What Would Jesus Do?

I trust you have heard the question “What would Jesus do?” It is often relayed as the acronym WWJD, and I think it has a great idea. Today I am going to explain the most important, yet hidden, meaning of the question. To do that we will take a brief journey into the world of psychology.

Nowadays there is an awareness of the importance of an ability called empathy. A simple definition of empathy is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” and I agree it is an important skill. That said, there exists a larger and more valuable ability called mentalization.

In the 1990s in England, two psychologists named Peter Fonagy and Anthony Bateman created a treatment modality called mentalization based therapy. A simple definition of mentalization is “the ability to understand one's own and others' mental states.” Better yet, here is Peter Fonagy himself to define mentalization.

Hopefully you can see how the question “What would Jesus do?” is excellent practice, helping you develop the ability to mentalize. But, of course, the question can be used with any person.

I will use myself as an example. In addition to Jesus, when making an important decision, I often ask myself what Peter Drucker, or Warren Buffett, or Liah Greenfeld, or Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi would do. And as the last three posts on this blog should have made clear, I sometimes even ask myself “What would Gary Vaynerchuk do?”

Yes empathy is important, but mentalization is even better. Mentalization is an important part of both effectiveness and entrepreneurship. So as a friendly piece of advice, I recommend you study your mentors and customers until you are able to think, feel and act the way they do.

Gary Vee is human, too

I am a long time student of Gary Vaynerchuk and felt compelled to comment. On a recent live stream, Gary told a caller to stop overthinking the name she was planning for her LLC. The advice is sound, but Gary missed some important context.

If you are a student of GV, you know one of the main things he teaches is the importance of branding. And because branding can be so valuable, it is completely understandable that people overthink what to name their LLC. The solution is two fold, and the first solution Gary did explain on the live stream.

The first part of the solution is to understand something called DBA, or "Doing Business As." If you aren't familiar with DBA, it means you can operate a business under a name that has nothing to do with the name of the LLC which owns said business. Gary gave a personal example where one of his LLCs is named "Attention At Scale," which isn't the name of any of the companies he runs.

But, unfortunately Gary overlooked a second and more important lesson. Before I explain, I will note this oversight is completely understandable in light of the fact that his live stream interactions are necessarily short. Had Gary had a more lengthy conversation with the lady, he surely would have explained the second part of the solution. The second part is very simply this, as a general rule, less developed entrepreneurs wildly overestimate the importance of their company's name.

Again, this mistake is perfectly understandable because of the importance of brand. I look back with amusement (and a bit of embarrassment) at the way I too overthought the name of a company. And again, Gary's story sheds some useful light on the subject. Apparently, Gary's dad's (Sasha) small business was doing about $4M in annual sales when Gary joined. Doing $4M in sales certainly qualifies Sasha's business as a success, and yet the name of the company wasn't great for branding. The name was "Shoppers Discount Liquors."

Here is the moral of the story, today that same company is called "Wine Library" and is doing on the order of $60M per year. But don't get it twisted, the name of the company wasn't the main cause of its increased success. The real cause of success was delivering long-term value to its customers. For example, Gary has never sold Kendall Jackson chardonnay nor Santa Margherita pinot grigio. The reason isn't because Wine Library doesn't carry those labels, the reason is because Gary knows better chardonnays and pinot grigios, usually at lower prices. The point being, as an entrepreneur your focus (indeed your obsession) should be delivering real value to your customers. That is what will determine the success of your company, much more than its name. And at any time, if necessary YOU CAN CHANGE THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY. So don't overthink it!

Again, I am a serious student of GV. In fact, I am enough of a student to know one of his blind spots. As a recent Instagram post about "Just Do" indicates, Gary learns by doing. But, believe it or not, lots of people aren't like that. Lots of people learn by listening to people like Gary! My point is this, if you were fortunate enough to spend ten years working in your parent's successful small business, you too would probably do most of your learning through doing. But, if you never had that sort of role model (and few people do) give yourself some grace and understand successful entrepreneurship takes a lot longer than you imagine.

I have lots of love for you, Gary. So much so, I felt compelled to write this lengthy post to help some of your students. OF COURSE you have to take action to succeed as an entrepreneur. But at the same time, learning by doing isn't always the fastest path. I end with advice I think GV would agree with: Go as fast as you sustainably can, while remaining patient with however long it takes to arrive at your promised land.

Truth > Positivity

Believe it or not, I actually like Gary Vaynerchuk. Haha! Last time, I disagreed with Gary’s insistence on the importance of humility. And this week, I will disagree with Gary’s insistence that we be positive.

Unlike the humility thing, I didn’t talk with Gary about positivity. But perhaps I should. Because, again, I think truth is more important than either humility or positivity. In reality, there are probably few things more important than truth. As the Bible famously says, the truth will set you free. So, please allow me to derive the importance of positivity by explaining its relationship to truth.

A core truth is that life is fundamentally about growth. And, while every other animal basically only grows physically, humans have another dimension called consciousness. And consciousness is open to unlimited growth. Whether you call it mind, soul or spirit, the most miserable people I know have stopped growing.

Now, let me bring in the work of Barbara Fredrickson (pictured below) who is a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina. Top among her many accomplishments, Fredrickson is best known for her broaden-and-build theory. More thoroughly, it is called the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.

