Belief Makers

Who's Faith?

2012-02-12T08:08:00.006-05:00

It's Thursday morning about half past ten. My iPhone chimes. The text is from Faith.

I'm in a close to crazy place. The stark contrast between my stated beliefs and the challenging experience is jarring. Lots of thinking... Sometimes I can shift to get alignment; sometimes it's like oil and water. But can it be happy oil and water?

"How perfect", I think as I hasten toward the bathroom at the mere thought of oil and water. My stomach flu is providing me a similar challenge regarding the contrast between belief-in-theory and belief-in-practice.

Kneeling over the toilet, I think, "Thanks, Faith! What a great reminder!"

I stand up feeling a bit better. Walk back into my office, plop down on my chair, close my eyes and rest.

Who's You
There are many ways to answer the question, "Who am I really?" You can answer the question physiologically. You can answer the question philosophically. You can answer the question psychologically.

Even within those domains, you have subdomains defined by medium and temporal frame. You can describe your physiology chemically, visually, electrically, or dimensionally. You can describe it as a snapshot, over time or under various sets of circumstances. You can describe it in part or in whole. An X-ray, a CT-scan, a thermal image, a blood test, a sonogram and an electrocardiogram each provide a different version of who you are physically. None of them is right or wrong. They're just different ways at looking at what makes you, you.

Philosophically, one way to describe you is by the constellation of beliefs you hold. Some beliefs vary significantly over time; some are more stable. Some contrast starkly with others. You have sunny-day beliefs and rainy-day beliefs. You have beliefs you've carefully crafter over time and beliefs you picked up at the checkout counter when you left your folks' house. You have beliefs that surprise you when they pop out given the right set of circumstances and beliefs that are always where you expect them to be. You have beliefs that have stood the test of time and circumstance and beliefs that have never been challenged.

Never Been Challenged
The last category has the greatest capacity for emotional upheaval, specially when the unchallenged belief is strongly held, or better yet, strongly held and broadly proclaimed. The upheaval doesn't come from the strength of belief, but from your attachment to the belief. When it becomes important that your belief is 'true', well, then you've built yourself a great internal roller coaster that's just waiting for you to climb aboard.

What happens when your deeply held, loudly proclaimed, highly-invested belief turns out to be WRONG? The bars come down, the car rolls up the incline and weeeee... you're flying through the loop-de-loop at 100 miles an hour.

Here's the thing, the thing for which I breathed a, "Thanks, Faith". It's just a belief. And a belief is just a decision. And a decision can always be changed. Simple, right?

Well, yeah, but, then why the roller coaster ride?

The roller coaster ride is not due to your belief being WRONG. It's due to your BELIEFS about your belief being right. If you believe strongly that it'll be a beautiful day tomorrow and then wake up to find it raining, no problem. However, if you insist that the corporate picnic will be fine and veto the decision to postpone it, well, that's another thing. It's your attachment to your belief that causes the angst and that attachment is itself based on other beliefs.

Surfing the Tsunami
The cool thing is that, if you're someone who's into better understanding herself by actively exploring what she believes and why, then the oil-and-water scenario becomes better than a happy experience. You're a surfer suddenly coming upon a tsunami or mountain biker cresting a peak and finding a gnarly downhill run. It's awesome. It's what you've been training for.

Beliefs are just decisions waiting for an opportunity to manifest. They're not who you are. They don't define you. They're just a way of describing your state.

In physics, you have potential energy and kinetic energy. So it goes with decisions, you have potential decisions (beliefs) and kinetic decisions (actions). They're still both decisions. The potential decision (belief) converts to kinetic when it causes you to act. Conversely, kinetic decisions lead to a build of potential.

Perhaps most importantly, beliefs don't mean anything. Meaning is simply a side effect of having a belief about a belief.

So, who's Faith? That'd be up to her and she might change it a minute later.

Happy Sunday,
Teflon

Funky AM

2012-02-11T11:27:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning about 5:30 and noticed that I no longer felt achy or nauseous, which I took as a good thing. I looked around and remembered that Iris is away for the weekend; she's attending a training course in the city.

I got up to write and realized, not only do I not have to be quiet, but I can be loud. So, I ran up to the studio and decided to play. As I started playing, I thought, "Hmmm... I wonder what the musical composition corollary is to ten-minutes of writing. So, I decided to record a song and post it no matter what.

About an hour later, I'd recorded drums, bass, guitar, keyboard and four sax tracks. Time to post!

But then I realized it's easier to post a movie than a song, at least on YouTube. So I decided to quickly convert my song into a movie by using it a sound track accompanying a picture. However, I couldn't decide on which picture, so I picked a lot them. (There's even a hidden bonus picture of Mark K).

Anyway, that's what I did this Funky AM.

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

Walk alone

2012-02-08T00:48:00.000-05:00

There are paths we walk alone. It would probably be better to say that we always walk our path alone, but in many instances it feels like we walk together with our loved ones, the ones we trust and the ones we care for. At those moments it seems as if our spirits are holding hands and we all move together, until at one point we look around and we see none. There is no one next to us, no one walking with us. But we keep on walking. Not because of the people around us; not because of our connection with our loved ones and not because we care about others. No, we continue because of an inner urge that tells us to move, to act and to go forward.

Tonight, I am sitting on my bed while I should be asleep and I feel alone. My loved one is near; my friends are close; my bed is warm; my belly is filled; my life is great.

Still, I feel thoroughly alone.

I have been here many times before. When I put my personal belongings in a shopping cart as a fourteen year old and left my parents house to not return until many years later, I felt alone. When my teacher told me to work harder in class while I didn’t really know where to spent my time after school, I felt alone. The time I broke up with my first love, I felt very, very alone. I was alone when I moved into my first student house rental. I felt alone the first Christmas living on my own, having decided that I wanted to be all by myself. Because, you know, feeling alone is not bad.

And feeling alone doesn’t only happen in times of turmoil. I also can feel alone when I visit the Bishbash waterfalls, when I see a good play or movie, when I swim in a lake or when I go into the sauna (yep. That one surprises me a bit, but it is true).

What I feel tonight is related to the alones of great emotional times. Seeing that we lost our good friend Jonathan two weeks ago; that we participated in his funeral service the day after; that we traveled northwards that same weekend to celebrate the beautiful wedding of Mark’s daughter on Sunday after an emotional ending family diner on Saturday; and this followed by a CAT scan of my head when I returned home to diagnose a growth on my skull; I am not surprised that I feel shaken and alone tonight.

It never stops to amaze me, how feeling alone is one of the best remedies to heal depression, sadness, frustration, irritation, and helplessness. When you are alone there is no one to blame (except yourself), there is no one to trust (except yourself) and there is no one to guide you (except yourself). From that place there is only one direction to move, and that is forward...

Many people are afraid of “alone”. They seem to belief that being alone implies that there is a challenge in connecting with others or life, and that a person feeling alone makes choices without caring for the people he or she should be caring for. I strongly disagree.

Being alone reminds me that I better take the wheel in my hand and steer the boat if I want to go somewhere. There may be cheerleaders along the way. There may be friends who fill the boat with food, water and love, but in the end it is me who has to decide which stars to follow. It makes me totally responsible for what happens now and tomorrow. It makes me look at my actions and ask myself the questions “Is this who I want to be”? Am I the biggest me? Do I share my biggest love? Do I give my biggest self? Do I create my biggest work? Do I represent what I like to see in the world?

Never have I been able to answer these questions with a solid one word: “YES”. There are moments I would answer “Yes, but....” the but always pointing towards something I would like to do bigger, better, more often. I can say today, I am the biggest me I have ever been, but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming what that could mean about me in five months, two years, or twenty years from now. And it somehow always motivates me to get of the couch and do something!

It helps me reconsider my dreams, my wants, and what I have to give to the world. Instead of disconnecting from the world, I notice that I become more compassionate with the world around me. It opens the door to reconsider what I have to give and how I can continue growing towards what I think is important in life.

So, tonight I feel alone and I feel grateful for the opportunity to share these thoughts with you.

What Sticks

2012-02-07T06:25:00.004-05:00

You know, you totally suck at this!

What do mean! How can you say something like that! I'm doing the best I can!

Nonetheless, you suck at it.

Sometimes people say things that really get to you. There words might feel hurtful. They may anger you. However, it's not the words that hurt or anger. It's not the person saying them. Nope, the only thing that can hurt or anger you through words is you.

You might say, "Are you kidding? You just haven't heard some of the things that people say to others. Some people really take delight in hurting others with their words."

I'd still stand by my original statement and add an additional clarifier. Even if they mean to hurt or anger you, only you can hurt or anger you.

It all comes down to whether or not you buy what's being said. If someone damns with faint praise the meal you spent hours preparing, you may feel hurt or embarrassed or disappointed. However, you can only do so if there's something in you that agrees with the damning or at least entertains that there may be something to it. If not, then the words would have no effect.

For example, let's say that you're six-foot-four and 240 pounds. A kid walks up to you and asks if life's difficult being so short. You think he's kidding, but he's serious. He presses you for an answer saying, "What are you like five-two, maybe five-three? I bet some people never even see you in the room; they look right over you. What's it like to be a grown-up and so small?"

It's unlikely that you would feel hurt or angered by his words. You would recognize that what he's saying says more about him than you. You would laugh it off. You might later tell the story of the kid who thought you were short. You might want to disengage from the conversation, but not because you found the words hurtful.

However, if you were five-two wearing platform shoes, you might take the words differently. You'd buy them. You'd make them mean something about you. If your height were an issue for you, then you might feel hurt or angered. The words would still be about the person saying them. However, you'd have bought in.

People make ridiculous statements all the time. 99.999% of them just pass right by you, but occasionally one sticks. When it does, it's an opportunity to explore why it stuck and not why the other person said it. They said it for their own reasons and why they said it will tell you something about them. However, if you want to figure out you, then look the other direction and ask yourself questions like:

How am I feeling right now? At ease? Upset? Hurt? Angry?

What about that last statement rang true to me?

Even if it were true, why would I make it mean something?

What meaning or implications did I draw from the statement?

There's absolutely nothing anyone can say to you to hurt you or anger you. Only you can do that.

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

The Longest Day

2012-02-06T07:00:00.002-05:00

You know those days that seem like they'll never end?

Forget about winning. Forget about doing well. Forget about complete and utter humiliation. All you want to do is survive... to make it to the end of the day... to close your eyes and let sleep carry you away to morning. No, forget about morning, to just carry you away.

There's this long and narrow body of water that stretches 184.5 miles from Cumberland, Maryland to Georgetown called the C&O (Chesapeake & Ohio) Canal. It was built way back in the early 1800's when a canal system was considered a potential alternative to the railways. In the US, the canals lost the battle, playing the role of 8-track tape to cassette, or beta to VHS, or Windows to Mac OS. The canal business died; the canals and their towpaths (the paths walked by mules towing barges) were abandoned.

In 1954, US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas organized an eight day hike up the C&O's Canal's towpath in an effort to save it from being converted to a parkway. His efforts succeeded and in 1971 the canal became a national historic park.

A Little Bike Ride
In March 1995, a friend asks me if I'd like join him on a little bike ride. I explain to him that I'm not much for road-biking, preferring the bumps and ruts of a mountain trail to the smooth asphalt of the road. He smiles and says, "Perfect."

I don't ask any more questions; I just show up at his house the following Saturday for what he deemed a 'training' ride. When I arrive, there are sixteen other biker-riders with everything from hybrids to extreme downhill bikes. We head down the road a couple of miles and then off into the woods. The ride is relatively easy, mainly fire roads with the occasional single track, nothing too gnarly. During a break, I ask Rod (one of the riders I've just met), "So what kind of ride are we training for?"

"You mean, he didn't tell you?"

"Uh... no. I just never asked."

Rod chuckles and says, "You ever hear of the C&O Canal."

"Nope."

"Well, we're gonna ride its towpath from Cumberland to Georgetown."

"How far is that?"

"One-hundred-eighty-four miles."

"One-hundred-eight-four-point-five miles", says John another rider joining the conversation.

"OK", I say, "How many days?"

They both look at each other, then at me and in unison say, "One."

"One? We're gonna ride a hundred-eight-four miles in one day?"

"Hundred-eighty-four-point-five and, yeah, we are. Well, at least some of us are."

"OK. Well, I've ridden centuries (hundred mile rides), but never that far. Should be alright."

"Yeah, but your centuries were on the road right?"

"Sure."

"The towpath ain't a road. It's an overgrown collection of rocks and roots loosely held together by mud."

"For a hundred-eighty-four miles?"

"Nope, the last ten miles has been converted into a trail for weekend riders and strollers."

I look back-and-forth from Rod to John. They're not kidding.

Cumberland
Three months later, it's 2:00 AM in Cumberland. I bounce my bike down the cement stairs of the Best Western, one hand steadying myself against wrought-iron railing the composition of which seems to be more paint than iron. Rod, Jimmy and John are already standing in the parking lot. A few minutes later a couple of other guys emerge from their rooms. What had started out as a crew of twenty-five would-be riders is now just five.

I run a last check of my gear, flip the switches on the two D-cell Mag-Lites I have duct-taped to my handlebars and head into the mist that rolls off the canal and over the towpath.

I say to Rod, "So, why do we start at 2:00 AM?"

"Better to start in the dark than finish in the dark. By the end of the day, it's hard enough just to keep upright; forget about trying to see things."

It's June 21, the longest day of the year, perhaps the longest day ever.

We ride in near silence for three hours ducking phantom low-hanging branches and occasionally getting smacked by real ones. The sound of crickets and frogs becomes deafening. My Mag-Lites dim. I stop to replace the batteries and the pedal like a madman to catch up with the crew. Black becomes blue; blue becomes gray; gray warms to gold; morning comes.

About 6:00 we stop for breakfast. We've covered forty-eight miles.

The rest of the day is a blur. As we slowly pass a troop of Boy Scouts one asks us where we're camping tonight. Rod responds, "At the Four Seasons in Georgetown."

"You guys are riding the whole trail in one day? I hope that I can do that some day!"

Rod pulls along side me and breathes, "Shit, I hope that I can do it today."

Later in the morning, Jimmy asks me, "So Mark, what's the difference between seeing a mirage and being delusional?"

I completely miss the joke and launch into a textbook explanation. My legs are cramping and if I never taste Gatorade again, it will be too soon.

Mid afternoon, we stop for a break. A friend of one of the guys is waiting in a parking lot just thirty miles from Georgetown. He sits on the tail-gait of his Explorer. He has a large Igloo cooler and a broad smile. As we roll up to him, he pops the top of the cooler and says, "You guys look like shit. Maybe this will help."

The cooler is filled with wedges of watermelon and ice. He hands each of us a cheap plastic salt shaker and says, "You are about to experience a miracle."

The combination of ice-cold watermelon and salt is nothing less than miraculous. I feel my head clear. My leg-cramps subside.

The last thirty-miles is easier. No rocks. No roots. No mud. No low-hanging branches. The trail is groomed and smooth with the only peril being the occasional jogger stopped to take a call.

About 4:00 we roll into Georgetown. Seeing the marker at the end of the trail, Jimmy hammers down on his cranks speeding forward just as a jogger crossing the path stops dead-center to tie his shoe. Jimmy, slams his brakes, his tires slide out from under him and he follows his bike across the brickwork that now serves as the path's surface.

Before we can get off our bikes to see if he's OK, he's back up and roaring forward. The jogger never even sees us.

Standing outside the Four Season, we stop for a picture before heading into to find out rooms. We leave our bikes with the valet, agreeing to meet in the lobby for dinner a couple of hours later.

There are days that you think will never end and yet, they do. Sometimes you'd like a do-over. Sometimes you'd like a never-again. Sometimes you think, "Wow, that was perfect."

Happy Monday,
Teflon

More than Grateful Sunday

2012-02-05T07:43:00.003-05:00

Ask yourself the question, "How long has it been since I made a huge display of gratitude for someone in my life?"

OK, now answer it. How long has it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months?

Hmmmm... And the answer is?

Perhaps you've felt grateful. Perhaps you mentioned it casually. But when was the last time your expression lived up to your gratefulness?

Perhaps, you haven't felt all that grateful. Is there nothing for which to be grateful? Or have you begun to take for granted that for which you were once truly grateful?

Come on now, it's really hard to believe that there's nothing. So, what have you taken for granted lately? How about rekindling a sense of gratitude for it? It'll feel really good.

Of course, the best way to build gratitude is to express it. It needn't even be to the object of your gratefulness. You can just shout it out to no one in particular. Go ahead, shout it out. Don't worry about those other people in the coffee shop or in check-out line; just shout out, "OMG! I am so thankful for... I can't even believe it."

Then make it even bigger by making it more specific. Build on your gratitude with other statements of gratitude. If your fellow patrons give you any problems, just ask them to join you. Ask them for what they are grateful. Let'em know that it'll feel really good. Get everyone to join in, even the grumpy guy behind the counter.

Happy More-than-Grateful Sunday,
Teflon

The Little Things

2012-02-04T06:00:00.003-05:00

What makes a great relationship? Answers abound from theoretical to practical. Whole sections of bookstores are dedicated to the topic. Everyone has a theory and more than enough advice to offer.

Some say a great relationship takes commitment and hard work. Some say that the key is to have alignment of your most fundamental beliefs. Some say that the key is complete honesty and openness and others that you need to know what to say and what not to say.

I think that much of what makes a great relationship comes down to the little things that you do day-to-day, things that you might consider trivial or inconsequential. King Solomon said that it's "the little foxes that spoil the vine." In other words, it's not the "big" issues that wear away at a relationship, it's the small ones that occur on a daily basis. They're so small that you'd hesitate to call them issues delegating them instead to the category of incompatibility.

Points of Compatibility
Let's say that you're someone who bounds out of bed in the morning ready to go and your partner is someone who likes to sleep in and then take a long time to get out the door.

Let's say that your partner loves to cuddle at night and you really need your space. That's a third of your life where either of you might be denied something meaningful to you.

Let's say that you make quick decisions and your partner really likes to take his time.

Some incompatibilities stem from likeness. You both like to talk, but not to listen. You both like to eat, but not to cook. You both like to drive. You both like to be in charge.

Some compatibilities stem from differences. You like to talk, she likes to listen. You like to cook, she likes to eat. You like to drive, he likes to ride. You like having a boss, she likes being the boss.

All these little things add up and they're easy to miss when you're dazzled by love. It's not even that you miss them. You just decide that they're not that important, or worse, that your partner will change over time, that he'll come around.

How Compatible Are You?
A fun way to gauge compatibility and identify points of incompatibility is to sit down with your partner and write down as specifically as possible everything you want from your relationship. Do this together, but without looking at one another's answers. It helps to identify categories before hand: sex, meals, sleep, exercise, outdoor activities, indoor activities, talk time, displays of emotion, friends, etc.

Of course any solid relationship involves a give-and-take. So, for every item that you write down on the what-I-want side of the page, write down a corresponding what-I-want-to-give in exchange for what you want.

Once you're done, sit together and compare your lists. You may be surprised on where you're compatible and where you not.

Even Then
Compatible or not, there are some basic tennets that can help you improve your relationship no matter how good or bad it is.

Never take anything personally, even if it was meant to be personal. Any time someone says or does something, even if it's said about or done to you, it's still all about her, what she believes in that moment, how she feels, and what she's struggling with. No matter how much it feels like it, it has nothing to do with you. Really.

If you respond in a manner where you don't take it personally, you'll actually be able to help. If not, well, you significantly increase the likelihood of exacerbating the situation. The easiest way I've found to do this is to listen to someone talking to me about me as if I were a third party. I guarantee you, if you learn to take nothing personally, you'll see miracles.

Be authentic. Witnesses giving testimony in the US court system are sworn in repeating the words, I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's the whole truth part that most of us struggle with. I've found that people are often pretty honest when asked a direct question, but less so when volunteering unsolicited information or information that wasn't solicited directly.

To be clear, I'm not talking about developing Tourette's Syndrome or verbal diarrhea. You don't need to articulate every thought that pops into your head. The key is to become aware of times where you're actively not saying something or you're hoping no one asks. At those points, you're actively abandoning the whole truth component of being authentic.

To further clarify, I'm not talking about ranting or raging. When you find yourself withholding, simply say what you have to say with as much love and respect as you can muster. If you can't muster much love and respect, simply identify that you have something you'd like to say later.

Express love and gratitude, for each other, for what you have, for who you're becoming. Being loving and grateful is great, but expressing love and gratitude regularly has a magical effect.

No that you're both doing the best you can given what you believe in the moment. No matter how annoying or upsetting or angering another person's actions can be, if you adopt the attitude that he's doing the best he can in that moment given what he believes and how he feels, things change. You open your mind to a new world of possibilities.

Have a Great Relationship
I'm not quite sure why I woke up this morning with all this on my mind. Could be our recent Eila's Day event. I believe that we all want the best partner-relationships we can have, but that sometimes we start to settle for less than that. Thing is, it doesn't take much to take a sidelined relationship and get it back on track towards greatness.

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

Fear

2012-02-03T04:58:00.004-05:00

One of the things every one of us deals with from time to time is fear (or one of its many incarnations). Sometimes fear is easy to spot, sometimes less so. You've got your clearcut cases of fear such as terror, dread, trepidation, panic, phobia, foreboding and fright. You've got ones that are less clear cut such as consternation, suspicion, unease, worry, distress and doubt. And, you've got ones that might be argued as something other than fear including anger, revulsion, abhorrence, agitation and aversion. All are directly related to fear.

In fact, you could probably distill all negative emotion down to just two basic categories: fear and regret. (Hang in there with me.) Regret has many manifestations including anguish, self-reproach, bitterness, compunction, disappointment, annoyance, heartache, loneliness, heartbreak, misgiving, remorse, ruefulness, discomfort, self-condemnation, disgust, grief, and sorrow.

The distinction between fear and regret comes down to temporal frame of reference. To fear requires you to focus on the future. You can't be simultaneously present and afraid. All fear is about something that has not yet happened. It might be about to happen. It might be something in a vague and distint future. You don't fear the monster in the room. You fear what the monster might do.

On the other hand, regret is focused on the past. Even though your regret may take place in the present, it can't happen without a past frame of reference. Something you did. Something you didn't do. Someone you wish were still with you. Someone you wish weren't.

We could spend lots of time talking about the differences among the various emotions I've lumped together under either fear or regret. You can use whatever umbrella word you like. The point is, all of what we would call "negative" emotion can only occur when your focus is diverted from the present.

Of course, if you want to get yourself into an endless feedback loop, you simply combine the two. How? By fearing something you're going to regret or by regretting something you should have done to avoid something you fear. Either works equally well, but the most popular form of the art is the fear of future regret. It's powerful and it's easy to do.

Overcoming
There are three basic ways that you can deal with fear and regret.

Convince yourself that what you fear won't happen.

Distract yourself from what you fear and try not to think about it.

Decide that even if what you fear comes to pass, it'll be OK.

The first two don't work, at least not for long. With the first one, you can work hard to convince yourself you've done all that's necessary to avoid what you fear. But if you're at all creative, all your efforts will tumble like a house of cards the first time you put any though to it.

The second one can be made to work, but only through displacement, i.e., you have to fill your present so completely that there's no room for futurizing. This approach still leaves you vulnerable to those moments late at night when you lack the energy to displace. Ultimately, the only way to deal with fear (or its backward looking cousin) is to decide it's OK.

The trick is that we often don't want to make it OK. Why? Because making it OK might compromise our efforts to avoid what we fear. We've so integrated fear into our motivational psyche that we fear who we'd become without it. If you didn't fear losing your house, you might not work as hard to make money. If you didn't fear dying from a heart attack, you might not stay on your diet. If you didn't fear for your children and their futures, you might not push them hard enough to do their schoolwork.

When we observe anyone else operating under this MO, we see how ridiculous these beliefs can be. We see how motivation through fear compromises effectiveness. Yet it's often difficult to see this at work in ourselves. Not only does fear-based motivation compromise our immediate efforts, but it also has a repetitive-stress effect on our overall states of being.

Nonetheless, being willing to be OK with any outcome is the first and most difficult step. Once you've decided that it would be OK to be OK, the next is to try it on, to stare your fear straight in the eye and say, "Bring it!" You lay down you sword and let your fear wash over and past you. It's the only way that works on a sustained basis. The process may take repetition as fear tends to build up like caked-on crud on the bottom of an oft-used cast-iron skillet. Removing one layer of fear may reveal another.

Sure, you can use various meditative techniques to displace your fear by bringing yourself into the present. You can focus on your breathing, etc. However, these are mere parlor tricks when compared to facing your fears and transforming them into something that'd be just fine.

Happy Friday,
Teflon

Eila's Day

2012-02-01T05:47:00.006-05:00

What do you want for your kids? What do you hope for?

When you strip away all the accoutrements, I think it comes down to four basics. You want your child to:

Become strong and independent.

Find a partner who is their intellectual, emotional and physical match and who loves them intensely.

Find work that is rewarding and fulfilling.

Be happy.

Sure, there are things like a good education, a nice place to live, children, and the pursuit of happiness. To me all those are secondary. A strong, independent and happy person with a loving partner who can keep up and a job that is rewarding and fulfilling can take care of the rest, herself.

