Obscurity, the curse of being a person who is isolated and without connection.  Did you know that you may only be six degrees of seperation away from someone of real influence?  Probably, BUT I bet you didn’t know that you can build a wall around yourself that makes you feel like you are the only one who knows something about something.  Well, I can say that through this blog I have learned that you aren’t the only that knows something about something.  Others do and chances are they may be equally as interested as you in finding that stuff out.

How do we box ourselves into obscurity?

The way I did it, was primarily through three ways.

Way # 1 – The language we use

A colleague pointed out to me the other day that I had reduced my potential on the academic market 400% (not his words mine) because I kept referring to the work I was doing as methodology rather than applicability.  He encouraged me to use more general terms accepted by the wider community and find more acceptable language to promote myself.  So instead of saying, “conceptual frame shifting” which is academic language I could use, “changing your perspective”.  Now my audience of interest is about 400 times wider than it was before.

Way # 2 – Having  a bad attitude

Another thing that I did which boxed me into obscurity was the idea that everyone didn’t have a clue… but me.  This is stupid.  You are not the only person who knows something about your area.  Chances are, you feel alone and rightly so in some cases… maybe even out of place.  However, you are the not the only one.  A paper I wrote recently was published in a journal that most people, or so I thought, didn’t really read.  After it was published I received several emails from people all over the world saying how the core idea of the paper was helpful to them.  They were from agricultural science, information systems, technical and management backgrounds to name just a few.  Now, I never thought I would ever get an email from anyone about anything I had written, let alone someone in agricultural science!  The people are out there, you just have to patient and look for them.  Most people are not going to hunt you down,  you have to find them.

Way #3 – Refusing to network

This one is particulary hard for me because I am not an out-going person.  I don’t like going to parties and I certainly don’t like swapping business cards!  That’s me.  However, if you want to work with interesting people you have to build bridges here.  It’s hard, but the world is not external to us, we made, co-create and develop it.  Without people there are no partnerships, no buildings, no work, no progress … only nature!  Now unless you worship the sun or don’t need a network to take your ideas and use them, then you need to find partners to work with.    This is hard but the fact of the matter is people support other people, there is no magic here, it’s a simple matter of maths!

There are many more things we do to box ourselves into obscurity.  However, these are the ones that I have used and more recently realised were attitudes that were hampering my development.  I have to be honest here and say more often than not, I will avoid people.  BUT I am learning and getting better at this, and I hope you are too.

courtesy http://missdebbie.net/

A while back I started reading self-help books.  Now, I need as much help as the next guy HOWEVER… I am starting to wonder why this phenomena has become so successful.  Yeah I know (potential flamers) that thousands of people realised this long before I did.   Anyway, as a preclusion to the following let me say that I think that you can get a lot of value from reading self-help books.  But, one thing has bothered me… so much so that I am about to say it in CAPS:

I DON’T HAVE A VISION!!!

Phew.  That’s better. Nine out of every ten self-helpers will promote the idea of ‘manifesting’ or ‘having a vision’.  What if there’s nothing there?  I stopped (as in put the book back on the shelf and closed it NEVER to open again) reading a book that began with … all you need is a vision.   I suspect that I have dreams, passions and desires.  I sure as hell do (read this for more information).  Nevertheless I have been thinking about this for a while… I have no great desire to do anything much.  Sure, if I could land an agent and sell my book to a willing publisher that would be good.  Getting promoted recently was also pretty sweet and having children is lots of fun.  Yet, inside the great vast of my spirit is the essence of nothing.

I am not alone.  I know of heaps of people that are clueless about the reason they exist.  From the time I was sixteen until now I have had desires, only to find out after a period of time that I no longer wanted to do that.  Perhaps I am a transcient?  Anyway enough glamourous navel gazing let’s think outside the box.

Visions for sale

Perhaps the core part of the problem lies in the belief that our lives are said to have a grand ‘awesome’ plan to them.  What if we decided to anti-vision?  OR Anti-plan?  Let’s imagine that there is already a plan and the plan is to find out how NOT to plan?  I feel at peace the most when I am relaxing and not worrying too much about what tomorrow will bring.  Maybe anti-planning is the answer?  Planning to not have a plan… living by … emergence?  As things cross our paths we can deal with them and begin to build a better existence for ourselves.  Why do we need a vision?  Yes, I know, I have said having a vision is important… but hey MAYBE I AM WRONG!  I think what we find in the majority of self-help literatures is the manifestation of false hope syndrome. We believe in hope and hope lies to us.

