No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

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How to Get Someone or Something, Off Your Mind

Glen / 31 Comments / November 27th, 2008 / Subscribe via RSS

I was chatting to a friend of mine today and she wanted some advice on how to forget someone after a relationship breakup. There was often times in the past where I wanted to forget about something (or someone) so I had a few suggestions, the better ones being ecky-focused.

It got me thinking of all my ‘techniques’ and ideas on how to get something off your mind, and how as a population this is something that we want to do at one time or another. If you have any questions after reading this, feel free to ask in the comments below.

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The Problem

I hate the word ‘problem’, it implies there is something negative that we need to deal with and it has the potential to weigh us down. I much prefer the Echkart style thinking, ‘either deal with it, or forget about it’. However, using the word is probably the best way to get the point across.

The problem is that we get bogged down by our own problems, by our own stories, and we think about them non-stop. They can be so annoying that we would do anything to deal with them and get them out of the way, they can be so annoying that we’ll literally do anything to forget about them. When it comes to wanting to get something off our mind, that can also be a problem. Having something constantly in our heads weighs us down; but looking at problems on the other side of the scale:

• They give us something to identify ourselves with (victim mentality)
• They give us an excuse not to move on
• They give us a rationalisation as to why things aren’t better

Although we hate our problems, we love them at the same time. I’m not saying we all wake up and think ‘Woohoo, I have a problem today’, of course not. Sub-consciously however, all of the bullet-points above are true, our problems are our stories, and I’m going to tell you exactly what I mean by that.

You are not your story

Just like I made clear that you are not your mind, you definitely aren’t your story. Your story could be anything, after-all…it is ‘yours’. A few examples:

• How a past relationship has made you scared of new ones
• How a poor upbringing has ruined your future
• How your lack of intelligence means you can’t make money
• How your life situation is holding you back

Everyone has their story, just some people have learned to disconnect with theirs, they realise it doesn’t make them who they are. They realise their story doesn’t determine their future. My story? I dropped out of college, I worked in a crappy clothes store for 2 years and I have no decent education. Did that stop me? Hell no!

Move on, do something different. I worked hard becoming the best internet marketer I could be for over 3 years and now I’m in a great position, not far from working for myself full-time. Do you know that many top CEO’s in the UK don’t even have a college education (and college in the UK is a lower level than that in America), I’m serious.

Getting it off your mind

So now we’re clear, the problem is that we connect to our problems and identify ourselves with them. However, we aren’t our problems because in reality, problems are just an illusion. Something is only a problem if we make it a problem. How refreshing is that?

Now the problem I’m referring to here is not being able to stop thinking about something, not being able to get something out of your head. How crazy is that, we can’t stop thinking about something, our mind has taken over our desires…or has it.

1. Disconnect from your story – if you believe that the current situation you find yourself in is ‘who you are’ then you are never going to be free of problems. Simply because you identify with them, you see them as your source and therefore they are the source of your pain. I don’t have great college grades, but does that make me an unintelligent (yes, it’s word) person?

As soon as you realise that you are not your story or your life situation, you will start to see that there is a whole world out there, filled with reality-changing opportunities just waiting for you to go and grab them with both hands.

Some of us like our stories, they give us something to connect with and identify with. If you take away a persons story then what is left? In my opinion, point 3…total acceptance.

2. Decide if you want to be free – you may think I’m crazy, but sub-consciously we don’t want to disconnect from our problems, after-all, they are our story. You have to decide whether you want to be free from your incessant mind activity or you are holding on to it because, as said earlier, it is giving you an excuse to stay set in our ways.

Our problems, in a way, can actually make our lives easier. They stop us pushing for anything different because we believe they hold us back and we can’t amount to anything greater. Connect to your core, find out if you really do want to move on and forget about that someone or something, because if you don’t then it is never going to happen.

3. Accept what is – if you are constantly battling to get something off your mind, then you are constantly battling with yourself, and that’s not fun. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you don’t try and grow or change as a person; it just means you don’t resist the situation that is happening at this very moment. If you are thinking about something, allow it to be, don’t resist it.

Magically, or not, your thoughts and attitude will change. The thing that has been bugging you so much will disappear. Why? Because you accept that it is bugging you and don’t let it hold you back, you accept you are being ‘bugged’ and move on. Think about what or who is bugging you, because it is actually you. As soon as you resist the present moment, the now, then that is when your problems come back.

Still don’t believe that problems are an illusion?

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Read this interesting piece on types of strenghts that increase ones value. I think one way of working with this is building on what comes naturally to you and looking beyond just the business value aspect. A set of critical question to ask when working with these models from my perspective are

1. Can these be generalized and applied in all contexts of life
2. How do i somatically hold it? i.e. how do I bring it down to my bones?
3. How can these be put to the service of humanity? (Think contribution, not positioning)
4. What other complimentary skill sets and poeple do I need to align with to bring out the best results.

Increase Your Value

may miss some roles (feel free to share your thoughts in the comments) but I believe these six roles can give you competitive advantage in your career. Here they are:

1. Maven

Mavens are the people who know practically everything about their fields. They are the masters of knowledge. A maven is the go-to person when people have questions regarding the field. To be a maven, you should have deep curiosity and deep desire to learn. You should also have the discipline to keep learning even when you don’t feel like to.