The other day, I wrote about the first Eila's Eve. It occurred 30 years (plus 15 days) ago. On Sunday we celebrated what I'll call Eila's day. Our Eila's day celebration provided a glorious conclusion to what had been a pretty tough week. Although the world is short one Tuomenoksa, it gained a Pereira. We partied like Brazilians.

I got what I hoped for and I have photos.

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

How Hard Could It Be

2012-01-31T06:25:00.003-05:00

I'm not a big misser. It's one of the benefits of ADD; I'm easily distracted. By the time most people have just begun to sink into the depths of longing, I've, um, well, moved on. A new destination rolls over the horizon in the landscape of my mind and I jump back on the bus that we call life.

It's not that I forget. I just don't miss. I don't miss places. I don't miss things. I don't miss people. My not missing leads to better not-forgetting. I remember, well, everything.

Nope, I don't miss, at least not in that deep-longing, can't-get-over-it kind of way.

However, sometimes while riding the bus to a new destination, I miss. I sit in the back of the bus gazing out the window at nothing in particular and puzzle. I puzzle a lot. I puzzle and puzzle and puzzle and then... eureka, the puzzle yields, the answer emerges. I pull out my iPhone to text my discovery to my friend Jonathan. Half way through my exuberant explanation it occurs to me that Jonathan's gone and I miss. I don't miss often. I don't miss for long. However, when I do miss it's as though all the long and frequent missing that most people experience gets packed it into a tiny, high-voltage delivery system and bam.

And then I get distracted.

When Jonathan first found out that he had cancer, he called me to tell me how we were going to figure it out. "How hard could it be?", he said.

I agreed. Jonathan did the academic legwork, consuming volumes of text, filtering out the junk and distilling the core. He'd tell me what he'd discovered. I'd tell him what I'd figured out. We'd conjecture, hypothesize, argue and refine. I'd puzzle, he'd study. We were a good team.

I'd text him saying, "I've been thinking about thus and such and there's no way that..."

He'd text back saying, "You're right. I'm gonna ask my doctor about..."

Our conversations were, well, different. To an observer it might have appeared that we couldn't hold course, that we jumped from idea to idea, topic to topic. It wasn't that. It was just that we didn't spend time on the obvious stuff. We'd simply move from peak to peak and skip over the valleys of verbal filler and unessential prose. Neither of us felt the need to express ourselves. Neither of us needed to be heard. We talked to further our effort.

I miss that.

We were squadron-leader and wingman roaring through mazes of computational complexity and multilevel abstraction, each pushing the other to go harder, faster.

Our flying time was limited to times when we were alone, or when we were with just Iris. Others would feel uncomfortable with our banter. Jonathan would attend to their discomfort, listening to complaints about carpet colors or boasts of drinking prowess. I'd sit quietly puzzling.

In the end, we ran out of time. In one of out last conversations, Jonathan said, "Nothing that anyone is working on is going to work. They're chasing the funding, not the problem."

"I know", I said. "No one's getting back to the source. All the treatments are always a step behind and it's only by chance that they work."

Jonathan said, "If only I'd taken that inorganic chemistry course. If only I had access to some good labs and lab techs. If only I had more time."

I asked, "What would do?"

But Jonathan, didn't respond. He'd decided that he wouldn't have the time and he wasn't one to hang onto old plans. He was done.

We'd have figured out. After all, how hard could it be.

But sometimes you just run out time. Then you choose. You get back on the bus, or you don't.

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

Eila's Eve

2012-01-28T06:33:00.005-05:00

Of the 36,524 days in the 20th Century, Chicago’s temperature fell to -20 or lower on only ten of them. Two of them occurred in January, 1982: January 16th, when the temperature plummeted to -25 (that's -32 Celsius) and the 17th when it dropped to -23. In fact, there were only two days in the 20th century that were colder, Jan 10, 1982 and Jan 20, 1985.

Why do I bring this up? Well, you see, our little red Ford Fiesta was designed more for the south of spain than it was for the suburbs of Chicago. It didn't like to go out in cold weather, preferring peaceful days in the parking lot outside our garden apartment to the hustle and bustle of salt-encrusted roadways. I had to coax and coddle it for it to consider starting. Even after physically warming the engine by covering it with a blanket and piling on bricks I'd heated in the oven, it often insisted on a jump.

So the night of January 16, 1982, I got up every forty-five minutes or so and went outside to start the engine, just to be sure.

You see, earlier in the evening Rene had begun reorganizing furniture and cleaning everything. Really, everything. Once she started, she couldn't stop. She emptied the kitchen cabinets, piling the contents on the round pine table I'd built before we were married, and then scrubbed every last nook and cranny before papering the shelves and returning the contents. She washed all the dishes, pots and pans--the ones that had been in the cabinets. She scoured the counter tops with a sponge and Ajax cleanser and then decided to apply the same treatment to the floor.

There was no stopping her; she was obsessed. The furniture in our tiny living room had to be rearranged, three times. We had to change all the bedding and wash the curtains. And the bathroom, well you can imagine.

The last time I'd seen Rene this way, the only time, was December 1, 1979, the night before Joy was born, or "Joy's Eve" as we used say. So, as Rene began rinsing the soup cans, I had an epiphany. January 16, 1982 was about to become Eila's Eve. All I could think as I reassembled the stereo components for the third time, as I replaced the screws before reattaching the the toilet seat, as I ran a Clorox-drenched rag down the back wall of our bedroom closet was: What about the Fiesta?

So on the third-coldest night of the twentieth century, every forty-five minutes or so, I pull up my boots, pull down my hat, don my parka and walk out to the parking for a therapy session with our little red Fiesta. About 3:15 AM, I begin to think, OK, we're good. We're gonna make it. About 4:30, I stifle a cry as a vicelike grip wrenches my shoulder and drags me out of a beautiful dream in which the Fiesta was starting over and over without even a hint of hesitation.

"Ow!", I say.

Rene says, "My water broke."

I look at the clock. Shit, I missed a therapy session. I race outside coatless, shoeless and hatless, praying, "Oh please, oh please, oh please!"

I yank open the door, slide into the driver's seat, slot the keys and crank the engine.

Nada.

Na... da...

I close my eyes and sigh.

"It didn't start, did it?"

I lift my forehead from the steering wheel. Rene's standing beside the car, her packed bag in one hand, my boots, hat and coat in the other.

"Nope. We're gonna need a jump."

Twenty minutes later Rene's dad and her four younger brothers pile out of his car. Mike flips up the hood of the Fiesta and John the hood of the Cressida. Jimmy grabs the jumper cables from the trunk. Casey takes the wheel of the Fiesta, and Jack, Rene's dad, shouts out the occasional order as he explains to me why I should have bought a Toyota.

Jack revs the Cressida's engine as shouts to Casey, "OK, give it try!"

The Fiesta's engine coughs, hesitates for a second, and then, vroom.

I thank Jack and the guys for their help, promise to return to our discussion regarding the merits of Toyotas, and jump into the car next to Rene. She waves as we back out of the parking lot and head west to Geneva, to the hospital where Rene's four brothers and my three kids were born.

Eila Rose (or Eilarosamundo as I like to call her), joined us a few ours later. Thirty years later, the exceptionalness of the night preceding her birth seems more than appropriate.

And that's the story of the very first Eila's Eve.

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

This Town Ain't Big Enough

2012-01-27T07:18:00.005-05:00

Lassiter: I don't want to throw out five crazy theories, just to get one right. I am a police detective and police detectives do not surmise that banks were knocked over by groups of angry cats with laser beams.

Sean: I never said they were angry; they were simply following orders.

This town ain't big enough for the both of... uh... me.

I think Yosemite Sam added 'comma-rabbit'.

Huh?

When he said it to Bugs, he added the word rabbit at the end, you know: this town ain't big enough for the both us, rabbit. He kinda bit into the word 'rabbit' for emphasis.

OK, but what's that got to do with, uh... what were we talking about?

Your were explaining that you might not fit in here.

Oh yeah, I mean, no. I didn't mean fit as in match or be accepted or, well maybe I did somewhat, but what I really meant is fit as in size... uh, you know, like ten-pounds of shit in a five-pound sack.

So are you the shit or the sack?

Sigh... I guess I'd be the shit.

So you feel like shit?

No, well yes, sometimes, but that's not what I meant.

Well then what the heck do you mean? You're the one who brought up feeling like shit-in-a-sack.

I was just trying to illustrate what I meant by the word 'fit'. Okay, forget about the shit-in-a-sack reference. What I meant to say was that I feel too big for this organization and I'm not sure what to do about it.

Too big? You're like five-foot-ten. You're not even the biggest person here, let alone too big.

Not too big physically, too big, um... experientially. God, I suck at explaining this.

At least that's something we can agree on.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Let me try again if I may.

Go for it.

Like most companies, our company has various positions each with defined roles and responsibilities.

Uh, huh.

And like most companies, roles-and-responsibilities are defined by department, e.g., finance, shipping-and-receiving, sales, marketing, physical design, and software engineering.

Right, so far.

We expect the marketing people to write marketing materials, the finance people to do financial planning, the executives to create board presentations, and the software guys to write software.

Look, you're not telling me anything new here. What's your problem?

My problem is that I can do all the above.

What? You mean like you can write marketing materials, develop financial plans, create board presentations and write software?

Yeah.

Wow, that sounds just terrible. Poor you.

No that's not the point.

Then what is the point? You're right about one thing; you do suck at explaining this.

Yeah, I do. It's just that I can do a lot more than my title would suggest and I can do it really well.

So your problem is that you don't have enough work to do? Cuz I can fix that.

No. The problem is that I have too much work to do, at least too much work given the output level. I could get a lot more done with a lot less work if I had more responsibilities.

That makes no sense.

Sure it does. It's all about communications overhead and cost of synchronization. If you've got a single supplier who can provide everything you need, it's less work than trying to coordinate multiple suppliers, right?

Yeah, but the single supplier may be more expensive than being your own general contractor.

But what if he's not? What if he's way cheaper than doing it yourself with a bunch of individual suppliers?

That's never the case. There'd have to be a catch.

But what if it were and what if there weren't?

There you go again.

I mean, what if it were... uh... What if it was the case that a single supplier was faster, better and cheaper and what if there wasn't a catch?

Well, I'm not agreeing that it's possible, but if it was, I'd go with the single supplier. Shit, I'd probably try to hire him.

Uh, huh... So...

No Words

2012-01-26T06:20:00.006-05:00

I'm never at a loss for words... almost, never.

It might be due the fact that unlike most people, my words don't begin life in my brain as prenatal thoughts that slowly gestate to maturity, then pass through the birth-canal of my throat and pop out my mouth fully-formed. Nope, my words just show up in my mouth all growed-up. My brain seems always to be the last to know, finding out what I said just like everyone else, by hearing the words and wondering, "what the heck?"

If my brain's distracted working on a problem or a bit inebriated by a glass of wine or just plain old hyped-up and five miles ahead of the conversation, my words can come as complete surprise.

Yeah, I'm never at a loss for words, even when I think I am.

Ah... but what about the "right" words? The appropriate words? The best words?

Well, I guess that's a matter of what you mean by right, appropriate or best. There's always better, so best is just a matter of what you've got in the moment. In the case of having or not having words, then the good words spoken are still better than the best words unspoken. So best is a moving target. Sometimes you need to start with less than best just to get the ball rolling.

Right is a funny one; you've got your righteous right and your factually-accurate right and your less well understood because-it-works right. I'm not a big believer in the first one and actively make it not a goal that my words be righteous. I try to be factually accurate, but when in doubt opt for clarity in the moment over factually-accurate later (the former providing immediate opportunity for correction if my assumptions are wrong).

In the end, the most important question to be asked about the rightness of words (righteous or not, accurate or not) is: did they work? You see, that's the beauty of words. They're never uttered without purpose. The measure of their rightness is directly proportional to the degree to which they accomplish that purpose.

Appropriate is something I've never been able to figure out. All I know is that my idea of appropriate is often misaligned with the ideas of people around me. Over the years I've undertaken initiatives to be more appropriate and they've been as effective as Mark Kaufman's many diet plans. Seems that whenever I try to be appropriate, I just get a headache and everyone around me gets confused. Let's just say that appropriate is as appropriate does; I trust that my words are appropriate in the moment; otherwise my mouth wouldn't have said them, right? They must have seemed appropriate to my mouth at the time.

Over the past twenty-four hours or so, my mind has been conducting a moratorium on words. I must say it nearly worked, that is, until I got up this morning and started typing. Did I mention that words sometimes form in my fingers? It's a little backchannel path that my mouth uses when my brain takes over.

Yup, I got up this morning and just started typing. You see, I have this friend who was so much bigger than life that life could no longer hold him and he moved on. And I... Hey, that reminds me.

A pause to google.

Too Big for this Town
Jonathan and I often quipped using movie references. We shared a favorite scene from the movie, Big Fish. In this scene our hero, Edward Bloom, confronts a giant. The scene begins with Edward describing his youth...

EDWARD NARRATES
Most times a person grows up gradually while I found myself in a hurry.

My muscles and my bones couldn't keep up with my body's ambition. So I spent the better part of three years confined to my bed with the encyclopedia being my only means of exploration.

I had made it all the way to the G's hoping to find an answer to my "gigantificationism" when I uncovered an article about the common goldfish.

"Kept in a small bowl, the goldfish will remain small. With more space the fish will grow double, triple, or quadruple its size."

It occurred to me then that perhaps the reason for my growth was that I was intended for larger things.

After all, a giant man can't have an ordinary-sized life.

As soon as my bones had settled in their adult configuration I set upon my plan to make a bigger place for myself in Ashton. I was the biggest thing Ashton had ever seen. Until one day, a stranger arrived.

THE SCENE OPENS WITH A LITTLE GIRL SCREAMING
Doggy! My doggy! My doggy's trapped!

A CROWD FORMS AROUND THE MAYOR
Calm down. Calm down, everybody. Calm down. That's enough.

Mr. Mayor, he ate an entire corn field.

He ate my dog.

If you ain't gonna stop him, mayor, we will.

MAYOR
I won't have mob violence in this town.

EDWARD
Now, has someone tried talking to him?

MAN 1
You can't reason with him.

MAN 2
He's a monster.

EDWARD
I'll do it. I'll talk to him. See if I can get him to go.

MAN 1
That creature could crush you without trying.

EDWARD
Oh, trust me, he'll have to try.

EDWARD WALKS TO THE SPOT WHERE THE GIANT WAS SEEN

EDWARD
Hello? My name is Edward Bloom, and I wanna talk to you!

GIANT
Go away!

EDWARD
Now, I'm not going anywhere until you show yourself!

GIANT
I said, go away!

EDWARD
Armed with the foreknowledge of my own death I knew the giant couldn't kill me. All the same, I preferred to keep my bones unbroken.

GIANT
Why are you here?

EDWARD
So you can eat me. The town decided to send a human sacrifice and I volunteered. My arms are a little stringy, but there's some good eating in my legs. I mean, I'd be tempted to eat them myself. So I guess, well... If you'd just get it over with quick, because I'm not much for pain, really.

GIANT
Go away

EDWARD
Oh, come on! I can't go back! I'm a human sacrifice. If I go back, they'll think I'm a coward. I'd rather be dinner than a coward. Here. You can start with my hand. It'll be an appetizer.

GIANT
I don't want to eat you. I don't want to eat anybody. I just get so hungry. I'm just too big.

EDWARD
Did you ever think that maybe you're not too big, but maybe this town is just too small?
I've heard in real cities there are buildings so tall you can't even see the tops of them.

GIANT
Really?

EDWARD
Oh, I wouldn't lie to you. And all-you-can-eat buffets. Now, you can eat a lot, can't you?

GIANT
I can.

EDWARD
So why are you wasting your time in a small town? You're a big man. You should be in a big city.

GIANT
You're just trying to get me to leave, aren't you?

EDWARD
What's your name, giant?

GIANT
Karl.

EDWARD
Well, mine's Edward. And truthfully... Well, I do want you to leave, Karl. But I want to leave with you.

GIANT
You think this town is too small for you?

EDWARD
Well, it's too small for a man of my ambition. So, what do you say? Join me?

GIANT
Okay.

EDWARD
Okay.

Happy Thursday,
Teflon

Passing On

2012-01-25T11:33:00.004-05:00

Our beloved friend Jonathan Harwood passed away this morning.

You'll find his picture in the dictionary under the word friend.

We'll miss him.

Another Good Job

2012-01-25T07:33:00.003-05:00

OK, you can do it, you can do it.

Type. Sweep. Cut. Paste.

Hold breath.

Click debug.

Watch screen.

See chart.

Notice lack of breathing.

Breath.

Notice results.

Wow, it worked! I totally nailed it on the first run.

That's what I'm talkin' bout. Friggin' amazing what I can do.

OK, now let's add the labels.

I've been working for the last few hours writing graphics routines that will dynamically generate pie charts, bar charts and column charts based on results from database queries. I spent time with a bunch of off-the-shelf charting packages like Google-charts, but none of them do what I want them to do. The layouts look fine for simple data, but they get all out-of-sorts when you run more complex queries.

So I decided to write my own graphics library to draw charts.

I'm not sure how meaningful the above sentence is if you've never written software. Many software developers would consider the creation of a graphics library that automatically generates charts from database queries to be a substantial undertaking. It requires an understanding of graphics, of databases, of web protocols, javascript, php and sql. The diversity of the required skills mandates a team effort. The scope of the project requires planning and design.

Given the required cost and effort, and since there are readily available charting packages (limited as they might be), writing a charting library is not something many would do. And of course, they'd likely never do it if they needed to deliver it the next day.

The thing is, well, I've had a lot on my mind lately and something really challenging (i.e., impossible) and self-contained (doesn't require any other people or resources) might be a nice distraction. So yesterday at about 2:00 PM I began writing my charting library.

There's something about solitary challenge that I find to be regenerative. I like sports where it's just you and the challenge. I avoid exercise classes or gym memberships and team sports. I avoid sports where you compete with other individuals. I prefer to compete with the mountain, the road or the weight. I prefer to compete with myself.

I think that's one of the reasons I love programming as much as I do. It's you, the idea, the computer and the deadline. There's no right or wrong way to do it. You either get it done or you don't.

It's 7:00 PM. I've been typing, sweeping, clicking, cutting, pasting, reorganizing, deleting, compressing and expanding for five hours. I haven't once run the program to see if any of what I've written will work.

I look at the line counts: just over two thousand lines of new software. I load up a query, hit the run button and wait. A nice three-d pie-chart appears on my screen. The sizes of the slices are all consistent with the data. When I mouse-over a specific slice, a popup tells me what the slice represents and what its value is.

The process must be strange to observe. I talk to myself. I hold my breath as if watching a climactic battle between hero and villan. I shout encouragement. I cheer. I tell myself that I'm doing a great job.

Yup, it's got to be pretty weird to watch. Yet, it works for me.

It's kind of funny how our paradigms of encouragement seem always to depend on words from others. How we often shun self-congratulatory statements. What if we didn't need others to encourage us? What if we each contained all the encouragement we ever needed?

When's the last time you told yourself, "Good job!"

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

Good Job

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

Tommy walks up to our table and waits, careful not to disrupt our conversation. His white apron draped over black pants enters my field of vision. I excuse myself from our conversation and look up.

Tommy stands at attention, his order pad in one hand, his pen in the other.

Mr Tumenoska, may I say something to you?

It doesn't take many words for you to know that Tommy's from Southie.

Sure Tommy, what would like to say?

I just wanted you to know that I think you did a very good job raising Eila.

Eila and Tommy work together at a popular Harvard Square restaurant. They're both twenty-two and Eila was just promoted to manager."

Thank's Tommy. Why do you think so?

Uh... Well first of all, she's a very honest person. She doesn't hide what she thinks or talk behind your back. She's the kind of person you can really trust.

I agree, Tommy. With Eila what you see is what you get.

Also, she's a very fair person and she never gets angry or mean.

Anything else?

Yeah. She's like, always happy.

I agree with you Tommy. Eila's a pretty remarkable person, though I'm not sure how much I had to do with it.

Well, take it from me Mister T, you did a good job.

Of course, if you were ask Eila, she'd give you a different take on the situation. I remember people asking her questions like, "What did your parents do that caused you to be turn out like you did?"

Eila's response was always something like, "Nothing! I'm the way I am because that's who I decided to be . My parents didn't do it; I did!"

In the grand discussion of nature versus nurture, there's a missing ingredient: will. One might say that a child's will is in his nature; one could argue that it's developed through nurture. However, it's hard to take something as influential in the development process as a child's will and make it a byproduct rather than a causal factor.

At the end of the day, we are each the person we decide to be.

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

Whatever

2012-01-23T08:01:00.000-05:00

Whatever...

Whatever what?

You know, WHAT EVER!

Uh... no, I don't know. Whatever?

Ugh... are you just stupid or something?

I guess.

Wait! You really think you're stupid.

No, I think that you think I'm really stupid.

Whatever!

Whatever what?

Hmph... OK, let me trie and explain it to you.

Please.

Look, you think you know so much, but you don't know shit.

OK.

OK? OK what?

OK, I don't know shit.

Yeah. You don't.

Yup.

So, uh... Wait, you agree with me?

Yeah, I have no clue as to what you're talking about.

I'm talking about how you always think you know what I'm thinking like you really know me or something. But you don't know me.

I don't know you?

Don't go disagreeing with me!

I'm n... OK.

So, you agree that you don't know me?

If by "know me" you mean that I have you all figured out, then nope. I don't know you.

So, uh.

So I don't know you, now what?

Now, uh.

Do you want me to get to know you?

Well... yeah, of course.

How would you like me to do that?

Well you could start by showing some friggin' interest in what I'm doing.

What are you doing?

See, you don't even know what I'm doing!

No, I just asked you, "What are doing?"

Well why'd you ask that?

First, because it seemed important to you that I know what you're doing and it also seemed important to you that I don't know already. Second, I want to know what you're doing because I'm interested.

Why?

Well, it really has nothing to do with you. I'm just generally interested in the things that people do, but mostly the things for which they're passionate. In a sense, there's nothing special about you in that regard; I'm just interested in people.

You're saying that I'm not special?

Uh... yeah, I guess I am. I'm interested in knowing what you're doing because you're someone in my life. I'd like to find out what you consider to be interesting and important.

But you're not interested in just "me?"

Well, no, at least not as a physiological or spiritual entity. After all, as you pointed out, I don't know you. I'd like to get to know you, at least to start. After that, I might conclude that you're not particularly interesting; I might conclude that you're fascinating.

That's so screwed up!

What is?

That you're only interested in people who are interesting to you, that you're not interested in the people who you should be interested in.

Whatever.

You should be interested in me. How could you not?

Why should I find you interesting? As you point out, I don't even know you and it seems that you're not much interested in sharing anything.

That's crazy! We're related. We're family. You have to find your family members interesting.

Why?

Because... well, I mean... hmm... What would happen if everyone just decided to be interested only in people they thought were interesting?

I don't know. What would happen?

Uh... It would be horrible.

Why?

Because... Well, I don't know. I mean, what if no one found me interesting?

What if?

I might end up completely alone.

You might.

How can you say that!

How can I say what?

That I'm going to end up completely alone! You're so cruel: scaring someone by telling her that if she doesn't become interesting she's gonna end up all by herself with no one to love her.

I told you that?

Your certainly did!

So, why is it that you want me to get to know you?

Whatever!

Chronic Bastardism

2012-01-22T07:07:00.005-05:00

An important distinction that I often speak of but generally fail to communicate is that between predisposed or predestined. Semantically, the distinction is similar to the one between likely and assuredly: might happen versus gonna happen. What makes the distinction important is that pretty much everything you believe is predestined, isn't.

To be clear, I'm not talking about the Calvinistic view of predestination, or in the vernacular, "God made me this way." I'm talking about aspects of who you are that you might qualify as "just the way I am" or "I'm someone who".

You see, there's very little about you that is immutable and most of you is highly mutable, like Michael Jackson's Black & White Music Video mutable. Yup, you can completely change the fabric of you.

You might object saying, "There's no way I can change my height from 5'2" to 6'4"!" or "Look, I could never play chess like Bobby Fischer." or "My disorder cannot be cured. It will be with me for life."

You might be right. However, I would ask you to consider four points.

For millennia we humans have dismissed the things we don't know how to do as being impossible.

It's only been the fools who didn't know something was impossible that changed the game.

You'll always be able to find exceptions to pretty much anything. The question would be: what percentage of all things do the exceptions constitute?

Speaking of exceptions that disprove the rule, another question would be: Are you throwing out that exception to prove a point or do you really want to go from 5'2" to 6'4"?

Believing you can't get from point A to point B doesn't mean that you're stuck on point A. You can still get to points C, D or E.

Functional Difference
It might be helpful to consider the functional differences between predisposition and predestination.

Consider a child with autism. Most people would see his symptoms as predetermined. They may be the effects of something genetic, something environmental or both. There's not much you can do about them. They are what they are.

Another perspective would be:

There's no such thing as autism. Instead, there are sets of behaviors and responses to stimuli that we tend to classify as autistic. When people exhibit some subset of these behaviors and responses, we say that they have autism.

However, saying that they have autism is inaccurate since no one knows what causes the behaviors and responses. There is no autism per se, no identified causal entity, no clearly identified physical state; there's only a loosely-defined set behaviors and responses.

To say that someone has autism would be akin to saying that someone has pessimism or bastardism. It's to take set of behaviors and call it a syndrome or disorder. All we can really say is that some people seem predisposed to exhibit these behaviors and responses, and others don't.