We believe in what they say so badly we think we need a grand narrative and meaning to our lives.  Go to a cemetary one day for fun.  Look at the tombstones.  These are ordinary people that died, perhaps they had a dream, perhaps they didn’t.  What’s important now is that they are food for worms.  They are no more.  However, this is not a depressing thing.  It means simply that life can be ordinary.

Life is ordinary… most of time

I can count the amount of times I have had ‘defining moments on one hand.  Marriage, when my kids were born, getting my first real job etc.  Yet, none of these things teaches me about me.  It teaches me, that life is like a punctuated equilibrium with long delays inbetween the spikes.  Why do we strive to work SO hard to have all this stuff that destroys us in the end.  Why?  Is being ordinary so damned terrible that we have to avoid it.  We can’t all be Richard Branson or GOD FORBID Bill Gates.  No, you can’t all be rich millionaries.  SORRY.  Through hard work, divine favour (perhaps), money and good connections you can be something you think you should be… although I am wondering about the hard work part.   Everything I have I worked for, yet in that, the best things I have at the moment were given to me.  Hmm… DOWN WITH WORK!

I guess the point of this post is to highlight the beauty of the ordinary.  There is real worth in being nobody in particular.   Ambition is a double edged sword that on one hand makes you want something but on the other takes you to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. Why do that?  Be normal, be beautiful!

Why should we sell our souls for a vision?

*Courtesy the cheezburger people

It’s interesting to note what people would do for money.  Decieve others, rip people off, sell drugs, hire hookers, snort coke (ok too much underbelly) and the like.  The question is what would you do for money?  How far would you go for cash?

The reason I am asking is recently a thought had crossed my mind to do with some rather dubious online marketing tactics.  After a period of time I realised that if I was going to do the said thing in question… then I would be deliberately have to deceive someone in order to make some money.  The bible has a bit to say about that so do many other books.  But, in my mind the question that I thought to ask was: what would YOU do for money?  I have lied for money before and felt like crap afterwards!  I have done all kinds of things for it.   YES.  Probably the worst thing I did was steal from my parents when I was a kid (hey they had it coming!). What about you?  What would you do for money?

It’s good to be back.  So what have I been doing?  Well, that’s interesting.  Far too interesting to mention in my comeback post.  I will say this however, I have been busy! I have read a lot, spent some and thought a little.  A month of very busy work times made me realise how much I missed this bizarre form of human communication.  I can say, without too much doubt, I am glad to be back.   So what’s new?

Not much.  Good times.  More to come from me – I am not done yet and you can take this to the bank:

Where’s there’s a will there’s a way

A special thanks to all the people who emailed or commented (yes all five of you).  These comments make me realise that in the difficult times you can still have a blog that some people will read.

All the best for 2009 (late I know but hey… we still have 8 months or so to go!).

A recent experience has shown me the importance of leaders.  As our discipline (Information Systems) meanders towards a slow tumbling death from hell, I have been wondering where the leaders are?  And yes I put myself in that category.  This got me thinking… sometimes you NEED leadership.

Leaders know the way

What we really need at work at the moment is someone to stand up and show us the way forward.  Most of us don’t have the faintest idea what the hell to do or what is going to work.  Leaders know what needs to be done and they know there is a path.  Even if a leader doesn’t know what the path is and where it will lead they have insight, foresight and direction.  We need a leader to help us in these times and most importantly we need direction.

When you don’t know what to do … you need a leader

In my life I have been spiralling downwards with a clear lack of direction for about twelve months.  I won’t lie, this has been one of the worst experiences of my life to date.  What I have learned in this time is that taking advice from other people is great… but I really need is leadership.  Some turn to various places to get that kind of leadership but for me I find people that are willing to listen and can offer some sound advice.   Still, you can’t live your life around these things you need to “man up” and make decisions that you are accountable for.

A good leader helps you to see the bigger picture

One thing I have come to find very annoying is people who deliberately leave out key information about a topic in order to protect ideas they think are valuable… why share it in the first place.  DAMMIT!  I don’t know how many times I have read something on the internet about how to this or make something and the end result is different.   My wife’s grandmother used to leave key ingredients out of recipes all the time for example!

However, a good leader will be able to call you out and help you to see the bigger picture at all times.  They will be able to point the direction towards what you need… not necessarily what you want.   A good leader can show you the way and point you towards the steps you need to take in order to make it work for you.  They will give you keys and help you to see the very best.  In short a good leader will help you to think strategically.

I think that in every area of life there are leaders.  You would be hard pressed not to find one.  However, how many good ones are there?  I leave you to work that out.

