|
Part 1 (one):
Ariella Segev was sitting in her comfortable office on the 21st (twenty first) floor of the circular Azrielli Tower, gazing at the wonderful vast view through her window… And she felt trapped.
She felt a bitter taste deep in her throat. She tried to wash it down with a cup of espresso her secretary just brought in, but it only made the taste worse. She carefully put the cup of coffee down and decided to stop ignoring the truth.
She knew she was stuck. Her sudden awareness caused her to impulsively page her secretary and instruct her not to put through any calls during the coming hour. Just one moment later, she found herself pacing the room like a caged lion. "This isn’t working”, she thought. She kicked off her Gucci pumps, sat down near a yellow pad and took a deep breath.
She wrote ‘Areas I’m Stuck In’ at the top of the page.
After many minutes spent staring into space, she wrote:
Difficulty - a situation when a person has lost direction or concept of direction, is unable to make progress and stands at an intersection not knowing which way to turn.
"I am on a path, but it is not right for me”. She was aware it wasn’t right since she hadn’t yet experienced the feeling of completion, coming full circle that comes with doing something that suits us. She raised her gaze to the bustling city below and let her thoughts flow on the paper:
A person feels stuck when they have forgotten the purpose and intention behind their actions and choices. It’s like a doctor forgetting his oath. This situation is a result of a stalling in renewal methods and distractions. If parents didn’t re examine situations, for example, parents of teenagers would still treat their children as babies. A person can find himself feeling stuck with the realization that he has not made time or allocated resources for personal matters, for himself thinking ‘I’ll do it later’. This is a common mistake – sometimes people wait their entire lives to ‘retire and start living’.
Ariella felt close to a conclusion that would help her comprehend her situation. The phone ringing distracted her, and she answered briskly: “I said not to put anyone through for an hour!”. The secretary, helpless and apologetic, replied: "I am sorry, but Gideon would not let up, he wants to speak to you now".
The man in question was Gideon, Gideon Fishman, an impressive and energetic man in his late fifties, the executive owner of the largest construction company in Israel, “Home Sweet Home” ("Bayit Ham"), which he had established by himself.
"Hello, Ariella. Come in, please sit down", he said, smiling at his protégé. She felt like sinking into the comfortable chair and just take deep breaths, but years of self discipline prevented her from giving in to the urge and she opted to sit down with aristocratic elegance.
In spite of what she was going through, she was curious as to why this unexpected meeting had been called and prepared herself for what was to follow. While they waited for drinks, Gideon looked at her with a penetrating gaze that seemed to search for the truth, and he asked, "How are you?" This banal question shook her and she found the concern behind it touching. She decided she’d be completely honest, and answered, "I'm stuck".
Gideon sat back and waited to hear her story. "I have been offered the position of Managing Director for an International company", she said.
The sentence stood there, hovering in the room for some time. "Recently, I have felt as though I’ve exhausted myself in my present position. At work I feel like a machine, I feel like I’ve left my heart at home”.
He maintained a pleasant decorum, and within a minute chose to answer, carefully choosing each word, "I do not wish to hinder your advancement. Quite the contrary, I will support any decision you make if you think it will help you progress. However, I think your deliberations are much deeper than what you are letting on. Let me ask you this, what is truly important to you?
Ariella looked at him puzzled. Gideon, noticing this, burst out laughing uncontrollably. He continued on his explanation, "the intersection you find yourself in demands a decision. Most people rely on instinct in order to make decisions because they think making decisions is hard. When you take the time to define what is really important to you, you will have a firm platform on which to base decisions".
Gideon urged Ariella to immediately embark on a three day vacation with the hopes that she would return with personal insight and a decision.
Being an impossibly practical person, she found herself seated, three hours later, on a small Arkia airplane en route to Eilat, wondering how tall people mange to squeeze their legs into the small space between seats. She let out a deep sigh, pulled out her yellow pad and immersed herself in the introspective process. At first she opted to jot down her thoughts in a sketch-
Unclear Direction
No purpose No rules or order
No renewal or growth
"Where exactly am I in this drawing?", she thought. She took another look at her sketch and realized it reminded her of a compass.
Smiling, she wrote down: NEWS (North, East, West, South). The higher the plane ascended, the freer, clearer, sharper and more accurate her thoughts became. She wrote furiously all over the page.
Having a direction that leads to no growth creates dogma.
Growth without a specified direction creates disorder.
Purpose without an accompanying set of rules is impractical and making arbitrary rules is tyranny.
Direction without purpose leads to frustration and exhaustion.
Direction without a solid plan or logical order can not realize.
Rules and order without direction creates a society of robots.
Purpose without direction can’t be.
Rules and order without renewal are just bureaucracy.
Purpose without renewal means fading away slowly.
Renewal without purpose is barren.
Renewal without order and a set of rules is haphazard and random.
