Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: emotions in more depth

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Continuing to look at elements of the Model in more depth, after perception and belief comes emotion. Emotions lie at the core of the Model, as they should, since emotions, awareness of them, and the ability to bring about the ones you want lie at the core of…

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September 15, 2011
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership

The Model: perception and belief in more depth

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Let's look at the next element in the cycle after the environment -- perception and belief. Perception means how you look at or become aware of your world. I include belief in the same cycle element as perception because belief and perception influence each other so closely, whether…

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September 14, 2011
The Model: environment in more depth
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model: environment in more depth

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Continuing the series on the Model from last time, let's look at elements of the Model in more depth. The elements are environment, perception/belief, emotions/motivation, behavior, and reward. We'll start with environment today. An emotional cycle's environment includes everything outside the cycle that affects it. The most obvious…

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September 13, 2011
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

Shortcomings of cognitive behavioral therapy and remedies to them

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Yesterday we looked at cognitive behavioral therapy. Today we'll consider some of its shortcomings and why those shortcomings excite me about my Model. Shortcoming 1: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy doesn't motivate its model I believe the therapy will help best to the extent people understand why and how it…

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September 9, 2011
The Model and cognitive behavioral therapy
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

The Model and cognitive behavioral therapy

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] If you want to improve your life, you should know about cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT has a lot going for it, but if, like me, you don't have mental problems and diseases you should know its shortcomings too. I'll describe them after describing it. What is it? The…

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September 8, 2011
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature / Tips

The Model: our emotional system is outdated

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] I think everybody knows the following, but I have to say it anyway just in case. The human emotional system evolves at the rate evolution acts, whereas our environment over the past few tens of thousands of years has changed faster than evolution can act. This difference results…

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September 7, 2011
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature / Tips

The Model: your emotional system is consistent and predictable

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] The Model predicts the human emotional system to be consistent and predictable. How so? People often contrast emotions with reason, which they consider systematic and predictable. By contrast, they consider emotions illogical, unpredictable, and unsystematic. People are used to understanding how someone reasons from one point to another.…

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September 6, 2011
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Tips

The Model: our emotions transcend “nature red in tooth and claw”

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Two days ago we covered a few examples of emotional cycles. Some are obvious, like hunger when low on food and thirst when low on water. Other motivations and emotions aren't as obvious, like to avoid being shunned by a group or other social behaviors. Some are complex,…

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September 5, 2011
The Model: emotional reward differs from the emotion that brought it about
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature

The Model: emotional reward differs from the emotion that brought it about

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Yesterday's last example illustrated an important distinction I left implicit so far: the feeling of reward or punishment is independent of the emotion that brought it about. This distinction helps you understand the Model and bring about the emotions and reward you want independent of the situation you're…

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September 4, 2011
The Model: examples of emotional cycles
Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Leadership / Nature

The Model: examples of emotional cycles

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] In our Model, each emotion you experience manifests itself in the emotional cycle of the model. Example 1: let's consider an example of hunger in the Model. Say someone puts a mango in front of you (environment). You see it and expect it to taste good (perception/belief). Since…

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September 3, 2011
Blog / Freedom / Leadership / Tips

The Model: reward, happiness, and pleasure

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. 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.] Two days ago we first saw the complete Model. Now we'll begin discussing it. First let's clarify the central points of pleasure, happiness, and reward. At this level of simplification, the Model distinguishes between pleasure, happiness, and reward, though outside the Model they overlap more than in the…

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September 1, 2011
Blog / Freedom / Leadership / Tips

Dropping friends who bring you down can hurt, but improves your life

Today I'll take a short break from my thread on the Model to share advice to a client with a common problem: he has grown and changed and a former friend hasn't. The former friend now holds him back. He wants to move on, but doesn't know how. His description of the situation described incident after incident of counterproductive behavior from the friend (and him accepting it), only briefly mentioning what held them together -- their music (also going out to meet girls together). I felt the musical success had more long-term value, so I started there. First, congratulations on the success with the music, sax, and rapping. Practicing your passions will improve your life more than anything. Music will be with you forever. Guys…

