Compared to What?
June 3, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Someone I’m close to who’d been upset about her 401k losses, said she’s now feeling a lot better about it. The reason: everyone else has lost the same percentage, so its relative.
Its an interesting exercise to notice how much of our thinking is relative. By relative I mean judging and responding to the events in our personal and business lives in comparison to others’ lives, or in comparison to our own lives, as we remember or anticipate them. This occurs so frequently that its considered natural. But when you challenge it in yourself, and in your organization and culture, you become aware of the negative results that follow:
- scarcity - more for you means less for me
- exclusiveness - keeping you / them out
- superiority / inferiority
- withholding / protectiveness
Transformational change takes place at least partially in the absolute, where no boundaries exist between or among us. Social business models and tools provide a great staging area for personal and organizational transformation but only if there’s willingness to be conscious of, and to act upon what’s true for and in us all.
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Is Critical Reasoning Dead?
May 22, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I’m not surprised that the most inspiring essay I’ve read in years is written by a motorcycle repairman, who also happens to be a great writer and who has a Ph.D. in political philosophy. His essay contrasts the levels of critical reasoning, intuition, judgment, experience and metacognition in both the bike shop and in the think tank. The former wins hands down.
Although I’ve never been a mechanic I did work for a decade in the machine-tool industry, both as corporate controller and entrepreneur/start-up partner. But the industry was in decline so I got an MBA and a year later started my career as a knowledge professional, specifically a Web 1.0 strategy consultant. It didn’t take long for my elation to turn to disillusion.
I remember a conversation I’d had with one of our solution architects, which in Web 1.0 meant he could write a paragraph and include a diagram. I showed him a brochure from my former company that I’d co-founded, highlighting one of our portable, lathe-mounted superfinishing machines that we designed and manufactured. He smirked and remarked “boy, you’ve come a long way”. The web consulting company merged several times and was eventually absorbed by a larger Web 1.0 company which then went away several years later. I think my co-worker ended up in financial services. After a another short interactive strategy consulting position I became self-employed. The machine-tool company I’d co-founded was under-capitalized and it folded. I lost touch with my former partners but occasionally drive through the industrial park where we were once located.
Its been 10 years but reading the essay reminded me exactly how I felt when the people who made concepts disparaged the people who made capital equipment. I’m grateful that I still have the traces of grease and oil in my blood to be able to appreciate one of the writer’s examples of the kinds of crises that industrial workers and mechanical engineers experienced on an daily basis.
I once accidentally dropped a feeler gauge down into the crankcase of a Kawasaki Ninja that was practically brand new, while performing its first scheduled valve adjustment. I escaped a complete tear-down of the motor only through an operation that involved the use of a stethoscope, another pair of trusted hands and the sort of concentration we associate with a bomb squad. When finally I laid my fingers on that feeler gauge, I felt as if I had cheated death. I don’t remember ever feeling so alive as in the hours that followed.
But what I most identified with in this essay, is author’s description of the “feel” of the knowledge work jobs he’d had and how most everything about management and process contradicted anyone’s ability to produce great, creative work in order to churn out banal, yet profit-maximizing, output. Perhaps I’m over-idealizing my former life, but I don’t remember that kind of creativity stultification in my machine-tool days. But I still cringe to remember how as Web 1.0 consolidated, management continually tightened the throttle on critical reasoning and creative ideas that didn’t fit with their formula. They hated it and I couldn’t live without it. So, like the writer, I got out, not by opening a motorcycle repair shop but by starting my own solo professional service firm. I’d had enough of a taste of “process management” as a Web 1.0 knowledge worker to realize that if I wanted to create and produce at and beyond the level of which I knew I was capable, I’d have to do it as an independent.
Yet like him, I can imagine the possibilities of a more entrepreneurial, post-crisis economy and some resurgence of industry, the trades and the artisans. And I have faith that there’s even a chance for new and better knowledge work as hierarchies flatten and social business models and technologies replace conformity, formula, centralization and control with collaboration, networks, sharing, ideas and critical reasoning. He eloquently describes how our quality of life depends on it.
