by Dean Chavooshian | Be your best you
Mention philosophy or the meaning of life to the average person on the street, and you’re likely to receive a few strange looks.
For many people, the majority of their exposure to such content is restricted to obscure footnotes in books most laypeople never read. However, I believe philosophy and related disciplines have everything to do with everyday life.
I want to motivate people to be inquisitive about what there is to know and gain knowledge about theology, philosophy and science—fields that inform each other and us on the nature of human existence.
These three fields tend to remain largely ignored by vast populations to the peril of a more enriched life. There is true significance and, yes, controversy to be understood among the world’s intellectual disciplines.
There’s a reason why Millennials frequently post quotes on social media from Martin Luther King, Jr., Plato, and other existentialists and religious leaders. As the lucky inheritors of the thoughts of these intellectual and spiritual giants, we can learn something deep about ourselves.
3 ways to find meaning
Here are three practical applications people—especially young people—gain from exploring the nature of human existence.
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. ~Socrates
Embrace the power of education
The will of one teenage girl sent shockwaves throughout the world because of her thirst for an education and knowledge. Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate, was shot by the Taliban at age 15 for her advocacy for education: “One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first.”
Later, in a 2013 speech to the United Nations, she said, “I want education for the sons and the daughters of all the extremists, especially the Taliban.” She knows that more education is the key to combating extremist ideologies. Education changes the world.
The unexamined life is not worth living. ~Socrates
Dive into philosophy
Philosophy challenges your intuition and helps people understand one another.
Would you believe that there’s ample drama in philosophy? There is, and it has played out in academia for centuries; and still does today in fun and informal podcasts. The more you know, the more you get into these philosophical soap operas. With a basic foundation, you can find yourself amidst the drama of debate. Ultimately, you walk away with a clearer picture of how others reason and feel.
Philosophy can cultivate a deep sense of empathy and compassion. This fosters an emotional intelligence that’s useful in all aspects of a person’s life, including family matters, continued learning, a future career and spiritual ponderings.
The only thing I know is that I know nothing. ~Socrates
Improve how to think and decide for yourself
I’m particularly sensitive to the needs of inquisitive young people who are trying to find their voices. I dove into philosophy in my teens because I wanted a clearer picture of life’s significance. Unfortunately, philosophy, theology, and even science remain shrouded in obscurity, with abstractions upon abstractions and esoteric terminology. I want these fields to be accessible.
On news channels and ads there’s the meme, “You decide!” Much of the time, however, young minds are guided by historical ideas for which they understand little or no context.
A background in philosophy and related fields, however, enables minds of all ages to dig deeper, connect concepts, realize how they truly feel within themselves, and create a meaningful life.
A foundational understanding of these intellectual domains is ultimately empowering to the young flowering mind and brings clarity to more mature thinking.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. ~Socrates
Today’s guest contributor is Dean Chavooshian, author of The Pursuit of Wisdom. After earning a degree in Theology/Philosophy, Dean received a Master’s in architecture and worked over 30 years with prominent New York architectural firms and international real estate developers.
Image source before quote added: Pixabay
by Kevin McHugh | Be your best you
Leadership development programs designed to increase emotional intelligence have matured during the last 15 years. So why haven’t we seen a big change in the way executives relate to one other? Because, despite reading books and articles, taking assessments, and attending seminars, leaders keep their old habits.
Emotional Intelligence scores typically climb with titles, but peak with middle management, according to Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Any higher up the ladder, and the scores plummet. CEOs rank at the bottom.
Put a stop to passive aggressive behavior
Toxic behaviors from leaders are prevalent from the warehouse to the boardroom. Leaders yell at, embarrass, and publicly criticize subordinates. Tempers flare, anger surfaces, and emotions are unchecked or mismanaged. In toxic work cultures, passive aggressiveness is the rule, not the exception.
This happens for two reasons:
1) One, leaders simply don’t have sufficient desire to be better—i.e., they don’t care.
2) The other is lack of self-awareness.
All models of emotional intelligence start with a foundation of self-awareness. Time spent on coaching needs to focus on building self-awareness because that’s where the gold is.
There are two ways to gain self-awareness:
1) Listen to and honestly examine the stories you are telling yourself in your head. Are they true? How do you know? This simply requires quiet time for self-reflection and to practice mindfulness.
