Awareness

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

On seeing your folks

I followed a link to an interesting site I recommend visiting: seeyourfolks.com. Check it out. Most of the comments I saw on it found the site depressing -- an unwanted, surprising reminder of their mortality and how little they expected to see of their parents. I found it an effective site, but I hope the people who found it depressing reconsider their responses. The site didn't tell you anything you didn't already know, it only clarified it. Instead of denying information to keep yourself happy, why not use the information? My 69-year-old mother remarked earlier this year that if she didn't get around to some of her life goals soon she wouldn't be able to. Did she say that out of depression? No, she said…

November 3, 2013

Awareness / Blog

Op/Ed Fridays: Dating

[I'm testing out something new for this page -- to comment on current events or other opinion/editorial from the perspective of this blog on Fridays. My goal is to counter the common practice that other media generate readers and viewers by promoting outrage, fear, indignation, and so forth. It gets them but it fills their lives with emotions they probably don't want. I want to help people feel more calm and capable. See my posts "A model to keep you from being manipulated by the media" and "Always remember the media wants to sell ads," for example.] Today I want to comment on an article I've seen many times, most recently here "Why women lose the dating game". The article adopts the common belief that…

November 1, 2013

Awareness / Blog

You have to say no to a lot of good things to have a great life

I say these words to myself daily or nearly so. I've posted them before and I expect I will again. They bear repeating and deserve a post to themselves. You have to say no to a lot of good things to have a great life. I don't see declining an opportunity as giving it up so much as giving myself more time and resources for something I value more. I didn't start this way. I used to say yes to too many things, not realizing that time doing one thing meant time not doing another. I still do, but less than before. The same with relationships -- just other parts of your life that you use your resources for. What does "too many things" mean?…

October 27, 2013

Awareness / Blog

The shells we put around ourselves

As children we start defenseless. I don't mean physically, though we start physically defenseless too. I mean kids don't protect themselves from being emotionally hurt or having their identities challenged. Kids say things we adults recognize we would catch in mental filters before speaking. What mental filters? Everybody knows what I mean. As we get older we learn to protect our vulnerabilities. We learn protocol and manners. We learn how to behave in certain situations to meet social expectations. Doing so rewards us with getting the results we wanted. With a cost, though. Some examples: When we meet a girl or guy we like we play it cool and don't let on. We don't tell a friend about a shortcoming. We don't tell anyone we…

October 26, 2013

Awareness / Blog

The problem determines the solution, not what you’re good at, not what you want to do, not what you can do.

I wanted to follow up on a recent post, "You tell me what you do best. I'll tell you what you do worst." When you have a problem to solve, only one thing determines the solution: the problem itself. If you're good at doing one thing, but another thing solves the problem, it doesn't matter how well you do the other thing. Your skill may help solve the problem, but if it needs something else, you'll need to do the other thing too. Same with what you like. If you like doing something but the problem requires something else, it doesn't matter how much you want to do what you want to do if you want to solve the problem. If you want to get…

October 21, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Tips

You tell me what you do best. I’ll tell you what you do worst.

Today I'll cover an exercise I do in my seminar and when I address a group of professionals. You can do it while reading this post. It teaches you about Yourself Self-awareness Teamwork, especially team building I can cover it in a few minutes or can use it to discuss teamwork, self-awareness, and my experience for thirty-minutes or more. Introduction I start by telling the group "I'm going to ask you to tell me what you do best. Then I will tell you what you do worst." I say it provocatively to get a response and set expectations high. A few people respond incredulously. I point out that someone did the exercise with me. I was equally surprised -- how could someone tell a room…

October 16, 2013

Awareness / Blog

Why don’t we ask people we care about how we can be better with them?

Another leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith, asked a question during a presentation: At your jobs you ask your clients and managers how you can do better. Do you ask your spouse, family members, or other people you care about if you can be a better spouse/mother/father/etc.? If not, why not? Marshall has no problem connecting your professional and personal lives. I hope you don't. This topic is as much about professional relationships as personal. As, for that matter, it is about your relationship with yourself. Before looking at the attendees' responses, consider yours. Do you want to be a better spouse/mother/father/daughter/son/etc for the people you care about? Do you ask them how you could? If not, how do you expect to? Also if not, do you…

October 11, 2013

ReModel: Create mental models to improve your life and lead simply and effectively

ReModel: Create mental models to improve your life and lead simply and effectively

I posted my second ebook on Amazon the other day. Longtime readers will recognize I based it on this spring's extended series on beliefs that became one of my more popular series. You can save the cost of the book by reading that series, but I edited the book to make it worth the cost. It's more polished, with tables and reordering for better continuity. I would only post it if I believed the book would rank among the most useful and effective books you could read to improve your life. I believe it is. I believe reading it will help you learn about one of the most fundamental and important parts of your life, something you experience every moment yet few people notice. The…

