A word to use with caution is the word “but”! Most people are not aware that this word negates everything in front of it… So when you say ;
Good job, but next time…
The result will be that the good part is not remembered. Doing it the way around will then have the opposite effect.
Luckily enough, there are simple ways to avoid this trap. You can use the words “yet”, “however” or “and” as replacements. These words do not have this negative effect, which will result in your message being passee more effectively.
Shoshin (初心) is a concept in Zen Buddhism meaning “beginner’s mind”. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner
What does it mean? The following parabel describes it quite well ;
Empty Your Cup
A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. “It’s overfull! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”
We all start with an empty cup. Yet during the course of our lives, we fill our cup with preconceived ideas, concepts, techniques and methods that prevent us from receiving the new. The beginner is not held back by this. So it is good to act like a beginner from time to time and take a step back to look at this in a different perspective…
“A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth (the “cargo”) of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices. Cult members believe that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors. Cargo cults developed primarily in remote parts of New Guinea and other Melanesian and Micronesian societies in the southwest Pacific Ocean, beginning with the first significant arrivals of Westerners in the 19th century. Similar behaviors have, however, also appeared elsewhere in the world.
Cargo cult activity in the Pacific region increased significantly during and immediately after World War II, when the residents of these regions observed the Japanese and American combatants bringing in large amounts of matériel. When the war ended, the military bases closed and the flow of goods and materials ceased. In an attempt to attract further deliveries of goods, followers of the cults engaged in ritualistic practices such as building crude imitation landing strips, aircraft and radio equipment, and mimicking the behavior that they had observed of the military personnel operating them.”
The red thin line throughout this story is that mimicking doesn’t work! Attempting to recreate succesful outcome by replicating circumstances associated with the outcome, although those circumstances are unrelated to the causes of the outcome or insufficient to produce them by themselves, will fail! In our day-to-day lives, we come across this situation frequently. People who repeat a given ritual just because they were told to do so, without knowing why they actually do it. Let’s get down to earth, and reflect by looking towards our own job… Are their aspects where we just repeat things we’re said, without actually knowing why we do it? *silence*
The tail of the fish
There is another, not so known story, that reflects to the same situation.
A mother is baking a fish. Before she throws in the fish, she chops of the tail. The little daughter asks; “Mommy, why do you chop of the tail?”. The mother replies; “Because my mother did so.” The little daughter visits the grandmother a week later and asks ; “Granny, why do you chop of the tail of a fish before baking it?”. The grandmother replies; “Because my mother did so.” That week, the little girl visits her great-grandmother in the nursing home and ask here ; “Nana, why do you chop of the tail of a fish before baking it?”. The great-grandmother replies; “Because the pan was to small for the fish. So we chopped of the tail so it would fit!”.
So know why you are doing this… Mimicking might work out sometimes, yet in most of the cases you will not be working efficiently.
Let’s say you could win 1 million Euro when participating with a lottery. The odds are about 1 to a billion… How much would you pay for this lottery ticket?
Now let’s say that you’re in a lottery where you have a one-out-of-a-billion chance to lose 5% of all your assets. How much would you pay for a lottery ticket which insures you against this?
What you already have is worth more to you than what you might gain. Yet the same math & currency value applies to both gaining and losing. People tend to panic when there is a risk of losing something, despite how small it may be. Every change is seen as a potential loss and not a potential win.
A trader takes several risks on a daily basis, yet (s)he knows/judges the odds of every investement. Let’s say that they have a win ratio of 8 out of 10. When they invest their money into 10 opportunities, they should anticipate that 8 winners exceed the losses made at the two failed investments.
So how do you respond to risks? Do you fear or anticipate them?
In a fast-paced business culture of “get everything done yesterday,” it’s easy to admire and reward those busybusy people who always seem to be juggling 14 things at once. But business coach Dave Crenshaw argues that the most common kind of multitasking doesn’t boost productivity–it slows you down.
I kinda forget the reference for this, but a while ago I read that, with each interruption, the brain will need about 15 minutes to get all things in order again. This so that you’re at the same situation that you were when you were interrupted.
The next video is from Keith Barry at TED. He demonstrates how our brains can fool our bodies. I’m a believer of NLP yet this seems to go the next level, more towards the “magician”. Here I must say that I don’t believe in magic, that it’s always an illusion… 😉
Karim Vaes 