values Archives - Page 3 of 11 - Joshua Spodek

Blog

What’s the relationship between eating and working for you?

If you work at an office and eat lunch in the middle of the day, what is the relationship between working and eating for you? Do you take a break to eat? Do you eat alone or with others? Do you eat while you work? The way I think of it is to ask Are you there to work and eating is a distraction? or Is eating one of life's great pleasures and work is a distraction? You don't have to choose between only a few options. I see the fundamental question for people who work for others as Which is more fundamental to you -- eating or working for your employer? I hope you love your work and it consists of great relationships and…

January 18, 2013

Blog

Why labels and symbols don’t change things; and what they are effective at

Following up yesterday's post, when I talk to people about something they judge, like torture, the topic that motivated yesterday's post, some of them point out that once you decide something is torture or right or wrong, you can do something about it. People like labeling things because labels mean so much. If you don't call a behavior torture, they think, people don't know what it means. Once you call it torture, they continue, you attach meaning to it and you can do something about it. I agree it attaches meaning, but when you use a word or a phrase or a symbol as shorthand for something, you don't know what meaning anyoneÂ else attaches to it. One person hears torture and thinks "illegal violation of…

January 17, 2013

Blog

Instead of calling something right, wrong, good, or bad, consider the consequences of your actions

I just watched Zero Dark Thirty and read a bunch of stuff about torture. People often ask about morality and ethics -- is such an action right or wrong, good or bad. Asking the morality of actions and behavior doesn't change them. I don't see categorizing, judging, andÂ labeling things helping. Calling something good, bad, right, wrong, etc does no more than label them (tomorrow I'll write more on why labels don't change things). I think people think they are making sense of things for themselves and helping others understand, but I don't think it works out that way. Or they think if they label something enough or with enough argument or emotion others will agree. But if one person says something is wrong, someone…

January 16, 2013

Overview of Understanding leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion — six key concepts of this web page

Awareness / Blog / Leadership

Overview of Understanding leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion — six key concepts of this web page

Today I'll give an overview of the series I just finished on understanding the six key concepts of this web page:Â leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion. What is value? What are values? What is value? What are values? (short version) Understanding othersâ€™ value and their values What is meaning? How do I create more meaning in my life? What is purpose? How do I create more purpose in my life? Understanding leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion â€” Interlude on writing on emotions and emotional awareness so much What is importance? What makes something important? How do I have more important things in my life and less junk? What is passion? How do you find your passions? What is leadership? There, now that you've…

January 5, 2013

What is leadership?

Awareness / Blog / Education / Leadership

What is leadership?

Next on the list of concepts under my name at the top of this page is leadership. See earlier posts for values, meaning, purpose, importance, and passion. Unlike the other concepts, leadership intrinsically involves other people. At first that complexity makes it seem harder to understand, but I think it gets simpler in the end. I start my "Leadership through emotional intelligence and self-awareness" seminars by asking what leadership is, following how my core Leadership course began at Columbia Business School. Since understanding an apparently broad concept like leadership on its own can be hard Columbia's course talks about "six pillars" of leadership, each of which you can understand and learn more easily than leadership in general. You can break down leadership in different ways.…

January 4, 2013

Awareness / Blog

What is passion? How do you find your passions?

Next on the list of words under my name at the top of this page is passion. See earlier posts for values, meaning, purpose, and importance. I think people understand passion more precisely than the previous concepts. Also, I think people also connect passion to emotion, so I don't have to explain why I'm connecting the concept to emotions like I did for the earlier posts. The dictionary's three relevant definitions are emotion intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept Wikipedia starts its page on passion with Passion (from the Ancient Greek verb Ï€Î¬ÏƒÏ‡Ï‰ (paskho) meaning to suffer) is a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or…

January 3, 2013

What is importance? What makes something important? How do I have more important things in my life and less junk?

Awareness / Blog / Leadership

What is importance? What makes something important? How do I have more important things in my life and less junk?

Next on the list of concepts under my name at the top of this page is importance. See earlier posts for values, meaning, and purpose. For something to be important, it has to change your life. If something doesn't affect your life, it's hard to call it important. And something changing your life means you do something different than you would have done otherwise. In other words, something important changes your motivations -- it motivates you. In other words, it affects your emotions. As with values, meaning, and purpose, if you want to understand something's importance to you, understand how it affects your emotions. How important it is stems from the characteristics of the emotions it evokes. Something evoking long-term emotions has long-term importance. Something…

January 2, 2013

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Leadership

Understanding leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion — Interlude on writing on emotions and emotional awareness so much

You've probably noticed I'm writing a series of posts on the main themes of this blog -- the words under my name at the top: leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, and passion. If youâ€™ve gotten the idea now that Iâ€™m relating these concepts back to knowing your emotions and emotional system, Iâ€™m glad. I thought I'd take a post to explain why. The vagueness people throw terms around with makes it hard to work with them. When the terms in question are values, meaning, purpose, importance, leadership, and passion -- well, those aren't things you just vaguely want to hope for in life. If vague is all you can do, vague is all you'll get. If you understand these things precisely you can act on…

January 1, 2013

What is purpose? How do I create more purpose in my life?