2. Connector

Connectors are the people who know a lot of people. They are the masters of networking. They are the people who seem to know everybody. As a connector, your connection is the value you can provide to others. When someone has a need, he may get the solution through your network.

3. Salesman

Salesmen are the people who can persuade others. They are the masters of persuasion. They can convince others to buy from them or to do something they want. Of course, a good salesman will deliver real value without being manipulative.

4. Synthesizer

Synthesizers are the people who can connect different fields and come up with fresh ideas. They are the masters of ideas. Synthesizers live in the Intersection (a term from The Medici Effect) where ideas from different fields collide and form new ideas.

5. Explainer

Explainers are the people who can explain complex concepts in simple ways so that they can be understood easily. They are the masters of transferring knowledge. They may not know everything, but they can make whatever they know easily understood by others.

6. System builder

System builders are the people who can create systems around what they are involved in. A system builder can organize something so that it works independently without his intervention. The system can keep providing value while the system builder works on creating new systems.

***

Which role do you think is best for you? In practice you may have more than one role but you should choose just one as your core competence. Spreading yourself too thin won’t do you good. To increase your value, choose the role in which you have personal strengths.

maven, connector, salesman, synthesizer, explainer, systems builder, value, career,

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Read this interesting piece on types of strenghts that increase ones value. I think one way of working with this is building on what comes naturally to you and looking beyond just the business value aspect. A set of critical question to ask when working with these models from my perspective are

1. Can these be generalized and applied in all contexts of life
2. How do i somatically hold it? i.e. how do I bring it down to my bones?
3. How can these be put to the service of humanity? (Think contribution, not positioning)
4. What other complimentary skill sets and poeple do I need to align with to bring out the best results.

Increase Your Value

may miss some roles (feel free to share your thoughts in the comments) but I believe these six roles can give you competitive advantage in your career. Here they are:

1. Maven

Mavens are the people who know practically everything about their fields. They are the masters of knowledge. A maven is the go-to person when people have questions regarding the field. To be a maven, you should have deep curiosity and deep desire to learn. You should also have the discipline to keep learning even when you don’t feel like to.

2. Connector

Connectors are the people who know a lot of people. They are the masters of networking. They are the people who seem to know everybody. As a connector, your connection is the value you can provide to others. When someone has a need, he may get the solution through your network.

3. Salesman

Salesmen are the people who can persuade others. They are the masters of persuasion. They can convince others to buy from them or to do something they want. Of course, a good salesman will deliver real value without being manipulative.

4. Synthesizer

Synthesizers are the people who can connect different fields and come up with fresh ideas. They are the masters of ideas. Synthesizers live in the Intersection (a term from The Medici Effect) where ideas from different fields collide and form new ideas.

5. Explainer

Explainers are the people who can explain complex concepts in simple ways so that they can be understood easily. They are the masters of transferring knowledge. They may not know everything, but they can make whatever they know easily understood by others.

6. System builder

System builders are the people who can create systems around what they are involved in. A system builder can organize something so that it works independently without his intervention. The system can keep providing value while the system builder works on creating new systems.

***

Which role do you think is best for you? In practice you may have more than one role but you should choose just one as your core competence. Spreading yourself too thin won’t do you good. To increase your value, choose the role in which you have personal strengths.

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Five challenges that accelerate leadership development | The Practice of Leadership

The high levels of change demand increased leadership capabilities and the requires organisation to focus on the development of future leaders. The Center for Creative Leadership has studies the development of leadership for the last 38 years and have identified five key challenges that have facilitate the effective development of leadership:

* Challenge 1: Unfamiliar responsibilities. When you practice new skills and expand your knowledge base, you learn how to operate effectively when you are early in a learning curve.
* Challenge 2: Creating change. When you lead change, you learn to operate in ambiguous situations, think strategically, make tough decisions and persevere in the face of adversity.
* Challenge 3: Significant accountabilities. By expanding your role in terms of scope, scale, time pressure and accountability, you learn what it takes to be decisive, to work and learn at a fast pace and to have significant impact.
* Challenge 4: Managing across boundaries. Assignments that require you to collaborate across functions and business units or to work with people over whom you have no authority will strengthen your ability to influence others.
* Challenge 5: Dealing with diversity. By working with people of another culture, gender or background, you will be better prepared to adapt to different expectations and persuade people of different backgrounds to work together.

Organisation face an increasing leadership shortage, not having sufficient leaders to meet their organisations future needs. Given this leadership crunch the way organisations approach the development of leaders is critical.

* Have you included these five challenges as key components of your leadership development programme?
* Have you included these five challenges as part of your personal leadership development?

leadership development, leadership, development

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Researcher finds link between aggression, status and sex (12/12/2008)

Have you ever wondered why it seems like the littlest things make people angry? Why a glance at the wrong person or a spilled glass of water can lead to a fist fight or worse? University of Minnesota researcher Vladas Griskevicius has three words to explain why people may be evolutionarily inclined to make a mountain out of molehill: aggression, status and sex.

