And oh boy did they listen…

From 1840, “Millerism” became a phenomenon.  The ranks were swelling and Miller was pressed to come up with an exact date for Christ’s return.  Finally, after consulting the Bible and the calendar of the Kariate Jews, the date was set–October 22, 1844.

Given the fact that we are still here, Christ failed to return.  And left in the wake of the failed return of Christ, were Miller and his followers.  One follower said of the event:

“I waited all Tuesday [October 22] and dear Jesus did not come;– I waited all the forenoon of Wednesday, and was well in body as I ever was, but after 12 o’clock I began to feel faint, and before dark I needed someone to help me up to my chamber, as my natural strength was leaving me very fast, and I lay prostrate for 2 days without any pain– sick with disappointment.”

The event would later be known as the Great Disappointment.  Miller would die in 1849, still awaiting the imminent return of Christ.

We’ve all experienced disappointments and failures.  But disappointment and failure are often due to forces beyond your control.  For example, no one could predict the economic crisis that hit America.  Many people lost a lot of money and there was in many cases nothing they could have done to prevent it.

Yes, we should take every precaution to give ourselves a chance to succeed.  But this isn’t about preventing failure.  It’s about dealing with it.  So, what can we do?

Decide to change the way you react to disappointment and failure.

One way to do this is to reinterpret the event that led to the disappointment.  Disappointment is a reaction.  Instead follow the wisdom of philosopher Paul Reubens, who said in his treatise Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, “I meant to do that.”

An action that’s already happened cannot be changed.  You can only change your thoughts.  By reinterpreting the event, you look for the positive things to come from it.  I do not suggest you do this right after it happens.  But do it a little bit afterwards.  Write down the positive effects.

Here are two examples from my personal life:

Fired from my job–>led me to a MUCH better job 30 days later that would determine my career

Lost my biggest client–>freed me to do a more fulfilling project, reduced my stress 1000%

Maybe in 10 years, the whole story will change.  Instead of being fired from my job, I’ll say I quit and got a better one.  Or I’ll say I dropped that client to do something meaningful.  Memory is a funny thing.

But that is the key.  The events didn’t change.  My thoughts about those events did change.

And that is the way to deal with disappointment and failure.

Now, how did the Millerites dealt with their Great Disappointment?  They broke up into several groups who had their own explanations for the Great Disappointment.  From one of these groups arose  The Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

Last time I checked, they’re at 17 million members and counting….

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Yeah I called her up. She gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention.

As my friend and author Steve Harper likes to say, we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.  I agree with this 100%. But the movie got me thinking: Harry obviously listened to his girlfriend (he has ears, doesn’t he). But is listening itself important?  Or is it how you listen that’s important?  And is listening the same thing as paying attention?

The truth is we listen to people every day.  And a ton of books tell us how we have to be good listeners.  But can we take a cue from Harry?  If Harry had just “paid attention,” would his girlfriend had felt like he had “listened” to her?

Actually, there are many different types of listening.  In today’s post, I will talk about five of them.

Appreciative listening

Appreciative listening is where you listen to simply enjoy the listening experience.  This is the way we tend to listen when we are at a concert, club, or other fun venue.  Here you are listening for the joy of listening itself.  However, if you’ve ever talked to someone and it looks like they have “lost interest” in what you are saying, most likely they are utilizing appreciative listening.  Mostly likely they no longer “appreciate” what you’re saying.   This is what Harry was doing in the movie.  Obviously, he did not “appreciate” what his girlfriend told him.

Empathetic listening

Emphatic listening is when you are listening to support the person speaking.   We’ve all done this.  When our friends or spouses vent about their problems and we just listen to it, we are using empathetic listening.  We are showing how much we care when we listen like this.

I get the feeling that when Harry’s girlfriend talked to him about her troubles, she might have been looking for him to listen like this.

Comprehensive listening

Comprehensive listening is listening to organize the information given by the speaker. When you re listened like this trying to apply the information to your personal experience. Some examples might include taking directions, trying to figure out what to do next, etc.

Discerning listening

Discerning listening is listening to gather information.  With discerning listening, you are listening to find the main message.  An example might include going to a seminar and trying to find out what the whole point of a speech is about.

Evaluative listening

With evaluative listening, you are listening in order to solve the problem of the person speaking.  For example, if someone is telling you about their annoying co-worker, the evaluative listener will problem offer up different ways in which the person can deal with the co-worker.

Evaluative listeners are typically in problem-solving mode.

