Feb 11
When I think about the words “spacing out”, I don’t have positive connotations. If you’re spacing out, it sounds like you’re doing something wrong. You’d probably get in trouble if they caught you spacing out in class. But for the last couple of weeks, I feel like it’s all I’ve been doing. Perhaps it’s the summer heat but I have been taking some space from the typical and relentless doing of my life. Read more
Peter Drucker, known as the father of modern management, kept a diary where he noted every decision he made and what he predicted would be the outcome. Then, days, weeks or months later, when the outcome revealed itself, he would go back and note what happened and compare whether his prediction matched the outcome. He said that it took two years for this process to become effective. In our hyper-fast, want answers now culture, can you imagine waiting two years for something to become useful?
I started my version of this journal a month ago and have already learned that when it comes to personal relationships (what will he do if I say X, what will she say if I do X, etc), I’m pretty crappy at predicting outcomes and when it comes to myself (will I be happy about that purchase, eating that meal, exercising, etc), I’m equally crappy about it.
Being crappy about predicting outcomes within a personal relationship is obviously about not being very good at “mentalizing”, David Schnarch’s term for getting inside someone’s head. It is also about being blinded by my own agenda, which is the brick laid before not being very good at getting inside someone’s head. Obviously, in order to predict outcomes of my own decisions more accurately, I need to be able to predict other people’s responses well in scenarios where my decisions impact others. Aware of this, I’ve started playing a game with myself where I role play being the other person and I ask someone – a friend or a colleague, they don’t have to know the person – to interview me and be extremely sympathetic and validating to my perspective. So I answer questions as the other and this has helped me become more understanding of others’ perspectives before I act. Tracking this has been useful as the practice seems to be strengthening some inner muscle, which is helping me put myself in others shoes more effectively before I make decisions that impact others.
Please try this and let me know if you find it helpful!
I learned about a research project in Massachusetts that measured testosterone levels in American males over a 20 year span. What they discovered is that T levels are declining by approximately 20%! What’s going on?
Having a great idea is like falling in love. There’s the exhilaration, the expansiveness, all the big hopes for the future. And like any relationship, there can be bumps in the road too. Things don’t always go as expected, planned, or wanted. In honor of those times, I’ve recently published my new e-book, Clearing Your Inner Path to Success, to help navigate those choppy waters. It’s idea development from the inside out because from my experience, I’ve seen how those internal walls can often manifest as external ones. As Joseph Campbell would say, the monster is inside us. Read more
Mar 1
Last week, I was lucky enough to be invited to be a delegate to the UN Conference on Women by the NGO, Pathways for Peace. From around the world, women gathered to tell their stories, share their struggles and offer solutions. The focus this year was Rural Women. At one panel, the moderator, Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, the Chair from the NGO/Committee for the Status of Women from Geneva as well as the Secretary General of the World Young Women’s Christian Association (World YWCA), told her story. Read more
Dec 30
I recently rented a movie called “Limitless”, which was about an ineffective, unsuccessful guy who is given a pill that gives him access to his entire brain. You know how they say you only use 5% of your brain? This pill enabled him to use it all. He became so sharp, so clear, so smart and his career took off. Imagine how you would be if your entire brain was on-line. No brain fog, no confusion, no questions. As the main character described it, “I knew exactly what I needed to do and I knew how to do it.” Read more
My daughter recently came home with a perfect score on her spelling test. She was so proud and so was I. Her success in spelling is meaningful because last year, her 1st grade teacher recommended holding her back a year because she couldn’t spell. She insisted that my daughter and I work harder to get the spelling right. But in my heart, I knew that struggling was not the way. Read more
Yesterday, I was taking the train from NYC to Rhinecliff, NY. My two small children and I got on the crowded train and I began scanning the car looking for one of those few sets of end seats where 4 seats face each other and my children and I could sit together.
An older woman was sitting in one of these 4-somes all alone and I asked her if she would mind if we sat there. From the look on her face, she clearly would mind and mumbled some excuse about how there wasn’t much leg room and blah blah blah. I could feel my blood pressure rising. Read more
Years ago, I created an after-school program to teach 9th graders the basics of documentary filmmaking. As a producer, I know how powerful it is to tell the stories that matter to you so I knew it would be empowering for kids to make their own shorts.
We began the class by looking at scenes from a variety of films. The kids were breathtakingly savvy when it came to things like composition, story, and character. They’d grown up watching media after all. Then, everyone had to pick a subject. The students chose everything from profiling a favorite teacher or friend, documenting a favorite sport or subject, and one student even wanted to make a film about his own alter-ego.
This is where it gets interesting. It’s so easy to talk about what other people do. Critics abound. And it’s even easy to come up with a really interesting or even great idea. But, then what? Can you execute it? Where do people get stuck? Read more
We are conducting a research experiment to investigate the key factors that stop us from moving our ideas forward. Although it’s easy to blame our blocks on external factors like the economy or something going on “out there”, we’re interested in digging a little deeper. Since our mission at Lightfield Media is to develop ideas from the inside out, we are also interested in exploring the shadow of our ideation process from the inside out too. Read more
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