Archive for the 'Inner game' Category

Asking for what you really want

Published on 20 January, 2010 in Inner game. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

My friend John asked me today why I do what I do. It’s a pretty big question. After responding with, “just because” he probed further and gave me the opportunity to share with him (inflict upon him?) some of my rationalizations, justifications and excuses. It was delightfully self-indulgent :D

But it didn’t give him the answer that he was after.
What he really wanted to know was what I hoped to get from doing what I do. He was looking to understand what I was doing things for. And you don’t get that by asking, “Why?”

Even phonetically, “why” sounds so much like “whine”!

Asking someone why opens a can of worms as much as it gives them a chance to talk. Maybe you want to know why – it happens. But much of the time you’ll get the information that you’re really after faster by asking “what for”.

Maybe try it out with yourself – notice something that you do. Perhaps something that you’d like to change, but even for something that really juices you and makes you feel great. Then ask yourself, “Why do I do that?”

And then ask, “What do I do that for?”

Notice the difference. You could try it out on someone else too…

Optimization of everyday life: Making better decisions

Published on 8 December, 2009 in Education, Inner game and Self-awareness. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Most of the time we don’t make rational decisions. Much of the time we can’t – there’s too little information and too much uncertainty. But if we can start to use some numbers, we can make the comparisons simpler, less subjective, and give us more of what we want, more often.

That’s the point of this post – and I’ll get back to that in a minute…

I have been reading Common Wealth, economist Jeffrey Sach’s take on how to make the world a better place. This morning, I came across his chapter on the economic proposition justifying social welfare – how increased taxation with a corresponding increase in social services can be fiscally responsible and yield quantifiable social benefits. While his argument was quite one-sided – after all, it’s his book – it got me thinking how we can use a bit of mathematics to make better decisions. Sachs was asking this sort of question:

If you were in government and thought that you had too much money, would you cut taxes or increase social welfare?

But I was thinking about my everyday decisions.

In the next few months, I have a number of flights scheduled though not yet booked. For example, I am due to fly from Sydney to Brisbane sometime after 7pm on the evening of 28 January. That route is mainly serviced by Qantas and Virgin Blue at that time. So how does one decide which flight to take?

Continue reading ‘Optimization of everyday life: Making better decisions’

Alec Baldwin is a failure as an actor?

Published on 1 December, 2009 in Inner game and Self-awareness. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

Alec Baldwin is a well-known actor. Many would consider him successful. He has starred in many moves and appears in popular television shows. Yet he sees himself a failure. Just recently, he said, “I consider my entire movie career a complete failure.”

I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How?”

Rather than trying to reassure him that he wasn’t, or denying that he was a failure, I got curious and wondered how he could feel a failure after so much ’success’. And sure enough, the answers were clear too. For him,

“The goal of movie-making is to star in a film where your performance drives the film, and the film is either a soaring critical or commercial success, and I never had that.”

And although he starred in the 1990 action film The Hunt for Red October, which made more than $200m, it was successful because it was based on a popular Tom Clancy novel – not because of his performance.

Damn, people can be hard on themselves!

He feels that his career is a failure not because it “is” – after all, how can we really define whether someone’s career is a success or a failure? But he feels that is is a failure because of how he defines success.

What do you want most? What drives you?

Success?

Happiness?

Joy?

Achievement?

Love?

Money?

Each of us have many things that drive us. Some things that pull us forward – that we want to experience something. And maybe there are other things that we desperately want to avoid.

We all want to experience different things. And that’s great – that’s one of the things that drives the rich and diverse world in which we live. Yet how well are we setting ourselves up to feel good? There are so many ways that we can find to feel bad. And there are so many things in the world today about which we could feel bad if we wanted.

Feelings – good and bad – are a process. We have a mechanism for feel happy or sad, excited or anxious, loving or angry. If you can get to know how you feel the way that you do, you can find yourself back in the driver’s seat.

What could happen if you could feel better more and more often?

Proof: Our greatest fear?

Published on 29 September, 2009 in Inner game. 1 Comment Tags: , .

Years ago, I was inspired with a quote then attributed to Nelson Mandela:

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

The trouble is that Nelson Mandela didn’t write it. He didn’t say it. And it certainly wasn’t part of his inauguration address.

Later I heard out that Marianne Williamson had written it – not Nelson Mandela. Apparently, it was from her book, A Return to Love.

In the years since, I was quite happy to correct people on the origin of the quote, but you know, I actually hadn’t checked. I had read that it did appear in A Return to Love, but had never seen it there. Amid all the things that have happened in the past year, I picked up a copy of the book. But I hadn’t read it.

Last night I did. And the quote – “Our greatest fear…” is there. Page 165 of the First Edition hardback I have beside me.

Although the quote is actually a single paragraph in the book – not separated into individual lines as if it were poetry – it does read better on a poster when separated out.

-->