Living in More Than One World

The concept of the Renaissance Man (or woman, for that matter) is closely related to living in more than one world. This type of person uses their talents in a variety of ways, engages in continuous learning, and moves among many different types of people and organizations. One of the best examples from history is Leonardo da Vinci, who seems to grow more popular each year. I’m continually fascinated by what keeps people relevant over a period of many years, as Peter Drucker managed to do. Randy Dotinga of The Christian Science Monitor analyzes Leonardo’s ongoing pop culture status — and in particular his importance to science musems — “Museums push to decode Leonardo da Vinci.” Readers of this blog should definitely enjoy Michael Gelb’s classic book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. I interviewed Gelb and reviewed several of his books in USA TODAY. Leonardo’s ability to move among worlds may makea great role model for people today who must continually reinvent themselves.

My former USA TODAY colleague Cathy Grossman, who writes and blogs on the religion beat, says on her Faith & Reason blog that she travels to the UK in April, where she’ll be in Cambridge covering and blogging about a “four day seminar with theologians and scientists talking about evolution, consciousness and the brain.”

It will be her second stint in the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science and Religion. One of my favorite prizes of the year is the Templeton Prize, which is announced on March 16.

I’m always interested in how people maintain doing excellent work over a period of many years, regardless of the type of work they do. As Peter Drucker has said, “Workmanship counts.” Two examples from the world of music are Ry Cooder and Nick Lowe, who will be touring together in Europe this summer. In my rock writing days — a long time ago — I interviewed Lowe several times and wrote a lot about him and his earlier band, Brinsley Schwarz. Both Cooder and Lowe are admirable for regularly leaving their comfort zones as musicians and songwriters. Among other things, Cooder has written a novella to accompany his latest album, I Flathead, and has worked in many musical worlds, including rock, world music and soundtracks.

Part of the secret of Cooder’s success has been his strong sense of ongoing learning. Although I have only seen this in hard copy and not online, Cooder gave an intriguing interview to Charles Shaar Murray in the August 2008 issue of the excellent British magazine The Word. Murray asked if there was a thread through his highly varied career. Cooder started his extended response with this reply: “The truth is… the only thing I can tell you is that I was always trying to learn to do something I can’t.”

On a sadder note, the innovative singer-songwriter John Martyn (known to many as the writer of Eric Clapton’s “May You Never,”) whom I interviewed in Washington, D.C. when he was doing a gig at the legendary Cellar Door in the late ’70s, died on January 29th.

CNBC has an interesting feature on rethinking the work you do, balancing the possible benefits of change with practicalities.

One of the main concepts articulated by Peter Drucker to me in an interview in 2005 is that by maintaining diverse activities, interests and personal relationships, you have a cushion when life deals you a setback. As I was completing my book, that’s just what happened to me, when I was laid off by USA TODAY in December, after working there for 21 years. Had I not been working on the book, and preparing for its publication this coming August, the setback could have been a lot worse.

Many more of us will be in a similar position in the next couple of years, and job-hunting and resume writing is only part of what’s going to be needed to maintain a sense of self, purpose, mission and goals. Whether or not a new, desirable job is around the corner, some activities may help people in these situations. Among them are personal reinvention, volunteering, tutoring, looking into becoming a social entrepreneur (or working with existing social entrepreneurs) and sharing your talents (such as a lawyer doing pro bono work). One of the things underpinning this is the ability and willingness to engage in regular, honest self-reflection.

Many religious institutions need volunteers, especially in teaching, and you don’t have to be an experienced teacher to qualify. Another area in the book discusses parallel careers, which in my case, for the past 13 years, has been teaching. It’s been another lifesaver for me. What can you offer to the world, whether or not you have a fulltime job? Can you help other people who are in the same situation? One of the things I learned from Drucker is that you should focus on what you can do, rather than what you can’t do. This is important as we try to maintain a sense of self-respect, self-esteem and personal/professional identity. And it’s not easy; I still tend to refer to USA TODAY in conversation as “We…” Not many people have 100% job security. What may be required of all of us is to rethink our lives to reimagine what is possible, inside and outside of the work world. How many worlds are you living in, and how many more could you enter?

Peter Drucker had a longtime following and strong readership of his books in Japan. The Drucker Society of Japan/The Drucker Workshop is a well-developed organization, and I’ve been privileged to get to know some of its members at recent Drucker Global symposia.

My former USA TODAY colleague Del Jones has a really interesting article about author Ken Watanabe and a new book published by Portfolio, Problem Solving 101, the English language version of a book originally published in Japan by Diamond (which also publishes Drucker’s books in that country.) According to the article, it was Japan’s biggest selling business book in 2007, yet was originally written as a textbook for seventh and eighth grade students in Japan. Del also references Drucker and Ikujiro Nonaka, co-author of The Knowledge-Creating Company, who was, in 2007, the first scholar in residence at the Drucker School in Claremont, California.

Welcome to my new blog, Living in More Than One World!

It focuses on ideas and information related to my upcoming book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. I’ll be writing short and to-the-point items about people who are living multidimensional lives or lives in the Drucker spirit, plus information on Drucker and activities related to his upcoming centenary.

I’ll also write about business and self-development books (which I wrote about for 12 years at USA TODAY), and items related to areas covered in the book, such as teaching and learning, intellectual curiosity, personal reinvention, maintaining outside interests beyond your work, volunteering, social entrepreneurship and servant leadership.