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August 31, 2011
Awareness / Nonjudgment

When to judge

After three posts on avoiding expressing judgment, I should clarify I don't suggest never expressing judgment. Here are a few cases where I express judgment. Judging myself: using my criteria to evaluate myself doesn't deprecate others' values, for example, writing "I should clarify" above. I do take care to notice my values change, particularly when evaluating myself in the past (see my series Goodbye guilt and blame for more on judging yourself). With clear criteria or goals: when everyone knows the criteria for evaluation, I find no problem in using them. For example, in "Judging people is a good way to antagonize them," the term good evaluates based on ability to antagonize. The criteria are clear. Someone may disagree on my evaluation, but won't take…

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August 15, 2011
Awareness / Nonjudgment

More thoughts on being less judgmental

A reader wrote, in response to Friday's post "How to stop being so judgmental," Thanks Joshua for the insight on judgement. I have used less negative words and have already replaced them with a more positive intake on certain topics to avoid negativity. By doing so, I have noticed a more positive reaction from peers and friends, which leads to more productive outakes on actions in a general sense. Thanks! :) First, thank you for the rewarding feedback and you're welcome if I've helped you make your life more like you want it. I can think of little more rewarding than to contribute to someone improve their life. You touched on a fine point I hadn't clarified in the post. Frankly, I haven't completely clarified…

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August 14, 2011
Awareness / Nonjudgment / Tips

Another way to avoid acting judgmentally

Another reason for yesterday's post on avoiding acting judgmentally came from a project some people told me about called E-prime. From Wikipedia E-Prime is a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be. Hence, E-Prime allows neither conjugations of to be (am, are, is, was, were, be, been, being), nor archaic forms (e.g. art, wast, wert), nor contractions ('s, 'm, 're). Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing. For example, the sentence "the movie was good" could translate into E-Prime as "I liked the movie" or as "the movie made me laugh". The E-Prime versions communicate the speaker's experience rather than judgment, making it harder for the writer or reader to confuse…

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August 13, 2011
Blog / Freedom / Leadership / Tips

How to stop being so judgmental

Nobody likes feeling judged. We don't like other people feeling so high and mighty as to judge us. I bet you're more judgmental than you realize. Here's how to raise your awareness of it, reduce it, annoy people less, and share more about yourself. I bet you don't realize how judgmental you seem to others, even if you don't intend it. Nor, I bet, do people making you feel judged realize how much they seem judgmental. Why not? Because judgment is in our language. It doesn't have to, but it often is. My exercise on avoiding judgmental words from a few months ago continues to surprise me as it makes me more aware of my own and others' speech. I'm re-posting about the exercise because…

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August 12, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Leadership

You don’t know your values until you test them, part II

Yesterday's post described how interacting with a former Austrian soldier, now friend's grandfather led me to examine my values. Such interactions lead you to expand your understanding of others and of humanity as well. Let's understand the situation. Comparing people to Nazis has become an internet joke (perhaps insightful) called Godwin's Law. This situation isn't that. This man was a Nazi foot soldier, proud of some aspects of it. I'm not comparing or judging, only using the real-life situation to examine values from a perspective beyond most people's every day experience. I posted this anecdote because it's been on my mind since posting this exercise in improving your empathy three weeks ago. That post got more response and feedback than most others. You can read…

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July 26, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Leadership

You don’t know your values until you test them

You may think you know your values. Until you test them, you probably don't. Understanding their boundaries helps you understand them better. Testing them in controlled situations prepares you for surprises others aren't prepared for. Preparation like that makes for effective leadership of yourself and others. If you never plan to reach any boundaries, you may not expect to benefit from examining them. But then if you never examine them, you won't do well when you do things outside going to work, watching TV, and buying things in malls. I've thought about values -- my own and values in general -- a lot, I suspect more than average. I've come to many conclusions about them. The following anecdote presents a case whose meaning and applications…

