self-improvement Archives - Page 8 of 18 - Joshua Spodek

A good listening question, especially if you talk too much

Anyone who knows me knows my tendency to talk too much. I find most people seem prone to talk too much in certain situations. So how do you learn to reign yourself in? People usually don't like when someone else dominates a conversation, so it helps to learn when you are talking too much and how to stop doing so. Talking a lot doesn't necessarily mean talking too much. Some people tell amazing stories and you don't want them to stop talking, or give you fascinating histories or information you enjoy learning. Anyway, I just finished a conversation that ended with what I considered a great question I plan to use again. I considered it helpful, though it exposes a weakness. Toward the end of…

September 10, 2012

Blog / Freedom / Leadership

Examples of ignoring impediments on the way to greatness

When you think of great orators, Winston Churchill has to be near the top of the list. His speeches include I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. and Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on…

September 7, 2012

Blog / Education / Exercises / Fitness / Freedom / Models / Tips

A model to make hard decisions easier

[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.] When I worry about a difficult choice I have to make I think of a parable. Some martial arts students ask their teacher how he always keeps his balance. He asks what they mean. They say, well you never fall down so you must never lose your balance. He says, on the contrary, I'm always losing my balance, but I'm also always recovering. I try to live like that. Things are always making me lose my balance but I rarely fall.…

September 6, 2012

Blog / Freedom / Leadership

Lessons in freedom from Charles Barkley

When I talk about freedom here I usually mean your mental freedom to think and believe what you want. I consider this freedom more fundamental than, say, political freedom, not that I see much point in comparing them. Everyone benefits from both and few, if anyone, has to choose between either. Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning described how fundamental he considered the freedom to believe what you want, the freedom that allowed him to find meaning in life as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Charles Barkley Charles Barkley was one of the…

September 5, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Tips

Too much is a problem too

I hear people talk about those who have less -- usually less materially or less opportunity -- as deserving help and compassion. With due respect to their problems, I'd like to consider another challenging situation: having too much. First let me preface the huge difference between having too little and too much: people with too much can cut back. People with limited access to resources or opportunity can't usually create them out of thin air. People with too much may not know how to cut crap out, but they can. Big difference. Walking around New York last visit, I saw people with a lot more stuff and opportunity than I saw in Asia. But I didn't see them happier. On the contrary, I saw many…

September 3, 2012

Blog / Education / Entrepreneurship / Freedom

How I got to work a day or two a week

Despite my posting on how I find asking "so what do you do" a boring question, apparently everyone I meet hasn't read every post on my site, so they keep asking me what I do. It's hard to answer the question when you know they want to know your work when work is such a small part of your life. You can talk about making art, writing, travels, etc, but those answers never satisfy them. They want to know your job -- passions, hobbies, relationships, etc be damned. You may want to suggest how they don't have to accept one's job defining so much about a person -- or that if it does you don't have to ask, they'll tell you. But if someone did…

September 2, 2012

Blog / Entrepreneurship

So you’re good at meeting people. How do you choose whom to meet?

A reader asked about how to meet people once you're good at it. I'll start with a current example for me. Actually, first I'll note different categories of meeting people since I meet people in different situations in different ways. Today I'll look at an entrepreneurial business situation. Another time I'll look at regular business situations or social situations. An entrepreneurial business situation means I'm trying to do something big that's never been done before so I don't know about any existing systems or communities doing exactly what I'm thinking of, though there are people who do related things. I hope you don't mind I'm not yet sharing the idea so I have to stay vague. I think of starting a new project like how…

August 31, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Motivation, energy to act, and expectation of success

Do you suffer from low motivation, not knowing your passions, laziness, and other forms of just not feeling like putting the effort in? Do you want to have more motivation and passion? Most people tell me they're lazy about a lot of things and don't know their passions. Luckily, you can change that. Personally I don't like being that way or hanging around with people like that. I connect with people on their passions. I've written on this topic before. Today I want to state very simply where motivation and energy, and their lack -- laziness, lethargy and lack of energy -- come from. Unlike chemical energy, you can't measure emotional energy in calories. Your amount of motivation to do something is so simple and…

August 27, 2012

Growing up in a bad part of town

Growing up in a bad part of town

I was watching Chris Rock on Inside the Actors Studio. He talked about how growing up in dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn helped form him. Personally, I highly value the self-made-ness of a self-made man or woman. I think most people do, especially compared to someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth. His description of his childhood in a bad neighborhood reminded me of a neighborhood I spent some time growing up in. I started writing this post about my self-made-ness, but realized it's more about my mother's. I looked up the name of a street my mom moved to not long after my parents divorced -- Rockland Street in Philadelphia. In the 70s it was, to say the least, an economically depressed neighborhood.…

