Welcome to HappyWisdom

Category: General Happiness

  • Can Politics Make You Happy?

    This blog is steadfastly non-political for a reason – it doesn\’t seem like a path to happiness, and often is quite the opposite. Yet, when I look at people at these rallies and see their hopeful, smiling faces, I wonder if perhaps this is a road to happiness. Seeing throngs of smiling people, one could draw the conclusion that politics is a clear way to make a large group very happy, joyful even. We feel like we\’re part of something huge, something generational, especially during this election.

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    Women in Ireland cheering Obama Credit: Wikipedia

    Of course, after tomorrow, whenever we find out the result of the US election, there will be a recoiling, a convulsion of a large number of people. They\’ll feel like the other half is nuts, crazy, or worse, evil. They might feel robbed, especially if like in Bush v. Gore, it\’s close. These faces will have turned 180 degrees in a day, raising the question: Can politics make you happy? My answer is an emphatic no. Let\’s explore.

    Happiness is found in gradients and is explored effectively by reviewing Maslow\’s Pyramid, shown below.

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    Maslow\’s Hierarchy of Needs – Credit: Psychology Today

    A review of the Pyramid is in order:

    Maslow called the bottom four levels of the pyramid \”deficiency needs\” because a person does not feel anything if they are met, but becomes anxious if they are not. Thus, physiological needs such as eating, drinking, and sleeping are deficiency needs, as are safety needs, social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy, and ego needs such as self-esteem and recognition. In contrast, Maslow called the fifth level of the pyramid a ‘growth need’ because it enables a person to ‘self-actualize’ or reach his fullest potential as a human being. Once a person has met his deficiency needs, he can turn his attention to self-actualization; however, only a small minority of people are able to self-actualize because self-actualization requires uncommon qualities such as honesty, independence, awareness, objectivity, creativity, and originality.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201212/our-hierarchy-needs

    Politics is suspiciously absent in that list, at least at first blush. But a deeper look shows that political strategy is readily apparent when viewed through this framework.

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    In Too Far? Credit: Credit: Reuters

    The pyramid works from bottom-up – you can\’t go to the next higher stage before you accomplish the base stages. The lower stages map to the primal areas of our brain and our needs. So, where do you think politics starts? At the top, with self-actualization or recognition? Nope! They go for the base needs, which makes entirely good sense as a strategy. Let\’s walk the pyramid:

    Physical: Air, food, health, shelter – there is a real belief that these things will be taken away if we don\’t vote correctly.

    Security: This is a favorite. If one side can cause you to fear for your security, then bam, they got you. What are you afraid of? That\’s probably where your party has you pegged.

    Social: This is where social media comes in. Who goes to Twitter to look for the opposite opinion? No one, at least not immediately. The appeal of these social networks is that we can find inclusion. That lets us go to the next level.

    Ego: Nothing says politics like Ego. If one can feel elite, that they\’re making a big sacrifice or part of a bigger battle, then Ego can be satisfied. This is where it can get dangerous if adherents go sacrificial, or get violent for the cause.

    That leaves us with Self-Actualization. It is my view that this is where politics fail fabulously. Politics is a game, a win-or-lose proposition. Self Actualization is about finding your inner purpose, your truest self, and doesn\’t fit into that simplistic competitive domain. Happiness and fulfillment are iterative, incremental, and ebb and flow as you move higher into yourself.

    In addition to the qualities noted in the above diagram, self-actualization is also often marked by “peak experiences.” Mystical or spiritual experience is most definitely an example of a “peak experience.” The need for self-actualization is described as the “desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

    https://www.religioustolerance.org/maslow-hierarchy-of-needs-world-religions.htm

    Therefore politics is a double-hit on happiness: if you win, and you\’re totally devoted to this world, it cannot take you to peak experience. If your side loses, you become existentially terrified, since the bottom planks that form your basic survival are now under attack. We see this a lot with the dressing of people in outfits from the dystopian show \”A Handmaid\’s Tale\” – it\’s a devastating feeling that you\’re under imminent attack. On the other side, they show burning buildings and cities \”under siege\”. Both are as effective as they are hyperbole designed to upset you. By taking away the lower planks, they scare you into this strange center place – you belong (mid pyramid) but you\’re constantly under siege and unable to achieve self-actualization, which is where true, durable happiness exists.

