IT'S ALL INVENTED. MAKE UP A STORY THAT EMPOWERS YOU

# OF WORDS: 675
READING TIME: UNDER 3 MINUTES
“Identity is provisional. Who we are is whom we choose to be at any given moment, depending on personality, whim, temperament or subjective need.”
Stealing MySpace:
The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America
by Julia Angwin

“None of us know what made us what we are, and when we have to say something, we make up a good story."
Steven Pinker quoted in
NY Times Magazine, January 11th, 2009

Steven Pinker is 54 years old. He has degrees from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist. Yet, after a lifetime studying how we came to be who we are, his conclusion is as noted above: we’ve made up a good story.

Why does this matter? Because we tend to live our lives based on the stories we make up, but we forget that we made them up. Like children we play “make believe.” The difference between children and us is that the kids know their stories aren’t real.

A friend of mine who has been looking for a job recently read an article in the paper about how difficult (the article suggested “impossible”) it was for people over the age of 50 to find a job. When I met him for coffee, he felt hopeless and demoralized.

Yet literally that same day, I had spoken with another friend, a consultant, who told me that every company she is working with is looking for “older” people because they have experience, maturity, can mentor younger workers and aren’t clamoring to climb the corporate ladder.

Which story is “the truth?”

Another friend, a sales person, frustrated because he hears “No” a lot. He has concluded “I’m not very good at sales. “ I coached a person who is afraid to deliver presentations because “I’m a shy person.” Another friend, age 56, wants to return to school but is reluctant because, “I don’t think I’m smart enough.” I met a woman who wants to write a book but laments, “I haven’t got the time.” A reader of my conflict book told me he doesn’t handle conflict well because, “I’m just an aggressive person.” A cousin told me that he doesn’t want to make up any “rules” about what he will or won’t eat on a diet because “I know I’ll just break those rules.”

These are people who have made up a story and are now living that story. “I’m a shy person” keeps one shy. “I’m not very smart.” keeps one dumb. “I’m not good at sales” ensures that one will avoid risk. “I haven’t got the time” keeps one from finding it. “I’m an aggressive person” keeps one in conflict. “I know I’ll just break the rules I set” ensures failure at fulfilling on commitments.

To these people, these are real stories. The problem is that the stories aren’t real.

Consider the possibility that it’s not the objective “facts” of our lives that stop us and keep us stuck. It’s generally not even a lack of knowledge or education. We can acquire these things.

What really stops us is our beliefs about who we are (it’s the adult version of “make believe”) and these beliefs become all powerful.

Pause for a moment and think of three adjectives you might use to describe yourself. Which one of those is “true?”

Of course, they all are...and none of them. As Julie Angwin notes in her book about MySpace, how we might describe ourselves depends on what we’re thinking, experiencing and feeling at that moment. On another day, we might describe ourselves differently.

Yet we tend to look at that list of adjectives, admit that some are only “provisional,” but then decide that others of those adjectives are actually, “who we are” and that becomes “who we are”...for ourselves and then for the world.

In a world of unlimited possibility, we come to identify ourselves as only a small portion of who we might be and then live our lives out of that identification. Consider the possibility that there is no “you” there.

A more accurate description of “who we are” is the saying on a sweatshirt that my friend Michael Nees sometimes wears: “I am who I pretend to be.” That is is EXACTLY accurate. As Steven Pinker says, no one knows who they “really” are.

So who will you pretend to be today? It’s all a story we’ve made up. Why not make up one that empowers you?

With best wishes,
Larry

HEROISM: THE MAGNIFICIENT SEVEN AND MANY, MANY MORE

# OF WORDS: 515 READING TIME: UNDER 2 MINUTES

Have you see the movie The Magnificent Seven? Perhaps you’ve seen the Japanese movie, Seven Samurai, on which it is based.

In both movies, the heroes, who are vastly outnumbered, rescue a village of “peasants” from marauding bandits who are stealing the peasant’s crops. And, at the end of both movies, the heroes declare that it is only the peasants who have really triumphed because only they have endured and will always endure while the heroes will one day, it is supposed, be killed.

I was thinking about this message of endurance as I spoke with a friend the other day. He was frustrated by his inability to sell his services in spite of his heroic efforts on the phone and in face to face sales calls. Many people I know are experiencing the same lack of results. And while we admire and even try to emulate the heroes of movies, it is in fact people like my friend who endure the day to day frustrations and keep going who are, I suggest, truly heroic.

In this regard, I read an interview with John Donahoe in the April 5th Business section of the New York Times. Donahoe has been the CEO of eBay since March of 2008.