You might be thinking that this is all semantic gobbledigook, but it's not. You see, if you see someone exhibiting a set of undesirable behaviors and responses as his simply being predisposed to them and not predestined to them, then you can do something about them. Moreover, you gain insight into what to do.

Chronic Bastardism
In some ways, autism, alcoholism, depression, anxiety and other collections of behaviors that we've dubbed as disorders are no different than right- and left-handedness.

Someone who is left-handed is so because early on her left was easiest to use; it provided the path of the least resistance. At first the disparity between left and right was small. However the more she used her left hand, the greater the disparity. Had she been unable to use her left hand for some period of time, she would have ended up right-handed. She was predisposed to use her left, not predestined.

In other words, predisposition is your path of least resistance. If you want to change something about you, you either increase resistance on one path (e.g., eye patches to help lazy-eye) or decrease resistance on other paths (e.g., practicing with your opposite hand.)

Some are predisposed to math and science, others to music and art. Some are predisposed to athleticism and agility, others to thought and analysis. Some are predisposed to social interaction, others to internal reflection.

So for the most part, who you are is the outcome of your having followed thousands of paths of least resistance. Changes to who you are have come at times when the resistance levels changed. Something blocked one path forcing you to choose another; as a result, you changed.

There are gazillions of things that you might consider to be not in your bailiwick, beyond your ken, or out of your reach.

They're not.

Happy Sunday,
Teflon

More Than Completely Wrong

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

At some time over the past couple of days you may have discovered or remembered that you have the capacity to be completely wrong about a person, about a place or about a thing. Moreover, you may have come to accept your employment of that capacity on a regular basis as being: just fine.

If so, congratulations! You may well have eliminated greatest barrier to optimal learning and development. You see, being open to being completely wrong is the single most critical factor when trying to learn. It's more important than having the best teachers. It's (kind of by definition) more important than everything you've learned so far. It's more important than memorization or practice.

The key to optimal learning is the willingness to toss out everything you've learned... no matter how long you've employed it... no matter how successfully it's worked... no matter how many people believe it... no matter how respected a person taught you it.

Really! As soon as you're willing to toss out everything you've learned and believed, you're ready to learn.

Note that the active verb is "willing" and not "toss out". This simultaneously makes things easier and harder: easier because there's no mandate to actually toss out anything; harder because you never really know about willingness until it's accompanied by commensurate action.

Profession and Practice
Indeed, it can be challenging to reconcile disparities between belief and action. Each of us is full of them. The two most common methods of reconciliation are denial and situational ethics. The two may in fact make the strongest case for belief in reincarnation as they manifest anew in each generation and group.

Denial is easy to do. Although common side-effects of longterm use are too numerous to list here, they largely resemble those of repetitive-stress-induced injuries.

Approaches to denial include:

Simple	This is your bread-and-butter format best delivered with a splash of indignation. Popular utterances include 'No I don't!', 'I would never...' and 'How could you think that I would ever...'
Semantic	This form is often employed in response to simili and analogy. It provides a great way to pivot past a pesky point and charge down an avenue of distracting irrelevance. When someone compares your disparity between word and deed to an atrocity committed by Myanmar's reigning regime, you say something like, "No, it's totally different..." or "How can you compare my actions with..." In a flash the conversation shifts from your apparent hypocrisy to the other's lack of tact.
Justified	The most powerful and dangerous form of denial, justification, is difficult (if not impossible) for others to overcome and the most debilitating to the denier. Justification allows you to look your word/deed-disparity straight in the eye and say, "I don't care!" One who is justified may appear to be out of denial; he see's the disparity and accepts it for "good" reasons. However, all she's actually done is to wrap up one layer of denial in another. The justification form of denial is typically used to reconcile your more egregious forms of activity to your more altruistic forms of belief. It results in the strongest feelings of regret and remorse once the wrappers have been removed. Formats include the ever popular "it's not practical", the insidious "but she deserved it" and the rabel-rousing "something's got to be done!" If you want to take being completely wrong to a high artform, then justification is the way to go.

Pervasive
So far I've focused on individual complete-wronged-ness and how to make it bigger. However, no matter how wrong you are, it's nearly impossible for an individual to have the impact of a larger group. World-class wrongers know how to take it viral.

Consider the recent protests of Internet companies regarding two congressional bills that might lead to censorship of the Internet. These campaigns culminated Wednesday in a unified initiative to increase awareness and incite action. Google covered its logo with an off-kilter black rectangle. Many sites directed visitors through an intermediate landing page that provided information on the bills before redirecting them to the normal home page.

Although most of these companies are more financially-motivated than altruistically- and philosophically-motivated, I agree with them. Nonetheless, Wikipedia did something that rivals the Nazis in complete-wronged-ness. In a beautiful display of despotism, Wikipedia closed the doors to all its content in protest of the pending bills.

"Despotism?", you ask.

Yeah, despotism. About 100,000 authors regularly contribute to Wikipedia with goal of making accurate and relevant information readily available to anyone, anywhere. Wikipedia houses the more than twenty-million articles produced by these authors. Wikipedia is the bank; however, it's not Wikiedia's money.

Still, Wikipedia unilaterally and arbitrarily decided to make "its" content (that they didn't create) unavailable (to those to whom they promised to keep it safe and accessible).

You might say, "It wasn't arbitrary; it was to protest censorship!"

However, that would only be the case if you agree with their justification. Why not make content unavailable in support of autism awareness, or anti-smoking, or labor-equity? Although you can draw lines of rationale, outside its being self-serving, the connection is arbitrary.

You might say that it wasn't unilateral, that the authors contributed to the decision. Although Wikipedia reported that a small number of the 100,000 authors participated in the decision, they're unclear about the actual number who agreed and the bias of the process. They ignored the vast majority. It's despotism at its best.

Best of all, Wikipedia did the very thing they're protesting; they censored the Internet. Why? Because they were justified.

Come On, Now
You might be thinking, "No one's gonna let them get away with that!"

They did! They completely pulled it off. People all over the world supported the action. They took completely-wrong to new heights. A small group of people finds a justification for unacceptable activities that support what is important to them. They identify a villan against whom to perpetrate the actions. They recruit others who agree with the importance of cause. Unthinkingly and skipping right past the denial stage, others join them in unacceptable activities to support an arbitrary cause.

On the surface it sounds like such a good thing. However, it's a perfect example of how one can expertly engineer a magnificent manifestation of complete-wronged-ness.

Fortunately, people don't think too much. If they were to, Wikipedia's actions would have set back cloud-computing a good decade or two. Who wants to trust the Internet to keep your data when service providers can arbitrarily deny you access to it. Moreover, Wikipedia's actions justify greater regulatory oversight. Large monopolistic providers of service that demonstrate the potential to violate the public trust get regulated.

Ahh, I feel better.

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

Ho-hum. Humdrum. Hum drum?

2012-01-20T23:42:00.003-05:00

A Sense of Style

2012-01-20T06:42:00.005-05:00

You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I have a keen sense of style and design. So keen in fact that you might call it acute, acute to the point of allergic.

Yes, I am allergic to style. It's something I work hard to keep under control.

I have to be careful not to look too long at a piece of furniture, a clothing outfit, or a room. Otherwise I start noticing things: design elements that simply are not working; low cost improvements that would dramatically improve operation or effect; leaner and more efficient architectures; colors that would expand, accent, hide or contract.

That's only the beginning. Once I start to pay attention to the design of something, once I see how it could be made better, I begin to obsess. As my mind plays through the improvements, I see opportunities for further enhancement. I mentally break things apart and rebuild them over and over. It gets ridiculous.

So, as someone with drug or alcohol addition does well to avoid drugs or alcohol, I do well to avoid anything that has a specific style or design goal. For example, you might describe our home decor as early eclectic. Everything is orderly and functional, but there's no specific style. If we were to go for a specific style, (modern, Colonial, French Provincial, mach Tutor, Scandinavian or Frank Lloyd Wright), I might never rest. I would become increasingly aware of all the things that were not true to the style. They would keep me awake at night. I start finding inefficiencies in the Frank Lloyd Wright.

I don't own any high-end stereo equipment. I don't contemplate owning any high-end stereo equipment. I avoid stereo stores. I avoid the home entertainment section a Best Buy.

This is unusual for a musician many of whom would rather have a great stereo than food. However, I know what would happen. It's happened before.

I purchase high end components. I get everything set up. I EQ the room. I make sure there are no sound wells and no directly-facing reflective-surfaces. I put on a CD or drop the needle on an LP. It sounds awesome, better than anything I've ever heard.

I listen. I notice something. There's a slight flaw in the reproduction of a bass line I know should have better definition. The presence of the lead vocal is not as strong as it should be. There's a dropout around five kilohertz. I need to get a graphic equalizer.

I tweak. I replace components. I obsess.

I don't listen to music.

So what do I do? I give away my high end system (I've actually given away a few). I head over to Radio Shack. I find a pair of speakers for sixty-nine dollars and a stereo receiver for a hundred. I take them home, plug them in and I'm happy. They sound really good for $169 and are way more enjoyable than the $2500 system.

Generally speaking I avoid high-end anything. I got rid of my Armani and Canali suits. If I need to get "dressed up", I head over to Marshals and see what's in stock. Day-to-day it's black t-shirts and jeans ( though I have a pair of heavy corduroys and some flanel shirts that I don in winter). I had a really nice high-performance Audi that I traded in for a really old pickup truck.

The net is: no allergic reactions. I never think about clothes or furniture or automobiles or home entertainment systems or houses. Nice.

There are three exceptions: my mac, my keyboard and my sax. I'm so intimate with them that I'm unaware of style and variances in quality.

Oh yeah, there's one more. When Iris wants to buy new clothes, I become her personal clothing assistant. We'll wonder around clothing section at Macy's and she'll be disappointed with the selection. She'll pick out a few things and go to try them on. While she's in the dressing room, I run back and forth finding items I think will work for her. Iris dresses and models; I find clothes.

My allergies haven't gone away. I can bring them back in an instant. It's just that, knowing I'm allergic and just how allergic I am, I avoid the allergins.

Happy Friday!
Teflon

Go with the flow

2012-01-18T05:00:00.027-05:00

It's settled. As of now, this is my rhythm. Within a given four-week period, I have two-to-two-and-a-half weeks of great energy, followed by one-and-a-half-to-two weeks of not so great energy. By energy, I mean how I feel physically and the performance of the machinery that produces positive emotions and thoughts.

When my energy is up, I bounce back quickly and maybe even higher than before. I see opportunities and possibilities. Stuff happens and I ride with it. I rant and get over it. Sometimes I don't rant at all. I'm creative and can get a lot done in just a little bit of time. I'm easy and forgiving. Everyone is, after all, doing their best.

On the other hand, if I'm in that other part of the month, I feel tired faster. I don't enjoy tired. My bounce is less bouncy; I may bounce through the floor and keep going down. I curse the opportunities I took (no doubt in a state of stupidity). I thought I'd be able to follow through? What was I thinking? It's not just me! I'm not the only stupid one! Everyone else seems to be falling prey to the same malady (specially the ones living in my house).

Fixer
I tend to be a fixer. Things are out of place, I create systems to make them right. I've focused much of my fixing on this low energy phenomenon. I've had some success with supplements and teas, rebounding on the trampoline, and challenging my beliefs that lead to the 'stupid' judgement. Still, I have to tell you that their combined impact fades in comparison to one single strategy.

I relax.

In our home program with Jaedon, we have an idea that we use to help ourselves become centered and connected to him. It's called No Fixing Jaedon. We decide that he is beautiful as he is and feel gratitude while just being around him. There's no need to fix anything.

I decided to implement No Fixing Faith. If I wasn't focused on fixing, how would I live my life and do what needs to be done, given what I'm experiencing in my mind and body right now?

High energy periods.
I can get a lot done. Instead of conserving, I push things to the limit. If I decide to do a project for someone, it doesn't go on the list. It gets done now. Send me a document to look at, I send it back in 30 minutes with comments and edits. I create new opportunities for myself, make appointments, fill out forms, talk to people. The kids and I have tremendous fun. Isaiah and I have even more! It's a great time all around. It's like christmas.

Reduced energy periods
Rather than experiencing shock and dismay, I welcome them like a member of the family, a family member who needs some special attention, teas, supplements, discussion and reflection. It's all part of the package.

I pace myself. Life at home continues and I continue with it. I may take a nap in the afternoon (previously unheard of!). I know it will pass. If I can't cope with Jaedon's stuff today, I'll cope with it tomorrow (or next week) . No rush. No hasty decisions. Pissed off by something Isaiah did? Tomorrow will be different.

Speaking of Isaiah, I'll encourage him to do the same. I'm not warm and friendly today, no worries. I'll be back!

So, I'm going with my own flow, swimming or floating as is needed. No-one swims all the time anyway.

Be truly loving to yourself today, no matter what level of personal energy you are experiencing right now.

Yippee!

2012-01-17T06:48:00.005-05:00

A few days ago, just when I was starting to believe that this global warming thing was finally working, winter arrived in the Berkshires. Our balmy evenings in the mid-30s (fahrenheit) plummeted toward 0.

Our house is a funky split-level built into the side of a mountain. The first floor is at ground-level on one side, a few feet below ground-level on another and underground on the final two. It houses the garage, the laundry room and my office. Although my office windows open onto the ski mountain across the street, we refer to it as "the basement".

When it gets cold out, Iris and I often take to sleeping in the basement. It has a substantially overpowered wood stove and a nice little pullout bed we got at IKEA. On cold winter nights, it's the coziest room in the house. We both love sleeping in the basement. When we have guests, we always happily oblige them to our bedroom and we sleep "in the basement."

Not a Total Panacea
There are only two downsides to sleeping in the basement. First, you can't just plop into bed; you have open the IKEA foldout. This being a downside speaks more to my predilection for efficiency than the effort required to open and close the bed. It can't take more than a minute to open the bed, lay out the sheets and blankets, and drop the pillows. However, it's more work than just plopping into the bed upstairs.

The second is a bit more significant (yes, even more significant than opening and closing a bed from IKEA). It exposes one of my more challenging flaws. Sleeping in the basement we often go to bed at the same time. However, I tend to wake up about two hours before Iris. The challenge is a disorder I've struggled with since childhood. It's one that my mom asked the doctor about during almost every visit saying things like, "Is there nothing we can do?"

Although I've tried and tried and tried, I just don't know how to be quiet. There, I've said it. I'm not ashamed of it. I am a loud person.

When we sleep upstairs (that's two floors up and on the other side of the house) waking up two hours before Iris is no problem. I close the bedroom door and go down to my office. Separated by two levels of flooring and a sturdy bedroom door, the effects of my problem are minimized. However, when we sleep in the basement, my desk is but a scant four feet from the bed.

The Time-of-Day Effect
The biggest problem is that I tend to be most loud in the morning. I get up really excited about the day. I try to be really, really quiet while stoking the wood stove. I slowly turn the latch that releases the door careful not to let it clang. I gingerly place new pieces of wood atop the glowing embers, singeing the tips of my fingers because I don't want them to drop and make noise. I carefully poke and prod the the various elements until flame erupts and then quietly close the door. It's only afterward that I realize I've been singing the whole time.

I'm not good at quiet and specially not in the morning. I just noticed that I've been whispering the words I've been typing as they appear on the screen before me.

Yippee!
This morning at just a bit past six, I felt the bed move. Iris had just sat up and placed her feet on the floor. I asked, "Are you getting up?"

As she stood and walked toward the bathroom, she said, "Yes. I have a lot I want to do before I go out this morning."

Before I knew it, I had bounded out of bed, raced up behind her, and apparently said, "Yippee!"

Iris turned to look at me, her eyes doing all the questioning.

Then like a phone call relayed through satellite, I heard myself say "Yippee" and thought, "Oh, she's wondering about the 'Yippee' part."

The words often form in my mouth just milliseconds before they hit my brain. I found myself saying, "Uh... I guess that since you're up, I don't have to be quiet this morning."

OK, maybe they form in my mouth seconds before they hit my brain.

Iris looked at me and smiled, saying, "Unlike the other mornings where you were 'quiet', you don't have to be quiet this morning."

"Yippee", I thought, err, said, uhh, then thought.

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

Completely Wrong

2012-01-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Do ever wonder, "What if I'm completely wrong?"

Every one of us has been completely wrong lots of times. It's as solid as gravity. It'd be inversely proportional to the odds of winning the lottery except the odds of winning the lotter are too good. Yup, you've been completely wrong lots of times and better yet, you're completely wrong right now, about something or even many things.

It's a question of what, when, where and how. And of course, why?

No I'm Not!
OK, let's just shoot past the denial part. Think about a time when you were completely wrong. The exercise machine you ordered from the home shopping network... The efficacy of infant baptism... Kenny G forever... Eight-tracks over cassettes... Cassettes over CDs... CDs over LPs...

There's the girl you'd have died for or the guy you couldn't live without. There's car you knew would be a good investment or the job you turned down because it paid too little to start. There's the stock that was guaranteed to hit. There's the solution you knew would work and the one you knew wouldn't. There's the guy you couldn't trust and the one you could. There's the hidden agenda you're sure was there and the facts you bet were true.

So fess up. When were you completely wrong? About what are you completely wrong right now?

Managing Wrongness
The first step in managing being completely wrong (or CW) is recognizing that being CW is an unavoidable fact of life. You do it. You did it. You're gonna do it.

The reason the first step is important is that not recognizing your susceptibility to CW dramatically increases the likelihood of CW. Plus, knowing it's gonna happen makes it a bit easier to take. So say it aloud:

I have been completely wrong!

I am going be completely wrong again and again.

In this very moment, I am completely wrong about a least one person or thing.

Go ahead. Say it out loud. It'll feel good. Let your kids hear you say it. Let your partner hear you say it. Ask them to join you.

OK, that pretty much takes care of the hard part.

Who, What, Where, When?
The second step is to identify things about which you've been or are or are about to be completely wrong. Some are easy to spot; they're the ones that are emotionally loaded. People who get you angry or bring you delight. Situations that you don't want to talk about or can't stop talking about. Any person, place or thing with a strong emotional charge is likely to have some completely wrongness.

Why? Because your emotions filter what you see. It's the "my mom told me I'm a great..." effect.

Note that it's just as important to be open to positive CWs as negative CWs. The reason is that at some point you're going to see that you were completely wrong and you're likely to blame the object of your CWness for having changed... for not being who you thought she was... for betraying you. It's amazing how strong an impact pulling off the blinders can have. You see it all the time when people fall out of love. It's as though they'd been duped by their former lovers when in fact they'd blinded themselves to the obvious.

Hold or Fold
The third step in CW-management is deciding whether or not you want to continue being completely wrong. Just because you know you're completely wrong doesn't mean you have to change anything. You can simply continue being completely wrong, but deliberately so. So your lover isn't as great as you'd hoped him to be; it doesn't mean you can't keep thinking him great. So your kid's no Einstein; doesn't mean you can't still believe in his genius. So the guy down the street isn't ever going to return your 20oz hammer; you can still treat him as though someday he will.

Of course, you can also decide to exchange your belief for a new one. You see, you can't just drop a CW; it must be kept or traded. If you trade, the new belief comes with no guarantees; you may have exchanged a small CW for an even larger one.

What do you do when you've accidentally traded up while trying to downsize? Trade again. It's amazing how easy it is to trade CWs.

Often Wrong, Never in Doubt
Accepting your CWness is a key to confidence. Worrying about getting it wrong or being wrong erodes confidence faster than anything. Recognizing that CW is par for the course means that you no longer need to worry. So you got it completely wrong? So what? Try something else. It's no big deal.

Come on. Say it loudly.

I have been completely wrong!

I am going be completely wrong again (and again).

In this very moment, I am completely wrong about a least one person or thing.

Happy Monday,
Teflon

Please, No 'Please'

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

OK, don't laugh, but I'm starting to believe that sometimes I'm just to subtle.

Pause for laughter.

Granted, there are times when I'm... hmm... "blatant" seems like such an understatement. What's more than blatant? Well, anyway, most of the time I am not subtle. For example, to highlight the longterm effects of someone's sense of justified bias, I jump right to a clear illustration such as the German holocaust from the late 1930's to 1945. To explain the effects of educational methods that employ reward-motivated, prompted-responses (even without the punishment side of the coin), I use what I believe to be a great analogy, dog training.

I don't shy away from words like "stupid" and phrases like "most stupid" (or is it "stupidest"). I don't hesitate to say, "I have no idea what you meant." I'm the first one to let someone know that she smells as though she hasn't bathed in weeks or that he might want to take someone else with him next time he shops for clothes.

I know guys who are "honest" as a kind of schtick, and I know how to say things that get attention. I've had friends who spent years mulling what they'd tell someone "one of these days", and I know what it's like to want to tell someone off, to build your case, to hone those zingers. I know people who have to "speak their minds", but I don't feel compelled to say what I'm thinking. I just say what I'm thinking in as matter-of-fact and clear a way as I can.

Now, the problem with being as clear as you can, by using analogies that amount to what we used to call "big animal pictures", is that people often mistake your intent. They take offense and don't hear what you said.

Therein lies the rub. If you make things too clear, then people won't hear what you're saying. If you make them to subtle, then they won't hear what you're saying. The goal isn't to incite or provoke or challenge someone's sense of themselves with delivery; the goal is to clearly communicate a concept and let the concept incite, provoke or challenge as it may.

Perhaps that distinction is too subtle. Hmm...

Speaking His Mind
Iris returns from a playroom session with Quinn. She's been helping him to better communicate his thoughts and desires. The stages are easy.

Stage 1: Quinn starts by communicating his desires with agitation or expressions of discomfort. Iris sees that he wants something and might even have a good idea of what it is, but she doesn't play twenty questions; instead, she asks him about why he's pacing around the room or what he might be mumbling or why he's crying.

Step 2: Quinn realizes that simply expressing unhappiness isn't working so he points in the general direction of the refrigerator. Iris follows his gesture to the refrigerator. However she doesn't take the hint and suggest, "Oh, you must be hungry." Instead, she says, "Are you pointing at the refrigerator or maybe you're pointing at..."

She walks to the refrigerator and caresses the door with the palm of her hand saying, "This is a really nice refrigerator, isn't it? I like how shiny it is."

Stage 3: Quinn thinks, "What's with this chick? Can't she see that I want some pizza".

He mumbles something that sounds vaguely like "pizza" and Iris, as clueless as ever, asks if he said something. She mentions that it's hard to understand him when he covers his mouth with his hands or he mumbles.

Stage 4: Quinn starts to cave and clearly says "pizza" thinking that Iris will finally get it.

Iris says, "Pizza, did you say pizza? Did you have pizza for dinner last night? Did Susan make you pizza? What about pizza?"

Stage 5: Quinn wonders if Iris will ever understand anything. He decides that he must go the extra mile in order to help her saying, "I want pizza."

Iris responds, "Oh, you used your words. You want some pizza! Why don't we eat some pizza?"

Iris' goal is to help Quinn to better communicate what he wants and to do so in a way will serve him generally, i.e., she wants him to communicate spontaneously, not from a memorized list of phrases. She makes the entire interaction a game between them. She's the dumb dutch chick who doesn't understand a thing unless you're really clear and specific. She doesn't prompt Quinn with the promise of artificial rewards, but instead integrates what she's doing into his day-to-day activities and naturally occurring wants.

As Quinn becomes clearer by spontaneously putting together new words and phrases in new ways, he builds new neural pathways through his brain.

Please, No 'Please'
The process that Iris implements is simple and straight-forward. However it's clear that not everyone helping Quinn understands it. A few days ago Iris shared with me that Quinn had started to insert the word "please" into his attempts to satisfy his wants. He'd done it after Iris failed to interpret his grumpiness. He'd done it when she completely missed his gesture to the refrigerator. He'd done it after she is her clueless responses to a single word.

I say, "Oh, oh, someone's trying to teach Quinn to use the word 'please.'"

Iris says, "Yup."

Teaching someone to say 'please' and 'thank you' seems harmless. It even seems like a good thing. We could all do with a good dose of manners. However, in Quinn's case, 'please' is minimally cart-before-horse and likely counterproductive.

First, simply getting Quinn to say 'please' isn't helping him to develop new neural pathways or to better communicate his desires. In fact, doing so can lead to just the opposite. If everyone around Quinn were to make being polite more important than being clear, Quinn would lock rigidly into words like 'please' and 'thank you'. With a two word vocabulary that more than adequately communicates his desires, Quinn would have little incentive to develop other communications skills.

Second, Quinn's use of the word 'please' at times when he hasn't yet said anything else, makes it clear that someone is playing twenty-questions with him. Rather than helping Quinn to spontaneously string words together to say what he wants thereby expanding his vocabulary and improving his communications skill, they're helping him reduce his vocabulary to four phrases: yes, no, please and thank you.

It seems like such a good thing to do, helping someone to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Not to be too subtle, but it's kind of the worst thing someone could be doing if his goal is to help Quinn better communicate and to become independent.

BTW
BTW 1: Although we can all learn a lot from Quinn, the above is not about Quinn.

BTW 2: Translating the five stages I listed into a step-by-step guide would be a mistake. Both the adult and child must learn to be more spontaneous. It would be easy to make "I want pizza" another form of "please".