2) Seek feedback from others. This requires you to identify people who feel safe with you, who you would freely invite to tell you how they react to you, and how they think others react to you. It requires honesty and, of course, the right time and environment where the conversation can occur without interruption.
Easy, right? No, of course not.
These steps take time and commitment to change.
If Business is Good, Why Should You Care?
Coming face-to-face with your flaws and defects of character including pride, ego, distrust, and fear and allowing yourself to be vulnerable is self-improvement work that doesn’t come easy.
Additionally, if business is booming, deadlines are met, and stock value is going up, why go through this spending the time to improve, to be self-aware? Why dig deeper when all is well on the surface? Effective leaders dig anyway because they know they always need to up their leadership game, and because doing so will make a positive difference in how they engage with their team, vendors, and clients.
Listen to Your Own Stories
Force ten minutes of quiet time every day. Turn off your cell phones. Close your office door. (I have clients who break out in a cold sweat at the thought of doing so, but I urge you to try it anyway.)
Breathe deeply and slowly. See what surfaces. Let the thoughts roll through your brain like a digital ticker tape. Notice what’s happening and see if you can articulate how that experience feels.
Pay special attention to anything that feels difficult or sparks negative emotions. These feelings point to something larger underneath. When you take the time to look below the surface, you can see a glimpse of the source.
Listen to Stories of Others
Pick one person who you trust to tell you the complete truth about how you look to them. Ask them to find something they believe you do that causes others to disconnect from you, to avoid you, to shut down around you, or to be less the honest. This is tough stuff. It requires both courage to take this feedback and a desire to hear it. If you’re already doing something like this now, keep at it. Do it more.
Following these three simple steps will put you well on your way to better self-awareness, not only as a leader, but also as a person. And that’s good for everyone.
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Today’s guest contributor is Kevin McHugh, president of JKM Management Development, a management consulting firm specializing in increasing organizational performance and coaching business leaders to develop emotional awareness, conflict resolution capabilities, and maximize executive effectiveness.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Rob-Jan de Jong | Be your best you, Leadership
Habits can be a trap for anyone in a leadership position anyway, be it business, politics, academia, or another field.
As a leader, you need to provide a compelling vision that inspires those around you. But all too often, that doesn’t happen. Leaders lapse into mindless thinking, which affects every decision they make as well as the actions of the people who report to them.
Too often, we don’t come up with imaginative solutions because we let ourselves be ruled by routine and by preconceived notions.
We think we know ahead of time what will and won’t work, which makes us quick to dismiss ideas that sound too ‘out there.’ The people who answer to us learn the lesson that creative thinking is frowned upon, even if that’s not the lesson you wanted to teach.
There are four behaviors and practices that, through repetition and perseverance, will help you develop a mindset that’s open to imaginative and better ideas. One that will make you a better and more effective leader.
4 ways to broaden your mind and be a better leader
Formulate powerful questions.
Generating ideas starts with asking the right questions. The best questions are thought-provoking. They challenge underlying assumptions, invite creativity, give us energy, and make us aware of the fact there is something to explore that we hadn’t fully grasped before.
Train yourself to catch poorly designed questions and reformulate them. Questions beginning with “why,” “what” and “how” are best because they require more thoughtful responses than those that begin with “who,” “when,” “where” and “which.” Avoid questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no.”
The art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it. ~Georg Cantor
Expand your sphere of influence.
We’re strongly influenced, for better or worse, by the small group of people we have direct contact with. Since we tend to hang out with people who are fairly similar to ourselves, chances are we’re limiting our perspectives.
Make a deliberate effort to encounter people and ideas that are profoundly different from the usual suspects you hang out with. Visit a conference of a different profession, hang out with skaters, join an arts club, or buy a magazine randomly off the shelf.
Curiosity is the engine of achievement. ~Ken Robinson
Break your patterns.
You can increase your chances of seeing things differently if you deliberately break your normal pattern of working, communicating, thinking, reacting and responding:
- Take a different route to work.
- Change where you sit in meetings.
- If you’re normally the first to volunteer, hold back.
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. ~Andre Gide
Learn to listen.
We’ve all been taught the importance of being good listeners, and still most of us struggle to do it. Often when people are “listening,” we’re really waiting for the first opportunity to share our story, opinion, or experience.
Train yourself to engage in three pure listening conversations a week. The conversations don’t need to be longer than 15 to 20 minutes, can be formal or informal, and the other person doesn’t need to know what you’re doing.
