Captain of the Rescue Boats

The person who walks around while the Titanic is sinking, and calmly begins rearranging the deck chairs, organizing the evacuation, and gets everyone off the ship before it sinks becomes, by default, the future captain of the rescue vessel in the North Atlantic.

That person also becomes a new Noah.

Here is a list of 26 icebergs (non-exhaustive, your list (and mileage) may vary) where, as the Titanic ship of state known as global society collides with them and begins to sink, you can be the default captain of the rescue ships later:

Climate change
Fear of change
Growing use of A.I. based technology
Biodiversity disappearance
Lack of sufficient explanations that people can understand for necessary changes
Financial systems collapse
Refusal to be held accountable
Developing world debt
Connection economy of the Internet
Rethinking of Labor Value
The electrical grid in the postmodern world
Lack of access to creation on the Internet
Lack of courage in individuals to take risks
First world educational system
Scarcity of emotional labor
Child abuse and victimization
Lack of true, courageous statesmanship
Human trafficking
Increased spiritual hopelessness among the old
Increased spiritual hopelessness among the young
Lack of self-efficacy
Growing ability to hide from what matters
Thinking harder about the answers to binary questions
Lack of interest in self-awareness
Lack of ability to emotionally care
The increasingly intractable nature of conflicts

There are other ones out there as well. There’s no lack of icebergs. There is, however a lack of people calmly prepared to be captains in future rescue boats.

What Do You Do With Resonance

Resonance is underrated as a way of sparking change.

There are two things that happen when we hear an idea that resonates with us:

We admire the person who shared the message with us.

We file the message away in the back of minds.

Occasionally there are those people who take the idea that resonates and do something with it.

For those folks, the message (and the resonance) become a signpost on the billboard of their minds.

But there are not nearly enough of them, operating fast enough, with enough courage to make the kind of change that we need to see in the world.

Are you inspired, or are you admiring?

Need for Reassurances

Reassurances are the fuel on which feelings of safety run.

The overwhelming need for more reassurances often stops us from doing the courageous work that matters.

The resistance (the Lizard Brain) is driven by the need for safety, which is why reassurances are so useful as a tool to drive people forward to accomplishing work.

Or why they are so useful for dulling people toward doing work that matters; in essence, lulling them into a false sense of safety.

If a person is seeking for more reassurances that the path they are walking is the right one, or that the method of management of a conflict that they’ve chosen will “work,” or if they don’t really want to know the details….

Well, there will never be enough reassurance.

Which means you will never get all the safety you need.

Which means you’ll react with a posture of fear when a new idea, concept, or approach is brought to you.

Which means that all the tools and tips in the world won’t really work for you.

Which means that we’ll never get the emotional labor from you that we really need to make the changes that are necessary in the world.

Stop looking for more reassurances.

Start getting comfortable with the fact that there will never be enough.

Move forward courageously with whatever decisions you’ve made, without self-doubt, or fear.

Obligation is a Funny Thing

Obligation is a funny thing.

And not funny as “ha-ha” but funny as in “Isn’t this a modern irony?”

The NFL owners voted almost unanimously this week, to move the Raiders franchise from Oakland to Las Vegas (a move fraught with its own implications in a professional sport full of people with questionable moral and ethical decision making practices…but bear with me) and their explanations to the fans of why they are moving, is reflective of a larger shift in our culture around the concept of obligation.

The attitude encapsulated in the owners’ comments following the vote reflects two views of obligation:

The first view is that of “we owe you nothing.” The franchise and the team played games, grew a fan base, and gave the entertainment to the fans of the sport that they craved. In exchange, the fans gave the team and franchise money through ticket sales and more.

Purely transactional.

The second view of obligation is that of “the only thing I ever owed you was a ‘good time.’” The players, the ownership (I’m a Denver Broncos fan, I know), and even the overall notorious behavior of the franchise reflected this “good time.” In exchange, the fans (both locally and regionally) gave the team, the owners, and the franchise attention, awareness, and an audience.

This is also purely transactional and reflects a view of obligation based not in attaining revenues of money, but attaining revenues of attention and trust. It’s the view that Frank Sinatra had about his life versus his performances, and that many celebrities of all stripes seem to have abandoned in recent years.