August 26, 2012

Handling annoying requests from your superiors at work

A client wrote with a challenge. He does sales on commission. Some assistant managers, also on commission, ask him to do small tasks that take him off the sales floor, helping their chances for commissions at his expense. He mostly acquiesces to their requests. On the occasions he declined, he "lashed out," showing intense emotions coworkers interpreted as mood swings. His question touches on what happen in many places where people lash out when they don't know what to do, so I'll treat that aspect of it. Learning how to handle complex business and social situations applies everywhere. I wrote him the following (slightly edited): Lashing out and having mood swings go hand in hand with not knowing what to do or how to do…

August 23, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership

The one person you can never see from another person’s perspective is yourself

The one person you can never see from another person's perspective is yourself. Ironic because that's the one person you'd most like to see from another person's perspective. Everyone else sees you that way, so it would be nice to see how other people see us. You always hear stories about people who think they're great leaders, but unknown to them, they always scowl or their voices don't sound like they think they do or people undermine them behind their backs. As a coach, offering an external perspective -- a mirror -- is one of the more valuable services I can offer, even if I give no active advice but merely passive feedback. As a regular person, like anyone else I wish I could see…

August 12, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom

Rules: what are they and how do you get to play by your own?

Speaking of superstars, they seem to play by their own rules. Most of us wish we could. How do you get to play by your own rules, not someone else's? Today I'll look at rules from a few different contexts and ask a few questions about them. A rule describes how people should behave. Context 1: Mutually agreed-on rules When I think of playing a game, rules make sense. We want to enjoy ourselves or maybe see who is better. Playing chess only makes sense if we agree on rules. Otherwise, what's the point? Context 2: Rules agreed on by some Laws are kinds of rules. Most laws imposed on me were written before I was born. I tend to agree with many of them,…

August 10, 2012

Art / Blog / Entrepreneurship / Freedom / Leadership

More on becoming a superstar

I wanted to comment on a quote in yesterday's post about becoming a superstar that illustrates an aspect important for the aspiring star -- you. And, again, superstardom can mean breakout success in any area -- starting a company, making CEO, being a superstar boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, etc. A musician I quoted yesterday commented that American Idol's shooting-the-moon style isn't really about music. It's about all the bad aspects of the music business — the arrogance of commerce, this sense of 'I know what will make this person a star; artists themselves don't know.' I've only seen a few minutes of the show, but it looks like the judges speak authoritatively (not that they have authority, just that they speak that way) on what…

August 9, 2012

Art / Blog / Entrepreneurship / Freedom / Leadership

How to become a superstar

This post is about breakout success in any area -- starting a company, making CEO, being a superstar boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, etc -- but I'll put it in the language of entertainment superstardom. I'll leave translating it to the language of the field you want to succeed in as an exercise. But I guarantee it applies. Superstars make it look so easy. They dress how they want, say what they want, and do what they want and the world loves them for it. Everyone else has to think about what they say and do all the time -- and then gets judged for it. How do they do it? Building a solid foundation I'm conservative about hitting it big. This quote on a Bruce…

August 8, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

Three things I learned from yoga

You can learn a lot from yoga. I'm no expert, but I did it a couple times a week for a couple years a few years ago. My teacher was great, if anyone wants a recommendation for someone in New York City. I learned three things I didn't expect that I found valuable. I haven't seen them written up elsewhere, not that I read much on yoga since I find most yoga writing too new age-y, so I thought I'd write them up here. I should mention I don't find yoga more life altering than any other physical activity. Some people attach a mystical aura to it, with all the foreign words and claims to thousands-of-years-old heritages, but I find any physical activity can give…

August 5, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Tips

How far should I develop myself? It’s hard!

A client asked me about doing exercises to develop leadership and social skills. He pointed out most people don't do them. Some people do them differently. He's been doing them a while and has seen some progress, but knows he has a long way to go. He asked my thoughts on how much he should do. I wrote the following. I look at leadership and social skills, leadership, and self-awareness exercises like learning any major life skill, like playing a sport, learning to dance, to play music, etc. In sports you have to run drills. You have to run sprints, sometimes in the rain, sometimes when you don't think you have it in you. You can skip those things, but in sports you compete, so…

August 4, 2012

Blog / Leadership

Leadership, personal development, choosing to care, and emotional pain

Devoting yourself to something means emotions can get attached. This happens as much in professional leadership as in personal lives. In professional environments you can choose to care deeply about your work or not. Entrepreneurs can devote themselves so much as to lose everything in a project. Athletes and teams that come in second often seem more crushed, despite being the second best in the world, than those who merely qualified to compete and finished far behind. And who among us doesn't know the pain of a relationship ending? Success means you will fail along the way. Nobody wins every game they play. No relationship lasts forever (this isn't news to you, but at the very least one of you will die first). All companies…

