Awareness / Blog / Tips

Challenges of feedback and how to use it

How do you handle feedback? Do you take it well? Do you know how to use it? If not, you may be throwing away great opportunities to improve yourself and your life. Many people don't know how to take a compliment or having their weaknesses pointed out so they avoid feedback. As a coach in Columbia Business School's Program on Social Intelligence, I coach a lot of upcoming leaders who just received their first 360 feedback report. A few things I point out to many of them applies to all feedback, not just formal reports. Some things may sound obvious in the abstract, but in the moment, when you're reading people's opinions about you, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture and take…

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April 12, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Education

More rapid life-level changes and an origin of this blog

Another example of a significant life-level change that happened almost instantly came from my performing in Follies in business school. You are capable of the same level of change. The scene was my second semester of business school. I had not performed on stage since third grade, thinking I didn't want to, thoughtlessly continuing my third grade rebellious streak. When a friend told me he was thinking about joining the group, I mentioned I was thinking of writing a sketch for it. The next semester I went to the first Follies practice, in which people propose sketch ideas. They liked one of mine -- the one from the conversation with my friend -- but told me what I was afraid of hearing: they only consider…

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April 11, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

The value of looking for solutions over looking for problems

Some people look for problems; others look for solutions. The problem, to me, with people who look for problems is that they can get good at it. When you're with them, you may find yourself surrounded by problems you never would have found otherwise. What I like about people who look for solutions is that they find them. When you are with them, you tend to enjoy yourself, unaware that problems even came up. They may not even be aware "problems" existed in the first place because they made them fun. Personally, I have less and less time for people who look for problems. I fill my life increasingly with people who look for solutions. It's a better life for me. Imagine you're approaching a…

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April 10, 2011
Blog / Fitness / Freedom / Nature

Hudson River swimming

People who like living life to its fullest should read this post. My mom shouldn't, at least not the first link. Holy cow. Good thing I didn't read this article before I swam across the Hudson River! But then according to this article, no problem. And here's a whole organization, Hudson River Swim, dedicated to it, and raising money to find cancer cures. I think Dave and I started a trend (even though the guy who started Hudson River Swim started almost twenty years before us). The point is live your life. You can always find reasons not to do something you want to. You don't have to let it stop you. You can just as easily find reasons to.

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April 9, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Creativity / Freedom / Tips

When polarizing helps

Here's another lesson from my stylist friend besides how fast even significant personal change can be, possibly obvious to people more stylish than me. He told me a major goal of how you dress is to polarize. At first polarizing sounded counterproductive. Polarizing in a discussion breaks down communication. Why would I want to polarize? Why would I want to repel people? He explained further. Many people dress to fit in, meaning they don't polarize. If you have a job where you have to fit in, dress to fit in when you're there. But if you dress to fit in you don't say anything about yourself. Dressing to polarize repels some people but attracts others. If you dress to express yourself authentically and genuinely the…

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April 8, 2011
Art / Education

Awesome Union Square Parsons art project gaining support!

As I write, the Union Square Parsons art project is gaining momentum -- at $614, we're over 12% of the way there. Supporting art is rewarding! So is supporting students and making New York City a better place for everyone. Your donation counts. Please check out the page to support it! Spread the link to friends. Enjoy me looking dorky on camera! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/492851406/big-beautiful-public-art-by-parsons-class-in-union

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April 7, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

Personal development doesn’t have to take years

Myth: great personal change or development takes time. You have to understand where you are, your goals, and how to get from one place to the other. Myth: great personal change is hard. You have to overcome hurdles that take time, energy, and other resources. I believed those myths for a long time. I hear people counseling others with them all the time. Now it pains me to hear those myths because someone telling you it has to take time or be hard can be all it takes for them to be self-fulfilling prophecies. All the more so when the person saying it is a coach. Great personal change can be fast and anything but hard. It can be easy and fun. My great epiphany…

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April 6, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Tips

Suggesting to calm down or take it easy is usually a jerk move by an annoying person

Have you ever had someone suggest you calm down or take it easy? Nearly everyone has at some point. When it happens, I'd bet the person saying it was annoying. First let's look at it from an awareness perspective, then what to do about it. Consider the situation. If they were suggesting you should calm down, you probably weren't calm. Moreover you probably recently got un-calm. If they were talking to you, there's a good chance they contributed to you losing your cool. And now what do they do? They command you to go in the opposite direction of your emotions. Of course you feel justified in having the emotions you do. Now they're telling you to ignore that justification and adopt the emotions they…

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April 5, 2011
Art / Blog

Fine tuning and preparing

Today I've been fine tuning tomorrow's talk, working on the Parsons display, and preparing for the Fred talk, now scheduled for April 23. A bit of preparation for my gallery show in May too. A lot of events coming up. May you live in interesting times too. Oh yeah, and another donation to the Parsons display! Please donate and spread the word! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/492851406/big-beautiful-public-art-by-parsons-class-in-union