Our peripheral vision is perhaps recovering, allowing us to consider the full range of lives worth choosing. For anyone who feels ill suited by disposition to spend his days sitting in an office, the question of what a good job looks like is now wide open.
Space
May 20, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
We’re made up of more space (dark energy and dark matter) than visible form and matter, but we spend most of our lives totally identified with the latter. Its one thing to think about the concept of spaciousness but yet another to experience it, for even a short period of time. Anyway, why would we want to and how do we do that?
We want to because we now know that the physical and conceptual structures that we’re identified with are unstable and will be replaced with new ones that are yet to be created. We want to be part of that. But fear and worry about that instability, and how it will affect our lives and businesses, lead to more attachment and rigidity that then shows up in how we respond to change: protection, judgment, guilt, resentment, complaining, blame, etc.
So instead of a desired growth direction we get stuck on the survival path. Life and business experience becomes relentless reactivity to an endless series of crises and lack . We know that the way towards new and better experience is through creativity and innovation, but forget that creativity comes through us. Its not something we can reach out and attain. Rather, we have to make space for it and knock down the walls that block it.
Making space for creativity in challenging times requires vigilance over individual and collective thought and action. Space is created by ceasing thinking and constant doing, and by softening the physical and conceptual boundaries constructed in attempt to keep out everything not wanted, like vulnerability. It can be as simple as taking deep breaths and setting time aside for short periods of stillness. It can also be more challenging and require a lot of courage, putting oneself on the line without a safety net for one’s convictions, so to speak.
The challenges we’re dealing with now are opportunities for dropping resistance and defenses to receive the wave of creative energy that is always available. It comes through us when we let it. It takes faith. The biblical metaphor for our self-constructed creativity barrier is the Wall of Jericho. When we blast ours down, we’re then freed to enter our Promise Land. That’s the metaphor for the place and point of power from where we can expand our natural influence, and contribute the best of who we are to what is yet to be created.
Validation
May 15, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I do a lot of things but “change facilitator” is my preferred title. So I try to continually improve how I give feedback and support and to share what I’ve learned with others. One thing for sure, every situation is different.
Here’s a scenario that I’m very familiar with. Someone I know, or who I’m working with, or who I’m close to, has a great idea for a professional or creative practice. They talk about it a lot but most of their knowledge and expertise is locked up in their mind. I’ve seen this go on for months, sometimes years, and even into a decade of postponing developing even the most basic content that will bring the idea to life and provide a structural foundation.
Eventually, the industry and market they want to serve changes and other professionals, creatives or organizations start showing up to serve the same market with similar services. Inevitably, those announcements cause a great deal of frustration and disappointment expressed with some version of:
- That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for years but nobody listened.
- People who are known in the industry and who have the connections and credentials have the advantage.
- They have the research behind them to prove their value; I don’t.
I’ve heard many variations on the above themes, none of which hold any water because these are competent, intelligent, resourceful individuals. Clearly, there’s limiting beliefs at work. The problem is that, until there’s awareness of them, everything that happens, like in the above example, reinforces those expectations and results in another cycle of frustration and disappointment.
Often, coaches, consultants, friends and family think that the best way to help turn things around is through some version of cranking up the pressure: pushing for plans, goals, action and accountability. In my experience those approaches rarely help unless people are ready for them, and often make matters worse. Some advisers try to mitigate that risk by asking the client’s permission first. That’s not a bad thing but what if the client doesn’t know what he (or she) doesn’t know?
In my experience, even just asking for permission can feel like pressure and/or judgment, leading to even more resistance. Surely we’ve all experienced to some extent being on both sides of this scenario. Unfortunately our “good intentions” can override our memory of what we probably most needed at the time(s) when we were blocked or stuck: acceptance and validation.
Validation (Thesaurus: That which confirms) statements can suddenly snap someone out of their habitual, self-diminishing thinking. It turns things around for them, even for just a moment. It “clicks”. You know it when it happens if you’re 100% open to the person and listening to them from your heart. They don’t have to say much because you feel the change in their energy whether its face-to-face or over the phone.
