[Advice] Self-Awareness, Altruism, and Critical Reasoning

As people choose the messages that they will receive and believe, does self-awareness, critical reasoning, and altruism matter?

There are people in the United States who have no idea that conflicts between police and African American communities are raging.
There are people in the United States who have no idea who’s running for President, or why, even as November 8^th approaches.
There are people who are unaware that there are celebrity divorces going on, sports controversies, and other, seemingly ‘low-level’ and ‘unimportant’ cultural conflicts going on right now.
There are people who are unaware of the presence of wars (and rumors of wars) in the world today.

When mass media falls apart at scale, and when the historical, cultural, political, and social forces that used to bind disparate populations in the United States together in the last century and a half, no longer matter, can altruism, critical reasoning, and self-awareness matter?

Or, are we returning to a smaller, localized, conflict-ridden past that may be out of our historical memory, but that hews closer to the way people have always interacted?

And the sub-question: Cui bono? Who benefits the most from this seeming cultural return to a baseline we don’t remember?

HIT Piece 9.20.2016

Technology changes are comparatively easy to predict.

The computer.

The fax machine.

The interstellar rocket.

The airplane.

The cell phone.

The drones.

The lie detector.

The biometric scan.

The electric car.

The driverless car.

The internet.

These are just some of the technologies that were developed, conceived, proposed, or prototyped in early to middle part of the last century and now have come to full commercial fruition in our time.

Societal changes based in changing behavior and ideas (economic, social, political, etc.) are less easy to predict.

The rise and fall of cigarette smoking.

Women in the workplace.

Gay marriage.

Minority civil rights.

The illegalization of drug use.

The end of child labor.

Prohibition.

The move of manufacturing away from the US.

The rise of globalism.

Mass genocide.

Mass immigration movement.

The rise of religious based radicalism.

The fall of the British Empire.

The rise and fall of Soviet Communism.

Until we can predict how people will use the technology they now have (i.e. Twitter) in conjunction with behavioral changes at the societal level (i.e. Black Lives Matter) to create a future where half of that equation stubbornly refuses to be examined (behavioral changes at the societal level) we will remain blind to future changes, surprised by black swans, and bound to hindsight biases.

And we’ll get no closer to being able to predict the future than we are now.

[Opinion] 3 Things We Need Now

As many events become revealed that were once hidden; as information becomes freer and freer, and as people have more access to more entertainment, distraction, and dopamine hits via the communication objects in our pockets, audiences need three things now:

Wisdom: There is a dearth of wisdom. You can’t get wisdom from a Google search. You can’t stream wisdom to your mobile device. The only way that wisdom comes (folksy or otherwise) is through relationships with people. When there is a wealth of access to information (Google, anyone?) but there is a dearth of true insight, humanity has really only managed to wrest a sliver from the great artifice of this thing that we call “reality.”

Connection: There is a dearth of connection. Sure, we can connect with an old friend, email an organization and get personalized service, or even instant message a fellow professional in another vertical space far away from ours and harass and/or troll them. But such acts are shorthand for real connection; and, they rely too much on the tool (Facebook, IM, email, etc.) rather than focusing on the act of connecting. Connection with a person, face-to-face, unambiguously, is the only way that conflicts between human beings, and within human groups, will be solved.

Trust: There is a dearth of trust. Sure there is wisdom. And yes, there is connection. But, as has often been said in this space, there isn’t a lack of information, but there is a lack of trust. Not only is there a lack of meaningful connection, there is also a lack of trust. Organizations and individuals rely on this lack of trust to establish their authority long enough in your mind to get you to make a purchase. But trust established for less time than it takes to make a neocortical electrical leap from impulse to emotion to judgment, to justification, to purchase, isn’t really trust at all. That’s just effective marketing.

Showing up every day and being willing to learn, rather than to teach.

Giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Creating an environment of humility.

Do these three things and you’ll be well on your way to building trust, wisdom, and connection for yourself and for others.

[Opinion] When Do You Pay The Piper?

The person who pays the piper calls the tune. Except when payment doesn’t come, then the piper takes revenge.

The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is about a politician reneging on a promise to pay a vendor who rendered a service. In essence, the politician broke a verbal contract and then forgot about it. The vendor returns to the town sometime later and takes his payment (in the form of luring the town’s children away).

The legend is so deep and enduring, it has become almost a myth, its lessons enshrined in our language and even our proverbs.

When we call the tune of responses and behaviors in our conflicts, the questions for us are the same ones there have always been:

When do we pay the piper?

and

How much will the payment cost?

We only ask (or think) about these two critical questions when the cost of doing nothing to resolve the conflict in a way that benefits both parties, seems to be the only way for us to risk nothing and gain everything. Then, when the answers to these two critical questions don’t work in our favor, our behavior in a conflict situation begins to resemble that of the politician in the town of Hamelin long ago: We attempt to avoid paying the piper.

Going back on promises, risk avoidance, ignoring the impact of emotional residue, finding reasons to not put in the work to get to a resolution, and withholding reconciliation (or even forgiveness) are all ways we attempt to avoid paying the piper of conflict.

And eventually, if we keep it up long enough, the things of emotional value—relationships, trust, respect, accountability—begin to leave our own internal emotional towns.

Be sure the tune you’re calling in your conflict is a price that you are willing to pay to the piper.

HIT Piece 9.6.2016

Every day of the week, the month, and the year, is Labor Day when you’re in conflict.

Conflict with family, friends, enemies, co-workers; the bandwidth to actually deal with each scenario and relationship in a healthy way, diminishes with each passing moment.

