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!

💜

Sabbatical

I am leaving for sabbatical. During that time, I will not be blogging, nor doing any other online publishing. But, I will be back before too long.

See ya soon!
Courtney
😊

Who Are You?

Permission

As an entrepreneur, you are a change agent. In no small measure, inducing change is what entrepreneurs do.

A big part of the challenge, with being an entrepreneur, is that people naturally resist change. Technically it is called the Status Quo Bias. More commonly, we say things like, "Don't rock the boat." Or, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

There exists an Indian yogi by the name of Sadhguru. He posses great wisdom. And, I recently heard him mention how our school system teaches us to be obedient. Don't rock the boat.

Unfortunately, you will not achieve your dreams by being obedient. So much of success is about giving yourself permission to disobey the rules and norms.

Obedience is a good thing in childhood. However, as an adult, obedience can be quite destructive. Sure, any society needs boundaries. We call these boundaries "laws" and they need to be followed. However, within the boundaries obedience can be suffocating.

I have heard it said that the key to success is to look at what everyone else is doing and do the opposite. That is a little overly simplistic but the point is well-taken.

A key element to business success is differentiation. The Harvard business school professor, Michael Porter, is considered the world's leading expert on strategy. And, you do not need to go to Harvard to understand what he is saying.

Porter says the key to business strategy is differentiation. Of course, a lot of people will not permit themselves to be different. It has been said that when people are free to do what they want, they usually imitate each other.

You need to give yourself permission to be different. To go against the grain. To stand out.

Here is are a few other ways you need to give yourself permission:

– If you are an entrepreneur, you are a salesperson. And, as a salesperson, you need to give yourself permission to interrupt people.

– We fail our way to success. So, you need to give yourself permission to fail. This is particularly difficult for perfectionists. Thus, perfectionists need to learn to forgive themselves for their mistakes.

– Last week, I mentioned how lonely it can be if you are ambitious. It is the road less traveled. And, you need to give yourself permission to stray from the pack. You need to give yourself permission to not be popular (at least for a while.)

However we acquire this habit, I have found that people tend to look for permission before doing things. And, it can be a real problem. You need to give yourself permission to live your life.

The Loneliness of Ambition

This may be the hardest part of the whole puzzle.

You cannot teach the new dogs old tricks

The title of this blog post comes from the greatest entrepreneur of all time. I hope you can agree, it is a phenomenal quote

We have all heard the saying, "You cannot teach an old dog new tricks." And, I happen to think it is one of the more pathetic sayings in all of existence. It is so sad and complacent.

Thanks to the science of neuroplasticity, we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the human brain remains malleable throughout the life span.

For example, what do you know about Jim Arruda Henry? Here is a man who learned to read at the age of 92! (he subsequently went on to also write a book)

Most of us learned to read at an early age, so we may not appreciate just how hard it is. Perhaps a good equivalent is learning a second language. Do you speak two languages?

Now back to the title of this post, it is something Warren Buffett likes to say to his partner, Charlie Munger. Both gentleman are big fans of the concept, "Invert, always invert." Meaning, consider ideas from multiple perspectives.

We all hear people say you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. But what if the opposite were true? What if you cannot teach the new dogs old tricks? There sure seem to be something to it.

Of course, what Warren and Charlie are saying is that somethings can only be learned through time.

Here is an interesting paradox for ya. Have you ever noticed that the younger we are, the less patient we tend to be? Patience is a virtue generally learned through time, meaning, as we get older. So, the less time we have, the more patience we tend to be. Kinda crazy, right?

What about Win-Win? "Reciprocal altruism" as it is often called. Some people call it "enlightened self-interest." At the networking group BNI, they say "Givers Gain." They are all saying roughly the same thing.

However you wish to label it, reciprocal altruism is an advanced concept. And, it is seldom mastered by the new dogs. Indeed, it can be very hard to teach the old dogs old tricks.

Beware the Naked Man

There is an old proverb that says, "Beware the naked man who offers you clothes."

This idea warns us that people cannot give what they do not have.

Clothes are a good metaphor because they are tangible and visible.

Of course, much of what we have to offer is invisible.

