Storm Surge: A Reality Check

Standing in front of these leaders in Tokyo all of a sudden means nothing to me. These leaders worry about delivering their quarterly goals or hitting their budget, while I'm worrying about the lives in danger in Hurricane Sandy. It's not the fault of the leaders in this session, they are far removed from the threat, as am I. But the threat is still too close to home for me.

As Hurricane Sandy barreled up the coast of the US, I was settling to facilitate a leadership workshop here in Tokyo. I hoped the forecasters were wrong and that Sandy would benignly head out to sea. But I was wrong and as Sandy took her westerly turn into New Jersey I began to worry. What happened to me was a a quick prioritization and a powerful reminder of what is important.

My first concern was that all my family and friends were safe. Though I knew none of us would be at home in Asbury Park and my parents were safe in Virginia Beach, I thought of all the friends I have in Asbury Park many of whom were still there as the storm hit. During every break I search the internet for news of how the storm is affecting the city.

So far, all my friends are fine and I believe the worst is past. However then I have my second level of concern. Is the house okay? When you purchase a house as close to the ocean as ours you always think of the worst case scenario and then hope it will never happen. The house was a dream come true. Now I await news about whether that dream was damaged or swept away.

Yet in all of this I can't help but reflect on the wake-up call that a storm or natural disaster brings. Immediately we realize our priorities. We seek safety for our loved ones and friends and then we secure our possessions. All of the small details that regularly clog our day and blind our vision are gone. In that minute of high wind, everything is blown aside and we see clearly.

So I pray for all those in the path of Sandy and I hope they are safe and their homes secure. Yet I also hope we hold on to this moment. Now is when we realize who and what is important to us. Perhaps we can learn to carry that with us rather than wait for the next disaster.

Focus on Your Weaknesses

I hate paying bills. I'm not good at finances, budgeting and have an aversion to sitting down and working on our checkbook. It could be termed a "weakness." Current research says that I should minimize my attention in that area (my weakness) and focus on my strengths (speaking and writing?). Yet recently I realized I've learned some key things by focusing on my weakness that have made my strengths better. So now occasionally I purposely focus on something I don't do well and am amazed by what I learn. 

First of all, have you read the research about focusing on strengths in order to excel and not on weaknesses? It's out there in psychology, education, personal development, etc. The challenge is that the singular focus on strengths in order to excel might be over-blown. We can learn quite a bit by tackling a weakness that we might not learn just by focusing on a strength. 

One of my "skill" strengths is writing. It's something I do well enough that other encourage me to do it more. I'm very aware that I'm no Hemingway, but others enjoy my writing, or at least my family does. So, writing would be termed a "what" strength. It's "what" I do well. Yet, what I didn't realize, since writing comes relatively easily to me, was that I had created a mental model about how I wrote, how I set up my writing area, and the time and discipline I set aside to pursue my writing. 

As I wrote above, finances and paying bills are one of my "weaknesses." So my object is to complete them as efficiently and effectively as possible so I can move on to other things. Yet I realized that the same discipline, order and efficiency I brought to paying bills (playing to my weakness) were skills I could apply to my strength of writing. Because of what I've learned I radically reordered my writing space, the time I write, how I focus and how I determine the outcomes. It has worked very well and it was totally outside of the mental model I carried for how I was supposed to write. 

Focusing on strengths is still a powerful tool to excel. Yet avoiding weakness, or avoiding something brand new because it is not a strength is a mistake. Try wading into the morass of a weakness and focusing on making it slightly better. Yet at the same time be mindful to what you learn. You might find, as I do, that there are things you learn from focusing on your weakness that you will not learn by focusing on your strengths. And for me the bonus is... the bills are paid. 

Do You Learn More From Success or Failure? Think Again

Yesterday preparing for a leadership retreat we were on a conference call with the committee discussing how to set up the best learning environment and what tasks and activities to use. As a defense for a particularly difficult task someone said "we learn more from our failures than our successes." With that, everyone on the call acknowledged the truth of this statement, accepted that the challenge embedded in this one activity would be beneficial and moved on. But I've never been a big fan of old wives' tales (maybe because I'm not) and so I wondered what is the truth behind the saying.