But then, sometimes, through mixing and applying a heady cocktail of avoidance, accommodation, and collaboration, the labor becomes less, well, laborious.

The emotional high that goes along with establishing this sort of safety in the group (thanks to a calmed fear response deep in your amygdala) can last for many days…sometimes for many months.

Until you forget and the next conflict flares up.

Because it’s scary to deal with the problem underneath, and drinking heady cocktails (metaphorically), can always be used as a substitute for the real action of confrontation.

HIT Piece 8.30.2016

If you want to be known, it’s not enough to build a great product.

If you want to be heard, it’s not enough to do something that you call marketing.

If you want to be acknowledged, it’s not enough to sell constantly, and be an interruptive presence in your customers’ lives.

You have to build a product, a company, and a category that occupies a space in the mind of your client or your customer. You have to build a pirate ship, in essence, to hijack that valuable mental space.

And then, you have to constantly build out that space in their minds.

Does this sound like hard work?

Well, it was just as hard 100 years ago at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when companies, people, and organizations believed that all they needed to do was build a better product incrementally over time.

HIT Piece 08.09.2016

The thing is, we’re not building for the future we want, we’re building for the future we think will keep us the most comfortable.

The thing is, when the status quo is upended by events we did not expect, we react with defensiveness, because our identity is wrapped up in maintaining the status quo.

The thing is, when we anecdotally share ideas of change at a personal level, we are often surprised when those ideas are manifest in someone else’s experiences.

The thing is, when we generalize from the individual and the specific to the group, we make a decision around what matters, and what will scale versus what won’t.

The thing is, we have all been born at the beginning of greatness, the beginning of a revolution, not coming in at the end, and because we’re at the beginning, rather than the comfortable middle, or scary end, we don’t really know what to do.

The thing is, standing on a street corner in NYC, we can watch the world go by and wonder at what will come next; or, we can take this opportunity to build what will come next, for all of those people who are clutching to the past in their behaviors, their choices, and even in their identities.

The thing is…

HIT Piece 8.02.2016

August is an interesting month.

The number of “out of office” email autoresponders goes up, even as the number of deal goes down.

Clients become immune to appeals to work, even as the days grow hotter and more humid.

Sales calls become more difficult, primarily because no one on the other end of the call can say “yes” to a proposal, but almost every person on the other end can say “no.”

Motivation drops as the temperature rises and the people who do the best in the month of August seem to be the ones who go on vacation the most.

And then there’s the flipside.

Some people double down on work, and try to become more focused on setting up the next quarter, so that when September, October, November, and even December arrive, they can finish the year strong.

For those people, August is a frustration and a slog. A grind through other people’s decisions and motivations, without an end. It becomes a time to refocus on what matter to them and their grind, rather than focusing on what can make them the most dollars.

For me, August is a combination of all of those things.

HIT Piece 7.26.2016

This is the era of anxiety.

In an era with no major wars, major poverty, major environmental destruction, or seemingly major negative events, humanity (at least in the Internet connected Western world) seeks to gaze in wonder at its own navel.

This is the era of anxiety.

If the thesis is to be believed (at least in the Internet connected Western world), major violence is way down, so minor acts of individualized violence seem to ring out more—and invite more of the draconian calls for cures that would’ve been applied to truly monumental acts of evil.

This is the era of anxiety.

Humanity (at least in the Internet connected Western world) lives in the shadow of Industrialization, surrounded by the evidence of cities our grandparents built, roads and bridges our grandparents’ politicians voted for, and secure in the knowledge that the water, the air, and the food will be better than it ever was.

This is the era of anxiety.

In the Internet connected Western world, children go to school and have a chance at literacy, and success, at a far greater rate than any other generation of human beings before in the history of civilization (where usually children were ignored, killed outright, or worked to death—and still are in many parts of the world) and still it’s not enough to assuage our fears that they are “missing” something.

This is the era of anxiety.

In the Internet connected Western world, we stare at and idolize those that seem to be living better lives than ours, and yet we are more comfortable, safe, and healthy than even before. And the material wealth is in an abundance that would make the Greeks blush with envy.

This is the era of anxiety.

Maybe our problems aren’t material, or physical, psychological, or financial, emotional or even mental.

Maybe we’re so anxious because we’re missing something we can’t buy, rent, steal, or copy.

Maybe we’re so anxious because mortality proves that “this too shall pass” as irrevocably as wind on the mountain and nature, red in tooth and claw.

Maybe we’re so anxious because we know that for all of our knowledge, we lack truly defining wisdom.

And maybe this is the era of anxiety because our spiritual lives are a mess, full of conflicts with the world, with ourselves, with our pasts, and with our presents.

I have chosen to be not afraid.

I have chosen to reject anxiety and the messengers who would seek to deliver it, so that I click, they sell, and I can be persuaded to buy—attempting to fill a spiritual hole that can never be fully closed.

HIT Piece 7.19.2016

Building a business…while black…

Writing…while black…

Driving…while black…

Tweeting…while black…

Parenting…while black…

Doing physics…while black…

Banking…while black…

Teaching…while black…

All of these are stories about identity. The problem is, where the emphasis is in my story may not match where the emphasis is in your story, for me.

And since I get to define my story (and then you get to decide if you believe that story or not) where I put the emphasis matters more than where the emphasis is placed for me.

Stories are powerful and they aren’t true or false, they are just real. And when where I place my emphasis, creates friction when it rubs up against where you place your emphasis on my story, then conflicts, miscommunications, and misunderstandings become par for the course. And should come as no surprise.

Yet, somehow, you are constantly surprised by where I place the emphasis in my story.