives a creative work of art, fulfilling themselves in service to others.

On several occasions as I read Ray’s book, I was reminded of this passage from Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching:

“Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.”

For me, this passage is directly relevant to the core process of “live-with heuristics” which can guide and inform those who aspire to lead others.

Each life is a journey from one moment to the next, from one experience to the next. What we learn is revealed within a sequence of discoveries. (The word “heuristics” is derived from the Greek infinitive heuriskein, to find.) If reading this book is viewed as a journey, there is indeed much of value to discover from what it shares. With all due respect to Ray and his book, however, the discoveries of greatest value to me were re-discoveries of what I already knew (or thought I did). In Appendix A, Continue the Journey, Ray acknowledges that there will be obstacles to overcome, albeit ones “that can be enriching.” He suggests several ways by which to face those obstacles and convert them into learning experiences. Of special relevance to me is this passage: “Many of us pack too much when we travel, and one thing you don’t want to take with you on your journey to the highest goal is the VOJ, the Voice of Judgment. So write or draw the aspects of the VOJ or secret fears that you really don’t want to take with you. Make them intense, because these are the remaining aspects of the VOJ that continue to trouble you.” They do indeed.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out the aforementioned Tao Te Ching as well as James O’Toole’s Creating the Good Life: Applying Aristotle’s Wisdom to Find Meaning and Happiness, Alan Watts’s The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, and David Whyte’s The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America.

You may also wish to check out my interview of Michael Ray.