I admit I remember my failures much more than successes. Perhaps that's because I play them over and over in my mind. I think I'm hoping for a different ending. But one thing I know is that I examine every detail of what happened to ensure I won't fail in that way again. Because of my reply it does seem that I learn more from my failures because I pay attention to them more than my success. But what does research say about learning more from failure.

It seems that the belief is false. We learn more from success than we do from failure. Yep, so I apologize to the old wives who believed this. In 2009 MIT studied how the brain processes success and failure. Essentially when we finish a task signal neurons send information to brain cells informing them of the success or failure. The difference is that when we succeed at the task researchers discovered that the signals last significantly longer, are stronger and actually change brain cells so we are more likely to succeed the next time. When we fail at the task the signals are weak and don't change the brain cells at all. Of course more research is necessary to determine if there is a different signal if the success or failure is life threatening, but the initial research points to success as the greater learning tool.

So why does the old theory persist? Because similar to me, many of us focus much more on our failures. We replay them over and over to make sure we learn from them. Yet interestingly, do you ever find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again? I know I do. Now I know why. My brain isn't changing after a failure.

What we need to do is start dealing with our success differently. If it is the better learning tool, we need to replay the successes in our heads to see what we've learned. That will implant the new behavior faster than failure and we will remember it more.

So the next time you succeed, enjoy the moment. Replay it in your head and think of how you did it differently and what you learned. You are programming your brain to do it right the next time and you are more likely to remember it. And perhaps along the way we can change an old wives' tale.

Lessons Learned While Cooking

Last night I cooked dinner. I call it "Pasta Rustica" which is basically onions, garlic, capers, red pepper flakes and tomatoes thrown over linguine. For a change I threw in bacon.(It wasn't too bad) So what, you might say. Well a couple of years ago I would not have attempted any kind of cooking. Why? Because I had learned to be helpless in the kitchen. My concern is that our society is moving in the direction of helplessness in many ways. But a little more about my lesson.

I've had two incredible models for cooking in my life, my mother and my partner. Both of them in their own way can enter a kitchen and come out with some amazing food. The know the difference between turmeric and cumin seed while I just know how to spell the words. They put in a pinch of this and a dab of that. After a life of seeing this I was incredibly intimidated. I thought I'd never be able to cook like them so I didn't cook at all. I had given into learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is when you believe or have been told that someone else can do it better, quicker and more professionally than you. After a while it is easier and less intimidating to just let them do it. And that's just what I did. I didn't even try because I believed it would never be as good.

Recently in our society the temptations to fall into learned helplessness are greater. We have experts in almost everything that we can call on to do the work. We have "super nannies" to tell us how to raise children, we have "super chefs" who make a gourmet meal in 30 minutes and then get "chopped" because they forgot a garnish. We have life coaches and consultants because they supposedly help us make better decisions. Some of them make the decisions for us and we are weaker for it. We have party planners and designers because they have a "better eye" than we do. Really?

Sometimes it is convenient to hire others to do things around the house, or assist us in moving something along. But are we giving our lives away? There is something gratifying about seeing your own handiwork, or making your own decision and living with it. It might not be perfect, but it's yours. When I cook, sometimes I'm not sure what's gonna happen, but it just feels good to do it.

So pick some area you'd like to try. Maybe cooking, writing, wallpapering a room. Yep, educate yourself the best you can, but then be your own coach and walk through it. The feeling of accomplishment is amazing. And bring a sense of humor. Failure is not only an option, but it actually helps because you realize you can fail and the whole world does not fall apart.

Experts are fine and coaches help lots of people. However we have to find a balance where the life we live is ours and not some TV show version. Trying something and working through it creates a wonderful sense of ownership and helps us appreciate that we have the skills to success. (it's called self-efficacy). As for me, right now I'm gonna make breakfast.

