In civilizations going back to antiquity—in Aristotle’s ideal state in The Politics, for example—people who perform physical labor are excluded from full citizenship. Farmers, mechanics, and shopkeepers are considered lesser beings. Incapable of the broad thinking necessary for making decisions for others.
In a way, this makes sense. The carpenter’s ability to connect two joints or sand the edges of an object might appear little to deal with making decisions for fellow citizens. The farmer’s understanding of planting cycles, seeds and ground conditions, and harvesting techniques appears to offer few skills for inspiring other people.
These crafts require immersion with objects that are tangible and specific. The same goes for arts like dance, sculpture, and music. The artist needs to focus entirely on something specific and unique. There can be only one Gene Kelly version of “Singing in the Rain,” only one Michaelangelo masterpiece David, and only one Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2. The arts (and some crafts) are sui generis—constituting a unique class in itself.
As such, the artist and craftsman must work to concentrate totally on the objects and movements of her craft:
As a dancer in training, you learn to dissociate your self from your body, to relinquish your agency to the structure and aesthetic of the form – whether that’s classical ballet, modern dance or something else.
This separation of mind and body, action and environment, is only half the story. Theresa Ruth Howard warns that this separation “romanticises the dehumanisation of the body by regarding it as an instrument, a tool akin [to] clay.”
Think about it both ways, as a braided process.
At times, we need to separate our actions from the surrounding environment. We need to focus totally on our craft, ignoring the larger swirl of activities around us. We need to go “all in” on our project. Especially in activities involving movement, our actions involve all aspects of the neural system.
People in business, the law, medicine, tech, and other professions understand this basic truth. By concentrating intensely on an isolated task, they bring their whole selves to bear on the challenge.
But at the same time we narrow our attention, we broaden it as well. Arts and crafts—especially the physical ones—help us to move beyond our limited patterns of thinking. We may train ourselves—with conscious, repetitive movement—to make our actions automatic. But that process, in turn, opens our mind to think and at more consciously.
Athletes understand that developing a broad range of skills and actions enables them to use their whole selves. A trainer named Edythe Heus uses bouncy balls and wobble boards and to put her clients off balance when they exercise. When they are unbalanced, they cannot focus on just one muscle group, like pectorals. They need to activate hundreds of tiny muscles in their back and other parts of the body.
When people move their bodies—running, jumping, twisting, reaching, accelerating, slowing, braking—they gain an intuitive sense of how objects relate to place. When a baseball outfielder sprints after a fly ball and leaps to catch it, he is making countless calculations. He is coordinating dozens of separate actions, in an exquisite sequence of moves. The same goes for a ballet dancer, an assembly-line worker, and a cook.
The magic—for people to know themselves and to improve themselves—happens when they toggle back and forth between action and reflection. A danger might perform a routine enough times to make her steps automatic. Then she can step back and analyze what she did, moment by moment, and then consider how to improve or add to her routine.
Leaders do this too. One of the most powerful self-help programs in America, Dale Carnegie Training, teaches people how to overcome whatever is “holding them back” by teaching how to deliver a one-minute speech. Carnegie students, who are not allowed to use notes, must speak directly to the whole class about a different topic every week. The speech has three parts:
- “So there I was…” Start by bringing the audience into the middle of a scene or situation.
- “And then, … And then, … And then, … Finally, …” State three to five things that happened and how the sequence concluded.
- “And so I learned…” Conclude by stating the lesson to be learned from this moment.
For a century, this exercise has helped even the shyest, angriest, uncertain, and agitated people how to focus their minds, collect their thoughts, and connect with other people.
The exercise works because it is a whole-body exercise. Like a trapeze artist without a net, the speaker must master her command of mind and body in real time. Most students start to get good at the one-minute exercise within three or four weeks of the program. They can use this skill in just about every aspect of their lives. Thinking and connecting with other people become part of their body memory.
All kinds of strategies help budding leaders master their use of bodies and minds. Simple meditation and breathing exercises help to regulate blood flow and attention. Consider this simple 10-minute breathing exercise from “The Iceman,” a Dutch extreme athlete named Wim Hof:
As his nickname suggests, Hof also exposes himself to freezing temperatures for sustained periods. This exposure teaches him to concentrate his mind and to manage his breathing and attention. Again, a physical challenge—especially one that takes us out of our comfort zones—can transform the way we think and behave.