See the Series Introduction for Just Tao It, Part I: HERE
See the Just Tao It Series Introduction Tao/It on-ramp, PART II: HERE
See Just Tao It, Chapter 1: HERE

From my interpretation of the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 63 (Unpublished):

Act without ado.
Serve what is.

Be among the willing few.
See seeds in trees
and trees in seeds.

Savor what is,
without excess.

Start small.

See both
this and that.

Do what is yours,
and let it be.

When things are easy,
see the difficulty.

When difficulty is all you see,
wear it down,
chip it away.

The great do not try to be great.
They are,
and do not hold to being.

Expect difficulty,
and meet what comes.

In this,
there is harmony.

With It,
love moves.

—

There’s a deadline sitting in front of me that doesn’t care about my relationship with the Tao.

Kayser Ridge—the land, the retreat center, the physical expression of everything I’ve been trying to build for more than twenty years—needs to generate revenue within three years, or I’ll be forced to sell it.

That’s not a metaphor. That’s a number on a spreadsheet, a conversation with my accountant, and a reality I wake up to most mornings.

The Tao Te Ching says, “Act without ado. Serve what is.” Which sounds beautiful until “what is” includes a financial requirement that won’t be met by sitting and trusting the universe to handle the details.

So here I am, holding two things that don’t easily resolve into one another.

Doing what needs to be done—generating revenue, building programs, marketing retreats, making the business case for why people should come here and pay for the experience.

Being present to what this place actually is—a sanctuary, a living environment where polarity thinking becomes embodied, a space that matters precisely because it isn’t optimized for extraction.

I can’t just be with this. The bills don’t pay themselves. But I also can’t just do my way out of it without losing what I built Kayser Ridge to be.

What both poles serve—what I can’t lose sight of—is staying in relationship with the work itself. Not just completing tasks. Not just being present. But living in a way that keeps me connected to why Kayser Ridge exists in the first place: as a living environment where polarity thinking becomes embodied, not just taught.

This tension isn’t just mine.

In early 2025, I had the privilege of attending the Inner Development Goals (IDG) Summit in Stockholm. The theme was Bridging Polarities—not choosing sides, but developing the capacity to hold both. I’ve been working with the IDG community as an Ambassador (Aconcagua Cohort) since 2024, and being in that room reminded me that what I’m navigating personally is what leaders everywhere are navigating systemically.

The IDG framework recognizes five dimensions of inner development, and it’s not accidental that the first is Being and the fifth is Doing. They function like bookends—reminding us that capability on the inside must develop alongside action on the outside.

Most leaders are trained in Doing. Goals, plans, metrics, accountability, action. If something isn’t working, do more. Faster, smarter, better.

It’s not wrong. It’s incomplete.

When we overfocus on Doing to the neglect of Being, we begin forcing. We push outcomes before they’re ready. We act because action feels like control. We move so quickly that we stop seeing what is actually unfolding. Teams feel it. Families feel it. Organizations feel it. The system tightens.

When we overfocus on Being to the neglect of Doing, we drift. We observe, reflect, consider—and keep considering. We wait for clarity that isn’t coming. We call it patience. Others call it indecision. The system slows.

Neither works over time.

This isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a polarity to leverage.

So what do you do when you can see the tension but can’t resolve it?

I mapped it. Not as a teaching exercise—as a survival tool. When the financial pressure spikes, I look at the map and ask: Which downside am I drifting toward? Am I forcing outcomes (over-Doing) or avoiding agency (over-Being)? What are the Early Warnings telling me? What Action Steps would serve both poles?

It doesn’t resolve the tension. But it keeps me from mistaking the downside I’m in for the whole truth.

All Doing looks like this: I’m checking email at 11 p.m., mentally rehearsing tomorrow’s revenue conversation while my partner is talking, treating Kayser Ridge like a problem to solve rather than a place I’m building with. The work gets done, but the presence that makes the work worth doing disappears.

All Being looks like this: I’m watching the deadline approach with serene detachment, telling myself “it will unfold as it should,” while the systems that require my active participation wait for decisions I’m not making. Presence without agency isn’t wisdom—it’s avoidance with spiritual vocabulary.

Both are incomplete. And both, when leaned into exclusively, produce outcomes nobody wanted.

This chapter of the Tao Te Ching sits directly in that tension.

It does not say stop Doing. It does not say only Be.

It holds both.

Doing AND Being.

In this chapter it shows up simply: Do what is yours AND let it be.

Do what is yours. Act. Decide. Take responsibility. Move something forward.

And let it be. Don’t over-control. Don’t force timing. Don’t try to make everything conform to your plan.

That’s not passivity. It’s what Taoists point to as wu wei—acting without forcing. Acting in alignment with what is actually unfolding rather than pushing against it.

It’s natural in tensions like this to lean harder on one side. I often hear clients say, “I’m wired to act.” See a problem? Jump in, direct, fix. We call it leadership. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s anxiety in a leadership costume.

Others—present company included—are wired to allow. Step back, observe, include, create space. We call it wisdom. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s avoidance with flattering language.

Whatever the preference, people and systems need both.

This is also where the chapter connects to Servant Leadership. “Serve what is” doesn’t mean being agreeable or stepping back all the time. It means serving the reality of the system, not your preferred version of it. Sometimes that requires direction. Sometimes restraint. Sometimes stepping in. Sometimes getting out of the way.

