The art of complaining

Complaining means that we know what's wrong, but we:

1. don’t realize we can change it. (We believe we're powerless.)

2. are too lazy to change it. (We'd rather just complain.)

As a friend, I hate this. Because it’s a lot of work to make complainers realize they can change things. They always push back with all the reasons they can’t, which just reinforces the two points above.

As a colleague, I love this. Because I know I’m powerful and can change anything. Because every complaint is an opportunity. It’s fun to invent solutions to problems, turn ideas to reality, and watch my creations make the world a little better.Then afterward, on a personal note, I can say, “See? Told you it could change.”

Managing Tension

Managing tension

You have something you want to change: a thought process or habit you want to adjust, fix or pivot toward.Consider a bunch of bricks on a seesaw. Right now all the bricks are stacked on one side. This is the way you have been.To make a change, most people don’t do enough. They do one small thing.And nothing happens.You've started a shift. Maybe you moved that brick back to where it was, and then out again.Making a shift does not account for:

• a lifetime of doing it the other way
• the environment that made you that way
• the pressure from friends to stay that way
• and a whole repertoire of old habits

Some say, to make a change, you have to be extreme. Go all the way the other way. Stop smoking, sold turkey. Start going to the gym every day. Just jump in the deep end. Doing that means that you are trying one form of being "all in" - by stacking a huge pile of bricks on the other side. This is what most people envision as success. You will have "arrived" if life looks like the opposite. If you were depressed, this is what happy looks like. If you were in a slump, this is what energy and vitality look like. This new you sounds extreme and exciting. You will think you’re going to be completely changed.But, your history of doing things the other way is still there. So really this is what you needed to do: move one brick at a time, until you have a full spectrum of behaviors and visions of success to draw from.  This is not the same as balance. This is about establishing small habits that lead to managing the teetering that happens when you go too far toward either end of the seesaw.By managing the middle (meaning you avoid extremes) new skills will sink in, and become your new normal. 

Example:

You have a tendency to blame others for your situation. We all do this. You realize this is hurting your life. You think, “I should stop doing that. What got me here won't get me there. I should take some responsibility.”So you try something new:But that doesn't quite do enough. You are still not quite there yet. You need to try more, in a way that will feel like you are going too far.So you think, “Absolutely everything is my fault. All of it. It’s my fault the world is the way it is. It’s my responsibility to fix everything I don’t love. It’s my fault that others act the way they do towards me.”Sounds extreme, right? It will feel like this:You try to think this new way. Sometimes you can actually get there and embody that new voice.  You are trying on something new, hearing a new inner voice.But you still can’t help feeling that some things are not your fault. Your old voice still wants to be heard. That’s OK. Now you’re working the middle a little more. This back and forth conversation with "both-and" starts to sink in and becomes your new normal way of thinking. 

More examples:

The best and most effective changes I’ve made in my life seemed crazy at first because they seemed to so extreme.  I’m going to be writing about more of them in the future, and I’ll keep them listed here:

• Everything is my fault
• About being strong, good-looking, and above average
• Saying yes to say no
• more coming!

Mental Models: Appropriate Challenges

WE DELIGHT IN CHALLENGES, ESPECIALLY ONES THAT STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN OVERWHELMING AND BORING.

How might this apply to great teams and cultures?

Easy is overrated. Turn some tasks into challenges or contests. Research shows we are happiest when faced with something challenging (but not too overwhelming). The “challenge” can be designed into a system like reaching monthly numbers or created by reflecting someone’s personal best (or average) performance in an area.

How might this apply to great products?

A designed challenge can be heavily constructed (game design) or merely suggest an intriguing, unsolved problem. Performing at increasing levels of difficulty require the retrieval of existing knowledge and the challenge of applying that information to new situations or contexts.

Consider

How many times do we simply repeat what we know? How many times do we really generalize our learning to new contexts and invest time in focusing on deeper learning to generate more creative and effective solutions for real-world problems?