Psychology has long identified and addressed negative emotions, so back in the 1990s Professor Fredrickson began asking “What is the point of positive emotions?” And while the question may seem rhetorical, the answer is worth knowing.

Fredrickson has rather conclusively demonstrated that positive emotions facilitate growth. More specifically, positive emotions broaden our mind and build our resources (aka grow us). Perhaps you can start to see why I believe truth is more important than positivity.

As stated, I think there is no question humans must grow. And as Fredrickson has shown, positivity is a precondition for growth. Now, perhaps you think I have argued in a circle and disproven myself. Nope. Watch this.

Just because positivity is a precondition of growth, doesn’t mean people utilize positivity to grow. In fact, a lot of people turn into what I call “inspiration junkies.” There is no question inspiration (and positive emotions generally) feels good. And a lot of people stop there, which is understandable because growth hurts. In other words, growing pains are a real thing, which often causes avoidance.

Given the choice between painful growth and remaining in delightful positivity, many people, understandably, choose the latter. This is essentially what it means to remain in your comfort zone, and it easily creates inspiration junkies who keep coming back for another "hit."

So, am I just a Negative Nancy? Of course not. As stated, positivity is required for growth. And while positivity is pleasurable, growth is enjoyable. If you aren’t familiar, the difference between pleasure and enjoyment is growth. Delightful experiences such as a wonderful meal are pleasurable, but they don't cause our soul to grow. Conversely, life’s enjoyable experiences do involve psychological growth, but they aren’t usually pleasurable while they are occurring.

That last paragraph is a synopsis of one of the main takeaways from Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's legendary book Flow. The subtitle of the book is “The psychology of optimal experiences,” and Csikszentmihalyi does a great job of explaining the important difference between pleasure and enjoyment. But, we shall have to save a deeper dive into Flow for another day.

For today, I simply hope to make it clear that I love positivity. The thing is, I just love growth more. And if you have had flow experiences, I trust you would agree.

P.S. It is also rather clear that the best way to ignite positivity at work is through progress. More on that will be coming in another post.

Truth > Humility

I was recently speaking with Gary Vaynerchuk. We were discussing the importance of humility.

Usually known as Gary Vee, GV runs an advertising agency in New York. Additionally, he has a large social media presence. If you follow GV you have probably heard him exclaim the importance of humility. His and my particular conversation began when I said “Humility is overrated.”

After our conversation, it is clear to me that Gary and I are in agreement. And, the reason I am writing this post is because I think it is bullshit to tell people to be humble. If you don’t agree with me, allow me to give you my definition of bullshit. My definition of bullshit is “Knowingly or negligently spreading half-truth.” Before I continue, let me share with you Gary’s bio from the Twitch website.

GV’s bio on Twitch:
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur, and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Gary is considered one of the leading global minds on what’s next in culture, relevance and the internet. Known as “GaryVee” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business – he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior.

Now, if I asked you to give me the top ten adjectives describing that bio, I highly doubt “humble” would be one of them. That isn’t a humble bio. Nor should it be! Let me explain.

Whether we are discussing mammals or electrons, there exists a well-known phenomenon called pair-bonding. And though we didn’t say it this way during our conversation, Gary and I agree humility is pair-bonded with confidence. In other words, you show me a truly confident person and I will show you a truly humble person, because the two things go together.

I think a big part of the confusion stems from the human ability to bullshit and make pretend. If you tell a person to be humble, most likely they will fake it. At the same time, if you tell a person to be confident, most likely they will fake it. The same goes for happiness, gratitude, and many of life’s most valuable virtues.

Though I didn’t say it at the time, I wish I would have told Gary truth is more important than humility (Truth > Humility). Because the truth is humility and confidence are pair-bonded, and a person cannot achieve real confidence without humility. And since people often fake humility, better than telling people to be humble is telling people to know their limits. In other words, know the truth.

I will end with this. Though she was before my time, I think Israel’s former prime minister, Golda Meir, would agree humility and confidence are pair-bonded. Below is the way Ms. Meir put it.

New Day's Resolution

Now that we are in February, apparently many people have abandoned their New Year’s Resolutions. And while this is understandable, it is also regrettable.

Speaking for myself, I abandoned New Year’s Resolutions a long time ago. The way I look at it, resolve is so important, why would you only do it once a year?

If we are being honest, many people use New Year’s Resolutions as an excuse to procrastinate making changes they want to make. I know I have. And so, I came to find that much better than New Year’s Resolutions are New Day’s Resolutions.

By resetting and resolving everyday, I have been much more pleased with the outcomes. And if that seems like too much effort, let me give you an even more extreme example.

Judith Beck is the daughter of the late Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive behavioral psychology. One of the books Ms. Beck has written is called The Beck Diet Solution, where she applies cognitive behavioral psychology to dieting.

The book discusses no foods in particular, rather it focuses on the way we think about our diet and eating habits. Since many people struggle with overeating, I highly recommend Judith’s book. And even if you don’t, the book can be a great introduction to the world of cognitive behavioral psychology.

In the book, Ms. Beck, who has counseled many dieters, tells the story of a common pattern. If you have ever attempted to lose weight, you can probably relate.