I remember watching Superman as a child thinking I wonder if he ever knew what his potential was when he was growing up? I wonder if the great leaders of the past were aware just how far their voice would carry. I often think about Gandhi and wonder if he knew just how far he would go. Did he realise that we would still be speaking about him so many years after his death? In brutal scientific terms, your potential can be best thought of as the energy that lies dormant ready for use. It’s energy that never gets used but if it was could create a different outcome. Your potential is that dormant energy that you have stored away inside that you either are or are not developing. There are many ways you can find it and develop it. Today I want to talk about 5 ways you can find your potential.

1. Listening closely to what people have to say about you

One of the ways you can find what your potential is to listen closely to what people have to say.  This is a two edged sword here because people will say things a lot of times that are ultimately quite negative.  However, amongst the weeds you may find a nugget of information that will give you a clue.  Once, I submitted a paper to the Journal of the Operational Research Society only to have it rejected after a throughout review.   I was dejected!  Fast forward several years later and my Ph.D supervisor suggested that I try the journal again.  This time I got in!  In the back of my mind were some of the words that I heard my Ph.D supervisor and others say about my potential.  That said, he never really came out and said, “You can do it,” it was more like subtle pieces of information from time to time that pointed towards the fact that I had potential.

One other time I submitted a very rough draft of my novel to an editor in New York to read.  Now, I am still unpublished but he said something that I will never forget.  “You have some skills”… or in other words, “you suck ass right now but with some work and development (that I might add this person didn’t think was worth the effort… given the workload and chances of success for authors in this market I can hardly blame him and the fact the book needed a lot more development) you can make it.  What I write now is a lot better than what I submitted then.  Is it publishable?  Probably not.  I will probably never win a Pulitzer or even care about righting decent literature (hat tip Ian McEwan) but I will get there.  If I keep improving I will keep getting better.  All because someone said once that I had potential.  If I am willing to learn and grow who knows, I might JUST make it. If I had never of heard that I more than likely would have quit a long time ago.

2. When you use something you know if it works or not

Another way to uncover potential is to try something.  I have learned from experience that I have got no culinary talent.  There is no hidden desire, ability or even will to cook.  I hate it.  It stresses me out and if I didn’t have a partner that liked cooking as much as she does I would be screwed.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t cook or can’t learn but through years of having problems with it and not enjoying it I have discovered there is no potential for me there.  The same can be said of my administrative capacity.  I hate it.   I can do it but I hate it.  My sister in law loves it and is brilliant at it.   She learned from being in a law firm that she likes administration management and is very good at it.  When you try something out, you learn very quickly whether or not you are good at it.  More to the point, do it for a while and see if you have ‘potential’.  It will surface!

3. Find out what your hidden desire is and develop it

Yes it’s that easy .  Most people scoot through life with a hidden talent and die with the music still in them.  I have made a commitment not to do that.  If you have a hidden desire why don’t you take the time to develop it?  Push aside your excuses and think for a moment, what is stopping you from finding the time to practice your art?  I can’t guarantee that you will make money from it or become so good that you will make a million dollars.   What I can tell you though is that as you find those hidden desires (the healthy ones… c’mon now!) then you will find hidden potential.  Where there is desire, there is often potential waiting to be plucked and used.   If you can’t find what your passionate about don’t sweat it.   It has taken me thirty something years and I am not there yet.  But, I am getting there.  There is waiting, development and pain along the way (let me tell you) but when you get better and notice it, there is no feeling in the world that can surpass it.  Developing potential requires commitment, talent and time.  Unless you begin to experiment with what you have got and the desires you have… how will you ever know what you can or can’t do?

4. Pay attention to what others are doing

This one is simple.  Recently someone I know hooked with this guy who is into film making.  It reminded me of a dream I had when I was a kid to make films.  Another time, I heard of someone who had a fiction book published.  Yet, in all of these things I am not a filmmaker neither am I a published author.  Could I be one day?  Certainly, I still have those childhood desires there and who knows if I find a way to practice and learn more about it I could do it… am I motivated to do it?  No.  That’s another post!  However, by listening to other people who are developing their potential you may just find a mirror into your own soul.

