MEDALIST I AM HOLDING YOU SO TIGHTLY

What is true education?

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🍁True Education…

• Should be connected to life. One of the biggest issues in learning subjects like Math, Science the way it is currently done is that the link to life is missing and loses its value eventually.

• Should connect one to their roots and help strengthen the identity of the individual. This builds confidence in self and provides the scope to spread far and wide. Education that takes you away from your culture and roots leave you with an inherent feeling of shame and a false sense of freedom

• Should be liberating and not binding. Should enable the child to experience his true inner self and bring out the innate wisdom he possesses. Should be able to understand self and the world around him. This paves way for opening up their creative minds, breaking paradigms and have a holistic view of the society and establish a good relationship with the society

• Should equip one with life skills. In many cases life skills is confused with livelihood skills which is more about developing the skills needed to pursue an occupation. Life Skills include the ability to handle uncertainty, adapting to changing environments, handling fear, understanding relationships, being sahaj, dealing with failures.

• Should enable self-learning. In this ever-changing world, learning agility is an important ability to be able to adapt to the unexpected needs that arise in life.

• Should build the viveka (discretion) to make the right choices and decisions

• Should develop the physical (health, food, way of living, body care), emotional (confidence, inner strength, habits), social (relationships, understanding perspectives), intellectual (skill development, knowledge, information, logic, analysis, reasoning) and spiritual capabilities (Knowing self and divine).

• Should build a strong foundation of values and right attitude to deal with life

• Is a never-ending process

🍁Education is not…

• About building academic capabilities, learning subjects with the thought that it may be useful sometime in future

• Skill building alone

• A preparation to get a job. It is not about the preparation to meet industry needs • About memorizing and learning

• Only about gathering information but developing the wisdom to handle the information

• Not about learning to follow instructions How can the right kind of education be given

• Home, school and society should work in tandem to provide a fertile environment for the child to grow and explore. Education should start in individual families with parents playing a larger role.

• Children should have varied experiences which help them establish connections in their own spaces and stay on as deep-rooted learning

• Travelling and meeting people is a great way of providing varied experiences and exposure to children

• Nature is the biggest laboratory. Staying amidst nature opens up varied learning opportunities naturally that easily connects with one’s life. It helps to experience being with life, triggers curiosity, develops observation skills, nurtures our senses and gives a sense of joy

• Children should have spaces to know their interests and explore their competencies

• Dr. Gururaj Karjagi, a well-known educationist once mentioned just like todays back pack travelers whose destination is not pre-decided, pack their bags with things necessary for all type of conditions and weather, thus being prepared to live in any type of situations, true education should put those basic necessities in the bag of children, which will equip them to face any kind of situation once they are out into this world.

Why is so much thought needed towards providing the right kind of education

• Education plays a big role in shaping us as individuals, defining our thought process and behavior, influences our decision making, in the way we handle our relationships and many other aspects of leading a sustainable life

• Children need to experience a childhood that they don’t have to recover from

• Education plays a big role in nation building and today some of the issues we see in the society like – the inability to deal with relationships and adversities, lack of faith, unwarranted fears, inability to handle uncertainty, disconnection from roots and culture, inability to have a holistic view of life, self-centric way of living – are largely a result of the current education system. Hence the need to understand the meaning of true education and take steps towards it.

Another homebrew race, this time something original~ Bunneths! Bunny looking little creatures, i do tell you, drawing rabbit faces is harder than you think - but was a good challenge! Again the text version of these pages can be found below~ If you do make a bunneth, feel free to let me know so i can see it!

Bunneths ( Bunny-folk )

Seen living in small groups around forests and plains, bunneths are hardy folk who make up for their lacking height and soft appearance with a tenacious attitude and incredible quickness. Meanwhile often content with the countryside life of maintaining their big families and small farms, bunneths tend to be on the move and never stay in one place for too long. As paranoia is part of their species, most bunneths grow wary of dangers and monsters if they don’t steadily move from one place to another. From an outside perspective other races see this behavior as wasteful and possibly pointless, but this only causes bunneths to avoid confrontation about their strange and paranoid ways.

Bunneths lack social ranks or any form of leadership, every group of bunneths that one may find are simply labeled a “family”. However bunneths that are part of a family do not need to be related, in fact every bunneth family makes sure that its members do not share bloodlines with each other - other than parent and child. Young bunneths that reach adulthood usually leave their families when they find themselves ready, often to make a family of their own or to fulfill some bigger goal. Despite commonly not seeking greater glories, young adult bunneths like to challenge themselves and their older kin to show themselves as better. And more courageous. Bravery and courage amongst bunneths is rare, but revered.