To lose weight, most people will have to create and stick to a food plan. And though things may be going well for a time, one day you will probably screw up.

A lot of times the mistake is the result of lack of rest, or being stressed, or any of a number of problems. But regardless of the exact cause, sometimes dieters fall off the wagon and eat food forbidden by their food plan.

What Dr. Beck found is when a dieter stumbles and eats something “bad,” they often tell themselves something to the effect of “Since I have already screwed up, I might as well enjoy the rest of the day. I can restart my diet tomorrow.” I know I have been guilty.

But Dr. Beck specifically calls out the flawed logic, saying just because you messed up doesn’t mean you can’t get back on your food plan. There is no law that says you have to wait until tomorrow. You can give yourself some grace and forgiveness, and get right back on the wagon. You might call it a New Minute’s Resolution, and it makes a lot of sense. Especially the grace and forgiveness part.

I guess what I am saying is, waiting for the New Year is silly and wasteful. But whatever you choose, don’t beat yourself up. Life is challenging and nobody is perfect ❤️

Entrepreneur or Solopreneur

Are solopreneurs entrepreneurs? Or, is organization building an element of being an entrepreneur?

I am a pretty big fan of Seth Godin, and I know he says he is a proud freelancer. Having built three different companies Godin says he is better off being a solopreneur, because he says he takes being a boss too seriously, and suffers when people’s livelihoods are dependent upon him.

I don’t know about you but I find Godin’s honesty refreshing.

So while I am a fan of Godin, unlike him I rather quite enjoy building organizations. And regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur, you are well advised to be a lifelong learner and to consume wisdom wherever it is being dispensed.

Regular readers of his blog already know Peter Drucker is on my personal Mount Rushmore. If you wish to better understand organizations, I can think of no one better to study than Drucker.

That said, I recently stumbled upon an interesting person named Fabiana Lacerca-Allen. Ms. Lacerca-Allen grew up in Argentina during the so-called Dirty War, or Guerra Sucia, a time of rampant corruption and strife.

But as the old cliche says, pressure makes diamonds. And today, Ms. Lacerca-Allen lives in the USA and works with large organizations on compliance and risk management, and she recently published a book titled Crisis Capable.

In a brief eighteen seconds, below you hear Ms. Lacerca-Allen give a nice little summary of what to look for in a team member.

The Business of America is Business (or not)

Happy New Year! A time of renewal and optimism. And to that end, today many people are well along the path of their New Year’s resolutions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind if our plans are a little flexible. And as it turns out, today is an interesting and relevant birthday.

It was exactly 100 years ago, in January 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge famously said “The business of America is business.” A lot of people know the statement, but is it true? The reason I ask is because Coolidge said other pertinent things during that same speech. Things which usually get overlooked.

Coolidge also said “Americans make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things we want much more. We want peace and honor, and charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.”

What do you think? How do you make sense of this apparent contradiction? And, perhaps more importantly, do you see value in grappling with contradictions? What are you resolved to do this year?

The Holiday Spirit

As we enter the holidays, I hope you revel in good spirits and cheer.

In the United States, obviously the main holiday is Christmas when we celebrate the birth of Jesus the Christ.

Due to his profound wisdom, Jesus is widely considered a prophet.

To state a few obvious examples:

Jesus repeatedly taught the importance of love when instructing that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

He taught the heart of service through the Gospel of Matthew with the affirmation “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

And during the Sermon on the Mount, he taught the importance of forgiveness and compassion when he said we should “Turn the other cheek.”

But today, I wanted to relay one of His lesser known teachings.

From the Gospel of Thomas…

No, seriously, do NOT follow your passion

In the last post, I wrote about the advice to follow your passion. And today, because we are approaching that time of year when people make New Year’s resolutions, I am making a follow-up post to reiterate the point that the advice is actual dogshit. If you don’t wish to agree with me, let me put the words in the mouths of two other people. The two people I will reference are Robert Greene and Jensen Huang.

I have heard it said that all of your heroes should be dead, and the point is well taken. The reason for that advice is because the verdict is in and it is final. For example, if you study the entire life of Henry Ford you will discover only the first half is worth learning from. Today’s examples are both still alive, so let us stay focused on their advice in this particular domain of passion.

Mr. Greene is an author and clearly a highly intelligent person. He has written a number of books, including an entire book on the subject of mastery. Mr. Huang has built one of the current darlings of Wall Street. The name of his company is Nvidia and they are known for making the computer component called the GPU, or graphics processing unit.

People who tell you to follow your passion are usually trying to sell you something useless

What should your contribution be?

At a Stanford commencement address, Steve Jobs famously advised the students “Follow your passion.” While the advice can feel exciting, I have found it to be almost useless. I have spent years trying to identify my passion, and I have finally figured it out, but it isn’t what most people think.

For example, if you think your passion is a particular line of work I think you will run out of steam, because most jobs will eventually become mundane. So, let me tell you how to follow your passion from the perspective of Sadhguru and Stephen Covey.

Very simply, Sadhguru says you can be passionate about anything and everything. Underwhelming, I know, because the advice doesn’t help narrow things down.