    We see this a lot with the dressing of people in outfits from the dystopian show \”A Handmaid\’s Tale\” – it\’s a devastating feeling that you\’re under imminent attack. On the other side, they show burning buildings and cities \”under siege\”. Both are as effective as they are hyperbole designed to upset you. By taking away the lower planks, they scare you into this strange center place – you find belonging (mid pyramid) but the base of your happiness is constantly under siege. By making politics the end-all-be-all, we\’re unable to achieve self-actualization, which is where true, durable happiness exists.

    I\’m not trying to discourage political activism. Far from it – I think we all should be engaged in the issues of our day. I am. I vote, I debate, and I care. However, I stand guard over my fears and shield myself when the political apparatus come for my security. I know they\’re going to and I have to seek solace from that input to ensure they don\’t compromise who I am.

    I\’m suggesting balance. Repeat these terms and see if you can convince yourself of their veracity:

    I am not my candidate.

    I am not powerless.

    I am not under attack (really!)

    Democracy isn\’t at stake (I promise!)

    The presidential election isn\’t the end of the world.

    Those statements should not be controversial. If my side wins, great. If my side loses, I\’ll be sad, roll up my sleeves, and get to work for the next election in two short years. Check out this quote from Scott Rasmussen:

    \”There will be differences, of course, because elections matter. They have consequences. But it’s important to remember that politicians aren’t nearly as important as they think they are.\”

    Scott Rasmussen, Deseret News

    The soul of our nation is at stake? Think again, another article by Mr. Rasmussen:

    “It is the recognition and respect of our fellow human beings, humanity and dignity, that helps us transcend “us” and “them” tribalism and forms the foundation for a more perfect union.”

    Scott Rasmussen, Deseret News

    Mr. Rasmussen is right on both counts. Our nation\’s soul is an amalgam of what we are, who we are, and how we treat each other. Mixing religion with politics is a quagmire. It\’s a mistake to believe that you know who God would vote for. Sure we pray for guidance, but The Creator of the Universe cannot be thwarted by an election. He/She/It has methods beyond our understanding. Don\’t fear for God – he can take care of himself.

    Back on earth, one must marvel at the genius of the American system (and its craziness) with its three-pillar structure. Pitting three branches of government against one another was brilliant, and gives citizens many opportunities to engage. Engage we should, with a guarded heart. Know that these forces are pulling at your foundations, trying actively to upset you, to pull away from your security. Guard against making more out of it than it is. Our personal journey towards self-actualization should not depend on who is sitting in the White House. Said another way – politicians make terrible gods, and politics is empty religion.

  • The Grind

    Sorry for the months off – but I do have news that relates to the topic of grit. The first edition of my new novella, shown above. WOOT! It\’s in beta, and I\’m not charging for it right now, so if you want to understand how to get unstuck in life, get your goals, and have fun doing it, check it out!

    I\’ve labored on this book since the summer. It\’s a fable, so I hope it\’s entertaining as well as informative.

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    My e-book is in Beta!

    Now onto the topic – Grit!

    One of the things I love to do when I travel is behaving differently. When at home I love to be as efficient as possible, but at the hotel, after a long day at a conference, and other work, which can add to over twelve hours typically, I like to relax. This means binging. At a recent hotel stay, I binged all of the HBO hit, Chernobyl and then the movie First Man, starring Ryan Gosling.

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    A child’s doll in an abandoned orphanage in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. (Cheryl L. Reed/for the Chicago Tribune)

    It\’s fascinating the similarities. Both have human accomplishment at their core.

    Human accomplishment you say? Didn\’t Chernobyl nearly kill over 80M people? Didn\’t the core nearly melt through into the water table, which would have resulted in most of Ukraine a horrible fate? (by the way, the show Chernobyl is so well done I feel like a nuclear scientist. you should watch it just to understand how a reactor like this explodes. It was an incredible lack of caution and openness.)

    I won\’t spoil the story for you, and there are spoilers. But the story, as bleak and horrible as it is, gave me hope.