See Also

Curiosity, Status, Surprise, Set Completion, Competition, Repudiation, Feedback Loops

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In the whirl of our day-to-day interactions, it’s all too easy to forget the nuances that distinguish great teams, great cultures, and great products/services.

Mental Model Flash Cards bring together insights from psychology into an easy reference and brainstorming tool. Each card describes one insight into human behavior and suggests ways to apply this to your teams as well as the design of your products and services.

Calculating Value

Do you provide value to others, or only yourself?

This is the kind of coming-to-Jesus question I had to face when I embarked on the dissertation and subsequent research. But it's a question I faced to a lesser degree throughout my career. When you're paid a salary, you can argue your value. But when you submit a thesis, they don't call it a defense for nothing.You are, in every sense of the word, defending your idea as something that will add to the world. You are putting your career on hold. You are putting your good credit on the line (most of us are in sickening debt because of the choice to complete a dissertation). In the end, you are proving your optimism through the most depressing, rigorous, and gut-wrenching processes you can put yourself through.Yet, there are so many dissertations that don't really make the cut for interesting cocktail conversation. And it brings about a really odd kind of humor that can be pretty insular.When your writing about something you really care about, it’s hard to imagine that others wouldn't be interested. It's sort of like when I think it's hot and like the fan on, and my partner gives me, huddled with the dog and several blankets, with a look that can only say, "turn on the damn heat." I think it really is hot, not that it’s hot only for me. It feels like a fact to me, not an opinion.So when I do something that’s really valuable to me, it’s hard for me to imagine that it’s not valuable to others. I think it really is valuable, not that it’s valuable only for me. It feels like a fact, not an opinion.This is understandable. Our feelings feel like facts. It’s hard to imagine that they’re not.This is the problem of the "lonely writer," the “starving artist,” or the "nonprofit missionary."When someone creates something that feels important, powerful, and valuable to them, it’s hard to imagine that it’s not important, powerful, and valuable to others.But money only comes from doing something valuable to others.The starving artist pours his heart into a project that’s incredibly valuable to him, but not (yet) valuable to others. That’s why no money comes.The good news is there are two ways out of this problem, and either one can be fun, in the way that a 1,000-piece puzzle can be fun. :-)

#1: Productize your learning. Focus on making your "thing" more valuable to others.

Art doesn’t end at the edge of the canvas. Keep your creativity going. Constantly ask, “How can I be more valuable to an audience?” You may come up with ideas like this:

• Convert what you do to a personal service. Customize your work for hire.
• Spread a fascinating version of your history, so fans can get emotionally interested in you.
• Simplify. Simplify. Simplify, so that people don’t need sophisticated tastes to appreciate what you do.
• Find ways to be invitation-only. Think about membership versus likes, sales, and customers.
• Go where money is already flowing. Adapt what you do to match the needs of the communities most relevant to your product or servicece.

Then force yourself to try all the best ideas, even if it seems unnatural at first. Read books about business and psychology to get more ideas, since many brilliant minds are asking the same question from a different perspective.  Do this repeatedly, paying attention to feedback from others, and you will become more valuable.Amanda Palmer is an American singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, pianist, and lyricist of the duo The Dresden Dolls. On April 20, 2012, Palmer announced on her blog that she launched a new album pre-order on Kickstarter. The Kickstarter project was ultimately supported by 24,883 backers for a grand total of $1,192,793 — at the time, the most funds ever raised for a musical project on Kickstarter. A widely reported and commented upon controversy emerged from the related tour when she asked for local musicians to volunteer to play with her for exposure, fun, beer, and hugs instead of money. She responded in the press and changed her policy to one of paying local musicians who volunteered to play with her on this tour. Read her book. Watch her TED talk.Though if you find that this makes you more miserable than excited, try the other way:

#2: Stop expecting it to be valuable to others.

