Awareness

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Tips

A model for living every moment to its fullest

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Do you enjoy every moment of your life? Do you wish you could? Have you ever felt like you wasted a lot of your life? Do you wish you hadn't? Do you wonder how you could live more in the moment? Today's model shows you how. It comes from an unlikely source. You might know about the researchers who asked people who won huge lotteries and people who just had accidents leading to becoming quadriplegic how happy they were (you should…

April 19, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Tips

A belief to promote integrity and authenticity

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Do you rank integrity as one of your highest values? How much integrity do you have? Today's model hit me one day accidentally, but since it did, I've held it closely. One day after talking to someone I got into an elevator alone. As I did I noticed I slouched because no one was there. Rather I didn't do it for a reason, I just did, subconsciously thinking it didn't matter because no one could see. Then for some reason it…

April 18, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Freedom / Models / Nature / Tips

A model to free yourself from being categorized

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Do you like being judged and put into a box? Do you like being told you can't change things about yourself that limit you from living the best life you can? Do you like it when these categories have no scientific basis? Personality traits, types, and dispositions are models that I don't find helpful. A model to free yourself from being categorized: personality types and traits have little to no validity I'm sure people will attack me on this belief. When…

April 13, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Fitness / Models / Tips

A model to motivate physical and emotional fitness

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Your body is the physical manifestation of your thoughts and behavior. Two starting points for today's belief. First, how do you decide what diet, exercise, and beliefs are right for you? Some people are more muscular, some are thinner, some seem happier, others the opposite. Diet and exercise books flood the market. How do you make sense of it all? Second, before your next shower, stop for a moment, look at yourself in the mirror, and think about the person you…

April 10, 2013

Awareness / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Models / Tips

A model on achieving goals: The Samurai Walk

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] You want to do something meaningful. You know it will take resources -- time, energy, attention, etc. You have your goals. You have a general plan. So far so good. Most people get this far. How do you finish your project? How do you stick with it despite inevitable distractions? Would you be amazed to find you can use those distractions in your favor? Today's model gives an effective way to work on something, keeping your goals in mind, avoiding getting…

April 9, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Nature / Tips

A model for stress that calms you down

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Does the world stress you out? Do people and things cause you stress? Do you get even more stressed at your helplessness to reduce how stressful the world is? Do you get even more frustrated and depressed at your bad luck that you had to be born at a time when the world was so stressful? Would you be glad to know you can decrease all that stress? No medicine required. You don't have to change anything except your beliefs. But…

April 8, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Nonjudgment / Tips

A simple, effective strategy for improving yourself — probably the best I know, and it’s totally free: Feedforward

[This post is part of a series on Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours. 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.] What if I told you the best way for you to improve yourself takes two minutes, costs nothing, and people will feel honored and flattered to help you with it? And you can do it anytime. Sound too good to be true? It's not. Read on. Oh, and make sure you get to the section on when I use it for how using it can help in your most important relationships at the most important times. Have you noticed the one…

April 5, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Tips

A belief to motivate trying new things

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Are you nervous to try new things? Do you wish you tried more things? Do you see others enjoying things you're too scared to try? I found a way to motivate trying new things. My model to try new things: I have low standards the first time. That is, the first time I do something, I consider it successful if I just do it at all, not by how well I do it. I wrote about this model almost two years…

April 2, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Tips

My experience doing yesterday’s exercise and what it means to you

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] Since my results surprised me, I bet your results will surprise you when you do yesterday's exercise to record your beliefs (aka mental models or just models). First, the quantity. I felt like I had five or ten main models that I used a lot. I had about sixty or seventy. So the mental world I live in, from my mind's eye, is more complex than I thought. Next, how new they are -- that is, most of them aren't more…

March 31, 2013

Awareness / Exercises / Models / Tips

An exercise in knowing your beliefs; so you can change them

[This post is part of a series on "Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours." 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.] We all know the story about the three guys doing the same physical work at quarry yet feeling different -- one felt miserable because he felt like he was just chopping stone, the next kind of enjoyed his work because he felt he was practicing a worthy profession, and the third who loved what he did because he was helping build the most beautiful cathedral the world had ever seen. How do you become the cathedral guy? As long as you're…

March 30, 2013

Awareness / Blog

We proved each other wrong… and right.