Awareness / Blog

What is purpose? How do I create more purpose in my life?

The past few posts have covered two concepts under my name at the top of this blog -- values and meaning. On to purpose. As with values and meaning I want to ground an important but nearly always vaguely used and defined concept in simple, understandable terms. As with values and meaning, purpose describes not things or actions, but something more about the feelings related to such things. For example, learning is an action. Learning with a purpose means learning in a different way. Describing doing anything as with a purpose or purposefully describes your mental state. You can observe the difference between how someone behaves when with a purpose versus when not. That's the effect of the cause -- your emotional state. Purpose means…

December 31, 2012

Blog

What is meaning? How do I create more meaning in my life?

Three days ago I started my post with There it is at the top of every page, right under my name: â€œValues.â€ What does value mean? What are values? Right after "Values" up there under my name is "Meaning." Do I have to justify the importance of having meaning in your life and therefore of understanding the concept of meaning? The quintessential philosophical question is "what is the meaning of life?".Â We all want meaning in our lives. Nobody wants their life to be meaningless. So what does meaning mean? What makes something meaningful? I won't even mention the dictionary and Wikipedia content on "meaning." Click the links if you want, or just take my word for it, if you want to understand what meaning…

December 30, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Understanding others’ value and their values

Following up on the past two days' posts on values, let's look at understanding other people's values. I don't think I need to explain the value of understanding others' values in developing a relationship with them, especially if you want them to like you to for you to influence them. I need only point out at that since you almost certainly wish more people understood you better, they feel the same way -- be they coworkers, colleagues, friends, family, etc. When you identify values as based in emotion, you realize understanding other people's values means more or less empathizing with them. Most people wish others understood them better. I think a lot of people wish they understood others better. If you want to lead others,…

December 29, 2012

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology

What is value? What are values? (short version)

I wanted to simplify yesterday's post. The following is just my perspective. I find it helpful, simplifying and clarifying an otherwise vague and complex topic, basing it in something everyone can understand -- how they feel. Understanding the concept of value helps you create value in your life, which everyone benefits from. In more basic terms, it helps you create more emotions you like. I consider talking about emotions more basic than talking about values because you know what you feel. What is value? The term value describes what emotions something evokes in you. You value things that evoke emotions you like. You devalue things that evoke emotions you don't like. If you like your family, you'll value them. If you don't you won't. Same…

December 28, 2012

Blog / Evolutionary Psychology

What is value? What are values?

There it is at the top of every page, right under my name [Edit: I changed the page design since writing this post]: "Values." What does value mean? What are values? Everybody knows the value of values. You can find plenty of books on values-based leadership. Everybody knows you should stick to your values. Nobody suggests knowing you should know your values less. Few people can define the meaning of values precisely. Yet I suggest, in Socrates' spirit that the unexamined life is not worth living, that you'll never appreciate values any more than you understand what they are. In other words, the better you understand the concept of value, the more value your life will have. Or at least the more value you can…

December 27, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 5: examples

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. 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.] As a final note on empathy gaps, I wanted to note a few examples of empathy gaps -- using them, observing them in others, and observing them in yourself. Researchers normally present empathy gaps as problems. I like to think of them as a part of life like any other. We can use the effect to help us. Teenager egg-carrying exercise I remember a high school assignment for students to carry an egg with them everywhere for a week or a month. Eggs, of course, are fragile, so…

December 15, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 4: overcoming them

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. 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.] Now we are familiar with empathy gaps -- that when you feel one emotion you generally canâ€™t conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion. We get how insidious they can be in keeping us from improving our lives. What do we do about them? How do we shield ourselves from them undermining our efforts? I haven't found research on effective techniques (please contact me if you know of any) in avoiding, overcoming, or developing resilience to empathy gaps. I only have my understanding of them and…

December 14, 2012

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 3: why empathy gaps make sense

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 3: why empathy gaps make sense

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. 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.] As usual, understanding ourselves better helps us overcome the problems of empathy gaps -- that when you feel one emotion you generally canâ€™t conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion. Yet as they fundamentally concern being unable to understand things about ourselves, you'd think they were difficult to understand. On the contrary, you can understand them if you understand your emotional system. Luckily we have an easy way to understand our emotional systems. Empathy gaps depend on your emotional system Also as usual, the Model explains…

December 13, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Evolutionary Psychology / Nature

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 2: research and experiments

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. 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 I talked about the effect that when you feel one emotion you generally canâ€™t conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion, nor do you realize you can't, also known as empathy gaps. Today let's look at some research and experiments. Sexual arousal A comedian once remarked on the question people suggest you asking before considering unprotected sex, "would you die for it." He said sometimes when you're in the moment, you think you might. Dan Ariely, in his book Predictably Irrational (which I recommend), wrote…

