Remembering Bobby McFerrin

Happiness is a human universal. That is to say, all humans seek happiness. Donald Brown wrote an excellent book, on the subject, titled Human Universals. Brown doesn't list happiness directly but that's because he's concerned with behaviors. Upon looking at the book, it is clear that many of the behaviors he lists are intended to induce a state of happiness. Examples would be: sports, courtship, dancing, games, joking, gift-giving, hospitality, and visiting.

History is littered with messages about happiness. We can go all the way back to Aristotle who said, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” In more modern time the Dalai Lama spoke for the Buddhist tradition when he said, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “We all seek happiness.” The problem is that the concept is very elusive. What does happiness mean? And, how can we get more of it? These are questions scientists have turned to in the last decade or so. The name of this new, and exciting field, is “Positive Psychology.” One way of putting it is that it's the study of mental health as opposed to mental illness.

It was Bobby McFerrin who sang that song "Don't Worry, Be Happy." It was a fun and catchy song and it's good advice to remember. But, like many things, it much easier said than done. The good news is that scientist are turning their attention to ways we can actually execute on Mr. McFerrin's prescription. Let me give you an example.

One researcher in the field of PP is named Sonja Lyubomirksy. Sonja is a professor of psychology at the University of California–Riverside and has written an excellent book titled The How of Happiness. Over time I will be discussing the various findings of professor Lyubomirksy but, for now, let me just give you one kernel of information. Forty percent of people's happiness is dependent on their conscious and willful efforts. That is to say, 40% of how happy we are depends on the thoughts we decide to think and the things we decide to do.

A lot of people think we're either born happy or we're not. That's only partially true. About 50% of our perceived level of happiness is based on genetics. So while, yes, some people are born happier than others, it doesn't have to be the deciding factor.

Furthermore, a lot of people think happiness is circumstantial, meaning the result of our circumstances. This shows itself when people say a sentence like the following, “I'll be happy when ________.” I'll be happy when I find the right job. I'll be happy when I get married. I'll be happy when I have children. And on and on. But circumstances only determine 10% of our happiness level.

The real leverage is in the 40% which is dependent upon the thoughts we decide to think and the things we decide to do. Over time I will cover more and more of the specific, scientifically accredited, strategies that we can all use to increase our level of happiness. So, if you haven't done so already, click on the “Join this site” button and follow along. Thanks.

Paging Ron Johnson, Paging Ron Johnson...

If you're the type to follow the business world, you know the name Ron Johnson. Ron is the recently ousted CEO of JCPenney. Mr. Johnson made a name for himself at Apple Computers, pioneering such things as the Genius Bar. As we know, JCP has been going through really tough times lately. And it was Johnson's success in retail that got him hired on as the top dog. Unfortunately, his tenure lasted only 16 months. So, what went wrong?

I have a brother who works for JCPenney. He isn't a board-level executive, or corporate officer, and I don't pretend to know everything. However, it was really interesting hearing the news reports and comparing them with the things my brother had to say. In the end, the moral is a story we all need to hear over and over again. It's all about the inevitability of change.

You'd probably agree that people dislike change. While resistance to change causes a lot of problems and heartache, it's a completely understandable phenomenon. The reason we don't want things to change is because resistance is hardwired into our brains. Psychologists have identified something called the Status Quo Bias. This notion, that we value what we have more than what we could have, has been repeatedly confirmed in the lab. People value what they have (the status quo) roughly twice as much as what they could have. In turn, this creates tremendous resistance to change.

Resistance to change appears to be at the heart of Penney's problems. According to Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath, JCP's real problem is the shrinking middle class. The solution, which is admittedly easier said than done, is to adapt, to innovate. Penney's hasn't kept up with the times and they're paying for it. The good news is, we know we can build a culture of innovation because lots of companies are doing it. And they're not just companies in the Silicon Valley. I'll give you one example and it's a company that is older than the one created by James Cash.

General Electric began in 1892 while JCPenney was founded is 1902. Is it inevitable that all companies eventually die? Perhaps. But GE is a marvelous example of how to stave off decline. The main reason for GE's continued success is the brilliance of their organization. Woven into the fabric of General Electric's DNA is a culture of innovation and leadership.