Although hostility or belligerent acts might not immediately appear to be linked to reproduction, new research forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that mating goals may underlie behaviors such as aggression. Griskevicius, a marketing professor at the U of M’s Carlson School of Management, and his co-authors, have found conclusive evidence that merely activating a desire for status can trigger aggression. Aggressive displays, which may result in enhanced status, indirectly boost an individual’s ability to attract a mate and, thereby, reproduce.

“It all boils down to the fact that status for men typically equals sex. Across different cultures and time, the higher status men have, the more sex or better-quality partners they may have,” said Griskevicius. “At the gene-level, nobody wants to go down in an evolutionary blaze of glory–no one wants their genes to become extinct. Additionally, unlike low-status women, low-status men are in serious danger of not reproducing, since they make especially undesirable mates.”

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Interesting, how marketing is leading the way to how choice theory is being implemented

Inside the consumer mind: brain scans reveal choice mechanism (12/15/2008)

That gorgeous sweater has your name written on it. But, those red suede pumps are calling your name too. What goes through your mind as you consider these choices? During normal economic times, you might indulge in a whole new wardrobe. But now, with considerably tighter budgets, consumers don’t have the luxury of saying “It’s the holidays — I’ll just buy both!” What happens in buyers’ brains as they consider difficult choices? What can retailers do to make the choice process easier for consumers?

Akshay Rao, a marketing professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, has conducted research that shows that decision making is simplified when a consumer considers a third, less attractive option. For example, when a second, less desirable sweater is also considered in the situation above, the shopper could solve their conundrum by choosing the more attractive sweater. The less appealing sweater plays the role of a “decoy” that makes the other sweater appear more pleasing than before. “In some ways, it is quite straightforward,” said Rao. “When a consumer is faced with a choice, the presence of a relatively unattractive option improves the choice share of the most similar, better item.”

In their forthcoming Journal of Marketing Research article “Trade-off Aversion as an Explanation for the Attraction Effect: A functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study,” Rao and co-author William Hedgcock (University of Iowa) explain the reasons for this decoy effect. Volunteers had their brains scanned while they made choices between several sets of equally appealing options as well as choice sets that included a third, somewhat less attractive option. Overall, the presence of the extra, “just okay” possibility systematically increased preference for the better options. The fMRI scans showed that when making a choice between only two, equally preferred options; subjects tended to display irritation because of the difficulty of the choice process. The presence of the third option made the choice process easier and relatively more pleasurable

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Good read.

WEEKEND COMMENT – ‘BAILOUT’ IN ANCIENT ROME :: News :: ShellInfoSight.com

2008-12-12
WEEKEND COMMENT – ‘BAILOUT’ IN ANCIENT ROME
If We Do Not Learn From History…

By Claudius Tacitus with comment by Tom Dennen

Tacitus was one of the greatest historians of ancient Rome, and ‘a primary source for much of what is known about life the first and second centuries after the life of Christ.

Today’s ubiquitous mantra, “if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it,” bears some examination, and the opportunity to do so came through a small magnifying glass focused on Tacitus, given to me by my friend Graham Linscott a South African political and financial writer of some note.

I have and always will maintain that most of mankind’s troubles derive from greed.

Rome, in its latter years, was a hotbed of conspiracies and intrigue that went on and on in orgies of conspiracies, murder and destruction from its outskirts to the Senate chamber, the land, according to Tacitus, bathing ‘in a sea of blood.

This excerpt, taken in context, is but a brief interlude in a chaotic carnival of bloodshed and treachery, a pause just to ‘fix the system’ after which the blood returned to the streets

The financial interlude is halfway through Book 6, and is a parenthesis in his description of Rome’s long, long collapse during that period, which echoes that mantra I mentioned to which I can only add this codicil: “if we forget the pain inflicted upon us by the same perpetrators over and over again, by the same means then we are doomed to be destroyed again by the same instruments wielded by the same perpetrators, again and again.”

Tacitus (AD 55 to 120):

“Meanwhile a powerful host of accusers fell with sudden fury on the class which systematically increased its wealth by usury in defiance of a law passed by Caesar the Dictator defining the terms of lending money and of holding estates in Italy, a law long obsolete because the public good is sacrificed to private interest.

“The curse of usury was indeed of old standing in Rome and a most frequent cause of sedition and discord, and it was therefore repressed even in the throes of a less corrupt morality.

“First, the Twelve Tables prohibited anyone from exacting more than 10 percent, when, previously, the rate had depended on the caprice of the wealthy.

COMPOUND INTEREST BANNED

“Subsequently, by a bill brought in by the tribunes, interest was reduced to half that amount, and finally compound interest was wholly forbidden.

“A check too was put by several enactments of the people on evasions, which, though continually put down, still, through strange artifices, reappeared.

“On this occasion, however, Gracchus, the praetor, to whose jurisdiction the inquiry had fallen, felt himself compelled by the number of persons endangered to refer the matter to the Senate. In their dismay the senators, not one of whom was free from similar guilt, threw themselves on the emperor’s indulgence.

“He yielded, and a year and six months were granted, within which everyone was to settle his private accounts conformably to the requirements of the law.

