Category: K.E.E.N. skills

How We Need to Dose Our Self-Transformation Effort

Following on our previous post ‘How to Accept to Stop Chasing Perfection – a New Trend for Self Help?‘ and the
Guardian article ‘Want to transform your life? Stop chasing perfection‘, I want to share an interrogation that pervades my study of self-improvement. There are a number of philosophies that encourage passivity and acceptance, while obviously some effort is needed to improve; on the other hand it should not become a struggle. How to encounter the just middle? How to dose our effort?

This is well expressed in the Guardian article: “Transformative self-reinvention may be an overoptimistic dream, but defeatism about change is its own kind of false comfort, too: both are forms of absolutism that serve to justify passivity.“

It seems obvious to me that passivity is not the response. Self-improvement is needed, a minimum being what is required to adapt to changes in the society and environment that surrounds us. Some effort is thus needed. Too much effort will lead to suffering, and possibly be counter-productive by cutting us away from important social ties.

It seems to me that the answer is given by the theory of flow: flow is achieved when faced with a somewhat difficult task, but not so difficult that it strains us too much. It is all a question of dosage – being just outside our comfort zone but not too far.

How is currently your dosage? Are your objectives too challenging? Are you rather too easy on yourself?

Share

How to Accept to Stop Chasing Perfection – a New Trend for Self Help?

In this excellent Guardian article ‘Want to transform your life? Stop chasing perfection‘, the issue of perfectionism and how it influences negatively our lives is addressed in a straightforward manner. The main idea of the article is that we should learn to be more contented with what we have rather than trying to be perfect – and that this trend would show in the recent self-help literature.

The main recommendation is “Give up the rat race, accept reality and have the courage to be disliked – the latest self-help trend is not about self-reinvention but finding contentment in the life you have“

According to the author, “In response to the prevailing mood, there has been a noticeable change of tone in the world of self-help, a publishing genre historically dedicated to promising massive, near-effortless transformation overnight, or in a couple of weeks at most“. The author then describes a number of trends including some trends inspired by Buddhism about living in the present and accepting one’s being instead of chasing for transformation.

I am not so sure about this trend in a world that exposes us increasingly to the more than perfect pictures of others on social networks and thus to emotions of envy and wishes to transform one’s lives. There is definitely a tension between several views of the word: living a contented present with minimum means, and self-transforming to a better self. And both co-exist without being necessarily opposed.

Share

How the ‘Buy Slow, Sell Fast’ Advice of Stockbrokers is Wrong

In this Marginal Revolution post ‘The Buying Slow but Selling Fast Bias‘ by Alex Tabarrok, a long quoted wisdom sentence of stockbrokers is proven wrong. ‘Buy Slow, Sell Fast’ has been proven by data scientists to not be the best strategy: it would rather be ‘Buy Slow, Sell Slow’.

According to the research quoted in the post, buying slow and deliberately is not a problem. It is rather on the selling side that selling fast is not optimal. According to the research article, “We use a unique data set to show that financial market experts – institutional investors with portfolios averaging $573 million – exhibit costly, systematic biases. A striking finding emerges: while investors display clear skill in buying, their selling decisions underperform substantially – even relative to strategies involving no skill such as randomly selling existing positions – in terms of both benchmark-adjusted and risk-adjusted returns. We present evidence consistent with limited attention as a key driver of this discrepancy, with investors devoting more attentional resources to buy decisions than sell decisions.”

Coming back to the thinking fast and slow approach now familiar thanks to Daniel Kahneman, this tends to demonstrate that in most cases, a slow and reflective approach is better than a fast, reactive approach – and that it shows even in the testosterone-laden world of financial trading!

Even in stressful situations, it pays off to think slow or think twice before taking a decision!

