Go, Mike!

HighestGoal.gifAbout 100 years ago (1970, actually) I met Mike Ray, a Stanford marketing professor trained by my Stanford mentor, the late Eugene Webb. Mike was a quantitative nut, as was my mentor. (And, truth be told, as was I.) Mike shifted gears, looked beyond the numbers, and invented the first course devoted exclusively to Creativity at the Stanford B.School. Mike’s latest book has just appeared: The Highest Goal.

The highest goal? Per MR: “Make your life itself a creative work of art.”

Prof Ray offers us another life-changer from GB Shaw (Man and Superman): “This is the true joy of Life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one … the being a Force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Contrast these Ray-isms (Shaw-isms) with the wretched “Ask Annie” Blog above. Ye gads!

(I’m really taken, chuckling and weeping at once, by Shaw’s “selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making [us] happy”—ain’t it true of all of us from time to time?!)