    Mankind is always stretching, always reaching. In the First Man, I was surprised to see both the social unrest surrounding the expensive program, but the number of deaths that it took to get that thing on the moon. We paid our price to get there, and more. This is why Buzz Aldrin, at 80 years old, knocked a guy out when it was suggested that the moon landing was a fake.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPyTaZDPK2w
    Interestingly, Bart owns the copyright on this…lol

    As the customer, we don\’t see the grind, as a customer. You think these people just get there and stay there, but good schools or luck or both. You don\’t see the work. The fact that they barely made it, and even a sense that their victory was almost phyric. But we don\’t have a choice. Humans need to strive for bigger things. To make it happen. to be the one who gets there.

    In book writing, creating nuclear energy, or landing on the moon, you\’re going to have haters, deniers, and fools who misuse what you create. Humanity, however, needs these creations! We thrive on making our species safer, and now we have our biggest challenge – how can we repair the world?

    We do it by pushing the boundaries, staying optimistic, and making way for those with the vision and ablity to create the future.

    That\’s it for now –

    Stay happy my friends 🙂

  • Positive Psychology – A Review of Assessments and the Best One Out There

    I\’m always on the hunt for new models that will help along the ideas of Positive psychology. What is Positive Psych? Well, it is really one of the most exciting things happening in psychology today. Perhaps you noticed that the number of books based in this area has exploded. Part of the reason for that is researchers like Angela Duckworth and Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman have spearheaded what makes people happy and how that relates to grit. Positive Psychology is a real science and full of innovations.  Part of those innovations is assessments, which are numerous and often not terribly scientific.  So I found three of the more interesting sites and compared them below.

    1. The Wheel Of Well-Being (WoW) 

    Site: https://www.wheelofwellbeing.org/

    Upside: Design is fun. Gamification and community involvement is clever. 

    Downside: Might be a zombie site, functionality isn\’t working

    Summary: Check out that wheel…nice, right? Now, before you visit the site, know that it looks a bit run down. It could be a zombie. I reached out to them and got some out of office stuff, and the sponsor link also goes to a dead page. This is, of course, a shame, since it had a great scheme.

    \"\"Reading this from the earth icon clockwise, we have Planet, Body, Mind, Heart, People, Place. This site leverages its community to suggest things to do with this wheel. If you like one, put it on your wheel and then it\’ll track each segment, or at least it used to.  So say someone suggested taking a walk. Well, you would agree to do that, and then track it on the wheel. The theory is obviously that if we do enough in each of area, we feel better.

    Despite the lack of functionality on the site, I think it\’s a good model and one that we could easily simply print out as a reminder.

    2. Via Survey

    site: http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey

    Upside: Robust website. Active community and coaches that are trained.

    Downside: To get the real reports you have to shell over 20-80 bucks USD, which is too bad, but considering the fate of WoW up there, perhaps a paywall isn\’t such a bad idea.

    Summary: 

    This one is really in-depth, giving us 120 questions that range the gamut of \”are you a curious person\” to \”are you a spiritual person\”. I liked its output – when I finished it gave me a report of the 24 areas, or character strengths, that I have, in descending order. #1 for me? Creative. Interesting, but not particularly insightful. Much shorter tests have given me similar feedback. I did like how they stacked all 24 dimensions, and at the bottom (Regulation?) is not my weakness, per se, but a trait that I might have to work a bit harder to exhibit. I\’d say read the site, and if you like it, then take the test. And if you\’ve ever wondered which mlp character are you, you can visit lizzardco.com.

    3. University of Pennsylvania

    site: https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter

    Upside: a plethora of tests that will keep you busy until the wee hours.  They\’re all free, and they record the scores for you. There\’s also a Facebook integration that is a little mysterious, but fully optional.

    Downside: there are almost too many tests. I mean, which one should I take, the General Happiness one or the PERMA test, that tests \”flourishing\”?  There doesn\’t appear to be any guidance about which one to take, so it can be overwheming.

    Summary:

    Yeah, I saved the best for last. You know when you start looking into a new topic, like swing dancing, and then find that there are entire worlds that are into it and have broken into tribes, and then there are those tribes that are running the show? Well, that\’s what UoP is doing with happiness research, and their testing center will overwhelm all but the most determined.    The quality of the questions is high and entertaining. I really like this one:

    –  
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    Couldn\’t help myself – I think Charlie would probably score himself pretty high. High…get it? 
    Anyway, the output of these assessments is a number and a chart, such as this:
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    Apparently, I\’m authentically happy. yay!
    I\’m really stoked about this site and recommend everyone check it out. Pick an assessment and have fun with it. They\’re all free, and you\’ll get a good sense of what Positive Psychology is through their videos and research. They even have conferences if you want to dig in and meet this amazing tribe. I know I do!