Share

How Digital Detox May Not Be Effective

“Digital Detox” is a growing trend, a manner to unplug from our increasingly hectic and 24h way of life and find back our balance and ‘real connections’. This extreme process is increasingly trendy (although it just implies unplugging from our screens and internet), and this certainly reflects some level of anxiousness. Yet the effectiveness of this process is disputed, or at least not proven scientifically, as exposed in this Quartz post ‘Digital detoxes are a solution looking for a problem‘.

The point is to examine whether digital detox really improves mental health, like other detoxes do (by the way, the terminology assumes that digital is an addiction).

The article mentions quite a number of excellent references on the impact of digital and social networks on mood and other factors such as sleep. It is clear that in some ways, social networks impacts mood, in particular as people tend to post only the good things that happen to them. Still, the amount of impact on mental health is controverted.

I like the thesis of the article which takes the view that as always when a new technology is introduced, its effect on health is controverted, and adequate usage rules must be invented (one will remember the famous articles in the early 19th century about the fact that running on trains above a few mph should result in certain death).

My view is that digital services are part of our way of life and provide us with significant services that improve our lives (for example, navigating in an unknown town, knowing the latest infos on local transportation etc). They also make it more hectic. On the other hand, excessive usage is certainly harmful. Cutting off entirely is not any more an option; however, making sure we have spaces with lower usage such as on week-ends is certainly a good idea for balance. There is so much to be learnt in that respect that it will take years of learning to understand really what is harmful and adapt our behavior. Let’s use digital in a measured way in the meantime!

Share

How Pain and Suffering Must Be Distinguished

There is a substantial distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is what is, and suffering is what we think it is. While pain will happen, depending on circumstances, suffering is optional.

I am always impressed by how much suffering impacts the behavior and balance of people. We tend to imagine how things could be and this creates often immense suffering, while there is no reality in this imagination, or at least no tangible realization. We tend to worry too much and this creates suffering.

This distinction is absolutely essential, and I find that too often people to mix both concepts. We can do something about suffering; it involves personal discipline, and living more in the present.

In your personal circumstances, can you identify what is pain and what is suffering?

Share

How To Apply Prioritization Properly

Robin Sharma writes “The real key to getting great things done is to stop doing so many good things“. Easy said, not so easy done! He complements this statement with “Success has less to do with hard work and more to do with massive focus on your few best opportunities“

While I concur with these statements overall, and do struggle to prioritize like most of us do, I still have some reservations on some aspects.

The first one is that I believe it is important, while focusing on our current projet, to keep one’s mind open on other things and the general environment. They might well transform into even better and more exciting opportunities! Therefore, it is essential to reserve time for personal education and meeting new people, and identifying new opportunities, even if that’s only for limited time. It’s what I call a diversification strategy (it might even allow you to identify ways of doing your current project more effectively).

The second is that even if you focus on your best opportunity (or opportunities), lots of hard work is still required to get where you want to be, because it is probably something nobody has ever done before, at least in the specific situation you try to apply it. So don’t believe focus does not mean hard work!

Still at the end, it is true that prioritization and focus is a key to success, even if it remains important to be aware of one’s environment and how it shifts.

Share

How Bounding Back is More Important than Failing

I like this quote: “It is not how far you fall, but how high you bounce, that counts“. Attribution is controversial, but it remains quite relevant.

Increasingly I find that the behavior in front of adversity is what counts. It is all too easy to appear to do the right thing when events and luck provide success. And sometimes it is just luck but we still believe it is our skills.

Being able to recover from failure in a constructive way and fight back is what really makes the difference. And sometimes it is better to hire people who have struggled and maybe even failed, because it is far more instructive on ourselves and on how to do things right than just to coast through success.

I am not saying we should intend to fail, but that what’s really makes the difference is how we react in front of adversity.

Share

How to Deal With Loneliness

I like this post by Om Swami on loneliness. “It’s a blessing if you can harness it and be inspired while reveling in it. If not, it is the root cause of persistent restlessness and emptiness.” In this post he quotes Matt Haig and some of this quote resonates.