July 22, 2012

Having acceptance, tolerance, and hope show gaping holes in your life

Acceptance, tolerance, and hope -- among the top virtues can you have, right? I disagree. Disagreeing with what the mainstream considers virtues may sound bizarre, but I'll show you their shortcomings and how you can do better. While I prefer them to nonstop rejection, intolerance, and hopelessness, and agree they help society remain civil, these practices show gaping holes in your life if you hold them as high ideals. Each suffers from the same complacent shortcoming -- suggesting you stay satisfied with less than you could. What do acceptance, tolerance, and hope mean? A couple examples illustrate the terms' shortcomings. To accept something means you don't like it. If you found a winning lottery ticket worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would you accept it?…

July 21, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom

My fitness habits, part 4: Nothing special about what I did

Since so many people don't like their physical condition, don't find reward or joy in exercising, and regard these aspects of their life as punishments, I imagine many of them want to change their beliefs and behaviors, perhaps using my example as inspiration. Many people may not care too, I guess. I've written a lot on the topics -- enough that it might seem overwhelming. Can anyone do what I do? I didn't do anything anyone else couldn't. Maybe they don't want to or haven't figured out how to, but they could. I don't read many diet or exercise books, but I have a feeling they don't make a point of focusing on your emotions, which I consider the foundation for successful change. I focus…

July 20, 2012

Blog / Fitness / Freedom

My fitness habits, part 3: Exercise

As I've written before, exercise for me is about the emotions it creates. I start exercises for joy, fun, friendship, etc. For many people exercise seems punishing. If I didn't realize I, like anyone, could make exercise create whatever emotions I wanted and I felt stuck with punishment, I wouldn't do it. Luckily I learned to find the joy, fun, etc in exercise -- as anyone can -- and built from there. History I've exercised consistently since I started running cross country in high school in the 80s. I was chubby as a kid -- at least I remember my older step-brother teasing me about being chubby before I started sports. Although they signed me up for little league baseball and soccer, I don't remember…

July 19, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom

My fitness beliefs and habits, part 2: Food and Eating

What I eat I don't feel like I pay attention to what I eat that much, although I've habitualized a lot so I probably eat healthily without thinking about it. I don't pay attention to proteins versus carbohydrates. I definitely don't count calories. I think paying attention to those things means you're eating the wrong things. I mean, I'm kind of aware of those things, but the more I eat fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains, the less I pay attention to proteins, carbohydrates, and calories and the better my body seems. How can you eat too much spinach, mangoes, or oats? Can you? I mean, your body will stop you before you can. With sugary beverages, I've noticed your tongue always sends signals…

July 18, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom

My fitness beliefs and habits, part 1: Principles

A reader asked I like what you said about the body being a reflection of how we live our life. I also agree about the genetics; its too much of a cop out to say that you can't help being obese. I do have a question though. Your photos show that you are in shape but you have previously posted that your workout regimen consists of only a minute of burpees twice a day. As someone who works out an hour a day to stay in shape this blows my mind. Are you rationing calories as well or just watching what you eat? Do you have any before/after photos showing the progress made after 6 months on this program? Context The short response to that…

July 17, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Tips

You don’t find your passion, you create it

A client asked how to find your passion (in the context of relationships, as you'll see). I wrote the following (slightly edited). -------------------------------- You don't find some single latent passion within you, if only you can find it. You create it. What is passion? It's powerful emotion. Emotion doesn't come from out there. It comes from in here. How do you create something in here? Not by looking out there. By growing, learning, building, exploring, and developing skills in here. Stuff out there gives you something to work with, but your passion is inside you. You have a zillion things you like, each of which could grow to into one of, or the, overarching source of passion that drives your life. Until I found out…

July 15, 2012

Blog

The scourge of romantic comedies

Romantic comedies hurt us. If you know me long enough you'll hear many reasons why. Today I'll talk about a couple. In nearly all of them the girl comes to realize how great the guy really is under the surface. She realizes who he really is. She also realizes who the bad guy is and why he's bad. Unsuccessful guys who just know how great they are underneath see them and think, if only people could see how he is inside he'd be a winner. He hopes that if he stays the course a girl will recognize him for it. How many counterproductive beliefs and behaviors does this model reinforce? It makes people worse by any standard I can think of. Probably the aspect that…

July 7, 2012

If you crave something you don’t have, people who have it will always be able to control you

The title of this post speaks for itself so I'll keep it short. I just keep seeing people wishing they had more than they need not realizing how they are creating jails for themselves, giving others control over their lives. If you always want more money, people with more money will get you to work for them. If you want fame, people with access to media will get you to work for them. If you want power and influence, people with power and influence will get you to work for them. You get the idea. Oh, and when they get you to work for them, they won't reward you for it. If you don't crave something, someone will try to convince you that you do…

July 6, 2012

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