Archives for March 2017

Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable on Self-Awareness

March 31, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

The English poet John Milton wrote in his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667,) “A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.”

Your Mind Renders the Outer Condition into Inner Pain and Suffering—or Joy and Happiness

The state of your mind plays a vital role in shaping your everyday experiences of joy and happiness, and your general physical and mental well-being.

If you can maintain a peaceful and tranquil state of mind, the external conditions can cause you only limited disturbance. However, if your mental state is tense, restless, and agitated, you’ll find it difficult to be at peace even in the best of circumstances—even if you’re surrounded by the best of your friends and family.

When you truly become aware of how much damage negative emotions can cause—for yourself and for others—you will not indulge them even a bit.

The following Zen ‘koan’ parable (see source in postscript) validates the potential dangers that can occur when you fall prey to your negative emotions.

Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable

A tough, brawny samurai once approached a Zen master who was deep in meditation.

Impatient and discourteous, the samurai demanded in his husky voice so accustomed to forceful yelling, “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.”

The Zen master opened his eyes, looked the samurai in the face, and replied with a certain scorn, “Why should I answer to a shabby, disgusting, despondent slob like you? A worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything? I can’t stand you. Get out of my sight. I have no time for silly questions.”

The samurai could not bear these insults. Consumed by rage, he drew his sword and raised it to sever the master’s head at once.

Looking straight into the samurai’s eyes, the Zen master tenderly declared, “That’s hell.”

The samurai froze. He immediately understood that anger had him in its grip. His mind had just created his own hell—one filled with resentment, hatred, self-defense, and fury. He realized that he was so deep in his torment that he was ready to kill somebody.

The samurai’s eyes filled with tears. Setting his sword aside, he put his palms together and obsequiously bowed in gratitude for this insight.

The Zen master gently acknowledged with a delicate smile, “And that’s heaven.”

Self-Awareness & Self-Regulation: The Bases of Emotional Intelligence

Retelling this Zen parable in his influential bestseller, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, the Harvard psychologist Daniel Goleman comments, “The sudden awakening of the samurai to his own agitated state illustrates the crucial difference between being caught up in a feeling and becoming aware that you are being swept away by it. Socrates’s injunction ‘Know thyself’ speaks to the keystone of emotional intelligence: awareness of one’s own feelings as they occur.”

In Emotional Intelligence (1995) and in his legendary Harvard Business Review article What Makes a Leader (1998), Goleman further argues that self-awareness and self-regulation are essential elements of emotional intelligence. In What Makes a Leader, he writes, “Self-awareness means having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs and drives. … People who have a high degree of self-awareness recognize how their feelings hurt them, other people, and their job performance.”

With reference to self-regulation, “Biological impulses drive our emotions. We cannot do away with them—but we can do much to manage them. Self-regulation, which is like an ongoing inner conversation, is the component of emotional intelligence that frees us from being prisoners of own feelings. People [with high self-regulation] feel bad moods and emotional impulses just as everyone else does, but they find ways to control them and even to channel them in useful ways.”

The Stoic Philosophers Advocated an Equanimous Outlook to Life

Equanimity is an essential state of mind that you must maintain when interacting with people who rub you the wrong way or push your buttons.

Equanimity (apatheia in Greek and aequanimitas in Latin) was one of the ideals of Stoic philosophy, the third great philosophy of the Ancient World. The ex-slave and leading Stoic philosopher Epictetus teaches, “Man is troubled not by events, but by the meaning he gives them.”

Marcus Aurelius, who finally carried Stoic philosophy into the emperor’s seat, writes in Meditations, “When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self-control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.”

Equanimity is an Essential Buddhist Virtue

In Buddhism, equanimity (upekṣā in Sanskrit and upekkha in Pali) denotes a mind that is at peace notwithstanding stressful and unpleasant experiences. In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, the Vietnamese-French Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh defines upekṣā as “equanimity, nonattachment, nondiscrimination, even-mindedness, or letting go. Upa means ‘over,’ and iksh means ‘to look.’ You climb the mountain to be able to look over the whole situation, not bound by one side or the other.”

In Dhamma Reflections, the American Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi describes equanimity as “evenness of mind, unshakeable freedom of mind, a state of inner equipoise that cannot be upset by gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Upekkha is freedom from all points of self-reference; it is indifference only to the demands of the ego-self with its craving for pleasure and position, not to the well-being of one’s fellow human beings.”

In Comfortable With Uncertainty, an excellent discourse on overcoming the many challenges that life presents us, the renowned Buddhist nun Pema Chodron discusses the above Zen parable and comments,

The view of the warrior-bodhisattva is not “Hell is bad and heaven is good” or “Get rid of hell and just seek heaven.” Instead, we encourage ourselves to developing an open heart and an open mind to heaven, to hell, to everything. Only with this kind of equanimity can we realize that no matter what comes along, we’re always standing in the middle of open space. Only with equanimity can we see that everything that comes into our circle has come to teach us what we need to know.

Transcending Turmoil through Mind Training

If life is what you make of it, you can shape your attitudes and behavior by possessing a calm and stable mind.

