HIT Piece 12.29.2015

And the hits just keep on coming.

The end of the year makes people take stock of what they’ve done and who they’ve helped (or hurt) in the year that has passed.

I’m no different in that respect.

However, where I am a little different from some others is that I take stock of the future, rather than the past.

There are all kinds of opportunities available if you’re not bound by your past. If, instead of looking at the past constantly, seeking reassurance, righteous judgment, or even retribution upon thiose4 who have injured you, you instead focus on de4veloping talents skills and abilities to meet the rising road ahead of you.

Many people are bound by the past. And I’m a big fan of history.

This year, in this space, I have used this platform to talk about the past and to encourage and spur my audience on toward the future. The future is, in many ways, an even scarier place than the past, because it seems as though here is no map to get there.

And the hits just keep on coming.

My take on 2016 is that, for many of us, it will be more of the same: The same arguments, the same disagreements, the same fights, the same confrontations. Because too many of us focus too hard on the past and not hard enough on the future.

And I will keep documenting my changes, as I try different things and different methods, hopefully leading to different (but not necessarily always better) outcomes for both myself and the people around me.

More introspection.

More self-awareness.

More HITs.

-Peace Be With You All-

Jesan Sorrells, MA
Principal Conflict Engagement Consultant
Human Services Consulting and Training (HSCT)
Email HSCT: jsorrells@hsconsultingandtraining.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HSConsultingandTraining
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Sorrells79
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesansorrells/

HIT Piece 12.22.2015

My wife will tell you that I never take “time off.”

She’ll say there’s no “break from this project” and she’ll tell you that many of my interactions with other people only demarcate interruptions between email, social platform updates, blog posts, product development ideas, and new business operations ideas. Some that might pan out—many that might not.

My in-laws will tell you I’m obsessive about work. And so will my children. That I never “unplug” or I am “always on the computer.” My immediate family will say that I seem distracted and antsy when I’m not working on cracking some project.

They’re not wrong.

It’s hard to be in this project alone, because, even though many people think that it looks romantic from the outside, to truly become even a moderately large sized force in the arena of conflict engagement and corporate training, the person in the arena has to be dedicated 24/7.

Now, to answer the objections, yes, I understand that material success is nothing without relationships that matter to share it with. And I am doing a better job than I was last year at actually trying to “dial in” to family moments, breaks and respites.

But I’m doing what I love, and I don’t know any other way to get to those outsized rewards in the minimal time that I have left on this planet, than to pursue the results of that love really, really hard for just a little while.

And I do take “time off.” Today is my annual retreat day, where I go to the mattresses (as Clemenza pointed out to Michael in The Godfather) and take some time away from the grind of the day-to-day and reflect on what I’ve done well, what I’ve done mediocrely, and what I haven’t done at all…

Now, I’m headed to Barnes and Noble. It’s the place to unwind, at least while they’re still around.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 12.15.2015

Two topic areas that have been popping up a lot for me lately in business conversations:

“People” lack follow-up
“People” lack initiative.

The first lament goes something like this: “I (the business person in question) reached out to “so and so” (another business person) and they didn’t get back to me. And I called them and called them and they didn’t show up or return my phone calls or emails.”

This first has happened to me more times than I can count with potential clients, clients I’ve actually had meetings with, and with clients I’m attempting to do a deal with.

The second lament goes something like this: “ ‘People’ [and then imagine someone sucking air through their teeth, squinting their eyes and sighing all at the same time] just don’t have the initiative or drive around here to do what you’re asking them to do. What you’re proposing won’t work…”

The second issue of initiative I chalk up to the fact that very few people have a motor driving them into business, and the difference between people who are “making it” and people who “aren’t” is the presence (or absence) of said motor.

These two laments I almost never hear from people in geographic areas that are cities, or even suburbs of cities. But in rural areas, small towns, or even villages consolidated across a major highway, you will sit down with the few people in town who are able to follow-up and have initiative and I will hear these two laments.

The future is coming and it’s not going to arrive everywhere all at the same time. The future is going to be driven by the people who have initiative first, and then second by the people who have the desire and the courage to follow-up. Without reassurance, without lack of faith, without a competitive desire to “get what’s theirs” first.

The income gap between the wealthy and everyone else is definitely something to think about overcoming; but the initiative and follow-up gap is something no one (outside of private conversations) is even thinking about shifting at mass.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 12.08.0215

All great failings have moral and ethical failure at their core.

Morals and ethics inform, codify and frame behavioral stories we tell ourselves from our birth to the day that we die. Our morals and ethics lie at the root of the causal chain of behavior.

Where morals and ethics emanate from (or what stories animate them) is far less interesting a thought process, than understanding how those morals and ethics sift and change over time. And why.

Always why.