BTW 3: There are times when twenty-questions is a perfectly good tact. Sometimes the goal changes (e.g., from communication to sensory system maintenance). Sometimes Quinn needs more help.

BTW 4: Prompts are fine as long as they're open-ended. "Use your words" is really different than "Say, 'I want pizza.'"

Happy Sunday,
Teflon

See Him Like Quinn

2012-01-14T07:15:00.004-05:00

Pretty much every day of the week, Iris walks through the door full of excitement. She's just finished her session with Quinn and she is is positively gleeful.

To see her, you would think that every day involved some kind of miraculous breakthrough or an overwhelming display of affection. But that's not the case, at least not all the time.

Sure, there are times when Iris relates something Quinn did that was new and marvelous (at least by popular standards). However Iris often takes the greatest delight in new and marvelous actions that would positively piss her off if performed by someone else, e.g., yours truly.

She chortles as she tells of Quinn's attempts to gain control by head-butting her. She laughs loudly as she describes how Quinn looked her straight in the eye while holding out his cup, turning it slowly forward, waiting for the contents to spill onto the floor, and then saying, "Oh, oh. Accident." She takes shear delete in Quinn's attempts to ignore, manipulate and control her. She takes even greater delight in how persistant Quinn can be in his efforts.

A situation that leaves many exhausted and stressed, leaves Iris energized and enthused.

Some might say that it's just Iris. That's who she is. She's special.

Although I'd have to agree that Iris is special, I would not attribute this phenomenon to that. Iris has more than adequate capacity to get frustrated, stressed and angry. Put her into a similar situation with an adult manifesting Quinn but perhaps in a more adult manner, and if she doesn't leave the room somewhere in the middle of the session, she'll want time alone afterward. What Iris does, she does intentionally and actively; it's not some innate capacity that just flows.

This morning I was wondering, "Why not see everyone as Iris sees Quinn? What would happen if we did?"

The list of why-nots piles up quickly. You just can't treat everyone as if they were on the autism spectrum. If you were loving and accepting with everyone, then no one would ever change. I couldn't afford the time and energy to do that. It's OK to do so with a child, but at some point people have to grow up.

We all share some form of these deeply ingrained beliefs. By a certain age people should... If I didn't show displeasure, then he'd never... It takes a lot of effort to work with "difficult" people. We act in a manner consistent with them. That guy wears me out. The woman at the DMV made me so mad. People should know better. We act as though our actions were actually working.

A lot of times, they're not.

So what would change if we replaced those beliefs and changed our actions commensurately? Replace aged-based mandates with acceptance and the belief that she's doing the best she can based on who she is and what she believes. Replace too much work with the belief that being with difficult people can be challenging and energizing. Replace showing displeasure to manipulate change with showing delight.

To be clear, although Iris is perfectly happy with Quinn and whatever he does, it doesn't keep her from her agenda to help him change and grow. She just doesn't see being unhappy with his current state as a necessary condition for change.

What would happen if we all saw everyone as Iris sees Quinn?

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

What I Learned

2012-01-13T07:29:00.005-05:00

Last night at writers' group I was lavished with love and attention. I'm not talking about your Motel-6, pull off the road late at night on your way to South Carolina love and attention; I'm talking about your George Cinq walk through the front door famous, important and unannounced love and attention.

It's one thing when your mom takes time to listen to you and ask you questions; it's another when the people listening are experts who really know topic. A little voice inside my head kept saying, "OK, too much time for you. I said, 'too... much... time... for... YOU.' Are you REALLY going to eat the last of the fried ocra? What about everyone else?"

Jenny, Wil, Susan and Iris, thank you. Y'all are so much more than I deserve.

After group, Iris and I talked.

All night long, I processed.

Here's what I learned about me.

Why do I write every morning?
The first thing that comes to mind is ridiculously simple; I write every morning because I said I would. It seems so pedestrian and uninspired, but when I dig down to the bottom of my stack of motivations, it's the one supporting all the others. There are days that I don't particularly feel like writing. There are days when allocating time to writing is going to cost me big-time. There are days I can't wait to write. There are days I don't write. Still, the core of it is simple: I told Iris I'd write every day unless someone else had already done so, and I do.

It's not the only motivation; it's simply the common thread.

A side-effect of writing nearly every day (verus every day) is being able to see an unanticipated side-effect of writing: I feel stronger, clearer and more focused on the days that I write. A secondary reason is: I write because it feels good to write.

Writing for whom?
Last night Will pointed out that there's always someone for whom you're writing. It can be someone particular or a synthesized aggregate of everyone who ever... or the world court hearing your case. Will asked me, "So, who do you write for? Who do you picture as you write?"

A lot of mornings I'm keenly aware of the who part. I write for my dad. I write for Scott. I write for Jonathan. I write for Mark K. I write for people who don't understand autism; I write for people who do.

There are mornings when I'm more aware of method and technique. I write with Will and Jenny in mind. I try to hear their feedback and guidance. I take time to read what I've written and to rework it. I take time to enjoy the craft.

Other mornings, it's not so clear. I write to clarify and understand. There's something about translating vague thought into prose that helps. On those mornings, my awareness is different. I write to me.

Who and Why?
I realize that the who is intimately related to the why. There's part of me that would like to be a great writer. There's part of me that would like to write things that people find helpful or uplifting. I'd like to do both, but if time forces a choice then the latter trumps the former.

I don't always know if what I write is useful to anyone. It's really nice when someone tells me that they found a post useful. I just have this sense of common threads woven among us and that the more different you are, the less likely you are to find them. If you're way down the tails of the bell curve, it's nice just to see that someone else thinks like you do.

I'd probably write even if I were the only one ever to read what I'd written. (Sometimes I'm pretty sure that I am). If nothing else, I'll be able to look back a few years from now and say to myself, "What the heck was I thinking when I wrote that?"

Unruly Child
Another thing I learned last night is that I'm an unruly child of the universe. Unruly children hold the belief that it ain't necessarily so. We always look for the flaw in the defenses, the hint that dictate handed down from above may have loopholes.

My daughter Joy was an unruly child always looking to see if you really meant it when you said, "No." At three, my grandson Jack is keenly aware of whether or not someone has what it takes to back up his ultimatums. My dad developed unruly childishness later in life.

Of all of us, I'm the most incorrigible. I know that in statistics there is no such thing as 100% probability. Therefore, even if the experience of all mankind were to say thus and such, I'd maintain this indefatigable belief that it ain't necessarily so.

Illogical
Another thing that I learned is that I've come so far in my efforts to appear logical and left-brained, that people think I am. I never thought I'd pull it off.

I don't think like most people. I don't think like almost all engineers. I don't work through problems step-by-step, figuring out the answers. I just see them.

When I wrote music as a kid, I didn't learn theory and composition and how to build up arrangements. I just heard the parts and learned how to write them down.

It's the same with software. I see what I want to do and start typing.

However, there's a problem with that if you're working with engineers. They want you to explain what you're doing and why it's going to work. So I learned to translate my visual intuition into logical prose. Over time I got faster and better at it to the point that I can do it in real time. It sounds as though I'm building a logical argument when in fact I'm just deconstructing what I see and reconstructing it in prose.

I hadn't realized how good I'd got at it.

There's More
I've got so much more processing to do.

Will, Susan, Iris and Jenny,
thank you, thank you, thank you!

Happy Friday,
Teflon

Piece-O-Cake

2012-01-12T07:09:00.002-05:00

So, you can do that?

Sure, it's a piece-of-cake.

That means easy, right?

What means easy?

Piece-of-cake.

Yeah, piece-of-cake means easy.

Why?

Why does it mean easy?

I guess? I mean, what's cake got to do with easy?

Goes back to the eighteen hundreds when cakes were used as prizes at fairs and other public events. For example, there was something called a cakewalk. Couples walk in a circle around a cake and the best looking couple wins the cake. They keep going til everyone has won. Makes it near impossible to lose. Hence, we use cakewalk and piece-of-cake to refer to something that's easy.

Uh, huh... So that means you can do it, right?

Sure, piece-o... yes, I can do it easily and quickly.

How come?

How come what?

How come you can do it easily and quickly. They told me down in IT that it would take weeks and that it might even be impossible. They said they'd have to keep my laptop the entire time. When I told the guy that I need my laptop for work and that I can't be without for weeks, he just shrugged.

Yup, IT guys will do that.

But if it's so hard, why is it easy for you?

Because it's not hard, it's just something I know how to do.

And they don't?

Could be or it could be that they just didn't want to be bothered. You know, they tell you it'll take a long time and you decide not to do anything about.

But why would anyone do that? Isn't it their job?

I can't speak to that. I can just tell that it's not hard. It'll take me about ten minutes and your machine will be running about 200% faster.

So that's like twice as fast?

No, that's like three-times as fast.

Then why wouldn't you say 300% faster?

Because 300% faster would be four-times as fast.

Huh?

Well, if I were to say 200% of it's current speed, then that would be 2-times. However, if I say 200% faster, then you've already got your 100%, so you add the 200% to it.

Huh?

OK, if I make your computer 100% faster would it be the same speed as it was before or a different speed?

Different?

Yup. How much different?

100% ?

Yup. So what's 100% plus 100%?

200% ?

Yup. So what's 100% plus 200%?

300% ?

See, piece-of-cake?

But how do you know all this stuff?

Know all what stuff?

Fixing computers and math and stuff.

Well, there's not that much to know actually. You need to know some things, but most of it you can just figure out.

But isn't that hard?

Nope. Piece-of-cake.

All the Wood

2012-01-11T08:30:00.004-05:00

There's a phrase I first heard while working at a start-up company in Boston: Get all the wood behind the arrowhead.

The concept is simple; no matter how sharp the arrowhead it's useless without the mass of the shaft behind it.

You see this simple concept played out all the time.

An entire football team rallies to pave the way for a single ball carrier. No matter how fast he is, his chances of success plumet if the team is not with him.

A lead guitarist lays down a blistering solo as the bassist and drummer pump out a steady, repetitive beat. Were the other players to get showy, it would detract from the solo making the overall effect less powerful.

A CEO cancels numerous projects in order to redirect her company's resources to a single project, one that will make or break the company. She realizes that no matter how smart her people are, a small, underfunded team can't compete with other organizations that are betting the farm on a burgeoning technology.

It's a simple concept, one that has been proved over and over, one that we applaud in others, one that we avoid personally.

The problem is simple; if you put all the wood into the shaft of one arrowhead or just a few arrowheads, you're going to have fewer arrows. What happens if you miss? What happens if you pick the wrong target? What will people think of you when they've got hundreds of arrows and you have just a few? It's overwhelming.

So, we march through our days, business as usual. Not only do we keep all our arrows, we collect more. Our quivers are full, full of useless to pretty good arrows.

And we wonder why we don't see the success in our endeavors that others see in theirs.

How many arrows are you got in that quiver of yours?

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

I Get It... I Think

2012-01-10T06:51:00.004-05:00

Iris talks excitedly about one of her little friends. She beams as she explains how well he's doing, how hard he's trying, how he's defying the odds and expectations.

"He's so smart and quick. You can see that he has things all figured out. He knows all the words. He hears them in his head. But when he tries to say them, they don't come out the way he hears them."

I think, "OK, I get it", at least conceptually, but I still wonder what that's actually like. Then something happened the other day that made it a bit clearer.

I've played lots of percussion and hand drums such as djembe and conga. I've composed hundreds of drum beats. I can hear them. I can see them. I can write them down. I can play them on my keyboard. However, I've never tried to play them on a drum set.

I sit down at Iris' drums to play. How hard could it be. I know this stuff inside out.

I start playing something simple, my left foot on the high-hat, my right on the kick-drum pedal, sticks in each hand. As soon as I add a little syncopation, my feet go completely haywire, nothing like I hear in my head.

I stop and try again. This time my left hand follows my right foot off the rails and down the ravine.

I stop. I slow it down. It's as though my right foot has a mind of its own, a squirming, greased pig racing around the pen. I try to grab and control it, but the tighter my grip, the quicker it squeezes out.

I stop. I go even more slowly, but my feet and hands refuse to cooperate. I feel a tightness in my chest as I try to control my unruly appendages.

I stop. What beat was I trying to play? Thank goodness rehearsal break is over. Time for me to go back to my keyboard and do something I feel capable of doing.

This drumming thing could get really frustrating. If people were to hear me, they'd think I had no concept of music, no sense of rhythm. Meanwhile, I've got all this music bouncing around my head, completely worked out.

Worse, someone might try to "help" me. They'd mean well. They'd encourage me, but I'd be able to tell that they didn't expect me to be able to do it, that they didn't expect much from me at all. I'd want to show them they were wrong, but my body wouldn't cooperate.

Then maybe someone would come along and see me. They'd see that there's more music in me than is evidenced by my flawed attempts at drumming. They'd see that I my difficulties are not with rhythm or music, that they're more simple, more basic. They'd get me away from the drums and we'd play games that'd help me with coordination, games that seemed to have nothing to do with music.

We'd play and play and play. Then, when no one else was around, no one to look concerned at how poorly I played, we'd slip back into the studio and make a game of drumming. She wouldn't look concerned. She wouldn't even look as though anything were wrong. She'd just extend our game to the drums.

I fumble. I misstep. I lose my beat. But it's fine. It's just a game. It's fun chasing that greased pig around the pen. Every once in a while I catch him. The grease wears off. The pig gets tired. It's getting easier.

I start playing complete beats, simple ones. I start playing complete phrases. I add some syncopation. It comes together, slowly at first, but it comes.

I think I get it, at least a bit better than before.

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

Too Much of Tuomo

2012-01-09T07:04:00.005-05:00

Lately I've started to question my general motus operandi or at least an element thereof. When people become resistant to change or seem ready to give up, I push. The greater the resistance or likelihood of quitting, the more I push. Normally I would characterize this as something that I do, not a state of being.

You know what I mean: I am not pushy. I am someone who pushes.

However, I think it's deeper and more pervasive than that. I am pushy. I am a pusher.

Agenda?
The funny thing is I tend not to push for the things that I want, but instead for the things that others want, or at least say that they want. For example, I never pushed my kids to be anything in particular letting them choose the activities they wanted to pursue, their careers, their partners, etc. It was completely up to them.

I was happy to help them think through decisions, but not to tell them what to do. My daughter Eila would often complain saying, "Why can't you just give me the answer?"

On the other hand, once they decided what they wanted, I could get pretty pushy.

Pushy?
In most cases my pushiness comes in the form of challenging beliefs and actions. When beliefs and actions don't align with stated intent, I get pushy 1) by challenging the beliefs and actions or 2) by challenging the stated intent.

A mathematical or scientific hypothesis is either true all the time, or it's not true. If not, you can't fix it by qualifying it. Instead, you have to change the hypothesis until it is true, all the time. I see a similar required alignment between stated intention and beliefs and action. If you say you want A, but then pursue activities that get you B, then you either want to change A to B, or change your activities.

My son Luke decides to become a great guitarist; I listen to him practice. If he doesn't use a metronome, I let him know that he's decreasing his practice effectiveness by 90%. If he sets the tempo so high that he's missing notes, I tell him that he's actually gone negative on practice effectiveness. If he leaves the guitar out where it might easily be knocked over and broken, I put it away and lock it up until we talk and get alignment.

Pushy.

I don't have a vested interest in whether or not Luke becomes a great guitar player. However, if that's what he says he wants, then I do my best to help him. In addition to making sure he has the right equipment and access to resources, my best includes pushing.

Time Management
As I write this morning, it occurs to me that my incessant desire for alignment between intent and action comes down to time management, (my time, not the other person's time.)

For a host of reasons I often end up with many people simultaneously relying on me for help and support. I tend to lend my time and energy to people based on the intensity of their desire to accomplish what they say they want to accomplish. I also tend to take people at face value. Tell me that you really, really want thus and such and I'll really, really help you.

I just noticed that I don't get concerned about whether or not your goals align with anything that I might want; I'm much more motivated by your passion than alignment between our goals. (Wow, I really have to think about that one.)

I push for alignment because, if you're not as passionate as you made out to be, I'm going to lower your standing in my priority queue. It might take a while as I have this other incessant characteristic of wanting to see things through to their conclusions. However, either the activity and beliefs move to align with intent, or I recalibrate my assessment of intent so I can better manage my time.

Weird, huh?

Too Much of Tuomo
Somewhere around fourth grade people took to calling me Tuomo (2-mo). It stuck all the way through high school where people who'd had more than enough of my pushiness came to commonly call the experience: too much of Tuomo.

Nearly forty years later I've started to wonder if maybe I am too pushy. (It takes a while for some things to get through to me.) Over the past couple months, I've been talking to Iris about this. To not be pushy (or as pushy) would be a quite fundamental change for me. I'm not sure who I'd be without it.

It's not that I don't like me when I'm pushy. It's just that others often don't like me when I'm pushy. It's not even that I'm concerned about others liking me. I'm just wondering if their dislike might be merited.

Buyer's Choice
About two weeks into my internal referendum on pushiness, I receive an email from a guy I worked with twenty-five years ago. We were both young technology hotshots who'd signed up for a new, secret project with an extremely low likelihood of success. We'd both been drawn to the impossible like bugs to a street lamp. I was drawn a bit more than he was. I became the pusher.

I've never seen anyone get as angry as he got when he'd experienced "too much of Tuomo". Although I never got scared, I probably should have.

So out of the blue I get this email. He describes times when I'd pushed so hard that he'd felt like killing me. I vividly recall the scenes. I wonder why he's writing me. Is he still pissed off?

Next paragraph, he thanks me. He recalls specific things I'd said in those moments, phrases that had hit home, statements so dead-on that his only recourse was to get even angrier. Yet afterwards he'd decided that maybe... Apparently his decisions led to big changes, changes for which he is immensely grateful.

"OK", I think, "That's weird."

Over the following weeks, every week-and-a-half or so, I get a similar email or Facebook message from someone else.

Really weird, right?

Béchamel Sauce
Saturday night, I'm making gumbo for Iris, Kat and me. As the sausage, shrimp, calamari simmer in the dutch oven, I slowly blend blend flour into a crackling pan of oil to make the roux (the rich brown liquid that makes gumbo, gumbo).

Making roux is similar to making Béchamel sauce. You have to be careful how you add the flour to the oil (or butter or bacon fat) so that you don't get lumps. You have to stir constantly. The only real difference between the two is that Béchamel is a pure white sauce and you have to avoid burning it whereas roux is a deep brown sauce that must be burned just a bit.

As I'm spinning my whisk through the flour and oil, I can hear my mom, pushing. I'm seven standing on a chair at the stove making cheese sauce (you make Béchamel and then add graded cheese). We've started over five times because I got impatient adding the flour and ended up making bricks rather than sauce.

Sixth time's the charm. No bricks. No lumps. I'm stirring and asking, "How much longer do I have to stir?"

"How much do you want cheese sauce?"

I stir and stir and stir.

Happy Monday,
Teflon

You Get Better

2012-01-07T07:18:00.007-05:00

One of the easier mistakes to make is the assumption that something hard will always be hard. Not only do things get easier, but they get so much easier that you'll eventually ask yourself, "What was so hard about that?"

The straight forward path from hard to easy is simple in theory, but perhaps difficult in practice.

Persist and pay attention.

Persistence can work alone, but it takes a heck of a lot longer when you're not paying attention.

Persistance usually takes the form of practice. We normally associate practice with sports, games and the arts. However, practice also works for math, science, history, and language. Practice even works for things like relating to others and child rearing.

Practice, practice, practice.

Paying attention is primarily about aligning practice with the goal of practice. Did I really play exactly what I attempted to play? How was my pronunciation on that last sentence? Did I get the correct answer to the algebra problem?

Paying attention is secondarily about analysis. What did I do differently? Where did I get off the beat? Why didn't my answer match the one in the back of the book?

It you're paying attention, then techniques such as slowing everything down or breaking larger tasks into smaller ones come naturally.

Analytical Shortcuts
There's a cool trick that can save you thousands of hours of analysis. We often associate analysis with putting things under the microscope, breaking them apart and zeroing in. Sometimes the best form of analysis is to step back and view things more holistically.

For example, one of the primary challenges in moving from playing saxophone to becoming a sax player is the development of a signature sound. Unlike the guitar where the character of the sound is built using pickups, amplifiers and sundry effects pedals, the characteristic sound of the saxophone is largely from the player. Most players struggle for years in the development of their sounds. They read books; they receive instruction. It's similar to a golfer developing her swing.

The breakthrough for me came when I stopped listening and started watching people play. I watched stance, changes to posture, breathing, shoulder placement, where they bit into the mouthpiece, the tilt of the head, the flush of the cheeks. Rather than imitating the sound, I imitated the physicality and voila, I got a sound that I liked.

The cool thing about imitating the physicality is that you get so that you can go in the other direction. By imitating someone's physical movements, you can recreate the sound. However, you get so that while listening to someone play, you can recreate the physical movements. You get so that you can hear how someone is shaping his mouth as he plays. You can feel whether his shoulders are stretching forward, pulling back or just relaxed.

Imitation is a great way to learn. In fact, most of our development (walking, talking, being passive or argumentative) is done through imitation. Imitation as a form of analysis works really well. It can also be a lot more fun. Rather than analyzing what you're doing wrong, you mimic what someone else is doing right. The key is to mimic everything, not just the parts that you think are important. After all, if you knew what was important, you probably wouldn't need to be imitating.

The Missing Link
Over the past couple of weeks, I've hit on this theme several times. It's important (that is, if you're interested in getting better, faster).

Sometimes a change to one little thing can result in an immediate tenfold improvement. This is the nature of any therapy or teaching curriculum based on a developmental model.

About ten years ago, I decided to become a snow-boarder. I did all the usual stuff: falling while trying to get on the lift; falling while exiting the lift; figuring out how to get up after falling; learning that you really don't want to dig in with your downhill edge. Most of it came, as they say, "the hard way."

Nonetheless, I got so I could make my way down the mountain. The only problem was that I could only turn in one direction. Heading down the hill, I could turn to my right so that I faced up the hill. Turning to my left always resulted in planting myself headfirst into the snow. I developed a technique: turn right; fall down; get up facing left.

After a few hours of this, I noticed that shifting my weight to make the turn just wasn't working. It occurred to me that I might do better just to flex the board with my ankles. Pushing down with one foot while pulling up with the other allowed me to turn easily in either direction.

I'd like to say that this all occurred to me through my astute powers of observation and basic understanding of physics, but really it occurred to me when this guy who'd been watching me boarded over and told me, "You want to know a little trick?"

Ten minutes later I was carving back and forth down the mountain. It was easy.

If you find yourself struggling repeatedly with a specific challenge, you've been persistant, and you've paid attention, then it's likely that you're missing just one little piece. Knowing that may help you better focus your attention or lead you to simply ask someone for help.

You Get Better
The most important thing to remember (for you, your kids or anyone you're teaching) is that you get better. Really better. Like, way, way, way better.

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

Sick at the Thought of It

2012-01-06T06:15:00.003-05:00

It sounds so ridiculously overly-dramatic that I hesitate to say this, but listening to some people's thought processes makes me physically ill.

I told you it was ridiculous.

OK, I'll own up. Let me rephrase. While listening to some people's thought processes, I make myself physically ill. I am the one making me ill, not the the other person.

By ill, I mean how you feel when you try to read the newspaper while riding in a car driven by someone who brakes and swerves frequently. Or, you know, like riding a roller-coaster after a heavy meal. It starts with a sense of indigestion, then burping and belching, a little reflux and eventually a low-grade nausea.

Ridiculous as it sounds, that's what happens.

Someone starts talking about something that happened or something he believes to be important or something about which she feels indignant. No problem so far, he's just stating what he thinks are the facts of the matter. The car starts to swerve every once in a while as she moves from facts to reasons, logical sequences that justify her anger or explain what caused the situation or prove her point.

Burp. I can feel it coming.

Out of nowhere, the car racing down the interstate brakes, the tail of the roller coaster whips past the crest of the first climb. My stomach rises (or does it fall) as he casually non sequiturs into what he believes is a logical next step. My mind reels as she tosses out a perfectly valid but completely irrelevant factoid. I suppress a groan as he asserts that A caused B simply because they occurred around the same time. I cringe in horror as she mines the pristine field of logic and reason with emotionally laden adjectives and references designed to evoke sympathy or anger or angst. I sigh as she arbitrarily redefines perfectly good and well understood words to her own designs, and then rebuffs attempts to clarify saying that she has a right to her opinion."

I think...

Huh? OK, what you just said might be true, but what's that got to do with....

Wait a minute, why are you bringing up the fact that no one liked you when you were seven?

So what you're saying is that because John ate bologna on Thursday it rained on Friday?

Calling something yellow when it's orange is an opinion. Saying that by yellow you mean orange is a definition.

The reflux gurgles up my esophagus. The nausea sets in.

And yet, I don't stop the car and get out. I don't exit the ride when rolls to the bottom of the loop.

Why?

Hmm... first of all, this phenomenon is not universal for me. I don't particularly care that people are rational or logical. I really enjoy when they're not (which is most of the time).

The problem for me occurs when someone says that she really wants to figure out something or that something is important. I'm not talking about inner-personal exploration; I'm talking about basic how-to's, why-is-that's, and what-is-the-answer's.

I believe that he meant what he said. I earnestly and doggedly try to help her figure out whatever it is. (I'm a good figure-outer and I like to help.) I flip into hyper-rational mode and I think that I become a little too rational for most.