5. Follow your heart… not your head

God bless the human form!  We have deep down desires that we use to create our future templates only to contradict them with our thoughts and actions.  I once heard it said that what makes you cry is what you are passionate about.  The thing is time goes on and sometimes you are older (or really old) when you realise what you are passionate about!  In your heart, intuitively that is, you know the answer.  There are some things you just do better than other people… HELLO POTENTIAL!  That deep down stuff in your heart (guts) is probably your potential.  You are a natural at something.  Here is a little trick I learned:

Be still for a moment and shut your eyes.  Intentionally think: what would I do with the rest of my life if I could do anything.  Now, write down anything that comes to mind.  Look at it and throw it away.  Now think again, what do I already know that I want to do but don’t have the balls to admit it?  What is that thing that I have a burning desire about?  What is it that comes naturally that requires no thinking?  It’s that in which the hidden valley of potential is located.  It may not be there for you yet or you may have already discovered it.  But, I guarantee you that you have something you could develop and use which would enrich the lives of others around you.   I am still learning mine, one step at a time.

In life there are no straight answers it seems, only the emerging patterns of learning, experience and lifelines.  Some of us go through our whole lives only to wind up unfulfilled, angry and void of talent and/or hope.  Is that going to be you?  Success is not financial thing (though it can be) … it is a making the most of life and not giving up on your natural abilities and inclinations.  Don’t be like the droids who conform to the mainstream and do what they are told.  House, car, 2.5 kids etc.   Now I am depressed as the next poor bastard but if you keep going you learn and grow into your potential day after day.  Who knows?  If you stick with it and don’t quit like the droids do, you may just find it and have a long successful life.  There are no guarantees but at least if you take steps you are moving forward… one step after the other, you will make good progress.

I was reading about whining at work a while back now and it hit me.  I am a workplace whiner.  Did you know that most of us at some time or another have to work?  Why do we think that work is such a bad thing?  For me at least being a workplace whiner teaches us a very important lesson.

Work is meant to be fun

The advanced levels of brainwashing available (at hand if you will) in most organisational psychology points us to towards ‘coping’ mechanisms at work.  Personal freedom is more than likely a myth that is couched around this idea of work being fun.  Yet for me it is fun sometimes.  However, most of the time it’s not fun… it’s actually a drag.  I find the repetitious nature of my job sometimes gets me down.  It’s in this propensity that I am apt to whine.  Why?  I thought work was meant to be fun?  Well for the majority of us … it really isn’t fun!

Why isn’t work fun?

The main reason work isn’t fun is because we don’t get the opportunity to express ourselves in the way we would like.  That right there is a spiritual matter… another post for another time. For me, most of the time it isn’t fun because of the amount of red tape I have to cut through on a daily basis.  Recently I went through hell just to get $193.  As of this writing… I still don’t have it.  Then I have the students.  A blessing and a curse.  You want to know more read this.

All of that aside I could make myself have a positive attitude and I could do it… but something inside me shudders at the thought of answering 150 emails in a three day period.  Don’t know what it is… .  I have thought about this a lot and I would have to say that work isn’t fun because we aren’t serving ourselves but our master employer.

Work is a paid slavery arrangement.  I am sure that someone is likely to read this one day (perhaps) and say that work doesn’t have to be a paid slavery arrangement but in reality most people I have met, this is precisely what work is.  A paid slavery arrangement.   However, at least it isn’t slavery slavery.   I think that we have it a lot better… yet the question remains what makes us so unhappy?

Work… don’t get me started

The problem is that we live in a society where you have to work to eat.  I know, “you don’t work you don’t eat.”  That’s just it isn’t it.  If you don’t work… you don’t eat.  You wind up amongst the fractured of society living on the scraps of the mainstream.  You just can’t get past it.  No matter where you go, you have to work.  In some parts of the world you work, and you still don’t eat!  What a horrible place this world can be.

I would hate to leave you with a downer but I am yet to read a post, magazine article, book or anything else that tells me otherwise.  Having said all that… whining doesn’t make me feel any better does it?  It makes me feel a helluvalot worse.  So should we whinge or seek personal change?  Probably the latter… though unfortunately I spend to much time doing the former!

In recent times I have found myself sensing a change in my life.  As per usual with my gammy brain I am not certain when or where or even what has to change I just sense intuitively that it’s time for changes.  I have felt like this for most of the year actually.   What caught my eye recently was how certain songs and certain sportstars have all pointed to a simple idea that most of us don’t pay attention to… you have to know when to walk away.

Why not take my word for it?  Listen to a classic and think about the words in this song.  What gets me in particular is this:

1. You got to know when to hold ‘em

2. Know when to fold ‘em

3. Know when to walk away

4. Know when to run

So have you noticed any changes in your life?  Any signs that it’s time to walk away or even run?  I have spoken about this before, but there is a real skill involved in finding out what you should be doing and knowing when to shift gears.