Thanks to their quick running and small size they make excellent scouts and are always on the alert, providing an extra pair of eyes and ears that rarely miss anything dangerous that’s abound. Some bunneths excel at certain skills over others, coming in various variants that reflect other rabbit like creatures that they share heritage with. The standard bunneth is your usual quick footed and wary folk. Arctic bunneths are more suited for harsh environments and are exceptional travelers. Meanwhile horned bunneths are more magically inclined, but often sport a much more aggressive personality in return. Bunneths come in many shapes and looks, all depending on where they come from and what species their parents are.

Normally having short, simple names, bunneths have a first name and a “family” name, similar to a humans last name. The first names tend to be quick and easy to pronounce, making them sound like quips, this is so that bunneths can quickly alert each other if something is amiss without having to say something long. Family names are often based on what the family values the most, showing the family tradition or favored quality to those outside of their small society.

Bunneth names: Japp, Ni, Gat, Hyck, Fah, Loc, Pick, My, Vea, Ciz

Family names: Trust, Kindness, Valor, Truth, Safety, Patience, Craft, Generosity

Bunneth Traits

You share these traits in common with other bunneths of any variant.

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age. Bunneths have relatively short life spans, often brought by their inner stress, but a bunneth that lives a peaceful life tends to become around 70 years old. They mature around the age of 2.

Alignment. Evil is rarely found within bunneth societies, most bunneths tend to be good hearted or at least neutral, often thinking of themselves and their family first before anyone else.

Size. Standing around 2 to 3 feet tall when on their hind legs and weighing 120 pounds, bunneths are not known for their great stature. Your size is small.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 40 feet.

Powerful Leap. With their powerful hind legs bunneths can make impressive jumps, when you make a running leap you may jump twice the length and height. When you land from a high fall or jump, you take half the falling damage, unless you were incapacitated during the fall.

Language. You can speak, read, and write Common and one additional language of your choice.

Subspecies. Pick one of the following subspecies variants for your bunneth.

Standard Bunneth (Shorthaired)

The common bunneth, found around plains and forestlands where they tend to farms and move from burrow to burrow between the various seasons. Known for having a constant fear of predators and possible dangers, it is difficult to keep these bunneths calm if something lurks in the shadows that they cannot see. To escape bad situations, they burrow into the ground at a quick pace.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Burrow. You can as a bonus action burrow underground up to 5 feet underneath where you were standing, you also have 25 feet of burrowing speed while underground.

Keen Hearing. You have advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks that are based on sound.

Quick Hopper. As a bonus action you can take the Dash action, up to an amount of times equal to your Dexterity modifier (minimum of 1) between short or long rests.

Arctic Bunneth (Longhaired)

Seen in colder and harsher places, these bunneths are survivors that make do with the little they can find. Known to travel long distances and rarely settling down unless its summer, their perseverance is unmatched by other bunneths. Between the seasons their coats change color and length, being the longest during the colder months of their region. When these bunneths shed their winter coats they keep the fur for later or use it to make clothes and scarves, which they share with other winterland travelers.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.

Fluffy and Warm. Thanks to your fluffy coat you have resistance to cold damage and are not affected by the effects of extremely cold temperatures.

Natural Traveler. You gain proficiency in the Survival skill and have advantage on tracking creatures or finding paths in snowy and barren terrain.

Seasonal Camouflage. You gain a bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks made in certain terrain depending on the season that is equal to half your level (minimum of 1, rounded down). During winter you gain the bonus in snowy terrain. During spring and summer you gain the bonus in grassland terrain. During autumn you gain the bonus in grassland and forest terrain.

Horned Bunneth (Bunnmiraj)

Noted by the spiral, ivory horn they grow from their forehead, these bunneths have been observed to possess magical capabilities and often find themselves practicing magic rather than settling for simpler lives. Many travel to seek out the true potential they have within, which is found in the bunneths horn, a horned bunneth that loses its horn is temporarily cut off from their magic - but it regrows over the span of a week. They are also the most aggressive and bold of the bunneth variants, known for picking fights with foes much bigger than themselves and having a taste for blood.

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Innate Spellcasting. At 1st level you know the Produce Flame and Mage Hand cantrip. When you reach 3rd level you may cast Misty Step as a 2nd level spell, not requiring any spell components, once per day. Your spellcasting ability for these spells are Intelligence, unless you have a spellcasting ability tied to your class. These spells do not count towards your class spell count.