CAESAR’S CREDIT CRUNCH

”Hence followed a scarcity of money, a great shock being given to all credit, the current coin too, in consequence of the conviction of so many persons and the sale of their property, being locked up in the imperial treasury or the public exchequer.

“To meet this, the Senate had directed that every creditor should have two-thirds his capital secured on estates in Italy.

“Creditors however were suing for payment in full, and it was not respectable for persons when sued to break faith. So, at first, there were clamorous meetings and importunate entreaties; then noisy applications to the praetor’s court, and the very device intended as a remedy – the sale and purchase of estates – proved the contrary, as the usurers had hoarded up all their money for buying land.

“The facilities for selling were followed by a fall of prices, and the deeper a man was in debt, the more reluctantly did he part with his property, and many were utterly ruined.

THE FIRST BAILOUT?

“The destruction of private wealth precipitated the fall of rank and reputation, till at last the emperor interposed his aid by distributing throughout the banks a hundred million sesterces, and allowing freedom to borrow without interest for three years, provided the borrower gave security to the State in land to double the amount.

“Credit was thus restored, and gradually private lenders were found, (but) the purchase … of estates was not carried out according to the letter of the Senate’s decree: Rigour at the outset, as usual with such matters, becoming negligence in the end.

”Former alarms then returned, as there was a charge of treason against Considius Proculus: While he was celebrating his birthday without a fear, he was hurried before the Senate, condemned and instantly put to death.”

The trivial financial problem having been resolved things returned to normal in Ancient Rome

bailout, learning from the past

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Preoccupations – In Hard Times, Fear Can Impair Decision-Making – NYTimes.com

This means not being a fearmonger. It means avoiding people who are
overly pessimistic about the economy. It means tuning out media that
fan emotional flames. Unless you are a day-trader, it means closing the
Web page with the market ticker. It does mean being prepared, but not
being a hypervigilant, everyone-in-the-bunker type.

I DON’T
care what your business is, but if you think it will eventually come
back to what it was — your brain is in the grips of the
fear-based endowment effect. What I am doing is looking for new
opportunities. This means applying neuroscience discovery to realms
where it hasn’t been used before.

I have teamed up with
anthropologists to apply brain imaging to understand the biological
roots of political conflict. I am starting another project to use brain
imaging to predict which teenagers are likely to make fatally bad
judgments and, hopefully, train them to make better decisions.

This strategy keeps the exploratory system of my brain active. And
right now there are incredible opportunities to do something
differently. Yes, they’re risky, and some will fail. But while
others wait for the storm to pass, I’m busy expanding into new
areas. If I wait for money to start flowing again, the opportunities
will have passed.

Gregory Berns, M.D., Ph.D., directs the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University.

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Management Craft: Why Management is Like a GPS

Great management is the proactive act of recalculating the best route forward for all the people and processes we touch.

I like how the GPS uses the same pleasant tone no matter how many times we veer off track. Managers would be well served to learn from this. Recalculating the route is a normal daily management task, and should not be a source of irritation or frustration. It is why we are here and why we are needed. To be the one to take the initiative and have the foresight to constantly recalculate and help organizations find their way.

gps, leadership, management

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Happiness is a collective — not just individual — phenomenon (12/8/2008)

If you’re happy and you know it, thank your friends-and their friends. And while you’re at it, their friends’ friends. But if you’re sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego have found that “happiness” is not the result solely of a cloistered journey filled with individually tailored self-help techniques. Happiness is also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion.

happniess

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5 Habits That Help Cultivate Greatness | The Daily Mind – Making the Daily Grind Meaningful

Do your daily habits affect how successful you are in life? You bet they do. Can you change your habits and point you life in the direction of greatness? Absolutely. Here are 5 habits that will help you cultivate greatness.

1. wake up early
2. eat clean food
3. practice oftern
4. develop bravery
5. condense all your blames/faults to one

greatness, habits

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Love is Happiness | Psychology Today Blogs

Love is Happiness
By T. Byram Karasu, M.D. on December 03, 2008 in The Mystery of Happiness

-Leonard Cohen

One afternoon, according to thirteenth-century Sufi folktale, the beloved character Nasreddin, a humorous philosopher and wise fool, was sitting in a café with his friend, discussing serious matters of life and love, as told to Rick Fields.

When the friend asked if Nasreddin was ever interested in getting married, he replied that years before he had set out to find the perfect wife. In Damascus he had found a wonderful and beautiful woman-but she wasn’t spiritual enough. Then, in another city he found a spiritual woman, but they didn’t communicate well together. Ultimately, in Cairo he found what he was looking for-”She was the ideal woman, spiritual, gracious, beautiful and at ease in the world-perfect in every way.” When the friend asked why he hadn’t married her, Nasreddin replied, “Unfortunately, she was looking for the perfect man.”