In the interview, Donahoe admits to suffering from a fear of failure early in his management career. He got some advice from a mentor as he advanced in his carer. I think it’s great advice for us all:

“You know, John, you’re trying to bat .900. When you were in college, you got a lot of A’s. You could get 90, 95 percent right. When you took your first job as an analyst, you were really successful and felt like you were batting .900. But now you’re playing in the major leagues, and if you expect to bat .900, either you come up to bat and you freeze because you’re so afraid of swinging and missing, or you’re a little afraid to step into the batter’s box. Remember the best hitters in Major League Baseball can strike out 6 times out of 10 and still be among the greatest hitters of all time. The key is to get up in that batter’s box and take a swing. And all you have to do is hit one single, a couple of doubles and an occasional home run out of every 10 at-bats and you’re going to be the best hitter or the best business leader around.”

I’m sure you’ve heard a similar message, perhaps related to how many times Babe Ruth struck out on the road to 60 home runs.

In our day to day lives, unlike the movies, no music plays behind our conversations, we don’t have a script to follow that ensures we will always say the perfect thing, no audience applauds us. We’re simply doing the best we can and enduring. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but we suit up for every game (I first heard this saying from my friend Pam Linton and it stuck).

That in my mind, takes real heroism and, if you’re like my friend, let me applaud you for it.

With best wishes,
Larry

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A Key To Happiness: Acceptance vs. Expectation

# OF WORDS: 652 READING TIME: UNDER 3 MINUTES

“Happiness is in direct proportion to acceptance and inverse proportion to expectation.”
Michael J. Fox on the Oprah Winfrey show March 31st, 2009

My wife recorded the Oprah show and had been telling me that I would find it to be inspiring (it was).

Michael J. Fox, has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for well over a decade. On national television, he courageously presented himself, shakes and all, to talk about how happy his life is in spite of the disease. Not that he was happy to have Parkinson’s (he talked frankly about how difficult the simple task of getting out of bed can be), but rather that it had taught him what was really important in life and the peace that comes with accepting life as it is instead of wishing it to be different.

As I was watching the show, the phone rang just as my wife began cooking a spaghetti dinner. Carol makes fantastic spaghetti and I was looking forward to it. Carol went into the bedroom and closed the door to talk to her sister.

The show ended about 45 minutes later. I was impressed with Fox’s optimism (in fact, his new book, “Always Looking Up” has the subtitle, “Adventures Of An Incurable Optimist”). I felt grateful for my life, accepting of the problems I was facing and at peace. In short, I was happy.

Then I remembered that spaghetti dinner. I was looking forward to that dinner. I was expecting that dinner. Carol was still on the phone.

I knocked on the bedroom door and interrupted Carol’s phone call. “Should I go ahead and make a pizza instead of waiting for the spaghetti? ” I asked, fully expecting Carol to say that she’d be off the phone in just a minute. Instead, she put her hand over the mouthpiece and said to me, “Yes, go ahead and do that.”

I pretended to accept this, but I was angry. My expectations had been thwarted and I was upset.

I took several steps towards the kitchen when it hit me: I had experienced, in a small way, the validity of Michael J. Fox’s comment about acceptance and expectation. I had gone from happy to unhappy in the blink of a spaghetti dinner.

Since then, I’ve been noticing the times when I’m unhappy because I have some expectation of how things are supposed to be and aren’t. Being upset doesn’t bring me peace or change one iota of reality. In fact, it makes me more unhappy.
Michael J. Fox can spend all his time being bitter and angry (in fact, on the show, he talked about the many months he spent in exactly that way before willing himself out of it) or he could accept what’s so and make lemonade out of the lemons he had been handed. The same is true for all of us. As the psychiatrist C. G. Jung wrote, “We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”

If Michael J. Fox can accept Parkinson’s, we can surely accept what comes our way. Acceptance, of course, doesn’t mean capitulation. Fox is working diligently with doctors to find a cure for the disease.

I encourage you to start noticing when you are unhappy. Notice if your unhappiness is related to some thwarted expectation about how situations and people are not performing as you expect them to...and then to act rather than complain.

One action that will make a difference is to take a holiday from complaining about ANYTHING TO ANYONE. I find that when I discipline myself to not complain, it forces me to either act to change things or to accept things as they are. Either choice makes me feel happier.

Try it for a day. Try it for the next 15 minutes. Resolve to act rather than complain when your expectations aren’t met. To act rather than capitulate to unhappiness.

With best wishes,
Larry

Larry Barkan is a consultant, author and speaker. Learn more at http://www.larrybarkan.com