Horn. You are proficient in your unarmed strikes and deal 1d6 piercing damage using your horn. If you lack your horn you cannot use this feature.

Feyblood Bunneth (Bunnalope)

Sometimes confused with the horned bunneth, feyblood bunneths have deer like antlers and are known to be more elusive and hard to find. Most live deep into enchanted woods or around places fey find themselves living, often sharing the space together. These bunneths are quite connected with nature and find peace in the wild outdoors. Thanks to their relations with fey they possess the ability to calm predators and dangerous beasts, making feyblood bunneths one of the less paranoid of the bunneth variants.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Fey Teachings. You gain proficiency in the Animal Handling skill, thanks to your ties with the strange fey.

Elusive. As a bonus action you may take the Hide action, up to an amount of times equal to your Dexterity modifier (minimum of 1) between short or long rests.

Innate Spellcasting. You know the Druidcraft cantrip, your spellcasting ability for this spell is Wisdom, unless you have a spellcasting ability tied to your class.

The Power Of Togetherness

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/the-power-of-togetherness/

The Power Of Togetherness

A Research Paper By Océane Staib Evin, Executive Coach, IRELAND

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.– Helen Keller Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.– Michael Jordan The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. – Babe Ruth No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. – H.E. Luccock Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people. Steve Jobs TEAM: Together everyone achieves more.

Whilst increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity have re-enforced the necessity of having several people brainstorm on issues to better identify the root causes and find solutions; whilst all research highlight how expertise in topics is no longer sufficient to find solutions in this complex world; whilst quotes pour through social media to highlight the power of team/group/tribe over the individual, leaders continue to, despite their awareness, think, at some level, more individual than group, team than organization.

Bringing people and teams together to maximize the outcome is often harder than it sounds, it is not only about creating a good team spirit, it requires leaders of an organization to sincerely care about others and the goals of the company, more than their own egos or personal goals and to trickle this mindset and spirit throughout the organization. It also requires to adopt and spread growth mindset in which growing and learning become the drivers rather than being right or wrong. It requires building an environment where shame has no place, an environment in which everyone shares, is listened to, and learns from each other, an environment where mistakes are considered as opportunities to improve and evolve.

Many Leaders have today gained the awareness of the importance of teamwork, group work, and skills to build strong teams. They value the development and successes of each individual more than their own, still, these leaders tend to set natural boundaries to the concept of “Togetherness” and common growth.

Last but not least, Covid 19 pandemic and the move to a significantly more virtual world, has put a terrible break on people’s ability to build relationships through simple exchanges around the coffee machines, meetings, and seminars and share on simple topics and concerns which do not require meetings.

Coaching can be of incredible support for leaders to further build and capitalize on this notion and power of togetherness, in creating new ways of developing relationships, removing the unconscious boundaries they have set, and taking not only their teams but their entire organizations to new levels of “Togetherness” acting as ONE larger team with One Larger Ambition to face every challenge with more agility, flexibility, adaptability, and POWER.

How cultures and education impact the ability and desire to be “fully” part of a group

As leaders pro-actively develop their skills and adapt their attitudes to develop strong teams, many underestimate how their education and culture can impact their most profound and natural reactions thereby sending involuntary signs of individualism to others. Indeed, when growing up in individualistic cultures of Western Europe and North America which comprise autonomy, independence, self-sufficiency, and uniqueness, people tend to be self-reliant and emphasize standing out and being unique. “I think, therefore I am”  from Rene Descartes resonates in the ears of many “Westerners” where people tend to describe themselves using personal characteristics “I am analytical, sarcastic, athletic…”.

Even when they praise and promote teamwork they still see themselves as one unique individual within a group and picture what their person and each individual can do rather than focus on what the group together can achieve, each member contributing to the strength and diversity of the group as a whole. In fact, how would one who describes and identifies himself though others – as people do in many African Cultures – as guided by the “Ubuntu” philosophy where one only exists through others, through the community, and where people describe themselves as “I am a good partner” “I am a good leader”, have approached the same difficulty and challenge? Indeed, Ubuntu is a concept according to which your sense of self is shaped by your relationships with other people. It’s a way of living that begins with the premise that “I am only because we are”; “I am because you are” or “ I am human because I belong, I participate. I share.” The approach is very far from the famous “I think, therefore I am” of Descartes and research has proven time and time again the impact of Culture on our Natural and Innate behaviors.