When we refer to the perfect person, what we may really mean is someone resembling ourselves. That is why it is so difficult to find the perfect one, because each of us is unique. The people we encounter are to varying degrees different from ourselves. In fact, rewording the esteemed thirteenth-century monk, Thomas Aquinas, “Diversity is the only perfection in the universe.” As there are billions of different faces in the world, there are that many variations in human personalities. “I” as the norm is puzzled and confused if the other behaves differently from “me.” We automatically expect the other person’s psychological structure to be similar to our own. Yet the moment a difference is recognized, however small, the individual would likely pull back, either remain relatively distant or emulate the other. Both attempts interfere wit the development of intimacy. Genuine intimate relationships require that both individuals accept and foster each other’s separateness. This acceptance is not a form of tolerance-it is a celebration. We should not be hoping that one day this person will finally mature and become like ourselves.

To know a man as he really is, you must accept him as he is; otherwise, he may not reveal himself to you and you will miss him forever. Constant self-scrutiny as to be rational, perfect, sane, or praiseworthy undermines one’s authenticity, and thus the possibility of genuine relations with others. Irrationalities are fertile ground for souls to join, as are their shortcomings and failures. Enduring relations are a series of optimum failures. If you want successful relations, make a habit of practicing the following daily prayer from the Course in Miracles: “today, I shall judge nothing.”

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Cooperation pays.

The freedom of power (12/4/2008)

Another experiment tested susceptibility to conformity pressure from peers among participants with high or low power. When participants completed a task that most people disliked, low-power and baseline participants’ opinions of the task were influenced by a bogus feedback sheet displaying that ostensible previous participants had greatly enjoyed the task. By comparison, high-power participants expressed dissatisfaction with the task, resisting the supposedly favorable opinions expressed by others. High-power participants, in other words, did not conform to what they believed others were thinking. As Joe Magee said in describing this study, “High-power people’s attitudes do not change with the wind.”

In another study, high-power individuals negotiated based on their deeply held values about cooperation and competition. Low-power individuals were more likely to be influenced by the behavior of their opponents. The research also suggests that power, by leading people to express their underlying attitudes and thoughts uninfluenced by others, reveals rather than makes the person.

Magee mentioned the relevance to President Elect Barack Obama. “Our research suggests that people may not need to worry too much about power corrupting Obama,” he said. “His newfound power might enable the change he desires rather than that power changing him instead. This is contrary to what most people think: that the longer he works in Washington the more he will be influenced by the same old ways of doing things.”

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PsyBlog: 12 Laws of the Emotions

2 Laws of the Emotions
Explore your feelings, and how they affect your behaviour, with this new series on the psychology of the emotions.

We tend to think of our emotions as having laws unto themselves, but one psychological researcher has suggested that our emotions do follow certain general rules.

This post begins a new series on the psychology of emotions with Professor Nico Frijda’s twelve laws of the emotions (Fridja, 2006). As for most laws there are exceptions, but these have been synthesised from years of psychological research and hold true much of the time.

1. The Law of Situational Meaning
The first law is simply that emotions derive from situations. Generally the same types of situation will elicit the same types of emotional response. Loss makes us grieve, gains make us happy and scary things make us fearful (mostly anyway – see all the other laws).

2. The Law of Concern
We feel because we care about something, when we have some interest in what happens, whether it’s to an object, ourselves, or another person. Emotions arise from these particular goals, motivations or concerns. When we are unconcerned we don’t feel anything.

3. The Law of Apparent Reality
Whatever seems real to us, can elicit an emotional response. In other words how we appraise or interpret a situation governs the emotion we feel (compare with laws 11 & 12). The reason poor movies, plays or books don’t engage us emotionally is because, in some sense, we fail to detect truth. Similarly it’s difficult to get emotional about things that aren’t obvious, right in front of us. For example grief may not strike when we are told about the death of loved one, but only once it becomes real to us in some way – say when we pick up the phone to call them, forgetting they are gone.

4, 5 & 6. The Laws of Change, Habituation and Comparative Feeling
The law of habituation means that in life we get used to our circumstances whatever they are (mostly true, but see laws 7 & 8). The emotions, therefore, respond most readily to change. This means that we are always comparing what is happening to a relatively steady frame of reference (what we are used to). As a result our emotions tend to respond most readily to changes that are relative to this frame of reference.

7. The Law of Hedonic Asymmetry
There are certain awful circumstances to which we can never become accustomed. If things are bad enough, it is impossible to escape negative feelings like fear or anxiety. On the other hand positive emotions always fade over time. No matter how much we are in love, how big the lottery win, or how copious the quantities of drugs consumed, positive emotions like pleasure always slip away.

8. The Law of Conservation of Emotional Momentum
Time doesn’t heal all wounds – or if it does, it only does so indirectly. Events can retain their emotional power over the years unless we re-experience and re-evaluate them. It’s this re-experiencing and consequent re-definition that reduces the emotional charge of an event. This is why events that haven’t been re-evaluated – say, failing an exam or being rejected by a potential lover – retain their emotional power across the decades.

9. The Law of Closure
The way we respond to our emotions tends to be absolute. They often lead immediately to actions of one kind or another, and they will brook no discussion (but see laws 10, 11 & 12). In other words emotional responses are closed to goals other than their own or judgements that can mitigate the response. An emotion seizes us and send us resolutely down one path, until later that is, when a different emotion sends us down the opposite path.