Accept your "thing" as personal and precious to only you. Make your thing your side-hustle and find your money elsewhere.If you stop expecting your "thing" to be valuable to anyone but you, your conflicted mind can finally be at peace. Do it only because you love it, and it honestly doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. You might even keep it private like a diary, just to be clear who it’s really for.You’ll probably be happier with your music because of this change in mindset. Ironically, others may appreciate it more, too, though you honestly won’t care.He has no book. He has no TED talk. But, if he's finding joy in what he's doing, maybe he doesn't need express himself that way.

Generosity

I don't normally tout Facebook videos, but this one came up in my feed the other day because it was liked by a friend in my feed. Thank god for those friends that like interesting things!Yes, it's about a resolution to women turning on each other, which is unfortunately very common. But this behavior is not relegated to women. I work with male clients who also suffer from "thinking small."A relationship never heals past its last mishap. Since all of business comes down to relationships, it behooves us to think about our impact and to clean up our messes, even if a lot of time has passed.

Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Watch talkshow Red Table Talk has been getting rave reviews for its upfront and honest approach to tackling everyday topics. Monday’s episode (May 28) saw the actress and Gabrielle Union squashing their 17-year beef like grown-a** women. According to Smith, her relationship (or lack of) with Union “was some petty a** sh*t.”“Gabrielle and I were never really girlfriends, we were great associates that at some point, that dissolved and for 17 years we have not really spoken,” said Pinkett Smith. “We don’t even know [what we’re mad at]. Today I really want to talk to Gabrielle to find out how we as women, specifically, get here. And this particular episode is about healing.”

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/redtabletalk/videos/571394313260048/[/embed]

Announcing Goals Leads To Failure

In fact, January 8th is when most people give up their new year's resolutions.Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish themIt seems obvious that we should want support. Shouldn’t we announce our goals, so people can rally around us? Isn’t it good networking to tell people about your upcoming projects? Doesn’t the “law of attraction” mean you should state your intention, and visualize the goal as already yours?Nope.Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. In fact, announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a “social reality”, even if the solution hadn’t actually been achieved.NYU psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer has been studying this since his 1982 book “Symbolic Self-Completion” (pdf article here) — and recently published results of new tests in a research article, “When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap?”Four different tests of 63 people found that those who kept their intentions private were more likely to achieve them than those who made them public and were acknowledged by others.Once you’ve told people of your intentions, it gives you a “premature sense of completeness.”You have “identity symbols” in your brain that make your self-image. Since both actions and talk create symbols in your brain, talking satisfies the brain enough that it “neglects the pursuit of further symbols.”A related test found that success on one sub-goal (like eating healthy meals) reduced efforts on other important sub-goals (like going to the gym) for the same reason.It may seem unnatural to keep your intentions and plans private but try it. If you do tell a friend, make sure not to say it as a satisfaction (“I’m going to run a marathon!”), but as dissatisfaction (“I want to lose 20 pounds, so kick my ass if I don’t, OK?”)

PhotoCredit: Sabina I. Rascol

Leadership Lesson In 3 Minutes Or Less

There are two kinds of leaders in this clip: the movement maker, and the leader-follower.

Watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and take notes:

A movement maker needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he’s doing is so simple making him easy to mimic.

LESSON 1: Being easy to mimic means you are naturally instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow!

Soon comes the first follower with a crucial role: he publicly shows everyone how to be a good follower. Notice the movement-maker embraces him as an equal. It’s not about just him anymore — it’s about them, plural. Notice the leader-follower calling to his friends to join in.

LESSON 2: It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower provides legitimacy. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.

LESSON 3: The second follower is the turning point, providing proof the first has done well. It’s not about a lone wolf or even two wolves. One more and three is a crowd. A crowd is news.

A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers because new followers emulate followers — not the leader. Now here come two more, then three more. Now we’ve got momentum. This is the tipping point! Now we’ve got a movement!

LESSON 4: As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed. They won’t stand out. They will be part of the in-crowd if they hurry. Over the next minute, you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’d be ridiculed for not joining.

And ladies and gentlemen that is how a movement is made!