So let us switch to Stephen Covey, who said all people want the 4 L’s from life. All people want: to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy. And when you really think about it, you can probably get passionate about all four of those things. So, Covey’s advice does help narrow things down.

Show me a profession full of loving service, where you are constantly learning and can leave a legacy, and I will show you something you can probably get passionate about. But make no mistake, the passion isn’t the job, the passion is the 4 L’s.

Lastly, you know I have to mention Drucker, because he always seems to break things down clearly and concisely. Drucker died before Jobs’s “follow your passion” advice became a meme, but he addressed the related phenomenon of people in the 1960s wanting to “do their own thing.”

In this 2008 book Management, Drucker writes “To ‘do one’s own thing’ is not freedom. It is license. It does not have results. It does not contribute. But to start out with the question, ‘What should I contribute?’ gives freedom. It gives freedom because it gives responsibility.”

And he adds “The decision that answers ‘What should my contribution be?’ thus balances three elements. First comes the question, ‘What does the situation require?’ Then comes the question, ‘How could I make the greatest contribution with my strengths, my way of performing, my values, to what needs to be done?’ Finally, there is the question, ‘What results have to be achieved to make a difference?’ This then leads to the action conclusions.”

In support of the notion that great minds think alike, Sadhguru said something very similar to Drucker. SG recommends that everyday we joyfully do what needs to be done. I agree. For example, though it was an enormous amount of work, since my company needed leadership development training, and since it matches my strengths, I created it (joyfully, most of the time) 😂

What should your contribution be?

Culture does NOT eat strategy for breakfast

People often quote Peter Drucker as saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and it is total bullshit. However, I love when people use said quote because it shows that person doesn’t know Drucker. Drucker is at the very top of my Mount Rushmore, and I can assure you he never said that quote, nor would he say such a thing.

Here is the pisser. The list of people who have used that quote include some people I really respect, and it has caused me to wonder why they would make such a mistake. I think there are at least three possible reasons.

I think one reason is this, however hard it is to understand culture it is harder to understand strategy. Reason number two is working on culture happens much more often than working on strategy. And reason number three is, people tend to think their job is the most important job in the world.

Let me start with my favorite person who has unfortunately used this inaccurate quote. That person would be Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. He used the misquote in his book Hit Refresh, and I think reason #2 explains why he did it. Once Satya set a new direction for Microsoft, his day-to-day task was nurturing the right culture to get the company to its new destination. In other words, since culture is about executing the strategy it is more time consuming, and one could imagine more valuable.

Another person I hold in high regard who used the misquote is Laszlo Bock. For about ten years Mr. Bock was the head of human resources at Google, and in his book Work Rules! you will find both the story of his time at Google and the butchering of Drucker. And, I think my third reason explains why Bock made such a flub. A good HR department will nurture and maintain a quality culture, and it would be understandingly human for Bock to think his is the most important job.

I realize this may seem like much ado about nothing, but I mention the mistreatment of Drucker because getting your strategy right is hard enough. Nobody needs the added confusion from bullshit quotes. To help show you how Drucker thought, here is a quote from his 2008 book Management “As it becomes successful, an organization tends increasingly to take its theory of the business for granted, becoming less and less conscious of it. Then the organization becomes sloppy ... culture is no substitute for discipline, and the theory is a discipline.”

Drucker claims to have written the first book on business strategy, but he acknowledges he didn’t use the word "strategy" because it was too militaristic. According to Drucker, the first book on business strategy was his 1964 book Managing For Results. And as you can see from the quote in the previous paragraph, throughout his life Drucker tended to use the phrase “theory of the business” more than strategy.

Much of Drucker’s work centrally revolved around strategy, so he is an ideal person to study. A more contemporary teacher would be Seth Godin, the man who inspired today’s post because two weeks ago he published a new book titled This is Strategy. Though I have yet to read the book, I can confidently recommend it for two reasons: 1. Over the years, in my eyes Godin has already proven his expertise. 2. I saw him promoting the book on a podcast and he accurately claimed culture is a part of strategy.

For me, nobody tops Drucker. But, I am also a big fan of Godin. So, maybe pick up his new book. And, I will see ya next time.

As crazy as it may sound...

...I believe entrepreneurship can help heal trauma.

In current usage the word trauma means a psychological wound, and in the last post we discussed a form of trauma known as an attachment injury. Attachment injuries can easily cause a fear of abandonment, and abandonment is generally experienced as rejection. It is not coincidental that both attachment injuries and a fear of rejection are common in today's society, and as a general rule the former causes the latter.

See the connection to entrepreneurship?

As Peter Drucker said, a business exists for one reason; to create a customer. As such, a business has two entrepreneurial functions; innovation and sales. The innovation is the value you offer the market and sales creates the transaction. Whether we call it sales or marketing, what we are talking about is customer acquisition. Thus, as a general rule building a sustainably successful business will include large amounts of rejection.

Dr. David Burns is a psychology professor who wrote the best-selling book Feeling Good. And as it turns out, on August 26 he posted an episode of his podcast which discusses things like self-esteem. During the podcast, as an antidote to fear of rejection, his student Dr. Matthew May talks about how Burns explicitly instructed him to go out and collect rejections.

Whether you seek love or wealth, you should probably overcome your fear of rejection.