10. The Law of Care for Consequences
People naturally consider the consequences of their emotions and modify them accordingly. For example anger may provoke violent feelings towards another, but generally people refrain from stabbing each other willy-nilly. Instead they will shout, hit their head on the wall or just silently fume. Emotions may absolutely dictate a type of response, but people do modulate the size of that response (usually!).

11 & 12. Laws of the Lightest Load and the Greatest Gain
The emotional impact of an event or situation depends on its interpretation. Putting a different ’spin’ on a situation can change the feeling. The law of the lightest load means people are particularly motivated to use re-interpretations to reduce negative emotions. For example we might reduce the fear of the credit crunch by generating the illusion we won’t be affected. The exact reverse is also true: whenever a situation can be reinterpreted for a positive emotional gain, it will be. For example anger can be used to make others back down, grief attracts help and fear may stop us rashly attempting difficult or dangerous tasks.

Exploring the emotions
You may not agree with all of these ‘laws’, for example this is quite an individually based account of emotion, and tends to downplay the social aspects of emotion. Nevertheless it is an excellent starting point which provides a very useful way of thinking about emotions, and helps pave the way for examining individual emotions.

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K

CORE IDEA – TURN PRIVATE HOBBY INTO PUBLIC COMMITMENT AND CONTRIBUTION
THIS WAS THE ESSENSE OF WHAT HAPPENED AT rcg

Hobbies: The Personal Path to Creativity | Psychology Today Blogs

And that re-creation can set you on the path towards novel invention and discovery. There is, in fact, connection between little c or personal creativity and Big C or what we might call public creativity- innovations in art, science, technology, politics and just about any other area of cultural life that affect wide circles of the human community. Every world-renowned poet, every Nobel-Prize winning scientist, first impressed much smaller circles of family and friends, perhaps when she was a child or he was a young adult. Everyone who achieves creative impact at the highest levels has, simply, developed personal creativity into public commitment and contribution.

There’s a lot here that we’d like to address in coming posts: the necessity for self-invented play and the come-back of the amateur; the importance of artistic hobbies for many top-flight thinkers in the sciences; and the role of that polymathy as an educational and creative strategy.

For now, our focus is on the private joy-rides to be found in humble hobbies. Whether we take classes, read how-to books or go it alone, whatever hobby we choose, we open ourselves up to imaginative thinking, discovery and exploration. And because that learning is self-choice, it is also (or should be!) by definition fun. In our work-driven world, that may make hobby something of a dirty word, but take a hint from Churchill. Throw into your avocational mix a pinch of arrogance, which in the best sense means to take upon yourself the right to do and be, and add a dash of audacity to make and to invent your own way.

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How to Use Neuroscience to Become Your Avatar | Wired Science from Wired.com

Research subjects fitted with goggles that stream video from cameras strapped to another person (or mannequin) can experience that body as their own, neuroscientists say.

And not just in a fluffy, philosophical way: the subjects experienced measurable physiological changes, as reported in the open-access journal Public Library of Science.

The paper’s authors argue that their work could prove important for future human-robot collaborations — and give hope to those dreaming of uploading their brains after the Singularity. What the researchers have found, they say, is a method for allowing humans to better inhabit non-flesh-and-blood consciousness.

“The present findings could have groundbreaking industrial and clinical applications” write neuroscientists Valeria I. Petkova and H. Henrik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. “Experiencing ‘becoming’ a humanoid robot in tele-robotics and feeling ownership of simulated bodies in virtual reality applications would probably enhance user control, realism, and the feeling of ‘presence.’”

The gaming industry is already taking steps down that road with Mirror’s Edge, which lets players see other parts of their virtual body in motion producing a sensation real enough to induce carsickness.

While the research might be biological, the ability to make headway on this centuries-old problem is technological. The development of light-weight head-mounted displays that are capable of displaying real-time video is the key advance in creating this curious body-swapping illusion. The research follows a slate of publications by the same Swedish group and another European team on generating out-of-body experiences using video and virtual reality tools.

neuroscience, avatars, wired,

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Leading Blog: A Leadership Blog @ LeadershipNow: 8 Dangers Every Leader Must Face and Overcome

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Neuropolitics.org

We Empathize, Therefore We Are: Toward a Moral Neuropolitics

by Gary Olson

Voters perceived Obama to be substantially more compassionate than John McCain

You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order to arrive at extreme capitalist positions. F. B. M. de Waal

Empathy is the only human superpower-it can shrink distance, cut through social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke political and social change. Elizabeth Thomas

People in Third World countries think and laugh and smile, just like us. We have got to understand that we are them; they are us. Rachel Corrie (as a 10-year-old)

The official directives needn’t be explicit to be well understood: Do not let too much empathy move in unauthorized directions. Norman Solomon

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Neuropolitics.org

We Empathize, Therefore We Are: Toward a Moral Neuropolitics

by Gary Olson

Voters perceived Obama to be substantially more compassionate than John McCain

You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order to arrive at extreme capitalist positions. F. B. M. de Waal

Empathy is the only human superpower-it can shrink distance, cut through social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke political and social change. Elizabeth Thomas

People in Third World countries think and laugh and smile, just like us. We have got to understand that we are them; they are us. Rachel Corrie (as a 10-year-old)

The official directives needn’t be explicit to be well understood: Do not let too much empathy move in unauthorized directions. Norman Solomon

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Social Entrepreneurs: How to Change the World Through Business : The Inspired Economist

I love to read, but am lucky if I have time to finish even one book a month. Fortunately, I can “cheat” and listen to author interviews on the radio or via podcasts, and I just listened to an engaging interview with Pamela Hartigan, the founding partner of the yet-to-be-launched Volans Ventures and the founding director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, about her new book titled The Power Of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World.