While her eyes were going over what she had written, she identified what she had been feeling – exhaustion and frustration. She had lost her purpose.
She took a taxi from the airport to the Taba crossing (the Israeli-Egyptian border), and as she neared the physical crossing of the border, she became aware of her internal boundaries and limitations that she needed to cross in order to find a hidden purpose.
A mother and her two children, a European tourist and another couple were busy making the necessary arrangements at the check point and Ariella pondered further about the ‘internal boundary’ she needed to overstep in order to progress her growth process.
An hour later, she was sitting in an old, run down Peugeot taxi that was speeding along the open road, breathing in the overbearing tranquility of the Sinai Peninsula.
The pleasant Bedouin driver dropped her off at Ras Satan, handed her a cup of hot, sweet tea as customary, and set her up in a hotel room with a vast view to the endless blue Sea. She went to the Red Sea beach then turned her back on the that magical blue Sea and feasted her eyes in the orange and purple rays of the vanishing sun, finding peace within herself. In the distance, she spotted the mother and two children that had stood in line with her at the border, building a sandcastle, deep in concentration. She was astonished by the fact that children, with their short attention spans, were concentrating so intensely on the sandcastle project.
Ariella's newfound internal peace melted into the general peaceful environment of Sinai, permitting a delicate, soft, thin voice to be felt, “the purpose of building houses: Houses mean security for its residents, it seems it is a basic, internal human need”.
She suddenly realized that for the past few years, she hadn’t been building houses or preoccupied with financial gain, but that she was in fact creating security for people. Ariella could clearly see her natural tendency to nurture and giving a sense of security to those around her. She realized that she greatly valued security. She related to the phrase, ‘a purpose besides yourself" which she encountered in one of the recent management courses she participated in. The broader purpose had a greater meaning which was keeping a person alive. This purpose is easy to rally around. She decided to rest for the remainder of the evening. She let her feet sink into the soft, white sand while she made her way to dinner.
Ariella awoke to the quiet whispers of Neptune were calling her. She left her room and went outside to watch the sunrise. She took a few steps into the freezing water, washing away the last threads of sleep. She heard her heart speak to her and it said that helping is important, but so is initiative and creating something new that hadn’t existed.
After she took a swim, she stepped onto the beach and finally felt that sense of completion and full circle she had longed for in her office, back on the 21st floor of her office building.
The day played out in the unique Sinai rhythm. Ariella stretched out on the plump cushions in the Bedouin tent on the beach and pulled out her yellow pad once more. She thought about different aspects of her life, redefining the important points in each one of them. She had a clear list of the various roles she took on in her life in her hand by dinner time. She divided them into categories: security, support, new possibilites. With a calm satisfaction, she fell asleep under the stars. They looked like they had dispersed from fireworks.
Come morning, she awoke with a question lingering in her mind. The practical side of Ariella's personality looked for a suitable application of yesterday's perceptions:
"What can I do with all this?'
While she was still answering Neptune's quiet call, she picked up flippers, a mask and a snorkel for scuba diving, the question remained unanswered. She waited for the answer to come to her.
Towards the day’s end, Ariella felt her indecision coming to an end. She had an idea. She only had one more day of vacation left before returning to the turmoil from which she had come. She dedicated the entire day to developing her new idea and making it more sustainable, in a way that would allow her to stay at the work place she liked and simultaneously develop a new division for the company. This division would be involved with construction projects, community service providing security for those who need it.
She had a brilliant idea. She would propose an initiative which would get its funding from the 10% (ten percent) of the profits the Home Sweet Home (Bayit Ham) corporation contributes annually anyway. She would use the money to teach homeless people construction, so that they take part in constructing a building where they can eventually live. Her plan unfolded and became more clear. She was ready to take action. Her heart rejoiced and she felt full of energy. She wished she could start all the work involved immediately.
Now, all that was left was to persuade Gideon.
Soon enough, she found herself crammed in a seat on another small plane, wondering what components were important to those that had designed the plane space in passenger planes. Considering how she would answer Gideon’s questions, she turned again to the yellow pad.
Ariella decided to describe the process she had gone through instead of giving an overwhelming answer with empty slogans. She wrote and wrote.
When she had finished writing, she knew that she had discovered a wonderful method of analyzing situations that concern her, her inner self, family, and her business partners.
At the same time, she decided to develop a clear method for analysis that would help people help themselves and others.
A few hours later, Ariella found herself meeting with Gideon in that same round building, speaking excitedly and vividly, shooting answers and waiting for that big, wide, happy smile that to appear on Gideon Fishman’s face and light it up.
“I only have one request”, Gideon began, “I want your program to examine the Home Sweet Home corporation closely according to the N.E.W.S. model, and make suggestions for improvement”.
Ariella, who had known all along he would be supportive, happily attended to her piled up work.
Roni Rutner
Joint Managing Director
Momentum Group
Send Comments to Roni
|