This is an idea that came to mind based on my last two blog posts.

It is an idea that is applicable in countless situations.

For example, you cannot teach people to see through the availability heuristic if you, yourself, are incapable of doing so.

In her book, Daring Greatly, author Brené Brown is teaching people to be more courageous. She says parents cannot give their children what they do not have (which can make parenting a pretty scary proposition.)

Similarly, I have a real problem with weight loss gurus who have never lost real weight (and, since relapse is part of recovery, I prefer if they have lost weight more than once.)

Beware the naked man who offers you clothes.

Hiding in Plain Sight

I once heard it said that there are no secrets. They are all simply hidden at the library.

Another way of putting it is the following. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Last week, I talked about the availability heuristic. AH is a mental shortcut and it can be a form of laziness.

If you want to get to the truth, you need to search it out. Do not wait for things like media reports. Or, heaven forbid, commercials!

Here is the thing. If you are willing to put in the work, what you will find is, the answers have been hiding in plain sight (ya just gotta cut through the noise.)

The Availability Heuristic

Time for another nerdy post! But, I promise to tie it in to a contemporary topic.

Lately, I have been thinking about something called "The Availability Heuristic" (AH). AH comes from the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. If you do not know the names of these two gentleman, pay extra attention to this post, because it will be important.

For his work, Kahneman ended up receiving the Nobel Prize. Tversky would have been awarded, as well, however, the Nobel Prize is not given posthumously.

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that people use. It effectively says, "If something is important, I will hear about it." Conversely, "If I have not heard about something, it must not be important."

This shortcut can be innocent enough. But, it can also cause a lot of problems. Let me flesh-out this idea, by using Grant Cardone as an example, since he is getting a lot of attention online.

Cardone might not be familiar with the term "availability heuristic." However, AH is central to what he does. It is Grant's stated goal to become known by all seven billion of the earth's inhabitants.

Cardone wants everybody to know his name. Because, as Grant himself says, "Money and power follow attention." And, a big reason money and power follow attention is because of AH.

Let me tell you a secret. And, if you are seasoned entrepreneur, you already know this. Grant Cardone is NOT the world's best sales trainer. Oh sure, he claims to be. But, he ain't.

One thing Cardone IS great at is self-promotion. And, I do respect the fact that Grant is very transparent about what he is doing. He is using AH is amass money and power. Whether or not this is fair-game is for you to decide.

The reason I am making this post is to reveal another secret. A lot of the world's most important work is being done by people you have never heard of. Tversky and Kahneman being two examples.

So, this ends up being something of a paradox. As an entrepreneur, you need to get lots of attention for yourself. Yet, it is probably best to not listen to people who get lots of attention for themselves.

I pay attention to people like Grant Cardone, and Donald Trump, as case studies in self-promotion. Is Donald Trump the world's greatest real estate developer? Of course not. However, amongst the world's real estate developers, he might be the greatest self-promoter.

What I am recommending is the following. You need to learn how to dig. You need to learn how to sift through the BS. Because, there is a lot of BS out there!

It was the French economist, Jean-Bastiste Say, who coined the word "entrepreneur." And, Say said, “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”

According to Say's definition, I would argue Warren Buffett is the world's greatest entrepreneur. And, as you may know, Buffett attributes most of his success to his ability to think for himself. 

This is important! Do not let the availability heuristic get the best of you. Learn to think for yourself.

Choose Your Hard

Have you ever heard the saying that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons. I know I have. And, I definitely agree. How about you?

Yesterday I was talking with somebody about dieting. More accurately, we were talking about cheating.

It is fine to splurge on Easter. But, day-to-day, how do we keep from giving in to the sugary temptations (the "hourly temptations" as Francis Galton called them)?

I thought of that old saying, "A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips." It is a useful reminder. It is a variation of the idea that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

The world's leading expert on self-control is probably Walter Mischel. If you have not already, you should definitely read his book titled The Marshmallow Test.

In the book, Mischel talks about two systems for thinking: hot and cool. The cool system supports self-discipline while the hot system is impulsive. Both are hard.