If you go to Crotonville, NY you will find the GE Management Development Institute. This is where Jeff Immelt, and his cohorts, develop their next generation of leaders. In fact, it's where Immelt himself was developed. GE invests a lot of time and money into teaching and education. And they don't mess around. They bring in the best of the best. People like Peter Drucker, Noel Tichy, and Vijay Govindarajan. It's a great idea to stretch people and provide them with the best learning opportunities. That's what I try to do on this blog.

Anyhow, General Electric is constantly evolving and innovating while JCPenney has largely rested on its laurels. There's a dictum which says, “Evolve or die,” and I think it's excellent advice. In fact, in a later post I am going to spell out EXACTLY why evolution is such an imperative. I'm actually going to break it all the way down to thermodynamics. It's going to be really cool!! :)

Now, I know I'm talking about big businesses in this post. But I hope you understand this message is really about YOU. What we need to remember that the only constant is change. The world doesn't stand still very long. I'm not saying you should change just for change's sake. I'm saying there does come a time to evolve. And, I want you to understand that resistance to change is hardwired into your brain. We're all fighting an uphill battle.

But, psychologists can help lead the way. I mentioned something called the Status Quo Bias. Notice it's not called the Status Quo Rule or the Status Quo Law. It's just a bias we all have, and we need to be aware of it. Once we're aware of the bias we can overcome it. Remember what GI Joe used to say? “Knowing is half the battle!”

Each of us have all sorts of cognitive biases floating around in our heads. Perhaps I'll delve deeper into the Status Quo Bias in a later post. Let me know if you think that would be helpful. One of the keys to change is new information. If you don't know any better how can you act any better? Well, that's why I expect you to visit this blog often. You will always get great information here.

Wicked Tuna

I'm a salesman and, if you're reading this, there's a good chance you are too. The simple fact of the matter is a salesperson has three basic jobs: prospecting, presenting, and closing. I realize we have other things (such as servicing) to do as well but let's keep things simple for now. Do yourself a favor and always remember the order of your tasks as a salesperson. Prospecting comes first.

I'm always amazed when I talk with a salesperson and they say they don't prospect. I immediately know their income is lower than it could be. A common refrain I hear is people telling me they only work by referral. What a load of bollocks! Don't get me wrong, referrals are great and sometimes we do have our schedules "all filled-up." But, the simple fact of the matter is, you can't go through you're entire career working only from referrals. I mean, you can, you'll just have to settle for a lot less money.

Salespeople that refuse to prospect are a big problem. Stephen Walsh reports, in the Southern Business Review, that studies repeatedly show sales call reluctance is more responsible for underperformance in sales than any other factor. But I've got some great news for you. I know EXACTLY what causes call reluctance. Better yet, I'm going to share it with you. It's not that old fear of rejection bullcrap. It's something much more precise. You've probably never heard what I'm going to tell you. What I can say is that it's super solid science and it will change your life forever. So stay tuned because I can't tell it to you in this post. The reason for this post is to talk about television, visualization, and sushi.

Let me repeat, if you're in sales, I sure hope you understand that YOU NEED TO PROSPECT. This is an area that I'm pretty damn good at. And, like I said, I'm going to be putting out some amazing information that will definitely help you. For now, I wanted to draw your attention to a TV show on the National Geographic channel. This show is called Wicked Tuna. Have you seen it? I love it. It's the story of various boats and their crews, and efforts to make money catching bluefin tuna. It's set in Massachusetts hence the word "Wicked" in the title.

What does that have to do with prospecting? Everything! You see, one way to think of prospecting is that you're fishing for people. That turns out to be a phrase straight out of the Bible, fishing for people. I love to fish but I don't always love to prospect. Let's be honest, prospecting can be uncomfortable. The key is getting past the inertia (which is another topic I'm going to cover later.) For now, I want to invite you to visualize with me. When I'm prospecting it helps to imagine I'm fishing. That I'm a fisher of men. If you like to fish, you should be able to visualize what I'm talking about. If not, watch Wicked Tuna!

The men on this show absolutely bust their butts to earn a meager living. It really puts things into perspective for me. When I'm prospecting, and my mind is screaming a million other things I should be doing, I remember Wicked Tuna. I know that the voice in my head is just the coward inside me trying to get to me avoid a little bit of discomfort. But then I remind myself that in order to land the big catch I have to out-fish everybody else. So fish hard!