I am concerned with both the how and the why of those moral and ethical stories, because if we look around carefully and astutely, we can see that the noise informing the changing of our internal stories is having an external impact.

Many people don’t think about the moral and ethical failures that lie at the core of truly great failings—the ones that lead to divorce, desperation, depression—but there should be more exploration of the how and the why.

If not, our disagreements, disputes, arguments and more will be constantly tinged with the color of moral and ethical failure, but we won’t really understand—or learn—why.

And, thus be destined–or doomed–to repeat the same failure over again.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 12.01.2015

Quantity doesn’t equal quality, or so we’ve been told.

Garbage can only result—either in communicated messages or in widgets—when there is too much of it, appealing to too broad an audience, with too little purpose. Obviously, this is leading to new disruptions, new conflicts and new frictions, and new laments of a lack of “standards” in messages, or a retreat to obfuscation, jargon and hiding.

And yet, there are 157 million blogs and 1.5 million pieces of blog content created daily.

Is that a sign of quality or a sign of too much quantity?

Actually, I think that it’s more a sign that finally there is enough choice, content, and messages, for the consumer to decide the answers to three questions:

What is quality for them, according to their standards?
What entertains them right now, according to their needs?
What will interest them next, according to their interests?

From the perspective of the gatekeeper and the creator (who used to have quite a cozy relationship in the past) this new customer centric view of quality versus quantity, can seem binding, demeaning and disheartening.

The new courage for the content creator is to be committed and consistent, rather than being engaged in quality control.

The new courage for the gatekeeper is to either lead the consumer (through creating walled gardens and curating communications to determine “quality” ) or to follow the consumer (through continuing the long-standing tradition of doling out “critical acclaim” and awards and recognition).

In all communications, it’s now the consumer (or the receiver) of the message who determines the message’s quality, rather than the creator (or the sender) of the message.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Strategy] Creations of Commerce

By now, you already know that “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” are recent marketing creations, designed to get you to buy more, spend more, have more stress, engage in more consumption and to confuse “tradition” with moving money out of your possession and onto the bottom line revenues of brands.

We didn’t get here by accident though.

The human need to persuade, convince and to sell—and idea, a process, a service, a product—is so strongly embedded in human biology, psychology and even our spiritual DNA, that we have welcomed this change, from over 50,000 years of “not enough” to the last 100 years of “too much.”

We want to be sold and persuaded; but, we want to be persuaded and sold on the things that have meaning and mattering. This is why, even before commercial brands and corporations, there were empires, governments, and tribes. And, at a level even deeper than that, there are religions and belief systems that have toppled powerfully persuasive empires.

Which brings us to the reason for the season.

Meaning and mattering doesn’t come from buying one more item, no matter what the commercials tell you. Meaning and mattering doesn’t come from consuming one more meal, though the commercials will tell you this as well (it’s no surprise that gluttony and Thanksgiving have become closer commercial bedfellows in the last 20 years). Meaning and mattering doesn’t come from throwing away abandon and forgetting the old year and old mistakes and making resolutions that won’t be kept, because they’re too hard, too overwhelming, and too meaningless.

Meaning and mattering comes from remembering (and acting on) three core principles this holiday season:

Thanksgiving is a time for being grateful and seeking silence from the noise that doesn’t matter more so than for being gluttonous.
Christmas is a time for seeking redemption, giving the gift of forgiveness and seeking reconciliation with those who have harmed us, more than it is a Saturnalian bacchanal of commercialized shopping, glorious getting and begrudging giving.
New Years is a time for seeking resolution and closing the circle on gratefulness, remembering what we have gained in the previous year and looking forward with excitement to a new set of experiences, rather than a drunken brawl and a hangover riddled future.

Meaning and mattering.

Let’s focus on that this holiday season, rather than on the latest deal from the largest corporation.

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 11.24.2015

Having an “attitude of gratitude” is what Thanksgiving is all about.

But, it’s hard to demonstrate (and act on) gratitude in the hardest mission field in the world, when the average person is wealthier, healthier, and wiser than just three short generations ago.

Gratitude comes from knowing from whom everything comes, and knowing to whom to say “thank you” to. But too often, two things prevent people from saying “thank you” to each other:

Expectations

And

More.

Expectations I’ve addressed in this space before, but around Thanksgiving, they are particularly pernicious in the context of the “more” revolution. This has occurred subtly over the last few years in America and consists of a combination of commercialism, comfort, and cheap money. With these three elements in place, the average person wants more than they have, and struggles to find the meaning in having less than they think that they should have.

Humility is the cure for all of this, and having an “attitude of gratitude” is the way that Thanksgiving should be celebrated, as much for what you have been gifted with having—and for what has been kept away.