Servant leaders don’t serve their ego. They serve what is needed—and what is needed is always moving.

That’s why this line matters:

See seeds in trees and trees in seeds.

What is small is becoming something large. What is large began as something small.

This is where the Part AND Whole connection becomes visible.

In 2015, 193 countries agreed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—17 goals and 169 targets. A massive Doing effort at the system level. But progress stalled, and in many cases reversed. It became increasingly clear that systems alone cannot deliver the outcomes they seek.

That realization gave rise to the Inner Development Goals—a focus on the inner capacities of leaders: awareness, empathy, courage, humility. In other words, Being.

The SDGs focus on the Whole. The IDGs focus on the Part.

And like all polarities, each needs the other.

Global systems cannot shift without capable human beings. And individual growth without systemic change cannot scale.

Part AND Whole. Being AND Doing.

The Tao noticed this tension a long time ago.

And it’s showing up again—with new intensity—as we integrate artificial intelligence into decision-making.

AI dramatically expands Doing—execution at scale, optimization at speed, automation of tasks that once required human presence. What it struggles with is Being—discernment that emerges from presence, ethical judgment that can’t be automated, the capacity to witness what’s happening rather than just act on it.

When systems optimize for Doing alone, they accelerate without wisdom. Efficiency becomes the measure, and presence—the quality of attention that allows us to notice when optimization is moving us away from what matters—gets lost.

I’ve seen this happen. Organizations adopt AI tools to increase productivity, and early results look good. More output. Faster turnaround. But over time, something shifts. People stop pausing to think. They stop checking in with what feels right. They let the algorithm decide, and the capacity to Be with what’s unfolding—to sense whether the speed is actually serving the purpose—starts to atrophy.

The discipline required is the same whether you’re navigating a financial deadline, leading an organization, or building an AI-assisted system: stay connected to what the doing is for. And preserve the capacity to be with what’s unfolding, even when action feels urgent.

And when that happens—when people see decisions that hold, not just ones that move fast—trust builds. Trust in yourself to navigate what you cannot control. Trust in others to adjust alongside you. Trust in systems designed to remain responsive rather than optimize toward rigidity.

That trust is what sustains relationships when capacity shifts. It’s what allows teams to adapt without breaking. It’s what makes democracy work.

You can’t sustain one without the other. People capable of staying grounded, aware, adaptive—that’s Inner Development. And systems that actually deliver meaningful impact in the world—that’s Outer Impact. Both required. Both over time.

Individuals, teams, families, organizations—even global systems—rarely change through a single bold action or a perfectly designed strategy. Change emerges through people capable of holding both poles, making many small moves over time, and noticing early enough to act well enough to matter.

One of my mentors, Richard Barrett, likes to say, “Organizations don’t change. People do.”

Which is why, if you want to go big:

Start small.

Lao Tzu offers two simple reminders:

“When things are easy, see the difficulty.” That’s foresight.

“When difficulty is all you see, wear it down, chip it away.” That’s persistence.

Both matter.

Underneath it all is another reminder: the great do not try to be great.

They are—and do not hold to being.

That’s Being without attachment. Doing without ego.

Leading without needing to perform leadership or signal authority. You do what is yours, let go of what is not, and over time something else becomes visible. Not immediately. Not perfectly. But reliably.

If you want a simple check:

Where are you forcing when you don’t need to? Where are you waiting when action is needed? Where are you serving your image instead of the system? Where are you missing the seeds because you’re focused only on the tree?

That’s the work.

Stay with It.

I don’t have this figured out.

Most days, I lean too far one way or the other. I wake up ready to force outcomes, or I spend too long in reflection when a decision is already overdue.

What I do have is a map. A set of principles. A community of people who are navigating the same tensions in different contexts. And a place—Kayser Ridge—that reminds me, daily, that the work isn’t about arriving. It’s about staying in relationship with what matters while meeting what’s required.

The great do not try to be great. They are, and do not hold to being.

That line sits with me.

Not as an instruction. As a reflection.

Greatness, if it shows up at all, shows up in the quality of engagement. In the willingness to act when action is needed. In the capacity to be present when presence is what’s called for. In the discipline to keep returning to the tension rather than solving for one side.

What holds Doing AND Being together—what makes them more than competing demands—is whether the calls you make continue to work. Not just in the moment, but when pressure increases. When conditions shift. When what seemed certain becomes uncertain.

That’s what wise means. Not perfect. Not final. Just holding over time.

With It, love moves.

Not perfectly. Not finally. But steadily enough that something grows.

Here’s a Polarity Map for Doing (What’s Yours) AND Being (Let It Be):

INVITATIONS:
Where are you forcing when you don’t need to?
Where are you waiting when action is needed?
And: How would you know if you were drifting too far toward one pole before it became a crisis?
Try the “AI-trained Chat w/Cliff for Step 1, Seeing, CLICK HERE.

If you want to take a quick self-assessment for Doing (What’s Yours) And Being (Let It Be)? CLICK HERE – the results include Leveraging Action Steps and Early Warnings (to support maximizing upside benefits and minimizing downside limitations).

Want to go deeper into Polarity Thinking? See our online self-directed Credentialing and Introduction to Polarity Practice, CLICK HERE.