An old story tells of a young man who keeps hearing about a wonderful tailor, Zumbach, whose suits can make anyone look handsome and stylish. One day the man goes to Zumbach and asks him to make a suit. So Zumbach takes his measurements and tells him to come back in a week.

A week later the young customer eagerly goes back for his suit and has the man try it on. It looks wonderful – except that one sleeve is longer than the other, the buttons do not match up and the trousers are too short. So the customer complains. Zumbach, deeply affronted, says with great indignation, it’s not the suit. The trouble is the way you are wearing it. If you crook your left elbow just a bit, the sleeves will be perfect. And if you hunch forward and raise your right shoulder, the buttons, match up splendidly. Then if you’ll just bend your knees a bit, you’ll see the trousers are just right.” The customer tries it and, lo and behold, the suit fits like a glove – and it’s gorgeous.”

The tailor is the set of internal principles which shape and cut your experience. The tailor and the suit exist within our mind. Unless you realise that experience is organised into pre-established emotional patterns, then habit, conditioned by language, social conventions and shared concepts, will custom-tailor your experience. Patterns of thinking, talking and acting drive strategy, communication and performance. Personal transformation, creativity and innovation are about understanding and mastering the nature of this principle experientially. Understanding the logic of how lived experience is conditioned is a strategic imperative for those leaders and organisations who wish to break out of the pernicious nature of habitual thinking and compete in an idea driven economy. (Tailor Zumbach Story from Emotional Alchemy by Tara Bennet-Goleman)