Category: Personal Choice

Stop blaming, and take responsibility for once!

Naturally, we almost always blame someone or something else for our powerlessness to achieve what we would like. And the worst is that we often don’t realize it because it has become so second-nature to us! It sometimes take someone else to pinpoint this awful habit.

The search for someone to blame is always successfulWhenever in a workshop or a meeting, for example in organizations, I instill the rule of ‘no blaming’, it soon becomes apparent how natural it is for us to find (good) reasons why we did not do what we committed to, or what we intended to. When you pay attention to it, you’ll find people fall all the time into the blaming mode. Not only blaming others, but also blaming the weather, the system, their family and/or their origin, and so on (our inventiveness in the field of excuses is truly fantastic)…

By the way, the higher ranking the participants are, the easier they will find excuses, which makes it even more fun to instill that rule of no blaming in executive or board meetings!

What if we would take responsibility more often? What if we would take responsibility for the delay, for the screw-up, for our incapacity to exercise more or eat less? Just taking responsibility changes everything. It makes us in charge of our own life. It stops creating this tyranny of unchangeable fate and destiny.

Once you are aware of it, you’ll realize each time you use blame and excuses. You won’t bear it any more. And slowly you’ll become more responsible. You’ll become more human. And you’ll change your fate and destiny.

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What if we were all somewhat insane (and what we can do about it)

A nice definition of insanity is: to do things over and over again – and expect a different result.

How much of a creature of habit are you?
How much of a creature of habit are you?

It’s quite amusing to think that we are probably all insane to a certain point. In our lives we often repeat behaviors out of habit and still, expect that something different will happen. That, somehow, fate will overcome our lethargy. Look at yourself and ponder how often we tend to fall into this mode.

It is so prevalent that it is sometimes incredible. Is that not the dream of the average person to somehow become rich and famous (refer to all the relevant TV shows) – and still… not to change anything, not one detail, to their daily behavior and occupation?

So, stop doing what you have always done, stop blaming everybody and anything for the fact that things don’t happen in your life the way you’d like. Change, introduce new experiences, even serendipity if you can. In summary – stop being on the brink of insanity by repeating ever and ever again the same routine! Come back to sanity by changing something – or even everything if you dare!

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Why “Crisis” is a Subjective Concept You Need to Overcome

A crisis is “any event that is, or expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society” (Wikipedia).

cannons fortress
Preparing for the crisis

Actually a crisis is often felt as such for people who have something to lose. For people that have something to gain from the situation, it is often called “opportunity”. It is the same event though. It’s just the way we look at it.

An event that is felt as a crisis leads to all sorts of defensive measures. It is important to isolate oneself and one’s belongings and entitlements from a threat that is sometimes difficult to understand. One hides behind walls and prepares cannons to respond to the enemy. It is a very sedentary reaction.

Nomads with a light luggage will be more on the side of the opportunity. They will see a crisis as a possibility for change, for the better or worst.

Crisis is a subjective word. It all depends how you feel threatened and how you respond to the situation. Be on the side of those that take changes for opportunities!

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Why You Should Fail More Often

Let’s come back to the financial markets as a model of complex system that can be easily measured. What are the strategies that can provide gains with limited risks and significant chance of success?

Investment is more about managing the emotions of failure than it is about being clever
Investment is more about managing the emotions of failure than it is about being clever

Professionals will tell you that the winning strategies (provided there are winning strategies,as we now can doubt from our post on the superiority of randomness) always involve some dose of failure. The trick is to have less failures than wins, and / or smaller failures than wins. As long as you invest more on stocks that have chances of recovering, over time this strategy will provide interesting returns with a relative certainty – the larger returns being generated by the larger or more frequent number of tries.

What is interesting here is that real professionals that deal with the stock market everyday will never speak of ‘sure win’. They know they have to accept a certain amount of failure. They know there will be bad days as there will be good days – only hopefully slightly less frequently. They know they will have to deal with the emotions of failure and not let themselves be driven by them.

In our real life, that complex system, the lesson holds. We can’t succeed without a certain dose of failure. And the more often we try, the higher will be our overall success. We just need to make sure that any failure will not kill us (that we have a cut-loss soon enough) and that our successes have a bigger upside than our failures’ downside.

In complex systems, frequent failure is the key to success. So, when do you start to fail more often?

