[Hayden Kessinger]

Hi Beth,

I forgot to write about my perspectives on seeing beauty in all things, so thanks for sharing yours and reminding me. I feel very grateful for the fact that I pretty quickly felt like each image was just as beautiful as the last, in their own ways. I didn’t need to consciously think about how or why. I’m not sure how long I’ve thought like this or where it comes from, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t just inherent to me — I think I’ve gotten here through some sort of practice.

[Hayden Kessinger]

The Model

This week was rather interesting for me. I have almost no conscious experience of using models. I’m aware that I use some type of models for making sense of the world, but I had never thought about it much before. I’ve definitely never written anything down to understand my models. It seemed like a lot of the information was complementary to exercise 8 & 9 when we changed our beliefs. I’m very interested to see how using The Model makes that process more/less effective. I see how useful it is to understand that everyone has different models and I really liked the model of “everyone does their best based on their view of the world and their ability.” I think I’ve followed a similar model for a while now; always trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when someone is upset with someone else. I think it’s useful to have a clear model for this. Sort of like how Eugene’s advice to “listen, don’t wait to talk” has given me something to latch onto and re-center myself in conversations, I think having a model helps in a similar way. I guess “listen don’t wait to talk” is a model itself?

I found the part about perceptions of a car to be helpful and very relevant to me now. I remembered that I used to view a car much more as a source of freedom and a status symbol than a polluter. Now, it’s flipped. To me, cars are polluters first, freedom/status symbol second. And despite my change in values, I still see cars, at least to some degree, as a source of freedom and status symbol. I also used to see them as sources of pollution but not prominently, or maybe I just felt like there was no avoiding it.

I think it’s going to take some re-reading of my notes and practice with The Model to wrap my head around it all. I think I’m facing an inner conflict with this: I absolutely recognize the value of understanding the human emotional system and I want to, but I also feel like this makes it less natural and real. I’m sure I’m not the first person to have said something like this. Despite this feeling, I’m open to exploring it and seeing how it goes. I guess I’m worried that by creating models and systems to help me understand and lead others more effectively will be at the cost of experiencing the world more humanly. This could very well just be a cop-out/resistance to doing more work. We shall see!

Here are my two situations

I want to spend less time on screens (phone, TV, laptop)

• Environment:At home in my living room and bedroom, every day.
• Belief: Watching movies, TV shows, videos, etc. is fun, helps me relax, and I learn from them.
• Emotion: Relaxed and some pleasure, but also boredom, frustration, disappointment, complacency and shame
• Behavior: Spending time on screens instead of spending time with family, reading, getting more sleep, exercising, or other activities that would make me happier

I want to meditate every day

• Environment: In my room, every morning.
• Belief: I don’t need to meditate, and even though it brings me benefits, I have other more important things to do.
• Emotion: Avoidance, self-deceit (not sure if those are emotions), arrogant, embarrassment.
• Behavior: Sometimes I meditate, most time I avoid it and do something else instead (like spend time on screens!).

How did The Model compare with my models for emotions and leadership?
Before last week, I had never spent any time consciously thinking about my models for things, so I don’t have anything to compare it to.

What other models do I use for people, emotions, and motivations?
Like I said above, I haven’t consciously used models before. However, I can try to think of examples now. With people, I guess I try to follow a model that says everyone is inherently a good person; I do my best to give people the benefit of doubt.

For emotions, I’m not sure; I suppose I intellectually recognize emotions as useful, important, and things that make us who we are. But I also think I’ve spent a lot of time viewing most emotions as something to avoid, because we have to use logic and evidence to make decisions. Recently, I’ve been really feeling a lack of emotional expression.

In my last post I referenced David Goggins who says that “motivation is crap.” I think that’s been somewhat of a model for me. I experience it often myself; I feel motivated relatively frequently but rarely act on it. I also use the phrase “mood follows action” to motivate myself when I have little. So, I think my models for motivation rest on the need for something else to complete the motivation. This is what I believe The Model does.

How would I change The Model for my use?
I’m not sure I can say yet. With limited experience thinking about/using models, I don’t know how it might serve me better. I’ll use it some and see if I come up with anything.