Centuries of eastern contemplative practices have posited that regular physical yoga exercises and mindfulness meditation can train your mind to regulate your emotional states and bring about positive effects on your physical health and psychological well-being. In the last two decades, thanks to the Dalai Lama’s collaboration with the scientific community through programs such as the Mind and Life Institute, a growing number of scholars in the biological and cognitive sciences are convinced that such contemplative practices are a substantially beneficial introspective laboratory into the effects of negative emotions on overall wellbeing.

Given that your mind is the cause of all emotional upheaval, you can attain an enlightened state of mind by transcending turmoil. Practice of yoga and meditation can help you develop a compassionate assessment of the feelings of pain and suffering, and pleasure and happiness that dominate your existence.

In several well-known books and lectures (such as the Habits of Happiness TED Talk,) the French biologist-turned-Buddhist-monk Matthieu Ricard has popularized the practice of mindfulness meditation as the key to mind training. In Motionless Journey, his awe-inspiring photographic journal of his retreat in the Himalayas, Ricard writes,

A [practitioner] begins by understanding that true happiness does not fundamentally depend on changing external conditions, but rather on changing his own mind and the way it translates the circumstances of existence into happiness or frustration. He sees that as long as he is still not rid of hatred, obsession, pride, jealousy and the other mental poisons, it is as hopeless to expect happiness as it would be to hold his hand in a fire and hope not to be burnt.

Postscript / Source: The Zen Koan “The Gates of Paradise”

Japanese-American Buddhist teacher Gyomay M. Kubose’s Zen Koans (1973) includes a faithful translation of the parable from Shasekishū (trans. Sand and Pebbles,) an anthology of koans by the thirteenth century Japanese Zen monk Mujū DŌkyŌ:

Nobushige, a soldier, came to Hakuin, a famous Zen Master, and asked, “Is there really a paradise and a hell?”

“Who are you?” inquired Hakuin.

“I am a samurai,” Nobushige replied.

“You, a samurai!” exclaimed Hakuin. “What kind of lord would have you as his guard? You look like a beggar!”

Nobushige became so enraged that he began to draw his sword.

Hakuin continued, “So you have a sword. It is probably too dull to even cut off my head.”

Nobushige brandished his weapon.

Hakuin remarked, “Here, open the gates of hell.”

At these words the perceptive samurai sheathed his sword and bowed.

“Here, open the gates of paradise,” said Hakuin.

Looking at Problems from an Outsider’s Perspective

March 28, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Fixation Hinders Creative Thinking

In two previous articles (this and this,) I’ve addressed the psychological concept of a “fixed mental set” or “fixation:” assessing a problem from a habituated perspective can prevent you from seeing the obvious and from breaking away from an entrenched pattern of thinking.

A period of rest, entertainment, or exposure to an alternative environment can usually dissipate fixation. The resulting shift in perspective can alter your point of view in a literal and sensory way, or it may change the way you think about or define the problem at hand.

A particularly instructive example of the beneficial effects of altering thought perspectives comes from Andy Grove’s autobiography / management primer Only the Paranoid Survive (1996.) Grove, the former Chairman and CEO of Intel who passed away earlier this year, was one of the most influential tech executives Silicon Valley has ever seen.

Japanese Onslaught on Intel’s Memory Business

Memory chips dominated Intel’s revenue, since the company was founded in 1968. In fact, Intel had a near monopoly in the memory business. However, by the late ’70s, a few Japanese competitors emerged. Grove reflected, “The quality levels attributed to Japanese memories were beyond what we thought possible. … Our first reaction was denial. We vigorously attacked the data.” In due course, Intel recognized the threat to its competitive position. (Between 1978 and 1988, the Japanese companies grew their market share in the memory business from 30% to 60%.)

At the same time, a small entrepreneurial team of engineers had developed Intel’s first microprocessor. In 1981, Intel persuaded IBM to choose this microprocessor to run their personal computers.

By 1985, when Grove was President, Intel’s executives engaged in an intense debate on how to respond to the onslaught of Japanese competitors in the memory business. One faction of engineers wanted to leapfrog the Japanese and build better memory chips. Another faction was in favor of disposing the lucrative memory business and betting Intel’s future on its promising microprocessor technology—something they believed the Japanese couldn’t match.

The “Revolving Door Test:” Getting an Outsider’s Perspective

In the middle of this intense debate, Grove was at a meeting with Intel’s CEO, Gordon Moore (of the Moore’s Law fame.) Grove had an idea for Moore; he recalled this episode in Only the Paranoid Survive,

I remember a time in the middle of 1985, after this aimless wandering had been going on for almost a year. I was in my office with Intel’s chairman and CEO, Gordon Moore, and we were discussing our quandary. Our mood was downbeat. I looked out the window at the Ferris Wheel of the Great America amusement park revolving in the distance, then I turned back to Gordon and asked, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?” Gordon answered without hesitation, “He would get us out of memories.” I stared at him, numb, then said, “Why don’t you and I walk out the door, come back in and do it ourselves?”