Hmm... I wonder if they get nauseas too?

Happy Friday,
Teflon

It can't wait

2012-01-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

I like the Cyclostyle ink; it is so inky. I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such a fierce pleasure in things being themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud. It is just the same with people....

G.K. Chesterson

The Fork in the Road
"Fierce pleasure in things being themselves" sounds delightful and ... so far away. I've mulling over the idea of gratitude as a daily practice. I think I find myself in a grateful place much of the time, except for when I'm in a grumpy, complaining place. The switch between the two is often not intuitive. Well, it's a simple switch when I'm having a rant. You know the rant, don't you? The times when you just lose it? When I rant, I'm very aware that I've decide to give reign to whatever I had been thinking, usually some judgemental thing about myself and the other people involved. I see the decision point clearly so even when I've moved past it into rantville, I can jump back and take another path.

Fork?
There are other times that are shrouded in mental and emotional fog. Like this morning. We had the triannual department of education evaluation to determine if Jaedon still qualifies for special needs services. I figure these really should not take much time. It takes but a few minutes to say, "Yup!" after watching him race around the offices, turning on and off the lights and locking the doors. Nonetheless, we were there for 2 hours.

The interview/evaluation is not as taxing as the pre and post evaluations times. All that is required is a secure room and my pposition being closer to the door than Jaedon's. Still, the light switch is flicked adnauseum and there are many discussions about leaving the room, in between removing some items of clothing (the room was hot) and taking the therapists's pencil. Simonne and Zachary both had looks of pain as things dragged on. This part is simple.

Pre-Game
Getting to the evaluation requires walking half a block on the sidewalk at a brisk pace with the now 13 year old who doesn't want his hand held tightly and who may bolt in any direction. I stare in panic at the four lanes of traffic zipping by on east Tremont ave as I again face the fact that Jaedon is faster and stronger than I am. He is also agitated by my panic and is enthusiastically trying to get away, increasing his chances of bolting. We finally get into the DOE office without an incident, and I turn to sign us in while he races around the office. The trip to the evaluation room is also eventful, with many stops and some alternate routes.

Post-Game
The trip out is much the same. A staff member said, "You have to hold his hand!" Hold his hand? Does she think that will stop him from getting into her office and tuning off the light?? She better try that! I politely responded, "I can't", meaning "I won't have BOTH of us whipping around the corridor, since I would be the rag doll on his leash!" I explained to another staff member that Jaedon will be locking the office door, please open it back. At home, I walk around with door keys in my pocket but as I glanced at the amount of doors, I thought, there is no way these people even know where all these keys are! Maybe the building superintendent or someone else who may be very far away. I hurried Jaedon out of the restroom before he could lock that one as well.

Many explanations on the nature of the trip home ("we are going to walk to the car, you need to hold my hand, ...") and out the door we went, racing down the sidewalk. In sight of the car, I opened it, and we raced to the door when Jay stopped, did an about face and bolted towards the street, skidding to a halt feet from the edge of the sidewalk, then racing back to the car and dashing in. By the time I sat in the car, I felt weakness in my entire body. I took a few steadying breaths before backing out of the parking spot, thinking about the therapist's questions on family outings.

Debriefing
Sitting at home taking deep breaths, grateful for kids who occupy themselves, I have a few choices to make. It's easy for me to be business-like and unemotional about the day. I can stuff it away. Like the comforter shoved into the already full closet, just a slight turn of the door and it all tumbles out. Stuffing isn't effective. Gratitude is usually effective for me, but the complexity of what I feel after incidents like this morning's short seems to short circuit my thinking and language centers. It all feels unwieldly and disorganised. Like the closet... no, the attic, organization is desirable, but the prediction of the amount of work required causes a quick exit. The attic can wait. But maybe this can't.

So, I'm writing as a way to not let it wait, to continue the conversations with myself, to not run away from the disorganized mush of feelings. And I meditate on Chesterson. Some firece pleasure in the autismness of autism, the Jaedon-ness of Jay, would have done me good this morning.

Whatcha Doin'

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

Hey, whatcha doing?

I'm writing. I like to get up early in the morning before everyone wakes up, tiptoe down to my office, and write. It's kind of a meditation for me. It changes my whole day if I spend just a little time by myself in the morning writing.

Whatcha writing about?

Ummm... Well... I'm not sure yet. I'd be glad to let you read it when I'm done.

You don't even know what you're writing about?

Nope, not yet. I just kind of shut out the rest of the world, start writing, and see where it takes me.

Uh huh...

What are you doing?

Oh, don't mind me. I just thought I'd look over your shoulder while you write. You know, to better understand the creative process.

Well, umm, I appreciate that but I'd really prefer you that didn't lean on me while looking over my shoulder. Actually, I'd just prefer that you not look over my shoulder while I write.

How come?

Uh... You know... Um... It's 5:30AM. No one else is up yet. Well, I guess you are. Still, it's just us early birds and I'm was kinda hoping to get in a half-an-hour of uninterrupted writing. You know what I mean?

Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You want your me-time. Sometimes I just crave a little me-time, time for me, myself and I. No interruptions. No responsibilities. Time where I can just do whatever I want to do with no one bothering me or asking me for something. Yup, I totally understand.

Uh, huh.

Yup, I get it. You do so much for everyone; you deserve some time to yourself. God knows what it'll be like when they all get up. You probably won't get a moment's rest.

Probably not.

I totally understand. I'm going leave you alone and let you write. Yup, I'll just sit over here as quiet as a church mouse. Don't pay me any attention; you just go ahead and have your little me-time.

Sigh...

Oh, just one more thing....

Happy Thursday,
Teflon

It's Possible

2012-01-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the best thing that you can do for someone is to simply let her know that what at the moment seems impossible is possible. You don't have to tell him how. You don't have to tell her why. All you need to do is let him know.

Simple theory, but in practice?

Remember, we're not talking about "telling" them; we're talking about "letting them know". It's different.

Before getting down to how to let them know, let's talk about why the impossible-to-possible transition is so significant.

All said and done, pretty much anyone can do anything that he truly desires. Sure, there's the 0.00001% of things that fall outside those parameters. However, hypothetical examples of the impossible, though plausible, are statistically insignificant, typically uttered only by contrarians and naysayers, and only effective when employed with someone who has not yet developed the art of thinking. So, excluding the contrarian, naysaying, distracting hypothetical arguments, there's nothing that anyone truly desires that they can't actually obtain. (I know what some of you are thinking.)

You might have noted the phrase "truly desires". In addition to eliminating the statistically insignificant cases of can't, you want to eliminate the all too frequent cases of won't. Forget about statements of want uttered in flights of whimsy. Ignore even passionately uttered statements of desire that lack the company of commensurate action.

OK, the "commensurate action" part is problematic; action and desire are a bit chicken-and-egg. Oftentimes, commensurate action only commences once the impossible-to-possible transition has been made. For now, I'll leave it up to you to determine whether or not the desire is there. (Note: If you don't get hung up on the idea that some things might be impossible, then the desire part is less important.)

More Than Words
So, how do you let them know? Simply saying so doesn't always work and for some it never works. Why? If you're someone who often finds things impossible, then it's unlikely that others will believe you when you tell them, "I know you can do it! Nothing is impossible!"

Communicating it's possible starts with you. Where are you on the possibility scale? How many tables have you turned from impossible to possible? How do you react to letdowns and setbacks? All these speak louder than any stream of words you can spill.

If you're someone who regularly conquers impossibility or who only sees possibilities, the next thing to do is to focus on action not assets. One of the biggest mistakes people make when encouraging others is to point out their talents, skills and strengths. You might be thinking, "What are you talking about? If you want to encourage someone, draw attention to their assets."

Actions, Not Assets
The problem is that assets are a house of cards. What happens if one of the assets is removed? What happens if the person whom you're encouraging doesn't buy into your assessment? What if they don't have the assets you consider critical?

Listing someone's assets is a quick fix, but it lacks staying power. If you want to be someone who helps overcome impossible, focus on action not assets. Rather than saying of course you can do it, you have amazing talent, say something like anyone can do it if they really want to, all you have to do is to break it down into steps....

Break It Down
The key to overcoming the impossible is to takes something overwhelmingly big and make it small. When you do so, overwhelmingly big becomes inspiringly big.

If the subject matter is familiar, breaking down a big impossibility is simple; it's easy to teach something that you really understand. If not, it's still quite doable. The key is not to advise, but to facilitate by asking questions. Help the overwhelmed one identify steps along the way.

So you want to have your own business... So you want to ski in the Olympics... So you want to play rock guitar... So you want to climb Everest... What do need in order to do that?

Start with identifying the components. It doesn't matter that they're in order. If someone wants to start a business, it's fine if they identify the advertising budget before they have a product idea. Climbing Everest can start with recruiting Sherpas. The goal is to identify as many pieces as you can. You don't have to identify all of them and likely won't.

Build It Up
The more work I do with developmental challenges, the more I realize that it all comes down to sequencing. You wouldn't believe how many impossibilities can be converted to possibilities if you identify just one missing step in a developmental sequence and plug it in.

Developmental sequences are series of progress benchmarks such as 1) roll-over, 2) lift yourself, 3) crawl, 4) walk, 5) run. You can identify a developmental sequence for pretty much anything you do.

Lately, I've been helping people overcome personal impossibilities simply by identifying the developmental piece-parts, putting them into order and figuring out which one(s) is missing or incomplete.

A young woman struggles with Algebra. No matter how hard she tries, no matter how much help she receives, she just can't do it. As we talk, it becomes clear that she hesitates when multiplying two numbers, hesitates to the point of completely interrupting her algebraic flow. She has all the algebraic concepts, she just hasn't nailed the multiplication table.

A friend struggles with rhythm and keeping a beat. He understands all the principles and can hear when something is on and when it's off. What's missing? I watch him play the drums. Each time he hits the snare drum, his entire upper body leans to the left as though he were playing from his waste. His challenge isn't rhythm, it's fine motor control.

Most impossibilities stem back to one or two missing developmental steps. Each impossibility is itself a step along the way to another. Once you've broken down the big impossibility and organized the pieces into developmental sequences, all you have to do is work on the missing or underdeveloped ones. If they're too big, all you have to do is break them down and sequence the new pieces.

Piece by piece, you build toward possible.

Note: It makes absolutely no sense to work on a dependent step once you've identified a missing or incomplete step on which it depends.

What Exactly?
The beauty of getting past impossible is that once you remove impossible as a reason not to do something, the something often morphs becoming something more desirable and obtainable.

Impossibility clouds vision; removing it provides clarity. When you see clearly, it's easier to manipulate what you see.

"Seeing what it would take to become an Olympic skier, I now realize that I'd prefer to be a really good local skier, maybe even a ski instructor."

"Now that I know I could be a rock star, I realize that I really don't want that kind of life. I'd rather play in clubs around town or at church."

"Now that I see my way to raising millions in venture capital, I'd rather go it on my own and start with something small that I can fund myself."

Removing the cloud of impossibility sheds new light that often results in a change of desire.

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

Room for Nothing Else

2012-01-03T06:49:00.009-05:00

When Norman Vincent Peale's book, The Power of Positive Thinking, was first published in 1952, it was dismissed by the mainstream orthodoxy of psychology and psychiatry. Nonetheless, it stayed on the New York Times best seller list for 181 consecutive weeks. Although I can't say that I agree with all that Dr. Peale professed, he offered a lot of really useful advice. Useful that is, if you want to be happier, more confident and more productive.

A Finn in a Strange Land
A little more than a year ago, my dad, an old Finn with a thick accent and deeply entrenched northern attitude, moved to northwestern South Carolina. He moved there to be near my mom's family. He spends time almost every day with my uncle Johnny (my mom's brother), my aunt Wanda and my cousin Rebecca. They've made him an integral part of their family and they actively include him in all they do.

Along the way to South Carolina my dad managed to burn through a lot of good will. Moving from place to place, looking for a fresh start, hoping for a big change, he exemplified the old adage, wherever you go, there you are.

The pattern was easy to see and perhaps more common than I imagine.

Move to a new town.

Settle into a nice place.

Meet friendly people.

Build a routine.

Talk about how much better things are here than they were there.

And then as the months proceed...

Start to see similarities between your old environment and your new one.

Allow the negative similarities to crowd out the good stuff.

Begin to feel lonely and depressed as the newness wears off.

Start drinking.

Withdraw from the people around you to hide your drinking.

Get annoyed with all the things that are wrong with the new place.

Spend hours on end watching Fox News by yourself.

Get annoyed by all that's wrong in the world.

Limit your verbal expression to complaint and concern.

Become emphatic.

Become belligerent.

Start looking for some place new.

Knock on wood, although dad's had his moments, he's doing great in South Carolina. I see two reasons for this: 1) I think dad's come to see that he's run out of places to move to and 2) my uncle (who's much nearer my age than my dad's) and his family are so wonderful with my dad that it's really hard for him to complain.

A Visit
Last week, my seventeen-year-old cousin Rebecca and her friend Anna brought my dad from South Carolina to our house for a visit. Rebecca, Anna and Iris went to New York for a couple of days leaving me and dad. We talked about what we're each doing. We talked about my kids. We entertained friends and family who came from all over to visit with Dad. When I cooked and cleaned, dad watched Fox News or slept.

On the afternoon of the second day I began to notice a pattern. Although my dad talked about becoming more positive since moving to South Carolina, any time he made an unprompted statement, it began with a complaint or concern (many of which were tied to something he'd seen on television).

When I shared my observation with him, Dad denied it, but he seemed to take it in.

Seven-Day Positive Mental Diet
Anyway, knowing my dad's propensity for negativity, self-imposed loneliness and depression, I've been thinking on and off about this ever since he left.

This morning, I remembered reading The Power of Positive Thinking way back when I was seventeen or eighteen. What came to mind is what I believe Dr. Peale called a Seven-Day Positive Mental Diet. The concept is simple: for seven days, refrain from saying, thinking or doing anything that would be negative (e.g., complaints, gossip, destructive criticism, fear, foreboding, pessimism) and avoid intake of the same.

It's a simple concept, but perhaps a difficult one to implement. I remember trying several times and I believe the longest I lasted was four days. Nonetheless, it had a dramatic impact on how I felt.

Of course, knowing what I know now, I would perform a little mental jujitsu. Rather than avoiding the negative, I'd spend time flipping any negative thought into something positive.

So what do you think? How about starting the new year with a new diet?

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

PS Below are some quotes from Norman Vincent Peale...

"Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all."

"Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don't take yourself so seriously."

"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy."

"Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds."

"Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture... Do not build up obstacles in your imagination."

"If you have zest and enthusiasm you attract zest and enthusiasm. Life does give back in kind."

"If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal."

Disinterested Interest

2012-01-02T08:03:00.004-05:00

Disinterested:

The state of not being influenced by personal involvement in something; impartial.

Uninterested:

Having or showing no feeling of interest; indifferent.

Over the holidays, I had the remarkable experience of observing dozens of people whom I rarely get to see or rarely get to see outside a given context such as work. I was amazed by the number of people who seemed to have no real interest in the those around them, or for that matter, in anything that didn't involve some form of consumption (e.g, eating, buy, listening to, or watching).

I sit quietly with coworkers at a corporate holiday party or with family members at the kitchen counter waiting for anyone to say something significant or to ask a question. Outside the standard exchanges of pleasantries, references to the weather, rhetorical questions and inside jokes, nada. They seem positively bored. So, I turn to the person to my right or left and ask a question.

I do this a lot and I'm pretty good at it. In no time, I can discover and excavate topics that spark a person's interest. Seat me at a dinner table with a bunch of silent strangers and before you know it, they're conversing vociferously. It's easy, really. You don't have to know what to say. You don't have to cast spells or recite incantations. All you have to do is to be curious about people and what interests them. (Note, the them part is significant.)

When you're curious, questions come easily.

When Questions Don't Work
I explain the "ask curious questions" concept to my seventeen-year-old nephew Matt, a creative and thoughtful young man whom many would characterize shy. He says, "I tried it, but people don't really say much."

After explaining that you want to avoid questions that solicit a yes-or-no answer, I ask him to give me some examples of questions that don't work. As Matt shares his questions, I notice a theme. His curiosity is biased by what interests him. He asks questions, but they all solicit answers that he would find interesting or helpful.

Matt starts out with a general question such as "What do you enjoy most about your work?" However his follow up questions are directed by something in the response that sparks his own interest. This works fine when you share common interests. Otherwise, the questions start to feel like you have an ulterior motive (which you do). You end up directing the responder into areas in which she has no interest and fizzle, fizzle, fizzle, the conversation dies.

It's a different story with my twenty-one-year-old nephew Ryan who is smart, athletic and outgoing. He has no problem speaking up or expressing himself. However, his questions aren't very effective.

After reviewing the avoidance of yes-no questions, Ryan opens with a more general and open-ended one. Like Matt, his follow-up questions tend to be biased by his own interests. However, Ryan has another tool to derail the conversation. Certain responses to his questions trigger something in Ryan that results in his launching into his own story of a similar experience. In a flash, the roles have changed and he's no longer asking questions.

Searching for Clues
On Thursday, my son Luke, his wife Sarah and their sons Jack (3 years) and Casey (3 months) drove out from Boston for a visit. Over the past couple of years, Luke has gone from a nominal state of being bored to one of being intensely interested and curious.

To be sure, the origins of his curiosity and interest stem back to self-interest or more precisely, self-preservation. Finding himself in the role of a young husband and father working a dead-end job did a lot to motivate interest. Over time his interests have become disinterested. What began as a way to make some more money and get ahead at work has now blossomed into insatiable curiosity about market analysis, data mining, and software. He now easily loses himself in the process of learning completely forgetting why he set out to learn something.

As I prepare dinner, Jack (my three-year-old grandson) comes to me looking for a flashlight. When I ask him why he wants one, he tells me, "I'm looking for clues."

I say, "Clues to what?"

Jack looks at me curiously and says, "I'm looking for clues."

As I prepare dinner, I watch Jack as he slowly climbs the stairs to the second floor, carefully inspecting each step. He jumps onto the couch and leans over the back to see what lies behind it. He crawls on hands and knees to look beneath it. He opens and closes doors. He shakes and wriggles anything that might be loose. He looks for clues.

Later Luke walks up to me with two long screws and a small piece of crown molding. The screws are ones specially made for my piano. They lock the action in place. I'd misplaced them ages ago.

The crown molding is a small piece that sits on the inside wall of an opening between the stair well and the living room, one I never noticed before, even the previous week when I'd set out to fasten any loose molding.

Jack's disinterested interest in "clues" led him to find things I'd completely missed during my interested searches.

Happy Monday,
Teflon

Resolve

2012-01-01T12:46:00.005-05:00

OK, it's that time of year again. The time when you decide how the upcoming year will be different, how you will be different. Caught up in holiday jubilance you might have already declared resolutions for the new year, resolutions that you hope will come to pass, resolutions that you may already have compromised or begun to doubt.

Here's a little hint. Manifesting resolutions has nothing do to with hope. Further, resolve is not something that you have or don't have; resolve is something that you do.

So, if you'd like to make this the year where your resolve more than adequately supplies your resolutions, the following guide is for you. Follow the steps outlined below and I guarantee you that you'll more than see your resolutions come to pass.

Establish a Vision
Proverbs 28:9 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he."

At first blush, these seem odd bedfellows. What's vision got to do with keeping the law? You might also ask, "What's keeping the law got to do with resolutions?"

First, the writer of Proverbs recognized that people who simply memorize the rules and then try to implement them, fail. It's unavoidable. While a list of rules and regulations simplifies implementation, it lacks a context or reason. Precise specification of rules and regulations works for computer, but we humans tend to fail when we don't see and understand the bigger picture. At some point we ask, "Why?"

Why am I doing this day after day? What difference would it make if I did something different today? What difference would make if I just bagged this stupid rule?

Without a vision, we have no reason; without a reason, we fail.

The first and most important step in seeing resolutions come to pass is to establish a solid vision of what you want to happen or who you want to become.

Affirmative
If you put any effort into creating a vivid and powerful vision, what I'm about to say will be unnecessary: always state your vision in the affirmative.

"I'm going to quit smoking" or "I want to lose twenty-five pounds" or "I need to stop worrying so much" are statements of intent, not statements of vision. Without a strong statement of the affirmative towards which you're moving, these statements of intent default to visions that are not necessarily inspiring.

"I'm going to quite smoking" defaults to an affirmative vision of "I'm going to experience withdrawal".

"I want to lose twenty-five pounds" leads to "I'm going to feel hungry all the time".

"I need to stop worrying so much" results in worrying about worrying.

Make your vision something that you're moving towards, not something from which you're moving away.

Make It Big
When a child envisions being stronger he has no problem seeing himself as Superman or an NFL linebacker. Put a guitar in her hands and she's playing for a stadium overflowing with adoring fans. He dances for a packed crowd at the Met. She happily accepts her nobel prizes for physics and peace. Creating a wonderfully big and elaborate vision comes naturally; it's an innate part of being human, something that must be unlearned.

If you want to create an inspiring and sustaining vision, make it big, make it clear and make it decadently elaborate. For example...

If you want to lose weight, don't just picture yourself losing a few pounds. Instead, picture yourself walking down the beach in your bathing suit, in the day time, without a cover up, and feeling fabulous.

If you want to play an instrument, forget about making it through a couple of songs; instead, picture a hall filled with people mesmerized by your virtuosity and grace.

If you want to help your child with autism, stop thinking simply about the next steps in his development. Instead paint a vivid picture of him walking down the aisle at his wedding surrounded by hundreds of his close friends.

A vision is not a plan. It's not supposed to be practical. You don't need to have a clue as to how it can be achieved. A great vision is irresistibly desirable, unquenchably inspirational and vividly clear. It's something that you can bring into focus any time you start to doubt or waiver. It'll get you out of bed in the morning. It'll pick you up when you fall down. It'll drown out the voices of the naysayers and doubters.

In fact, unless at least a few people tell you that you're crazy, you just aren't dreaming big enough.

The Disappointment Trap
The number one reason that we limit our vision is because we don't want to be disappointed. You know what I'm talking about. It goes something like, Poor Tommy thinks he's going to be some kind of rock star. I hope it doesn't break his heart when he finds out that he just doesn't have the goods.

Why is it that we think that way? (That was rhetorical.) It's simply because we tie being happy to fulfilling our visions. Worse, we often delay happiness as a motivator to pursuing our visions. It's as though, being happy now would keep us from pursuing something even better.

You can only be disappointed if you make your happiness conditional. Make your vision big and wonderful. In the mean time, be happy.

Broadcast It
Great visions are brought to life when they're shared with others. It's a tree-falls-in-the-forest kinda thing. Once envisioned, manifest it. Don't wait until it's fully baked; you can refine it as you go. In fact, it's useful to invite feedback on how to make your vision bigger, better and more vivid.

Although sharing your vision verbally is useful, I suggest a more permanent medium. Write it down. Record it on your iPhone. Post it on Facebook. Text it. Tweet it (though it may take a lot of tweets).

Find pictures that illustrate your vision and pin them to your bulletin board or tape them to your refrigerator. Post your manifesto on the bathroom mirror.

Make your vision real by sharing it with anyone who will listen and keeping tangible reminders in places where you will see them regularly. Bring your vision to life.

Step-by-Step
Once you've entrenched your vision in the minds of others and yourself, it's time to translate it into the steps that you'll take to achieve it. Don't worry about figuring out all of them; there are some steps that can't be determined until after you've taken others. In the end, all you ever need to know is the step that your taking in the moment; in fact, focusing exclusively on the current step is essential to optimizing resolve.

There are many ways to develop a plan. You can consult experts. You can download prefab programs. You can simply start doing whatever it is you want to do and see what happens.

What I've found to be the most useful way of determining steps to follow is to find someone who has gone from circumstances similar to my own to circumstances similar to those of my vision. There are plenty of people who will tell you how to get from point A to point B and there are exceptions to the following rule, nonetheless, the best advice comes from someone who has done it herself.

Since your vision may indeed be unique, you might seek guidance from different people at each step. When I first started playing saxophone, I had a great teacher, one who could take me through the basics of putting together my instrument and learning the notes. After a few months, I pretty much knew all that he did about the sax and it was time to find another teacher.

The second teacher took me to levels of playing that the first never could have; however, he would never have had the patience to walk me through the basics.

In the end, you are the general contractor building your vision. It's your job to evaluate, hire and fire subcontractors along the way.

Accountability
Once you've determined a set of steps and activities, find someone who'll help ensure you pursue them regularly. It can be your partner or a friend, someone at work or one of your kids. Ideally, it will be someone for whom you're providing a similar service.

Set up regular times to check in with one another to see how it's going. It could be every morning before work or every evening after dinner. Perhaps Tuesdays and Thursdays for lunch. Find someone who will hold you accountable for doing what you said you'd do.

Some people are good at going it alone; however, most of us do better in the company of others working towards the same goals. In addition to an accountability partner, you might find that signing up for a class or joining a club is a great way to help you stay on course.

Every Day
The single biggest way to undermine resolve is to assume that you can do something once, twice or three times a week and see change. In fact, some exercise programs actively promote "rest" days between workouts.

Doing so completely undermines resolve by introducing the notion, "Perhaps I should just skip today?" The moment you call into question whether or not today is a day to pursue steps towards your vision, your resolve begins to unravel.