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April 4, 2011
Blog

About Joshua Spodek: Where to find more

This post continues my About page. Where to find more The best place to find more, besides contacting me, is one of my seminars or classes. If I haven’t posted about an upcoming one recently, check with me for something coming up. Here are some sources that have been influential or inspirational to me (just names of people and books now, I’ll put in links soon). Business Marshall Goldsmith – Great executive coach, author, and mentor. Great resources at his website, his Harvard Business Review column, and his feedforward practice, which is about the best advice I’ve ever come across for improving your behavior. The Art of What Works: How Success Really Happens, by Bill Duggan – One of the best books on how to…

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April 3, 2011
Blog

About Joshua Spodek: Topics this blog covers

This post continues my About page. Topics This blog is about values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence enabling you to develop yourself and improve your life through better understanding these things the underlying science, mostly evolutionary psychology, positive psychology, and cognitive behavioral therapy observations of the world arising from this perspective This blog's perspective is founded on 1) my Model of the human emotional and motivational system that determines how we as humans perceive, evaluate, and react to our worlds and 2) my Method to act on the Model to improve our lives. This blog only discusses natural explanations for causes and effects. Why do we learn about our worlds and selves if not to improve our lives? For a strategy to…

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April 3, 2011
Blog

About Joshua Spodek: Whom this blog is for

This post continues my About page. Whom this blog is for This blog is for successful people who want to bring about more of that success. Success here means success by your standards -- what brings you emotional reward. It could be money, power, and fame, but I expect it will more likely be activities and relationships that bring you the emotions and emotional reward you want. People who have advanced as far as they can but suspect there is more than mainstream institutions of school, work, government, church, mainstream media, and so on will probably find new ways of looking at things here that can help them expand their horizons. I write to help you raise your self-awareness first, then to act on what…

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April 3, 2011
Blog

About Joshua Spodek: My background

This post continues my About page. My background While finishing a PhD in Astrophysics at Columbia, I had the idea for an invention that led to co-founding my first venture, Submedia. I led it as CEO as long as my limited business experience allowed. Since then I got an MBA, also from Columbia, and have taken a strong interest in leadership and personal development from a perspective combining my entrepreneurial and scientific background. I loved entrepreneurship and didn’t want my limitations to limit the ventures so I got the MBA. Though I went for what I thought were the basic business courses — economics, accounting, finance, marketing, and so on — I was most fascinated by, learned from, and developed most in the courses in…

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April 3, 2011
Blog

Simplifying the About page

My About page was too long. I'm simplifying it by keeping just a paragraph in each section and giving the rest its own post. Today will look like it has five or six posts, but it's just reorganizing and simplifying. If you haven't read the About page, the posts will be new.

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April 3, 2011
Art / Education

Donations begun. You can be next!

Already $178 donated for the biggest best most beautiful public art piece New York will see this year! Student-built! You can be next! Please contribute to this awesome project! See this morning's post.

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April 2, 2011
Art / Creativity / Education / Entrepreneurship

My next big beautiful public art piece! (please contribute!)

My next big beautiful public art piece will be with my Parsons class in Union Square. You can help make New York more beautiful, give people something to enjoy in their busy days, help students learn and build experience. Visit the project's Kickstarter page and donate! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/492851406/big-beautiful-public-art-by-parsons-class-in-union About this project: We are 18 young talented art students and 2 professors in a class together at Parsons The New School of Design's Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) program. We are raising money to build a big beautiful interactive public art installation in New York City's Union Square. Our goal is to create a dramatic new interactive digital motion-picture display unlike any the world has seen, entertaining and engaging to all New Yorkers for free, in the…

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April 2, 2011
Blog / Education / Fitness / Humor / Nature

The fun side of raw food

One of my raw food friends met these guys who call themselves the Raw Brahs (sounds like Raw Bro's). They make goofy, funny, informative videos about eating raw food, being buff, living a life of abundance, and having fun. They eat tons of food, mostly fruits and vegetables, and are seriously buff. I watched them videotape their antics at a McDonalds in Union Square, which they made fun of. In a few days I guess I'll see it posted. In the meantime, I've been watching and laughing at their videos. Plus salivating at their smoothies and fruits. I'm ambivalent about raw food, but I like having fun, laughing, and enjoying whatever I eat, which these guys do in spades. Check them out.

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April 1, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

How insults can be calming, liberating, and informative

An insult says more about the insulter than the insultee. People usually look like the insulter is saying something about the insultee. Usually not. An insult expresses the insulter's emotions, directed at what brought them about. For example, if someone is insecure about their body and they see someone with a body they'd be insecure with, they might insult that person to try to feel more secure or deflect others from observing them. I came to that conclusion a while ago and it's amazing how calming, liberating, and informative the change in perspective has been. First, it's calming. When you have the perspective that everyone is responsible for their own emotions, you realize their anger, indignation, impatience, or whatever comes from their beliefs not fitting…

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April 1, 2011

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