Sometimes being proved wrong improves your life. This story is one of them. Actually, my friend and I both proved each other wrong and it worked out well. If you've been reading this page, you know how much I value self-awareness and emotional intelligence. I've worked hard to develop resilience to feeling bad when things don't go my way. I like being able to stay calm under pressure. I have a great friend -- a borderline celebrity whose identity is important enough I can't mention it in this context -- but we've been friends for years. Why can't I mention her name? Because, and I don't think she'd disagree with me for saying this, she's crazy. When I met her she had been diagnosed with…

March 27, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Paper shredders and making changing beliefs and values easier

People tell me it's hard to change beliefs and values. Some people think it's impossible. I agree if they believe it's hard, but you can and it gets easier with practice. Most people change their beliefs and values all the time without realizing it. One goal for this page is to help people learn to change their beliefs more easily so I try to give examples of how you already change beliefs and values without thinking about it. If you see you do in simple or little cases, you can expand what you already do to more complex or bigger cases. Next thing you know you'll change your life. People often restrict themselves by thinking of changing beliefs as thinking positively or thinking the opposite…

March 15, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Freedom

Personal development, achievement, and freedom

Following up on freedom from yesterday's post, I wanted to share a perspective so useful, I almost can't believe it wasn't originally written for the context of personal development. Michelangelo, when asked about how he created David, said I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. As I mentioned yesterday, the greatest improvements we can make are to free ourselves from constraints that inhibit us from being ourselves. We know when we see other people constrained and unaware of it that we know they are living below their potentials. I find our greatest developments are to remove these constraints to reveal what's underneath, so we can be ourselves. The constraints tend to be rules and beliefs others imposed on…

March 6, 2013

Awareness / Blog

Don’t be Walter: an example

Yesterday I wrote about the quintessential I'm-right-you're-wrong-and-I'm-going-to-convince-you-of-it-no-matter-what-it-takes situation with extreme escalation by Walter in the Big Lebowski. The last edit I made was to add the parenthetical comment in "What makes this clip so funny and brilliant (besides the movie's running jokes, like the Vietnam references) is...". I couldn't help but notice, if you don't look too carefully, that you could understand the Vietnam conflict from this perspective, with the United States political decision-makers as Walter. Read the archetype as I listed it yesterday with that conflict in mind. (Before you start to write to tell me how much I missed and how wrong I am, my point isn't to be right, just to give another perspective. See what you can learn from it.) You…

March 1, 2013

Awareness / Blog

If you think you’re right and they’re wrong, you’re probably annoying someone, illustrated

Two years ago I wrote about a movie clip that illustrates how we feel when we feel we're right, the other person is wrong, and we have to convince them of it. https://joshuaspodek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The_Big_Lebowski_on_Right_and_Wrong_Versus_Not_Being_an_A-ho.mp4 I wrote recently how if you think you're right and someone else is wrong, you're probably pissing someone off. We've all been on all sides of such situations -- aggressor, defender, third-party observer. You see something you feel self-righteous about. You declare you're right and the other person is wrong. They defend themselves. You feel powerless to achieve your goal so your emotions become intense and you escalate (represented by the gun in this clip). The other person digs their heels in too. You feel everybody else doesn't get it and talks…

February 28, 2013

Awareness / Blog

George Clooney on Living Well

Do you dream of a life on the red carpet, gracing black-tie events with your presence, choosing among the best projects, working with the top people in your field, with your name in lights? Sound unbeatable? Think again. At least if you're George Clooney. With all of that, he found simplicity from regular working men. He acted on it with something few of us could materially afford, but we can re-create anyway. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsgdaxo70Ck What are you striving for? What can you attain anyway?

February 25, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Freedom

If you want to retire early, why? Is financial independence your goal or a means to an end?