There are two large perspectives to consider here, both of which relate to conflict management and our real lives, as well as one small—but salient—point:

Our lives are never purely transactional in nature. There is always an exchange of emotion for revenues (either trust or money) and that transaction has never been more valuable than now in our overall organizational and public cultures.
Our conflicts are based on other people barreling past our obligations and asking us to give more emotionally, than we may be prepared to give. However, the reality is that our personal boundaries around obligation must expand, or our management (not to mention our resolutions) will be task oriented, thinly veiled attempts to get to a relationship based goal we don’t really value, with the other party.

The small point is this: The organizations and leaders that understand the nature of obligation and the power they wield in a transactional relationship, will attain far greater—and far more meaningful—outcomes from individuals, societies, and cultures, than those that don’t understand.

Or even worse, those that don’t care—or never cared—in the first place.

What Does Your Perspective Look Like When You Change Your Mind

What does your perspective look like when you change your mind?

Mindsets are based in the accumulation of identity, meaning, life experiences, and assumptions that each of us make about how the world, and the systems in it, should work.

Mindsets are also backed up by the accumulated cruft of judgments, frames, attributions, and other cognitive “ticks” that people exhibit in their thinking and behavioral choices.

Many of the aspects of mindsets are considered by individuals to be fixed: they are what they are and there’s little point in attempting to change them.

Some of the aspects of mindsets are considered by some individuals to be changeable: they can be grown, can shift, can be made to serve a person rather than the other way around.

Changing your mind can come in many forms: through seeking new knowledge, through taking on new challenges, through deciding what not to do, or even through seeking forgiveness and reconciliation with another.

The journey from here to there is important. But not nearly as important as it is for you to tell us what it looks like from that new perspective.

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 5 – Marcus Mohalland

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 5 – Marcus Mohalland, Co-Author, Silly Nomads

[powerpress]

The nature of literacy in a digital world has changed.

Here’s a story:

I went to the New York Library last year and looked at a Gutenberg Bible. The Bible was clearly a book. You could tell just by looking at it.

The fact that I could tell it was a book is the beginning of understanding the nature and depth of literacy. The fact is, the Internet is changing the nature of literacy and my guest today, Marcus Mohalland has some things to say about that.

He’s using children’s books, connections to the education system, and his unique life story to impact how children get literate and remain so, in a world of screens, and options for distraction.

The nature of books we understand. When I went and looked at the Bible, I understood exactly how to read it, comprehend it, and how to disseminate information contained in it to others.

But we are at the beginning of the digital revolution right now.

What will we be saying in 700 years while standing at a virtual display in a virtual New York City Library, while staring at a mobile phone with Internet access from 2017?

Marcus and his co-author Jan are looking to maintain and grow the fundamentals of understanding that literacy is based on, through re-establishing the fundamentals of reading and comprehension with a generation whose attention spans might be waning.

Check out Silly Nomads for your children (or the children of people you know) and connect with Jan and Marcus in all the ways that you can below:

Silly Nomads Twitter: https://twitter.com/NomadsSilly

Marcus Mohalland on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcus.mohalland

Marcus Mohalland LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusmohalland/

Silly Nomads Book Website: http://mohallandlewisllc.com/home

Silly Nomads Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sillynomads

Actions That Compose the Work

The work is rarely the most entertaining or compelling, thing.

The result of the work is a lot more compelling—good, bad, ugly, or indifferent.

The process is rarely envied.

The result of the work—the sausage, such as it were—is delicious on the plate, and worthy of being enjoyed. And sometimes, people are envious of the outcome.

The potential to experience emotional pain, public (or private) embarrassment, and even failure is so strong that people seek all kinds of shortcuts to avoid experiencing any of those potential outcomes.

But experiencing those outcomes, many times is the work.

Here is a partial (but not all inclusive) list of actions that compose the work. As in all cases, your mileage (and experiences) may vary:

Patience is work.

Resiliency is work.

Accepting outcomes is work.

Knowing where to put your focus (and why), is work.

Showing up every day, even when you don’t feel like it, is work.

Being responsible when a project, idea, or position you championed doesn’t work, is work.

Ruthlessly eliminating hurry in the short-term, to accomplish larger lifetime goals in the long-term, is work.