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July 25, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

Solving Problems I: The Dandelion Versus The Burning Building

Many people have a counterproductive yet common model for solving their problems. If you use it, you're holding yourself back from a better life. There's an alternative, however, which I'll write about below too. The Dandelion Model I call it the "dandelion model" because it's based on the idea that to get rid of a dandelion, you have to get to its roots. If you don't, it will grow back. The dandelion model says that to handle a problem in your life, you have to understand the root of the problem. If you don't, even if you think you've solved it, it will return and you'll have to deal with it all over again. A consequence of the model is that you should understand a…

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June 29, 2011
More changing your perspective
Perspective Change 1
Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

More changing your perspective

I'll build on yesterday's post on changing your perspective to make it easier to change your perspective with a post I've been meaning to write for a while. Airports around the world are full of an ad campaign that provide another great exercise in enabling changing your perspective. Flexibility in changing your perspective is one of the most important tools in changing your world, creating freedom for yourself, and in building intelligence. The ad campaign illustrates what I call the passive view of models. It demonstrates that we simplify objects and concepts by modeling them. In the case of the ad campaign, usually a word or two represents a good deal of meaning of what's pictured. In practice we often represent things as complex as…

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June 27, 2011
Awareness / Blog

Celebrating other people’s values

People confuse someone else's values being different from their own with being worse than their own. If other people's values were worse, then statements like the following two would portend the end of society. The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. -- Commonly attributed to Socrates The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents…

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June 10, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Tips

Are you being judgmental without realizing?, part IV

Following up my previous post in this thread, I forgot a few judgmental words and some tips on avoiding sounding judgmental. The judgmental words see frequent usage: Should Ought to Impressed A friend once said "there are very few shoulds in life." I found his observation helpful. I have found avoiding telling people what they should or shouldn't do helpful. When you say someone should do something they aren't doing, you're advising them based on your values. If they asked for your advice, you're probably helping them. If you haven't, you're probably judging. On to the tips. In the first exercise of the last post, I offered alternatives to judgmental language. Here is some clarification. Many (most?) of the time someone says something is right…

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May 14, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Tips

Are you being judgmental without realizing?, part II

Yesterday I wrote about how we often judge people implicitly without realizing -- often a repellent behavior -- and one class of implicitly judgmental language. The second class of implicitly judgmental language is when you make value judgments without realizing it. Here are a few examples: "People on the left say X. People on the right say Y. I'm not political about it, I'm practical and I look for a practical solution." "John is extreme. I prefer the middle path." "Sally works too hard. She needs to balance work and life." "If Jane were a real manager, she'd ..." "I know you like to do X, but in the real world we have problems that require ..." "The reality of the situation is that..." "The…

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May 5, 2011
Awareness / Blog / Tips

Are you being judgmental without realizing?, part I

Do you like being judged? Nobody likes when someone else is self-righteous, holier-than-thou, or high-and-mighty to them. Would you be shocked to find you're judging people -- thereby repelling them -- without realizing it? Would you want to do something about it? You probably avoid judgmental people. I'd bet it's one of the major reasons you avoid the people you do. (Clients often mention their parents here. Even recognizing their parents' best intents, their being judgmental is repellant.) You're probably comfortable with nonjudgmental people, or who actively practice nonjudgmental acceptance. Yet you probably communicate judgment to people without realizing it, mainly in words you choose without realizing it, as I'll describe below. The good news is you can do something about it, and what you…

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May 4, 2011
Awareness / Blog

Goodbye guilt and blame, IV

[This post is part of a series on overcoming guilt and blame for good. 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.] Two days ago I suggested that we all believe we don't try to hurt others and therefore should give others the same benefit of the doubt, even if we feel hurt by them. Yesterday I proposed a model that we all the the best we can, not just yourself. Today I'll combine those two ideas and suggest that if you were in someone else's position and had their same perspective and abilities, you would do the same they would. Being in another's position is…

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April 27, 2011

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