Now, how does this all apply to you?  Surely it can apply in more ways than I can talk about in one blog post.  But consider this:

You are venting to your friend about your bad day looking for a little sympathy, and your friend starts telling you about ways in which you could have made it better.  How does it make you feel?  Do you think your friend is really listening to you?

He is, just not the way you wanted him to.

So, keep these things in mind.  Try to see how you are listening to others.  And be aware of how others are listening to you.

I’d like to give a brief plug for Tim Ursiny’s book, “The Coward’s Guide to Conflict” that introduced the ways of listening to me.

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To paraphrase Al Pacino, “The more I try to get productive, the more they try to suck me back in to un-productivity.”

Since I was getting my work done so quickly, people in my office started asking me if I could “help” them (do their work for them) or “discuss a few things” (talk about nothing).

These time vampires (to borrow a term from Dan Kennedy) literally sucked all my productive time away.

Well, today I will employ a tactic my 4-year-old uses—the NO tactic.

I have written about it before, and have used it to great success. But it seems that when you start getting more productive, the time vampires smell blood. They figure that since you’re not “busy” you have time for them.

So, I will be cultivating my “busy” image even more. And when people ask me for help, I will use some phrases like:

“I’d love to, but I really have to take care of something right now.”

“I only have a minute because I’m on my way to X. Let me see what I can do now.” –Only at the end of yesterday did I employ this tactic (because it was true). But by forcing people to deal with me right then and there and putting a short time limit on it, those “emergencies” completely disappeared.

Do not and I repeat DO NOT let them say they can talk to you about it later. With the time vampires, if you leave the door open for them to “ask you later” then by gosh they sure will come by and ask you something later.

We’ll see how combining NO tactics with my media fast improves my productivity.

On the LeBron Front

It’s amazing what you can learn from headline news! I heard briefly that there was some trade to help out LeBron.

Now, I wasn’t able to read commentary telling me what to think about this trade. And I don’t even know the details. So, I can’t be so sure if this qualifies as giving LeBron respect.

I mean the media could spin the trade in so many ways so as to show utmost disrespect to LeBron. I’m sure they can. But since I’m not reading it, I don’t know.

I just have to deal with the raw facts of the matter and make up my own mind about what it means. Here goes that critical thinking again.

But with all the stories about the trade I’m sure some joker of a sportscaster will talk about how LeBron has “no more excuses” or use some other term that shows disrespect to LeBron. So, I’ll hedge my best and say they are still disrespecting him.

The protest continues…

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The results so far?

Here are a few things I’ve started to notice from my media fast:

#1 Productivity has nearly doubled, but I have a lot of work

I roughly doubled my productivity. I’ll give myself a few more days to see if this wasn’t just a fluke. But what used to take me all morning and half and half an afternoon now took me only 3 hours.

I’d say that’s pretty good. Was I mindlessly surfing that much?

But this sudden jump in productivity made me realize I do have a lot of work. I’ll need to address that issue pronto!

#2 Is my critical thinking kicking it up a notch?

I do love politics and political news. As one my regular commentators to this blog Corinne Edwards said she couldn’t live without MSNBC, I was starting to feel the same way.

You see, I like election coverage. From headline news I know who’s winning the primaries. But without reading all the commentary, it feels like I don’t have anyone to tell me what to think anymore.

I may have to start thinking for myself. Perish the thought.

Seriously though. I get this same feeling I used to get in college. I used to read primary sources so I could come up with my own conclusions before reading others’. But with news, I find myself looking to see what others say before I make up my mind.

Media fast day #1 is showing me that I can come up with my own opinion about Barack Obama’s victory sans three columnists telling me what I should think about it and all the major implications thereof.

#3 Playing toy animals with a 4-year-old is quite fun

Cutting out some TV, I instead played animals with my daughter. I mean WOW! That kid does a spot on imitation of me and her teachers at school. She thinks I’m a zebra.

I thought I should be the lion, but nope…zebra.. There you have it. In the animal kingdom, I’m a zebra. Her teacher, however, got to be a tiger. My daughter was a small tiger.

I think I preferred it when my daughter was on a Star Wars kick and I got to be the Emperor.

#4 Lost is a cool show

I picked up the first season of Lost on DVD. I took in 45 minutes of TV this evening and watched an episode. Cool show.

I’ll tell you though. It pained me to listen to Daniel Dae Kim’s Korean. I’m sure most Americans don’t know, but I certainly hear the difference in his Korean and Kim Yunjin’s. No matter though. I liked Daniel Dae Kim in Crusade, so I won’t hold his Korean ability against him too much.

#5 Somewhere out there is LeBron James still getting disrespected?

