We may try to do what we think is best for someone else, but not realize that this might actually be imposing our assumptions onto them. Derek Sivers put it succinctly as:
Being superficially considerate can be inconsiderate.
Doing the opposite can actually be more considerate, which Derek has coined “meta-considerate”.
So, instead of putting someone else up on a pedestal (where they can only look down on you), try being more authentically you and let them come to you.
Whether it is love, business, or pretty much anything in life, offering your truest self is the most powerful way to make connection and the best recipe for success. You will still fail here and there, but at least you are doing it on your terms, not trying to pander to what you imagine others will want.
Yeah, I said it, I love Derek Sivers. More specifically, I love the work he does and how he does it. He is a thoughtful, deep thinker, great writer, world traveller, musician, successful businessman…the list goes on.
What impresses me more than that, though, is that he is not a stereotype of any of those things. He is fairly counter-cultural, in the sense that he supports and uses things because they make sense to him, not because it is “what you do” or popular. I find when I hear or read his work it can challenge me and make me think about it differently. This is important to me and does not happen to me as often as I would like.
Besides his website, his work can be found in TED Talks and on YouTube. I especially enjoyed his book Anything You Want. He is challenging me more and more lately, though, as he is coming out with new projects that are right in the wheelhouse of what I am aspiring to do myself: he has started blogging more regularly and, just today, I got a newsletter from him that he has started a daily podcast.
I am looking forward to consuming more from Derek and may post more of the ideas generated from his thoughts going forward.
I don’t know if you are regular/avid listeners of the Focusedpodcast, but the last episode was utter gold in my books. It was all about their use of calendars and really simplifying and personalizing organization and productivity stuff.
I especially liked how they are using a mixture of analog wall calendars and paper journals with digital calendars and to do lists. I think that is more of the direction I want to go in as I have found the depths of digital productivity hell and it makes me sad.
I can expand upon this later (maybe this is a blog post?), But the conclusion that I’m coming to is that the analogue in the digital are used differently. Really big picture things can go on a wall calendar (like for a year) and the few, small daily tasks can be put into a paper journal. all of the “digital brain“ stuff can and should be stored in the digital to do list and all appointments and time blocking needs to be on a digital calendar. They all serve very different goals.
A part of the show that I forgot to mention before but I really liked was they quoted Sean Blanc with his digital system being “the brain” and his analog system being “the boss”. The digital system does the heavy lifting of storing, finding and organizing things, but the more nuanced and smaller day-to-day stuff can be done in an analog fashion. I like that. I certainly haven’t really done this yet, but I think it could work.
Thoughts come and go. I try to write down many of them. I tell my dear wife, son, friends and family ad nauseam of my latest ponderings. I have developed complex digital systems to quickly capture interesting things I find on the internet, in print publications, podcasts, etc., add my own interpretations and save to places like Evernote.
Over time, though, it starts to feel like I am more of a collector or librarian than actually creating anything new. So, it was in a mastermind group I am part of that I recently vowed to starting “thinking more publicly”. If my ideas are good enough to collect and organize for some important future purpose, at least some of them are worthy of being shared publicly. I thought I would start that process here.
I don’t know what this will look like down the road, but it is better that I have started sharing than keep adding to my informational indigestion.
We all find ourselves in dark places at times in our lives. It can be a more formal depression, but many losses – of those we love, ideas we had to let go of, people who we were, etc. – can leave us adrift and questioning fundamental parts of our lives.
In trying to find a way out we or those trying to guide us will often look for the root of the problem to fix or extract it. This can be helpful and sometimes teaches us important things about ourselves. However, it often is nebulous as to whether we have found this root. How do we know where the bottom is? Do we really need to know where the bottom is?
When lost in the dark it is often meaning that we are lacking. The meaning, the hope, we thought we could count on is now gone and we have no waypoint to look towards. So, instead of digging to fix or extract the perceived problem searching for new meaning in our life can light the way to a new self.
A beautiful story that I love is one of the African Violet Queen, told by one of my favourite therapists Bill O’Hanlon. It is a true story of a woman who lived in 1950’s Chicago and who was helped by Bill’s mentor, the great psychotherapist, Milton Erickson. Below is the video, which tells the whole story, but the main point of it is summed up in the one statement that Dr Erickson said to Bill many years ago as to why he chose to help her the way he did:
I thought it would be easier to grow the African violet parts of her life than to weed out the depression.
Rather than trying to fix the loss or cure the pathology it is often finding new things to live for and get excited about that saves us. Meaning is one of the most important things for humans to flourish. To lose it sets us adrift and to find it anew can change our whole life.
What provides you with deep meaning in your life? If you can’t answer this you might want to start looking. If it is already not inside of you, see where you can give in the world. Helping, serving, bettering the world around us and those whom we share it with may be the way back to yourself.