  • Weird, Useful, Fun (WUF) – Fish and Fidget Spinners

    Experimenting with a new format.  WUF!  The idea is to have a mix of content here, some weird, some useful, and a bit of fun at the end.  This site is, after all, HAPPY wisdom. So let\’s get to it!

     

    WEIRD:  Fish Swims Down Dude\’s Throat

    Okay, the weirdest story I saw online this week has to go to the guy who almost died when a fish swam down his throat. 

    Do NOT Try to Kiss a Dover sole

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    Location: Bournemouth, England

    According to the several media channels, in a 28-year-old\’s man\’s life was in jeopardy after he stopped breathing for three minutes after the six-inch-long fish stuck in his throat.  This event, while funny only because he survived, sounds insanely harrowing:

    \”Using forceps I was able to eventually dislodge the tip of the tail and very carefully, so as not to break the tail off, I tried to remove it – although the fish\’s barbs and gills were getting stuck on the way back up….Eventually, after six attempts, the fish came out in one piece and to our amazement it was a whole Dover sole, measuring about 14cm in length.\”

    Mr. Box added: \”This story just highlights how important it is for friends or bystanders to step in and start CPR when someone\’s heart has stopped.\” Weird, and good news for sure.  (Yes, I did check Snopes, this is for real. Check out the article here. )

     

    USEFUL: Wellness…what is it? 

    There is a lot of great resources out on the Web to encourage you, to make you better, or to make you feel worse by comparing yourself to some artificial standard.

    It turns out that we\’re not all so different, and as humans, we need to address eight different areas of our life. If we can find time to visit each of these dimensions you will likely uncover where that issue is.

    Here are the eight:

    1. Emotional – do you understand your feelings and express them to people you trust?
    2. Environmental – is your home calming and pleasant?
    3. Financial – are you in a place where money isn\’t a constant worry? Worry about this can affect your health so do you what you can lifestyle-wise to make this less of an issue.
    4. Intellectual – are you a life-long learner? Foster curiosity in your life and it\’ll become more interesting.
    5. Occupational – is your job or your volunteer work satisfying?  If not, you\’re not a tree – move!
    6. Physical – fitness is a well-proven component of mental health. Even 2-3 ten-minute walks a day would suffice!
    7. Social – do you have the right support network of family and friends?
    8. Spiritual – what connection do you have to the Big Picture? Tie into the deep mystery of our world with mindfulness.

    There it is, in short. There\’s a nice little video on it, below, and I\’ll likely aim some future HappyWisdoms at this list.

     

     

    FUN! Fidget Spinners in Space

    Like many trends, I initially disparaged the Fidget Spinner as a useless device that isn\’t that satisfying. However, after playing with some of the higher-end models, I have to say its fairly entertaining. It\’s not only me – apparently, the guys floating around in space found the time and space on their spaceship to make room for a Fidget Spinner.

    What\’s super interesting is it looks like the angular momentum from the fidget spinner can be transferred from it to the astronaut. The raw power of physics is made even more interesting in zero-G environments.

  • Five Lessons of PAX and Burning Man

    My first version of this blog post was to pit PAX West, my favorite conference, versus the simultaneous Burning Man Festival, which I\’ve been curious about but unable to attend. Yet this seems distasteful to me now that there has been a suicide there. I have no desire to take down Burning Man, to kick them when they\’re down. Indeed the more I read, the more I respect it.

    Pax and Burning Man have more in common than I expected and both transcend their surface appeal of video games and sex, respectively. What makes them so special?

    First, some facts:. They are growing, each drawing over 70k people (of course, PAX does this three times a year).  PAX West occurs on Labor Day weekend with \’Man, and both are on the West Coast. They involve the option of dressing up (or down), and both have music tightly integrated into the experience. What is it about these two events that makes them so helpful or valuable to so many? I\’ve found five items…there are probably more.