The Era of Positive Psychology

I am absolutely fascinated by psychology.  How about you?  A common misconception about psychology is that it is only deals with the bad stuff.  That is to say, a lot of people think it only deals with things unhealthy.  So, if you're schizophrenic you should see a psychologist.  If there's a serial killer on the loose, we call in experts to give us a profile of deviant behavior.  Remedying that which ails us is certainly one of the functions of psychology (and a good and decent one at that.) But it is far from the only thing psychologists now do.

I would venture a guess that the world's best known psychologist is Sigmund Freud (or Pavlov.)  Freud talked a lot about the unconscious mind and believed the way to access the unconscious mind is through dreams.  He wrote a book called The Interpretation of Dreams and, to this day, people are constantly talking about the meaning of their dreams.  Speculating about mystical things like the subconscious mind can be a lot of fun.  But the downside is this, Freud died in 1939!  As you might imagine, much has happened in the intervening 70+ years. And a lot of it is really good.

Just over ten years ago two gentlemen got together and founded a new field which they called Positive Psychology.  The name can be a little misleading and a lot of people don't properly understand it.  This isn't that popular psychology (pop-psych) stuff.  The pop-psych gurus are the ones who tell us to use such things as affirmations.  They instruct us to remember, "You're the best, you can do it!"  That whole movement stems from something called Humanistic Psychology.  The main humanistic psychologists were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.  While I have tremendous respect for these two men, the truth is that humanistic psychology wasn't totally based in hard data. Translation, a lot of it is less than completely accurate.  Don't get me wrong, there is always a time and a place for, "psych-ing yourself up."  The problem is, it's unstructured and very unpredictable.  Ever try to rally yourself and your spirit by chanting aphorisms?  It often doesn't work.

Along came Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  These two gents have ushered in a new and exciting era of psychology.  The reason they felt compelled to do this is because ever since World War II psychology has, "become a science about healing.  It concentrates on repairing damage within a disease model of human functioning.  This almost exclusive attention to pathology neglects the fulfilled individual and the thriving community.  The aim of positive psychology is to begin to catalyze a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building positive qualities."

Simply put the question they're trying to answer is, "What makes life worth living?"  I'm sure you would agree this is a good and worthy question.  And, it's something I will explore often in this blog because scientists are making tremendous headway.  What they are now doing is utilizing the various instruments available to get a quantitative understanding of human happiness.  An example would be Csikszentmihalyi's pioneering ESM (electronic sampling method.)  Some call this new field the science of happiness while others prefer to think of it as the science of human flourishing.  However it is conceived, it's very exciting and holds out much hope for the future.  As I mentioned, this is an area I will speak to often.

What do you want to be remembered for?

I am definitely an advocate of the philosophy "Go big or go home." So I figured, why not ask one of the biggest questions in the world for my first blog post? I will give you my answer to the question in a minute. But first, how about a little discussion?

It is my opinion that the question, "What do you want to be remembered for?" is one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself. It's not my question. I've taken it from St. Augustine who said that asking this question is, "The beginning of adulthood." Unfortunately a lot of people (perhaps most) never ask themselves this powerful question (much less answer it.) And answering it is deceptive for, at first glance, it might appear to be easy. However, I can assure you that answering Augustine's question is anything but easy. It is a question that you should continue to ask yourself for the rest of your life because the answer is sure to evolve over time.

There are other ways to conceptualize the saint's question. Stephen Covey implores us to write a personal mission statement. I am a huge fan of Covey's but his exercise is a bit too academic for my taste. To me, the question which headlines this post is elegant in its simplicity. But I have also heard this challenge couched in rather macabre terms. Some people suggest that you write your own eulogy and then just trace the steps back to where you are today. I say, to each his own. So, however you want to think about it is fine with me. As long as you do think about it.

This is, of course, an exercise for the big boys and girls. In fact, most people (myself included) are unable to give a good answer until at least their mid-thirties. “Joseph Schumpeter, one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, claimed at twenty-five that he had wanted to be remembered as the best horseman in Europe, the greatest lover in Europe, and as a great economist. By age sixty, just before he died, he was asked the question again. He no longer talked of horsemanship and he no longer talked of women. He said he wanted to be remembered as the man who had given an early warning of the dangers of inflation. That is what he is remembered for and, it's worthwhile being remembered for. Asking that question changed him, even though the answer he gave at twenty-five was singularly stupid.”