What happens when I break down situations in my life into environments, beliefs, emotions, and behavior?
It definitely puts things in perspective. It simplifies the situations and lays it all out very plainly. Like all types of writing for me, I think just the act of getting it out of my head helps me do something about it. Breaking it down specifically into the 4 parts makes it so I can think about each of them on their own. The next exercise is to work with our situations and I already have ideas of how to achieve the outcome I want by tinkering with each piece. And even though breaking it down like this separates them, it also helps show how they come together. I got a deeper insight into my emotions and beliefs that are driving the behavior within certain environments.

So far, for me, I think The Model does exactly what is was created to do: simplify things and be useful.

What is the difference between pleasure, happiness, and emotional reward?
This was an interesting part of the video and I agree with how Josh described these emotions. Though each are distinct, I think of these three emotions as being on a sort of spectrum. Pleasurable is at one end; it’s easiest to achieve, most fleeting, least meaningful, and may come from genuine, healthy experiences or in-genuine, unhealthy ones (like eating cookies for dinner). Happiness is in the middle; it is more complex than pleasure, longer lasting, more meaningful, and almost always comes from genuine, healthy experiences. Reward is at the other end; it is typically hardest to achieve, but also most meaningful, longest-lasting, and (I think) always comes from genuine, healthy (healthy probably isn’t the best word, because it’s so subjective… but I guess for something to feel rewarding, I would bet that it has to feel healthy for the individual) experiences.

Where and how might I apply The Model or my version of it in the rest of my life?
For now, I’ll see how it helps me over the next week and decide how I might change it or create something new to help me more.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Eugene,

I don’t think I’ve ever been successful in motivating myself with conscious reasoning, either. I guess I can motivate myself a little, but, as you say, the emotions are really what drive it. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to reason with myself time and time again. I know that x is bad for me and y is good for me, so just do y and don’t do x, I say to myself. Sometimes that works… or rather, maybe sometimes my emotions happen to be more aligned with that decision.

Something I’ve thinking about a lot recently is the impact of my surroundings on my emotions and motivations. Living with my parents means I’m exposed to much more doof, TV, and consumerism than I had just a couple of months ago. It’s totally throwing me for a loop. I know these things are impacting my motivations and emotions. The things we eat literally change chemicals in our brain! I’m hoping to continue growing my self-awareness and make choices that lead to the emotions that I want that then lead to more choices that lead to emotions I want, and so on.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Eugene,

First, I want to say that your advice to “listen, don’t wait to talk” has been very helpful for me. Sort of like you described, it’s simple yet it gives me an anchor to repeat in my head while in conversation. I was using it and some other advice to stay focused during class on Sunday!

Also, though you identified many qualities of a true leader, I notice compassion continuing to pop up throughout your post. I think I agree that compassion is very valuable for good leadership, though often ignored or underrated. I found the rowing analogy useful and it made me think of Evelyn’s feedforward advice to me: don’t be the most clever person in the room, make others feel like they’re the most clever person in the room. I think feeling that you’re truly a key part of a team (even if you’re one of 9 others rowing the same exact way) is invaluable. An effective leader can make each one of those rowers feel like they’re the most important one, while also helping them see that the person next to them is the most important one. Am I making sense? It’s a weird contradiction, but I think it’s true.

I guess I haven’t thought much about resolving conflicts as a leader. I’ve focused on preventing them in the first place. In my essay I share some from an experience that I had where I failed to resolve conflict and I sort of just gave up. I learned a lot from it, but as it was happening, I didn’t really do my job as a leader. I think that’s where I need to grow the most. I have to be learn to be okay with some people (or maybe everyone) being a little unhappy for some time. And I have to face that, not run away.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Olivia,

I really liked your comment in class about leaders being people who can see things in others before they see it themselves. It’s cool to think about some of the people in my life who have seen things in me and helped me bring them out. I hope I can be that for others, too.

It makes me happy to read how your motivators have changed over time and your commitment to knowing yourself better.

[Hayden Kessinger]

I think it can be an excuse.