The podcast is part of Stanford Social Innovation Review’s “Design for Change” Stanford Social Innovation Reviewseries, and I recommend that you listen to it.

But if even that shortcut is too much for you, I’ll give you a couple of highlights.

* » Read more on Inspiring Ideas

One topic of the book is a description (and case studies) of various types of social entrepreneurs, which range among three basic types:

Leveraged Non-Profit — An organization structured as a not-for-profit, which is dependent upon grants and loans, but also leverages all sorts of partnerships and is truly sustainable (example: Teach For America)

Hybrid Model — There is an earned-income component contributing to a non-profit organization

Social Business — What Mohammed Yunus has led and advocated for: An organization that is set up a business but is specifically formed around the goal of transforming society.

In addition to showing the tremendous innovation among forms of organizations and the various ways business and social causes can be combined, Pamela Hartigan also discusses her work as founding director of the Schwab Foundation–the very early days of applying business principals to nonprofit organizations. Yes, it wasn’t so long ago that it was unheard of.

Listen to the podcast, and then go out and make some change!

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Reality Sandwich | The Value of Solitude

Solitude offers an opportunity to explore the sense of alienation many of us live with and to realize that being alone is not the same as feeling isolated or lonely. I’ve been exploring solitude – sometimes during months alone in the wilderness – for forty years, and I’ve learned that the core of my loneliness is not separation from other people, but feeling disconnected from myself. Solitude provides a respite from the demands of social life and creates a space for personal healing. Paradoxically, spending time alone can soften our sense of alienation from others.

Spending time in wilderness solitude is a fascinating adventure. We have carried specialization to such an extreme in the service of efficient productivity that daily life can seem boringly repetitious. Activities we used to enjoy when young are lost to the demands of adulthood. Living alone in the wilderness requires that we learn to do everything required for survival. The satisfaction of such self-reliance is deeply rewarding.

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The article “The Big 6: An Active Listening Skill Set” from the Center for Creative Leadership discusses the following the six essential skills for active listening.

1. Paying attention. A primary goal of active
   listening is to set a comfortable tone and allow time and opportunity
   for the other person to think and speak. Pay attention to your frame of
   mind, your body language and the other person. Be present, focused on
   the moment and operate from a place of respect.
2. Holding judgment. Active listening requires an
   open mind. As a listener and a leader, you need to be open to new
   ideas, new perspectives and new possibilities. Even when good listeners
   have strong views, they suspend judgment, hold their criticism and
   avoid arguing or selling their point right away. Tell yourself,
   “I’m here to understand how the other person sees the world. It
   is not time to judge or give my view.”
3. Reflecting. Learn to mirror the other
   person’s information and emotions by paraphrasing key points. You
   don’t need to agree or disagree. Reflecting is a way to indicate
   that you heard and understand. Don’t assume that you understand
   correctly or that the other person knows you’ve heard him.
4. Clarifying. Use questions to double-check on any issue that is ambiguous or unclear. Open-ended, clarifying and probing
   questions are important tools. Open-ended questions draw people out and
   encourage them to expand their ideas (i.e., “What are your thoughts on
   …” or “What led you to draw this conclusion?”).

   Clarifying questions ensure understanding and clear up confusion. Any who, what, where, when, how or why
   question can be a clarifying question, but those are not the only
   possibilities. You might say, “I must have missed something. Could you
   repeat that?” or “I am not sure that I got what you were saying. Can
   you explain it again another way?”

   By asking probing questions, you invite reflection and a thoughtful
   response instead of telling others what to do. You might ask, for
   example, “More specifically, what are some of the things you’ve
   tried?” or “What is it in your own leadership style that might be
   contributing to the trouble with the team?”

5. Summarizing. Restating key themes as the
   conversation proceeds confirms and solidifies your grasp of the other
   person’s point of view. It also helps both parties to be clear on
   mutual responsibilities and follow-up. Briefly summarize what you have
   understood as you listened (i.e., “It sounds as if your main concern is
   …” or “These seem to be the key points you have
   expressed…”). You could also ask the other person to summarize.
6. Sharing. Active listening is first about
   understanding the other person, then about being understood. As you
   gain a clearer understanding of the other person’s perspective,
   you can then introduce your ideas, feelings and suggestions and address
   any concerns. You might talk about a similar experience you had or
   share an idea that was triggered by a comment made previously in the
   conversation.

active listening, leadership

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Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators – Umair Haque

Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators

It’s a momentous day for America – and the world. Barack Obama is poised to take the reins of the Presidency.

So how did this unlikeliest of candidates do it? How did Obama utilize radically asymmetrical competition to shatter Washington’s toxic, bitter 20th century status quo?

The most critical part of the story is the organization Obama built. Though conservatives are still arguing that Obama has little executive experience, nothing could be further from the truth.