The single biggest booster to resolve is to pursue it every day. If you're concerned about overworking your muscles, then change up your workout plan. If you're concerned about giving things time to settle in, then vary your learning plan. If you don't have time to do all you'd planned, do what you have time to do.

Whatever you do, never ever introduce the notion: perhaps I should make today a rest day?

A Few More
Here are a few more ideas that can empower your resolve.

First Things First: Don't put off til the end of the day what you want most to accomplish. To the best of your ability, make your resolved actions the ones you take earliest in the day.

Break It Down: If you find yourself reluctant to pursue whatever step you've determined to be next, it could be that the step is too big or too hard. If that's the case, break it down into simpler easier steps. If you can't run four miles, then walk them. Slowly introduce running to your walks. Before you know it, your running time will exceed your walking time and you'll be well on your way to running the entire distance.

Celebrate: Don't wait until you've achieved some significant milestone to celebrate your hard work and accomplishment. Celebrate yourself and what you've done each and every day, even on the days that you don't do as much as you'd hoped to.

Share It All: Share your accomplishments. Share when you've exceeded your expectations. Share when you've not met them. Whether you win or lose, make it matter of fact, just part of your everyday.

Whatever you've set your mind to for 2012, if you follow what I've outlined above, you'll have more resolve and success than ever before. I guarantee it!

Happy Sunday!
Teflon

There May Be Side Effects

2011-12-27T07:20:00.008-05:00

Don't you love the pharmaceutical commercials that end with that guy who's able to compress more words into ten-seconds than should be humanly possible. It starts with something like, "Common side effects include dry mouth, sleeplessness..."

I listen thinking, "Wait, did he just say 'death?'" or "Was that 'in some cases, cancer was reported?'"

More recently, advertisers have wised up to the fact that consumers might be paying attention and changed the method of delivery. Now the it's the characters in the commercial who casually deliver messages like, "If your head swells to twice it's normal size, discontinue use immediately and contact your doctor."

From their tone and delivery, they might have been suggesting alternative places for dinner.

How Silly
In the end, warnings about side-effects (at least as they're typically presented) are kind of silly.

First of all, complex systems always experience side effects when changes are made to them. You twiddle something here, and something way over there twaddles. It's the practical side of chaos theory.

Second, without a notion of frequency, a list of side effects is pretty much useless. Does the side-effect occur once in three cases? ...once in ten cases? ...once in a million cases?

Third, even if you have frequency, all that's typically reported is coincidence of the change and the side-effect; you don't know that the change actually caused the side-effect; you just know that they occurred about the same time. A good question would be, "How did the frequency of the side-effect compare to cases where the change wasn't made?"

Side-effects are an unavoidable part of life. Quite often, the side-effect usurps the original reason for making a change or taking an action.

Unintended Consequences
My love for math, science and programming is a side-effect of seeking a day gig that provided healthcare benefits. I never set out to develop a love for technology.

When Iris began taking Adderall for her ADD, she became more focused and aware of her environment. Interestingly, when she was less aware of her environment, she was more distracted by it.

A side-effect of her increased awareness is that Iris has become more caring. She notices things to be done and acts upon them. She'll see dishes piled in the sink and clean them. She'll hear the drier complete its cycle and fold the clothes. She'll show up behind me with a fresh cup of tea. None of these was an intended consequence of her taking Adderall.

At no time during high school or college did my daughter Eila say, "One of these days, I want to be the general manager of highly successful restaurant!"

My daughter Eila, who is strong both academically and artistically, pursued the paths that one pursues when being a good steward of her talents. Even though she did well, she didn't find the activities satisfying. So she stopped to figure out what to do next.

To make money, she began waiting tables. She found that she loved the energy of a large, busy restaurant. Within a few weeks, her boss promoted her to be a trainer. When she asked him why she was promoted so quickly, he responded, "You seem to be happy all the time, like you really love what you're doing."

Her entire career is a side-effect.

Coursing Through Life
Many of us more or less live our lives according to a plan of sorts. At early ages we identify our strengths and weaknesses. If we don't, others do it for us. Like rain runoff slowly etching channels in places where the resistance is weakest, our strengths (finding the least resistance from life) begin etching channels.

As water etches channels deeper and wider, two phenomena occur: the resistance to the flow decreases and the strength of the flow increases. The symbiotic relationship results in acceleration of both phenomena: the resistance decreases, faster and faster; the flow-strength increases, faster and faster.

The streams and rivers that define our lives evolve similarly. The skills and talents identified early as our strengths become stronger. The resistance to our using them becomes weaker. The contrast to dormant skills and talents becomes so great, that we never develop them. Our lives flow along the paths of least resistance.

That is, until something happens and there are side-effects. Something happens that disrupts the flow creating the opportunity for new channels to be established.

These side-effects are sometimes called "serendipity". That is, if you choose to see them as such.

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

Clerks Don't Code

2011-12-26T07:43:00.007-05:00

It's 4:45PM, some day in late June, 1981. As the second hand passes from twelve to one, my officemate Bob pops up from his chair, grabs his jacket, and tosses a gleeful, "See you tomorrow" over his shoulder as he bounds down the hall towards the elevator.

The Bell Labs workday is officially over. It's time to learn.

I close the door to my office and pull off the cover of my TI Silent-700 terminal, a thermal-paper typewriter with two rubber cups hanging off the back. I plug my telephone handset into the rubber cups (a.k.a., acoustic couplers), dial up the VAX 11/780 and wait for the UNIX login prompt to appear on the thermal-paper that scrolls past the printhead just above the keyboard.

Although personal computers have hit the market, they're still considered something for kids and hobbyists, not businesses. The current trend in business is the move from room-size mainframe computers running batch jobs (one user at a time) to refrigerator-size minicomputers running time-sharing systems (many users at a time). Our VAX 11/780 is one of the more powerful minicomputers nominally supporting thirty to forty users at once. However, after 4:45 the number of users drops to fewer than ten and sometimes I get the whole machine to myself.

It's not as though I know what to do with an entire VAX when I get it. Even if I did, with its 300-baud modem (that's one third of one-kilobit) and thermal-paper display, my Silent-700 can't keep up with much.

I log into the system and type: learn.

learn is a program designed to teach people how to use UNIX. learn is my infinitely patient tutor and mentor. Step-by-step, learn explains an activity, provides me opportunities to try it, and then lets me know whether or not I've done it correctly. If not, we repeat the process as many times as it takes for me to get it.

In 1981 there are no icons, no WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editors, no graphical interfaces, no mice. To use a computer, you type. learn is showing me how to navigate the UNIX shell (the basic command-line interface) that lets you find files and folders, and lets you run applications. learn is teaching me how to use ed, the line editor used to create everything from documents to programs.

If you want to format text for printing, you can't just sweep a block of text with your non-existent mouse and select "bold" from a non-existent menu. Instead, you have to enter codes that tell the printer what you want it to do. Basic document formatting requires something akin to HTML, something we call NROFF. learn is teaching me NROFF.

And so it goes, day after day, week after week, month after month. Every night at 4:45, it's just me and learn.

Day Gig
My day-job is to manage the document library for a large development project called 3B5, a new UNIX washing-machine-sized minicomputer based on a new microprocessor the BELLMAC-32.

In large development projects like 3B5, it's important to document the design and architecture of various components. It's even more important to ensure that changes to design are reflected in the documentation. You've got Joe working on thingamawat-A and Mary working whosiwit-B. You don't want to find out three months down the road that Joe's thingamawat no longer works with Mary's whosiwit just because Mary decided to change her design and forgot to tell anyone about it.

I participate in "Change Control" Meetings where developers propose design changes, a group assesses the impact of those changes, and changes are denied or approved. If approved, the developer must update his design document. My job is to to make sure that the developer accurately updates her document and catalog the new document in the library. I also have to respond to documentation requests. Someone emails me, I photocopy what they want and send the copies to them via company mail.

AWK
One night, learn introduces me to a new topic, AWK, a programming language named for its creators, Al Aho, Brian Kernighan and Peter Weinberger, guys I would later get to know and work with. AWK's designed for processing text-based information. It has wonderful tools for pattern recognition and text replacement. As learn walks me through the basics I feel as though I've come home. Everything about AWK comes easily. Before I know it, I've completed learn's course.

Standing at the photocopier the next morning, I think, "Why couldn't I just write an AWK program to do this? Why not have AWK read the email request, figure out what documents people want, and then email the documents back to the requestor?"

Over the next few weeks, I spend my evenings writing the software that within a month will completely automate my job. After five weeks, I stop even checking to see if my AWK scripts have properly processed the requests. With my job automated, I spend more time with learn.

Clerks Don't Code
One day, I'm sitting in my office after work watching my AWK scripts scroll by. My feet are up on the desk and my guitar is in my hands. Suddenly, the door swings open. It's my boss, Dave.

He looks at me, my guitar and my Silent-700 scrolling away. He says, "Mark, would you please come to my office."

I follow him wondering what's up. Dave closes the door and asks me to take a seat. He sits down across from me, looks me in the eye and explains. "I understand that you've been writing programs. Clerks aren't supposed to be writing programs. Clerks don't code."

My heart sinks. I think, "I really need this job. I need the healthcare. I was just trying to learn as much as I could."

Dave says, "So, you're not a clerk any more."

I die.

"We're moving you to a development team."

I think, "I'll just go pack up. I didn't mean... You're what?"

The next day, my trusty Silent-700 is replaced by a brand new HP-2621 with a 2400-baud modem and Step by step, with infinite patience, learn is teaching me "C", the programming language of UNIX.

Happy Monday,
Teflon

Think Different(ly)

2011-12-23T08:08:00.007-05:00

Papa was a rollin' stone
Wherever he laid his hat was his home
And when he died
All that he left us was alone... lone... lone... lone...

It's 1973. I'm a sophomore at Wheaton Central High School. The Temptations, Papa Was a Rollin' Stone is climbing the charts and I'm trying to understand the lyrics. I know the words and all; I just can't figure out the meaning of the chorus' last line: All that he left us was alone.

The line haunts me. I think, "Why would someone owe money to some who died? Why would some who's dying make a loan to someone else? Maybe he took out a loan from a loan-shark and now the loan-shark is after his family?"

It just wouldn't occur to me that the phrase was "alone" and not "a loan".

It's 1997. Apple Computer has just launched it's new Think Different ad campaign, a campaign aimed at converting PC Users to Mac Users. The print and television ads are replete with images of people who's lives changed the world, people who scorned convention and followed the path their choosing.

The ads are inspirational and yet, each time I read or hear the phrase, "Think Different", I compulsively say (sometimes aloud), "LEE. Think different-lee. 'Think' is a verb. It requires an adverb, not an adjective."

It's 1994. In a PBS documentary, Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs says...

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

It's January -8, 2012. There's the stuff I know I can change. There's the stuff I know I can't. There's the stuff I think I can change, but can't. There's the stuff I think I can't change, but can. It's the last two that are the most challenging.

If I could only discern the difference before hand.

But then, what fun would it be if I knew.

Happy Friday,
Teflon

It's not there!

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

I remember this happening so many times: My grandmother would say, "Faith, go look on the dining table for the bottle of ..." "I don't see it, Momsie" "What you mean, you don't see it??" footsteps.... "See it there!??? Did you look???" I usually look at the offending item in amazement. Just a minute ago it wasn't there. I looked. I really did. I just didn't see.

Have you ever not known something and didn't know you didn't know it? You may have discussed topics based on this thing you didn't know you didn't know, answered questions knowledgeably, so you thought, spoken of things as impossible. Suddenly, you find out something new. It's as if a rhinoceros appeared in the room. How could you have missed that? How did you live before, not factoring this bit of information in?

Big, noise reducing headphones on, I'm watching an episode of the Sing Off, an a capella vocal competition and my current obsession. I love a capella because I get to really listen to the voices, not disturbed by electric guitars and the like. This year's Sing Off has taken a capella to another level, because all the sounds, electronic, scratches, reverb, cello, flugle horn, brass band, all of it is still there, done by human voices. I find myself lost inside the music, listening to a particular song over and over again, each time hearing something new. As I sit listening, I notice that I can't hear a particular vocal part. I see the guy singing, I just don't know what he's singing. I replay a few times, listening intently. There are 3 members in this particular group, 2 are doing the bass/drum/percussion sounds, 3 are singing the words. It shouldn't be that hard.... Isaiah is on the bed beside me and he hears the somewhat faint strains of what I'm listening to.

You don't hear the 3 separate parts?
What? I take off the headphones
I'm just wondering if you don't hear the 3 separate voices. I know who is singing what because I hear the 3 voices differently and I know what each person's vocal texture is and...
I glance at him in annoyance. If I could hear the 3 voices separately, I would not be sitting here repeating the last 15 second interval over and over.
No, help me understand. You don't hear the 3 distinct voices?
You aren't being helpful. You can hear them. I know. Now, shut up about it. I'm trying to hear them.
I put the headphones back on.
When you hear what you listening for, tell me how you do it. Since I hear it, I don't know what to do when .... tells me she doesn't hear it.
What?...
....
Is it because the part he is singing is an alto? Alto is sometimes harder to hear and...
What? I take off the headphones.
He repeats and I give him another look that hopefully communicates his lack of helpfulness.

Finally, I am able to hear what I'm listening for.
It was a combination of factors. The guy I was listening to has a very high voice and he wasn't singing with and edge or texture in his voice, I was hearing him and thinking it was the girl. ...

But how did you hear it? What did you do?
When I don't hear the parts in the arrangement, it's as if I'm only hearing one thing. The music is just one complex thing. I have to pretend the music is a room I have to step into. I have to listen from inside the music. It's as if I literally turn and focus my attention on the one thing, until it's clear. Then I turn and look at something else. Then I check if I can quickly switch my focus from one thing to another and still be aware of both things.
Silence.

I'm not sure how helpful that was to him... but it was very helpful for me to clarify my process and the big role of my imagination. Then, I can use it more intentionally! If I contrast my not finding the bottle on the dining table that Momsie sent me to retrieve and me finding the vocal part:

I owned wanting to find the part. I was less intentional about the bottle
I believed the part was actually there, I wasn't sure about the bottle
I decided I could find it, so I didn't back away from the initial feeling of confusion when I realized I couldn't find what I was looking for.
I paid attention to what I was doing to get a glimmer of success so I could do it more

There is always information around us that we aren't aware of. Our awareness is mostly dependent on our perception of expedience and necessity. What do you do to decide if you need to increase your awareness? If you decide you want to be more aware, how do you go about discovering the rhinoceros in the room?

Have you tried an unfamiliar position lately?

2011-12-21T21:30:00.001-05:00

What is Y?

2011-12-20T09:35:00.003-05:00

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

One of These Days

2011-12-19T06:51:00.007-05:00

Iris says, "Yeah, I really have to google that and see if it's going to work for me."

I say, "Why is it that whenever anyone says, 'I really have to' about something, it's the last thing they're going to do?"

Iris laughs. "Hmmm... How many weeks have I been saying it?"

"Pretty much ever day since Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, I really have to do something about that."

We laugh.

Then I realize that I'd not meant my question rhetorically. I mean, there was a statement in it and all, but I still wonder why so many activities that merit imperatives (have to, need to, got to, must) are activities that once mandated never take place.

Hmmm...

OK, I get it as a passive-resistant tactic to avoid conflict. "Yeah, I really gotta do that some day" sounds like you're in agreement when what you're really saying is, "Would you just stop bothering me with this!" However, conflict-avoidance can't be the only reason, can it? There must be other motivations.

Perhaps it's a keep-alive, an incantation that won't necessarily lead to completion of the activity, but will keep it from fading into the milieux of would-haves and could-haves that clutter our lives. As long as I keep saying, "One of these days..." I'll keep alive the hope that one of these days may actually come.

That makes sense for things that are nice-to-haves or would-be-funs (I guess), but I'm not sure about imperatives. I must do this, seems to merit more than a keep-alive, right?

Maybe I've misinterpreted the phrases 'need to', 'gotta' and 'have to'; perhaps in the vernacular they imply something other than imperative? Like... um... like... OK, if they're not imperative, what are they?

I'm going to stick with them being imperatives (of sorts), but assume that they're invocation reflects some kind of internal conflict, a clash of the imperatives. "I gotta, but I can't because..."

Hmm... this has potential. If it's a conflict of imperatives, then it can be pretty easy to ferret out a solution. First thing is to identify the cause behind the because: ...because I can't afford it right now. ...because they'd never let me do it. ...because I'm too busy. ...because I first gotta get into shape (ooh, there's another because behind that one.)

It would seem that once you unearth a core cause behind the conflicting imperative, you could evaluate it to see if 1) it is indeed an imperative, and 2) if it's really more important than the imperative that it's precluded.

What do you gotta do some day?

Happy Monday,
Teflon

PS If you're not sure, you might ask people around you. They may have a long list of your one-of-these-days aspirations.

You Can Learn Anything, Fast!

2011-12-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

A while back, I came of with a concept that I called Learning Quotient or LQ, a metric of one's capacity to learn. Although learning oftentimes requires the acquisition and memorization of knowledge, LQ focuses on the mastery of skills and techniques, pattern recognition and the ability to figure out what you don't know.

When I first wrote about LQ, I suggested that one could take measures to improve her LQ, to increase the rate at which she learns (more stuff in less time) or the stickiness of what he learns (like riding a bike). I also shared that Iris didn't see increasing LQ as a particularly useful or attractive activity--why would anyone need to learn faster?

Well, that last part has changed over the last couple of years as Iris has transformed herself into a friggin' learnin' machine. We've been playing with ways to increase her LQ.

LQ & IQ
Before we start, let's talk a minute about the misguided notion of IQ or Intelligence Quotient, the nearly ubiquitous measure of intelligence. At first blush, you might associate IQ with LQ. You might even see them as the same thing. You might have heard things such as "a person's IQ never changes." You might have taken an IQ test and know your IQ number.

Here are a few things important to remember about IQ and intelligence.

IQ doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a static capacity for intelligence and no bio-medical basis for statements made about it. IQ was invented by psychologists and psychiatrists.
IQ studies are incestuous. How do you evaluate a new IQ test? Make sure that it yields results similar to previously approved IQ tests. (How much IQ does it take to see that as stupid?)
Intelligence is not about knowledge or memorization. Winning at Jeopardy requires no intelligence. A computer could do it.
Intelligence is not an innate capacity; it's simply a side-effect of LQ. Improve your LQ and your IQ will magically increase.

Learn Anything
Let's get down to the nuts and bolts of improving your capacity to learn. It all starts with deciding to start learning again.

Everyone of us enters this world a bad-ass, learning machine. We acquire mobility, language, math and science. We learn problem solving and complex communication. The more we learn, the faster we learn, gaining speed and momentum.

And then we stop!

Like a freight train having exhausted its fuel while steaming ahead at full throttle our learning stops. And like a freight train, the great momentum of our learning carries us forward for a long time, slowing ever so slowly, perhaps imperceptibly, until we perform almost no learning at all. We simply regurgitate what we're learned, make small incremental changes to it, and shift from learning to memorization and intellectual masturbation.

In the absence of active learning, many of us slip into Jeopardy-induced learning-comas, our life support flowing vicariously through the learning and insights of others. Some of us seek help to reignite the our dormant capacity to learn. We sign up for classes. We read books. We talk about how we're going to... But we don't.

The tragedy is that the answer is so close at hand. It's just been obscured by years and years of misinformation about learning. Learning does not come from instruction. Learning does not come from reading. Learning is not a side effect of googling. Learning comes in doing.

To learn, you must do.

To do, you must try.

To do anything significant, you must try repeatedly.

To try repeatedly, means you must fail.

To succeed after failing, you must see failing as a good thing and learn from your failures.

To learn from your failures, you must be become intimate with each them.

To become intimate with failure requires you to pay attention or to foofooize it: be present with your learning.

Be the Ball
I'll provide you a quick list of LQ tips below, but they all depend on one thing more than any other: be aware of what you're doing, i.e., focus; pay attention; be present. Nothing else matters if your focus is diluted.

Focus is one of those things that's simple, but hard. Even the awareness of being focused dilutes your focus. However, it's not a bad starting place. So, to start, focus on being focused. Here are some things to remember...

It's easy to fool yourself into thinking you're focused when you're not. For example, if you're concerned about how well you're doing or whether or not people like what you're doing, you're not focused on what you're doing. You may think that you are, but you're not. Focus is about the trip, not the destination.

Focus is not just a mental thing; it's a physiological, multi-sensory phenomenon. If you're learning to play the bass guitar and you focus exclusively on your finger position, but ignore the texture of the strings against your fingers or the tightness in your shoulders, you're not focused. What about that buzz the strings make each time you relax your grip? What about the friction of the string against your right index finger as you pluck it?

OK technically, I'm now misusing the word focus as I'm describing more than one focal-point. So let's shift to the word awareness. Being aware requires you to pay attention to multiple focal-points that, when combined, provide the complete experience of what you're learning. To be optimally focused, you must become aware of and catalog the various sensory stimuli that compose the learning experience. Basically, you want to create a personal experiential checklist.

Since you can't actually focus on more than one thing at a time, you'll need to establish priorities for each item on your checklist. If you're running, the focus-points that help you maintain balance will be more important than maintaining a relaxed neck and shoulders. However, you still want to allocate some focus-time to the latter. It's easy to become so focused on the primary stimuli, that you ignore the secondary and tertiary stimuli (hence repetitive stress injuries).

Practice shifting focus (remember, we're focused on focus, which is not necessarily focused on the activity.) You can do this by counting, e.g, count ten footfalls and then check your neck and shoulders for tension. You can do this on the clock, e.g., a minute's passed, how's my posture? Focus on shifting focus.

Once you've got the stimuli down, it's time to play with them. What happens if I lengthen my stride? What happens if I shorten it? When I press the strings a bit harder, that buzzing sound goes away. When I relax my grip, my fingers move more quickly and accurately. Play with your new toolkit of sensory focal-points.

Once You Focused
Once you've got down focus, or at least are working towards it, there are many techniques that can improve your LQ. Here are some...

Go Slowly: There's no bigger waste of learning time than doing something quickly and sloppily. It's actually worse than wasteful; it causes you to learn what you don't want to learn. You teach yourself things that'll you'll need to unlearn later.

Whether solving a math problem or learning a scale or running a mile, never do it faster than you can do it well.

Break It Down: There are very few complex tasks that cannot be decomposed into smaller, simpler tasks. For example, it's easy to improve by a factor of ten your capacity to learn music if you breakdown long, complex phrases into short, simple phrases that you practice slowly. Don't try to put together the big phrase until you've mastered each of the smaller phrases.

The same goes for math and science, languages, etc.

Build It Up: Once you've taken apart a large complex challenge and mastered each of the components, you'll need to reconstruct the large complex challenge. This is the point where most people fail.

When building up the complex composite you gotta focus on the seams, not the components. I've listened to many musicians trying to reconstruct the complex piece from the phrases they've learned. Phrase, pause, phrase, pause, phrase, pause... like a sputtering engine. The individual phrases sound free-flowing and easy, but the transitions from phrase to phrase are laborious and painful.

Focus on the transitions. Start in the middle of one phrase and end in the middle of the next.

Again, this works for language, math and science.

Persist: The most important thing is to persist. However, persistence becomes counter-productive once you lose focus or begin to practice badly.

Of Course You Can
There's no doubt in my mind that, if you learn to focus and you practice well, you can learn anything. I've never seen anyone do the above and not achieve her goals.

Alright, get out there and learn somethin'

Happy Sunday,
Teflon

GAGE

2011-12-17T15:46:00.001-05:00

Mommy, can I type? That's a common request in our house. We have computer days and non-computer days but the kids know that the non-computer days become computer days when they can somehow convince me that what they are doing is for 'school'.

Zachary decided to type the words to Silent Night. Simonne commented that it would help him remember the words. I agreed, thinking that it would also help him read the words. He loaded up a youtube video with the lyrics and went typing away. Sometime later, after the second stanza, I saw him typing:

GAGEGAGEDDBCCGAACBAGAGEAACBAGAGEDFDBCECGEGFDC.

(he helped me reproduce it for this post).It was such an abrupt change from the words and phrases. He was typing in a staccato fashion, almost as if he wasn't thinking about forming anything specific. Puzzled, I had to ask him about it. Simonne, without looking up from her typing, said: That's how you play Silent Night on the steel drums. I looked back at Zachary startled. This was the same Zachary that had vowed not to go back to any more steel drum classes because he was doing horribly.

Their teacher invited me into the class last week for me to hear them play Silent Night. I was very excited to see Zach so proficient. I knew Simonne would play well, if only because the teacher asked her. Zach really does exactly only what he wants to do (so it appears to me anyway). I figured he learned the song as a series of hand movements. It never occurred to me that he knew the notes as well!

Later that evening, I called Isaiah over and asked Zachary to tell him the notes in Silent Night. As Zachary rattled the letters out, I was amused at the befuddled look on Isaiah's face. Since I had passed the befuddled stage, I went to curiosity. Zach, I asked, did you memorize the notes to be able to play Silent Night? He didn't answer. Simonne commented that she didn't do that because she would lose track of her place in the song if she was thinking about anything else (like the names of the notes) but the song. She sings in her mind and that helps her know which parts of the drum to hit. Zach, with prompting, explained that he could imagine himself playing and tell us what notes he was hitting in his imagination because the notes were written on the drum.