The switch in perspective—i.e. asking “What would our successors do?”—provided a moment of clarity for Moore and Grove. By contemplating Intel’s strategic challenges from an outsider’s perspective, shutting down the memory business was the discernible choice. Even Intel’s customers were supportive:

In fact, when we informed them of the decision, some of them reacted with the comment, “It sure took you a long time.” People who have no emotional stake in a decision can see what needs to be done sooner.

From the time Intel made the important decision to kill its memory chips business, it has dominated the microprocessor market.

If existing management want to keep their jobs when the basics of the business are undergoing profound change, they must adopt an outsider’s intellectual objectivity. They must do what they need to do to get through the strategic inflection point unfettered by any emotional attachment to the past. That’s what Gordon and I had to do when we figuratively went out the door, stomped out our cigarettes and returned to the job.

People in the trenches are usually in touch with pending changes early. Salespeople understand shifting customer demand before management does; financial analysts are the earliest to know when the fundamentals of a business change. While management was kept from responding by beliefs that were shaped by out earlier successes, our production planners and financial analysts dealt with allocations and numbers in an objective world.

Idea for Impact: If You’re Stuck on a Problem, Shift Your Perspective

Often, you can find the solutions to difficult problems merely by defining or formulating them in a new, more productive way.

Consider employing Andy Grove’s “Revolving Door Test” and examining your problems through an outsider’s lens. This shift in perspective may not only engender intellectual objectivity but also muffle the emotion and anxiety that comes with momentous decision-making.

Inspirational Quotations by Robert Frost (#677)

March 26, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Robert Frost (1874–1963,) one of America’s most famous poets. This four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize is celebrated for such popular poems as “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Frost’s early years were difficult. After quitting Harvard University due to illness at age 25, Frost lived on a farm in Derry, New Hampshire, for 12 years. He woke up early to write poetry and then worked on the farm all day. He was not a successful farmer and his family grew destitute. Frost sold the farm and moved to Britain in 1911. There, he befriended the poet and essayist Edward Thomas; they regularly took long walks in the English countryside. Thomas’s habitual hesitancy on what path they should stroll amused Frost and inspired his best-known poem, “The Road Not Taken” from Mountain Interval (1920.)

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

In England, Frost published A Boy’s Will (1913) and North of Boston (1914.) The latter sold 20,000 copies and made him famous. After three years in Britain, Frost returned to America and supported himself through his readings and his writing. Frost’s other books include Mountain Interval (1916), New Hampshire (1923), A Further Range (1937), and A Witness Tree (1943).

John F. Kennedy invited Frost to recite a poem for the 1961 presidential inauguration. Frost wrote a poem called “Dedication” especially for the occasion but typed its final version on a typewriter using a dim ribbon. At JFK’s inauguration ceremony, Frost couldn’t recognize the dimly-typed lines and instead recited his well-known poem “The Gift Outright” by heart.

Inspirational Quotations by Robert Frost

Earth’s the right place for love. I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Friends make pretence of following to the grave but before one is in it, their minds are turned and making the best of their way back to life and living people and things they understand.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

A champion of the working man has never yet been known to die of overwork.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

The only way around is through.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Have courage and a little willingness to venture and be defeated.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”—A Poem by Robert Frost

Here is Frost’s popular 1922 poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” First published in 1923 in the New Republic magazine, this was Frost’s favorite of his own poems—he identified it as, “My best bid for remembrance.”

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

According to an essay by N. Arthur Bleau, Frost explained the poem’s back-story during a reading at Bowdoin College in 1947. One winter solstice, Frost felt poor enough to purchase Christmas presents for his children. He gathered some produce from his farm and rode his horse-drawn wagon into town to sell them. Unfortunately, he did not sell anything and therefore could not buy any presents for his children.

That evening, as Frost was returning home, it began to snow. His horse stopped in the middle of the woods as if it sensed his melancholy. Beset with the disgrace of not providing for his family, Frost “bawled like a baby” even as the snowflakes continued to drop into the stillness of the woods. Abruptly, the horse shook and tinkled its bells. Frost took the horse’s reaction as a reminder of the Christmas spirit and as a motivation to persist and get home to family.

Frost’s daughter Lesley later corroborated the story and quoted her father recollecting his crying, “A man has as much right as a woman to a good cry now and again. The snow gave me shelter; the horse understood and gave me the time.”

Tim Dee, writing in The Guardian, observed that “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” was the most requested poems on BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please, the world’s longest-running radio show on poetry. Explaining the popularity of the poem, Dee commented, “Here are 16 short-rhymed lines recalling a moment’s pause on a horseback journey through a winter woodland. The scene is captured with economical precision. The silence of the snow is broken only once—by the jingling bells of the restive animal. We sense the fairytale terror-allure of the muted woods. And in the last three lines we are ushered towards something wider and deeper still, where the suggestion of unfinished business makes a parable and becomes incantatory.”

Hofstadter’s Law: Why Everything Takes Longer Than Anticipated

March 24, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Think of your weekend days. You typically wake up and think of all the free time at hand. You plan a day of leisure. You intend to run some errands and get a few things done around the house. Yet, at the end of the day, you’ve done barely half of what you originally set out to do.

People Habitually Underestimate the Time Tasks Take

Almost everything that humankind has ever wished for—from renewing a driver’s license to achieving peace between countries at war—seems to have not completed within the time originally planned.