Loneliness happens to most of us, at times. And it happens even though in our world we may have the feeling that it should happen less often thanks to the connections and constant opportunities for connection and entertainment. “In theory, it has never been easier to not be lonely. There is always someone we can talk to online. If we are away from loved ones then we can Skype them. But loneliness is a feeling as much as anything.”

How can we deal with loneliness? “I think the American writer Edith Wharton was the wisest person ever on loneliness. She believed the cure for it wasn’t always to have company, but to find a way to be happy with your own company. Not to be antisocial, but not be scared of your own unaccompanied presence.”

So, find a way to be happy with your own company!

Share

How To Play With the Psychological Lunch Effect

A famous and often quoted study ‘Extraneous factors in judicial decisions‘ shows that judges’ decision-making is greatly influenced by timing, and particularly whether they are hungry: the proportion of parole granted goes down to a flat zero just before lunch.

Percentage of positive decisions based on time in the day

This tends to be an excellent illustration of the effect of timing of our decision-making abilities.

Using the lunch effect is one of the dirty secrets of facilitating: I often make sure that the hardest decision-making topics are tackled at the end of the morning just before lunch time, just to be able to use the fact that I can postpone lunch until a decision is taken. When participants become hungry they suddenly tend to agree on some decision, letting their fights on the side.

The lunch effect can thus be positive or negative, just know how to use it to your advantage.

Share

How Emotions Drive Organisational or Social Change

I love this Gapingvoid post ‘Why change management is emotional‘. It just hits the nail that every organization leader should avoid. Contrary to general belief, change can’t just be created by an executive decision and a powerpoint deck.

“The only thing that drives real change are emotions.

A major change is emotional brain chemistry and can be ignited just by a simple thing you do or say. Once you’ve flicked the switch, amazing things can happen. It should be supported by reason or argument”

It follows that it is essential at the start of a change management process to identify which are those emotions which you expect to change and address.

It may look hard, but actually when taken from the emotional side, change can be quite easy. What’s difficult is to figure out the hot button that will make the organization respond.

Share

How the Japanese Concept of Ikigai Increases Life Satisfaction

The concept of Ikigai has been floating around the web lately, like in this Medium article ‘Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life Might Just Help You Live a More Fulfilling Life‘. It seems to be a japanese concept aimed at locating the area at the intersection of what you love doing, what you are good at, what you can be compensated against, and what the world needs. Compared to other models, it is this last addition which makes the approach special.

The addition of values and seeking activities that the world needs is an interesting change to the more classical model of finding the soft spot between passion, career and capability. It definitely gives an interesting spin to the exercise of finding out where to locate what we are currently doing as our main activity.

As to whether finding one’s Ikigai is the best way to prolong life, that’s a stretched conclusion which we’ll not investigate further, although this claim obviously creates interesting reflections.

How close are you to your Ikigai?

Share

How Memos Are More Powerful Than Powerpoints to Structure Thoughts

I am always amazed at how Powerpoint presentations have become the standard support to structure thinking in organizations. I sometimes feel old-fashioned because I prefer to work on memos to get my thoughts in order. Luckily I am not alone: Jeff Bezos at Amazon has banned powerpoints in favor of structured memos, as explained here or here. And I truly believe that memos have substantial benefits.

Powerpoint presentations are everywhere in organizations. I even know some that use this support for their commercial proposals! This tool has great benefits in terms of sharing, but it also structures the thought process in a certain way: bullet points, overall structures that are fit for presenting.

Memos are of course less sexy when it comes to sharing ideas but I find that they allow a more structure thought build-up. That is possibly because a certain logic needs to be developed throughout the document, which is not so much the case in a powerpoint presentation. Also, there are much less possibilities to be distracted by some graphical representations.

My personal process when developing detailed thoughts about an issue is to write a memo and work around structuring it in a satisfying manner. If needed I may produce an additional powerpoint presentation, but I find the memo format much more amenable to the development of a structured approach.

If you find you are producing too much powerpoint thoughts, try to structure your thinking using memos. It is worth it!

Share