I like the phrase, “mood follows action.” Even if motivated is not a mood, I think it applies. If we wait until we feel motivated without changing anything else, we’re doomed to wait a long time.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Jim,

Thank you for the nudge to think about leadership within ikigai. I remember being captivated by that concept (as well as the word moai that describes lifelong friends that meet regularly and always support one another) when I first learned of it. I also appreciate learning about your past experience with leadership and some of your misgivings. Hearing you and Josh share what you wish you learned earlier is very helpful for me. Though I’m sure I’ll be making my own mistakes in order to learn. Similarly, I appreciate your honest perspective in class when you said “no one knows what the hell they’re doing” and your advice for me to trust that the discomfort I am feeling may very well be a sign that I’m moving on to the next step of leadership.

It’s interesting to see that you wrote “courage to take a leap of faith” as a quality of good leadership. Intuition would tell me that leaders make very measured decisions, but I suppose your point follows in line with your earlier statements.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Evelyn,

I really like your ship captain analogy! I also appreciated the point you made in your essay and in class, that a leader is someone who others want to follow. It makes me think of Eugene’s first essay back in the fall. He said something like “I don’t want to just be liked, I want people’s lives to be better for having me in them.”

Lisa sounds like a top-notch leader to me! As I read that paragraph I was thinking about our discussion in class yesterday. She did what was necessary and then stepped down to allow for someone (I’m assuming) more qualified (or whatever the word might be) to take leadership.

From my perspective, your leadership of the RTRC consultant was very much leadership! I don’t think that sentence was grammatically correct, but you get my point. You helped him do something he wanted to do, but didn’t know how (or maybe didn’t know yet)… beautiful!

[Hayden Kessinger]

Leadership Essay #2

I’ve tried posting twice to no avail. I’m thinking my post might be too long, so here is a link to my blog post. Sorry for the late post!

[Hayden Kessinger]

Evelyn,

Thanks for all the extra email advice 🙂

[Hayden Kessinger]

Eugene,

That is very interesting to read the difference between advice from men and women! I really like the advice to “make friends with yourself.” I’ve heard the phrase (or some variation), “you can’t expect others to love you if you don’t love yourself” many many times and this seems like another version of it. Reading that is a reminder for me to prioritize intentional solitude to help myself be who I want to be.

I guess a strategy you could use to connect with friends is asking for advice more often!!

[Hayden Kessinger]

Jim,

I strongly agree with your comment about building a trusting relationship as part of this process. Happy to be a part of it with you.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Feedforward to improve my communication skills

I talked to nine people and and got more than three pieces of advice from almost everyone. I decided to ask for advice on improving my communication skills. Ironically, a handful of the people I talked to asked me to clarify what I wanted advice on. You’ll see below that I received a few pieces of advice about specifying and being clear about what I want to communicate. I enjoyed this exercise and feel like I got a lot from it. The practice of asking for advice brought me back to the exercises from Initiative, which I loved and learned from.

If you’re interested in reading the full list of advice I received, I included it in my blog post.

I really liked all of the advice I got. I think the challenging part is acting on it. It was all different from typical feedback but still not clearly actionable. I think what I need to do is study my list, rewrite it a third time, and highlight my favorite bits. Then maybe choose a couple of those to turn into something active. In the future, I’ll know to ask the person giving me advice to share if they have experience acting on the advice they gave me.

Did I notice differences from feedback I might have gotten?

Yes. I think if I just asked for feedback based on my own communication skills, it would have felt more like they were judging me instead of sharing helpful advice. It wasn’t so awkward like performance evaluations at work, or a meeting with an advisor. I almost always left those meetings feeling like a lot was left unsaid and that the person was sugar-coating things a bit.

Who is the leader in feedforward?

Me I guess? I lead whoever I’m talking to to give me advice in a specific way on a specific thing. That said, I think the people giving advice feel respected and like they get to be an expert for the conversation. And they often took the invitation in directions I didn’t expect which were usually helpful.

How did others seem to feel during feedforward?

They seemed to enjoy giving advice and the resulting conversation.

How did I feel?