Longtime readers might know I enjoy and recommend a blog on retirement and financial independence called Mr. Money Mustache. The author there wrote a post on people who evaluate him by their standards and claim he isn't really retired. He created a definition, quoted below, and said he was. As I said, I recommend his blog, but I think his choice of how to define "retirement" missed the point of what we want in life. Personally, I consider financial independence a means to an end, not an end itself. Its point is the emotional reward it creates. If you think financial independence is your goal, you'll miss you'll try to achieve something slightly different than what you want. You may rest when you only got…

February 16, 2013

Awareness / Blog

When to act

I heard an interesting perspective on living in the moment and when to act. On the face of it the statement is simple, but if you keep thinking about it it gets more meaningful. Whenever you decide to do something, if you ever ask when it is, it will always be now. Every moment of your life is always now. No moment is anything other than now. When do you want to act?

February 14, 2013

Creating false memories is easy

Awareness / Blog

Creating false memories is easy

Check out the abstract to a paper posted last month where the researchers created false memories in people. They gave participants made-up stories and pictures and asked people if they remembered them. About half the people "remembered" events that never happened. About a quarter "remembered" seeing the story on the news. People remembered stories that fit their political orientation better than ones that challenged them. The stories in this study were all political. The paper (downloadable from the link above) describes other research in this area and some history and their motivation. How much emotion a story evokes seems to contribute to how memorable it is, even if made up. Here's the abstract: In the largest false memory study to date, 5,269 participants were asked…

February 11, 2013

Awareness / Blog

When models don’t work

I write a lot about models on this page. By model I mean a simplified representation of something for a purpose. I promote recognizing what models work and using those, and not dwelling on if the model is right or wrong or accurate or not. Sometimes I like using models that work despite being very wrong. For example, sometimes thinking men are from Mars and women are from Venus helps understand differences between sexes. I know we're all from Earth. But if a model doesn't work, I promote rejecting it. I'm writing today because I recently heard the model A rising tide raises all boats. as an explanation for the value of promoting raising the GDP. It implies that strategy improves the lives of everyone,…

February 10, 2013

Awareness / Education / Leadership

This weekend’s leadership development seminar in Shanghai sold out

I just heard that this weekend's leadership development seminar in Shanghai sold out the last seat. If you wanted to attend but can't now, there is a good chance I'll do another in March. Please email me if you would like to be contacted about it. Thanks to everyone with the Columbia community here for making this happen and all the work behind the scenes. I look forward to seeing people there.

February 1, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

Monkey Mind

January 25, 2013

Audio / Awareness / Blog

Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness, meditation, and ordering and simplifying your life

The other day I was arguing with a friend. Maybe not a full argument, but a misunderstanding. During a break I got online and noticed a link to an interview with someone whose thinking I liked. The first few minutes of the interview told me it would help. I suggested to my friend we both listen to the interview. We did. We then immediately came to understand each other, resolved the differences, and created a better solution than we would have otherwise. Who is Jon Kabat-Zinn and why should I care? The interview was with Jon Kabat-Zinn, whose books I've referred to before. He studies and promotes mindfulness, meditation, and self-awareness. If you like my perspective based in science and nature examining business, how the…

January 13, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature

Comparing biology and physics from a business leadership perspective

I studied physics to nearly the farthest levels you can at one of the great institutions. Now I study evolutionary psychology more. I've thought about these things a lot. As a practicing businessman and inventor, I look to nature -- physics -- for ideas to create and engineer to bring to market. As a leader I look to people -- biology -- to interact with, team up with, buy from, sell to, etc; in short, to influence. Sometimes I think about the fields and how I interact with them daily, not abstractly asking about the fields or as a researcher but in how I use their domains in my professional life. If you work on sales, you're using biology and psychology. If you invent something…

January 12, 2013

Richard Feynman on fooling yourself not helping you

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Richard Feynman on fooling yourself not helping you

Richard Feynman, one of my heroes, Nobel prize in physics winner, and entertaining guy, had concise advice in his commencement address to Caltech relevant to yesterday's post on not fooling yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. Here's the text of the full speech, which is famous in scientific circles for his concept of "cargo cult science", and which I recommend reading. Here's a YouTube link I found searching for the text of the full speech. As usual, since China blocks YouTube I can't see the link, so I hope it's relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvfAtIJbatg

January 10, 2013

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