October 8, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Nature

Silent Spring

I finished a book the other day I'd been meaning to read for at least a decade -- Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, released in 1962. I posted a summary below. I also understood it influenced thought a lot. I had to speak to a few people who were adults when it came out to understand its impact at the time, which they assured me was colossal -- a common-sense bolt out of the blue from a humble woman who simply researched and compiled information anyone else could have. It seems, like Vietnam, one of the major turning points about which the American people began to question their government and find it didn't consistently act in their interests. In fact, it seemed often to work…

October 7, 2013

Awareness / Blog

We all feel emotions all the time

When someone gets animated others often describe them as emotional: "John is acting so emotional" "Jane got so emotional when Ryan said ..." and things like that. I'd like to suggest an alternative perspective I think you'll find more precise and useful: Everybody feels emotions all the time. What's the difference? When someone sits quietly reading, they aren't acting or feeling unemotional. I suggest the are feeling and acting on emotions as much as anyone. They may feel calmness, relaxation, satisfaction, or something like that, but those are emotions. They aren't feeling no emotion. Emotions motivate you. If you got out of bed this morning, something motivated you and you felt some emotion. No emotion means lying in your bed until you die. An animated…

October 5, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Entrepreneurship / Freedom

Goenka and 10-day meditation retreats

Two days ago a guy named Satya Narayan Goenka died. Who was Goenka and why should I care? First, I'll mention how I found out about him. I had no experience with meditation when a longtime friend I hadn't seen in a while suggested I try it. The idea made no sense to me because meditation made no sense to me. I didn't know or care about it to that point in my life -- somewhere around 2006. But my friend knew me a long time and I valued her perspective. I decided to try a ten-day meditation retreat, I guess like jumping in the deep end -- these retreats allow no talking, reading, writing, etc for the first nine days. You can leave if…

October 1, 2013

A doubly improved representation of Flow-related emotional states

Awareness / Models / Visualization

A doubly improved representation of Flow-related emotional states

A couple years ago I wrote two posts on the emotional state where you get so lost in an activity you lose track of time, focused with all your attention. Hours pass without your noticing while minutes may seem like hours as you focus intently. We like this state. A researcher named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied it and named the state "flow." He wrote a book on it that improved my life so I recommend it. We all want more flow in our lives and his book helps create it. The first post a couple years ago very briefly summarized it and includes links to relevant Wikipedia pages and TED talks. The second describes a couple improvements on how to present flow. I improved my improvement…

September 28, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Leadership

My start with emotional intelligence and self-awareness

You don't have emotional intelligence, you were born with it, or you developed it. If you developed it you started sometime, like I did. If you don't have it, you can start too. Here's my start. I don't pretend I'm the world master of emotional intelligence, but I've come a long way and I know anyone else can. I hope sharing the story motivates others. Context Before business school I had barely heard of the concept of emotional intelligence. Since I contrasted emotions with rationality, I considered them irrational and weird, not something to learn about or focus on. Since I connected emotions to feelings, music, art, and romantic comedies, I didn't connect them to behavior. Nor for that matter did I connect behavior to…

September 23, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

How would you improve the world if you had supernatural powers?

Here's an exercise to see your values from a new perspective. I used to do it all the time until I learned my lesson from it, which I'll write at the bottom. Answer the question "how would you improve the world if you could have a magical wish come true?" and follow through to see if the change would, in fact, improve your life. To clarify, I mean a supernatural change outside of what you normally do to improve your life and world. I submit that it's not as easy as you think. Say you had whatever magical powers to change the world however you wanted. Could you improve the world beyond what you could do without the magical powers? Quick answers people jump to…

September 22, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Education / Leadership

One of the most important lessons I learned in business school didn’t come from a teacher and it applies everywhere in life

I wrote before about "Business school's first major lesson: how to resolve ethical dilemmas." Today I'll talk about another important lesson I learned in business school, also within the first couple weeks, also applying in many places in life I would not have expected from a vocational school. Context First I have to note my mindset before starting business school. I considered the most relevant parts of my life that I'd co-founded a company and I knew more math than probably anyone in the school. I thought business school would be a fun experience filling in a few gaps of how to make spreadsheets and learning some networking skills. What happened One of the major cores of business school is knowing how a business runs…

September 9, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

Nobody likes a know-it-all

I want to compile a list of things that when you talk about them people feel compelled to tell you all about them, like they're experts. I'll also note that most such people talk about things they read that couldn't possibly cover the topic thoroughly. More importantly, they rarely experiment and find out on their own. I don't know how many people have told me not eating meat is bad for my health without trying. They just read something somewhere and regurgitate. Or how many people tell me running is bad for human knees, who somehow disregard that tens of thousands of people who run a marathon in just one day in New York City, or how many people run all around the world and…

September 3, 2013

Awareness / Blog

An essay on money, part 2

Today being Labor Day makes it an interesting day to think about money. I've noticed my post "An essay on money" gets almost the most number of hits of all my posts so I re-read it periodically. (Speaking of money, today is the also the last day to get the early discount on my awesome seminar on September 21 and 22 -- "Leadership Through Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence" so sign up now and save money!) My mom pointed out we never went on welfare when she read that essay, just that they gave the food out on our block without checking because the neighborhood was so poor. We loved the food I now wouldn't touch because the bread was so sweet and white and the…

September 2, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Nature

A mental model on disease and dying

We might as well figure out ways to think about dying because it's going to happen to all of us and people in our lives. Sorry if I broke the news to you and brought you down, but I figured you knew already. I've written before my main thoughts on mourning, mainly based on a Taoist passage, quoted in my post, "Thoughts on mourning." Like you and everyone else, as I get older I face more people recognizing their mortality. More people we know get sick. More people we know die. Some people fear disease and dying. Some repress thoughts on the matter. Some people use the change to live life to its fullest in every moment. I've worked out a model that works for…

September 1, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom

You call exercise torture? I call it glory.