I felt slightly awkward and uncomfortable at the start but quickly felt very grateful for the unique advice from each person. I also felt excited to try implementing the advice. Probably my favorite part about exercises like these is that they serve as an excuse to have meaningful and interesting conversations with people. Sort of like playing board games, yes we’re here to play the game but we’re also here to have fun connecting beyond the game.

Did I get any useless advice? Was that a problem?

I don’t think any advice was useless. Some of it was repetitive or not new but it was still helpful to hear it again. Even when my gut thought was “oh yeah, I know that” it was good to be reminded that others think it is valuable.

Where and how might I apply my experience in the rest of my life?

I want to continue to proactively seek advice and feedforward instead of waiting for someone to give advice. People are genuinely interested in helping others, they’re just waiting for the invitation. Without a deliberate ask for this type of advice, I think I’ll almost always get judgments like “you did great on x” if anything at all. I may try to specify what aspect of communication to improve and ask for more advice or think of something else I want to improve with feedforward.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Hi Eugene,

I appreciate you sharing how after communicating in this way for an extended period of time, you’ve noticed dramatic changes in reactions of others. I haven’t noticed much difference yet myself, but perhaps I will!

[Hayden Kessinger]

Hi Beth,

I’m happy to be featured in your exercise! Ironically, with all the family time the last two weeks, I do not feel like I’ve embodied my beginner mind. I can very much relate to your story about the plastic cup. Saying things that end up having the exact opposite effect that I wanted. Then I just feel like a jerk!

Writing that reminds me of a couple of times I swallowed my pride last week and apologized for my tone or comments made. I noticed that if I could at least try to address the situation, others involved seemed to appreciate it and it made me feel better.

[Hayden Kessinger]

Avoiding imposing values

I wrote reflections for each week of this exercise. I noticed changes in my communication skills from week 1 to week 2. It became more natural for me to avoid good, bad, right, wrong, etc. It was fun and interesting. Moving forward, I’d like to pay closer attention to the reactions of others if I can pick up on them.

What fraction of my value-imposing words do I think I caught?
Week 1: I think I caught much more than I did last week. Maybe 70% or more. I still used them plenty, but after catching them, I was able to rephrase, which was fun.

Week 2: I think I caught even more than I did last week. I honestly think I caught almost myself nearly every time. This didn’t always mean I stopped myself from saying them, but I at least realized after the fact. If I didn’t catch myself ahead of time, I could backtrack and rephrase whatever I just said.

Did I notice changes in others’ reactions?
Week 1: I noticed changes in other classmates’ reactions when we chatted. I didn’t notice much with anyone else.

Week 2: Same as week 1

How do I imagine the different responses feel?
Week 1: I could imagine them feeling more genuine and interesting to others. We’re all so used to the classic “I’m doing good” or “good idea” that other responses are probably way more interesting. I think my new responses described my true feelings and ideas with more depth.

Week 2: This is also the same as last week, but I believe it more strongly after practicing for another week: I could imagine them feeling more genuine and interesting to others. We’re all so used to the classic “I’m doing good” or “good idea” that other responses are probably way more interesting. I think my new responses described my true feelings and ideas with more depth.

How did I express myself without those words?
Week 1: It was fun and honestly felt a little more authentic. Instead of automatically replying “good” to the question “how are you?” I started saying things like, “I’m enjoying life right now” or “I like the way my day is going” or even going straight into describing the day itself. I was creative in self-talk and in my responses to others.

Week 2: Like last week, it was fun and felt authentic. I came up with more new responses and I found myself naturally more interested in the other person. I’d emphasize that my thoughts were from my perspective which I think made it more meaningful — it meant being slightly more vulnerable. Because I’m still new to this, I had to think more and stammer through my responses sometimes. Which, in a way, I think made the interactions more authentic.

Do I think others noticed a difference?
Week 1: Maybe a few times. Maybe more and they just thought to themselves “that was a different response”

Week 2: I was becoming so much more aware that I felt like others were noticing, too. But I didn’t pick up on any clear signs of others noticing a difference.

