Awareness

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Sharing what you love fills your life with sharing, love, and stuff you love

Sometimes it seems like everyone I talk to hears about burpees. I enjoy them. Doing them fills my life with the emotions they support -- friendship, freedom, and motivation. I talk to people about leadership, nature, science, curiosity, and so on. I tell people how I figure things out after I analyze things. All these things make me feel good. Sharing these things -- by sharing I mean communicating and behaving consistently with -- improves my life. For this post, you could substitute anything you want for the term love. Sharing what you value, find meaningful, makes you happy, brings you joy, rewards you, etc will give the same results for those things. Four results of sharing what you love First, when people know what…

June 27, 2012

Awareness / Blog

“Extremes” usually aren’t

I've written before on the persuasive but specious rhetorical trick that goes something like John is very conservative about these things. Mary is very liberal. Me, I'm practical and... Do you sense that you're probably going to agree with what the speaker next says? Extremists like John and Mary are difficult to deal with. People reject extreme views out of hand. You don't want to be like that, do you? Being practical makes more sense, doesn't it? The speciousness is subtle. I'll point the flaw out in a second. When you get it, you realize what the other person is doing and how to protect yourself from their influence when you don't want it. You'll start to see people doing it all the time. The…

June 15, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Leadership

Living by your values

A client asked about something in his personal life. He does things one way that most parts of society do differently. To be clear, his way harmed no one and was in no way illegal, but he was concerned that people who learned about it might freak out. Sorry I have to keep the details to a minimum, but we all recognize his situation is universal. We all have things we do a certain way that society/family/school/church/government/etc does differently. A great thing about the internet is that we can easily learn that millions of others also do it that way, even if we can't meet them in person. You can't anticipate or change other people's expectations before you meet them. Like everyone, you also have…

June 12, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Nature

What is progress?

Almost daily I face what I see as the key misunderstanding between how to lead your life to everything you want from it and how to follow what society tells you to. If you're lucky the latter will bring you what you want. You're guaranteed to produce for others, but you may never create what you want for yourself. By contrast, the former -- leading your life based on your values, meaning, and purpose, which are based on your emotional reactions (what motivates you, how you motivate others, etc) -- will always lead to a rewarding life, always great by your standards, no matter how things turn out. People call growth progress and by growth they mean the material outputs of society, which may be…

June 8, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Nature

How you see the world when you see it from space

I came across some quotes from astronauts who had seen the Earth from space that increased my sense of the beauty and fragility of life here -- as far as we know, the only life at all. The quotes surprised me partly because I think of astronauts as cowboy- and engineer-types. That surprise strengthened the feeling of the quotes, because you don't expect cowboy engineers to promote protecting the environment, look for the beauty of nature, or talk about peace on earth among different cultures. Or at least I didn't. Everybody knows "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," "The eagle has landed," and "Houston, we have a problem." I think you'll enjoy these, especially if you haven't heard them before.…

June 6, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Every word you say counts

A couple clients recently thanked me for some advice I had given outside our main conversation, almost as asides, but that worked. Every word counts I told them that every word you say contributes to your identity, even if only to yourself. And that every word influences how everyone, including yourself, perceives you. Context They were talking about some problems they were working through. They said things like "I have anxiety in social situations" "I don't know how to talk to people I don't know." "Changing yourself is hard and takes time." I suggested changing statements like those to "I used to have anxiety in social situations" "I'm getting over anxiety from social situations" "I get less anxiety from social situations than I used to"…

June 5, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Nature

Great videos on understanding the economy, environment, and energy

If we could use leadership in any place most, I can think of few places more important than in understanding what is happening with our environment, energy, and how it will affect us, meaning the economy. Some conclude that since before Revelations through Malthus and beyond people have been predicting the end of the world, yet the world hasn't ended, we have solved all problems before and we'll solve whatever problems come. For many reasons I disagree. I'd go into my main reasons, and in a future post I may, but Limits to Growth explains the reasons better than I could. I just finished watching a series of videos by another guy with a science PhD and MBA, Chris Martenson, on the subject of what…

June 3, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Leadership

Creating your emotions — my friend’s incredibly successful story

A recent conversation with a friend who also coaches highlighted some important observations of mastering your emotions and improving your life. We were talking about my Model and Method and how you can predictably and consistently create the emotions and motivations you want. He described how he started putting this stuff into practice. He had learned techniques to change emotions -- basically to choose new environments, beliefs, and behaviors. He hadn't put them to use much when he noticed he had felt depressed for a while. As many of us know, when you feel depressed, you often don't want to change how you feel. You just want to wallow in your misery. Feeling other ways feels fake, like happiness means you're ignoring how things really…

May 31, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy, Consider Time

I just read this article, "If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, Consider Time." Before commenting on it, I'll note that I saw it linked to from a tech site, Hacker News. That community tends not to value MBA values and view people with MBAs as not adding the value engineers do. Having been a tech-founder (before my MBA) and a non-tech-founder (after my MBA) of different ventures I understand that perspective on MBAs, but this article -- from Stanford's business school -- represents some of the more valuable perspectives business school and leadership type thinking can bring -- thinking about your values, understanding them, and acting on that understanding. My business school experience taught me a lot in those areas and played a major role…