So if someone you know or counsel, is discouraged about “missing the boat”, its a good opportunity to validate them: Isn’t it wonderful that the evidence is in… proving that this is the perfect place and time for your ideas and business to explode like a gamma ray burst! (In your own words and you have to believe in them too, of course, but you get the idea.)
Clearly, its not simple to determine whether the right, in-the-moment feedback and support is a call to action, acceptance and validation..or something else. Its not possible to get it right all the time. Someone recently described himself as a “motivational listener”. That’s a good place from which to try.
Recommended reading: anything by Florence Scovel-Shinn
Stress Test
April 22, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
There’s no longer any doubt about the negative effects of stress on health and quality of life. But what most stress-relief advice fails to address is, its not what’s happening causing stress, its thoughts about what’s happening (or what’s happened) causing stress.
Many techniques, like meditation, exercise, yoga, massage, deep breathing and diet will temporarily relax the body and mind, and stop thought. They’re all great. But long-term stress and trauma relief require a full audit of the hidden toxic assets (beliefs) lingering on the personal balance sheet. Like executives of troubled banks, we can’t release them, write them off so to speak, because we’re still unconsciously identified with an earlier promised or perceived return on whatever deal we made with life to get what we needed. It makes perfect sense then, that we’d resist anything that changes or threatens the deal.
But more than any other time in our lives, for most of us anyway, the shifts we’re experiencing are impervious to any of our attempts to force events to go one way or another. We’re just piling on the stress. And universal law endlessly proves, that force of will gets in the way of letting happen what needs to happen for a greater, albeit different, life experience than the one we bargained for back when the world was a different world.
Unlike the bank execs, there’s no guilt, blame or shame involved in bringing our hidden toxic assets into consciousness, wiping them off our balance sheet because they no longer serve us and moving forward lighter and in alignment with the winds of change.
Claim Your Clients
April 22, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
A friend told me she and her partner had been looking at a mirror in Ikea for 6 months. It started at $70 and although it kept getting marked down, they didn’t buy it because they didn’t need it. The other day it was $9.99 so they bought it and put it away for now.
Several solo business friends commented that if it takes that much discounting to sell a product in this economy, how can professional and creative service providers sell?
Well, there’s always another store discounting their mirrors. But you’re the only one who does what you do and that’s how you (your global microbrand) show up everywhere.
And once a person shows up in your “store”, you have the ability to sense their unmet needs and you have the systems in place to immediately begin sharing with, inspiring and supporting them. When they’re ready to purchase, they’re already your treasured client and the project is already in process. If they don’t buy you still get a return on your natural influence: learning, content and permission assets, social capital.
You’ve shifted your consciousness from being attached to specific results and outcomes to being poised and ready to receive from indirect channels that unexpectedly appear when you’re not waiting and not urgently pushing for them. You’ve released your concerns and worries to a higher power so you can focus on creating and being of service.
I hope these statements hold at least some truth for you. If so, you’re probably unconcerned with discounting to make a sale.
Wormhole image credit: visualparadox.com
Choose Your Past
April 20, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Social media is re-connecting people who’ve been out of touch for ages. As we tell out our “stories” to long-lost friends, its easy to fall back into the point-of-view of a former self, who may be a lesser self.
You know it when it happens because you might feel a little low afterward and you don’t know why and you find yourself griping about the downside of social media.
I had this experience recently telling an old friend one of my family stories, adding a touch of cynicism and a drama flourish. It brought up some old resentments that drained my energy and blocked my creativity for the rest of the day.
But driving home that night I revisited my story as I looked up at the full moon over Boston. Instead of resentment, I felt love, empathy and gratitude about the same memory and toward the same family members in my story.
I realized it wasn’t just a change in perspective or a plot twist. It was a shift: a different memory, a different past, a different family member, a different me.
A greater self creates the past of a greater self. Why be anyone less?