Having not gotten very much farther than EGBDF in music theory (are those the lines or spaces?) I think I'm way out of my league. In many ways, I'm glad I know I don't know. I might be tempted to prescribe methods and dictate the process for the children's musical development. Instead I'm forced to just allow it, to trust, and perhaps learn a thing or two.

My eyes met Isaiah's over the kids heads and I mouthed we are just lazy. We have recently been talking about our own musical/instrument development. There are really no obstacles, only our own willingness to move from not knowing to knowing, from discomfort to comfort. In many ways, it seems children just move through those hurdles. One more reason to embrace a more child-like approach. Where's my recorder?

The Aha! moment

2011-12-16T13:03:00.001-05:00

Mr. Smith was known for giving assignments on topics far removed from the current course content. Well, so it appeared to us anyway, as first year, introduction to computer science students. The second year students supported our beliefs with Smithy stories of their own. Everyone who learns to write a working program, does so in spite of Mr Smith.

The assignment that week was to simulate a calculator. If the user entered "23+41=" at the command line (these were the days of command line prompts and floppy drives), the computer should respond with "64". This had a vague connection to the lesson on arithmetic operations. In addition to correct arithmetic, many opted to add screen embellishments that would allow the computer screen to look like a calculator.

These were also the days of the 4 hour/week NCR Tower time limit so if you didn't have a computer at home, the situation was a little more grim. I was one of those computer-less first year students. Fortunately, the final years were sympathetic to our cause. They had a PC lab (think Alleluia chorus). If a PC was available, one of us could use it, then take our working program and re-enter it on the computer in the first year lab, debug for any differences between the machines and voila!

I'm sitting in the final year lab in front of a borrowed PC wondering how I could make my calculator behave more like an actual calculator. Calculators start showing numbers on the right of the screen and the numbers increase left. Typical computer command lines start at the left of the screen and the numbers would increase towards the right. Sean Parris, a final year student stood looking over my shoulder. I must have spoken out loud, or asked him a question. I'm not sure. I just know that the moment of my inspiration for the next 2 and a half years of study was about to happen. What about not reading the numbers as numbers but reading all the user enters into a character array. Each time the user enters something, clear the screen and print the array on the screen up to the last thing input. It will look like it's scrolling left.

That was it. Everything changed. He is a god! How did he know that? We could do that? How did he say to do that? A million questions flashed through my mind, and with them, the growing excitement. There was more to this than Smithy let on!

That was the beginning of something new for me. I had never felt like I had the power to manipulate the science, to discover, to explore. Chemistry, biology and physics experiments didn't me this sense of power to discover and create. I felt like I was looking to see what others had already seen. With the computer, I was looking to see what I could see.

I have to tell Sean this story. I'm sure he knows, but it's easy to forget your impact on another person. Just one second of enthusiastic attention to another person's life can help them open the door to a universe of possibilities. Who are you inspiring today?

Whaddya Know?

2011-12-14T06:45:00.008-05:00

What do know? What beliefs are anchored so deeply in your sense of reality that you never question them, so deeply that it never occurs to you to question them?

Is it esoteric and secretive or common and public? Is it exotic and mystical or it everyday and mundane? Is sacred? Is it profane?

Is what you know embodied in your belief in another: your lover, your mom, your dog, your cat? Is it your belief in you?

Is what you know global like the sun rising every morning or is it personal like the doubt that creeps in every time you encounter a specific situation?

What do you know?

What you know needn't be true; in fact, it may be absolutely false. What you know may never have occurred.

You may not be able to explain why you know what you know. You likely can't prove it, at least not to someone who knows something else.

What you profess as known may only vaguely resemble what your actions declare as known. Loud proclamations of providence are often tempered with insurance policies and longterm investments.

What you know may be good for others, but not for yourself. Our actions often escape the scrutiny of our knowing.

What I know is...

What you know defines who you are.
You are what you know.

How do you know what you know?

Forget about what you've been taught. Forget about what you profess. Instead, look at what you do consistently. The things that you do nearly every time the opportunities arise. Therein lie the answers to "what do you know?"

The one who says, "Every time I do this, I just know it's going to turn out badly", doesn't know it's going to turn out badly. What does he know?

The fretting mother who says, "I know Bobby's going to be just fine", doesn't know Bobby's going to be fine. What does she know?

The stage-frightened performer who says, "I just know I'm going to screw up my part" each time she walks on stage, doesn't know she's going to screw up. What does she know?

Think of all the absolutes that are negated by the very statement of them. "This is absolutely the last time that I'm going to..."

What do you know?

Perhaps the answer lies in those around you. If you asked your partner or you friends or the people at work, "What do my actions tell you about what I 'know?'", what would they say?

We often struggle with transformation because we don't fully understand the object of our transformative efforts. Whether it's remodeling a house or fixing a car or repairing a piano, successful transformation often depends on knowing what's there. Since what you know defines who you are, then perhaps the best way to transform you (if you so desire) is to start with understanding what you know.

Whaddya know?

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

Able Teacher...

2011-12-13T05:27:00.004-05:00

...Willing Student

Why don't you just call Will. He'd said that he'd love to work with you.

I don't know. Wil is so busy and he's a professional who works with professionals.

What am I, chopped liver?

Huh?

Patte?

What?

Never mind. Wil would be a great coach for you and I'm sure he'll let you know if he's too busy. Besides, he's told you several times that he'd love to coach you.

And so our conversation went time and time again. After months of unparalleled growth in her self-designed, music-education program, Iris had become stuck. Although her technique continued to improve, there was something missing in her performance and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

In addition to playing guitar and singing with our blues band, Will Power, our friend Wil is a writer, a director, an actor and a performance coach. He's not only helped actors to improve their performance, he's also coached corporate executives and sales people. As we talked about Iris' roadblocks, it became clear that Wil could help her and Wil made it clear that he'd love to do so.

And for months, the offer remained in the category of "good idea", but that was it. Believe it or not, Iris isn't great at asking for or accepting help.

Motivational Tapes
A couple of months ago, our other band, No Room for Jello, performed at Club Helsinki in Hudson. Our guitar player, Pete (who's also the sound engineer at the club), made a twenty-four track digital recording of the evening. He dropped of a disk with the digital tracks and I went to work mixing them down to stereo recordings of the songs.

One night sitting at my Mac working on the songs, Iris walks into the room.

Is that us at Helsinki?

Yup.

Wow, it sounds really good. Can hear something that I sang?

Sure.

I queue up one of the songs where Iris has the lead vocal and press play. Iris smiles as the intro plays, but her smile fades as the verse starts, an overcast of concern spreading over her face.

Hmm... I've really got to call Wil.

Excited Student
Saturday morning. After several almost-got-togethers, today is the day. Although Wil told Iris that she needn't do anything special to prepare, she's been working all week to be ready. The house reverberates as she bounces from room to room cleaning and performing vocal warm-ups. She walks into my office beaming: today's the day.

It's 3:00. Will arrives. A few minutes later he and Iris are sequestered in the studio. Today's the day.

At 5:00 I hear footsteps in the living room above me. Iris bounds down the steps to tell me they're done. Let's get some sushi.

Driving to Bizen, Iris excitedly tells me about her lesson and all that she came to understand about herself, performing and the things that were holding her back. At Bizen Wil explains what a delight it is to have such an open and receptive student, someone who just goes for it without hesitation or question. Although I didn't participate in their session, I can't help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction in their work.

Proof of the Pudding
Proof of the pudding's in the eating. Proof of the coaching's in the singing.

It's Sunday, time for Will Power rehearsal, time to experience the coaching results first hand.

Our rehearsal schedule might be described as group stream-of-consciousness. Wil starts a jam. We all join in. The jam reminds me of Twisted, a melodically and lyrically challenging song recorded by Joanie Mitchell on her Court and Spark album. It's not a beginner's song. It's not an intermediate-level song. It's a song that's hard to sing and one that Iris and I have talked about as a some day kind of song. It's also not one of the songs that Iris and Wil worked on yesterday.

So what else would we do but try it?

After a few minutes figuring out keys and chords, we dive in and without hesitation, Iris starts singing. A half hour later, some-day has become today.

But wait, we still haven't got to the songs Iris and Wil worked out yesterday. Let's give'em a try.

We launch into Carol King's It's Too Late. Iris' presence changes as she stares across the room looking at an unseen source of inspiration. She sings. Her voice is rich and confident. Inspired, the band picks up on it, matching her style and strength. The feeling is relaxed and easy. We play fewer notes leaving plenty of sonic space for the lead vocal. We play better than we've ever played.

Able Teacher, WIlling Student
It's amazing behold the combination of able teacher and willing student. It's one of those phenomena that truly justifies that adjective synergistic. When you see it, the contrast to typical student-teacher relationships is like that of a full solar eclipse to partial ones; the partial eclipses seem special until then.

How are you as a teacher? Are you as able as you'd like to be? Do you exude passion for all you teach?

How are you as a student? Are you open and receptive, or do you hesitate and question? Do you take delight in the learning?

Happy Tuesday,
Teflon

Love

2011-12-13T00:25:00.000-05:00

I'm a groupie, I guess. I fall in love with people and want them around me forever. It's my fundamental problem with death. I don't want you to leave. But my obsessive thinking about the possibility of your leaving prevents me from enjoying the fact that you're here. Now, right here in this moment, I get to enjoy you completely. The best gift I can give myself and our life together is to forget about where you will be tomorrow, and explode my capacity to love you today.

I just finished watching this story and found it very moving so I thought I'd share it. I wonder what Isaiah will think if I wake him up to tell him I love him? I probably don't need to. He probably knows.... I'll go tell him anyway.

If You Could Fly

2011-12-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

The other day, Iris made a play-date with her little friend David. They would spend time together playing music, reading books, baking cookies and whatever else came to mind...

I sit at my desk coding. It's one of those amazing afternoons where I get to not deal with people. I'm translating the new subcutaneous heart-attack detection algorithm from Visual Basic (the language we use to prototype the system) into C++ (the language we use to implement the system on an implantable medical device or IMD).

The task is a bit more challenging than basic translation. The prototype takes full advantage of all the power you get with the latest and greatest PCs. The IMD has less processor power than a Commodore-64.

To make things more challenging, I have to take into account how my code will consume battery. The IMD needs to run for four years on a single battery (without a recharge). If not careful, I could easily write software that drains the battery in an eighth the time.

I'm in heaven.

As I consider how to efficiently implement a slope-of-the-slope calculation without floating-point capabilities I hear Iris' truck roar up the driveway and into the parking lot. A minute or so later, I feel a barometric change as the front door swings open and Iris and David bound into the house. The house shakes as the door slams shut (Iris has been into weight lifting lately) and just in case I'd missed their arrival, Iris calls out, "We're here!"

I shout from my office. "Welcome home, baby! Hello, David!"

Patter, patter, patter. David (who's never been to my office), rambles down the steps, races to my desk, and says, "iPhone" as he grabs mine.

For perspective's sake, I'll tell you that I'm blazing fast with computers and the like; when it comes to user interfaces, I can fly. Yet, I can never imagine being as fast as David is with my iPhone. Within seconds, he flips through all my applications, calling them out as he goes. Next, he jumps through all the settings, again calling them out.

I almost miss the part where David starts to delete the applications that he deems unnecessary. As I see the icons start to jiggle and his index finger torpedoing toward one of the circled X's, I divert the missile with the top of my hand as I palm the screen and say, "David, this is my iPhone. I use it for my work. I need those applications. You can play with my iPhone, but not if you delete applications. If you do, then I won't let you play with it. OK?"

I press the iPhones return button, the icons settle. As if to make sure he understood me, David sets them into motion again and looks at me as his index finger targets another circled-X.

"Wow, he's really fast", I think as I just barely head him off.

"David, remember what I said about deleting applications?"

David acknowledges me by pressing the return button. The icons quiesce. He heads back to the phone's settings and begins a little ritual. Each time he presses an icon or text-link, he calls out its name and then circles the room once running at a full clip.

"Airplane Mode, Off!"

Patter, patter, patter.

"WiFi, On!"

Patter, patter, patter.

"Choose a Network"

Patter, patter, patter.

On one of his circuits, David spies the settings icon on the display of my Mac Tower. He sees the keyboard which unlike most desktop computers has a trackpad in the center. He glides the cursor over the settings icon and clicks.

"System Preferences!"

Patter, patter, patter.

"Accounts!"

Patter, patter, patter.

David's ease with the iPhone and the Mac are remarkable. When it comes to trying out new system, you've got two types of people: the ones who click quickly, but haphazardly and the ones who click slowly and deliberately. You rarely see someone who clicks quickly and deliberately and you never seen anyone as fast as David.

Flying
This morning, I've been thinking about David's finesse with my iPhone and Mac. I imagine that the activity would be considered an example of "stimming" (short for self stimulation), an effect of his being on the autism spectrum. Common examples of stimming include rocking back and forth, head-banging, finger-flicking, spinning in circles, humming, repeating words or sounds and complex body contortions.

Stimming helps you to regulate your sensory systems, to quiesce them when they get over stimulated. People may stim to relieve discomfort and stress, but they may also stim to express emotion.

Pretty much everyone stims from time to time: tap your feet, crack your knuckles, wring your fingers, twiddle your thumbs, get lost in the ticking of a clock, count the tiles on a floor or in a ceiling). However, the stims of people on the autism spectrum are often more pronounced and may seem downright strange. Therefore, we often discourage stims or try to replace them with other, more desirable behaviors.

Yet, as I watched David racing through the icons with such confidence, precision and skill, it was as though he were flying. Sure, I can see that you might want to discourage David from pressing icons, calling out their names and running in circles around the room. You might want to get him to do something else, something more socially engaged or educational or productive. But why would he want that?

Imagine if you could fly. You race through obstacle courses without hesitation or even slowing down to take a corner. You get from home to work in seconds instead of hours. You feel an unparalleled sense of freedom and empowerment.

However, you're strange. People feel uncomfortable around you. No one else flies; you shouldn't fly. Why don't you just forget about flying and walk like everyone else?

But why would you ever want to walk, when you can fly?

Happy Monday,
Teflon

Bigger Life - the sequel

2011-12-11T02:19:00.003-05:00

In recent blog posts, we have been discussing personality types and communication styles. It has been an area of tremendous interest for me, for reasons I’ll explain soon, but I’ve also had conflicting thoughts about it, which is why I have been wanting to write a post about it for over a month but managed to tie myself in knots before even starting. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, I’ve decided to communicate my remaining thoughts on the matter, even if it takes us on a wild ramble.

I first came across personality type classifications in a training course I took at work many years ago. The model they used was the Myers-Briggs system, a rather elegant classification that used four ‘dichotomies’, each with two possible values, yielding a total of 16 personality types, represented by four letters, like ESTP, INTP, etc. (see HERE for details). I think I came out as an INTP at first, and the resulting profile described me fairly well. But after getting deeper into it, I decided to take the test again, and answering a couple questions differently made me come out an ESTP, and that profile didn’t seem too far off either. So that kinda diluted my enthusiasm for it. Also sixteen was way too many types to be able to remember and use in day-to-day life. But it had certainly aroused in me an interest in and desire to understand other people and how to work better with all kinds of people. Because back then – this is almost 20 years ago now – I used to find myself completely at sea when working with people, compared to which working with machinery and computers (as an engineer) was so much more predictable and comfortable. There were just so many people in my family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, and so many instances, where their behavior would be completely mystifying.

Next I read an immensely entertaining but eye-opening book called “Personality Plus”, by Florence Littauer, recommended by a business book club I joined. This model consisted of just four types – Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic and Melancholy (the concept of ‘humors’ dating back to the ancient Greeks) but allowed the possibility of a primary and a secondary type. For the first time, I found a model that would explain the actions of most everybody I knew. For instance, (as I mentioned in recent comments), I typically like to filter & organize my thoughts and use as few words as possible to communicate them. So the aunt who talks first and thinks later used to drive me nuts. When I learnt that I was a Phlegmatic, and that Sanguines actually talk to organize their thoughts, I could finally allow her to be the way she was, without making her wrong. That overbearing cousin was a Choleric, with a strong bias for action and results, and little tolerance for feelings. And the brother-in-law’s chronic paralysis of analysis was merely the Melancholy’s desire for being precise and right taken to an extreme.

I can’t tell you the calm that came over me when such a big part of the world clicked into place like that. Moreover, I gained a great deal of validation in my own feelings and tendencies. I swelled with pride when Littauer listed the Phlegmatic’s assets: "the gift of mediation, uniting opposite forces; the ability to listen, while others have their say; the patience to put up with provokers; the determination to keep your head , while all around are losing theirs; the will to live in such a way that even enemies can’t find anything bad to say about you". Finally, someone gets me!

Over time, though, a creeping sense of stagnation overcame this calm, as I put myself into the prison of the static personality type. I convinced myself that, being a Phlegmatic, I was not cut out for leadership or bold actions, that I was condemned to being a loyal follower or supportive presence. It took a lot more reading and ongoing personal examination to understand that any limits I perceived were those I put on myself. So, even though I still recommend this book heartily (and study of this area in general), I am careful to add a caution that it should not be seen as a static label. So the concept of ‘color energies’ that I've recently learnt accomplishes that in an easy way.

There are doubtless many more models out there, but the proof of the pudding is in how easy they are to assimilate, remember and use. In my opinion, 16 (Meyers-Briggs) and 8 (Insights Discovery) are too many. I found 4 (DISC, humors) to be perfect – large enough to be comprehensive, small enough to remember and apply on the go. But I also found another model that goes one further and breaks it down into just two dimensions: Pace & Priority. That is, one can be Fast or Slow paced, and one can prioritize either People or Task. The combinations still yield four types, same as the DISC or humors system, but using just those two counts to get a read on a person is a snap. You could meet a complete stranger, and within a minute or two be able to assess how best to connect with him or her.

Now, over the years, I’ve invested a ton of my energy and time using these methods to tune up all my relationships, and I’ve been mystified (and occasionally frustrated) by people who have access to this same information but fail to use it. Again, this same model came to my aid. The overriding goal for Phlegmatics (or Steadys) is harmony; they want peace at any price – which explains why this is a big deal for me. However, each of the other three types has a different priority – action, fun or the truth.

I think the holy grail of personal growth (or at least one of the top few grails) is to be equally comfortable with all four communication styles, and to be able to effortlessly switch to the one most appropriate for the situation. For instance, as a Phlegmatic (“I used to be indecisive but now I’m not so sure”), I have worked hard on decision-making, and now I’m routinely in situations where I’m the most decisive person in the room. However, I know I still overpay for peace and prefer to lurk on the lower rungs of the assertiveness scale. So if all you Driver- and Influencer-types (like Faith) can share what makes you tick, I’d love to hear.

Love,

Sree

You Don't Need to Know

2011-12-10T07:27:00.005-05:00

Susan, all I can say is that I want be with you. I was a fool to leave you, crazy. Something happened and it all became clear. You are the perfect woman for me. There can be no other.

Wow, Hank, that's a pretty extreme contrast to what you told me a week ago. I remember phrases like "we're just not right for each other" and "people change" and "it's not you, it's me."

Yes, I did say those things. I must have been completely out of my mind. When I came to my senses, I couldn't believe what I'd said or how wrong I'd been. There it was, the truth staring me in the eye. I knew I had to get you back.

So what happened? What sparked such an epiphany?

Oh, just a bunch of things that got me thinking more about you.

Things? What kind of things?

You know, things happen that get you thinking? Uh... You miss your train and you gotta wait for the next one; it gives you time to think.

Missing your train inspired you to completely rethink your relationship with me?

Well, not exactly, I mean, it was a lot of things working together. All that's not important. The important thing is that I came to my senses.

Uh huh. But there must of been something significant to inspire such a radical change. You were totally done with me. If I were a betting woman, I'd have bet that I'd never see you again, let alone hear what you're saying now. What was the big event?

It really doesn't matter does it? What matters is that I'm here and you're here.

No, what matters to me is why you're here. So, give it to me. What changed?

Well, if you really think it's that important.

It's that important.

OK, but you have to know that the reasons don't change how I feel about you.

I understand.

Well, um... Dana dumped me.

What? Dana? Dana from accounting? You left me for Dana?

Well, no. I mean, we had grown apart and things had changed between us.

Things like Dana you mean. I can't believe I bought that line of crap you sold me. I can't believe that I was about to buy another.

Now you're all upset and you've completely lost track of the main point. I'm here and I want to be with you more than anyone else in the world. I knew that it'd be better if you didn't know why.

Better for whom?

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

Where Do You Go for Questions?

2011-12-09T07:25:00.007-05:00

Pablo: Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Sree: As of this morning, Wikipedia had 3.8 million entries. But where do you go for questions?

Faith: The questions are inside us, but we have done inordinate amounts of practice with answering someone else's questions (exams, school, interviews); we have forgotten where to go to get our own questions.

Teflon: Faith, I couldn't disagree more. Hmm... OK, I could, but still I disagree a lot. I mean, uh, what you said sounds great and all; it's just that it in no way reflects reality.

A Great Researcher
When I first started working in the research group at Bell Labs, my boss, Tom London, pulled me aside and told me, "Look Mark, I know you've got a lot of skill and you've developed a great base of knowledge, but that's not going to be enough here in research. What you've got is the ability to answer questions and to prove hypotheses. However, the thing that distinguishes the great researchers from the rest of the pack is not the ability to answer questions; it's the ability to ask."

I thanked him for his guidance and went back to my office wondering what the heck he was talking about. Over the following weeks, it became clear.

Up to that point, my experience as a technologist had been team-oriented. I worked on projects that involved people from multiple disciplines: electrical engineers, physical designers, software developers, product managers, etc. The goals of the project were set by others. Our job was to implement them.

In research, although we referred to one-another as colleagues and collaborators, we worked for the most part, independently. More significantly, each researcher determined her own "what" on which she worked. There were no predetermined projects, no goals, no plans. You got a basic budget and the opportunity to get a bigger budget if you had a really great idea and could sell it.

During the first few weeks I spent a lot of time talking to other researchers in order to get my bearings. As I did, the meaning in Tom's message became clear. For example, I might ask...

Can you tell me a bit about your project?

Sure, I'm working on a new ways to represent the relationships among data using 3-D matrices. Using a mouse, you can pan, tilt and zoom. It's as though you're flying through the data.

OK, I think I've got a picture of what they might look like. So what do you hope to demonstrate through your work?

I want to show that you can represent data in this fashion, that the relationships among information can be represented using proximity, size and even color.

Umm... Haven't people been doing that for years? Have you seen Tufte's book on the Visual Representation of Quantitative Information?

Tufte shows what one can accomplish with static physical media. I want to show that you can do similar things virtually.

Uh huh.

I would leave thinking, "Well of course you can represent the relationships among data geometrically; the rest is just a simple matter of programming. Even the challenging parts that are limited by processor performance will disappear over the next couple of years as processors get faster and memory gets bigger. What exactly is there to prove?"

Two Things
The more I talked with people, the more interested I became in what makes a great question. I realized that learning to question is a skill that can be developed like any other skill. I came to recognize two basic tacts that seem always to yield great questions.

Always ask the obvious question, specially when it's being avoided.
Faith, I think this resonates with your statement of the questions being inside us. We learn not to ask the most obvious questions. We do so in order to avoid embarrassment, to be polite, to not touch on a sore subject. Yet, it's usually not asking the obvious questions that lead to speculation and rumors. We end uo asking them of everyone but the one who might provide an answer.

Further, it's the simple, obvious questions that serve as stepping stones to the the deeper, more meaningful and insightful questions.
Always be asking yourself, "So what?"
Answering So what? is the greatest filter I've found for weak questions. It's also a way to dig deeper and find the rich, meaty questions.

What if I did know the answer to that? How would knowing that change things? What would I do differently if I knew that? Who would be interested? Why did I ask that?

OK, that was way more longwinded than I intended. I must think that learning to ask questions well is really important. In fact, it may be the most important thing to learn, a skill to be practiced and honed.

Homework
How about a fun learning-to-ask-questions exercise that you can do with your family.

Pick someone in your life that everyone in the family knows. It could be a grandparent or a neighbor or a teacher or a friend.
Have each family member independently interview that person for twenty-minutes recording the interview on audio or video if possible or by writing down questions and answers.
Have each family member write up their interviews.
Using the interview notes, have each family member write a story about the person interviewed.
Spend an evening or afternoon together, sharing your interviews and stories. Talk about what you asked and why. Talk about what you would other questions you would ask if you were to do the interview again.

Hmm... why exactly would you want to do that?

Happy Friday,
Teflon

Bigger Life

2011-12-08T07:58:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, in response to Big Life, Sree posted some comments on roles and personality types that I found inspiring and useful.

For example, Sree points out that classification can help us to better understand and communicate with others.

I think the basic concept of classification is very useful at first – at least, I found it tremendously useful to explain the behavior of people around me, and to a certain extent my own.

That garrulous aunt who used to drive me up the wall? That overbearing cousin who keeps ordering people around? That nitpicky brother-in-law? All can be neatly explained by identifying their personality type.

It even helps me work with them ongoingly – I know to emphasize facts and figures with my brother-in-law, actions and results with my cousin and people and fun with my aunt.

Sree also points out that classification can be useful in understanding our own behaviors and the roles we take on when around others.

It’s also useful when looking at one’s own actions in the past. I can see that I’ve typically been Compliant when around my mother, but an Influencer around certain friends.