I can show you how, because a lot of times simply collecting rejections isn't enough.

Here is the clip...

We take the good with the bad

Recently this blog has been discussing the self. Elements of the self include things like identity, temperament, personality, etc. One thing to know is that personalities can be healthy or toxic, what scientists would call adaptive or maladaptive.

Psychodynamic psychology is the modern psychology stemming from the lineage of Sigmund Freud. And as the reader likely knows, some of the language of Freud remains commonplace to this day. For example, two personalities types people have heard of are narcissistic and obsessive, and in common language most people understand those two things to be negative. But in the world psychodynamic psychology, both narcissistic personalities and obsessive personalities can be either healthy or unhealthy. Yes you read that right, there literally is a thing called healthy narcissism. Believe it or not.

One thing that has changed is the words Freud used to describe the organization of personality. In Freud's time personality had three possible arrangements: neurotic, borderline and psychotic. Here there are two things to note. First, today being neurotic is considered a negative thing. But in Freud's time, neurotic was as healthy as a personality could hope to be. And second, in Freud's time borderline literally meant the space between neuroses and psychoses, between reality and delusion. So, any personality type could present with a borderline organization.

Largely because Freudian-like psychoanalysis is a long-term form of treatment, not many people do it. So, not many people are familiar with what Freud actually meant with his teachings. Enter into this void a new and common diagnosis called "borderline personality disorder," or BPD for short (admittedly the confusion is unfortunate).

Though I am taking small liberties here, let me give a brief summary of the likely origins of BPD. I will begin with the words of a fairly well-known man named Gabor Maté. According to Dr. Maté, all human souls require at least two things: authenticity and attachment. Though he doesn't include the human need for competence, what Maté is saying is in direct alignment with Self-Determination Theory. If you would like more information on Self-Determination Theory, please review this blog's recent posts. What Maté calls attachment the Self-Determination folks would call relatedness.

Being centrally important, it is not surprising to know much work has been done on human attachment. Starting in 1969, famed British psychoanalyst John Bowlby began laying out his attachment theory. And today, it seems clear most people are probably living with some level of "attachment injury," a psychological wound (aka trauma) resulting from a deficiency of attachment. And when that attachment injury is debilitating enough, we begin to speak of BPD.

The core symptom of BPD is a destructively strong fear of abandonment. And if you know anybody with BPD, you may know how profound and pervasive the suffering can be. Though there exists more than one way to treat BPD, today we will discuss a woman named Marsha Linehan.

Born on May 5, 1943 and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Professor Linehan is becoming more and more well-known due to her development of a branch of psychology called Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT for short. And, the evidence is mounting that DBT is an effective method for helping heal BPD.

Side note: I apologize for the use of multiple acronyms, but DBT is how most people refer to Linehan's method and BPD is generally how people refer to borderline personality disorder.

To the extent people utilize the DBT modality, most do it as a client/patient in counseling, coaching or therapy. That said, in 2020 Professor Linehan wrote a lovely and helpful autobiography titled Building a Life Worth Living. Regardless of whether or not you have BPD, the four core skills of DBT can be very helpful. They are: distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. One thing I love about DBT is, Linehan directly and explicitly acknowledges her main objective is teaching people the skills of effective living.

Why I am telling you all this? Well, it does seem to be the case that all human souls fundamentally require authenticity and attachment. As such, it also seems clear that a deficiency in either authenticity or attachment can lead to profound mental health challenges. And, the skills of effective living do seem to be a prerequisite for sustainably successful entrepreneurship and leadership.

This blog has recently spent time talking about identity and personality, and hopefully you can imagine their connection to authenticity. I have also begun introducing you to the work of Professor Liah Greenfeld, who has shown rather conclusively how deficiencies in identity formation can lead to things like schizophrenia, bipolarism and depression. And, as mentioned, it further seems clear that a deficiency in human attachment can lead to challenges like BPD.

So, am I saying any personality can be either healthy or unhealthy? And being one element of personality, am I saying an underdeveloped identity can cause mental illness? And, am I also saying insufficient human attachment can cause mental illness? Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. As I think we all know, life is complex. But, I don't believe that means it needs to be complicated.

We all need authenticity and attachment, and I think we know how to create both.

Who Even Are You? Part Three

Personality. What is it? Is it static or fluid? The answer is yes, personality is static or fluid. LOL! I think personality is static for people with a fixed mindset and fluid for those with a growth mindset.

But regardless of whether your personality is static or fluid, identifying your type is a useful part of getting to know yourself. Fortunately, today you can take a free online test and it will help you identify your personality type. The free test is available at 16personalities.com.

That personality model has been traditionally referred to as Myers Briggs, and it builds off of the psychology of Carl Jung. To the extent we understand our personality and those of the people we care about, our relationships will likely run most smoothly.

A while back, the late psychology professor David Keirsey wrote two books explaining the Myers Briggs system, and I highly recommend them. They are titled "Please Understand Me" and "Please Understand Me II."

For today, I will simply explain a brief overview of Keirsey's four temperaments, in no particular order. As a side note, each of the four temperaments manifest themselves in four ways, which is how they end up with sixteen possible personalities.