One of the key roles of coaches is to support clients in gaining awareness of their natural biases and help them act and think beyond these biases. Supporting clients to help them see that even if they think beyond their own interest as individuals, they may naturally still tend to think of the interest of a smaller group than what they could or should such as Team vs organization, or more simple to see how a person who they may consider as a weak link in a group due to lack of expertise actually highly contributes to the overall group dynamic and this weak link is, in fact, cement to the group through their empathy and ability to listen to the flow of information and extract the key ones.

Natural Biases: “My Teams vs the teams of my peers”; “My team vs. the team I am part of”; “My Team vs. the Organization”;

The perception of leadership nowadays is very much different from that in past years. The idea where one heroic individual single-handedly generates results by enforcing his will is considered outdated. Leadership is now considered a “team sport”. Company managers and other people in leadership positions need to work together with their employees to accomplish goals and initiate changes.

A qualified executive team knows how to build a team, maintain momentum, and foster excitement in all levels of the corporate structure. But how can this be achieved?

Most leaders and executive teams have realized that defining a clear purpose to drive their teams’ engagement is not enough, they also need to create strong team dynamics. Today, most companies, big ones, and smaller ones employ coaches to support their leaders create the right dynamics within their teams and stories relate all the transformations and successes within the teams led but one item often remains …. Teams work in Silos as these leaders manage to create wonderful team dynamics but tend to dedicate less energy and attention to the dynamics of the other teams or the bigger teams. How to support Leaders build strong dynamics for the overall organization, beyond the team(s) they lead?

As Patrick Lencioni explains in his books “The Advantage” and “The 5 Dysfunctions of a team”, are organizations healthy enough to tap into their knowledge? When describing his model of Organizational Health, and the priority of building a Cohesive Team he explains that despite the attention brought to build a successful organization, 95% of Leaders naturally will tend to put their top priority on the team their Lead vs the Team they are a member of.

They do it naturally as they spend more time with these people, hire these people, have the most expertise in this field, and are thereby more comfortable with these people; also, the team they have built is generally what will give them the most immediate, measurable and direct recognition. Putting a priority on the team you are part of requires significantly more courage and effort. To build strong and healthy organizations is strong not only to build strong teams but it is even more important to build strength in the executive team leaders are part of for the company and the organization as a whole. The role of Executive Coaches can be a real asset to support Leaders in building this habit to think and act beyond their team and even put Top Priority on the team they are part of vs the Team they have built.

Important questions in supporting the client gain awareness could be:

I hear you receive great recognition from your team, boss, and peers for having built such a strong and effective team which is remarkable:

How do the teams of your peers feel about you?

What dynamics have you built with your peers?

When have you managed to sponsor a project driven by other teams over yours?

What benefit would sponsoring a project driven by other teams over your give the organization?

How would your team benefit from you building more cohesiveness and clarity with the other members of the Exec Leadership team?

How would other teams benefit from you building more cohesiveness and clarity with the other members of the Exec Leadership team?

These questions can lead the client to gain awareness of the benefits of putting a higher priority on being part of the Exec Team than their own team and drive further cohesiveness and strength for the entire organization.  Support clients in going beyond the natural boundaries of “Togetherness” they have set for themselves and do feel comfortable with.

Fairness, Empathy, and Trust as pillars to building real “Togetherness”

To build a genuine “Togetherness” in which people feel safe to express their thoughts but also share their mistakes to allow everyone to learn from them and build on them, there must not be any place for shame. Brené Brown explains in “Dare to Lead” on Empathy and Shame resilience, “Empathy is the most powerful connecting and trusting tool we have and it’s an antidote to shame. Empathy is a hostile environment for shame, an environment it can’t survive in because shame needs you to believe you are alone and it’s just you.”

“When we are in shame and we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” Brené explains that the first one must recognize when they are in the grip of shame then learn to practice critical awareness as to when we are shameful all we see is our flawed self, alone and struggling. We think we are the only ones, that something is wrong with us, that we are alone. It is only when connecting with others we can see that we are not the only one. One must reach out to others and speak shame.

Here again, a coach’s role can be critical in creating an environment for the client to safely reach out, share his thoughts, and making his shame simply less important by verbalizing it. Through this verbalization, the client may also realize that his issues are in fact universal, that we all fight silent battles against not begin good enough or not belonging enough. In doing so the coach supports the client to recognize when they are in the grip of shame and from there practice critical awareness.