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How Some People Become Addicted to Defy Resistance

In this blog we have often mentioned ‘Resistance’ or how our primitive brain tries to impede us to create or do anything remotely outside our comfort zone (the concept originates in the excellent “War of Art” book). It routinely tricks us into a number of behaviors designed to impede us from trying new things, like for example procrastination. We also know that Resistance is the Symptom That You Are on the Right Track.

Addiction pictureBeyond simple Resistance that impedes us from giving our best self, some people, those that are often labelled compulsive artists, probably become so used to defy Resistance that some  become addicted. And because they are addicted to meeting and overcoming Resistance, they can’t stop defying it, day-in and day-out.

This symptom can be observed in other areas that require to overcome a significant natural fear for performing the core of the activity: for example, sky-divers and all sorts of extreme sportspeople; actors; public speakers… Some of them (and probably all of those who become professional at it) definitely become so hooked to that sensation of Resistance, of stage fright, that they can’t live without it for long. They need their periodic dose of Resistance. They need to feel that thrill running in their nerves.

Once you become accustomed at identifying Resistance and adept at overcoming it; once you become familiar with Resistance to the point of being able to tame it sometimes, watch yourself. It is possible that you might even become addicted to it without being able to stop stretching yourself.

In all cases, make sure you have the right safety net around you so that you keep it safe, and enjoy every minute of playing with your ‘Resistance’ – and change yourself and the world!

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How Well Are You Using Your Own Safety Net?

Following on the Safety Net Conundrum, now at the individual level, how well are you really using the safety net you actually have? This safety net includes family and friends, social security and all other social protection institutions, your professional network, etc.

In my coaching assignments I often find that people:

  • underestimate the extent of their current safety nets and of the protection is gives them;
  • underestimate the extent of (measured) risk they could take based on this actual protection;
  • effectively often focus on trying to keep or increase the protection level they benefit from rather than using that protection to try new things.
Why are so few trying to fly above their safety net?
Why are so few trying to fly above their safety net?

Yes, most of us could try something really outside of our comfort zone and in the worst case still land safely in our extended safety net, with little or no consequences. So why are so few trying it?

With or without safety net, jumping in the unknown triggers all sorts of fear reactions. It takes a conscious effort to use the safety net as a reason to try it. The question: “What is the worst that can happen?” is extremely powerful in that sense.

Inventory the extent of your safety net. You will be surprised by its extent. You will realize that you can try new things outside your comfort zone. At the moment where your “lizard brain” will kick-in with all sorts of excuses, ask yourself: “What is the worst that can happen?“. Then, go and do it!

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Why you Should Live with a Large Amount of Uncertainty in your Life

According to Tony Robbins, “The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with“.

dice illusion
How comfortable are you with uncertainty and illusions?

This quote can be taken in two ways. A first, protective way is to suppose that the more you can bear uncertainty, the least disturbed you will be by what is happening around you and the happier you will be. This is quite a limited view which will not lead to transforming your life.

I certainly prefer to think of uncertainty rather as a source of opportunity –  a second way to understand this quote. Uncertainty is the key for unexpected success in today’s increasingly complex world. The unexpected encounters, unforeseeable events or the unexpected viral effect of an artistic production actually shape much of today’s world. Just before these uncertain things happen, uncertainty was at its maximum. Just after, our world and existence took a turn. The world branched out. If you can’t bear the high level of uncertainty linked with releasing something to the world, then you can’t shape it. You can’t shape your life.

Living with uncertainty is at the same time uncomfortable and exciting. It is not a character trait, it is a choice. So, are you ready to choose to live with a high level of uncertainty in your life? Are you ready to grab those opportunities that will come close to you?

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Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

So many self-development books speak about “finding ourselves”! Is that really true? Do we have an innate ourselves that we need to seek through some layers of junk accumulated throughout the years?

Life is about creating yourself!This is a wrong concept. Life is about creating ourselves. Life is about building something – us. Life is about growth, change, finding the synergy between ourselves and our environment.

Life is about the choice we can make to become what we want to be, how we want to behave. The choice to give out to the world the effect of some of our incredible talents.

And isn’t it much more enticing to consider that we can make our life a life of building something unique, great, rather than just trying to figure out how we were made? Stop looking to the past for innate talents. Look into the future and grow. It is worth every minute of it.