Let me give you my answer to the question, in hopes that it might spur you on. Please understand, I accept the fact that my answer might be completely stupid. But, I know I have to at least try to give an answer, or else I can never improve it. My answer to St. Augustine's brilliant question is the following. I want to remembered for climbing big mountains and inspiring people. When I say that, I am using the metaphorical mountain. Though I don't rule it out as a possibility, I'm not much of a rock climber. I simply mean I want to accomplish big goals. Both for the feeling of fiero and to inspire folks with my example.

Though I wouldn't have been able to articulate it at the time, I began to develop my mission during my senior year of high school. Up until that point my GPA was somewhere at or below 2.0. I decided I needed to make some changes in my life. And so, I decided I was going to go to college. I thought about which subject, which major, would be the absolute hardest to conquer. The answer I arrived at was chemistry. I then asked myself which university was the best in chemistry. The answer was Berkeley. So I made it my goal to graduate from Berkeley with a degree in chemistry. And, I can happily report to you, I achieved that goal. But the real joy was watching my girlfriend, who otherwise had no interest in scholastics, graduate with a degree in math from Cal Poly.

I'll give you another example. I have struggled with my weight for most of my life. I grew up the fat kid and that might be part of the reason I did poorly in high school. I was so miserable and had such low self-esteem I figured, “What's the point?” Like many boys, my dream was to be a professional baseball player. And I will tell you the exact day I figured out that it wasn't going to happen for me. We were playing a game and I was up to bat. I hit a line drive to right field and people started to cheer. But the cheers quickly went silent as I got thrown out at first base! I was so heavy, and slow, that the right-fielder got the ball to first base before me. Embarrassing to say the least. So, I decided something had to change. A few years later, through sheer determination and force-of-will, I lost 100 pounds. That's great and all but the real payoff came when some of the people around me got inspired and lost weight too.

So again, I must ask you, “What do you want to be remembered for?” Maybe you don't have an answer right now, and that's fine. Just make sure you do establish your answer, for it will give you an excellent target to shoot at.

About Me

My name is Courtney Thomas Leeds. I am a native Californian. I graduated high school in San Clemente and college at Berkeley. So, that should tell you a lot about me. My preferred pair of shoes are flip-flops (Rainbows, of course) and I write book reports even though I'm no longer in school (nerd alert!)

Being from southern California, I'm pretty easy-going. But, I can get rather intense when it comes to a good challenge. I think it's exciting. I can be pretty competitive.

Abraham Maslow has a great quote that says, "What we can be, we must be." And I think Abe's right. The Army put it in slightly different terms. They ran an extremely effective recruiting campaign for twenty years. In the ads, which you probably remember, the Army simply said, "Be all you can be."

To sum it up in a single word, the Italian language has a something called, “fiero.” While the English language doesn't have the perfect correlate, fiero is essentially that triumphant emotion one feels after succeeding. Do you know what I'm talking about? It's the feeling we get after achieving a worthy and very difficult goal. If you know what I'm saying, you'll probably agree, it's hard to match!! 

I am very passionate about learning, especially the learning that comes with traveling. I just love people and am endlessly fascinated by them. I remember growing up and wishing there was a technology that would allow us to put a memory chip into a person's brain. The purpose of the chip would be to download all of that persons' experiences. Then another person could put the chip in their head, and see the world through someone else's eyes. Maybe someday :)

As it turns out, I can tell you exactly why I am so passionate about learning. The reason is because, after I graduated from college, I really thought I had it all figured out. To be honest, my arrogance must have been suffocating. Naturally I figured my learning days were over. I was at the absolute height of stupidity. And guess what happened next? Yep...one stumble after another. It took me a couple of years to figure out the problem. And since then, I am 100% committed to being a lifelong learner.

This blog is my attempt to pass along my knowledge and experiences. And, I have a very good reason to do this. My reason was put eloquently by Joseph Joubert who said, “To teach is to learn twice.” So, I am only too aware that I will probably get more out of this blog than you will. And that's fine with me. Specifically, I will touch on various topics in business and leadership, psychology, and basically just talk about ways to get more of what we want out of life. My goal is to help enrich people's lives. I will post something new every Monday.

This blog is meant to challenge you. Are you up for it? I want to expand your thinking and I'd like you to do the same for me. The topics might be nerdy sometimes. But I assure you, if you give them a fair shake, you'll like the results. Ultimately I would really like to get to know more about you. You can reach me at 949-464-8812