As the following case studies will illustrate, interruptions, deferrals, and delays characteristically result in cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and disputes.

Sydney’s Opera House was originally forecast in 1957 to be completed in 1963. The magnificent performing arts complex formally opened only in 1973 and cost 15 times the original budget.
When Boeing first launched its 787 Dreamliner aircraft in 2004, it ambitiously planned for first flight in September 2007. After six delays in the design and prototype phases, the 787 first flew only in December 2009. First aircraft delivery was scheduled for 2008, but didn’t happen until September 2011, more than three years behind schedule. Then, after a series of early in-service technical and operational problems, Boeing embarked on serious drawn-out repairs on 787s. Following yet more production delays, the 787 started flying full-fledged only in 2013. The innumerable delays and cost overruns associated with the 787 program became a financial nightmare for Boeing’s investors. Boeing took nine years to get the Dreamliner off the drawing board and into mature service at a total development cost of $32 billion—twice as long as the company’s original estimation and more than five times more expensive.
Less than 50 days before the start of last year’s Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, the state of Rio de Janeiro declared a “state of public calamity” citing severe delays and acute cost overruns. The New York Times reported, “The city is a huge construction site. Bricks and pipes are piled everywhere; a few workers lazily push wheelbarrows as if the Games were scheduled for 2017.”

Hofstadter’s Law: We Chronically Underestimate the Time Things Take

Hofstadter's Law: We Chronically Underestimate the Time Things Take The American cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter conceived an ironic and recursive rule to characterize the observation that everything takes longer than planned.

Hofstadter’s Law states, “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law”

Hofstadter first discussed this law in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a book popular among American computer programmers.

Underestimating Task-Time Means Constantly Rushing to Finish Things

According to planning fallacy, when people predict the time it takes to complete a task, they make their estimations by considering the various steps they have to take, but fail to imagine the pessimistic conditions where things could go wrong.

In other words, thanks to optimism bias, people are generally too optimistic about the time it takes for them to complete a task, even when they are explicitly asked to think about potential obstacles.

Hofstadter’s Law also alludes to,

Superiority Bias where people overrate their own positive qualities and abilities—and underrate their negative qualities—when compared with others. “This takes three hours for the average Joe, but I am smarter, and I can do it in two hours.”
Beneffectance Bias where people perceive themselves as selectively accountable for the desired—but not the undesired—outcomes. “Last week, this took me 45 minutes, but the delay was because of conditions beyond my control. Today, I have full control; so I should take just 20 minutes.”

Idea for Impact: The problem with unforeseen delays is that you can’t foresee them, no matter how comprehensively you plan

Though somewhat silly in its recursive character, Hofstadter’s Law observes that, irrespective of how carefully you plan, every project will be prone to something unanticipated that will hinder its timely completion. The law’s recursiveness affirms that, even if you know a project may overrun and build that expectation into your planning, the project will overrun even your new estimated finish time.

12 Sensible Ways to Realize Self-Responsibility

March 21, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

The French-American essayist Anais Nin (1903–77) wrote in her diary (from Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 5,) “We cannot always place responsibility outside of ourselves, on parents, nations, the world, society, race, religion. Long ago it was the gods. If we accepted a part of this responsibility we would simultaneously discover our strength.”

Self-responsibility is recognizing that you are responsible for your life—that you are the sole master of yourself. Responsible people take charge of themselves, their conduct, and the consequences. Here’s how to live self-responsibility and approach work and life proactively:

Accept that no matter what happens, you’re not a victim. Never feel sorry for yourself or engage in self-pity. What’s important in life is not what happens to you but how you react to what happens to you.
If something bad happens in your life, don’t let it define who you are. Don’t make it your excuse for not moving ahead. Don’t brood over it without end. Understand it, learn from it, and get on with life. Make it be a part of you without letting it being who you are.
Don’t look back too often. Dwelling on the past deprives the present of its joy and prevents you from enjoying each day to the fullest. Open yourself up to today’s new opportunities. The ability to rebound quickly from failures and disappointments is one of the key differentiators between successful and unsuccessful people.
Life is what you make of it. You are solely responsible for the choices in your life. You cannot blame others for the choices you have made. You alone are responsible for what you choose to think, feel, and act.
Don’t engage in wishful thinking. Face reality and make the right choices based on that reality. Learn to play the hand you’ve been dealt. Anticipate and plan—the best time to change is when you want to, not when you have to.
Be willing to let go of the life you’ve been hoping for. Challenge your beliefs about what you can and can’t do. Life the life that is waiting for you.
Don’t operate life on the assumption that the world ought to be fair, just, and objective. You are neither entitled nor not entitled to good treatment. American comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said, “I tend to accept life as it is. … I’m not one of these ‘Life isn’t fair’ people. I tend to accept whatever the limits are, whatever the rules are.”
You do not have as much control in life as you would like to have. You cannot influence or affect people and events. You have power over only your life and the choice of your attitudes and actions.
Care less for what other people think. Listen to your friends and loved ones, but don’t become dependent on what they think of you.
You are your best cheerleader. Surround yourself with kind people who love you and encourage you. However, do not depend on others to make you feel good about yourself. Protect and nurture your physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being.
Take an honest inventory of your strengths, abilities, talents, virtues, and positive points. Pursuing your strengths is the key to becoming productive and happy. Identify the limits of your abilities and your time and say ‘no’ to things you know you can’t do well.
When stuck, be grateful for everything that life has offered you. Turn your focus from something you don’t want to something you do want. Take a baby step forward—consistently acting in small ways toward your goals will give you a sense of possibility, power, and accomplishment.

