If you could choose between a role in which you differentiate your self by competing with peers to make the contribution that gains the most recognition versus a role in which you actualize your self by making the greatest possible contribution together with those peers, which would you choose? I suspect it is the purpose […]
You need colleagues
People often don’t need a leader, manager, consultant, mentor or coach. They don’t need a team. What they need is someone with whom they can talk honestly about what they see, think and feel. They need someone who can help them think clearly about what they want to do – help them find that gut […]
The anxiety of uncertainty goes hand in hand with curiosity about possibilities
Those of us who have the good fortune to live in conditions that (largely) liberate us from fear often fill that space with anxiety. “So one line is, you know, traces its origins back to Freud, who suggested that anxiety was a fear that didn’t have a specific object of fear. So you were scared, […]
How do you bring about a durable shift in one of your own mindsets?
Mindset shifts are associated with shifts in behavior as well as psychological, physiological and social reality. Still, it can be hard to cue a mindset shift that lasts long enough to yield durable changes in experience. Stanford psychologist Alia Crum researches the various ways mindset affects us. The parts of the interview that caught me […]
Your 世間 (seken) is always there – even when your strategy for dealing with it is pretending that it doesn’t exist or matter to you at all
世間 (seken) refers to the stakeholders and (referent) groups whose views about you shape your reputation and standing in the communities you belong to or aspire to belong to. According to sociologist Eiko Ikegami, 世間 (seken) first appears in the writings of Hojo Shigetoki in the 13th century. The term 世間体 (sekentei) is used in a […]
Sometimes the best thing you can do is give it a rest
According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, author of “Sacred Rest”, humans need seven kinds of rest. A couple of decades ago, Jim Loehr and sports psychologists started talking about four kinds of energy requiring proactive management to support peak performance: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Dalton-Smith reframes energy management in terms of rest and recovery. She […]
自分に素直 – What does it mean to be obedient to yourself?
素直 Sunao – In everyday usage (especially when used to describe children), 素直 can connote “obedience,” but it can also connote the quality of “being true to yourself.” When used in this way, being 素直 isn’t inconsistent with having a clear set of values or priorities that you are willing to stand up for, but […]
The self emerges via feedback loops linking internal and external experience
The path from agency to meaning can be thought of as a pair of intersecting feedback loops validating that we matter by connecting the purposes we formulate internally with the contributions we make externally. Social theorist Hamaguchi Eshun used systems theory to illustrate how this loop might work. In Hamaguchi’s model, the self is a […]
In inter-dependable groups, we each choose to be there for each other and for the group as a whole
“Group life is actually about the dance between the we and the I. And so, if you have too much we, it’s a cult, and if you have too much I, it’s a federation.” – Priya Parker, expert in conflict resolution and the art of “gathering” Parker continues: “And so, part of group life is […]
There are many paths from agency to meaning
Meaning is the evidence of impact that reconstitutes your experience of agency. Meaning is evidence that who you are and what you do matter (directly or indirectly) to someone or something other than yourself. If the purposes and contributions you chose never managed to touch someone or something beyond yourself, the vessel through which you […]