A key lesson in knowing when to walk away

I think the biggest sign of change comes from the intent through which you do something.  When you have a real hard time working up the energy to do what you used to love doing, then you have a key indicator from the deepest depths of your soul that change is coming.  Sometimes this means ditching friends, it means moving to a new city, sometimes … as I have done before it means removing all inhibiting factors from your life, just so you can grow.  Yet, in all these circumstances the thing that points to real growth, is knowing when to move on.  Pay attention to signs around you and how you feel.  If you have a developed sense of intuition you will know when it’s time to change.

You may get a push

Sometimes you may not have a choice and change may be thrust upon you.  Like in my job there is a lot of fear in our little pocket of the management school because the student numbers are down.  There are rumours of change, movements, forced redundancies.  If this is that case it could be God pushing you along!  Pay attention… those indicators are always there.  Other times, life just hammers you… so you have to grow whether you like it or not.  Good times

Let’s return to the song.  You have to know when to walk away… how can you really know that?  That’s sort of like saying how can you know you are a human.  You know.  Alarm bells are ringing on the inside and you haven’t been happy for a while.  Pay attention.  Remember… you gotta know when to walk away… only you know you so take some time to examine yourself and see if it is really time to change and begin to build it today.  Be courageous and have faith!

A while ago I set out to learn the guitar.  At the time, I had the bright idea of teaching myself.  Fast forward a few years and now I make the same mistakes I did years ago and I have absolutely no way of progressing forward without relearning the basics from scratch.  What a bummer.  Nevertheless, through this experience I have learned something.  There is no shortcut to brilliance… no not even if you want rock out.  You have to learn the ropes… there is no other way.

Learning requires that you “actually” learn

The amount of students that I meet that don’t really want to learn the process.  I get emails asking me for help and very often they haven’t even tried.  I must admit, it doesn’t really bother me that much… I am more worried about them!  I mean my stuff is pretty easy.  How are these people going to survive with a hard ass boss?  It makes me wonder about the state of things.   Anyway, what really surprises me is that people believe (as I did for many years) that they think the easy answer will come to them.    Such thinking produces dire results.  We cheat and look for the easy way around.   In short, there is no easy way around… you have to do it.  It seems like a simple thing doesn’t it?  Yet we very rarely want to go through it.

Ask a millionaire they will tell you

Even though we live in an age that promises the get rich quick answer, there really is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme.  Even though people like Branson and whoever else you may conjure up look like the made money fast, they had to learn something along the way.  They picked up some skills, they put them to work and they learned there way through the problem.  I am not saying that it should take years, but you won’t wake up one day and suddenly realise, “oh crap I am rich”.  Sure, it does happen.  But, you want to learn a language… you have to do in a way that works.  That’s a whole other post!

What you can do to avoid ‘shortcut mentality’

Shortcut mentality wants to have easy answers.  The kind you find on the back of your cornflakes packet.   To even learn how to garden, bake a cake, make a sandwich, or do anything that you wish to do… you have to learn it.  Our mind plays tricks on us by saying that we can circumvent the process.  That if we just get the ‘good’ information we will be set.  There is nothing that is not worth learning, that won’t cost you something.  The better the information, the more it will cost you… the higher barrier to entry.   Think about what Stephen King knows about the fiction game or what Richard Branson knows about haggling?  They have learned things that got them where they are, along with a whole lot of luck.

Taking a shortcut is good if it’s efficient to do so but if it means you have to go back to where you started and start again… then it’s not worth it is it?  Think about your life, business, job or family.  What do you have that didn’t require some effort in learning?  Remember, getting there quick is good if it’s smart but if it’s not… you will only have to go back to where you started and hit it again.

Recently I heard somebody say that they thought Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was crap because people trade things for security at the different levels they are at.  One thing that struck me was that the argument that it’s crap rests on the idea that self-preservation is worth more to us that our needs.  What do I mean?

Well, most people will trade off a certain amount of personal security to gain money and often vice versa.  People will solve a problem that makes more problems for them, simply because they don’t want to solve the key problem.  This is a form of self-preservation and I think it poisons us.  It’s a problem that I think we really haven’t found an easy answer to at any stage.   You could say it this way, “self-preservation is a problem because it makes us think, act and behave in ways that gives us an illusion of security”.

This illusion of security presents to us a false belief that by having a stable source of income now I will be more secure later.  That is, security is formed around concepts of self-preservation… which may or may not be a good thing.  In a made effort to preserve ourselves we can destroy our true potential because we may protect ourselves from growth because it may “hurt” or “cause problems”.  The question I will leave you with in this short post is this: How do you know that this pain you may experience may not be precisely what you need to grow?