Category: Change

How Daily Self-Improvement is Geared to Lead to a Crisis

To follow-up on the previous post ‘How to Explain the Contradiction Between Small Changes and Transformation‘, let’s think further about what self-improvement gurus look for when they recommend progressive, daily change that compounds. I believe that in fact they intend to create the conditions for a rupture change.

Most self-improvement literature is for people who are stuck and probably unhappy with their situation. It would be difficult to tell them that they need to change everything immediately, without being prepared. It is much better to ask them to reflect, change, improve themselves day after day toward what they want to be.

At some point there will be a rupture point with their current environment and their current self. Progress will have been made which will suddenly put in bright light the inadequacy of the situation, and a crisis and sudden transformation will ensue: divorce, changing job and/or becoming independent, etc.

In complex system when it is ready for change the slightest disruption will change completely the system, all of a sudden. The point it to reach this rupture point and let the system mature accordingly.

And this is all the subtleness of self-improvement literature: have the system mature so that one day, all of a sudden, a major change can occur.

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How to Explain the Contradiction Between Small Changes and Transformation

I have noticed a contradiction between real world and complexity-driven knowledge, which shows that the changes that really dimension life are those rare, black swans; and the literature about self-improvement that emphasizes the accumulation of small, daily changes and improvements to achieve transformation.

According to one view, which seems to be quite applicable to nature changes and world history, momentous changes are those rare events like wars, catastrophes and unexpected crisis that remodel the world into something widely different.

According to the other view, we should seek progressive, continuous improvement to end up being significantly transformed thanks to the accumulation of changes. This same approach also applies to recommendations about retirement savings, thanks to the aggregation of returns over time: change upon change, compounded, becomes exponential.

Which one should we believe? Which one is true and the one to follow?

Because we live in an increasingly complex world, I would rather seek the momentous change, the crisis, the rupture, as the type of changes that really make sense and redefine our world and ourselves. It is probably the most effective. Seeking a real change may be more effective than progressive, incremental change.

This does not mean that continuous improvement and incremental change are not useful, but they are secondary in the shaping of ourselves and our world to major punctual changes.

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How ‘Yet’ is Such an Important Word

Seth Godin in this post ‘A simple missing word‘ reminds us how ‘yet’ is such an essential word. Adding ‘yet’ to simple sentences reminds us that we can learn and do stuff we can’t do yet, and that we can eventually finish projects we are struggling with.

“I have not managed to learn how to do this” is terribly changed when ‘yet’ is added in the end.

““Yet” turns “can’t” into “haven’t.” Yet isn’t the result of brazen persistence. It’s what we earn with learning, insight and generosity.“

Yet is a key word for hope and transformation. Let’s put some more ‘yet’ in our negative sentences!

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How Leaders Influence Organisations

In this interesting article ‘Party supporters shift views to match partisan stances‘ a Danish scientific paper is mentioned that studies how the opinion of political party members changed after the leadership of the party changed. They found that opinions could change significantly to match the leader’s.

“Supporters of a political party change their policy views “immediately and substantially” after that party switches its position on an issue, new research suggests, a sign that political elites could be shaping the opinions of the voters whos views they are supposed to represent“

In general, this is aligned with my experience in (business) organisations: I am always amazed how quickly it is shaped by the leader, and this is particularly visible in good or worse when the leader changes. However it was for me less obvious in the case of a looser setting like a political party.

And indeed it is an interesting question in this case as the political party is supposed to represent the views of its members. Or is it really? Is not more a way to align over a number of main positions to seek power? This certainly provides interesting food for thought about the operation of modern democracies.

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How Dense Cities Get Rewarded in the Collaborative Age

In the book ‘Hedge‘ Nicolas Colin makes the point that dense cities are rewarded in the Collaborative Age. “The Entrepreneurial Age seems to reward large cities and nothing else , and old jobs have been radically displaced as a result . As factories are now empty , the occupied working class is now employed primarily in services — services that are more and more concentrated in cities. Hence , as Richard Florida puts it, the city has become the “ new factory floor”“

There are conflicting movements at stake here: increased possibilities for remote work (enhanced by the Covid crisis), making it possible to live in the countryside at the condition of having a strong and reliable internet connection; and the network effect of cities that allow the deployment of more effective logistics and services. It seems however for Nicolas Colin that metropolis have a future, in particular because “workers are being redeployed from the suburban industrial class of the twentieth century to the urban service class of the twenty – first century“, and because networked services are orders of magnitude more efficient there.

