It’s easy to relate to the objects which fill our world as if they were just there – a taken for granted, already existing feature of human life.But the materials in everything you own or use – everything – had to either be grown by somebody or dug out of the ground first. Even the most synthetic and complex of products start out this way. Growing and mining, the source of it all.That’s quite a thought to consider. Take any object around you, from the smallest bolt to the tallest building, and imagine back through the long and complex chain of people and interlocking processes to the raw materials that came from the earth itself.Remembering the source of everything, and the commitment and ingenuity that makes it all possible, can be a way of cultivating deep gratitude and wonder that any of it is available to you in the first place.These must be more possibility-filled moods than the resentment or frustration we can so readily feel at all the products that don’t work as expected, at the chaos of the world, at the sheer everyday humdrum repetitive ordinariness of things. And gratitude, for this aspect of life’s many wonders, can go a long way to awakening the sense of possibility, responsibility and focussed commitment we need in order to do our best work and inspire others.
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Our tools shape us. I've argued this here before, most notably 
It seems common sense to think of will-power - our capacity to do or not do the things that matter to us - as coming only from within us. If I can't start something or stop something, develop a new habit or take up a project, if I find myself procrastinating, then it must all be down to me, and me alone. And, if that's the case then pushing harder, or harsh self-criticism, or both, seem to be the way to go in order to get myself started.But self-punishing is hardly life giving, and barely supports our capacity to flourish and get up to what matters in a sustained way. And it's based on a profound misunderstanding, deeply rooted in our culture, that we are essentially separate from the world. If I'm separate, if the world is essentially divided into me (my mind, my thinking) and everything out there which I have to move or push against, then when I find myself not moving or not pushing what other conclusion can I come to than (1) I'm not trying hard enough and (2) there's something wrong with me?But there is another way to look at this that takes into account how open to the world, how indivisible from the world, we are. When we see this we also start to see how much we are affected by who and what is around us. We discover that the world is an affordance for certain things - that different places and people draw out of us different kinds of action and inaction, and that this is often a better description of what's happening than 'I willed it'.Chairs beckon me to sit, paths beckon me to walk, people who are open and receptive beckon me to speak, others beckon me to keep quiet. Place a stack of chocolate biscuits on my desk, and I am drawn to eat. Place a phone in my pocket, filled with incoming messages, tweets, emails, voicemail - and I am drawn to check.Our whole physical and social world acts as a scaffold or a pathway for our action and inaction.The startling corollary of this is that how we are in the world is not brought about by inner will alone. It is also, in large part, brought about by what and who we choose to surround ourselves with in our homes and work spaces. In this way the worlds we build for ourselves also make us.And just as the road layout and road signs here in the UK are an affordance for driving on the left (they call for left-of-the-road driving), and those in mainland Europe or the US are an affordance for driving on the right, we can begin to lay out - with our choice of possessions, tools, spaces and relationships - paths that are an affordance for distraction and delay, or for doing what matters most to us.
So much difficulty, suffering, and effort would be alleviated if we understood in our organisations that culture is not something we can implement, roll-out, instill, or command. It cannot be programmed nor demanded other than through force, coercion, intimidation and fear (a topic that totalitarian states know about only too well), methods which themselves can produce only rigid, stuttering, repressed cultures that serve only the few.Culture is not a thing, an object, or an entity that has an existence separate from us. We cannot stand on the outside of it, analysing or directing it as if we were not involved. It is born of our participation. It arises from the conversations, promises, commitments, practices and intentions we have towards one another. And it is sustained and created anew in every moment by our acts of relating and responding to those around us - every one of which is either an act of 
What are the habits you have that diminish you?It’s not so difficult to find out what they are. You’ll probably do them automatically, without thinking. They’ll soothe you in some way. And they’ll leave you afterwards with the vaguely queasy feeling of having wasted your time – they’re distracting rather than nourishing, numbing rather than enlivening, they cover up what’s going on rather than have you face it, and they have you turn away from genuine connection with yourself and with other people.A few candidates for you to consider:
I've been reintroduced to Edward de Bono's six '
Parker Palmer 
I've just had the longest unplanned interruption in publishing since I started this writing project over two years ago. My commitment to write and publish every day.... vanished. And there does not seem to be an obvious reason that I can make easy sense of. Nothing significant changed in my schedule and yet, when it came to writing, nothing.I notice how quickly the parts of me that are into comparison and self-criticism can get going in such circumstances. First a vague unease, a sinking feeling, a confusion that gradually shifts into despair. At the heart of all of this a comparison: I should be able to do better than this, I'm letting myself and others down. And an assessment: it's my fault, I'm clearly not dedicated enough.I'm saying this here not because I think there's anything unusual about me - this constant stream of inner comparison with its harshness and its capacity to produce shame seem to be to be shared widely amongst us humans.But there is another part of me, more settled, wiser, with a much more expansive view of time, that says this is a season.It reminds me that I am not a robot, nor a machine, but alive. It reminds me that like all living beings I have summers and winters, autumns and springs - fallow times and generative times, hopeful times and despairing times, sadness and joy, gratitude and frustration, sorrow and love. It reminds me that the seasons of my own life - of all of our lives - are not, largely, under our control.And it reminds me that sometimes, often, the wisest move is to know that seasons come and go all by themselves, and to stop worrying, forcing, or trying to have it be any other way.