Interesting As It Is

Forever The Optimist

There is a recent study done by some academics at Yale and Duke Universities that underscores the importance of optimism and having an upbeat attitude. This isn't some cliche driven motivational mumbo, delivered by one of the preachers-of-jack-you-up, it's a look at how those with optimism seem to do measureably better in work and in life. You can find the full report here.

This should come as no surprise for those of who have worked with pessimists, doomsayers and other "nattering nabobs of negativism".  But the research is finally comfirming what most of us already knew, that a negative point of view on life depleats the inventory of good energy to go around. That's not exactly how these researchers put it, but it is the point. 

So what to do about the energy vampires that walk amongst us in daylight?  The only thing I can do is affect the change in my own behavior and my own view of things. I have a several friends who believe our world is going to hell in a handbasket and that we are living in deep crap times.  It seems that even if the news is good, there is something lurking underneath, something bad!  When I tell them I don't find the world so horrible, they accuse me of being pollyanna or of putting my head in the sand. They say things like "Well, you have never had it bad...you've never had to struggle.." Laughable..if they only knew.

Look, we need optimistic energy to build new things, to run our companies, to get things done and to get us around the bend. Pessimists will continue to wring their hands and worry over everything. But those of us who thrive on vital, exciting, natural, human energy, have to continue to embrace the idea that tomorrow could be better than today, and if things get dark, eventually the skies will clear. It usually works that way in my experience. When I start to believe that everything is a bummer, oddly, everything becomes a bummer!

Life is amazing, remarkable, beautiful and messy enough. Why not keep yourself surrounded by optimists, the true believers, those that understand the seasons, that the sun will eventually burn through the clouds, and that every day we are alive we have work to do, a world to tend to, people to love, and...at least for me, a dog that needs to go out for a walk. Damn...ain't that just perfect!

Shut Up!

I was just watching some kind of You Tube feed about the mayhem that's happening in Madison, and watched as two people with opposing ideas yelled at one another. As I'm watching, I find myself riveted to the entire scene, not because I know them or I was moved or inspired by either of them, but because of the energy around their exchange.

One thing we can say for certain, all of these riots and protests are containers of messy, reckelss, beautiful energy and passion. What ever your opinion is about the politics of these events, it's clear when we're watching them that the people involved are awake, they're vital and worked up. All of those are good things, great things, even if the circumstances for these events feels troubling. What is at the core of all of this, it seems to me, is that people are deeply engaged, for right or for wrong, in the marketplace of ideas. Ideas matter, and when we feel that an idea we value is being attacked or demeaned, we are inspired to get involved, to stand up and say something.

Our places of work don't usually exhibit the kinds of energy we find at a rally or, certainly, a riot. But it doesn't take a rally or a riot, or a change in policy for us to feel that pull to become involved. What is operating at the core of this is participation in a lively conversation with others we are connected to, where we find agreement and disagreement, inclusing and exclusing. It's when we feel this connection to others who are engaged in a common purpose, that great energy can build great things. Just as quickly, however, this energy can turn ugly and violent, if we decide that our idea is the right one and the rest be damned. Sure, revolutions start this way, but very little will ever rise to the level of revolution. Our energy can build powerful movements, it can change the way business is done, improve conditions, work out a problem, or even build and operate a company. 

When we are dealing with energy, engagement and ideas, the best path to managing the associated anxieties is through conversation. Whether we are working for someone, managing others or any other place where we are in communion with other people, our energies are best managed through personal discourse, shared understanding, and mutual respect. Change isn't sustainable with force, and telling others what to do without input will simply lead to an open loop of disconnect and disharmony

As you watch the events unfold in Madison, or at other places around the world, notice how the conversation changes when people actually start treating each other with respect, when there is a dialogue rather than a monologue. 

I don't think agreement is always a good thing, and disharmony isn't always better than acrimony. But if we are to find solutions that count, that include and improve, whether that is in our work or politics, we're going to have roll up our sleeves and do the hard, heavy lifting, dirty work of listening, talking and building a solution together. At the end of the road, even if we didn't get what we wanted, we have demonstrated some degree of civility, some attempt to understand one another, and those are attributes, I believe,  that put the human into being.

Swallowing The Happy Pill

The world continues its accelerated descent into the abyss of chaos and unrest, the Arab countries are burning with riots, Christchurch, New Zealand is in ruins, gas prices are inching towards $5 a gallon, inflation is on the rise, unions are getting the boot, unemployment remains high and mighty,the economy is still emaciated and Bieber cut his damned hair..oh my.