Of course, my protest continues! Because I am not reading any sports pages, I have no idea whether or not LeBron is getting any respect. I assume he is not.  But this media fast continues until LeBron James is shown some respect.

Those are my thoughts for today. I’ll keep you posted on this media fast and you can read more on how it is affecting my work and my life.

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You are lucky!

It hurts like heck. You use your lat muscle to lift, while you’re sitting, and it hurts every time you twist your body.

Well, after taking it easy for a few weeks (treadmills are boring), I was ready to get back to some weight training.

But not wanting to take any chances, I was pretty much on light weight training (and for full disclosure, my gym activities do NOT include lifting heavy weights…I have no intention to be the next wannabe Schwarzenegger.)

How did it go?

Picture this:

I was hitting the weights. Pumping the 8-pound dumbbells. All the while, I had a small Asian woman half my size pumping 12-pound dumbbells on one side of me with these two extremely ripped guys curling 65-pound dumbbells in their hands on the other side.

Both small Asian woman and extremely ripped guys were doing quite well while I was grimacing in pain from the 8-pounders. All the while, they would glance at me with a “what-the-heck-is-your-problem-8-pound-lifting-boy” face. I’m not sure how other people saw this when viewing this scene, but let’s just say that my “coolness” factor at the gym probably took a hit.

But guess what? It’s better to work your way up slowly than to re-injure yourself. It’s not worth hurting yourself just to avoid looking like a complete idiot. And besides. I know that the ripped guys and the short Asian woman probably won’t even remember who I am next time I hit the gym.

Why am I telling you about my humiliating experience at the gym?

It’s to illustrate to you this very valuable lesson:

It’s OK to embarrass yourself.

No one likes to be embarrassed and humiliated. In fact, people often go to great lengths NOT to be embarrassed or humiliated. To do this, they will avoid activities outside their comfort zones. They will take no action when they should do something. They will refuse to try new things for fear of being “laughed at”.

Maybe we picked up this habit from when we were children. I mean, who wanted to be the one who looked stupid? But the truth is without looking stupid and embarrassing yourself, you will not be able to grow personally.

On your personal growth journey, it is not only important, it is imperative that you embarrass yourself a time or two. As I have sought to grow, I have experienced a wealth of embarrassment, but the embarrassment was temporary. Some examples include:

While learning to play violin at age 30: Being shown up by a 7-year old who laughed at my out-of-tune rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

While learning Korean in my early twenties (to the present): Thinking I was asking a woman to go somewhere with me, instead I asked her to sleep with me (just one syllable difference). Asking a high school girl who was the cashier at a Korean KFC for breast meat, but instead asked to see her breasts (how was I supposed to know that a woman’s breast and chicken breast were two different words?)

Had I been concerned about how I looked, I never would have learned Korean. And the truth is many people I knew people who lived in Korea a lot longer than I did could barely speak a word. And it wasn’t because they couldn’t, but it was the fear that they would look stupid doing it that stopped them from even trying.

Most growth opportunities in life slip right through our fingers because we are afraid of looking stupid or being embarrassed. But let me end this post with this thought:

“Embarrassment is only temporary.
But the personal growth we experience out of that embarrassment lasts a lifetime.”

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But anyway….

It happens. In fact, a few weeks ago even I had a bad day (yes, for those who know me, I do experience bad days every now and again). Bad days are rough. You feel like nothing is going right. Nothing makes you feel better. Being productive? It’s not going to happen.

But my friend’s bad day really got me thinking. How do you handle a bad day? What can you do to get through it? Bad days seem like they go on forever. And if you’re not careful, your bad day can turn into a bad week. Or maybe a bad month.

No one wants that to happen. So, I will show all of you today how I get through a bad day:

1. Admit you are having a bad day

Sounds easy, right? Actually, I found this is the hardest part. Usually we look for a reason for our bad day. It’s work. It’s family. It has to be something. But sometimes it’s everything. Don’t start looking for the cause. One bad thought leads to another. Now, one thing might have set off your bad day, but once it gains momentum everything turns bad.

So, just admit to yourself that you’re having a bad day and accept the fact that you are most likely not going to feel much better.

2. Talk to your friends

As I posted yesterday about the value of friends, friends can be a great support system. Once you’ve admitted that you’re having a bad day, venting about it may help calm you. Sometimes just talking about it can make you feel better, but sometimes it doesn’t. If not, it’s OK. It’s always better to share your problems than to keep it bottled up inside. And sharing your bad day can also prevent it from causing you to make bad decisions (like quitting your job…it’s been known to happen.)

