PainTastic

Experiencing pain is part of living. Some of the pain is physical, some intellectual, and some emotional/spiritual. Pain hurts, but it rarely does us in (unless we choose to be done in).

Watching some folks I respect and love deal with pain, it seems they apply one or more of the following viewpoints as they deal with it:

• They use the pain to help clarify and focus on the truly important stuff.
• They examine the pain and its antecedents carefully, seeking to learn the embedded lessons for future living.
• They apply the experience of personal pain toward being more understanding of and empathetic toward others who are living with it.
• They realize that pain is often the result of pushing our limits, which usually leads to improved performance.
• They appreciate that pain almost always humbles us, and humbleness is truly a virtue.

Much truth in the old adage that "If it don't kill you, it'll make you better."

PresencePresent

The holiday season is in the air. Pretty hard to miss.

Sitting in numerous business meetings and other human gatherings this week, I was reminded that our Presence is a gift. Though a gift of great value, it doesn't cost us much to share it.

Giving the Present of Presence means lending to the engagement:

• Our full attention to the Other(s)
• Our eyes
• Our ears
• Our open body language
• Our brain/thinking
• Our participation in the chatter
• Our inclusion of others in that chatter
• Our expressions of care (whether we agree or not)

The packaging of that Present doesn't even have to be costly or pretty. ;-) 

Happy holidays!

Edgenesis

Growth tends to occur most robustly out on the edges.

It doesn't matter whether we talking about new growth in plants, expansion of cities, findings in current research, birth of new planets, social movements, weather systems, or our own learning.

Significant growth seems always to find its genesis in places other than the trunk or the capitol or headquarters or at the annual convention or in the inner circle or nestled safely in what we already know. 

New dimensions of what we know, what we can do, how we think and behave are often found "out on the edges" of the norm and the known. Probably has something to do with the risk associated with being "out on the edges."

GrOw forth! Befriend the edges. And those who reside there.

Happy learning...

Gray-niverse

Those who serve in leadership roles (e.g., parent, teacher, manager, coach, captain, CEO, ...) know full well that the world is not a black-n-white environment. Most of the decisions leaders make land squarely in the world of grayness. The higher up the leadership food chain we move, the grayer the world gets. 

The leaders I value and study subscribe closely to some common principles when making those inevitable and numerous GRAY decisions that come their way:

• They refuse to engage in or condone unethical/illegal behavior.
• They seek counsel from wise others (when time permits).
• They start always from a position of "do no harm."
• They strive for fundamental fairness.
• They press always for the common good.

One reality of leadership is that most of the easy decisions never come through our door. Those decisions get made in the customer service division, or in Room 174, or out in the field, or at the worksite, or... The gray ones, however, have a persistent way of landing on our desk or in our inbox. 

Happy deciding...

GraveDigging

Here are some sure ways to start digging our eternal resting "hole":

• Seek to serve ourselves over serving others.
• Hold grudges and withhold forgiveness.
• Think and behave with a Zero-Sum mindset.
• Stop learning new stuff.

Those are not things we are, but things we choose or choose not to do. Every day.

When we put the brakes on purposeful living, we put the first foot in the grave. 

AnxiousGeneration

 I recently read The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (2024). Dr. Dennis Wissing, the Dean of our college at LSU Shreveport, “baited” us to read this book. I am thankful.

 

My top takeaways:

·       Mental health and social acuity of children plummeted from 2010-2015, the window in which phone-based existence began to predominate.

·       Haidt’s 4-fold proposal: 1) No smartphones before HS, 2) No social media before 16, 3) Phone-free schools, 4) Far more supervised play and childhood independence.

·       Fear triggers full response; anxiety is triggered at “perceived” threat. 

·       Smartphones allow us, and our kids, to be “forever elsewhere.”

·       Attunement develops in free play as result of “serve and return” interactions, which forge emotional maturity. 

·       Synchronous, F2F, physical interactions serve as basis for this healthy social development.

·       Social media in a powerful purveyor of conformity attraction, serving as virtual peer pressure. 

·       Antifragile = things that need to get pummeled and knocked down in order to grow stronger.

·       Safetyism = safety above all else.