Things are horrible, people are miserable, the world is coming undone, and no one seems to have a real answer for any of it. But, not surprising, the world of smile merchants and happy dancers is alive and well and ready to paste a patsy smile on your face. If that doesn't work, we can meditate, chant, take drugs, drink and get our chakras open and flowing. If all of that fails, we can spend hours on our knees praying and pleading to whatever deity is listening and hope, of course, that our prayers will receive a response.

At the risk of sounding cynical, I don't think much of these pop culture responses to the world's messy breakup.In face, I don't think the world is breaking up anyway, and for most of the world things are not all bad, or they're not all bad all of the time.  It's not that I don't want to smile or enjoy my life, or that I'm not worried about the general well being of the world around me, but the denial of complexity and the chosen bliss of ignorance doesn't really help with well being at all. Certainly everyone has their own way to respond to crisis and change, but are we truly better off dancing about with smiles on our faces, thinking happy thoughts while the world rumbles under our feet, then we are if we embrace these complexities as an opportunity to connect, as a chance to reach out.

I believe in joy. I believe in being happy. I advocate for the energy that erupts when two or more people share a common connection, idea or goal. But I also have learned that true joy is more elusive when I cover my dark thoughts with gooey sweetness and artificial mumbo. When I accept that life in this nutty world is unstable and chaotic, that darkness and melancholy, failure and misfortune are a seemingly necessary counterbalance to the joy, then I feel grounded to the trembling earth I'm walking on, and happy to do so.

I say embrace joy, embrace a fecund happiness when possible, but accept that no amount of happy thinking or choosing ones attitude can relieve you of the burdens and foibles of being a human being. In fact, connecting and being with others, and giving ourselves over to frienship and companionship might just be the answer to regaining our energy and sense of well being. I might be feeling down today, and worried about the future tomorrow, but I can navigate towards friends who believe in me, engage with those who are vital and circumspect about the slings and arrows flying around me, and I start  to feel better about the moment I'm in. After all, being sad can sometimes be an invitation to be with others even as we're bumming.

If you'd tried the happy dance and you don't have any more room on your "vision board" for pictures of happily ever, try calling a friend to talk, take a walk through a mall where others are engaged in ordinary activities, get together with somone you'd like to know and have a conversation. You don't need to swallow happy pills, or post smile face bumper stickers across your frown; just hang with it, feel it, write about it, share it, walk with it, let it reveal something in yourself, turn to it, get inside it...and then...if you run out of things to do, just sit, calm down and make yourself a nice, hot, cup of tea. All will be well again, I know.

Hmmmm...that sounds good.

Vibrating for success!

I just got an electronic invitation for a program about "manifesting" things into ones life. It features a young woman who feels she has apparently solved the problem of how to create health, wellness and success in our lives without actually having to do anything. In a video, she appears with a guitar in her lap and asks the viewer to imagine that our lives are like the "C" string on the guitar (there actually isn't a C string on a guitar...) and that when we strike it, it vibrates. Yeah...so?  So, she claims, we need to see everything in life as having a vibration, and every thought and action is either in tune with that vibration, or no, and that to have succcess, we need to vibrate correctly...or something like that. 

The silliness of such claims should be obvious to anyone, and even a non-skeptic would have to come to the conclusion that life isn't a vibrating string, and that the things we want to achieve require something more from us than trying to...vibrate. Whatever it is that we want requires us to expend real energy to get it. That's why we eat things, to fuel our bodies so it has the energy to burn so we can do more things, and then eat again.

We experience energy in many ways, though for most of us it is a physical sensation, we feel good, we have a sense of joy, optimism, and we feel awake. There are people and circumstances where we find a spike in our energy, we have a noticeable, physical response to being in their presence. Sometimes, like the protests in Egypt, of even in Madison, we have a heightened sense of energy being around others that share a common goal or want. When we are fully engaged with another, or with others, this energy comes about naturally and without work, and there is no mystery to it, it's simply shared excitement.  

But to create the things we want in life, whether that's a new car, a new job, or a new business, we have to burn energy, and sometimes that energy is being spent doing things we may not enjoy, things that don't inspire us, stuff that isn't "playful" in the real sense of play. Artists and writers know all too well that creating works of art is hard, often damned hard work. No amount of manifesting, or "C" string vibrations are going to make the sculpture, or that novel happen, it has to be written one damned word after another.

It's important, particularly with our economy where it is, as well as the state of the world in general, that we remember how creating things, like a new business, or a change in our business or personal environment, requires us to work at it, bust ass, sacrifice, stay focused and keep going even when we want to quit. Our thoughts don't create things directly, only our actions do, and ideas are a dime for 5 dozen. Without structure and effort, most ideas are petty and as worthless as a newly minted penny, or string on a guitar.  If we want to manifest things into our lives and discover success for ourselves, we have to get over the idea that thinking makes things.  After all, a half assed idea combined with action, is worth more than a thought of genius with no folllow through.