The Right Time to Raise Your Game
April 7, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
If you’re a solo or creative professional and feel stuck or in a rut, this could be a good time to put your normal business practices and processes aside and focus on your bigger game.
By bigger game I mean an idea or inspiration above and beyond what you usually do and not driven by desires and goals related to earning a living. You play a bigger game to get a different kind of fulfillment, to make a positive difference in the world and to create meaning in your life.
If you have a dormant bigger game, consider why now is the right time to bring it to the world.
- Comfort and security are illusory
- Self-interest only is a zero-sum game
- The connected world provides limitless allies and support
- World recovery is dependent on growth, expansion and rising up to challenges, not protection
- We’re stronger and bolder than we knew we were
I took The Bigger Game workshop 6 years ago and now feels like exactly the right time to bring it to life with structure, content, collaboration and sharing.
My Bigger Game: to increase global youth (tween) self-awareness and leadership skills through entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
Is it the right time to think about yours?
The Cast Net
March 13, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I spent several autumns fishing in Menemsha on Martha’s Vineyard.
I found myself thinking today about how I loved watching really experienced fishermen cast net for Menhaden, a prized bait fish that sometimes swam in schools close to shore and the jetty. I admired their skill, grace and timing and the cast net scenes had a fascinating archetype quality.
Today, its my change metaphor. Typically we identify with the caster. We learn the skills, get the tools, make a plan, set the goal, identify the target, try again and again, and eventually succeed and get the fulfillment we expect, or we give up and try something else.
But circumstances are raising awareness that our identification with the caster’s control is illusory. We feel more like the cast: flung out and spinning in mid-air.
Often, the response to that insecure feeling is to give away our power to the caster - the shifting external reality, those difficult experiences and circumstances, the things that we don’t want to be happening to us. The caster is the cause and us in free-fall the effect.
We can change this by shifting our reality: life, always on our side, is the caster and we are the cast. We entrust the ways, means and timing to life - the divine. Instead of free-fall and fear, we’re suspended, yet prepared and poised to claim the best probable outcome at the right place and time.
Being Creative When It Seems Impossible
February 25, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
As global shifts accelerate, the path of creativity can seem less practical or even unattainable. But whatever response to change is chosen, its more important than ever to be aware that, whatever the circumstance or situation, we’re always creating.
We create every form in our world, moment by moment, experiencing it through our senses and making sense of it with our brain.
One way to increase our awareness of how we create things, out of “no-things” is to read about someone who temporarily lost this ability
Stained Glass Brain by Dr. Jill Taylor
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor vividly describes, in her fascinating book: My Stroke of Insight, the effects of the stroke she suffered in the left side of her brain, temporarily giving the right side almost complete right of way. Not only does she remember the event, but she describes it from the unique perspective of a scientist/musician/artist/storyteller and recovered stroke victim. Her purpose is not only to improve understanding, treatment and care of brain trauma patients, but also to raise individual awareness of the brain for a greater life experience.
Unfortunately, as the world becomes increasingly conceptual, the left brain (interpreter, controller, ego, analytic, reasoner etc.) can become increasingly dominant. But now we’re seeing the downside to being so attached to our left brain “concepts” which can suddenly shift and we’re unable to conceive new ones to take their place. This, of course, is playing out every day, individually and collectively, in our personal, economic, political and social experience. We’re out of touch with our imagining faculties.
I recent episode of Battlestar Galactica is a great metaphor for the suffering that follows when we forget about our power to create when we yield to the right. You need not be a fan of the show to get the context. Dean Stockwell, who plays the petulant, jealous, controlling Cylon John/Cavil, flips out in a jealous rage against his creator/mother over his resurrection from pure machine to a human form (skin job).
“I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe.”
“Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself!”
“I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.”
– Cavil (Dean Stockwell)
Like the above author, the character John/Cavil became aware of what he’d lost. And so must we. Because once we become conscious that we’re creating our experience moment to moment, we then realize that we have the power to create it the way we want it.
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