There could possibly even be an argument on the fact that the creative class would tend to move to the countryside or small towns whereas the working class would tend to concentrate in cities, creating further inequality (and being an opposite trend than the one observed in the 20th century).

In any case, dense cities and metropolis seem to have a future as places of creativity, encounters, and network efficiency. How much concentration on a limited number of cities will happen remains to be seen.

On the same topics, previous posts include

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How Surrounding Yourself With the Right People is Essential to Start Something New

In this interesting post ‘Early Work‘, Paul Graham examines what is holding back people from doing great work. And he identifies that it is mainly “the fear of making something lame“, unremarkable, mediocre.

“Many great projects go through a stage early on where they don’t seem very impressive, even to their creators. You have to push through this stage to reach the great work that lies beyond. But many people don’t. Most people don’t even reach the stage of making something they’re embarrassed by, let alone continue past it. They’re too frightened even to start.”

As Paul Graham mentions there is an increasing institutional support to people starting new things (business angels, incubators…) and this is going in the right direction.

He points out interestingly however that there is another social effect that needs to be overcome: “If you try something ambitious, many of those around you will hope, consciously or unconsciously, that you’ll fail. They worry that if you try something ambitious and succeed, it will put you above them.”

The key is thus as always to surround yourself with the right people to instill the right level of confidence and get the right support to go through the ‘lame’ phase.

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How GPS Became Irreplaceable While Free

We don’t think much anymore how miraculous the Global Positioning System GPS is. Still, it takes a lot of high technology (including relativist time corrections on satellites!) to provide us with what is now an everyday service we depend on. Actually we take it for granted when we would be quite lost without it.

Is GPS now part of the minimum infrastructure that we need as humans, like internet access? It has certainly drastically changed the way we navigate. It started as many technology before from the Cold War military efforts, but has been progressively opened to the civilian uses. For free. Until we can’t now part from it.

Let’s imagine for a minute what would happen if the system went to be fully unavailable. We are all using it one way or the other in our daily lives, and even more so in certain industries like logistics. A lot of the efficiency gains in many activities come from GPS availability.

Still this service is available for free as many services we now take for granted, as a by-product of something developed for military purpose. There is an issue about the US controlling the signal, which is being addressed by other blocks of nations that are launching their own system. This will provide redundancy. It is still amazing that something so useful is available for free.

In the Collaborative Age, a lot of the basic infrastructure becomes increasingly available for free or cheap. Maybe we should be careful not to take it too much for granted and have some backup solutions if they suddenly disappear.

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How Internet Can Also Be Used to Foster Democracy

This worthwhile Guardian article ‘How Taiwan’s ‘civic hackers’ helped find a new way to run the country‘ describes the important gOv experiment carried out there. Using a platform focused on areas of agreement rather than tending to split communities around disagreement it seems that they have built a platform that gives hope that internet can be used to really foster democracy (g0v.asia).

Of course this experiment could only come from Taiwan where the need for democracy is particularly essential due to the ambitions of its mainland neighbor.

The Guardian article explains how this started in 2014, and how important it is now in the local political landscape, with even a minister stemming from this movement.

Interestingly, a cornerstone of the approach is radical transparency about everything in the public sphere – making information and data much more accessible to the citizens.

But the most interesting I find is that “the discussants found themselves in an entirely new kind of online space – exactly the opposite of a social media platform that encourages strife“. “As people expressed their views, rather than serving up the comments that were the most divisive, it gave the most visibility to those finding consensus – consensus across not just their own little huddle of ideological fellow-travellers, but the other huddles, too. Divisive statements, trolling, provocation – you simply couldn’t see these.“

So it quite possible to use Internet in a way that fosters agreement instead of the traditional social networks we have grown used to, that do rather the contrary. This is quite an important message, and I am looking forward to this type of platforms to become increasingly widespread.

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How To Address Your ‘Freedom in the Mountain’ Yearning

Escaping from the turbulent city life to rebuild oneself in a remote, quiet corner in the countryside or in the middle of the mountains is a widespread aspiration, as demonstrated by its popularity in works of fiction in books and on the screen. I must confess I do suffer from it and am hoping to follow this wish as soon as possible, and hopefully quite sooner than retirement. Luckily in this post ‘Find Freedom of the Mountain in Everything You Do‘, Leo Babauta explores how to address this longing at your current home. It’s all about your feeling of freedom.