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Find the Door to the Promised Land – Just Believe in Yourself

For some reason these lyrics from the Scorpions song “Send me an Angel” resonated very much with me lately:

Scorpions: Send me an angel

“The wise man said just raise your hand
And reach out for the spell
Find the door to the promised land
Just believe in yourself
Hear this voice from deep inside
It’s the call of your heart
Close your eyes and your will find
The way out of the dark

Here I am
Will you send me an angel
Here I am
In the land of the morning star…”

How often do you listen to the call of your heart – and then believe in yourself? Trusting yourself is probably the most liberating mindset you can have. Trust yourself a bit more today. And tomorrow. And the day after. It is worth it.

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How more constraints force us to create better solutions

“In the field of design, there is the belief that with more constraints, better solutions are revealed” – John Maeda in “The laws of simplicity”

Would that also be true in real life?

Would more constraints force us to find better solutions because it would force us out of our comfort zone – out of the easy solutions? At what stage are there too many constraints to impede any meaningful creation?

Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona
Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona (Arizona) – a magnificent example of inspired design in a constrained setting

I certainly do admit that highly constrained situations do force to think creatively and find solutions that are hidden at first. The only condition is to still feel empowered in spite of the apparent obstacles.

How can we continue to feel empowered and inspired when the situations seems immovable? Personally beyond a certain difficulty I often feel more empowered than dis-empowered by the challenge. An other way is to be motivated by the desire to achieve the goal that requires this creation. Your sense of purpose will make you overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Now – are the solutions created by us or revealed to us? Isn’t it the same at the end?

Yes, certainly more constraints will make us all find better solutions. It’s a challenge, it’s a chance, we need to grab it. Now.

 

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How having ‘skin in the game’ is necessary to grow and do incredible stuff

As I am struggling with some aspects of my new entrepreneur life, I was reading “Uncertainty: turning fear and doubt into brillance” by Jonathan Fields, an excellent book about what it takes to lean out of one’s comfort zone, and how to survive it. A quote struck me particularly:

“Risk of loss has to be there. You cannot create genius without having skin in the game. Kill the risk of loss and you destroy meaning and one of the core motivations for action” – Jonathan Fields

Right now I am facing activities which I must absolutely do for my new business to live further but that I don’t like doing: networking, meeting people to pitch products. I rather prefer to write clever reference documents and books in front of my computer! Still,  that’s what I seek to learn; and because I now have skin in the game (the success of my venture, my family’s comfort, my money), I’ll force myself to do it. And I’ll do it for sure. That’s quite compelling in fact: if I don’t do it, no new business, no more adventure!

Because I have skin in the game, I’ll go up the steep learning curve and lean outside my comfort zone much deeper – another justification why creating one’s company is much more powerful than doing and MBA or an expensive education program.

Having skin in the game... and what sometimes happens
Having skin in the game... and what sometimes happens

Because I have skin in the game I’ll also probably get hurt some place down the way – or at least get some hard knocks. But that’s probably what’s going to teach me resilience and patience, two other important learning points for me.

Yes, definitely I have chose to have skin in the game. That’s tough, but three months down the road I am already amazed at the way I’m gone. That’s probably the only way to really do things that you didn’t think you could do. The only way to create amazing things that will astonish the world.

And you, did you put your skin in the game? How could you do that?

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Obstacles on your road are there for a reason. Are you ready for them?

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal”

This quote is by Henry Ford. And I find it quite deep and powerful when considered carefully.

obstacle on your road
An obstacle on your road?

Henry Ford was a determined person. He spent years battling against the patent for “automobiles” that was held by a ‘patent troll’ – as we would say today – who tried to maintain scarcity. He wanted to be able to provide affordable cars to more people; and he eventually won after years of legal procedures.

He does not deny that obstacles can look frightening and difficult. He just states that if we have a strong goal, we’ll always find a way.

An other thinker, Randy Pausch, in his famous “last lecture“, did a statement that is for me fundamental:

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

So, obstacles are not just here to test your commitment, they are also here to make the different with those that are not passionate enough to persevere.

So, remember next time you moan or you’re scared because of some obstacle: did you take your eyes off your goal? Is your goal clear and compelling enough?

Will you work to overcome that obstacle, which will make the difference between you and the other wannabes?

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