I will start with SJ. SJs are highly committed to maintaining tradition and social order. They are big on obedience and believe rules are made to be followed. In Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper, they are the ant. Busy busy busy. Work work work. They are big on duty and obligation, and believe that work must come before play. They detest freeloaders, believing all people must earn their keep. Ironically, SJs often marry SPs.

In Aesop's fable SPs are the grasshopper, and they are essentially the opposite of the SJ. SPs spend their days leisurely swinging on a blade of grass, singing their song and not taking things too seriously. SPs are centrally concerned with having fun, and they revile in their freedom from constraint. So, you won't get very far trying to order around an SP. SPs tend to think life come down to luck, so it doesn't make sense to try very hard, and they like to have fun warning SJs about how they are going to develop an ulcer with all the worrying. SPs would rather eat, drink and be merry!

Combined, SJs and SPs make up the majority of the population. One key thing to know about the "S's" is they think in concrete terms, meaning Who What When and Where. They want "Just the facts, Jack." This is important to know because the other two temperaments are the "N's," and the Ns think in abstract concepts. By the way, these temperaments aren't mutually exclusive. We are all combinations.

NTs are pretty much always thinking in mental models. The reader doesn't have to follow me for long to realize I am mostly an NT. Scientific theories are mental models, and whether it is the theory of Peter Drucker, Liah Greenfeld, Edward Deci, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, David Keirsey or whomever, I am always thinking in mental models. NTs are centrally concerned with truth and knowledge, effectiveness and efficiency. That said, I can also be an NF.

NFs are occupied with the search for self, uniqueness, authenticity, meaning and intimacy. Hello?! This is literally my third post in a row with the title "Who Even Are You?" LOL! Keirsey writes "The NF's truest self is the self in search or itself, or in other words, his purpose in life is to have a purpose in life." If you think that logic sounds circular, you would be correct. And because it is the most complicated temperament, it is usually best to speak of NFs last.

You see, the "N" stands for intuitive because "I" was already taken by introversion. So just as the Ss think and speak in concrete terms, the Ns use their intuition to think and speak in abstract concepts. Hopefully you can already spot a pattern. Knowing the difference in personalities, and knowing that I am an intuitive, when I communicate I consciously reminder myself to always include concrete examples for the S temperaments.

I hope this helps.

Again, please take the free test at 16personalities.com.

You see next time 😊

Who Even Are You? Part Two

According to Liah Greenfeld identity is the core structure of the human mind, and I think she is correct. Professor Greenfeld defines identity with four simple words, saying it is "The relationally constituted self." To put a little more meat on the bones of that definition, Otto Kernberg says "We call the combination of an integrated sense of self and an integrated sense of significant others identity."

Being so centrally important, it is great news that we are able to consciously develop our identities. An obvious first question would be; How?

Habit number two of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is "Begin with the end in mind." And if you have read the book, you know Covey gives us an exercise to perform (though I doubt many people actually do it). The exercise is to write your eulogy. Obviously, writing your own eulogy is a way of beginning with the end in mind.

Unrelated to the work of Covey, while speaking with Professor Greenfeld she told me she assigns the same exercise to her university students, because she has found it to be a useful way to cultivate your identity.

Peter Drucker has a similar but different exercise, which requires a less explicit contemplation of your own mortality. Drucker explains that his exercise goes back to at least Saint Augustine, but reveals he first learned of the exercise from economist Joseph Schumpeter. According to Drucker, Schumpeter and Augustine, everybody must answer the question "What do I want to be remembered for?"

To state the exercise in more humorous, and potentially more triggering terms, the French absurdist philosopher Albert Camus advocated contemplating the question "Why shouldn't I kill myself?" In other words, what do we have to live for?

Drucker said if we don't do this exercise we will waste our lives, and Greenfeld has shown how a malformed identity can lead to profound mental illness. So whichever way you look at it, the stakes are high and you should probably do the exercise!

Who Even Are You?

For as long as I can remember I have been interested in core knowledge and first principles. We have all heard it said that each person is as unique as a snowflake, and to a degree it is true. That said, if you keep drilling down you will eventually discover we are all the same.

Like the old cliché says, we all bleed red. Another example was given in the last post, which was about something called Self-Determination Theory. It seems pretty clear that all people need competence, autonomy and relatedness.

Recently, I gave an overview of the French word anomie. For our purposes here, a workable synonym for anomie is confusion. Modern society is very confusing and, in moments of vulnerable honesty, most people will admit they don't really know who they are. Who you are is a key part of your autonomy.

I also mentioned Liah Greenfeld, and I want to give you her deceptively simple hypothesis about the human mind. Stated in two identical ways, Professor Greenfeld says the human mind is "culture in the brain" or "individualized culture." To me, it often makes sense to compound the phrases and say the human mind is individualized culture in the brain.

At the risk of getting nerdy, let us touch briefly on a word which has become very popular. That word in meme. As usually happens, now that the word meme is used widely it is also widely misunderstood. Here is where I will get slightly nerdy. A nerdy definition of meme is "An artifact of consciousness." In simpler language, a meme is an idea.

Images with captions are common memes online, and they certainly are memes, but they are only one type of meme. Memes can also be more general (things like is transportation, weaponry, or even television) and it can be said that memes are fundamentally what separate humans from all other life forms.