·       The human brain has two subsystems: Discover mode and Defend mode.

·       Superbly effective experience blockers: Safetyism and smartphones.

·       Four Harms of a phone-based childhood… Harm #1: Social Deprivation. Harm #2: Sleep Deprivation. Harm #3: Attention Fragmentation. Harm #4: Addiction. 

·       4 reasons girls are particularly vulnerable: 1) Girls are more affected by visual social comparison and perfectionism. 2) Girls’ aggression is more relational. 3) Girls more easily share emotions and disorders. 4) Girls are more subject to predation and harassment. 

·       Loss of belonging to a loving and lasting community may be the highest price of social media addiction. 

·       “The Great Rewiring of Childhood pulled young people out of real-world communities, including their own families, and created a new kind of childhood lived in multiple rapidly shifting networks.” (p. 197)

·       Our attention makes US the product that platforms sell to their customers.

·       We should consider the Gardener vs Carpenter analogical dichotomy of childrearing.

 

My favorite quotes:

 

“… overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.” (p. 9)

 

 “I see few indications that a phone-based childhood develops antifragility.” (p. 81)

 

“We should be giving children more of the practice they need in the real world and delaying their entry into the online world, where the benefits are fewer and the guardrails nearly nonexistent.” (p. 82)

 

“The strongest and most satisfying communities come into being when something lifts people out of the lower level so that they have powerful collective experiences. They all enter the realm of the sacred together, at the same time.” (p. 203)

 

“We need to start prevention early, in elementary and middle schools, before our children start wilting.” (p. 263)

 

I’ve read JH before, and been impressed with his thinking each time. A worthy scholar and impactful researcher who seems genuinely interested in shaping better for futures for all of us, particularly our children.

Condesc-truction

Many of the people I admire most are peace makers. They focus on building bridges instead of walls. They understand that any chance at bridge-building is grounded in their/our ability to foster trust. 

Dissimilar folks I observe seem bent on building walls instead of bridges. They demonstrate remarkable skill in undermining trustful engagement and collaboration. 

A trustless environment springs from condescension. How does condescension result in the destruction of trust?

• When my talking eats up more bandwidth than your talking.
• When a focus on weaknesses overwhelms a consideration of strengths.
• When attentiveness is fleeting and sporadic, falling victim to distraction.
• When assumptions based on labels blinds us to an individual's uniqueness.
• When engagements are viewed as contests, with commensurate score-keeping and subsequent rankings.

In our pursuit of betterness, knowing what doesn't work is just as informative as knowing what does. 

We can start deconstructing our condescension tendencies today.................if we choose, and if bridge-building is our intention.

ArtisanListening

Powerful listeners seem rare. Probably because it's a craft, the work of true Listening Artisans who skillfully mix art and science into one healing balm.

The best listeners I know embed some of the following strategies into their secret sauce:

• Defining Questions - They frame conversations with skillfully crafted questions that center on the topic of interest. They know that Q&A sessions can easily run off into the weeds, becoming unfocused b!7c% & complain events, which serve the best interests of none. While they may not know all the specifics that will surface in the answers to their questions, they are reasonably confident of the "direction" in which the conversation will head.
• Time Bounded - They make clear the time allotted for the session. If it's a formal meeting, start-stop times are clearly communicated; if it's an informal interaction, they marshall the conversation toward a clear and signaled closing point. 
• Presence - Those skillful listeners attend the conversation fully. They lend their ears, their eyes, their brains, and their body language to the interaction. They understand that full engagement is a two-way street. They also understand that 80% of communication is non-verbal. 
• Notation - Skillful listeners take note, usually in some visual way. They let the other know that what they are saying has meaning to the Listening Artisan, and will be subsequently dwelled upon. Making notes in some visual way sends a powerful message in that regard.
• Gratitude - Powerful listeners regularly thank the Other for the investment of their time, attention, opinion, and insight. Those Listening Artisans understand that asking, then thanking, others for their viewpoint and thinking is one of the most powerful and magnetic of compliments. 

Looking back on that listing, it's not surprising that so few seem to be Artisans of Listening.

As with all crafts, becoming master Artisans is a journey of improvement. We can start (or continue) that journey today...