“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The person who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect, he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
ACTION INQUIRY
All of our retreats are based on the leadership practice of Action Inquiry.
Action Inquiry, which was created by the management theorist William Torbert, is a disciplined way to pay attention to and learn from your moment-to-moment direct experience such that you make continual progress on the path of moving towards mastery of your craft - whatever your chosen craft in this life may be.
Some possible examples of crafts in this context are: being happy, helping other people be happy, creating and sustaining a healthy romantic relationship, parenting, being excellent at your job whatever it might be, becoming a successful professional life coach, becoming a highly effective and in-demand corporate organizational consultant, making the maximum possible contribution towards the health of some aspect of the natural world, or simply being present for every moment of your life.
If you don't know what you want to be really good at in this life, then the first focus of your Action Inquiry will be to discover this for yourself.
Action Inquiry is fundamentally both simple and - at the same time - very challenging and complex.
The practice involves a life long dedication to cultivating the inner capacities needed to bring a higher quality of attention to the process of learning from your own direct experience in real time such that you are continually adjusting and enhancing your attunement to your environment. To do this you need to be present to more of what is going on within you and around you.
Through better and more profound adaptation to multiple layers of reality, effective practice of Action Inquiry results in tighter structural coupling between oneself and one's environment. This tends to translate into better results and a greater experience of fulfillment in life.
No matter what part of the ecosystem of human society you participate in the quality of your attention is an absolutely critical input driving the results that you achieve in your life over time. And to say it again for emphasis: Action Inquiry is a methodology to help you learn to increase the quality of your attention.
By seeing more deeply we are able to act more powerfully and with greater effectiveness in our lives.