What is useful is to work with or hang out with people that energize us, that believe in us, that want us to succeed. When we write something that moves another, when we create something that someone wants to buy, when we have an idea that finds an audience, we are excited and hopeful about tomorrow, and from this excitement we can draw on our energy to keep moving.

If you want to create something, start hanging with good people who say smart things and love what you're up to, start believing it when someone tells you that you're talented, or that you have great ideas. Once you have some fuel in the fire, make sure you also have people that can help structure your life so that you can convert your ideas and projects into something that others will want. All of this, in turn, will make you feel energized..naturally..without any manifestation mumbo-jumbo.

The universe doesn't care what you want, but your friends and those that you find that believe in you do, and they can help keep you to remain energized as you do the day-to-day hard work of building the next big thing, minus the woogie woogie, of course.

If youth knew: If age but could

Whenever I find myself hanging with people my own age, I sometimes wish I was amongst the young and the restless. It's not that I don't enjoy mature adults with defined points of view, but that's kind of my point. The older I get the more interested I've become in combating my tendency to settle down into patterns of acceptance and softness. There is just something about youth that keeps the conversations and thinking vital.

A few years ago, my wife introduced me to Nick, a friend she'd made at work. Nick was a cocky 21 year old full of more vinegar than piss. We all became good friends and spent a lot of time together, built a bond, and learned from one another. What was interesting was that he couldn't have cared less about the work I do, what my ideas were or what I wanted to do in the world. He was more interested in me, in the here and the now and just hanging in the moment. It was the perfect relationship. He brought a new soundtrack with him as well, loud music that was more of a body blow than rock and roll. He's a hard living, hard driving hard working kid and full of energy and it wasn't long after I met him that I permanently retired pleated khakis and any thing Tommy Bahama, the apparel expression of middle aged acceptance.

Just last week I sat across the table in conversation with a fantastically bright young woman, all of 21 years of age, who talked about what she wanted to create in her life and where she want it to go. It was a conversation that I thought would last about 2 hours, but we finally called it after 4, and still think we have many more conversations to have. It was perfect. She is so full of intense curiosity about life, the vital questions, the raw uncertainty of choices and a deep sense that the loops for her are all live wired and wide open. 

In nearly every exchange I have with people much younger than I am, I find myself rearranging my thinking with a bias towards the present. While I don't wish to return to the days where I knew it all, in the presence of a young person with questions, I am reminded of how critical it is to embrace the subversive, the deviant, the irresponsible and the delinquent. The alternative seems to be calm and safe, and as predictable as a weekly TV schedule.

Relevance isn't decided by age, nor by experience alone, but also by the energy we have and the questions that push us around.  When we lose the vital, raw, natural energy we have in our relationships to others, to our curiosities and questions, to our work and service, we can turn callous and rigid.  If we are only surrounded by those like us in age and in ideas, we may turn our lives into mono-cultures, like banana plantations of uniformity of thought.

Give up, good friends, and find time to hang with the young and the beautiful. They need our guidance and challenge to their thinking, and help in raising and cultivating their ideas. They have a lot of questions we can answer, and our support can be vital to their future success. What you'll get in return is a fantastic infusion of energy, a sense of life and vitality that will juice your mind, liven your spirits, and provoke your thinking in ways that may surprise you.

Our world is rumbling with the energy of youth. We shouldn't turn our lives into gated communities full of predictability and safety. Instead, let youth grow around you, let them provoke and mentor you with their curiosity and insights. In return, they'll see the impact they can have on adults, on those of us that can sometimes waste too much time on protecting the status quo. They'll see us at partners in this world, and that can only be a good thing for all of us.

I don't celebrate Valentines Day!

I have never been much for fabricated celebrations or "special" days where I am to acknowledge some event or person. These things seem like such constructs, and while I certainly have enjoyed the time off for days like the 4th of July or New Years, I don't find myself motivated to buy cards, roses, or chocolates for something like Valentines Day.  Instead, I celebrate my relationship with my wife Marian throughout the year, not just with occassional cards and letters but sharing my gratitude as often as I can.

But, today, I was thinking about how happy I am being in a relationship with a woman who, after over 20 years continues to be fresh and exciting. I thought about the shit we've been through this past year with changes in my health, our transition to a less opulent and more rational lifestyle, and the recognition that we're getting older. It occurred to me how fortunate I feel that this lovely and beautiful woman hasn't given up on me, and stands by me even when I'm wickedly moody, prickly and prickish. She always seems to be happy, or not far from it, and even in times when things seem a bit dark, she expresses a positivity that keeps the lights on.