Having the courage, clarity, and candor to speak up about what is working and what isn’t, is work.

Engaging with people we don’t personally (or professionally) like without rancor, to accomplish goals greater than ourselves, is work.

Knowing when to quit, what to quit, and how to quit, is work.

Figuring out the right questions to ask, in the right way, to the right people, and then hearing the answers, is work.

Realizing that the work is on the line, but that you as a person are not, is work.

Raising expectations with the idea of fulfilling them, rather than using them as leverage against the other party in a conversation, or conflict, is work.

Seeing the end goal of a project, and realizing that persuasion of other people is the number one thing to accomplish to get there, is work.

Being intentional about your actions, whether in a conflict process, a project process, or a goal oriented process, is work.

Knowing yourself and what you are capable of (and what your limitations are), is work.

Understanding when to stop working, is work.

Doing any, and all, of these things in public, doesn’t make for a compelling or entertaining process to view from the outside.

And in a post-Industrial society, that values entertainment above all else, knowing what’s truly compelling, and talking, writing, and entertaining about that, is work.

Increasingly, it may be part of the only work that matters.

Random Acts of Criticism

The fact of the matter is, there is more content to read and interpret now than ever before in the course of human history.

Due to the ubiquity and persistence of Google in particular, and the internet in general, more people have more to read that ever before.

The problem is not that audiences have suddenly become alliterate, illiterate, or even semi-literate. The problem is not that there is an abundance of writing: good, bad, ugly and indifferent. The problems isn’t even in the declining power of the critic to influence and push a set of ideas.

The problem is that the act of criticism has always inherently been based upon an assumption of scarcity: both in content and in opinion.

Gatekeepers of all kinds exist to inform audiences about that which is “good” and about that which is “bad.”

But in a world where everyone can ignore the critic (or choose to revoke the critic’s power through denying them permission to influence a choice), the act of criticism has to shift from one of determining and enforcing a regime of quality to the act of educating, advocating and taking a position.

And defending it.

Of course, the critic should read, watch, listen or otherwise take in the content that they are seeking to critique. But if they don’t, then the audience owes them little in the way of attention and credibility.

Otherwise, the critic is no different than a member of the audience—albeit one with more reach, but not more impact.

Clearing Out the Cruft

Clearing out the cruft that surrounds your reactions and responses to conflicts in your life, can take at least a lifetime.

Clearing out the cruft that surrounds your employee’s reactions and responses to conflicts in your organization can take at least 20 years.

Clearing out the cruft that surrounds your country, community, and neighborhood’s reactions and responses to conflicts in your country, community, and neighborhood, can take at least 50 years.

But that doesn’t mean that Ghandi, Candace Lightner, or even your cousin can’t change—or even be the source of effective change in others.

It means that the change isn’t going to happen nearly as fast as you think that it should.

It just means that when the change finally comes the impacts will appear slowly at first, and then all at once.

It also means that attending one training, reading one blog post, or implementing the ideas from one book, is not going to ever replace the hard work of working on yourself first, and everyone else second.

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 4 – Nasha Taylor

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode # 4 – Nasha Taylor, Community Connector, Networker, Cultural Strategist, Media Savvy Engager, and Entrepreneur

[Podcast] Earbud_U, Season Five, Episode #4 - Nasha Taylor

[powerpress]

Connection is currency.

Connection is the currency that matters in the 21st century.

There is a network leap from Google to the “real” world is the only type of value that will matter for the 21st century.

Welcome to the show! This is Earbud_U Season Five, Episode #4!

Our guest today, Nasha Taylor, has a brain that works, as she says, “like a Wi-Fi router.”

She is a teacher, a role model, a connector, and is “work” to providing service to all in all the ways that matter.

Talking about circuitous journeys can help us discover how to connect with others in the ways that matter, help us ask and answer the right questions, and gain the courage to seek and implement the right solutions to our most pressing problems.

Helping people feel safe through change is the point of all of this, and Nasha is going to talk about all of this today on the show!

Connect with Nasha in all the ways that you can below:

Nasha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/NashaTaylor

Nasha’s FB: https://www.facebook.com/nasha.taylor

Nasha’s LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nashataylor/

Nasha’s Coffe Business: http://nashataylor.myorganogold.com