Just Be And You Are

Understanding that people are driven by innumerable motivations can help you learn to see their actions as a product of their inner selves rather than taking their behavior personally. Not taking people’s words and actions personally frees you from the need to react to them. You no longer have to perceive any negativity on their part as ill treatment, nor do you have to see their responses to you as a reflection of whether or not you said or did something wrong. Other people’s behavior and reactions cease to be a benchmark of your worth. When you choose not to take the words and actions of others personally, you can feel positive today even when surrounded by negativity.

- DailyOM: Impersonal Understanding

Leadership for me is about the simple living of our own truth and then manifesting it through an external work that can share it with others.

That’s from Zainab Salbi in this video in an online series called “On Leadership” at The Washington Post.

Realization – an awakening to what needs to be done and how you can do it – is key to being this kind of leader. Very few get there. I’m glad she did.

Naked honesty from The Millions

If I had to put my finger on the one thing I like most about Erratum sheets, it would have to be this; it is a tangible piece of evidence that proves that famous Alexander Pope quote to be true, to err really is human. And thank goodness for that. In this world, that is increasingly becoming mistake free, it’s nice to see an honest up-front admission of human error. Not that I want people to screw up, I don’t. But when you can clear up every blemish with Photoshop, spell check every misspelling, and delete and re-post a drunken status update, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear three little words… I. Screwed. Up. But if you want to sound fancy, you can say Erratum.

Thanks to Delayed Echoes, a very random find of great depth.

John Robb writes about Entrepreneurship as Resilience:

One of the best ways you can prepare for the future is to train yourself to become an entrepreneur — essentially a person that makes their own economic opportunities. It’s going to become a major differentiator between those that succeed and those that fail in a harsh global system (this expertise has been deprecated by a system that prides itself on manufacturing salaried consumption bots).

He gives 10 survival tips. Here’s a great one:

Deconstruct any business you see. Estimate revenues. Evaluate competition and competitive advantage and marketing. Etc. Find out how they make money and how much.

Much thanks to Cameron Schaefer for sharing.

Settling is the key word. Once we have X number of things we are set, we’ve made it. The status quo: a family, a house with a backyard, a dog, cars, TVs, possessions, wealth. Do you actually need these things or have you convinced yourself that you want them?

What don’t you need that you think you want?

There are people who do want the societal status quo (or portions of it). There are those who rebel against it because, well, they’re rebels and they need something to be against. There are those who want to provide others the opportunity to achieve the status quo. Those that want to build something new. Those that want to sleepwalk through it all. Those that want to be engaged fully in everything. Those that want to communicate. Love. Cherish. Hate. Heal. Discover. Run. Escape. Observe. Just be.

Again, what do you want? There are lots of different modes of thinking. Exposing oneself to information is hard to beat.

Our desire for change is rooted in wanting something we don’t think we have. Change is assumed to be an event, not a process.

A better body for example is a prevalent theme in American culture. We can all be thinner or stronger. Regardless of health benefits, aesthetics takes precedence. If change is an event, a pill for weight loss or muscle gain does the trick. From one day to the next, you’re a new you. Marketing campaigns barely run on more.

If change is a process, the body you see in the mirror and the body you want are one and the same. It’s just a matter of time. We are but versions of another self waiting to happen.

“Focus is passe. In the modern world we want to feel everything all the time. There is no point in just taking a walk in the park when we can also listen to headphones, munch on a hot dog, crank up our vibrating soles to the maximum, and check out the passing carnival of humanity. Our choices shout the creed of a new world order: stimulation! Thought and creativity have become subservient to the singular goal of saturating our senses. But I’m old school. If you are not prepared to focus on me when you are with me – conversation , touch, our momentary entwining of souls – then get out of my face and go back to your 500 channels of surround-sound life.”

-Juggler

Writing in a blog that doesn’t have much of a readership sometimes feels like beating your head against a wall. No matter what anyone says, it takes time to compose these posts and most of that time is mental; the energy you spend thinking about the kind of message you want to send streaming across the web. Each post is like an essay you would write for an English class, the difference being the whole class gets the chance to read it. You expose yourself in your writing and that’s what make the process so rewarding.