    1. SELF-EXPRESSION  – There are many installations at Burning Man that are simply astounding, like here, and here. People will paint everything so careful what you search on there, bub. PAX has fantastic costumes as well, encouraging attendees to Cosplay, costume play, as their favorite characters from the entertainment world, like here and here. Astounding effort goes into both, and it\’d be tempting to think that Burning Man, with its enormity, would have the market cornered on this one. The Gentle Reader must understand that video games are a form of expression. Both attendees and vendors are in a symbiotic dance of creation and fandom, amplifying one another ad infinitum. Finally, video games are literally creating new worlds and experiences, sans drugs. During this PAX, I wore the Oculus system and became the Hulk.  It was weird and wonderful and transported me to another place, without going to a desert.  This was my new world, with my huge arms –

    Check out a review of that experience here – but TL;DR – it was amazing.

    At the end of the day, both PAX and Burning Man are tornados of creation and both are bound by time. Like the smoldering remains of over 30 burns in the desert, video games and their millions of lines of code are like sandcastles, cast into the trash bin the next time a great graphics engine comes out.   – – – Lesson 1: Create something new, experience something new, and then let it go

    2. ENTERTAINMENT- Every video game and board game in existence show up at PAX, with Twitch and YouTube live vying for interviews and streaming games. Those in for quieter fare go to the dozens of board game areas, console play areas, PC play areas, vintage video game areas, or…pausing for effect..go to a panel of video game experts to learn how to participate. Burning Man has a program full of events, and, like PAX, you feel almost feel more FOMO for going than not, since you become aware of what you\’re missing out.  I got more steps during PAX than I did at the Seattle Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon. Fun can be exhausting. Speaking of gaming, Drift Hunters can immerse you in the world of racing, providing thrills and excitement.        – – – Lesson 2: Have fun, Let Go, and pace yourself. 

    3. SENSE OF HOME:  On the binding of the PAX conference guide the term – \”Welcome Home\” appears.  This term comes up again, but in a welcome at Burning Man: \”When I told people that it was my first Burn, many of them said, \”\’welcome home\’\”.  Even a conservative got a warm welcome, which is as fantastical as any outfit at either event. It goes without saying that at both conferences there\’s plenty of geek and nerds. A good chunk of both populations were in the AV Club, Computer Club, chess club, or played Dungeons and Dragons. I\’d gamble many of them had a heck of a time surviving the Darwinian grinder we call school. I know I did. These folks are survivors. They are creating, building, working, and showing their stuff for all to see (in more way than one). They\’re creatives, through and through, and have brought their uniqueness home, a home that they too created.  – – –  Lesson 3: Find and make your home

    4. VALUE:  Both of these events cost a TON of money. PAX tickets are spendy, but not nearly as spendy as the \’Man, who will run you over $400 just to get your vehicle in. People work hard to build a city for a week with no resources and then leave zero footprint on the place. I agree with the aforementioned conservative- he wishes all cities were run with Burning Man principles shown below. In PAX, people are constantly giving you merch, discounts on computer gear, hats, and mouse pads, but like going to Costco, it\’s hard to leave without dropping several hundred bucks before you know it.   – – – Lesson 4: Save your money and spend it where it counts most

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    5. SELF-DISCOVERY: Being with strangers, completely dependent on their generosity, and facing a week without electronics and connection to the world seeps of self-discovery. Burning Man has the temple, where you put names of loved ones you\’ve lost, messages you want to send to them or to the world.  This whole thing is built around self-discovery and I would go just for that one reason. Now, PAX is a bit more of a stretch. There is little quiet, since the days are packed with people and activities. And yet there are many moments in the five years I\’ve attended PAX where I wondered about the future. Where is all of this going? How do I, as a techie and story teller, work in this new medium? What ethical/moral challenges does this new age present to society? How will VR change the world? You have to make time for the self-discovery or it won\’t happen, even in a desert.   – – – Lesson 5: Make the time and space for self-discovery

    WRAP-UP –   Nearly 200,000 people go to these two events combined, celebrating life, who they are, and what they\’ve created, together. What works for them should work for you.

    The point – By saving your time and money to seek out self-expression and a sense of home, mixed with some fun and self-discovery, you are sure to find strength for the real world, giving yourself fuel for expression and engagement.