Idea for Impact: Inefficacious People Can’t or Choose to Not Own Responsibility for the Choices They Make

In the words of the American martial artist Bruce Lee (1940–73) (from the essay “The Passionate State of Mind” in the compendium Bruce Lee: Artist of Life,) “We can see through others only when we see through ourselves. … There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts that are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.”

Despite everything you have to do in life to fulfill your obligations and discharge your responsibilities, anything and everything you do is your choice.

Notwithstanding pervasive external constraints and impositions, you are free to choose your action and carry out your ends.

You are the only one in control of your life. Take responsibility for yourself. This is a very powerful idea.

Inspirational Quotations #676

March 19, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Wisdom increases with years; and so does folly.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

Remind yourself regularly that you are better than you think you are. Successful people are not supermen. Success does not require a superintellect. Nor is there anything mystical about success. And success isn’t based on luck. Successful people are just ordinary folks who have developed belief in themselves and what they do. Never—yes, never—sell yourself short.
—David J. Schwartz (American Writer)

The busy have no time for tears.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.
—Common Proverb

There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, ‘It all depends on me’.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

Weak Kindness & The Doormat Phenomenon: Balance Kindness with Strength

March 17, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Kindness Can Be a Weakness

I’m currently reading Swedish oncologist Stefan Einhorn’s The Art of Being Kind (2006.) Arguing that being a good person is the key to a happier and fulfilled life, Einhorn stresses (watch his TED talk) the need to distinguish ‘true’ kindness from ‘false’ kindness.

Einhorn describes three forms of false kindness:

Manipulative kindness where deceitful kindness masquerades as goodness. This superficial kindness is driven by some ulterior motive—to shrewdly obtain something, rather than to be genuinely helpful.
Stupid kindness that lacks appropriateness—trying to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, for instance.
Weak kindness is thinking that being kind sometimes means yielding and being a doormat to others’ demands.

Weak Kindness Will Make You a Doormat

The doormat phenomenon is the outcome of weak kindness where a doormat bends over backwards to desperately satisfy others, often resorting to do whatever it takes to try to make others happy, no matter how badly the others treat him/her. In the name of kindness, the doormat allows others to walk over him/her due to lack of strength, fear of conflict, or fear of rejection.

The doormat phenomenon is perpetuated primarily by an inability to say “no” effectively. Here are the consequences of being too gullible, too empathetic, and too timid.

Doormats neglect their own self-interests.
Doormats often resort to passive aggression and/or resentment. Eventually, they find themselves silently annoyed by others.
Doormats don’t enjoy spending time in a social context, since they resent the people they assist.
Doormats often face more demands than they can handle. Hence, being fully conscious of how they’re taken advantage of and unable of standing up for themselves, they suffer from stress and depression.

Don’t Be Duped by your Own Kindness

Weak Kindness & The Doormat Phenomenon: Balance Kindness with Strength The key to leading a wise and purposeful life is to balance kindness with strength. To be wise and kind,

Be profusely kind and obliging but never weak. Don’t give up your power to another person. Don’t become a people-pleaser. Don’t put everyone else before yourself.
Be vigilant for nefarious people and their hidden motives. Be alert and aware of the many negative ploys and manipulations you could confront.
Be assertive and stand up for yourself. Don’t say “yes” when you really want to say “no”. Don’t be so desperate to please others as to ignore your own priorities. Keep your own interests at the forefront of your mind.
Be on the lookout for win-win opportunities to be kind and giving. Don’t always prioritize other people’s needs above your own; seek opportunities to help out where you can expect some reciprocity. Successful people tend to ask for what they want.

The Chinese use a “flower and sword metaphor” to illustrate the need to balance kindness with strength. For the most part, present the world a flower—a symbol of kindness and compassion. However, when people try to take advantage of your kindness, that is to say when they try to crush the flower, wield the sword—a sign of protection and strength. The sword exists to protect the flower.

Idea for Impact: Wise kindness entails judiciously subjugating some of your self-interests sometimes in aid of others’ welfares, while still having the courage to stand up your values when necessary. Be kind when you can, and tough when you must. Remember, a wise person’s own happiness matters as much to him or her as the happiness of others—no more and no less.

Zeigarnik Effect: How Incomplete Tasks Trigger Stress

March 14, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

People Remember Incomplete Tasks Better than Completed Tasks

When you listen to a song that’s unexpectedly cut off in the middle, your mind will repeatedly inject your thought stream with bits of the song in an attempt to remind you that you’re not yet “done” listening. But, once you listen to that song completely, your mind moves on.

Psychologists identify this tendency for interrupted tasks—and thoughts—to be evoked better than completed tasks the Zeigarnik Effect.