Barack Obama is one of the most radical management innovators in the world today. Obama’s team built something truly world-changing: a new kind of political organization for the 21st century. It differs from yesterday’s political organizations as much as Google and Threadless differ from yesterday’s corporations: all are a tiny handful of truly new, 21st century institutions in the world today.

Obama presidential bid succeeded, in other words, as our research at the Lab has discussed for the past several years, through the power of new DNA: new rules for new kinds of institutions.

So let’s discuss the new DNA Obama brought to the table, by outlining seven rules for tomorrow’s radical innovators.

1. Have a self-organization design. What was really different about Obama’s organization? We’re used to thinking about organizations in 20th century terms: do we design them to be tall, or flat?

But tall and flat are concepts built for an industrial era. They force us to think – spatially and literally – in two dimensions: tall organizations command unresponsively, and flat organizations respond uncontrollably.

Obama’s organization blew past these orthodoxies: it was able to combine the virtues of both tall and flat organizations. How? By tapping the game-changing power of self-organization. Obama’s organization was less tall or flat than spherical – a tightly controlled core, surrounded by self-organizing cells of volunteers, donors, contributors, and other participants at the fuzzy edges. The result? Obama’s organization was able to reverse tremendous asymmetries in finance, marketing, and distribution – while McCain’s organization was left trapped by a stifling command-and-control paradigm.

2. Seek elasticity of resilience. Obama’s 21st century organization was built for a 21st century goal – not to maximize outputs, or minimize inputs, but to, as Gary Hamel has discussed, remain resilient to turbulence. What happened when McCain attacked Obama with negative ads in September? Such attacks would have depleted the coffers of a 20th century organization, who would have been forced to retaliate quickly and decisively in kind. Yet, Obama’s organization responded furiously in exactly the opposite way: with record-breaking fundraising. That’s resilience: reflexively bouncing back to an existential threat by growing, augmenting, or strengthening resources.

3. Minimize strategy. Obama’s campaign dispensed almost entirely with strategy in its most naïve sense: strategy as gamesmanship or positioning. They didn’t waste resources trying to dominate the news cycle, game the system, strong-arm the party, or out-triangulate competitors’ positions. Rather, Obama’s campaign took a scalpel to strategy – because they realized that strategy, too often, kills a deeply-lived sense of purpose, destroys credibility, and corrupts meaning.

4. Maximize purpose. Change the game? That’s 20th century thinking at its finest – and narrowest. The 21st century is about changing the world. What does “yes we can” really mean? Obama’s goal wasn’t simply to win an election, garner votes, or run a great campaign. It was larger and more urgent: to change the world.

Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things – tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things.

And to do that, you must strive to change the world radically for the better – and always believe that yes, you can. You must maximize, stretch, and utterly explode your sense of purpose.

5. Broaden unity. What do marketers traditionally do? Segment and target, slice and dice. We’ve become great at dividing markets into tinier and tinier bits. But we’re terrible at unifying them. Yet Obama succeeded not through division, but through unification: we are, he contended, “not a collection of Red States and Blue States — We are the United States of America”.

Obama intuitively understands a larger truth of next-generation economics. Unified markets are what a world driven to collapse by hyperconsumption is desperately going to need. We’re going to need not a hundred different kinds of razors – and their spiralling costs of complexity and waste – but a single razor that everybody, from the slums of Rio to the lofts of Tribeca, is overjoyed to use.

6. Thicken power. The power many corporations wield is thin power: the power to instill fear and inculcate greed. True power is what Obama has learned wield: the power to inspire, lead, and engender belief. You can beat people into subjugation – but you can never command their loyalty, creativity, or passion. Thick power is true power: it’s radically more durable, less costly, and more intense.

7. Remember that there is nothing more asymmetrical than an ideal. Obama ended his last speech before the election by saying: “let’s go change the world.” Why are those words important? Because the world needs changing. A world riven by economic meltdown, religious conflict, resource scarcity, and intractable poverty and violence – such a world demands fresh ideals. We must mold and shape a better world – or we will surely all suffer together. As Obama said: “we rise or fall … as one people.”

In such a world, forget about a short-lived, often meaningless “competitive advantage”. It’s a concept built for the 20th century. In the 21st century, there is nothing more asymmetrical – more disruptive, more revolutionary, or more innovative — than the world-changing power of an ideal.

Where are the ideals in your organization? What ideals are missing – absent, bankrupt, stolen – from your economy, industry, or market? What ideals will you fight and struggle for – and live? Because the ultimate problem with industrial-era business was, as Wall Street has so convincingly demonstrated, this: there weren’t any.

That seventh lesson is the starting point for tomorrow’s radical innovators – because it’s the thread that knits the others together. And it’s where you should start if you want to use these seven rules to start building 21st century institutions – whether businesses, non-profits, social enterprises, or political campaigns.

As a young brown American, I couldn’t be more deeply or powerfully inspired by the “defining moment” of an Obama presidency. Yet, the seeds of a new challenge have been planted by that victory: for us to harness the lessons of his quiet revolution – our quiet revolution – to seed many, many more.

obama, strategy. innovators

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