Dennis Pitocco and BizCatalyst360 published Taking Back Your Life – Part 1, one of the chapters in my soon-to-be-released The Th!nk You Do.
You can also find it here.
Where’ere you find it, enjoy.
And own your life.
Category: Non-Fiction
That Th!nk You Do Chapter X – Taking Back Your Life, part 1
People often share with me that they feel overwhelmed, that their life is out of control, that there are too many demands and not enough time. These feelings aren’t unique and are increasingly common in our information-rich world. Let me share some simple things neuroscience tells us can help us get our lives back under control. In this section I’ll share some things I do personally, and later I’ll share things I’ve found helpful when necessary.
Be Average, Be Simple
I make lists. Gosh, do I make lists. Some stay in my head and most of them get down on paper. A few go onto the computer and even then they might stay on paper. Anyway, perhaps, like me, lists are helpful to you. I learned to make lists by starting with simple ones. I wrote down only two things, made them easy to do and rewarded myself for doing them. The rewards were also simple. One reward I still use is simply stopping what I’m doing, taking a deep breath, closing my eyes and letting myself relax into my chair for about a minute. If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like much, you’re absolutely correct — it’s nothing at all. That means there’s no reason for you to not do it and every reason to go ahead and do it.
Stay on Track Continue reading “That Th!nk You Do Chapter X – Taking Back Your Life, part 1″
Change (which is constant) and Managing the Work-Life Balance now on BizCatalyst360
It’s nice to be respected by one’s peers.
Which is an interesting formulaic.
Are “they” your peers if they don’t respect you?
One wonders what they and you are known for…
In any case, Dennis Pitocco and BizCatalyst360 published Change (which is constant) and Managing the Work-Life Balance, one of the chapters in my soon-to-be-released The Think You Do.
You can also find it here.
Where’ere you find it, enjoy.
And appreciate your balance.
That Th!nk You Do Chapter 6 – Guys Can’t Help Themselves
For those who didn’t know, I’ve signed with a new publisher and my first book out with them, The Think You Do, should be available late Nov-Dec ’22.
Read:
- the backstory and Chapter 1 – Manly Men Thinking Manly Thoughts Manickly (and Women Putting Up With Them)
- Chapter 2 – Avoiding Deadly Silences
- Chapter 3 – Romancing Real Women … and I don’t have to write more because I’ve already got everybody’s attention
- Chapter 4 – Change (which is Constant) and Managing the Work-Life Balance
- Chapter 5 – Rules of Competition
As always, let me know what you think.
Guys Can’t Help Themselves
I have never accepted “Boys will be boys” as an excuse for socially unacceptable behavior. But have you noticed that the vast number of “acting out” news items involve males? Consider DUIs, fights, shouting matches, anything you care to recognize as “bad behavior” and the involvement of males greatly over shadows the involvement of females.
Why is that?
Well, to a certain degree it’s because guys can’t help themselves.
No, this is not an apologetic for bad behavior and I’m definitely not providing men a carte blanche. What I’m recognizing is that the wiring of the male brain makes it easier for them to behave badly. Women don’t have the same wiring.
And no, I’m not kidding. Research performed at John Hopkins and elsewhere is verifying yet another difference between males and females, another evolutionary difference in addition to the obvious sexual traits.
It works like this: cause humans to do something pleasurable and their brains release dopamine (the “pleasure molecule”). Well, duh!, right? But male brains release up to three times as much pleasure for a given stimulus as female brains do.
Three times as much? Well, heck. Sign me up right now, please.
Continue reading “That Th!nk You Do Chapter 6 – Guys Can’t Help Themselves”
That Th!nk You Do Chapter 5 – Rules of Competition
For those who didn’t know, I’ve signed with a new publisher and my first book out with them, The Think You Do, should be available late Nov-Dec ’22.
Read:
- the backstory and Chapter 1 – Manly Men Thinking Manly Thoughts Manickly (and Women Putting Up With Them)
- Chapter 2 – Avoiding Deadly Silences
- Chapter 3 – Romancing Real Women … and I don’t have to write more because I’ve already got everybody’s attention
- Chapter 4 – Change (which is Constant) and Managing the Work-Life Balance
As always, let me know what you think.
Rules of Competition
NextStage did a bunch of political research during the ’08 Presidential race, and some of which appeared on my BizMediaScience blog. One of the questions that we still get with regularity involves the public’s perception of Senator Clinton versus Governor Palin.
The question being asked was asked about politics and the answer has little to do with politics. It really has to do with how people perceive another person’s hard work, ambition, drive, steadfastness, …, in a word, competitiveness, and especially how these traits are gender-biased. Thousands of years ago when I was in college a fellow told me that I was steadfast. “And that is a quality of the Lord,” he added. I responded, “I’m steadfast, you’re stubborn, and he’s too stupid to know any better.”
My response beyond being glib is a statement of psychological distance.
Let me give you an example. Steadfast, as in “holding to one’s beliefs”, is great when people share your beliefs. But if you don’t share my beliefs and I’m somehow stopping you from achieving your goals? Then perhaps my steadfastness is, to you, stubbornness. What if you have no opinions about my beliefs per se but believe I have no idea what I’m doing? Then perhaps I’m too stupid to know any better.
The above is a demonstration of a given trait being considered as a plus or minus based on psychological distance — how far one person’s beliefs are from another’s.
Competitiveness is interesting because it comes in two forms. Goal-directed competitiveness — where you compete against yourself to achieve a goal — has no psychological distance component. Interpersonal competitiveness — when you want to beat someone else — has a strong psychological distance component attached. Psychological distance comes into play when there’s recognizable winners and losers.
Public perception of an individual’s competitiveness is what gets votes. Both men and women think highly of people who are goal-directed, not so highly of people who are interpersonally competitive (probably because we don’t know when that competitive nature will be directed against us). And both men and women will create extreme psychological distance between an interpersonally competitive female but not so much towards an interpersonally competitive male, which is where gender-bias comes in.
Politicians get votes by demonstrating a balance between goal-directed and interpersonal competitiveness. Both Senator Clinton and Governor Palin are competitive — they are politicians, after all. Senator Clinton’s staff had a difficult task (whether they realized it or not) that they executed well (whether they realized it or not); Senator Clinton had to compete against her Democratic rivals and convince the public that she was goal-directed. Specifically, that her goal wasn’t the Presidency, her goal was to benefit the voters.
Governor Palin’s staff never managed to get her image out of the interpersonal side of competition. People who were undecided knew she was against the Democrats, but once you got past that, what were her goals? There was no goal-direction to balance her interpersonal competitiveness.
Oops.
Continue reading “That Th!nk You Do Chapter 5 – Rules of Competition”