Ruminating about Unfinished Tasks Causes Anxiety

This phenomenon was first reported in the 1920s by the Lithuanian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. Working with her research advisor Kurt Lewin at the University of Berlin, Zeigarnik observed that restaurant waiters seemed to remember a complex order just so long as the order was in the process of being prepared and served, but not after it was finished.

Zeigarnik Effect and Cliffhangers

Zeigarnik effect is in force when an episode of a TV series ends with a cliffhanger leaving the audience in suspense until the next episode. Teachers who conclude their lectures by posing a perplexing question stimulate the class to think about the answer until the next class.

In another prominent use of the cliffhanger and the Zeigarnik Effect as a literary device, the English novelist Charles Dickens released most of his novels in the form of serial publications, i.e. in monthly or weekly installments. Dickens’s cliffhangers initiated such anticipation in reader’s minds that his American fans would gather at New York City’s docks for the latest installment to arrive by ship from England. The installment format also allowed Dickens to rework his character development and his plots depending on audiences’ reactions.

Zeigarnik Effect and Cliffhangers

Zeigarnik Effect and the Need for Closure: Task Management

Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik’s research showed that the human mind hates unfinished tasks. Zeigarnik theorized that incomplete tasks incite “psychic tension” in you, which can be a persuasive impetus to complete the task. As long as you leave the task unfinished, your brain is in an uncomfortable position. Thoughts of the task serve to remind your brain of what it needs to do to get “comfortable” once again. As soon as you complete the task, this tension is alleviated, and in so doing, your brain lets the mind to release thoughts of the task from consciousness.

In other words, much mental effort is required when your tasks are interrupted or are still in the process of being completed.

From a time-management perspective, uncompleted tasks and unmet goals have a propensity for popping into your mind and worrying you persistently until the task is completed and the goal reached.

Emptying Your Mind of Nagging Tasks to Get Things Done

According to John Tierney and Roy Baumeister’s Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, further research in cognitive psychology has suggested that the Zeigarnik effect exists not just until you actually finish a task but also until you make concrete plans related to the task.

… turns out that the Zeigarnik effect is not, as was assumed for decades, a reminder that continues unabated until the task gets done. The persistence of distracting thoughts is not an indication that the unconscious is working to finish the task. Nor is it the unconscious nagging the conscious mind to finish the task right away. Instead, the unconscious is asking the conscious mind to make a plan. The unconscious mind apparently can’t do this on its own, so it nags the conscious mind to make a plan with specifics like time, place, and opportunity. Once the plan is formed, the unconscious can stop nagging the conscious mind with reminders.

According to Willpower, one research study asked students to think about an important exam. Half of the students were asked to put in writing specific plans of what/where/when they would study. Later, all students were asked to do a word association test. The group of students that did not write any study plans produced more word associations related to studying because studying was still on their mind; the group who did write down their study plans did not exhibit a comparable bias during the word association test.

Emptying Your Mind of Nagging Tasks to Get Things Done

The Zeigarnik Effect is the central theorem in David Allen’s legendary “Getting Things Done” method for task-management works.

Allen reasons that the dominant cause of everyday anxiety is that you are never truly sure of all the ‘things’ you’re supposed to do. You know you’ve got things to take care of and haven’t. Therefore, your mind keeps incoherently revisiting all that’s important but not yet completed. These “open loops” occupy much of your cognitive effort and debilitate your attention, causing anxiety, sapping your energy, and draining your willpower.

The primary benefit of using Allen’s Getting Things Done system is to reduce anxiety by emptying your mind of nagging tasks, filing away (or writing down) everything that must be done, placing them into a processing system, and scheduling chunks of time to single-mindedly do important things.

Human Mind Hates Unfinished Tasks

According to the Zeigarnik Effect, unresolved and interrupted tasks thieve the attention of your brain until you have a clear—if subconscious—proposal of what you’re going to deal with them.

Just the simple act of capturing a task that reaches your head can achieve that sense of completion. Even if you haven’t completed the task, you’ll know that you’ve accomplished what could be done up to the moment.

Here’s three clever ways to use the Zeigarnik Effect to your advantage:

Use the Two-minute ‘Do-It-Now’ Rule. See my previous article on this task management discipline—in a nutshell: act immediately upon a contemplated task if it can be completed in less than two minutes. Don’t add it to your to-do list.
Make a Concrete Plan. Whenever you have a task in mind, stop doing whatever you’re doing, take a blank sheet of paper, and invest one minute to plan and record how you intend to tackle the task. If you intend to write an essay, write an outline; if it’s a report, start the list of contents.
Use To-Do Lists Judiciously. Establish and peruse a trusted system to capture your projects and tasks, and the commitments you have to yourself and others. According to David Allen’s Getting Things Done, your human brain is an ineffective and unreliable repository of all the things you try to cram into it. All this “stuff” collectively clutters your headspace. Getting all your stuff out of your head and into a trusted system can bring about a profound sense of relief.

Inspirational Quotations by Earl Nightingale (#675)

March 12, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Earl Nightingale (1921–89,) American radio personality and motivational speaker and author. This “Dean of Personal Development” authored The Strangest Secret, widely admired as a great motivational work.