The hard part of the cool system is resisting the Oreo cookies or chocolate eggs. The hard part of the hot system is living with regret.

I am of the mind that living with regret is much harder than temporary self-control. I think regret is toxic and insidious. And, very often, what we regret are our lapses in self-control.

In no way is this stuff just about eating right. This applies to all of life.

Researchers find that most people get to the end of their lives wishing they had really gone for it. Wishing they had not been controlled by their fears and doubts. Meaning, most people end up with a lot of regret.

Here is the beautiful thing, you get to choose your hard. And, I am convinced that discipline is nowhere near are hard as regret.

One prays for miracles but works for results

I wish I could take credit for the title of this post. However, once again, the credit goes to Peter Drucker.

I was recently rereading Peter's book Managing the Non-Profit Organization. Though you may not be able to tell from the title, the book is all about leadership. In fact, it is the best leadership book I have ever read.

One assumption people can have is the idea that prayer works. Drucker's assumption is better. One prays for miracles but works for results. Peter would say prayer is no substitute for right action.

Drucker was a man intensely interested in people. He wanted to know what people did and why they did it. And, when studying people, it does not take long to discover they are driven by goals.

The goal could be as mundane as getting out of bed in the morning. Doesn't matter the specific goal, humans are driven by goals.

As its most simplistic, people have two main goals: seek pleasure and avoid pain. But, people vary widely regarding their proficiency at achieving goals. For this reason, Drucker's name has become synonymous with the word "effective."

If people follow their goals, it made sense for Drucker to study the best paths to goal attainment. And, one thing which stood out for certain was, goals can only be attained by taking action. For this reason, Peter had a very strong bias towards action.

It is fine to pray for miracles, but ya gotta work for results.

If smart phones are so smart...

...then, how come half of the videos are backwards?

Listening to the Call of Growth

I have long maintained that growth is life's imperative. A concept I recently wrote about (click here.) Additionally, there is a great line, in the Kabbalah, which hints at the idea that all things have angels who encourage them to grow. I recently read an article, by Rabbi Alan Lurie, which I thought was really great. And, I wanted to pass it along. Here is the article in its entirety:

In the Talmud - the encyclopedic compilation of Jewish moral and ethical debate - can be found this beautiful and mysterious sentence:

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’

For some, this sentence presents several obstacles to understanding its message. First, based on painting, statues, and greeting cards, we may think of angels as pretty, androgynous beings with feathery wings. If these actually do exist, can there really be one of these over every blade of grass? Second, even if we do have a less literal image of “angels”, we may associate them with miracles, or of conveying a crucial message to human beings - not of hovering over blades of grass. Lastly, you may simply say “I don’t believe in such nonsense as angels”, and dismiss this sentence as superstitious nonsense.

These obstacles stem from the reading of this sentence as a literal description of an actual event. As with any mystical text, however, we must read deeper in order to understand the writer’s intent. Within the spiritual vocabulary, “angels” are the non-physical carriers of the Divine will in physicality, just as gravitons are postulated to be massless manifestation of the force of gravity, photons are the basis of electromagnetism, and wave-like electrons underlie all matter. According the Talmudic writer, one of the forces that angels carry is the urge to grow - to develop, improve, and evolve. By noting that even every blade of grass is imbued with this urge, the Talmudic saying teaches that, like light, gravity, and electromagnetism, growth is a ubiquitous force of nature.

Everything yearns to grow; it is an inherent drive embedded in all creation. All you need to do is watch a seed push through the earth, or see a child’s relentless urge to walk, to understand that everything is pulled forward by the call to growth, like a plant leaning toward the sun. As the Talmud writer implies, the persistent whisper “Grow! Grow!!” calls to all creation. Like grass, we grow physicality, because physical growth is naturally built in to the cycle of all life. Unlike grass, though, we also have the capacity to grow in another, more crucial way. We can grow in consciousness - in our ability to connect to others, to live meaningfully, and to have a positive impact. This force of conscious growth is what drives us forward to create a personal and communal future that is better than what we had yesterday and what we have today.