Cereal and Coffee: Be Happy and Learn

Last night I saw an interesting movie, "Limitless." Not great, but interesting. It was about a guy who used a pill that could unlock the brain. As they quoted in the movie, we only use about 10% of the brain's power, so they fictionalized what would happen if we could find a pill to unlock the whole brain. The concept was fascinating, even though the movie was just okay.

So this morning I was researching the optimal functioning of the brain (yep, I'm weird) and I discovered once again that my parents were right, breakfast is good for you. Specifically what I found is that two very simple items can enhance your mood and brain functioning significantly first thing in the morning. Maybe it's not the magic pill, but hey, any brain enhancement I can get is good.

Breakfast cereal (Honey Nut Cheerios is my favorite) puts you in a more positive mood and it enhances spacial capabilities. Many people I speak with yearn to be more positive, especially in the morning. Think about it. It's not a pill and it's good for  you. I'd love to have cereal in the car while driving in rush hour. I would jump out of the car and give it to the other drivers. These other drivers need to be happier and have better spacial capabilities; they drive too aggressively and too close to me.

Ah and my favorite morning beverage, coffee, along with waking me up I've now found that it enhances learning. Yep. The experiment that Adams and Smith did in 1999 showed that individuals who had coffee learned significantly faster than those who did not. So coffee gets my brain going early so that I can be open to new ideas and new concepts. Very cool.

Though it's not the magic pill fantisized in "Limitless," cereal and coffee provide enough stimulation for the brain to kick into gear. For most of us, that's what we need. If we long to think more clearly and be in a better mood, it's simple. Get out the bowl and the cup.

As for me, I'm having another cup of coffee. And honestly, I'd still like a pill that would unlock more of my brain's potential. Who know, maybe I'd get up to the 10%.




Reference:
Smith, A.P. & Clark. R, (1999) Breakfast cereal and caffeinated coffee: effects on working memory, attention, mood and cardiovascular function. Physiology & Behavior.

Afraid to Taste Something? You Might Be Holding Yourself Back.

Working in Tokyo this week there are multiple opportunities for me to try different foods; foods that I don’t normally eat, and some foods that I’m not even sure what they are. At lunchtime the company delivers “Bento boxes” to the training room. As I gaze into the box I’m aware of two things. First, I never knew that food came in these colors. Second, I have no idea what I’m about to eat. What struck me about my gestational challenge was the similarity to moving toward personal greatness. Let me explain.

Most of us are creatures of habit. We get up at approximately the same time, tend to wear our favorite clothes, keep roughly the same schedule and eat most of the same things. As habitual creatures, we also tend to process information the same way, trust the same data, reinforce what we already believe and eventually create ruts for ourselves. These ruts are more critical than just making us boring people. They might be hindering us from fully exploring our personal greatness. Why? Because the old saying is very true: “if you always do what you always did you’ll always get what you always got.”

Exploring new ways of doing things, or new ideas is challenging. We might not like what we see or experience. It is venturing into uncertainty and that can be frightening. So it is easier to return to that which is comfortable, that which we know. But the challenge is that we won’t broaden our knowledge or experience and we will be limited in our choices.

Of course trying new things can happen within the structure of some certainty. For example, I know that here in Japan the boxes that arrive every day in the training room won’t poison me or make me sick because the company that hired me isn’t going to poison its employees. And, as I sit down to lunch with those in my session, they are eating what’s in front of them. Yet even with this certainty I won’t ask what I’m eating until after I’ve tasted it. Why? Because I know I have my concepts about what I will or won’t like and it helps to ignore those sometimes. I’ve learned to like seaweed.

Growth and development require new ideas, new ways of doing things, new practices and habits. Our unwillingness to try new things simply gets in the way of our personal growth. Pick one area of your life to try something new. Just that experience alone might unlock your willingness in other areas. And besides, you might find that when you taste something new, you like it.