This is my fourth blog and in my hiatus between the last blog and this one I even wrote a treatise called, “The Case Against Blogging”, which I wanted to send to the uberblogger, Ben Casnocha. I chickened out. Not that I wasn’t ready for Ben’s counterargument, I wasn’t really that sure about my own. It mainly had to do with opportunity cost of time and spending that time wisely pursuing hobbies (which a blog can be one of) or starting businesses (which a blog can turn into) or just relaxing (again, something a blog can provide). I convinced myself out of my own treatise.

The greatest beneficiary of any blog is oneself. When you press the “Publish” button, it’s as if it’s final. Your word – a part of your inner thinking in that moment in time – is out there in the open, never to be reclaimed (though it technically can be, but again you’re the only one who has to answer to you). Seeing one’s stream of thought over time reveals an honesty that’s sometimes difficult to bear. “I thought that!”, you wonder, and move on because you think differently now because you thought that back then.

Just like a picture, a blog is a snapshot of your mental framework at a specific period in time. The bottomline is some people don’t like taking pictures, some don’t see the value in taking them, and a lot of others just couldn’t live without them. I’m in all those camps when it comes to blogging, and all I know right now is that I like taking pictures. And that works for me.

We don’t look at people’s eyes enough. In fact, we tend to avert our gaze just as we make eye contact with a stranger across the street. Why is that? I believe part of it is hard-wired in us socially because that’s just what everybody does. In general, America is more of a non-confrontational society that also respects private space as holy. We don’t want to intrude.

Connections aren’t made this way though. Whether in a conversation or locking eyes with a man/woman walking by us, the gaze we hold doesn’t have to be creepy, it can also be kind. I remember reading a column in 2004 about gazing with kindness in your eyes. The idea is to mentally wish the other person a great day and just look at them with that in mind. I was skeptical, but had to try it.

I did this in elevators, on the subway, as I entered a meeting I would wish everyone a wonderful day ahead. The response was remarkable. People smiled. I wasn’t even smiling at the time so it wasn’t a reciprocal gesture, but my guess is my eyes were smiling. Scientifically, my pupils may have expanded just a little or just been bigger than usual, indicating openness and comfort.

I didn’t practice this visual kindness for long though, jumping back on the New York bandwagon of keeping to yourself. I come back to it again now as a result of confidence. I believe confident people hold your gaze longer and with more assurance. There is little uncertainty in confident eye contact. Without the need to wish kindness on others and as a result be more open, when you’re confident, you just are that open.

Most of us mean well, and the split second hesitation that makes us avert our eyes might even skew our good intentions. Staring and gazing are two different things.

Put your hands out in front of you, palms up. One hand represents who you are and the other who you want to be. Bring your hands together and that’s the goal, to be who you want to be. To some level, we’ll always have these two sides but the aim here is to get them as close as possible. Think of any successful person, whether a celebrity, businessman or someone you know personally and I bet their two sides are more in sync than most.

You have to ask yourself though if you actually want this? Fantasizing about a successful future rather than having one is an addiction for some. The process of achieving success – whatever that might mean to you – is not necessarily glamorous and can be a turn off as compared to the dream that keeps you going. If you recognize this about yourself, that’s one more step towards understanding who you are. Conventional wisdom is rarely for everyone, but collective thinking can be so strong that we buy into it even when we know it’s not our pursuit. The whole point of this is to figure out what works for you.

Suppose though that you do want to be more of who you want to be. And suppose you don’t think you are who you are. Write each of them down. Personal rifts are easy to spot on paper. I have an “Am” side and a “Want” side, and fill them in with a mix of sentences and bullets. Free flowing thought is best. You can always come back to it tomorrow.

The easier this process seems, the more likely your two sides are to be far apart. Struggling through this exercise is telling in a different way. Either you don’t know who you are or you don’t know what you want (though you thought you did), or you can’t come up with anything because you’re content and your two hands are in fact already together. Whatever the case, you gained a little self-knowledge.

This translates to other areas and I use this simple exercise often when making major decisions. For example, when thinking about career, I create the same dividing line and put “personal” and “professional” goals on either side. I can see a rift right away and can also recognize if I want the rift (keep my career and personal life separate) or don’t want the rift. Similar to the other example, I leave knowing which side I’m more sure about.

We all tend to make decisions very emotionally. Thinking with your heart is great and if your head also agrees, the decision seems that much more solid. Besides, you’re going to spend the time mulling over a decision anyway so you might as well write a few things down. It creates accountability; something you can share with friends, family, or a significant other and will always be a timestamped reference to go back to. I’ve done this several times over the last few years for different categories of decisions in my life and thank Josh for refining my method.