    What is your PAX? What is your Burning Man? What is that thing that you do to challenge yourself, revive, and reinspire?

  • What I learned from the Eclipse

    No, I did not get an amazing photo of the eclipse. It was fun, and the glasses we got at Lowes were awesome. We went to the parking lot here in town, since we were getting about 96.1% of the view. I figured, \”Heck, I\’ll take a 96% any day, especially when the alternative is driving an undefined number of hours down to Oregon. Everyone was saying it was going to be an apocalyptic amount of traffic.\”

    I mean, it was cool, really cool when we started getting cold as the sun went away. In the cloudy Pacific Northwest, we\’re glad to see the sun any day,  and I feared we\’d miss the whole thing when a low fog came in that morning.

    Yet, it wasn\’t that amazing. The crazy photos, like the one above, plus many other personal friends of ours said that it became truly dark during the eclipse.  For us, it got a little dark, like a dense storm cloud. Hat\’s off to the sun, who knew that with 96% of the orb obscured we\’d still be nearly full daylight?  And yet, there are some that made the trip down there and regretted it, reporting over ten hours of commute time for a fifteen-second experience. 

    4% of the sun remained. Our efforts were 4% off, and it made all the difference. We missed out on totality, and it mattered. 

    I wonder how many things are like this in our world these days? You get close, you work hard, and you become VERY good. That book you\’re writing is great. That painting, that code you\’re writing, that sale you\’re working on – all excellent.  But are they 96 percent, or 100%?

    I\’m not talking about outcomes here, e.g. if you get famous, if you get rich, etc. That stuff we cannot control. Instead, imagine the eclipse as effort. If we really put in that last 4%, could it make all the difference in the world?  Or would we be wasting our time, chasing things that we cannot have or cost too much, making any victory pyrrhic?

    It seems to me that the trick here isn\’t to treat everything with 100% or you\’ll go crazy, nor is it settling for the 96% all of the time. No, it\’s about finding that balance, taking big bets on what would pay off for you emotionally and go for it, and letting the other stuff be simply okay, being happy with dark glasses in a mall parking lot, sipping coffee with loved ones, gazing towards the sky in wonder while trying not to go blind.

    -Joe

     

     

  • Summer Update – PNWA Conference, GamerSusan, Hurrah!

    When June hits in our household and the sun comes out in the Seattle region, people hit the outdoors and don\’t return. It doesn\’t get dark here until nearly 10:00 pm, so it really guts one\’s blogging time!  But we\’re back, and here\’s what I\’ve been up to.

    ~ GamerSuzan – This one is a passion project. Our family loves board games and this site will be a testament to that, and a lazy-Suzan-like device to hold people\’s games.  Check out the fun at gamersusan.com (in work!).

    ~ I ran the Seattle Rock and Roll 1/2 marathon and it was FUN!  I beat my previous time by more than 30 minutes (and that was like seven years ago).  Woot!  I\’ll have some interesting blog posts on that soon.

    ~ Pacific Northwest Writers Conference – PNWA is an awesome organization and they put on the premier event in the Northwest for authors in the area.  I\’ll have at least one blog post coming out soon on that one.

    ~ Travel – There\’s been a lot of traveling in my family lately and there are huge lessons I\’ll have up soon.

    ~ Agile –  I\’ve been working on the site virtualagilecoaching.com. 

    So it\’s been a time of high variety but low focus and finish. But that time is done, and now we move towards finishing things!

    I hope you\’re having a great summer as we are here in the Northwest!

  • Use SCARF This Summer – Making Change Work for You using Brain Science

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    Happy Week 20, Dear Readers!

    Despite the name of this blog, sometimes I do get unhappy and rarely do I feel that wisdom is going to help me when I am indeed unhappy.  The last thing I want is some schmuck trying to spout wisdom when all I want to do is punch someone in the face. Of course, that’s exactly what I’m going to do, so…sorry not sorry. 🙂   What makes us unhappy? I submit that change is a major source of unhappiness. Dr. Spencer Johnson created a career out of his smash hit book Who Moved My Cheese, selling a gazillion copies attempting to answer this very question. 

