Tag: humans

Calm A Sutra !

There is of course a phonetic co relation to what you are thinking but there ends the potential!! Sorry to disappoint you.

 

 

A sutra is a concise verse or scripture within Hinduism and Buddhism. In Sanskrit, sutra means “note,” “sacred thread,” or “code.” Sutras are often used in chanting and meditation. Many who have a spiritual yoga practice use the sutras as a guide to life.

 

 

” If then it’s not the things that you pursue or avoid are coming at you, but rather than you in a sense are seeking them out, at least try to keep your judgement of them steady, and they too will remain calm and you won’t be seen chasing after or fleeing from them “. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.11

 

 

People often look to their leaders before looking at themselves before losing their calm and if their leader is calm, they will be calm too. This is what is meant by “calm is contagious”. It means you need to be mindful of how you’re feeling and what emotions you’re projecting.

 

 

Calm isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. You can pretty much replace calm with any word like panic, chaos, or disorder. 

 

 

Former Navy SEAL Rorke T. Denver’s idea of Calm is Contagious carries valuable lessons that every leader should know. Diving into the deeper meaning of “ calm is contagious ” shows us the role of leaders in any environment and how we can do better to guide our teams.

 

 

There is a maxim that Navy SEALs pass from officer to officer, man to man. In the midst of chaos, even in the fog of war, their battle-tested advice is this: ” Calm is Contagious “.

 

 

You don’t need to be a Navy SEAL to have a contagious calm. We all want to be around people who are calm and in control. But we also have an opportunity to be that person for our colleagues, our families and even ourselves. Our ability to calm ourselves and reduce stress fundamentally changes how we react and how we make decisions.

 

 

Given that others are likely to mimic or amplify your behavior, think closely about what you want that behavior to be. There’s an obvious contagious effect with our emotional and cognitive experiences; we’re constantly affected by others and their emotional states. 

 

 

Humans are hardwired for connection.Whether people know it or not, they’re constantly borrowing from other people’s nervous systems and lending out their own. It’s a trade off- give and take.

 

 

There are enough storms. Stick to calm.

 

 

PS: If time and inclination permit, you my find value in watching the interview in BrandKnew with Dr Jonah Berger( author of the book Contagious, among many other best-sellers).

ENDS

 

 

Doing by Undoing

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?..echoed W H Davies in his seminal classic poem ‘ Leisure ‘. And he ends by stating,  A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.

The biggest lie we’ve been told is that ‘ productivity is all about doing ‘.

Working is Not Productivity. The message once(and even now) was loud and clear. Relentless self-optimisation was a way to cope, but is it really? Humans are NOT search engines !

There has been always something obscene about the cult of the hustle, the treadmill of alienated insecurity that tells you that the moment you stop running for even an instant, you will be flung flat on your face.

Productivity is not a synonym for health or safety or sanity. I will go onto add that frantic productivity is actually a fear response. It’s a fear response for 21st-century humans in general and millennial humans in particular.

Productivity, or the lack of it, has become the individual metric of choice for coping with the international econo-pathological clusterfuck of the Corona Crisis.

Have you taken the path not trodden, step into a void and, by design decide NOT to do anything? And then witness something strange happening? Ideas begin to flow, collide, offering solutions, relief, succour, insights, inspiration, closure..

Our best work will come from undoing—from slowing down and giving ourself time and space. The Japanese call this vacuum ma—an empty space that’s intentionally there. In Hebrew, the same concept is called selah. The word appears 74 times in the Hebrew Bible as a direction to stop reading, pause, and contemplate what just appeared in the text.

There is no preamble or drum roll when ideas arrive. There is no parade. If it’s big, it is not going to wield a megaphone and yell from the rooftop. At first glance, the big thing actually looks quite small. If there’s no void in your life—if your life is full of constant chatter—you won’t be able to hear the subtle whisper when it arrives.

Banish the FOMO that if you slow down, you will get left behind. What you would do is use less energy, you’ll go faster, and you’ll go deeper. The pedal-to-the metal mentality is the enemy of original thought. Creativity isn’t produced—it’s discovered. And it happens in moments of slack, not hard labor. Yes, counter to popular thinking, but true.

During those moments, it may appear like nothing is happening, but appearances mislead. Still waters run deep. As you stare out into the nothingness, your subconscious is hard at work, consolidating memories, making associations, and calibrating a new math while marrying the new with the old to create unexpected combinations.

So, don’t avoid the void.

Mute down the noise, just for a little bit, throughout the day. Give yourself permission to lounge in bed after waking up. Put yourself in airplane mode. Sit and stare at the ceiling. Wander aimlessly through a park.

Allow interior silence to oppose contemporary chaos.

Sink into the rhythm of no rhythm.

Step into the void—where all things that never existed are created.

Relentless self-optimisation is NOT a way to cope. Humans are NOT search engines !

Charles Richards on productivity: “Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One person gets only a week’s value out of a year while another gets a full year’s value out of a week.”

You’ll find that taking your foot off the pedal can be the best way to accelerate.

Ends.

The Algebra of Trust..

The Algebra of Trust and How the Virtual World is Playing Havoc with it!
We have all noticed that all too often online, feedback descends to trolling and then degenerates to hate on all sides. Why is that? Why does this honourable form of human commentary from one person to another rarely work online?

Fundamentally what has changed is the nature of trust and as trust changes, so do relationships precisely because of how we are hardwired to form connections with people. It is no surprise that trust in the virtual world is very fragile(though easier to establish initially). Feedback depends on trust. In face to face relationships where there is trust, when one side screws up, it would be causing anger, friction, resentment, mistrust to creep in. But, if the connection is strong enough, things can be salvaged, an apology rendered and trust can get restored. Indeed, once restored, the bond of trust maybe even stronger than what it was erstwhile.
It’s different in the virtual world- once trust is threatened, it’s instantly broken and almost impossible to reestablish. People simply move on. Since trust was fragile and on egg shells in the first place, it gets broken at the slightest provocation.
Let’s look at the resident flaws domiciled in virtual feedback. Firstly, there is much less of it because it is harder to give than face to face feedback. Secondly, virtual feedback is much less robust and more likely to cause irreparable harm. And as an extension of that a weaker feedback has far diluted meaning.
Though lacking the unconscious stream of emotional information we receive automatically from other people face to face, virtual feedback, less robust as it may be, still stings- why is that?
We humans are social beings; put us face to face, we share mirror neurons that allow us to match each other’s emotions unconsciously and immediately( more about Neurons and Narratives in a separate post). We leak emotions to each other. Yes. We anticipate and mirror each other’s movements when we are in sympathy or agreement- singing from the same hymn sheet shall we say. And we can mirror each other’s brain activity when we’re engaged in storytelling and listening-both halves of the communication conundrum.
All of that leaking and sharing creates intimacy, trust and connection. It fuels receptivity and interest in other people’s point of  view. There is a quest to achieve this state of human communion. Make no mistake- it’s wrong to think that most humans prefer the solitary life that so much of modern virtual life imposes on us. We’ re most comfortable when we are connected, sharing strong emotions and stories.
The virtual world in stark contrast is much less engaging. This stems from the fact that the forms of the virtual world lacks the emotional information we crave. With this we can segway into another critical aspect of the virtual era that has high premium written all over. The issue of authenticity. More on it at a later date in time.
As an aside: Do you think Twitter needs a crash course in Anger Management? It is said that your audience is the product– just a polite enquiry… ( Well it’s for a different discussion!).

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ENDS

https://www.groupisd.com/story

https://www.brandknewmag.com

https://www.weeklileaks.com