Tag: awareness

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Emotions are the Beginning of Depth– Lessons From March 2017

Set, and then reset your direction

The lesson suddenly snapped into place over a debate.  I watched a group of people, all well read, get lost in how they felt after swearing they were above it.

By pretending emotion didn’t exist, it owned them.

In that moment, life presented a lesson.

I suddenly realized:

  • Knowledge isn’t clean-cut. You are on the path of understanding when you realize how much you don’t know.
  • Stories matter. Emotion matter. The placebo effect is real and needs accounting.
  • Passion is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. If we run in by just our emotions we miss our chance at deeper understanding. We will “lawyer up.“

Emotions matter. It is the layer of our “knowledge center” that allows us to see things. With that said, to understand something deeper, we have to acknowledge those emotions. If we don’t, it is the gateway for our bias to own us. We are leaving our mental “kitchen” full of dirty dishes.

It is through acknowledgement that we get the opportunity to understand what we know on a deeper level.

Consider them on this journey we are on.

Books – My Goodreads Account

  • Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
  • The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy
  • SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient – Powered by the Science of Games
  • The Chomsky Reader
  • Execute
  • Uncommon Genius How Great Ideas Are Born

Newsletter – Subscribe Here

Did you know I send a newsletter out every Sunday? It is more personal than the blog, combining my personal stories with an overarching theme.  I also throw in some great links that I’ve found on the internet.

Life As Usual Video Blog

I created a video blog that delivers these lessons in a visual medium. Curious? Subscribe above and get a notification as soon as they come out.

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We Think The Other Side Is Dumb, But We Make Ourselves Stupid

 

The other side isn’t dumb. 

You see this in politics all the time.

If you want to see something interesting, see a vocal Donald Trump supporter say something nice about Hilary Clinton or Bernie Sanders  (and vice versa).  Watch how many times the word “stupid” gets thrown in their mentions. 

I assume most of my readers aren’t of the rabid political animal species (if you are…why?) so they find the above funny.

Wake up!

This concept strikes us in any situation where one side has more/less (authority, resources, experience) than the other side.

We lie to…

  • bosses/direct reports
  • children/parents
  • government/doctor

Some of it is to protect ourselves, but some of it is because we think “the other side is dumb.”

Most of us have an internal BS alarm which we can’t vocalize, but we feel.  Both sides mentioned above make decisions based on the lie and since that BS alarm goes off both can’t tell the truth to each other so it compounds. As it compounds, opportunities vanish and we end up confused, wondering what happened.

The counter to all of this is to listen, and let people feel that they are heard. This leads to the truth, which is ugly sometimes, but the conversations always turn fruitful.

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Avoiding What I “Deserve”

I keep a list of words to not use

There are a few words and phrases I am not fond of. I don’t like them because I find that the act of using them changes my mindset, allowing me excuses instead of investigation. I’ve struggled with this internal fight, dealing with words that stir my ego into protecting itself.

I try to understand these words and make an effort not to use them by putting them on a mental list (one I should admittedly write down) while I use the blog to work out why I don’t use them.Lately, I have thought about the word “deserve,” and how it feeds my ego  and keeps me blind to possibility.

I deserve…

  • Ego – When I say the word “deserve,” I turn whatever conversation we are having into a conversation about me. I turn the discussion into a projection into what I want and instead of compromise, this now turns into a war*. Instead of a listening mindset, I am now working with a wanting mindset.  
  • Blind – The wanting mindset gets me focused on one thing, “what I deserve.” I turn off my awareness and now I “lock in,” thinking about things that are completely abstract, such as what I’ve “earned” and missing out on what is in front of me. 

Excuse words get you no where

I realize that “deserve” is an “excuse word,” or rhetorical device I’ve made to get out of dealing with the real underlying issues I have at the time. They keep me in the “yes” space, a place where I live on unintentional scarcity. Scarcity puts me in the mindset of taking what I see instead of learning what I need. 

*In my experience this is not the same as boundary setting. When I say deserve in a conversation I have already missed the boat with establishing what I need. I more than likely went into that conversation unprepared and scrambling for something

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