3. Use affirmations of truth

OK. What is an affirmation of truth? Well, I just made that word up. An affirmation of truth is simply a true statement that happens to be positive. But rather than trying to tell yourself “positive things” like “I feel great” when you really don’t, I prefer to tell myself true things. For example, “the will rise again tomorrow”. “I won’t feel like this forever”. Or my personal favorite, “well, there goes my productivity for today.” Every statement is true. Positive, as well? I think so.

Grounding positive thinking in reality makes it believable. And when something is believable you can internalize it. To me, that’s the key to thinking positively. Truth is something we should embrace. Embracing the things that are true can keep us thinking positively long after our bad day ends.

4. Go to sleep

This is my cure-all. I go to sleep at the end of the day, early if possible. Once you sleep, the bad day is over. Before I go to sleep. I tell myself that my bad day has ended and it’ll be time to start a new day tomorrow.

However, I never tell myself that I’ll have a great day tomorrow (I’m not a fortune teller…who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow…and if tomorrow doesn’t feel great, I’ll be disappointed which might turn tomorrow into Bad Day, The Sequel). But tomorrow is a new day. And generally speaking, it can usually only get better.

Well, that’s how I get through most bad days. Maybe it’s not the most inspiring method, but it works for me. If anyone has any other ways of getting through bad days, I’d love to hear them.

And to my friend who is having a bad day, I hope tomorrow is a better day for you. You deserve it.

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The one thing that separates mankind from animals is imagination. The ability to imagine what is possible, what was possible, and what could be. This power. This gift allows us to go in endless directions. Gives us unlimited potential.

In order to realize this potential, we must find ways to stimulate our imaginations. I have found the most effective way to do this is…

…through reading fiction.

Yes, fiction. Some of you might find it surprising that for a guy who writes a personal development blog, I read very few self-help (and I use that term quite loosely here) books.

I read some very good blogs and maybe one self-help book a year. The rest of the time, I read fiction—averaging 2-3 books a week (I have a long subway commute, so I spend that time reading or studying Korean). I also read poetry, which I find to be the most stimulating for my imagination—though I admit poetry is not for everyone.

And I recommend for you to do the same. At least try it for 30 days. Online, read some of your favorite personal development blogs, but offline read nothing but fiction. Don’t’ read biographies, history, or any other non-fiction. Try reading fiction that challenges your imagination. If you’ve never read it, I suggest starting with the Lord of the Rings. Mythology and stories have a way of opening our minds in ways a self-help book can’t.

I read a lot of Japanese fiction, especially Haruki Murakami. I find his books to be some of the best. But also reading international fiction opens your mind to a new way of seeing the world.

Most personal development material challenges you, but you also need to find ways to challenge yourself. It’s one thing to tell people to imagine something, but it is quite another thing to actually do it. By using fiction to open your mind to worlds beyond, you can imagine ways to make the impossible happen.

And armed with that vision, you can go out there and MAKE it happen.

Here are some recommended books of fiction to get you started on your journey:

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And I don’t buy the whole leader-follower dichotomy that holds the leader 100% responsible for the failings his or her followers. Many things are not in any leader’s ability to control. And I also don’t believe that the human condition has changed oh so much in all these years and the short answer to John’s challenge is that leadership is in the state it’s always been in—a state of flux. No better and no worse than it has been.

But I thought it might be worth it to just to share my personal opinions on leadership and use some of my personal experiences as a guide for those of you out there who are trying to be better leaders.

But I have to say something very important first.

With all the books on leadership, why don’t we have a book on “follower-ship”. Seriously. You know who gets blamed when things go wrong. But isn’t it just as important to learn how to follow orders or operate under someone without voluntarily giving up your brain so that you can claim you were “just following orders” when things go wrong. And how many times have we all seen things go wrong not from a failure in leadership but in a failure of a team to execute? We can blame it all on the leader (that’s what the leader-follower dichotomy expects of us) but I think the followers need to take some personal responsibility for their own failings.

Joh wanted me to post on the current state of leadership. But the truth is I think that the quality of leadership also depends upon a person’s ability to follow.

I do believe that to be a good leader, you must learn to follow, or as the old saying goes:

“You have to first learn to kiss ass before you can kick it.”

Now here are a few points where I’ve seen failures in leadership:

#1 Inflexibility

Ever heard of Bill Parcells, the football coach? He’s quite famous for his “style”. The only problem is that after a few years, he wears thin on the teams he’s coached. Many people swear by Bill—he won a couple of Super Bowls 20 years ago. Lately? Nada.