Where and how might I apply my experience in the rest of my life?
Week 2: I’d like to continue being more thoughtful about the way I respond to questions like “how are you?” because saying “good” is just so boring and the real answer is almost always more nuanced. I also want to continue saying things like, “I like that idea!” instead of saying “great idea!” There are other parts of my life where I’ll definitely be happy to start using good, bad, right, wrong, etc. again. It is really interesting to think about how impactful word choices can be.

[Hayden Kessinger]

You’ve made me realize I have the same problem! Seriously, almost exactly the same! 🙂

[Hayden Kessinger]

Hey Olivia,

I worked in the activities department at a luxury hotel and one of the first things my boss taught me was to avoid saying “no problem” to guests if they thanked me for anything. She said that by saying “no problem” you imply that it actually was a problem. Funnily, I think the reason I remember this so vividly is because she would ALWAYS respond with “no problem” or “not a problem”!!! That said, I think her advice is valid and useful.

[Hayden Kessinger]

No, but, however

The point wasn’t to avoid being negative or stop using these words altogether. Instead, it was an exercise in avoiding negating people. Before dinner on Sunday I described the exercise to my parents so they could let me know if I slipped up. My dad asked a question and I said “no it’s… oh wow I already did it!”

It’s funny that I use no and but to begin a response so much. I don’t know if I ever respond to people with however. Practicing this provided an opportunity to pay attention to how my thoughts change when listening to others, what I say instead of no and but, how often I slip up, and how people respond differently.

Funnily, I did not live up to the title of this post. There were lots of nos and plenty of buts, too. I simply failed this exercise. There were maybe a handful of times I successfully caught myself before responding with no or but. And maybe another handful where I noticed after saying it. I think there were many more instances where it didn’t even register. That said, having the exercise in mind did make me more aware of the way I respond to people.

What fraction of my no, but, and however responses did I catch?
I would say 5-10.

Did I notice changes in others’ reactions?
No (look! I did it again!) because I didn’t do it enough. Other than my parents laughing at me when I caught myself and said, “oh I just messed up.”

How do I imagine the different responses feel?
I can definitely imagine them feeling better than hearing an immediate negation of whatever they just said. For me, when I remembered, it felt nice to consciously pick a different response.

How else could I begin my responses?
Well, I could begin them in lots of different ways. In general, I think about responding with curiosity and acknowledgment. When I was an educator at Five Rivers, I practiced this a fair bit, actually. I got pretty good at not answering kids’ questions or answers with no. In those cases, I’d say something like, “well, maybe, what makes you think that?” or “that’s a good question, let’s see if we can figure that out!” Doing this was always fun and I could clearly see the difference between telling a kid no and offering them encouragement and a new opportunity to learn. Most kids who got a plain “no” after answering a question would shut down right then and there. They might be totally uninterested for the rest of the lesson.

Do I think others noticed a difference?
I don’t think so given the small number of data points I have.

Where and how might I apply my experience to the rest of my life?
I guess I’ll try again next week!

[Hayden Kessinger]

Adopting a new belief

I’m realizing that I have a lot of beliefs I’d like to change, including the one I wrote about practicing in class. However, I want to continue to work up to that one and other more challenging beliefs. This week, I’m stepping up a bit, though I’m confident I can be successful.

Ever since transferring to the University of Maryland (UMD) in 2021, I’ve been tinkering with my exercise routine. I’m glad I have, but it’s led to inconsistency and changes in my fitness that have led to unwanted underlying emotions. The last time I had a regular routine was around this time last year when I was training for a marathon. Then I got hurt and haven’t found the same joy and motivation to exercise regularly. Of course, before I started running pretty seriously, I was in maybe the best shape of my life, having just spent a summer biking every day (one day, I even ran 2 miles after finishing a 100-mile ride — shoutout to Jeremiah). Before starting at UMD, I was in love with resistance training and running; I weighed around 160 pounds (now I’m barely 130), and was as strong as I’ve ever been.

