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.

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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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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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an amusing story and yet at the same time tells us a lot about our perceptive filters/

An interesting podcast to listen to on the notion of perceptive filters/perceptual position can be found here

Sherlock Holmes goes camping: A story about perception | Conflict Zen

Sherlock Holmes goes camping: A story about perception

October 17, 2008 ·

untangling disagreementsSherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip.

After a good meal and a bottle of wine they bunked down for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his friend. “Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

Watson replied, “I see millions upon millions of stars.”

“So what does that tell you?” asked Sherlock.

Watson pondered for a minute. “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?”

Holmes was silent for a minute and then spoke. “It tells me someone has stolen our tent!”

sherlock holmes, watson, perception, perceptual filters,

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It has been a while since I blogged publicly and now the time has come to not only blog again, but also put out some ideas that I discover or run into or stumble upon.

The goal is to share, have them challenged and or refined.

Join me

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Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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