But at the risk of alienating football fans out there, Bill needed to adjust his style for a while now. I think leaders have to adapt to the style of their teams.

I taught children some years back. And teachers are leaders. The first year I don’t think I was very good. I couldn’t quite figure out where I was going wrong. Then it hit me. I was treating all my classes the same. I taught form Kindergarten to Middle School kids. Kindergarten worked great. The rest not so great.

So, I started taking on different roles for the different classes. For one class, I was the stern teacher. For another class, I was a facilitator. For one exceptionally bright class, I was more of an active participant.

I assumed different roles to fit the students rather than asking the students to change to fit me. And I think this kind of flexibility is necessary.

#2 Fear of not being liked

This was my biggest personal failings. I always want people to like me. I mean, who likes it when people talk bad about you? But the truth is a leader doesn’t need to be liked, per se (although many can and certainly are liked). A leader needs to be respected.

And I have found that the nicer you are to people, the more they will take. Does this mean you have to be hard? Not at all.

Recently, I have been given some heavy responsibilities in my current. I have wondered why a certain project I am working on has not done so well in the past. And the first thing I realized was that the person put in charge looks almost afraid to give an order.

Of course, it doesn’t help that she is treated more as a co-worker than a leader. I really like this team I work with. But nothing was getting done. So, I just developed a system and told them what I wanted done. I give them reasonable deadlines and clear instructions. And guess what? They did a kick-ass job.

I used to be terrified of giving an order. And most likely, it’s why I was never viewed as a candidate for advancement in my job in the past. But now, it’s different. Because I focus more on results now and I seriously got rid of my over-inflated ego, I find it easier to give orders and I find the team follows them. And when the results are good, everyone is happy.

There is a possibility always that they will not like me or get angry at me sometimes. But we’re all adults. And if people don’t like me because I asked them to do their job, it’s their problem not mine. But I might add, everyone loves me…so far.

# 3 Leaders trying to think for others

As I talked before about a lack of follower-ship, I think that some people just want a “leader” to let them use their brains instead of trying to be their brains. Some “leaders” were once great followers in the sense that they were detail-oriented, worked hard, and went above and beyond the call of duty.

But 9 times out of 10, when these people are promoted, they have a tendency to want to do everything themselves. Delegation? What’s that?

Most people are reasonably intelligent. Tr4eating them like idiots only turns them into idiots.

You are the Owner of Your Own Existence; The Leader of Your Life’s Journey

Well, that’s my take on leadership. I do believe that within us all lies qualities that can be used to make us better leaders. But the person we must lead first is ourselves. By concentrating on our own development, we are taking ownership of our lives. And to me the worst leadership failure we could ever encounter is failing to lead ourselves down our own path and rather letting others dictate where we go.

Once you make that choice to lead your life and not your life lead you—you are free. Free to exist on your own terms. And there’s no greater feeling than that.

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I asked my other co-workers about it, but they just laughed and said I needed to ask her myself. So, today I did. I was breathless with anticipation. What was it for inspiration? Did she just like girls? (I had to at least consider the possibility)?

Her response was…

…they were there to inspire her to diet.

Diet? Now, because I respect and like my co-worker I am not going to post a picture of her skinny frame on this blog to show you why she shouldn’t diet. But then again, it doesn’t matter what you or I think…

…it’s what she thinks that matters.

I found out a long time ago…what you think about yourself is more powerful than what others think. This can have a powerful positive impact in that you can grow exponentially when you feel good about yourself.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not about to talk about how we should always feel good about ourselves. Sometimes, it is perfectly fine (and normal) to feel bad about yourself, to feel a little guilty, and even to be ashamed of yourself. There are many times in my life when I was able to change my life around due to feelings of shame. If someone tells you that you should always feel good and “think positive” you can rest assured that they are selling something.

But when you feel bad about yourself while the reality around you is telling you just the opposite, then it is time to reconsider your beliefs about yourself.

My co-worker thinks she should have the “perfect” body. She is not shallow, as some might think. She just wants her body to be “perfect” like the models. Well, I figured I had to do something. So, I showed her this video about how air brushed models are in the magazines.

The video shows an average-looking woman who after being made up and “touched up” turns into this gorgeous fashion model on a billboard. Great video.

Will it change my co-worker’s mind? I have no idea. But it’s a start.

The most important thing you can do is to look at your beliefs, evaluate them, and test them. See if your beliefs are still valid. Deconstruct them if you need to.

In the upcoming weeks, I will be doing a series on using logic to deconstruct your beliefs and how you can use logic to change the way you feel about yourself.

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