“What we (and many others) crave is not really the mountain, but freedom. Simplicity and space and the liberating feeling of freedom. We think if we simplify and let everything go and get our lives free of the burdens, we’ll feel free. But what I’ve found is that getting rid of everything and living a simple life doesn’t necessarily give you that freedom.”

“A teacher a few years ago gifted me with a liberating idea: find the freedom in your current life, without having to change a thing.” There is more detail in the post about to achieve this state of freedom in your current situation without moving to this remote un-connected location of your dreams.

Although I believe this post only addresses one side of the yearning (the other side being to live at a slower pace, in a less crowded location and without the traffic jams and dense public transportation), it provides quite an interesting insight into this widespread yearning (I do not agree with the term fantasy used by Leo Babauta).

Anyway it is worth remembering that we can do much to increase our sense of freedom where we are right now geographically or otherwise, and that we should focus on developing it.

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How Begpackers are a Reflection of the Free Culture

This Quartz post ‘The ‘begpacker’ phenomenon shows how fake poverty has become a status symbol‘ addresses the issue of the ‘begpackers’ – typically western young people who travel far and beg their money for travel. I have seen them in Asia as quite a recent trend, begging in very public and central locations, and this is strongly resented by inhabitants of many poorer countries. I believe this is an effect of social media and the habit to get a lot for free.

“In the age of social media, crowdfunding, and hashtags, the dream of free travel has morphed once again, giving us the phenomenon of #begpackers: People who travel backpacker-style on a beggar’s budget, asking for contributions, freebies, and handouts from locals or fellow travelers to as they go.”

While travelling on a shoestring is definitely not new (that’s the motto of the famous Lonely Planet guides), visibly begging in public spaces is. Before, people either depended on their own limited resources, or took some jobs to get more.

The article expands on the fact that begging is a status symbol in the age of social networks. I am not so sure. I would tend to believe that we are getting used to having access to many services for free (in exchange for our data of course) and that as a consequence we don’t necessarily understand that it does not apply fully to the real world, in particular far from home.

Let’s remember that having access to so much for free is not actually for free, and that there are ethical boundaries that should not be crossed in relying on others to get along for free.

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How is USA Is Growing Different From the Rest of the Western World

The infographics of this excellent New York Times opinion ‘The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why.‘ are quite enlightening about some trends that make the USA stand apart from the rest of the developed world.

The US appear to be very specific on such aspects as life expectancy, ratio of added value going to workers vs CEOs, healthcare expenditure (the double in terms of share of GDP!), incarceration rate (more than double again, even 3x or 4x!), or income inequality.

It seems quite clear that there is apparently something broken in the way the US socio-economics work. The question is out whether this situation is actually sustainable even if the US economy is quite self-sustaining. I am convinced however that despite the powerful US softpower, we need to be careful when we are importing in our societies typical US issues, which are not necessarily valid in our societies.

The USA is clearly an outlier in may socio-economic aspects. It is a very large outlier of course, but let’s not necessarily make it a model or try to adopt its solutions, which may not be adequate for the rest of the world.

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How Most Internet Services Are Poor at Helping You Discover New Things

This thoughtful blog by Seth Godin ‘Who is good at discovery?‘ remind us that most internet services are poor to help us discover new things. Some are better like Netflix, but many are really poor.

“Google built its entire business on the mythology of discovery, persuading millions of entrepreneurs and creators that somehow, SEO would help them get found, at the very same time they’ve dramatically decreased organic search results to maximize revenue.”

Intrinsically, and increasingly, internet services tend to propose new things that fit our preferences in order to keep us hooked. I find that it is increasingly difficult to get a connection to something new. And it is not the case for traditional press and magazines, my personal network of peers and connections, references in the books I read which continue to allow me to discover new things much more than all internet united.

When you search on internet you’d better know what you’d like to find, because serendipity is not going to happen by itself. Worse, on “YouTube–if you follow the ‘recommended’ path for just a handful or two of clicks, you’ll end up with something banal or violent.“

Don’t rely on the internet to find new things to discover. Rather rely on your network and traditional sources!

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