    But what about change makes it so awful? Occasionally change is thrust upon us, like an illness, or a bad boss. Some change you bring by your actions, directly or indirectly. This article discusses how to ensure that change that you’re bringing to yourself, your team, or your company is closer to the change you intended, rather than the change you caused inadvertently.  

    Now, the SCARF in Summer!

     

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    So, what is this scarf that I speak of? No, it\’s not a piece of clothing, but a book, namely David Rock’s excellent work Your Brain at Work. In this work, he presents the SCARF Model, a popular neuroscience tool for determining how certain actions will cause fear responses or other undesirable outcomes.

    Status – Importance in relation with others, e.g. Is my personal status in this group going to take a hit, or go up?

    Certainty – Ability to predict the future. To some extent, we need to know what’s going to happen or our brains start doing crazy things.

    Autonomy – Perception that I can ( or cannot) change my environment.  Do I have a say over what happens to me? If I don’t have choices, I’m going to start feeling stressed.

    Relatedness – Feeling of security in relation to others.  Do I belong in this group? Are they sharing information with me and collaborating? Or is this a dog eat dog situation?

    Fairness – Transparency and clear expectations on rewards and recognition.  Who’s winning here? Do I know the rules? Are they fair enough for me to feel that I have a chance in seeing rewards if I participate?

    The way to use this model, in short, is to review the items you\’re doing as a leader and ask yourself if this action would affect one of the SCARF parameters? Think of SCARF like a divining rod, finding trouble underneath the ground of change.  Here are three areas where I see immediate applicability: 

    I. When we lead – we should ask ourselves each of these questions when we intend on introducing a change. For example, in my field of agile software development, when we say that the Project Manager is no longer assigning tasks but facilitating meetings, how does that affect the PM’s perception of their status? Can we position the PM as the Agile Champion for the team?

    II. For ourselves – This model is also very powerful to probe why we’re upset. I get into funks on occasion where I can’t figure out why I’m in the funk in the first place. I have used this list to see if any of the five dimensions have been recently impacted.

    Some time ago I had this happen. At the time, my mood at work varied more than the weather in Seattle, and I had hit a very low point. By going over the SCARF model I was able to center on what was bothering me so. I had lost Status, Autonomy, Relatedness, AND Fairness! (it was a rough time). The only thing I had was the certainty that our efforts would struggle greatly. It was clear that I had to move, and I did, and it made all the difference. 

    III. Parenting – Parents need all the tools we can get, especially with the almost-adult crowd we call teens. While a parent should not be able to affect their Status (unless we\’re trying to embarrass them), the dimensions of Certainty and Fairness are ground we can have in common with our teens. At least with my teens, they have a keen sense of fairness, and if you can explicitly establish the SCARF model of understanding with them, you will have a more powerful vocabulary to work with.  

    I strongly recommend that you check out the SCARF model and give it a wearing, even this week.

    That’s it for now, Dear Readers! Until next time! 

  • What is Water? Week 10 Inspiration – Get off that Default Setting!

    Week 10 already!  It\’s always amazing to see how fast time goes by.  I start this week\’s inspiration with a joke of sorts:

    There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how\’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

    When the month begins, I always like to take a different tact, moving up the ladder a bit and see the whole, or what my class used to call \”getting on the balcony\”.  This week I had the great pleasure to attend a class on public speaking this week, and during it I was exposed to commencement speech by David Foster Wallace, and I was struck by the truth he was dropping on these students.  He told them that the storm was coming for them. That no matter how smart they thought they were, that the beat-down of everyday life was coming for them. Unless they changed something. Unless they changed their frame of reference, and not think that the world was full of idiots.

    He calls it the Default Setting, this water, the idea that we\’re the main point of our lives and that ours is the only one that matters and that all of these people in front of me in traffic or in the grocery store are stupid and annoying and just in my way.  Watch the  video below. The actors are living the life of the default setting, and are my target audience for HappyWisdom. We, like they, get trapped in the hum of the every day, cruising on our Default Setting, not asking the deeper questions and being annoyed that so much of life is frustratingly out of our control.

    Check it out and see if you can capture in your mind what the key to getting out of the Default Setting is…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIk4IOOeco

     

    Did you catch it? The goal is to be free to decide what to think. It is the true goal of education.