Nightingale was the writer and commentator of the popular syndicated radio show Our Changing World. He penned and recorded over 7,000 radio programs and 250 audio programs on motivation, personality development, and leading a meaningful life.

In 1950, Nightingale read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich (1937) and was inspired by the adage “we become what we think about.” This was the foundation of his tape-record and his book The Strangest Secret (1956,) which sold millions of copies. Nightingale defined success as “the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. If a man is working toward a predetermined goal and knows where he’s going, that man is a success. If he’s not doing that, he’s a failure. And there you have the trouble today; it’s conformity—people acting like everyone without knowing why, without knowing where they’re going.”

Inspirational Quotations by Earl Nightingale

For a person to build a rich and rewarding life for himself, there are certain qualities and bits of knowledge that he needs to acquire. There are also things, harmful attitudes, superstitions, and emotions that he needs to chip away. A person needs to chip away everything that doesn’t look like the person he or she most wants to become.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Whenever we’re afraid, it’s because we don’t know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; whenever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable. They go together.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

We will receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

The big thing is that you know what you want.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

Book Summary of Donald Keough’s ‘Ten Commandments for Business Failure’

March 10, 2017 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

During a remarkable business career of 60+ years, Coca-Cola executive Donald Keough (1926–2015) developed an inspiring lecture on leadership failures. At the prompting of Warren Buffett, a former neighbor and friend, Keough published his lecture as Ten Commandments for Business Failure.

Keough worked for the Coca-Cola Company for 43 years and rose through the ranks to become its President and COO. Following retirement in 1993, he served on the boards of Coca-Cola, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and many other organizations.

At Coca-Cola, Keough steered the company’s global product expansion and directed its iconic brand image and enviable distribution network. He became the business world’s most celebrated non-CEO leader.

Keough gained reputation as the public face of Coca-Cola’s 1985 New Coke misadventure—he delivered an on-TV mea culpa (see YouTube video) and announced the volte-face reinstatement of “Coca-Cola Classic.”

Donald Keough’s Straightforward Analysis and Leadership Lessons

Keough’s Ten Commandments for Business Failure is a predictable, yet insightful—even if circuitous—exploration of ten (and a bonus) leadership mistakes.

Quit Taking Risks: “Failures, for all the valuable lessons that they teach us in hindsight about management blunders, are simply risks that just didn’t work out. Such miscalculations, costly though they might be at the time, are part of the price of staying in business. As Peter Drucker pointed out nearly fifty years ago, it is management’s major task to prudently risk a company’s present assets in order to ensure its future existence.”
Be Inflexible: “Flexibility is a continual, deeply thoughtful process of examining situations and, when warranted, quickly adapting to changing circumstances. It is, in essence, the key to Darwin’s whole notion of the survival of the fittest. … Most recalcitrant business leaders would certainly never actually characterize themselves as inflexible. More than likely they would pay lip service to a philosophy of change, expressing the usual platitudes about how they embrace change and welcome it.”
Isolate Yourself (i.e., Be Out of Touch): “One of the traits of many of the legendary builders of business was that they had an uncanny ability to know and relate to their employees at every level … if you isolate yourself, you will not only not know what you don’t know about your business, but you will remain supremely and serenely confident that what you do know is right. Isolation, carried to its most extreme form, tends to breed a sense of almost divine right.”
Assume Infallibility: “The infallible we-know-best attitude of management has caused many companies to ignore reality and miss opportunities … If you want to increase your chances of failure, deny the possibility that you are not always 100 percent perfect in your judgment. Ignore the fact that sometimes others do know a thing or two. … So, if you want to fail, pose as an infallible leader.”
Play the Game Close to the Foul Line: “Business finally boils down to matters of trust consumers trust that the product will do what it promises it is supposed to-investors trust that management is competent-employees trust management to live up to its obligations. In recent years we seem to have quite a few smart, energetic people who have evidenced a rather fuzzy view of the right thing.”
Don’t Take Time to Think: “Time to think is not a luxury. It is a necessity. As Goethe noted: “Action is easy; thought is hard.” Yet action frequently-in fact, more often than not-takes on a life of its own. We pay homage to reason, but we are held hostage to emotion. We are, after all, feeling creatures, and in the excitement of a particular endeavor once the ball is rolling, it’s difficult to stop.”
Put All Your Faith in Experts and Outside Consultants: “The narrow perspective of what appears to be genius is often the inverse of wisdom.”
Love Your Bureaucracy: “As [Warren] Buffett said, “It’s unbelievable how much bureaucracy can build up in businesses, particularly those in which you can pass almost all of your costs to the consumer.” … On the hazards of bureaucracy: at their worst, they cannot only impede success, they can also precipitate disaster. … The more cooks there are in the kitchen, the greater the chance that bureaucratic decision making will either be deadlocked or the decision will become an exercise in group wishing. … Ultimately, a bureaucracy can become so dysfunctional that there is literally no one who can rain on the parade. The team can never make anything approaching an objective decision.”
Send Mixed Messages: “Sending mixed or confused messages to your employees or your customers will jeopardize your competitive position, and result in failure.”
Be Afraid of the Future: “The most serious problem with great pessimism is that it is absolutely paralyzing. People are so afraid of dire consequences that they throw their hands up in despair and do nothing. Fear of the future guarantees that the future will be a failure. … To aspire to any kind of leadership in business you simply have to be a rational optimist. One optimist in a sea of pessimists can make all the difference.”
Lose Your Passion for Work-for Life: “A major component of happiness in the business world is finding something you love doing, whatever it might be, and then finding a way to do it. To have success you have to have a high level of unadulterated desire to get up and go to work. … The easiest way to develop an inner passion in a business setting is to focus all your mind and heart on four aspects of your world: your customers, your brands, your people, and, finally, your dreams.”