A coach can also support the client identify when he creates an environment that allows for shame to come in for others and see how to address this. Support the client to gain further awareness that shame will not survive in an environment in which fairness, empathy, and trust are present and supporting the client in building an environment where fairness, empathy, and trust are fully present. Here again, coming back to the healthy organization presented by Patrick Lencioni it is not only about building fairness, empathy, and trust within our team but about building in the entire organization. The coach can support the client realizing that he/she may at times favor his own team over others and think through how to ensure that every member of the organization, beyond his team, feel treated fairly by himself/herself and every other executive Leader and that the trust is sufficiently strong to express their thoughts.

The power of “Togetherness”, of group work, of building strong, cohesive teams, has been demonstrated again and again. Many organizations and leaders hire coaches to support them in developing their skills and sensitivity to building strong teams still many organizations and leaders tend to limit the power of togetherness, setting virtual barriers to the notion of “Togetherness”. These barriers can be driven by the influence of the culture westerners have been brought up with but also by comfort, ease, and search for recognition.

I strongly believe Executive Coaches should also support clients in identifying these natural barriers to building stronger “Togetherness” beyond their teams and even their organization. This notion of “Togetherness” should in fact have no limit as the more people feel fairness, empathy, and trust, the more they are safe to share and seek advice/support and give advice support, the more everyone can mutually benefit from the exchanges.

To conclude I would like to also invite people to think of the power for small companies or entrepreneurs of building togetherness even with your competitors. Indeed a natural reaction of many small companies would be to see how they are better than competitors to reassure themselves and sell their strength. They try to gain further market share convinced that gaining market share can only be done by reducing that of others and forgetting the mutual strength that can be built together.

Taking it beyond your organization – building with your competitors

But here again, building with competitors is about building a trustworthy and transparent business environment that also generates trust for clients. Indeed, giving positive light to other companies will show that you are honest, willing to work to win business from the client, and are trustworthy.

Working with competitors can allow being stronger bypassing business back and forth, relying on each other if you can’t make a deadline, fit in that extra project; you may even be able to collaborate on big projects and work toward common goals you couldn’t achieve on your own.

I would also share 3 key reasons shared by Robert Tuchman to build with competitors which I would extend to 3 key reasons to build “togetherness” in a limitless way:

Sharing information is often mutually beneficial

Teaching accomplishes more than withholding does

It is always towards the greater good in this case it is always better for the Industry.

As such the coach should support his clients to potentially build beyond the natural barriers they may have set for themselves, their organization, or their business.

Reference:

Individualistic cultures and behaviors, Kendra Cherry, Reviewed by Amy Morin, LCSW, December 2020.

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown,2018

Vertical Development in the Workplace Peter Bluckert,18 September 2019

Gestalt Coaching, Peter Bluckert, 30 décembre 2020

‘I Am Because We Are: The African Philosophy of Ubuntu, by Steve Paulson, September 2020

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-skills/adaptive-leadership/: What is Adaptive Leadership?

Research Paper: Building Great Teams With Coaching

Harvard Business Review: 3 Tools to Help Leaders Steady their Teams during a Transition, by Victoria M. Grady (March 30, 2021)

How Mastering Teamwork Will Make Your Organization Successful, by Alex Kowtun, Forbes Councils Member

The Advantage and The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by PatDysfunctionsi

Patrick Lencioni In “The Advantage” and “the 5 Dysfunctions of a team” books

Why Working Together With Competition Will Improve an Entrepreneur’s, Bottom Line.May 10, 2012

5 Reasons You Need to Work With Your Competitors by Robert Tuchman

Original source: https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/research-papers/the-power-of-togetherness/

