Robert Fritz Quotes

Secondary choices are always subordinate to a primary choice. Often there is no reason to make such choices outside the context of the primary choice that calls for them.

Athletes and musicians may not enjoy practicing long hours, but they do so just the same; not out of duty, obligation, or any other form of self-manipulation, but because they are making secondary choices consistent with their primary choice to be able to perform music or excel at sports.

What motivates a creator? The desire for the creation to exist. A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being. People in the reactive-responsive orientation often have trouble understanding this sensibility: to create for the sake of the creation itself. Not for the praise, not for the “return on investment,” not for what it may say about you, but for its own sake.

You can get rid of all your problems and still not have what you want.

One basic principle found throughout nature is this: Tension seeks resolution. From the spider web to the human body, from the formation of galaxies to the shifts of continents, from the swing of pendulums to the movement of wind-up toys, tension-resolution systems are in play.

The FIRST Law of Organizational Structure Organizations either oscillate or advance. This distinction is truly as black and white as it sounds. An organization is predominately one that advances or one that oscillates. When any type of action (TQM, organizational learning, reengineering, lean, you name it), occurs in an organization structured to advance, it has an entirely different impact than it would in an organization structured to oscillate. In the first, actions actually work; in the second, they don’t. In both types of organizations there are instances of success. In fact, every organization is filled with plenty of successes. But the consequences of success in an advancing organization are radically different from an oscillating organization. In structural advancement, success ultimately leads to long-term success; you can build on it, you can grow other successes, you can create momentum, energy and drive; in organizations in which structural oscillation is in play, success is neutralized.

It's not what the vision is, it's what the vision does.

Often, the person reaches a point where there is a choice between two conflicting interests: reducing the emotional discomfort or seeing what is really going on. The person needs to make a value choice at this point. Which is more important to you, seeing reality or feeling okay? Almost always, the person chooses to see reality, and therefore, to let the emotional chips fall wherever they may.

As adults, we create myths about ourselves and about our lives. We often use the myth to organize reality into a type of order. Anything that might contradict the myth seems to bring disorder that can feel disorienting. The myth forms a bias and matrix against which the person’s life experiences are evaluated. The sense of myth is often in sharp contrast to the macrostructural patterns that dominate our lives. The myths are often about the details of the events that happened, including who did what to whom. The pattern shows that the details are not causal but only orchestrative. If we describe the details, we see the uniqueness of the events that have taken place, and the story can seem like a one time deal. But if we describe the form and sequence of events, the critical moments, etc., we see how un-unique the story actually is. We can see that, yet again, the same damn thing has happened.

To the reactive-responsive person it is not acceptable to spend your life on what you love, because what you love is not tied to the circumstances.

You are like a river. You go through life taking the path of least resistance. We all do — all human beings and all of nature. It is important to know that. You may try to change the direction of your own flow in certain areas of your life — your eating habits, the way you work, the way you relate to others, the way you treat yourself, the attitudes you have about life. And you may even succeed for a time. But eventually you will find you return to your original behavior and attitudes. This is because your life is determined, insofar as it is a law of nature for you to take the path of least resistance.

Faith was the excuse you used if you didn't have a good argument.

You can shift to another structure that will support you in creating the results you want, but never from the motivation of ridding yourself of structural conflict. Why? Because creating is different from solving or eliminating.

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable,
you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,
and all that is left is compromise.

In the orientation of the creative, once you have consciously made the choice to be healthy and you are attracted to eating certain foods and following certain forms of exercise, you are involved in an organic process. The structural tendency of this organic process is for you to be attracted to those processes that will be particularly beneficial to your health. Those processes might include the usual, expected ones, such as health food and exercise, as well as unexpected ones.

You love your child for who the child is, not as an extension of your identity or as an example of your good parenting or even as a companion.