I enrolled at UMD with the goal of increasing my knowledge of the human body to help others reap the benefits I was feeling from my own exercise habits. My goals changed pretty quickly as I found my place as a college student; I was exposed to the inequities of public health, social/cultural/historical ties to sports, sustainability, and nutrition. More importantly, I began seeing the intricacies of all these things, plus many other factors, that when combined, contributed to individual, community, and global health. I had always wanted to help people, but I don’t think I fully embodied that goal until I realized all these things. I realized that if I truly wanted to help people, I had to rethink my priorities and strategy.

I saw (and still see) exercise as a crucial and impressive preventative medicine, but when I connected the dots that there was SO much more to the story than just going to the gym, I couldn’t disconnect them. Almost everyone around me wanted to become a physical therapist (I did, too when I first started) or go to med school. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with going into medicine, but it seemed to me that I could be more helpful by working in public health, education, psychology, nonprofits, or something else. Now a couple of years later, I’ve connected many more dots, hence me working on sustainability leadership. In that time, my habits and interests changed alongside my perspectives and understanding of the world. The gym became a smaller part of my life while yoga, running, meditation, and cycling came in and out, sometimes together, sometimes separate. Sustainability became a big part of my life through the Sustainable Ocean Alliance at UMD, as did social justice in many forms. In short, being “fit” was no longer important to me. But, it actually was and still is. I just let it slip and have been justifying its absence (when it’s been absent) ever since.

Despite its intrinsic importance to me, after falling “out of shape” relative to my gym-bro days I’ve struggled to be fueled by intrinsic motivation. I’m always comparing my physical appearance and strength & conditioning to my past self or others. It’s frustrating to be incapable of running half the distance or lifting half as much weight as I previously could. I received a fair numbers of compliments when I was “in shape” so I think I unconsciously tied it to my identity. Now that I’m not in amazing shape, I feel like I’m letting myself and others down. Even though I know the science and have plenty of good reasons to exercise, I’m often held back because the extrinsic motivators dominate my psyche. I started going to the gym because it was a fun way to spend time with friends and I enjoyed learning and getting stronger. Today, many of my workouts are plagued with thoughts about being weak or comparing myself with everyone. I’m like kids who had their intrinsic motivation to draw/color clouded by extrinsic motivation.

I saw the exercise for this week as a perfect opportunity to do something about this. I wasn’t wildly successful, but I’m happy with the results.

Using the 4 steps, here’s how I guided my belief change for this week:

1. When I exercise, I think about how I used to be so much more fit and strong, and I believe that I’ll never get back to a level that I’m proud of. This makes me feel hopeless, sad, defeated, and insecure. And thus, I end up stopping my exercise early or not starting altogether.
2. I’d prefer to feel content with myself as I am and optimistic and excited for the opportunity to get stronger.
3. I’ll believe that when it comes to my physical fitness, I can be better than I was yesterday and enjoy the moment, as I did when I first started.

To clarify my new belief, I didn’t think about literally being better than I was the day before. It was just a new way to think about it. Rather than worry about who I was a year or two ago, I could think about who I was yesterday. The idea wasn’t to do 21 push-ups today if I did 20 yesterday. Rather it was to deliberately reflect on what I could do to “be better” than the day before. That may mean one extra push up or it might mean no push-ups and just yoga instead in order to recover and regrow damaged tissue.

Did I feel more able than last time?
Yes and no. By design, it was a more challenging belief to address. As you can tell from what I wrote above, it has intricacies far beyond just exercising. It’s tied to my personal well-being and feeling of worth. Plus, I’ve been telling myself a similar story for years: that I won’t get back to my previous fitness level. That said, I found success as I did last week, I’m sure because of the first exercise.

Did the skills start taking root?
Yes, I have several more beliefs in mind that I would like to change and feel confident my skills to do so are improving. I think the new belief I came up with this week could be improved to be more effective for me. So, I still have plenty of room to get better at the process.

What did it feel like?
It felt great! Empowering, fun, exciting, motivating. At times I had the same old “ugh, I’m just lying to myself” type of thought, but by acting on my new belief, it gave me something to focus on instead of the old story about my past habits or lack thereof.

Where and how might I apply my experience to the rest of my life?
As I said, I’ll keep changing beliefs to improve my life. Eventually, I’m sure I’ll be able to use it to change my beliefs about others and larger ideas.

[Author]

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