We have all heard of DNA. A simple explanation of the purpose of DNA is to function as biological instructions on how to live. Suckling is an instinct DNA has put into mammals for survival. If the newborn doesn't suckle, it doesn't survive. All mammals possess DNA and it functions as the biological analog of memes. 

As already mentioned, the memes most people are familiar with are online memes, and they are usually humorous or thought provoking. But in the totality, memes function similar to DNA in that they constitute psychological instructions on how to live. Are you with me? Combined, memes create something we call culture. And again, yes, the funny online memes are one form of meme.

In western civilization one of our key jobs as humans is to give birth to ourselves. Psychological birth, which is painful and scary. And because it is painful and scary, most people simply default to doing what other people are doing. One of life's great ironies is, when people are free to do whatever they want they usually imitate each other. Short term this is a less risky strategy. But long term, it can be catastrophic because you may wake up one day and wonder "Who the hell am I?!"

It is not the intention of this blog to provide psychotherapy, but one thing we all have in common is we are trying to understand this big complex thing called life. Please stay with me.

Being a Model Citizen

A couple weeks ago we began our discussion of the word anomie. As a reminder, an acceptable synonym for anomie is confusion. So, what are we to do? The answer is we follow models, and there exists two main types of models; behavioral and mental.

As sad as it was, the year 2021 was a year where the world lost a number of psychology GOATs. As previously mentioned, we lost Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in October 2021. In July 2021 we lost Albert Bandura at the ripe old age of 95, and that November we lost Aaron Beck who made it all the way to 100.

During his career, Albert Bandura created Social Learning Theory and it explains behavioral models. To simplify, and to use a phrase everybody is familiar with, it is monkey see monkey do. Imitating the behavior of others is the easier way to learn, and thus it is the way most people learn. But, it isn't the only way. So, let us talk about mental models and a man named Anders Ericsson.

It can be said Anders Ericsson was a man before his time, and it can be argued he died before his time in June 2020. You may not know the name Anders Ericsson, but it is likely you know of his work. He was the world's leading expert on expertise. It was Ericsson's research that Malcolm Gladwell used, in his book Outliers, to create the so-called 10,000 Hour Rule.

A quick aside for anybody who insists the 10,000 Hour Rule isn't a rule. Fine. Let's not quibble over the small things. It may not be a rule but we can at least call it an average. Sometimes reaching expert performance takes more than 10,000 hours and sometimes it takes less.

Fortunately, in 2016 Professor Ericsson laid out his theory in an elegant book titled Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. As a general rule I prefer to stay descriptive rather than prescriptive, but please allow me to get prescriptive for a moment. I believe everybody should read Peak, or at least chapters three and eight.

Chapter three is titled "Mental Representations," and Ericsson says they are the key to understanding his theory. As an unfortunate reality of life, sometimes psychologists use words and phrases in ways the majority of people don't. Such is the case with the phrase "mental representations." As a replacement, I find it easier to think of "mental models."

In chapter eight, Ericsson writes "Abilities are created with the help of detailed mental [models]." The quintessential example is the game of chess. All chess "grandmasters" possess a highly detailed mental model of how the game works. The average person understands the way the pieces are allowed to move. Rooks can only move linearly, Bishops can only move diagonally and Queens can do both. But the better a person becomes at the game, the more they are able to string together the moves and see patterns in their mind's eye. Which is essentially the definition of a mental model or mental representation.

Let me give you another example. Last week we talked about one particular mental model called Self-Determination Theory. Do you remember the SDT CAR? It stands for Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness, and it can provide us with a mental model of human psychology. For literally anything I do, I make sure it includes competence, autonomy and relatedness.

As we conclude for the day, please allow me to be prescriptive again. I believe all adults should read Edward Deci's book on his Self-Determination Theory. It is called Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation. See ya next time!

What Do People Really Need?

Last week we discussed that most important of French words, anomie. An acceptable synonym for anomie is confusion, and the reality is life in the western world is very confusing.

A core cause of anomie is freedom and a proximal cause is bullshit. In the western world, in the world of freedom, most people are full of shit most of the time.

So, what are we to do? Probably a good starting point is to ask the question, what do people actually need? Fortunately that question has been the subject of research for a very long time, and researchers have made strong headway.

I, for one, am firmly in alignment with the school of Self-Determination Theory, or SDT for short. SDT is the brain child of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester in New York.

You can think of it this way. We know life has biological necessities, but does it have psychological necessities? Most people know the biological necessities of life, they are: air, water, and food. But, very few people know life's psychological necessities. Deci and Ryan to the rescue.

According to SDT there are three irreducible, human psychological needs and they happen to form the acronym CAR. Let us consider them in reverse order.

R stands for Relatedness and as a place holder you can think of the word Relationship. More accurately, relatedness is the desire to love and be loved, to care and be cared for.

A stands for Autonomy and as a place holder you can think of the word Freedom. More accurately, autonomy means the desire to be the captain of your own ship.

Let us pause for a second to scream Uh-Oh! Because, if you are paying attention, you can already see a paradox. Remember from last week what a paradox is? A simple definition of paradox is "a true contradiction."

