Monday, May 23, 2005
Detachment—The Way Out of Skin and Bones
For the last couple of weeks I’ve been ghostwriting some books for Thomas Nelson. I have two due in September, and then four more over the next year. The hardest thing about ghostwriting—which means your name will not be anywhere on the book—is becoming detached from it.
Usually when we are putting something together as a writer, we use the skills available to us. We use our voice. We implement our style. This is natural. But ghostwriting is all about what someone else wants. It’s hard to make the transition from self to detachment.
Sure, you want to do a great job, but a great job is not doing it the way you want it. Successful ghostwriting happens when we can catch the essence of someone else’s style and heart. It’s radically different from a normal approach.
So I’ve been struggling with this detachment thing, and today I received the Harvard Business School’s e-newsletter. I signed up for it a few months back. Every month they send you an email packed with great leadership tips and tools.
And inside the edition was a great article, The Zen of Management Maintenance: Leadership Starts with Self-Discovery, about leadership expert Jagdish Parikh. Now I don’t agree with everything he says, but here’s what he said about detachment:
“Each person is the ‘owner/manager’ of his or her mind, emotions, and body,” Parikh continued. He pointed to a simple chair to illustrate a simple metaphor.
“As long as I am sitting in a chair I am constrained. The chair manages me. To observe the chair, I must get out of it. I must accept that I'm not the chair. The moment I can accept that, I can get out of it.
“You can't lead with something you identify with,” by staying put in a chair either physically or emotionally, he counseled. The paradox is that detachment—not withdrawal, escape, or indifference—allows mastery of an issue, he said.
“Detached involvement is the essence of leadership.”
Christ was a master of detachment. He could detach Himself from Pharisaical religion. He constantly taught detachment by telling parables. Samaritans were heroic neighbors. The prodigal son received a valiant return and a party in his honor.
The clincher is how he detached Himself from what others thought of Him when He allowed a prostitute to pour perfume on His feet and dry it with her hair. This is detachment leadership. I’d be like, “Get up girl. They will think we have some kind of relationship going on. You being a prostitute and all.”
But not Christ, He was able to detach Himself from the world’s thoughts and standards and implemented a new way of loving people right where they are.
So let’s detach ourselves from this world. We are not the chair. The moment we accept that, we can get out of it. We are not religious fundamentalists. Let’s not let them force us into that chair either.
We are souls stranded in skin and bones, but we are not the bag of bones. We are a soul trying to separate ourselves from this mere existence. This is transformation. This is freedom—the detachment from this world.
Romans 12:1-2 - “Do not change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect. Because God has given me a special gift, I have something to say to everyone among you. Do not think you are better than you are. You must decide what you really are by the amount of faith God has given you.”
www.stofel.com
Usually when we are putting something together as a writer, we use the skills available to us. We use our voice. We implement our style. This is natural. But ghostwriting is all about what someone else wants. It’s hard to make the transition from self to detachment.
Sure, you want to do a great job, but a great job is not doing it the way you want it. Successful ghostwriting happens when we can catch the essence of someone else’s style and heart. It’s radically different from a normal approach.
So I’ve been struggling with this detachment thing, and today I received the Harvard Business School’s e-newsletter. I signed up for it a few months back. Every month they send you an email packed with great leadership tips and tools.
And inside the edition was a great article, The Zen of Management Maintenance: Leadership Starts with Self-Discovery, about leadership expert Jagdish Parikh. Now I don’t agree with everything he says, but here’s what he said about detachment:
“Each person is the ‘owner/manager’ of his or her mind, emotions, and body,” Parikh continued. He pointed to a simple chair to illustrate a simple metaphor.
“As long as I am sitting in a chair I am constrained. The chair manages me. To observe the chair, I must get out of it. I must accept that I'm not the chair. The moment I can accept that, I can get out of it.
“You can't lead with something you identify with,” by staying put in a chair either physically or emotionally, he counseled. The paradox is that detachment—not withdrawal, escape, or indifference—allows mastery of an issue, he said.
“Detached involvement is the essence of leadership.”
Christ was a master of detachment. He could detach Himself from Pharisaical religion. He constantly taught detachment by telling parables. Samaritans were heroic neighbors. The prodigal son received a valiant return and a party in his honor.
The clincher is how he detached Himself from what others thought of Him when He allowed a prostitute to pour perfume on His feet and dry it with her hair. This is detachment leadership. I’d be like, “Get up girl. They will think we have some kind of relationship going on. You being a prostitute and all.”
But not Christ, He was able to detach Himself from the world’s thoughts and standards and implemented a new way of loving people right where they are.
So let’s detach ourselves from this world. We are not the chair. The moment we accept that, we can get out of it. We are not religious fundamentalists. Let’s not let them force us into that chair either.
We are souls stranded in skin and bones, but we are not the bag of bones. We are a soul trying to separate ourselves from this mere existence. This is transformation. This is freedom—the detachment from this world.
Romans 12:1-2 - “Do not change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but be changed within by a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to decide what God wants for you; you will know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect. Because God has given me a special gift, I have something to say to everyone among you. Do not think you are better than you are. You must decide what you really are by the amount of faith God has given you.”
www.stofel.com
© 2007 by Robert Stofel