Words of Wisdom from a Distinguished Corporate Executive

Among the myriad offerings of “rules for success” volumes, books such as The Ten Commandments are distinctive for their memorable business stories and examples. Keough’s candid analyses include narratives as captivating as the historical origin of Coke, the commercial history of the xerographic machine, the Coke-Pepsi rivalry, Coca-Cola Company’s ownership of Columbia Pictures, and the New Coke debacle. When asked in an interview if New Coke was worth the risk, Keough famously replied,

I wouldn’t want to do it again. But it was an enormous learning experience, and oddly enough, it turned out to be positive for the Coca-Cola Company. Our sales increased when we brought the original formula back. The reaction from our customers was overwhelming. Once we realized that we had made a mistake, I went on television and simply said that we don’t own this brand, you do. You’ve made it clear that you want the original formula back, and you’re getting it back.

In the chapter on flexible and adaptive leadership, Keough blames Henry Ford’s stubbornness for the flagging market share of the Model T vehicle. During the mid-1920s, the industrial triumph of his mass production system and the commercial success of the Model T blinded Henry Ford to a budding customer penchant for cosmetic customization and convenience features. Electric starters, for example, were starting to be perceived as essentials and not as luxuries. Keough argues,

Henry Ford reportedly said, regarding the Model T, “They can have it in any color they want, as long as it’s black.” For a long time that was just fine. But then people began to get tired of the black tin lizzies. Yet even as America was roaring into the 1920s with bigger, faster, fancier, brightly painted automobiles, Henry Ford kept insisting that the Model T, essentially unchanged since 1908, was still what America wanted and needed and he was not going to change his mind. Inevitably, upstarts like Chevrolet and Dodge began to erode Ford’s market and seriously challenge the company’s dominant leadership. At last, more rational minds prevailed and Ford admitted the need to produce a better vehicle. After shutting down his main plant for six months, he successfully launched the Model A in 1928. But Henry Ford’s inflexibility had brought the company to the brink of disaster and cost it a competitive edge that it has never regained.

Recommendation: As a fast read, Donald Keough’s The Ten Commandments for Business Failure is worthwhile for its many nuggets of business history. Even though many of his cautionary lessons are not entirely unexpected, some are insightful. The “play the game close to the foul line” warning about values and ethics is especially thought-provoking. Keough writes, “The fact is, if you play on the edge the organization will step over the line from time to time. It is inevitable. Warren Buffett says: ‘Play to the center of the court’.”

Archives for March 2017

Your Mind Renders the Outer Condition into Inner Pain and Suffering—or Joy and Happiness

Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable

Self-Awareness & Self-Regulation: The Bases of Emotional Intelligence

The Stoic Philosophers Advocated an Equanimous Outlook to Life

Equanimity is an Essential Buddhist Virtue

Transcending Turmoil through Mind Training

Postscript / Source: The Zen Koan “The Gates of Paradise”

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Fixation Hinders Creative Thinking

Japanese Onslaught on Intel’s Memory Business

The “Revolving Door Test:” Getting an Outsider’s Perspective

Idea for Impact: If You’re Stuck on a Problem, Shift Your Perspective

Wondering what to read next?

Inspirational Quotations by Robert Frost

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”—A Poem by Robert Frost

People Habitually Underestimate the Time Tasks Take

Hofstadter’s Law: We Chronically Underestimate the Time Things Take

Underestimating Task-Time Means Constantly Rushing to Finish Things

Idea for Impact: The problem with unforeseen delays is that you can’t foresee them, no matter how comprehensively you plan

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Idea for Impact: Inefficacious People Can’t or Choose to Not Own Responsibility for the Choices They Make

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Kindness Can Be a Weakness

Weak Kindness Will Make You a Doormat

Don’t Be Duped by your Own Kindness

Wondering what to read next?

People Remember Incomplete Tasks Better than Completed Tasks

Ruminating about Unfinished Tasks Causes Anxiety

Zeigarnik Effect and Cliffhangers

Zeigarnik Effect and the Need for Closure: Task Management

Emptying Your Mind of Nagging Tasks to Get Things Done

Emptying Your Mind of Nagging Tasks to Get Things Done

Human Mind Hates Unfinished Tasks

Wondering what to read next?

Inspirational Quotations by Earl Nightingale

Donald Keough’s Straightforward Analysis and Leadership Lessons

Words of Wisdom from a Distinguished Corporate Executive

Wondering what to read next?