Follow me here. One psychological need is relationship which creates constraints, and another is freedom which removes constraints. So, am I telling you we simultaneously wish to be free and constrained? Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. As Stephen Covey would say, it isn't logical it is psychological.

Paradox is something I will return to often because, try as we may, there is simply no way for humans to truly avoid paradox. So, what are we to do? Well, fortunately, I haven't told you the third psychological necessity.

C stands for competence and it doesn't require much explanation. Competence is a belief and a feeling that we are effective in the world. To be candid, I hadn't learn about SDT when I titled this blog "On Effectiveness and Entrepreneurship." I simply listen to the yearnings of my soul, and I have long recognized a deep desire to be effective aka competent.

As mentioned, one of the things we need to become competent in is resolving paradoxes. Notice how I didn't say we need to be experts. I am not suggesting we become philosophy professors who aim to master paradox. Mastery isn't required. Good old competence will do.

We also yearn to be competent at our jobs, and our hobbies and anything else we do. So, while relatedness and autonomy will always be something of a balancing act, there is zero evidence of an upper limit to competence. In other words, the more the merrier.

I hope you choose to stay with me.

😃

Ann-Ah-Mee

Ann-Ah-Mee. That is how you pronounce the French word anomie.

Anomie is a condition which plagues any and all societies built upon the idea of self-determination. And yes, plagues is the right word. Stated differently, anomie is a condition common to western civilization, which is to say any nation built upon the core values of freedom and equality, with the quintessential example being the United States.

For our purposes, an acceptable definition of anomie is "A social condition defined by a breakdown of standards or guidance for individuals to follow." Think about it. It used to be people simply did what their parents did.

From time immemorial, as a general rule, women were homemaker and men worked in the same field as their fathers. And field is the right word because, as we know, a large percent of the population used to be farmers. Alternatively, if your father was a blacksmith you would be a blacksmith. If your father was a shoemaker you were a shoemaker. Furthermore, in the past people generally ascribed to the same moral foundation/religion as their parents. But, today everything has changed.

As we know, today's society is defined by near total mobility. You can live wherever you want, do whatever you want, marry whoever you want, worship whatever you want, etc. We live in a state of near total freedom which, at first glance, sounds pretty great. But, have you ever considered the reality that blessings and curses are often the exact same thing? Total freedom sounds liberating, and, to an extent, it is. However, it shouldn't take too much reflection to realize total freedom is an enormous responsibility.

The reason total freedom is an enormous responsibility is because it leads to something called the paradox of choice. If you aren't familiar with the word paradox, it simply means a true contradiction. Examples would be: never say never, the only constant is change, we fail our way to success, etc. Those statements are contradictions and yet they are true.

At first glance, most of us would say the more choice we have the better. But it simply isn't true. Too much choice overwhelms us and causes harm in the form of confusion and doubt. That is the paradox of choice. Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. Obviously it is a contradiction to say that good things can be bad things, but it is also true. It is a paradox. Stated differently, it is easy to say "moderation in all things" but is much more difficult to do. Since I am a dyed in the wool food addict, let me give you two examples using food. 

In 2006, Michael Pollan wrote a fun little book called The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you haven't read the book, let me give you the spoiler. Very simply, the omnivore's dilemma is when you can eat anything what to eat become an increasingly difficult decision. It is pretty well established that humans are omnivores, so we can eat almost anything. Thus, what to eat can be a hard question to answer. Have you ever found yourself tired of having to decide what is for dinner? That is because the doubt and confusion which accompanies the paradox of choice can become exhausting. The phrase most people these days are familiar with is "decision fatigue," and it is a very real thing.

More specifically, let me give you an example using the fruit spread most people call jam or jelly. Researchers arranged to handout samples of jelly at a grocery store and they setup two research conditions. For one period of time they offered twenty-four varieties of jelly, and for an equal but different period of time they offered six varieties of jelly. The question for you is, which do you think led to the sale of more jelly? In fact, when only six options were available 30% of people bought a jar versus only 3% of those exposed to twenty-four options. Six options is more manageable which led to many more people making the decision to buy. Twenty-four options is more overwhelming and led people to shelve the decision.

Freedom of choice is a great thing but it often leads to anomie, confusion and suffering. As I end for today, I will address an obvious question. Am I advocating for an artificial restriction on our freedom of choice? The answer, of course, is yes and no. LOL! Stick around and I will explain!

I'm backkkkk

No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth.

What? You have never heard of a six year sabbatical? Well, not to be a jerk but perhaps you are in the wrong line of work 😜

A lot has happened since we last spoke. If nothing else, I have become very familiar with the French word "anomie," and it has given me added clarity as to why I began blogging in the first place.

If you have read this blog with any regularity, you are probably aware of how strongly Peter Drucker has influenced my thinking. And, I can confidently say his teachings remain as relevant as ever.

Another strong influence has long been Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whom we lost in October 2021 at the fairly ripe age of 87. His legacy is profound and will continue to illuminate my understanding of what it means to be a human.

During my sabbatical, I was fortunate to study with an interesting person named Liah Greenfeld. Channeling the famed French sociologist Émile Durkheim, it was Professor Greenfeld who taught me about the ubiquity of this thing called anomie. It is a very important concept and I believe you need to know about it. So, please stay tuned.

It feels good to be back!

💜