To Recap:

1. Be easy to follow. Keep your message simple.

2. Nurture your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.

3. Be public and inclusive.

4. But the biggest lesson here — did you catch it? Leadership is over-glorified. Yes it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened: It was the first follower that transformed a lone wolf into a leader of a pack. There is no movement without the first follower.

We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.

The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

When you find a lone wolf doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.

A good read related to this:

• Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders (Center for Public Leadership) by Barbara Kellerman

• General McChrystal’s Failure of Followership, Barbara Kellerman

THERE IS A COUNTER-MELODY IN ALL THINGS

There is a counter-melody in all things

A lot of people think my advice and opinions sound strange.

When I was first starting to write seriously, and experiment with finding my “voice” on an issue (let’s say…business) where (let’s say…I had a LOT of opinions) and was righting in extreme black and white scenarios, my partner said to me, “Do you actually mean the stuff you write?”

So, a little explanation:

Do you know what musical counterpoint is?

Underneath the main melody, you have a counter-melody that goes against it, and together they make harmony.

This is different than just harmonizing, where someone sings along with the melody at an interval. This is a separate melody that could stand on its own but is really there to complement the main melody.

Well, if my advice and opinions sound strange, it’s because I’m just the counter-melody.

I’m not the only voice you hear. There’s a message I know that most of my clients, readers or listeners are hearing because it’s a common message we all hear these days. So let’s call that the melody.

I may love that melody too, but I don’t want to just duplicate it. So I try to think of a good counter-melody.

I do it to compensate (or over-compensate) for something I think is missing in the common message.

So my public posts are a counterpoint meant to complement the popular point.

For example:

• There’s a glorification of leadership and those who start companies. I think that it’s more effective to be an early follower.

• The popular “law of attraction” says you should tell everyone your goals. But there is an interesting study showing that telling your plans makes them less likely to happen.

• To people who are too focused on money, I suggest that generosity is a more effective path to success.

• To people who are too focused on passion and purpose, I suggest that money can lead you towards your purpose because it shows how you’re valuable to others.

• It’s not about taking the opposite position just to take it. It’s about managing the middle.

Now if you ask me if I think the stuff I say is the only way to go, of course not! I’m just offering the counter-melody.

My best advice is to listen to the combination. To both seek and manage the tension. Eventually, you’ll find yourself singing along with the melody you like best. Or making up your own.

I think fast

I’m a fast thinker

And my practice is in the slow response. I find that I mull things more, I listen more since I earned my doctorate. I don't share this to hold up having an advanced degree. I'm reflecting on its impact on my personality.Doctorate work has a way of beating all your initial responses out of you for their foolishness. So many people rush to an opinion and form a judgment with so little information. They are in the middle of an amygdala hijack--excited by, threatened by, or interested in what is being discussed--they have an immediate reaction and feel compelled to share it.When a friend says something interesting to me, I too have that immediate spark of interest. I make connections with things I've read in the past, people I've spoken to. But I find that I don't have a well-informed reaction until much later.When someone asks me a deep question, I say, “Hmm. I don’t know.” The next morning, I think of something interesting to write about.This makes me a disappointing person to try to debate or attack. I just have nothing to say in the moment, except maybe, “Good point.” Then a few days later, after thinking about it a lot, I have a response.I used to judge slow responders as "being slow" and it's not until I slowed down myself that I can fully empathize.  Isn't that how it always goes? But I’m not trying to win any debates.It’s a common belief that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s triggering a knee-jerk emotional response to something that happened long ago.If you take some time to think it through, you might find that your first reaction wasn’t current and true--not really. Or if it was, then you can say so with more conviction.The point? When you’re less impulsive and more deliberate with your thinking, it might be less interesting for other people, but that’s OK.Someone asks you a question. You don’t need to answer. You can say, “I don’t know,” and take your time to answer after thinking. You have to slow down to really unlock an idea.Maybe, by example, you can show others that they can do the same.(Can you imagine how the world would work if we all slowed down in order to "unlock ourselves"?)

(Freedom Sculpture — Zenos Frudakis)