We can choose to hear and to act on this call to conscious growth, or we can ignore it, drowning out the angelic whisper with the noisy external distractions of constant entertainment, the internal chatter of our mental judgments, or the drone of our unconscious routine ways of thinking and reacting. We resist the call of conscious growth in order to feel safe and to avoid the discomfort of change, but this strategy inevitably backfires. Since this resistance is in opposition to nature, it will eventually lead to feelings of frustration, dissatisfaction, meaninglessness, and depression.

Conscious growth, then, begins when we chose to listen to its call, and invite it in. We invite growth when we are willing to examine our fixed beliefs: who we think that we are, why others behave as they do, and how the world works. Many (perhaps most) of our beliefs about ourselves and others are simply constructs that we created, usually at a very early age, in reactions to fears, unmet needs, and disappointments, in order to protect us from the uncertainties that we could not understand, and to ensure survival. Because these are built on our fears, many of these constructs are negative, such as: people can’t be trusted, I’ll never be good enough, what matters most is what others think of me, that which I can’t control must be eliminated, those that I love will hurt and betray me. We then grow up believing that these constructs are absolutely true, and since we can not imagine another way of responding we assume that everyone else lives from the same constructs that we’ve created, thereby driving us further in to a self-protective stance and away from others.

Conscious growth happens when we break this pattern and begin to realize that there are other, more effective, more positive ways to be. This can happen through the example of another person, or by experimentation. Let’s say, for instance, that you “just know” that if you’re not perfect you will be hurt in some way (criticized, rejected, abandoned), and you make a mistake in front of someone who you respect, but that person shows no signs of the rejection and criticism that you had assumed naturally accompany such an event. Perhaps this person actually draws closer, and supports and encourages you! Or you may find that you’ve come to a crisis in your life (another failed relationship, fired from a job, a health crisis) and out of shear desperation you are willing to try anything new, and decide to step in to the darkness - of trusting someone, when you just “know” that people can not be trusted, or telling someone about your fears, when just “know” that you will be taken advantage of if you reveal your deepest feelings - and to your shock, you find that this desperate measure works; the person is trustworthy, and vulnerability brought you closer.

Now you begin to realize that there are possibilities for understanding the world to which you were completely blind, because you absolutely believed your construct about how things are. Suddenly the incredible possibility arises that your construct may not be the absolute truth, and there is another way of seeing things. Then, in the birth of new possibilities you grow and are pulled forward, as new ways of seeing your life and the world appear. Then, you look back of where you’ve been with gratitude at the urgent, persistent whisper of growth.

Everything is an Oversimplification

Last week I said culture is a pattern of assumptions. We need to operate based on assumptions to get by in the complex world we live in.

The world is, indeed, vast and complex. Have you ever spent time thinking about this? It can be a pretty intimidating idea, for sure.

To get by we need to utilize assumptions, shortcuts, heuristics, etc. These are necessary simplifications because there is a limit to how quickly we can process information. Indeed, everything is an oversimplification.

So, what are we to do? I guess the short answer is to not settle, and put time to work in our favor. Meaning, though the brain can only process so much information at a time, it can process for long periods of time.

I recently read Anders Ericsson's book Peak. If the name does not ring a bell, he is the guy who did the research which ultimately led to something called the 10,000 Hour Rule.

Like many oversimplifications, the 10,000 Hour Rule is not actually a rule. But, it sounds nice. So, Malcolm Gladwell put it in his popular book Outliers.

The idea is relatively simple and it goes like this. The human brain is extremely adaptable. And, with enough practice it can master just about anything.

Putting in 10,000 hours takes about 10 years. Which is, of course, a long time. But, the result is expert performance (a level few aspire to) so most things will not take as long.

Though I know I am rambling in this post, my point is the following. Life is complicated and it takes time to figure out. So, don't give up.

Depending on your persuasion, the fact of life's complexity can be either stimulating or depressing. The depressing slant would be that 10 years is a long time to work hard. The stimulating idea is that we need not ever get bored.

I mean, let's face it, the time will pass either way. Look at it this way, 10 years is about 12.5% of the average lifetime. Doesn't look so long anymore, does it?

I will leave you with that famous quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, “For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But, for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, I would give my life.”