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People loved it. So by not resisting reality, reality became her ally. By no longer feeling negative about her former profession, she could return to a powerful neutral position.
    In the workplace, the old-school micromanager is obsessed with eliminating the negative. And by doing so, he himself becomes negative, judgmental, and non-trusting, focusing only on problems (thereby making them bigger than they are). Ignorance of neutrality leads managers into a world of deception, dispute, and control. None of those attitudes is an aspect of neutrality.
    This is why managers who are controlling and micro-managerial get so much push-back from their people. Their people feel paranoid and judged.
    But when they give up dragon-slaying the negative, managers become hands-off managers. And from that place without judgment, they can focus their attention on that which they wish to create. What a relief to everyone.
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In every person, even in such as appear most reckless, there is an inherent desire to attain balance.
    —Jakob Wassermann
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    Alan Watts used to say that his definition of the human ego was “defense of a position.” That is exactly what the workplace ego is: defending your isolated position in the organization. But when you fight for a position instead of embracing the entire system, you contract your being into something small and weak.
    The bigger part of you is the part of you that is unconditional, accepting, and without judgment. Many just don’t grasp that that’s the really powerful part of you.
    The power aspect of neutrality is that it allows you to be an observer who is open to all possibilities. When you meet with team members from another department you can hear their side of the story and see whole-system solutions. You are not overly defensive of your position in the universe.
    In negotiations, neutrality is a mutually inclusive concept that most businesses now acknowledge is the only real way to do business if you want longevity and a lasting network of relationships with the people with whom you negotiate. The old macho idea of besting your “opponent” in a negotiation gives people a short-term thrill and a long-term headache. Professional athletes whose agents best the team to get multimillion-dollar contracts often earn the scorn of fans when they have a bad year and leave the sport in shame and disgrace.
    Neutrality brings you to honest solutions, and, most of all, it lets you allow—not force—the results to move toward a fruitful outcome.
    Author and social scientist David Hawkins talks about surrender being the most powerful path to enlightenment. And in today’s world of the macho, Rambo-like computer-game character, people almost cannot conceive of such a thing being the path to power.
    But ironically it is what martial-arts hero Bruce Lee taught. At only 135 pounds, Bruce Lee was, pound for pound, the strongest fighter on the planet. No one could defeathim—not even the biggest American boxers, with whom he did exhibitions. He once said, “To be a great martial artist, you become water. Water is totally accepting of whatever gets thrown into it.” And the big American boxers would lose because they would punch outward and try to defeat who was in front of them. Bruce Lee said, “I’m like water and you are jumping into my ocean when you fight me. And to be like water is the most powerful way you can be, both as a martial artist and as a human being.”
    Water is soft and accepting, yet it has the power to level a city.
    Bruce Lee said the only American boxer who came close to that principle was Mohammed Ali, because Mohammed Ali would dance and “float like a butterfly.” And with his amazingly flexible body, he would invite his opponents’ punches throughout the fight in such a way that they would punch themselves out, being drawn like moths into the neutral fire Ali was embodying. And by the time an opponent was so weary he couldn’t hold his arms up anymore, Mohammed Ali