I’ll be thankful for both, even as I realize that the cranberry sauce has stuffing in it.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Advice] How To “Make A Ruckus”

There are two ways to “make a ruckus,” if you want to:

The first way is to be generous, give away your knowledge and spiritual wealth (and maybe even your material wealth if you are led to) and to collaborate with others to use the power you have gained to help others less powerful.

The second way is to race to the bottom on price and cost, worry about the corners and the fractions of an inch, to create/lobby for regulatory environments that favor incumbents, to use power as a weapon and to deny the human individual, and only look at the masses.

One way leads to abundance and an ownership mindset, no matter what environment or context you happen to be in.

One way leads to scarcity of resources and a perpetual employee mindset, no matter what environment or context you happen to be in.

Envy arises in individuals and groups of one mindset when they observe the physical, external manifestations of an internal set of choices. This feeling of envy, based in fear, clouds judgement, and leads to the false premise behind some conflicts. These conflicts—that are really about mindsets and values rather than about material resources—can almost never be resolved, they can only be engaged with—or moved on from.

If you want to “make a ruckus,” you have to make three decisions first:

What kind of mindset do you want to have?
What kind of environment or context will create the circumstances for acting on that mindset?
What kind of outcomes are you willing to advocate to advance, to protect and to reject?

It’s easy to say “I make a ruckus.” It’s not that easy to do.

-Peace Be With You All-

[Opinion] The Decay of Power

Everyone “knows” what “it” is, but we often confuse the outcomes of “it” with the source of “it.”

Everyone “knows” that “it” is shifting geographically, technologically, morally, ethically, physically, mentally and spiritually, but no one “knows” why this shift is happening at this moment in our global historical consciousness.

Everyone “knows” that “it” is what makes “the world go around” but no one can really describe why “it” has so much ability to make things happen.

Everyone “agrees” that “something” must be “done” by people with more of “it” than themselves, but no one can successfully articulate why those with more of “it” would do “something” more with “it” than what they are already doing–or not doing.

Everyone “knows” that corporations, big businesses, governments, nonprofit organizations, parents, school systems, and even banks have too much of “it.”

Everyone also “knows” that the people who operate at the top of those organizational structures feel more and more under siege everyday as they look around and see “it” evaporating away from the siloes they’ve built to protect, use and exploit “it.”

Power is a curious thing. As it decays and moves, from one geographic or generational “space” to another, the fear of losing “it” (or the fear of gaining “it”) drives more conflicts than ever before.

Everyone (the royal “we”) “knows” what to do about that shift and how to resolve that fear, but, apart from talking in coffee shops, writing blog posts, or creating long form journalistic critiques of “it,” no one really has a clue about how—and why—this shift is happening.

But when a state of influence, such as power, which is so often confused with its outcomes (money is an outcome of power, not power itself), is seen to be decaying before everyone’s very eyes, the fear of loss—and the accompanying panic—generates a focus on escape and hiding.

Which is why, in conflict scenarios, whether between a husband and a wife or between a student loan holder and a bank lender, the energy that should be expended on getting to resolution, is instead expended on getting to escape, using power as a weapon, and/or hiding from the consequences of bad/poor behavior.

Which, of course, “everyone” can see…

-Peace Be With You All-

HIT Piece 11.17.2015

If you believe that building this project consists of a series of straight lines, then you are thinking too linearly.

The 2^nd best moment in the Wizard of OZ, occurs when Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and Toto all return to the Wizard’s palace in Oz. They walk down the long hallway to see the Wizard, with Dorothy carrying the broom of the Wicked Witch, and they are shown into a room with a giant, green head.

The head of the Wizard talks at them, shoots fire, belches smoke and is—in general—putting on quite the show. And, while Dorothy and the humanoid elements of her crew are frightened and trembling in front of this massively intimidating sight, Toto—the dog—is not. Toto runs to the back of the room (as “yippee” dogs are wont to do) and proceeds to pull back the curtain. Of course, what is revealed is neither belching, nor smoking, nor particularly scary. It is merely a man, pulling levers, pushing buttons and creating a mirage of order within a background of chaos.

The levers, buttons, and pulleys that I pull, push and lean on daily to get Human Services Consulting and Training off the ground, create “behind the scenes” chaos that only a few people get to see.

Trust me, it’s chaotic back here.

But, the orderly outcome that’s put out on the front end is not a humbug—unlike the Wizard, I do not seek to send you on a meaningless, dangerous quest, to intimidate or to frighten—it is instead, a chance for you to learn something about me, the process of building peace and to ask some challenging questions.

Human Services Consulting and Training is a project built on a series of experiments. Some launch. Many don’t. Some are placed in the background until the “time is right” to reveal them. Some are out front right now, like this here and this here. In the space of building a business, and building a life, there are both straight lines and curvy roads. The key is to not fall off either one of them.

And, to be open, and vulnerable enough to acknowledge the dog when it barks and pulls back the curtain a little bit.

-Peace Be With You All-