May 26, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Culture shock comes when you experience something old for the first time in a while, not something new

If you live in New York City or many other places, you've doubtlessly gotten used to restaurants and bars having no smoke in them. Perhaps, like me, you've come to find the idea, or experience, of smoke around you when you eat or drink or in any public space you can't avoid barbaric. Does "barbaric" overstate things? I used to consider myself tolerant of smoke in bars and clubs. Actually, I still do, but I don't see any way someone can smoke without potentially annoying everyone else there. I didn't support banning smoking in restaurants and bars that much, but after habitualizing myself to smoke-free bars, clubs, and restaurants, smoky bars and clubs are horrible. Smokey restaurants seem barely acceptable any more. Younger readers will…

May 17, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Difficult life decision? Here’s how to look at it.

Life is full of difficult decisions. People struggle over them, sometimes for years, even people living great lives. You probably have one or two or more. I've had my share. A couple questions people asked me recently got me to figure it out. If your questions are reasonably similar, read on. Typical life questions "Which job should I take?" "Should we become boyfriend and girlfriend?" A couple friends asked me these questions lately. You probably have similar questions. "What major should I pick," "should I get a new apartment," "what should I do for vacation," and so on. The questions affect many parts of your life for a long time, but they don't have clear answers. You've probably succeeded at enough things at life that…

May 16, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership

The New York Times had a contest about my post

What a coincidence. The day after my long post on the counterproductivity of moralizing for leading people, using the example of deciding for others whether they should eat meat or not, the New York Times published the results of a contest to do exactly what I described as counterproductive. No contradiction here -- the New York Times's goal is not to lead people, but to sell newspapers and what works against leaders' interests (depending on how you want to lead) -- polarization and argumentation -- works for news media. Here is the statement of the contest Here are the submissions with the most votes Here is the winning submission This difference in interests illustrates a glaring bias inherent to news reports. Promoting division and argument…

May 7, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Leadership / Tips

On the counterproductivity of motivating people with guilt and blame — aka moralizing

I liked Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, which people have suggested I read for years. I like his perspective on food and "food." I don't intend for the following to detract from his overall message, but his chapter 17, "The Ethics of Eating Animals," makes a great example for leadership. Leadership means motivating others, which means changing their emotions. Few of us like when others motivate us with guilt or blame, so I find using leading through those emotions counterproductive. Claiming to appeal to absolute measures of right, wrong, good, bad, or evil tend to polarize. Motivating through guilt or blame with appeal to absolutes has a name: moralizing. Morality, ethics, meddling, being holier-than-thou, self-righteousness, and so on work to some degree, but risking alienating, polarizing,…

May 5, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Humor

The height of annoying

Is there anything as annoying as someone who exhibits traits you used to have, you've done your best to get rid of, but still have in you? It cuts to your core. I spent a week and a half with a guy who had traits the rest of the group all had gotten over a know-it-all couldn't help butting into conversations interrupting always had to point out what he knew that you didn't, no matter how irrelevant a show-off self-righteous, especially when confronted with how he annoyed everyone It's the list of most annoying traits! You know the type, right? We all know identify those traits within us, perhaps sadly. We were all annoyed by him, but his exhibiting those traits didn't cut to the…

April 29, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Nature

Leadership-based thoughts on economic and energy growth and limits

My closing paragraphs on yesterday's post, anticipating people's reaction, got me thinking about Marshall Goldsmith, one of today's top business thinkers (and a friend). I wrote the following: By now, many of you are probably thinking "we've solved all the problems so far, we'll solve the ones to come" "since before Malthus scientists project doomsday and they never happen, we can ignore this" or "this won't affect me" If so, do the math. Read his blog. At least understand the situation. If he's wrong, show him how. Show me too. I'd love to find out he's wrong. As a scientist, he (and I) would love someone to show him (and me) wrong. That's how we learn. I hope you're open to the same. Now before…

April 26, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Education / Nature

Fantastic video on economic and energy growth and limits

I've written about the Do The Math blog, which looks at the numbers underlying how our economy works, particularly the energy part, which is to say, what drives it. If you think something else drives it, do the math! I think you'll see otherwise. Incidentally, analysis like his is one of the reasons I studied physics (if you didn't know, I got a PhD in the subject) -- to understand nature. Many people think of physics as something that happens in a lab or happened a long time ago with Galileo and Newton, but fundamentally physics studies our natural world. And we are part of nature. Anyone who thinks otherwise -- well, I don't know what to say to them. Anyway, Tom Murphy, the guy…