    It\’s basically the Truth of freewill.  Tragically, the author of this speech committed suicide in 2006, at 46 years old, after a long struggle with depression. I  do not think for one second this fact tarnishes or invalidates the message of this speech. I believe that the work of humans are frequently greater than the human that created them.  The words in this speech ring true for me, and for those not affected by mental illness, it is a call to live better, to open our eyes and think, and decide to be compassionate and consider the whole picture because we are alive.

    David Foster Wallace puts it like this:

    But if you\’ve really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars — compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff\’s necessarily true: The only thing that\’s capital-T True is that you get to decide how you\’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn\’t. You get to decide what to worship…

    There\’s a PDF of this speech here and in that he continues the thought:

    Because here\’s something else that\’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship — be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles — is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. 

    They say there\’s no atheists in trenches, but I think Faith is equally important in the grocery store isle. Faith helps us believe that our walk, no matter how mundane it might feel, is worth something. That by doing my job, and a hundred other micro-kindnesses, makes a real difference and that someone or something is keeping track of it all.

    This speech tells us more, but I\’m way over my word count.  What do you folks think?  Are you stuck on Default?  How do you break out of the hypnotic ever-day and see the bigger picture? What ideas do you have to put Mr. Wallace\’s ideas into your day? Tell us below!

     

     

  • Are we just peeing on trees?

    \"\"

    I currently live in a home with two cats, but that\’s me being more of  victim of circumstance rather than choice.  Cat shows up, it has babies, your kids go nuts – the story writes itself.

    Yet, when I was a child we were a dog family.  On the days we would pretend to be good dog owners, we\’d take him for a walk ( for some reason our dogs were invariably male).

    We did not use a leash, because we were kids and my parents really didn\’t care, and it was fun to watch him run.  Our top dog was Prince, a beautiful German Shepherd. He was our pet, our defender, and our friend during a tumultuous  childhood.

    Prince would gallop about the neighborhood, gleefully chasing small dogs and cats that presented themselves. He would also pee. He\’d pee on everything.  Understand that this was before the time of leashes and pooper scoopers.  No one did that. That was what grass was for was the wisdom of the time.  Things were so much simpler those days.

    Anyway, I remember Prince running about the neighborhood, peeing on tree after tree, and my mother telling me that he was marking his territory.  When he\’d come back from these marathon sprinkling sessions, he\’d come back to me and I swear, Gentle Reader, that he was proud of himself.  Prince would smile. He\’d run around my legs, jumping around, and he clearly he wanted positive affirmation, since he had marked so many acres of land.

    I was teen and had just a few years back had my Damascus moment.  I saw things now through the lens of a believer and I recalled if this peeing on trees might be how God sees our accomplishments.  We climb the corporate ladder, we don\’t, we fight and fight to get from stage to stage and you have to wonder what God thinks of it.  Does He care you get that promotion? Or even that dream job?

    You might anticipate a No here, but its YES! Of course God cares. He doesn\’t care about the accomplishment, but our happiness. I\’m not a prosperity gospel kinda guy necessarily, but I believe God has gone through a lot of trouble to create us, with billions of lines of code (DNA) and countless years of guided evolution. It took a great deal for us to get to this place.   How can we not follow our dreams and go for it?

    So back to Prince. My dog\’s saliva dribbled from his smiling face, and he wanted me to be proud of him. I patted him on his head, and I was so happy for him. I couldn\’t care less about how much territory he scored – that was not why I cared.  I cared because my faithful pet cared.  It made him happy.

    While I\’m not about to claim any right to happiness, I do believe its okay to have a good life, and modulate your journey to speak to your heart.

    Love is someone being as happy about your happiness as you are.  Prince showed me love in this fashion as have others in the prevailing years. This is why all careers are equal to God. He has His own plan. Even if you aren\’t religious, this perspective applies. When your kid or your spouse or your friend come up to you panting, thrilled about something they\’ve done, be excited for them. Understand that loving on them when they\’re happy, cheering their accomplishments, is demonstrating love at its very core. Everyone wants to have someone be proud of them.  When they don\’t make it, remind them that all of this accomplishment syndrome stuff is a silly hamster wheel. That their happiness is beyond all of that, because in the end it doesn\’t matter how many trees you\’ve peed on.