I think this insight is a great one to draw upon when seeking to change behavior. For example, let's say that you want to become more assertive. There are likely people around whom you're a wallflower and those around whom you're already pretty darn assertive. What's the difference? What "makes" you assertive with some, but shy with others?

I totally agree with Sree's identification of the point where classification goes from useful to counter productive; it's when we start confusing what we do with who we are.

I think the pitfall comes when I project it into the future. When we start saying things like, “Oh, I’m a Steady type – I don’t want to raise objections at the meeting”, or “I’m a Driver – I just don’t know how to tone it down”, that’s when we start limiting ourselves. And I think it’s because we have unknowingly converted “Communication Style” to “Personality Type”, which as you pointed out, Tef, is something we consider fairly static.

Unwittingly say something at a party to which people take offense. Are you an insensitive bastard or did you innocently step into something you had no way of seeing?

Forget the name someone to whom you were just introduced. Are you just bad with names or were you just not paying attention when introduced?

Stutter and stammer when trying to express something. Are you someone who's not good with words or did you just make what you had to say too important?

Classifications and personality types quickly backfire when we transform them from a way of looking at ourselves and those around us to a statement about who we or they are. Do you ever find yourself saying things like, "I'm just the kind of person who..." or "People like me have to..." or "You know, guys like that...". To quote Faith (and Bob Newhart): "JUST STOP IT!"

Another important distinction that Sree calls out (this is specially important if you can't distinguish doing from being) is the difference between concept and execution.

Also, each of these behaviors can be done well or badly. A Driver can direct tasks well, but may also come across as overbearing or pushy. The Steady type is valued for being supportive, but could also be weak and indecisive, and so on.

If you get annoyed by overbearing and pushy Drivers, if you lack patience for painfully slow Compliant types, it could simply be that you've been exposed to Drivers and Compliants who just aren't that good at it.

Finally, I love the idea of viewing personality types as a color.

Just last month, here at work I was at a training class where a similar classification was presented as ‘color energies’. So the Driver would be a Fiery Red, the Influencer a Sunshine Yellow, the Steady an Earth Green and the Compliant a Cool Blue.

So we just use different energies at different times and in different situations, with no implications on personality or static-ness. We may have a strongly preferred energy, but as long as we remain aware that we have a choice in the matter, it’s all good.

Let's say that you're working on a project and you want to stay in an Influencer mode. When things heat up, you tend towards being a Driver. When the bosses are around, you tend towards being a Compliant.

You ask a friend to help you stay an Influencer. Whenever you start shifting to Driver, she says, "Hey, you're starting to look a little red there", or to Compliant, "Do you need some air? Looking a little blue."

It'd be fun.

In short: classifications can be really useful until they're not at which point they not only become useless but really not useful.

Happy Thursday,
Teflon

Questions?

2011-12-07T23:05:00.001-05:00

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
- Pablo Picasso

As of this morning, Wikipedia had 3.8 million entries. But where do you go for questions?

Sree

Big Life

2011-12-07T08:25:00.007-05:00

Driving home, Iris looks at me and says, "I would really love to see you and Jonathan and Will all together in the same room at the same time."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're all such big personalities. It would be exciting to see what happens."

"Uh, huh. What would be exciting about it?"

"Think about it. Whenever you and Jonathan get together, you don't wast time on small talk or ideas you've already figured out. You dive right into new topics that leave most people's heads spinning. You wrestle through concepts and ideas with no holds barred. People around you just sit silently trying to follow and keep up, even the ones who are normally outspoken and confident."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, for sure."

"And Will?"

"Will walks into the room and he's bigger than life. Everyone else seems a little bit smaller by comparison. Except that you don't. You and he are like this perfect complement to each other. You might think that there wouldn't be room for both of you, and yet there's more than enough room you and everyone else. It's like two big complex puzzle pieces fitting together."

"So you'd like to see the three of us together?"

"Yeah! What do you think would happen?"

On Monday, in Doberman vs Poodle, Faith wrote about a view of personalities based upon degrees of responsiveness and assertiveness (see chart below).

Faith commented that she sees herself nominally as an Influencer (upper right quadrant), but that she'll often drift into the Driver role (upper left) when circumstances require it. Faith also pointed out that others may see her as a Driver more frequently than she sees herself in that role.

As I read Faith's post, my initial self-assessment was similar to Faith's. I see myself primarily as an Influencer and then as a Driver when circumstances dictate it. It's also easy to imagine that others may see me more as a Driver than an Influencer.

However, the more I thought about it, I realized that there are situations where I exhibit most if not all the characteristics of the Steady (lower right) personality.

And when you get right down to it, there are situations in which I'm plain old Compliant (lower left). Let's nail down exactly what you're looking for and I'll go get it done.

Stepping back, I can see that at any moment I may take on the characteristics of any one of those personality types and at that moment, that is exactly who I am.

Like Changing Outfits
Iris once commented that we tend see personality as this static thing that changes slowly and infrequently. She wondered aloud, "Why don't we see personality as we do clothing? Why not see it as something that can be changed whenever you want to?"

At the time I thought it to be an insightful comment and interesting concept, but now I see it as more than that. I see that changing our personalities like we change our clothes is the default case; the idea of a static personality is an illusion sustained by the fact that most of us don't change contexts all that frequently.

For example, in the Assertiveness/Responsiveness model that Faith presented, any one of us can manifest any of the personality types given the right circumstances. Not only that, but we can do any one of them in a big way. Put enough pressure on a great Influencer and she can be come an overbearing Driver. Fill a room with big personalities and the same Influencer slides into the Steady role. Leave no one at the helm, and even the most reluctant Compliant becomes a Driver.

Given the right change in circumstance, the corresponding changes to personality type are rapid, dramatic and real.

Putting the Puzzle Together
So, if given the right circumstances, any one of us can manifest any of the personality types, then it's not unreasonable to believe we could each manifest just components of an alternate type. For example, you could be a patient Driver or a fast-paced Compliant or a matter-of-fact Influencer. Working with others, you could adopt the personality components that complement the group, filling in the missing pieces.

This is all hypothetical, but it would seem that taking this approach would make it possible to fill your life with many big personalities and still always have room for more.

Just thinking aloud...

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

Doberman vs Poodle

2011-12-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

I've always known myself to be a people person. Well, to be more accurate, I have created myself to be a people person over the past 25 years. I decided to unearth the child I was, that started to vanish at about the age of 7. From then, until my late teens, I regularly toyed with being uncertain, unhappy, needing overt acts of friendship and attention to help me get to a baseline of comfort. I blamed it on my thick glasses, poor co-ordination and less than womanly figure.

In 12th grade, I decided to step out of my comfort zone because there were some activities I wanted to engage that I couldn't successfully do while behaving like a needy doorknob. So, with my inner self kicking and screaming, I became a people friendly, warm, leader type. With repetition, even unnatural things feel natural, though the kicking and screaming doorknob still voices her opinions often.

So I've always known myself to be a people person. You know the type: connects easily and warmly, listens to others, helps people feel comfortable, shows vulnerability so increasing relatability. I can make friends easily if I want to, can talk about and listen to almost anything. If you use the DISC personality profile as a model, that would put me as a high I (top right quadrant. Disclaimer: when I say 'personality profile', I simply mean a combination of attitudes and behaviors that describe how a person communicates, makes decisions, relates to people and to his/herself). I like being an I. I have always been thankful I am not like the D profile. Those D's just get on every one's nerves. The high D has no empathy, just focused on the task at hand. Isaiah is often a D (but can be a C, equally irritating) so I know first hand how hard dealing with this profile can be.

I was recently asked to help execute a complex training event. My role on the team was to quietly assist the team leader so got to know everyone's role very well. Early in the planning, I was pretty easy going, friendly, understanding of where team members are, helping them bridge any gaps that came up, at the same time, not pointing out the gaps in obvious ways. 3 days before the event I warned the team leader that I may switch into a dictator role. I lost my desire to connect, understand or negotiate. It was my way or not at all. We execute, then fix after. Fortunately, my people personality tempered the dictator so feathers were only moderately ruffled.

I have a history of getting projects done. If a friend is stuck with a project, they know they can check with me and I help help them see the sticking point and create a plan through it, or, if I'm available, execute it myself and give them back the project at the next step. I tend to do this very quickly. Who has time to waste doing something slowly that can be done quickly?

It never occurred to me that I could have D traits. Must have been in my blind spot. I recently did a thorough DISC personality profile and, though I do not put much stock on personality tests, I was startled that the result was high D, secondary trait I. I took a moment to read and think back... Again, I don't think every word was accurate, but a few things were very interesting:

The report suggested that in my typical environment, I adapt my style so that my 'I' traits are more dominant. A flood of memories, of thoughts about my tendency to be contrary and how to mediate that. If I was to share every thought I had about everything people said or did, I would have no friends, is my typical thought. When I'm creating relationships, that D stuff is put in the closet.
The dog that was most like the D is the doberman, while the 'I' is a fluffy poodle. I felt revolted when I thought of myself as a fluffy poodle, though didn't want to a Doberman. I would much prefer to be a golden retriever....

When I told Isaiah about my new found D-ness, he didn't think it was all that new, but commented that it may be more dominant right now. I'm actively engaged in several projects that benefit from a 'let's get this done' attitude. The risk of weakening my vision and not executing the things in my head and heart have brought my D unapologetically to the front. Maybe it's the age old nature-nurture discussion. My dominant style of decision making and interaction may just depend on what I think is more useful at the moment in time, given my environment and what I want. Maybe I am a D, sometimes...

1000 Opportunities

2011-12-04T07:27:00.003-05:00

Welcome to Radio 538. It's a quarter past two and I'm reporting to you live from Central Park, New York, where one hundred citizens now stand in ten rows of ten, forming a large square visible to the people viewing the park from the Guggenheim Museum.

The group is composed of adults and children representing diverse ethnic backgrounds and cultures. Reflective yellow tape criss-crosses the grid from waist to waist. Sources us tell us that group formed shortly after 10:00 this morning and will be here until 8:00 tonight.

Shortly after forming the grid, a microphone was handed to a graying man in the second row. He apparently pulled a roll of yellow tape from his backpack and began speaking...

My name is Jacob. I am here to share an opportunity with you, an opportunity for you to learn from me, and for me to learn from you.

I am sixty-three years old. I deeply love my wife, my four children, and two grandchildren.

I lost my job six months ago and can’t afford not to work, so I have reached out to everyone I know to help me find a job. I have not yet found a fulltime job, but have been able to make the ends meet with the odd jobs and support from people around me. I believe community matters.

Jacob ties the end of the tape around his waste. A young blond woman dressed in jeans and a kaki jacket raises her hand in response. Jacob hands the tape roll to his neighbor and it was handed down until it reaches her.

My name is Nancy. I am here to share an opportunity with you, an opportunity for you to learn from me, and for me to learn from you.

David, my father was in the same situation last year. After eight months without work he was down to his last saved dollars and very scared about what would come next. But he didn’t give up. He just kept on ringing the bell, and in the end, he was hired by a friend of a friend.

He has been working ever since. I urge you not to give up and to continue to reaching out to anyone you know. I will cheer for you along the way.

I am six months pregnant and without a partner. I am scared about the future, for me and my baby. I feel alone and lost sometimes and wish that there was someone to cheer for me too.

Nancy ties the ribbon around her waist and hands the roll to a young man wearing a knitted cap and a thick brown jersey.

My name is Dylan. I am here to share an opportunity with you, an opportunity for you to learn from me, and for me to learn from you.

Nancy, I moved into this city seven months ago. While the move was exciting, I also felt lost.

One morning at Starbucks a man walks up to me. He looks me in the eyes and smiles.

I say, "What’s up, man?"

He says, "You need a friend, my friend. You have been coming in every morning. You have passed by Charlie, me and our friends many, many times.

After a few days of this, we made a bet about how long it would take you to acknowledge us. I told everyone that you seemed so shy that it would take at least two weeks. They all laughed thinking it a silly statement. But now, three-and-a-half weeks later, you still only look at your cup and avoid making contact with anyone.

It is time to open up your world. Come join us at the table for coffee this morning."

I follow him to their table and we talk. They turn out to be a fantastic bunch of guys that really help me settle in my new life. It learn that wherever you go, there are people to support and cheer for you, but to meet them, you have to be open to see them.

Back to the reporter...

And so it has gone since 10:00AM, story after story after story. The tales seem to have enchanted passersby. At least five hundred people now sit in clusters on the grass around the square. You can hear laughing and crying, cheering and sudden quiet. Some seem lost in thought.

Standing here you can almost feel the build-up of energy. It seems to be spreading from person. You can see it in the expressions, postures and movements of those who appear to be experiencing a sense of renewal. You can hear it in the cheers that are becoming louder and increasing in frequency. Eyes that in the morning spoke of hardship and despair now speak of someone with a story to tell, someone who wants to engage and live his or her life bigger than before.

The organizer of this event explained that there are not just 100 people in this event today, but that there are ten groups of one-hundred people around the world doing exactly the same thing. You can hear people sharing their stories in Paris, London, Leningrad, Amsterdam and Beijing.

When I asked him the reason for organizing the event, he told me that many people no longer believe that sharing stories is a way to learn. People keep their thoughts to themselves, and miss out on the opportunities to learn from others, to gain support from others, to laugh or grieve with others. This event is a way of showing that it is not hard to help others, and it is not hard to be helped. It all starts with two or more people setting the intention to share, and then ensurin that everyone is given time to share and to listen.

Radio 538 has made it possible for me to bring you this story today. I feel more grateful than ever to be able to use this medium to promote self-empowerment, love, and acceptance, and to help people create the lives they want. I look forward bringing you more stories of people empowering people.

What's your story?

Back to the studio.

999

2011-12-03T07:52:00.004-05:00

I get up this morning, fire up Chrome and click my bookmark to Blogger.

That's when I see it: 998 Posts, last published on Dec 2, 2011.

I click the New Post button and think, "Wow, this is post 999!"

I consider what a cool number 999 is and how many ways you can divide it and then stop myself. As cool as 999 is, there's something even cooler about our little band of bloggers producing a thousand-minus-one posts.

My first sensation is one of gratitude. I feel grateful for each of our writers and the perspectives she or he brings. I feel grateful that there are people who read what we write. I feel specially grateful for those who comment.

As I consider my gratitude, I realize that I feel most grateful for the opportunity to write. I guess I've always had the opportunity, but there's something about wanting to ensure that we have something new to consider ever day that motivates me to write. It's not from a sense of obligation (I'd write even if no one were to read it); it's something else. Most every morning, I wake up, look to see if someone's posted, and if not I write.

I learn so much by writing. It's not the kind of learning that you get in school; it's not about facts and figures or how things work. Writing forces me to clarify why I believe what I believe, why I think what I think.

Sometimes I'll begin a post writing from a one point of view; by the time I finish, my point of view has changed. Sometimes I'll begin writing about something that I find interesting; when I finish it will be much more interesting. Sometimes I'll start with just a vague feeling; by the end it's become crystal clear.

Another completely unexpected gift from writing each morning has been getting in touch with my past or more specifically, celebrating people and moments from the past (even people and moments that didn't seem so great at the time.) Writing about past experiences from a current perspective has an amazing transformative effect; even the worst of times seems better. No that's not it. Even the worst of times become perfect.

Perhaps I'm most grateful for the cast of characters who frequent my posts (some anonymously and some by name). Mark K, Jonathan, Scott, Iris, my dad, the band, Joy, Eila and Luke, the guys from work, my life is rich with great friends who are amazing characters. Thank you.

999!

Wow, that's a lot of posts. And I feel like we're just getting warmed up.

Well, tomorrow will be post 1,000, a more impressive, but far less interesting number.

For now, thank you all for helping to bring about post 999. See you tomorrow.

Happy Saturday,
Teflon

Huh?

2011-12-02T07:46:00.004-05:00

You know, Mark, not everyone argues in order to facilitate understanding.

Huh?

I'm saying that the reason these guys don't get it not matter how many ways you bring it is that they have no intention of getting it.

But... Then what would their intentions be?

To win.

To win what?

Whatever it is they want, whatever their arguments support.

Even if their own arguments don't actually lead to their conclusions.

Specially if their own arguments don't lead to their conclusions.

But... I mean... There must be a way to show them. Maybe if I came up with better illustrations or...

That's not going to work.

Yeah, but... if I came up with a really strong and compelling argument, wouldn't they then be able to see?

It would be exactly the opposite.

What do mean?

The stronger your argument, the more vehemently they'll argue their unsupported conclusions. They'll resort to other methods. They might introduce false or unsubstantiated data. They might try to distract with irrelevant facts. They may simply dismiss you and everything you say. Rather than talking with you, they'll talk to others about you.

So what do I do?

What do you want to do?

I just want to get back to doing the work I was doing and working with people who want the same thing.

Then why don't you do that?

Because... hmm... Why don't I just do that?

Good question.

I guess it's because I keep believing that, if I could just do a better job of presenting my point and showing them how what I'm suggesting actually works, I could somehow get them to see.

What if they don't want to see?

How could they not want to see?

Not everyone is interested in seeing and understanding perspectives at odds with their own.

Huh?

Happy Friday,
Teflon

On A Scale from 1 to 10

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of quantitative data. I'm such a big fan that I frequently find myself figuring out ways to translate qualitative questions into ones that solicit quantitative answers.

Why?

I think it's because quantitative answers tend to be much more useful than qualitative answers.

What do I mean by "useful?"

The semantics (meaning) of qualitative answers tend to vary from person to person. In fact, they tend to vary from time to time with just one person.

For example, consider the qualitative answer: Great.

How's your day going? Great!

How was dinner last night? Great!

Hey, your mother-in-law just showed up at the reception desk and she says she needs to talk to you. Great!

Great is a great word, but it doesn't mean a heck of a lot; more accurately, it means so many things that it ends up meaning nothing. The same goes with terms like: OK, fine, confident, happy, interesting, nice, a lot, special... What in the world do these terms actually mean? Nada!

Would you describe yourself as confident or lacking confidence? Are you generally happy or unhappy? Did you find the presentation interesting? How'd you sleep last night? How much effort did you put into this assignment?

Who knows what an affirmative, negative or one-term response actually means? I don't.

Translation
My response to the ambiguity of qualitative answers is to translate my questions into ones that solicit quantitative responses. Rather than asking someone, "Would you consider yourself to be a confident person?", I do the following...

I'd like to ask you to assess your level of confidence. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being extremely confident and 1 lacking all confidence), how would you rate your confidence level?

Someone might respond, "Uhhh... I don't know. I mean, how can I put a number on that?", which pretty much answers the question; We're talking somewhere between 0 and 1.

Someone else might respond, "Oh, I'm definitely an 8, maybe a 9."

This is a great start. We now have a quantitative assessment of confidence level. However, the number is still questionable because we didn't calibrate the scale. What does 1 mean? What does 10 mean? To calibrate, I do the following...

OK, you're an 8. I'd like to calibrate your rating based on people you know. Who in your life would you consider to be the person with the least self confidence? (Again, the willingness to answer says a lot).

Um... I guess it would be my brother Ernie. Yeah, definitely Ernie. He's the king of second-guessing.

Great. We're going let Ernie represent a 1. Now, who's the most confident person you know?

Hmm... That would have to be my aunt Sue. She was in the Marine Corps and became a Master Sergeant. She's the most confident person I've ever met.

Cool. So, if your brother Ernie is a 1 and your aunt Sue is a 10, how would you rate your confidence level?

Uh, what did I say before, 8?

Or maybe 9.

Well, I gotta say that I'd be a lot closer to Ernie than to Sue. So, I guess that makes me more like a 5 or a 4.

Now we have a quantitative assessment that's been calibrated to the assessor's frame of reference. If the assessor's desire is to build confidence, we have a baseline measurement against which we can gauge progress. With two tangible models anchoring the end-points, it's easy to get back on the quantitative track if we ever drift into less useful qualitative analysis (e.g., I totally lack confidence or I am amazingly confident).

This method of assessment can be applied to pretty much anything that requires assessment of state or progress. You'd be amazed at how many qualitative assessments (attraction, goodness, happiness, satisfaction, desire, passion, effort, skill) can be transformed into quantitative ones and how enlightening it can be to come up with a calibrated number.

What would you like to quantify?

Happy Thursday,
Teflon

A-minor is Boring

2011-11-30T07:00:00.001-05:00

So I have this habit of saying whatever I'm thinking without really thinking about it. In a positive light, one might view this as a side-effect of being so completely focused on the it of a conversation that there's not a lot left for decorum and protocol. In a more negative light it would appear that I'm completely insensitive to the feelings of others.

From a practical perspective, saying what I thing has become a great filtering mechanism, for friends that is. It's kind of like our driveway; anyone who comes to our house really wants to be there.

My filter tends to have a polarizing effect. There are people who really appreciate getting a straight answer no matter what and there are people who really don't, especially when it's delivered with enthusiasm and delight.

Sometimes they're the same person.

For example, Iris has come to see that my verbalizations regarding her singing or her writing or her drumming or her mood are never personal, they're just matter-of-fact observations from someone trying to be helpful. However, there are moments when she just doesn't want to hear them.

For a long time, it would take me a while to recognize the signs that she wasn't open to "feedback" at the moment. Over time I got really good at recognizing them; Iris would say, "Look, I don't want any feedback on my drumming right now", and by the fourth or fifth time, I'd stop. We've now got it down to this look she gives me. It's one her mom uses to melt ferrous metals.

Sometimes I'll say something and only later think, "Hmmm... I wonder how he took that?"

I used to get kind of hung up in moments like that, over-thinking, second-guessing and then trying to explain. Since that never worked, I stopped.

I've also tried not saying what I'm thinking, but that only leads to multiple simultaneous conversations; there are the conversational threads I maintain in my head (the ones that follow what was unsaid) and the audible one. That doesn't work either.

So, I say what I'm thinking.

By the way, this is different than saying what I'm feeling, or more accurately, saying something that appears to be matter-of-fact, but is really just a byproduct of emotion. For example, there's a big difference between, "In the last song, you sped up significantly whenever you played a drum fill" and "For a drummer, your sense of time really sucks." The latter would not qualify as saying what you're thinking.

Phew... glad that's out of the way.

The other day at rehearsal, Scott said, "Wow, I was really getting tired of playing in A-minor. After a while it gets so boring."

My first thought (read verbalization) was, "How can a key get boring? There are limitless possibilities even if you never change keys. A key can never be boring. It's the musicians who run out of new ideas that are boring."

And then I thought about it. "Hmmm... I wonder how Scott took that?"

And then I thought, "But that would be what I would want to hear if I said something so naive."

And then I thought, "Hey, Scott's one of those people who makes it up the driveway even when his car won't."

So I continued, "It can be amazingly useful to play in a single key so long that you completely exhaust your repertoire of musical phrases and ideas. After a while, you start to tap into something deeper and better, but you first have to clear the clutter of what you already know."

Scott just smiled and said, "Yeah, you're right."

Happy Wednesday,
Teflon

It Gets Easier

2011-11-28T09:06:00.003-05:00

If you would absolutely know just one thing, know this: It gets easier.

OK, there may be other one-things to know, but It gets easier is a really good one.

Why?

There's this curious thing we humans do almost without fail. No how many times you've overcome obstacles and challenges, whenever you face a new one, you estimate the amount of effort required based on your first try.

It doesn't matter whether you're eliminating sugar from your diet or starting an exercise program, whether you're learning to ski or taking up the piano. The first time you try something new and challenging, it's likely to be pretty hard and, if you're like most people, you'll be tempted to project just how hard it is into all future attempts.

I can't imagine going through this every time someone brings out a fresh baked dessert; I miss sugar so much.

I thought I was gonna die the last 100 yards. I barely made it a half mile and I feel terrible. How am ever gonna run four miles, let alone a marathon.

I don't see how do people enjoy skiing; all I do is fall and these bindings are killing me.

I tried and tried, but I just couldn't get my fingers to do what I wanted them to do. I want so badly to play piano, but I just don't have the coordination for it.

Not surprisingly the result of these projections is to quit. Who would want to continue an activity that's painful, that leaves you feeling terrible, that makes you feel like a klutz?

The thing is: It gets easier.

More than that, It gets a lot easier. What you perceived as painful, overwhelming or impossible becomes invigorating, inspirational and easy. That is, if you keep at it and believe it will.

Not only that, but the rate at which it gets easier increases. Sure, it gets easier, but it also gets easier faster as you go. At first, it's getting easier may be imperceptible. However, over time, you'll start to notice that it got easier, from month to month, then from week to week, then from day to day.

Just Do It!
Trite but true, there are times where you've got to stop thinking about it, get off the couch and just do it. You can read all day long. You can study and pass tests. Still, there are things to be learned that can only be learned by doing.

Further, if the things to be learned by doing are challenging, you'll be engaged in the process of trial and error. Remember: It gets easier.

Regression Towards the Mean
It's important to recognize that the path to easier is often one of two-steps forward, one step back. Day to day, it may get harder, but over time the average effort required is less (and less and less).

The statistical phenomenon is known as Regression Towards the Mean. It's important not to look at easier on a day-to-day or try-to-try basis. What matters is the average or mean effort over time. It's tricky because we tend to lock on to the most recent experience, sometimes to the exclusion of all others. Remember it's the average challenge/effort that gets easier.

In the end, if you stick with it (and pay attention), it gets easier.

Happy Monday,
Teflon