There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen. ~Rumi
Vow that you won’t try to take over the conversation no matter how much you want to. Just keep asking questions and don’t dismiss anything the other person says. After the conversation, reflect on what you learned. Don’t dismiss any ideas or views that don’t align with yours. Dare to challenge your own assumptions and reframe your beliefs if need be.
Some of these practices may take people outside their comfort zones, and everyone might not be ready to try all of them at once. That’s OK, but if you start to put them into practice, you’ll grow into a more mindful, visionary leader one step at a time.”
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Today’s guest contributor is Rob-Jan de Jong, speaker, writer, strategy and leadership consultant, and author of Anticipate: The Art of Leading By Looking Ahead. He serves as an expert lecturer at various business schools including the Wharton Business School (USA), Thunderbird School of Global Management (USA), Nyenrode Business University (The Netherlands), and Sabanci Business University (Turkey).
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
Nearly half of those surveyed in a PRRI research project “completely” or “mostly” agreed that “society as a whole has become too soft and feminine.”
When I think of feminine attributes, I think of flexibility, kindness, altruism, receptiveness, nurturing, empathy, and compassion. I hope survey respondents weren’t thinking of those attributes. Maybe what they had in mind were unflattering stereotypes like weakness, docile, overly concerned with appearance, etc.
From where I sit, the world and workplaces need more flexibility, kindness, altruism, receptiveness, nurturing, empathy, and compassion—leaders who lead with their hearts and manage with their heads.
18 ways to make a positive difference
Think what positive results would happen if we all worked at places where there was:
- More acceptance and less judgment.
- More difference and less conformity.
- More fearlessness and less caution.
- More vulnerability and less bombast.
- More confidence and less tentativeness.
- More kindness and less incivility.
- More speaking up and less being a good girl.
- More goodness and less evil.
- More generosity and less mean-spiritedness.
- More collaboration and less competition.
- More understanding and less hyperbole.
- More being and less doing.
- More love and less hate.
- More mindfulness and less reactiveness.
- More genuine and less artificial.
- More openness and less bias.
- More praise and less hurtful criticism.
- More empathy and less apathy.
Making this list come alive at work, at home, etc., means that we be the change we want to see. We have to:
- Stop wishing people and situations were more like we want them to be and accept them as they are.
- Be intellectually curious and make an effort to understand how others think and feel. We don’t have to accept their position, only acknowledge their right to have it.
- Love ourselves so we can love others.
- Be mindful of the stories we tell ourselves because those narratives take on a life of their own.
- Exercise our kindness “muscle” and do something kind at least once a day.
- Be present. Hold ourselves accountable for paying attention and being aware.
- Refrain from judging those who think differently than we do. Look at life like a Baskin-Robbins store that serves up at least 31 different flavors of difference.
It is a pleasant feeling to be the first to walk on sands which the tide has just left. It is like being the first to visit a new land. It produces a freshness of sensation something akin to that of early morning, or of spring. It is like entering upon a new stage of life, having a new world before us from which to receive, and upon which to make impressions. ~Henry James Slack, activist
Ready to make your corner of the world a more caring place?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Lee Stoerzinger | Be your best you
Do you say you want to spend more time with your family but regularly stay late at the office to get ahead in your career?
Do you vow to give back to your community but can’t manage to fit time for volunteering into your schedule?
If so, you’re not alone. Most of us experience a disconnect between our words and actions when it comes to what matters most.
In theory, we should all live a life that’s as close as possible to what we say we care about most. In reality, that alignment doesn’t happen. All too often. there’s a big gap between what we’re actually doing and what we want to be doing.
What causes us to get off track? In my experience, it’s how people think about money. People strive to have the highest-paying job, an expensive car, and a luxurious house.
Money is important. So is managing it wisely. Money isn’t all that matters.
I’m a family man who adopted two Haitian children orphaned by a 2010 earthquake. From that experience, I learned that a person’s legacy shouldn’t be limited to material goods that can be bequeathed to family members.
When you think about it, defining your values should be easy. It’s your spiritual beliefs. It’s how you want to raise your children. It’s how you want to spend your free time.
The trick is finding alignment between what’s really important and how you’re living your lives is creating a mindset that helps you give greater weight to what matters most and inspires you to act. Anyone can take steps to get thinking and acting moving together in the right direction to close the say/do gap.
3 ways to fill the gap between what you want to do and are doing
Here’s three ideas to get you started.
