Baxter Copen and his grandson, Beatty, were having a conversation prior to Beatty’s starting college. “Grampa, what do I need to do well to succeed in college?” “Beatty, doing well in college is no different than doing well in life, said Baxter.
Then Baxter explained the concept of consciousness. “In the businesses I ran I asked every employee to practice what I called consciousness. I asked them to write down the answers to three questions each day.
- What worked well today?
- What disappointment did you experience?
- What would you like to do better tomorrow?
“I don’t look at their answers, but I give each employee a notebook to record their answers.”
“Does it work?” Beatty asked
“Let me ask you this. Beatty, have you ever had a song reside in your mind all day?”
“Yeah, doesn’t everyone?”
“That’s called consciousness. I want our employees to be thinking about the three questions every day. When something works out well, I hope they will repeat what made it go well. When something is disappointing, I hope they will think of what led to the disappointment and not repeat it. I want every employee to think of making every day better.”
“But why write it down?” asked Beatty.
“Just writing it down helps you think. I just don’t believe that you can be honest with yourself unless you put your thinking on paper. You’ll be surprised how much wisdom is in your pen.”
“Does this work?” asked Beatty as he began to see how he might apply these three questions to college.
“Well, we never had a losing quarter in any of my businesses, even during the Great Recession.”
“Here is your first consciousness journal,” Baxter handing it to Beatty with a big smile on his face. “And let me show you mine.” Beatty looked it over and as he read, he was amazed. Every entry was about him or his sister or his cousins. Suddenly, it dawned on him: “Grandpa, you’re using your consciousness journal to be a good grandfather.”
“Yep.”
* * *
“The key to growth is the production of higher dimensions of consciousness into our
awareness.” Lao Tzu (philosopher)