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Emotionally, I don't want to do burpees nearly every single time I do them. As you probably know, I do twenty twice-daily. Starting is never easy. Never. If you think you have a harder time starting to exercise than others, I think you're wrong. I don't think anybody has it easy. Just some people developed skills to overcome the emotional challenges we all feel. Rationally, I want to do them, but my emotions oppose my rational thoughts. I use willpower to…

August 29, 2013

Awareness / Blog

The false dichotomy of the nice girl and the bitch and what to do instead

After yesterday's pattern I see in men, here's a comparable one I see in women. A woman gets approached by men. Some she likes, some she doesn't. If the ones she doesn't like get too numerous, she may try to limit the number of men approaching her by making herself appear less available or pushing them away. While she intended to change only the number of guys approaching her, she likely changed the type of guy who approaches. The more oblivious to her emotions a guy is, the less likely her efforts will affect him. Non-oblivious guys see her repellent appearance and behavior, take the hint, and leave her alone. She makes herself look and act repellent and ends up skewing the distribution of guys…

August 24, 2013

Awareness / Blog

The false dichotomy of the nice guy and the jerk and what to do instead

I'll describe a view I've seen many times as a coach and in my regular life. I see it in many variations, but I'll present just one -- the one I can relate to most. Tomorrow I'll write about a comparable trend I see with women. The view is a false dichotomy. It goes like this. A guy grows up learning to treat people nicely and to reciprocate when people who are nice to him. He figures if he treats people nicely they'll reciprocate. As he grows up he starts to like women. He decides to treat them nicely figuring it will prompt them to reciprocate, like everything in life suggested would happen. Unbeknown to him, most women have met many men before him who…

August 23, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Nature

You probably blow smoke in kids’ faces without realizing. You can stop.

New York City is having the most mild summer I can remember. We've barely hit ninety degrees and that was at least a month ago. Since then we've had cool, spring-like weather most of the summer. The other evening walking with friends, I noticed how loud the sounds of window air conditioners were in the small streets of the West Village. The temperature and humidity outside couldn't have been more comfortable. I could only think the following thoughts about their unnecessarily using their air conditioners: Air conditioners use energy. That energy comes mainly from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels pollute. Pollution makes us unhealthy. Me: With weather this perfect, the air conditioners aren't improving the air for these people. They might as well light up a…

August 13, 2013

A visual model to understand passion and attraction: The Passion-Attraction Model

Awareness / Blog / Models / Visualization

A visual model to understand passion and attraction: The Passion-Attraction Model

[Last week I posted a five-part series on a mental model I have for how our passion and attraction grows and wanes over time and the consequences of that pattern, according to the model. Today I'm posting them all in one post.] Day 1: Introducing a new model: Passion and Attraction I'm starting a new series today on a new model, this time on passion and attraction. Everyone I showed it to told me it gave them useful insights, so I expect you'll find value in it too. I'll apply the model mainly to intimate relationships, but you can also apply it to anything that evokes passion, attraction, or both, like hobbies, jobs, sports, and so on. So what does a science-trained, leadership-minded, self-awareness and…

August 12, 2013

How and why I made the Passion-Attraction Model graphs

Awareness / Blog / Creativity

How and why I made the Passion-Attraction Model graphs

Time I put a lot more time into making the graphs and writing the posts of the past week than usual -- at least a couple full days just graphing before writing a word. Why Why did I put so much time in? Not because I didn't have lots to do. Because people who saw early versions of the graphs told me it helped them better understand Their intimate relationships Their partners, and Themselves. They also enjoyed reading the graphs -- like their eyes opened wide and they looked like kids with new toys, like who would have expected something so science-and-math-like could help them understand their intimate relationships ... and work!?! My main reason for writing here is to increase self-awareness in ways that…

August 11, 2013

Review and conclusions from the Passion-Attraction Model

Awareness / Blog

Review and conclusions from the Passion-Attraction Model

What can we learn from the Passion-Attraction Model? While the model can apply to everyone, we each have different values and circumstances, so we each have to choose for ourselves how to live our lives and act in relationships. Understanding the Passion-Attraction Model and its consequences can help you understand yourself and your partners, on your own and in relationships if you feel it describes you well. (If you don't, it may not help you, though it may help you understand your partners if they feel it describes them.) It can help you navigate your emotions and relationships and choose your behavior and partners. You don't have to adopt it verbatim. Like all models, it has flaws and oversimplifications, but so does any other model…

August 10, 2013

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