December 12, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

One of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done, part 1

[This post is part of a series on empathy gaps. 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.] Did you know you undermine some of your best efforts to do challenging things, especially involving personal change? You do. We all do, through an effect that makes sense when you get it, but most people don't realize undermines them. The effect is this When you feel one emotion you generally can't conceive of your motivations when feeling a different emotion. Or more to the point When you plan to do something you feel one set of emotions, often enthusiasm. When you act on them you feel different…

December 11, 2012

Blog / Leadership / Tips

Common objection 9: I’m too busy. I have other priorities.

[This post is part of a series on internal objections and blocks and how to overcome them. 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.] Objection Some people want to take on new projects or change something in their lives but they have too many other things. I'm too busy. I have too many other priorities. For this obstacle, I'll mention that your other priorities may be more important. Only you know. Example Examples are too numerous to mention. We all have things in our lives -- work, friends, family, hobbies, etc -- that take time, energy, attention, connections, and other resources. If you aren't completely…

November 29, 2012

Variety, choice, the manufactured illusion of it, and creating more yourself

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Nature

Variety, choice, the manufactured illusion of it, and creating more yourself

Can we all agree processed food is unhealthy garbage? Yet people eat tons of it. I want to talk about one reason. And that reason is not just about cereal. It applies to many places in life. When I was a kid I loved boxed cereal. Didn't everyone grow up eating it? And as a kid you loved sugar cereals. Why not? Before some age you hardly knew or cared about nutrition. Over the years I learned about nutrition, especially how removing everything from a grain but the sugar ruins it. Then adding more sugar ruins it more. Adding some vitamins negligibly changes it nutritionally; it just helps market it to people who don't know better. This knowledge changed my experience walking down the supermarket…

November 16, 2012

Obesity, insults, and living by your values

In a recent online discussion a guy talking about a tv show on morbidly obese people talked about people on the show disparagingly. He also said he used to be fat. Other people took him to task and criticized him as insulting and rude. I'm not sure I agree he was necessarily insulting and rude. For one thing, he later clarified he said what he did in part "to galvanise people into action and not blame their condition on nebulous causes." To me, that intent meets the Golden Rule. Maybe I'm revealing my ignorance and not that I say "you're fat" to anyone, but I don't see calling someone fat as insulting. If someone takes being called fat as an insult, I see it as…

November 14, 2012

Thriving in challenging situations

I asked my friend in Bayonne that I wrote about yesterday, whose neighborhood the storm destroyed, to review yesterday's post before putting it up. I found his comments inspiring. I know when reading them I hear his voice. As a personal trainer, he's almost always upbeat and I can hear his motivating tone in these words. I hope that upbeat, non-judgmental tone comes across in the words. Other people have lost their homes and I've been helping them with it. In my household though, everyone has a different negative attitude about it. One panic, the other inconvenience, and next door someone is in complete despair, crying every day trying to recharge their phone. One of my clients' daughter has croupe and she's worried about her…

November 11, 2012

How do you respond to others’ suffering?

How do you respond to others’ suffering?

A reader raised the question for me of how to respond to others' suffering. She wrote about my recent posts about the aftermath of the storm: You may want to show some empathy at your blog for those hardest hit who have been displaced from their homes with children, not knowing whether to stay or go, not having many options at their disposal, worried for the safety of their children, getting by on no heat, no clean water or any water at all, and felt out of the loop while the local government seemed most focused on Manhattan where most of the young people were walking around like nomads happy they had off from work or little work and looked to it as a huge…

November 10, 2012

Values change

Blog

Values change

People think they're values stay constant. They change all the time. Here's a simple example. It may seem like it's on a small or unimportant. The principle applies to lots of places. When I was a kid Sony came out with the Walkman, revolutionizing listening to music. You could bring a cassette with you anywhere and listen to it without bothering others. Suddenly people who never felt they needed music anytime anywhere felt they did. A couple years ago they needed the latest mp3 players. More to the point, they would shoot themselves if they had to make do with a device like the Walkman You have to buy new batteries all the time Up to about ten songs Have to listen to songs in…

November 7, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Misconceptions about values

People have a lot of misconceptions about values that make it hard for people to know and live by theirs. In particular, people imagine sticking to their values in challenging situations hard. Misconception 1: It's hard to stick to your values during crises, conflict, and ethical dilemmas A lot of people think that crises, conflicts, and ethical dilemmas entice you to drop your values and just do what's easy. I suggest those situations make it easy to learn your values -- they're what you do. Everyone always does something in any situation. What you do, that's your values. Some rise to the occasion, some avoid problems, some run from them, some sit and analyze them forever, some ask others for help. And so on. So…

November 6, 2012

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