- Focus on family activities.
Create a new family tradition, such as organizing a monthly game night, buying tickets to a baseball game in the summer, or taking an annual road trip. You could have donuts the morning of your kid’s birthday, start a family book club, or visit a shelter once a month to feed the homeless.
Go birding, take canyon hikes with your dog, go shelling at the beach, go kayaking on the lake, paint outdoors, see the bigger picture, and look at the sky. The world is full of wonders to de-stress us.
Consider how you can be a servant in your community without donating money. Who has needs you can meet? Think about your true passions in life. Who can benefit from your skills?
At the end of the day, it’s up to each one of us to decide how we want to live our lives.
We can continue complaining about money, stress, and schedules. Or, we can admit we need to step back, define what’s important to us, and live our lives with dedication to those things.
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Today’s contributor is Lee Stoerzinger, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, who has practiced wealth management since 1993.
Image source before quote added: Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
Going into the holidays, I’d never have guessed that a bowl of collard greens and black-eyed peas would serve up lessons about managing bias. I don’t think my table mate did either.
Over dessert, my table mate remarked that she still had a nasty taste in her mouth from “that awful green dish that had been forced on her.”
“Is this your first experience eating collard greens?”
“Yes, and they’re just as disgusting as everyone says they are.”
“Good for you, though, in trying them. That’s the way to go!”
“I didn’t have much choice. He forced me. He put them on my plate.”
“I heard Arthur ask you if you wanted any, and you said ‘yes.’”
“What was I supposed to say?”
“Did you want to taste them?”
“No way. Why taste something I know is going to be awful?”
“In that case, I think it would have been perfectly fine for you to have said ‘no thanks.’ Arthur wouldn’t have cared.”
“That would have been rude.”
“Not at all provided you were polite. It’s important to be honest and stick up for yourself, especially if you don’t want something.”
“So, you think I was wrong?” My table mate was getting worked up.
“What I’m saying is that I think you missed a chance to do what you wanted to do.”
“What would you have done if you were me?””
“If I don’t want to taste something, I just say so. Nicely. I think it’s unfair to say you were forced to eat the greens. Arthur was being a good host, walking around the table, carrying the heavy bowl and offering to serve. Several people shook their heads no.”
“I wanted to be nice.”
“Declining to take a serving of something you don’t want doesn’t make you not nice.”
“What does it make me?”
“I think it makes you self-confident and assertive.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How so?”
“Often, if we don’t stick up for ourselves, no else does either. That’s especially true for women. We tend to short-change ourselves and serve the needs of others so they’ll think we’re nice. That just hurts us in the end.”
Table talk shifted loudly to football, so our sidebar chat ended. But my thinking about the exchange didn’t.
Three lessons to be learned—and shared—kept haunting me.
3 lessons inspired by…wait for it—collard greens!
1) How broad and deep the reach of confirmation bias is—even affecting whether or not we’re going to like collard greens!
Someone we care for or someone we trust says something must be a certain way, so we close our minds and accept their position. Guts, grace, determination, and a village are needed to counteract how these tendencies limit our experience and possibilities.
People don’t change their minds—just the opposite. Brains are designed to filter the world so we don’t have to question it. While this helps us survive, it’s a subjective trap; by only seeing the world as we want to, our minds narrow and it becomes difficult to understand opposing opinions. When we only look for what confirms our beliefs (confirmation bias), only side with what is most comfortable (cognitive dissonance, and don’t scrutinize contrary ideas (motivated reasoning) we impede social, economic, and academic progress. ~Sam McNerney, author and neuroscientist
2) How important it is to own what we do, no matter how uncomfortable or unflattering it is.
Convincing ourselves that someone else is responsible, i.e., he made me eat the greens, is an excuse that may sound logical on the surface but that, when probed, shows a lack of character, confidence, and inner strength.
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
3) How the belief that simply expressing a personal preference makes us unkind, not nice, or rude.
Not wanting to be seen as unkind, we choose to be silent.
Granted, sharing a preference in an obnoxious, condescending, or disrespectful manner does make us unkind and rude. But speaking our truth—and doing so gracefully, tactfully, compassionately—is a must do if we’re to communicate honestly and authentically.
If we’re already comfortable sharing our opinions in a thoughtful way, it’s important to honor the rights of others to do the same. Learning to disagree without being disagreeable is life’s secret sauce.
What lessons have you learned about disagreeing with grace?
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