I don't think it necessary to celebrate this Hallmark induced special date.  I get it every day, and quite frankly I couldn't afford to buy her flowers every time I'm thankful, and doing so on one day in February seems a pathetic paucity. I can't do enough to express how it feels to have this kind of person in my life, certainly not on one day, let alone the other 364.  There hasn't be a single day in my life with her that I've not been happy. Sure, she can be a pain the ass, but so what...it just passes so quickly and we're back to green.  Being happy doesn't fall on one calendar day.

When I look back on all of these years with her, time seems to conflate into a single day called the past. It hasn't been slow, nor fast, just everyday, and everyday with her is good. We've been together for 22 years, we laugh more now than we did before, we hold each longer than we did just a few years ago. Our conversations are deeper, or sex longer and our time together more precious.

I don't celebrate these stupid days...I don't...really. I wouldn't mind, of course, telling her that I love her now more than I ever have, or that I can't wait to see her when she comes home this evening, or that we'll talk at the end of our day like we do every day, and  I'll feel this same sense of gratitude for her being here. I don't celebrate Valentines day, but since I'm grateful every day...then I guess it's no exception. Who cares if it's Valentines day...it's just a day, an ordinary today, and I'm happy as hell, and how great is it that it's not exceptional, it's just what it is.

I love you.....

I'm not human?

I've spent enough time around the motivational industry to hear the same candy coated buzz words that are deployed to make the audience feel that something really important is being said. It's one reason I am suspicious about the industry for which I owe a portion of my livelihood. The set up is simple, put a lot of people in the same room, give the motivational speaker a microphone, a qualified platform, and time.  This gives the speaker instant credibility because, after all, they're on stage, they seem important, and they have an "important message".

Over the past decade, the materials, books and videos offered by the "Preachers of Jack-You-Up" (speakers), and their associated companies that deal the materials,  have increasingly deployed the synthetic language of human-ness,  human "authenticity", or how we must be "more human" or embrace our "whole selves" at work. The implicit goal is to be "real" with our customers and co-workers. Most of us wouldn't argue with the idea that we benefit when we practice being consistent with our values and that being honest and true are traits of value in anyone. But what do we make of the idea that we somehow can be more human, more authentic, and more..whole?

As I consider my own performance and work inside the world of corporate speakers, preachers and writers, I've seen how easy it is to use these lofty concepts as a way of sounding more profound, of delivering a message of greater meaning and depth. The problem with all of this is that this stuff just isn't actionable and is for the most part quite meaningless.  After all, can any of us really practice being more human? How? You either are, or you aren't, and if you're not, then maybe you're a dog, a worm, or my neighbors obscenely fat cat which clearly isn't human. The idea that we need to be more human sets up an impossible standard, because we can't actually be more human than we already are. What we can do is practice being consistent with what we value, speak clearly about and act in accordance with our human values, and act on those values. When we do, it is a visible demonstration of what we hold as important.

What does it mean to be authentic? Authenticity is usually used to confirm the origins of a painting or work of art. How, for crying out loud, does one test for ones own originality? Aren't we already original, I mean, thankfully there isn't another me!  If we actually could come up with a test for human authenticity how in the hell would we action that, how would one go about becoming authentic?

Much of the work that I do from the stage has some kind metaphorical element to it, but I take pains to present ideas that are simple, common sense, rational and actionable. We should avoid the new age sounding mumbo-jumbo because it is usless cannon fodder that is  about nothing. If we are to create workplaces, lives and communities that are energized and healthy we just need to talk like people, not shamans.On stage, if I can entertain with a few cool stories, make people laugh at some of the absurd things we see in the world, and encourage people to act on something of value, then I've done my job and we've had some fun. No need for mumbo.

Conversation creates and cultivates relationship, and if our conversations are riddled with terms and concepts that are about nothing, than our conversations do little more than waste time and generate nothing. In a world burdened by static talking, flat land texting, and media shouting, what is real and human should be obvious. Just talk and try to listen, then, listen and talk, and allow the energy you feel in response to these conversations be one measure of what you think is real, true, and honest.

It's so simple if you give others your attention, try and minimize distraction and do what you say you're going to do as often as you can. Is that hard?  Is that unusual? Surely not. More important, in this constricted economy it is also least expensive answer to some of our damn troubles,  since listening and hanging out with others is free. Seems like a good deal to me.