April 25, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Tips

How to identify great life lessons

Sometimes you recognize something you learned as a great life lesson. Sometimes what you thought was a great life lesson turns out not to be. How can you tell them apart? I've found that the more meaningful a life lesson, the more trivial it sounds when you explain it to someone else. For example, I went to North Korea and saw people living under different conditions than anyplace else, yet observed the commonalities we all share. It profoundly affected my perspective on myself, my culture, and being human. But when people ask why I value my trip so much, saying "I learned that people are people" never conveys that feeling. It sounds trivial. Yet I know I learned something at a deeper level than I…

April 19, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Tips

How to get the body you want

This isn't a diet or fitness blog, but your body is a major part of you. I don't see how you can live the life you want without achieving the body you want. Conversely, if you don't have the body you want, I suggest you aren't living according to your values: your body tells you what to change to create the lifestyle you want. This post is about emotions like joy and emotional reward -- getting the body you want is an inevitable side-effect. Having the body you want is one of the great life-level rewards you can experience. I'll come back to that point in a second. This is also a post on strategy, not tactics. I don't tell you what specific activity and…

April 17, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Conquering anxiety (or any other emotion) and getting the job done

I remember learning a great life lesson in managing intense emotions from a time I felt some of the deepest anxiety of my life. I also finished the project on time and on budget in the process. Two weeks from the deadline on a two-year project, I was coming to realize I didn't see how I could complete it. People I told I could deliver had put themselves out for me. I feared making them look bad for having believed in me. When I told them I could do it, I believed I could, but with two weeks left out of two years, I couldn't solve a core problem. I was going to look bad and, worse, make people who believed in me look bad.…

April 16, 2012

Awareness / Blog

More on the subjectivity of “truth”

Another perspective on truth and its subjectivity came from my musician friend. He described to me the concept of truth in music, which at first didn't make sense to me. Since music doesn't make verifiable or falsifiable statements it wasn't obvious to me how it could be "true"? He described music being true by how it made you feel. He's a composer and he described how when you write a piece, if you do it right, it becomes true. Listen to any great work and it feels right, or true. When you do it wrong it doesn't sound true. Composers struggle to find that truth and express it. His description sounds like what I hear from other artists, especially actors and performers, who tell me…

April 14, 2012

Awareness / Freedom / Nonjudgment

Talking about “truth” or “reality” confuses things

Since writing about avoiding judgmental words like good, bad, right, wrong, evil, and so on, I've loosely kept track of times the words truth, reality, and their derivatives added meaning to a sentence. So far, not once. You might not consider "truth" and "reality" judgmental terms. I won't try to convince you they are, but notice how people use them. They say things like "The truth is that we should raise interests rates," "you have to understand the reality of how we do business," or simply "That's true." You could rewrite the first sentence "We should raise interest rates." Adding "the truth is that" in front implies the speaker is absolutely correct. But no one is. "We should raise interest rates" is no more or…

April 13, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Do you think truth is objective?

People imply by the concept "truth" something objective. They'd like it to mean they know something that could never be false, I don't think it means what they think it does. I've come to believe the concept of truth describes a feeling attached to believing you know something. That is, the difference between saying "The sky is blue" and "It's true that the sky is blue" is in your feeling, not in the meaning. Simply that people describe "your truth" or "my truth," which you've no doubt heard at least once, should suffice to show truth isn't objective. When two people agree on their truths, no problem. But sometimes people's truths disagree. Then big problems can occur. If you don't attach the feeling that you…

April 12, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom

How to feel good anytime

Once I was waiting for a bus in Queens. I had work to do, but no way to do it while waiting, and I didn't know how long I'd have to wait. People typically feel frustrated or bored in situations like that. I did. But I noticed people on vacation sit around doing nothing too. So I thought to myself "what's the difference between doing nothing while waiting for a bus and doing nothing on vacation, say lying on the beach or looking at the Grand Canyon?" Either way, I'm not doing any work. The main difference I came up with was how I felt. On vacation I might feel "I've got it made" or the like instead of boredom or frustration. But I can…

April 6, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

Physical and emotional tension are similar and you can use either to help the other

We use the same word to describe emotional and physical tension for a reason. They go together. I tend to think of them almost as the same thing. I haven't done any scientific studies, but I've found any time someone has emotional tension, it will manifest itself physically. Any time you have physical tension, it will constrain you physically. When I see someone who walks and moves stiffly, I find them less free emotionally too, and vice versa. If something stresses you out, you hunch your shoulders, tighten your back, or however you manifest things. To me this seems obvious, but recently I found a few people who never noticed it. Then I realized I once noticed it for the first time too. Or maybe…

April 3, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

One way to accept without judging

Here's an old story that comes in many versions (here are seven), but I learned from Srikumar Rao's book Are You Ready to Succeed (text from this blog). An old man lived in a valley with his son, a handsome and dutiful youth. They lived a peaceful life despite a lack of material possessions. They were very happy. So much so, that neighbors began to get envious. One day, the old man used all his savings to buy a young wild stallion. It was a beautiful horse that he planned to use for breeding. The very same day he bought it, the horse jumped the fence and ran off. The neighbors came over to sympathize. "How terrible!" they said. "Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?"…

March 29, 2012

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