Dan Harris Quote
Serendipitously, on the very night of my meeting with Ben, I had scheduled a dinner with Mark Epstein. In the taxi on my way downtown I called Bianca and told her how it’d gone. He’s right, she said. Which came as no surprise; Ben had basically affirmed her thesis. This is good. Now you know what you need to do. Mark and I met to eat at a fussy Japanese restaurant called Brushstroke, where they only served a tasting menu and the waiters took themselves very, very seriously. Once we’d placed our orders, I told Mark what had just gone down in Ben’s office. He responded with a catchy little suggestion: Hide the Zen. People will take advantage of you if they’re reading you as too Zen, he said. There’s a certain kind of aggression in organizational behavior that doesn’t value that—that will see it as weak. If you present yourself too much like that, people won’t take you seriously. So I think it important to hide the Zen, and let them think that you’re really someone they have to contend with. But I was attached to my rep as a Zen guy. I don’t want to be an asshole at the office. No, he said. That’s the tricky thing about what he’s saying to you. I’m sure there’s a way of doing it where you don’t have to be an asshole.
Serendipitously, on the very night of my meeting with Ben, I had scheduled a dinner with Mark Epstein. In the taxi on my way downtown I called Bianca and told her how it’d gone. He’s right, she said. Which came as no surprise; Ben had basically affirmed her thesis. This is good. Now you know what you need to do. Mark and I met to eat at a fussy Japanese restaurant called Brushstroke, where they only served a tasting menu and the waiters took themselves very, very seriously. Once we’d placed our orders, I told Mark what had just gone down in Ben’s office. He responded with a catchy little suggestion: Hide the Zen. People will take advantage of you if they’re reading you as too Zen, he said. There’s a certain kind of aggression in organizational behavior that doesn’t value that—that will see it as weak. If you present yourself too much like that, people won’t take you seriously. So I think it important to hide the Zen, and let them think that you’re really someone they have to contend with. But I was attached to my rep as a Zen guy. I don’t want to be an asshole at the office. No, he said. That’s the tricky thing about what he’s saying to you. I’m sure there’s a way of doing it where you don’t have to be an asshole.
Related Quotes
About Dan Harris
Dan Harris (American football), college football coach and athletic director
Dan Harris (screenwriter) (born 1979), American screenwriter who co-wrote Superman Returns
Dan Harris (journalist) (born 1971), American television news correspondent
Dan Harris (politician) (born 1979), Canadian Member of Parliament
Daniel Harris (footballer) (born 1982), former Australian rules footballer
Daniel Harris (cricketer) (born 1979), cricketer for Australian domestic team Southern Redbacks
Daniel Harris (architect) (c. 1761–1840), civil engineer and architect
Danny Harris (born 1965), American hurdler
Danny Harris (rugby) (born 1937), rugby union and rugby league footballer of the 1950s and 1960s Wales (RU), Pontypridd, Cardiff, and Leigh (RL)
Daniel Harris, a character in the TV series The New Adventures of Old Christine
Daniel Gibson Harris (1915–2007), writer on Swedish naval history
Daniel J. Harris (c. 1833–1890), founder of Fairhaven, Washington