The Art of Possibility Quotes

“In the measurement world, you set a goal and strive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.”
― Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are assessments made by a child? We can replace the narratives that hold us back by inventing wiser stories, free from childish fears, and, in doing so, disperse long-held psychological stumbling blocks.”
― Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Life is revealed as a place to contribute and we as contributors. Not because we have done a measurable amount of good, but because that is the story we tell.”
― Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“I am here today to cross the swamp, not to fight all the alligators.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“If I cannot be present without resistance to the way things are and act effectively, if I feel myself to be wronged, a loser, or a victim, I will tell myself that some assumption I have made is the source of my difficulty.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Michelangelo is often quoted as having said that inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within. If we were to apply this visionary concept to education, it would be pointless to compare one child to another. Instead, all the energy would be focused on chipping away at the stone, getting rid of whatever is in the way of each child’s developing skills, mastery, and self-expression.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“On the whole, resources are likely to come to you in greater abundance when you are generous and inclusive and engage people in your passion for life.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Recognizing Pablo Picasso in a train compartment, a man inquired of the artist why he did not paint people “the way they really are.” Picasso asked what he meant by that expression. The man opened his wallet and took out a snapshot of his wife, saying, “That’s my wife.” Picasso responded, “Isn’t she rather small and flat?” 5”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Being present to the way things are is not the same as accepting things as they are”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“We keep looking so hard in life for the “specific message,” and yet we are blinded to the fact that the message is all around us, and within us all the time. We just have to stop demanding that it be on OUR terms or conditions, and instead open ourselves to the possibility that what we seek may be in front of us all the time.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Who am I being that they are not shining?”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“The rain in Florida may be bad for us and good for the citrus crop. A canceled flight may wreck our schedule and bring us face to face with our future spouse in the airport lounge. A forest fire may seem to destroy an ecosystem in the short term, yet renew it with vigor for the long term. When a splendid osprey eats a beautiful fish, it is neither good nor bad. Or, it’s good for the osprey and bad for the fish. Nature makes no judgment. Humans do.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“I am the framework for everything that happens in my life.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“When you give an A, you find yourself speaking to people not from a place of measuring how they stack up against your standards, but from a place of respect that gives them room to realize themselves.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“In the measurement world, you set a goal and strive for it. In the universe of possibility, you set the context and let life unfold.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Giving an A is a fundamental, paradigmatic shift toward the realization that it is all invented—the A is invented and the Number 68 is invented, and so are all the judgments in between. Some readers might conclude that our practice is merely an exercise in “putting a positive spin” on a negative opinion, or “thinking the best of someone,” and “letting bygones be bygones.” But that is not it at all. No behavior of the person to whom you assign an A need be whitewashed by that grade, and no action is so bad that behind it you cannot recognize a human being to whom you can speak the truth. You can grant the proverbial ax murderer an A by addressing him as a person who knows he has forfeited his humanity and lost all control, and you can give your sullen, lazy, secretive teenager an A, and she will still at that moment be sleeping the morning away. When she awakes, however, the conversation between you and her will go a little differently because she will have become for you a person whose true nature is to participate—however blocked she may be. And you will know you are communicating with her, even if you see that she is tongue-tied or too confused to answer you just then.

When we give an A we can be open to a perspective different from our own. For after all, it is only to a person to whom you have granted an A that you will really listen, and it is in that rare instance when you have ears for another person that you can truly appreciate a fresh point of view.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“I began to write a different narrative: that my husband did indeed know me and love me, and was offering me the best he had to give. Then when I talked with him, I spoke from within the framework of the A, to someone I had defined as able and willing to hear me. As long as I practiced in this manner, I found that virtually all the conversations we had were productive in a way I had never before imagined they could be. A”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Presence without resistance: you are now free to turn to the question, “What do we want to do from here?” Then all sorts of pathways begin to appear:”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“The foremost challenge for leaders today, we suggest, is to maintain the clarity to stand confidently in the abundant universe of possibility, no matter how fierce the competition, no matter how stark the necessity to go for the short-term goal, no matter how fearful people are, and no matter how urgently the wolf may appear to howl at the door. It is to have the courage and persistence to distinguish the downward spiral from the radiant realm of possibility in the face of any challenge.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“RECONSTRUCTING OUR PAST The pathway of the A offers us a profound opportunity to transform our personal histories. It allows us to reevaluate the grades we assigned to others when we were children, grades that affect our lives now, as legends we live by. How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are but assessments made by a child? We can replace the narratives that hold us back by inventing wiser stories, free from childish fears, and, in doing so, disperse long-held psychological stumbling blocks.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“WHEN ONE PERSON peels away layers of opinion, entitlement, pride, and inflated self-description, others instantly feel the connection.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“when you declare yourself an unwilling victim of a known risk, you have postured yourself as a poor loser in a game you chose to play.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“The lesson I learned is that the player who looks least engaged may be the most committed member of the group. A cynic, after all, is a passionate person who does not want to be disappointed again.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“THE LIFE FORCE for humankind is, perhaps, nothing more or less than the passionate energy to connect, express, and communicate. Enrollment is that life force at work, lighting sparks from person to person, scattering light in all directions. Sometimes the sparks ignite a blaze; sometimes they pass quietly, magically, almost imperceptibly, from one to another to another.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“I know now that music is not about fingers or bows or strings, but rather a connective vibration flowing through all human beings, like a heartbeat.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of human pride. —WILLIAM JAMES”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

“VISION IS A powerful framework to take the operations of an organization of any size from the downward spiral into the arena of possibility. Yet, while most organizations use the term “vision” liberally, we have found that few have articulated a vision in such a way that it serves that purpose.”
― Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life