Global elitists are not human

by Brandon Smith It is often said that separating people as "others" in general can be dangerous, and separating your enemies as "others" in particular can be tactically detrimental. For example, it can lead to a false sense of superiority over these people by displaying an imaginary genetic advantage. This can also lead to dangerous generalizations to large groups of people, categorizing and filing millions as being exactly alike, while it is not reasonably possible. However, separating as "others" is probably the only option when facing a very special type of person embracing a certain brand of ideology - separating as "others" can become a matter of survival. Of course, I'm talking about the globalists. Not for the low-level buddies and useful idiots in the globalization tense or "movement", since many of them simply represent a hidden gullibility or stupidity among people drawn from the hereditary academic world. Instead, I'm talking about the people behind the veil - self-proclaimed "globalists" or internationalists who have positioned themselves in strategic centers of power. I'm talking about people who influence or openly control government policies that stand over the shoulders of supposedly elected officials. I am talking about people who influence economic security or insecurity through non-liable central banking conglomerates. I am talking about men and women who want to dictate the fates of billions. These people are difficult to identify by any means other than their rhetoric and actions. They are made up of many ethnic groups. They announce from all over the planet. They do not belong to any spiritual doctrine, but are publicly devoted to a variety of religions as a means of "fitting in" with ordinary citizens. Globalism is their religion. And their god? Well, they see themselves as gods. To be a globalist, however, one must do more than accept the principles of globalism; these are character traits and actions that need to be considered. After much study of the behavior of globalists and their organizations, I have noticed that their psychological models tend to coincide with a narrow group of people who are best described as "criminally insane." More specifically, globalists behave like highly functional narcissistic sociopaths and psychopaths. But what are the characteristic features of such people? Let's take a look at some of them ... False sense of superiority - Self-exaltation Everyone wants to be perceived as important and unique. But narcissistic sociopaths believe they are entitled to a special attitude and see themselves as above the laws and subtle differences of a normal society. Sometimes they try to support this attitude through "achievements", scratching for positions of power and influence to reinforce the notion that they are more special than others. Of course, power is usually an artificial construction, because the only power we have over others is the power they give us, consciously or not. Power does not make a person special. The narcissistic sociopath does not distinguish these things, however. He / she differentiates only between the people who strive for domination and everyone else. In their minds, people who crave power are the highest subspecies, while people who do not crave power are considered nothing. Honestly, I see no reason not to make the same absolute claim, only the other way around. Narcissistic sociopaths and psychopaths are fascinated by visions of seeming grandeur. They do not view the content of their achievements as necessarily important. That is, they think they are born great, therefore, what is it like for them to achieve something that serves the benefit of others or develops the knowledge of humanity. They do not care to prove their greatness through good achievements - they just care that people BELIEVE that they are special, that they are anointed. Manipulation and coercion The narcissistic sociopath usually prefers to get what he wants easily. He expects people to automatically worship and obey him. But if he does not get what he wants, as he is accustomed to, he will use all the means at his disposal. This usually involves threatening with force or use of force, torture, gossip and intrigue to squeeze the victim into a corner (to make her behave in a certain way), use of psychological conditioning (shaping behavior, usually through fear reactions) , as well as "burning the wick" (accusing the victim of being "crazy" if she does not accept the distorted narcissist's outlook). Of course, such a confused person is never really satisfied, even when he gets what he wants. He always wants more, there is always something else he needs to fill the endless void within himself. Lack of sympathy for others Not all daffodils are sociopaths, but most sociopaths are daffodils. When it comes to narcissus, it is important to remember that there are varying degrees of this psychological cancer. When I refer to globalists in particular as "daffodils," I mean their tendency to act as high-functioning narcissists with sociopathic leanings. In other words, they are daffodils who not only have an inflated sense of self worth, but also lack compassion and conscience. They are willing to hurt others to any degree to get what they want right now, as long as they think they can avoid the consequences of their actions. There is also the question of the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths. This is a bit difficult to describe as they are very similar in many ways. Let me put it this way - as sociopaths pursue a goal and are willing to trample on people to achieve it, psychopaths trample on people, even when they have not set a goal. That is, the psychopath enjoys the art of destruction; what he wants most is to hurt other people. Both sociopaths and psychopaths seem to have seeped into the ranks of global institutions. Some of them want to raise their idol and do not care who they injure in the process. Some enjoy the pleasure of hurting as many people as possible. Desperate need for adoration The narcissistic sociopath lacks the ability to achieve a level of respect through coercion. After all, what he wants is for the lower masses to voluntarily accept his greatness as absolute, as an obvious and irrefutable fact of life. What he wants is honor and devotion. As mentioned earlier, they want to be treated like gods by people around them, and if they are particularly ambitious, from around the world. This is indeed a strange pursuit, as it requires skillful intrigue and manipulation. If one is not a great person, let alone a godlike person, the amount of psychological conditioning needed to convince people of the opposite is essential. This makes the narcissistic sociopath a potential slave to his own continually set up conspiracies; lies pile upon each other and intrigue after intrigue in search of something they will never truly achieve. Globalists are psychologically damaged nonhumans In the world of alternative analysis and investigative journalism, it is not uncommon to come across people who attribute a non-terrestrial rank to globalists. Some people see them as a symbol of the biblical Apocalypse - servants of the depths of hell. Others see them literally as alien, interdimensional beings posing as human beings. And while many will laugh at such people as conspiratorial freaks, I think it's important to understand why they see the globalists this way. When confronted with real and organized evil, emptied of all care or remorse, one may be tempted to seek supernatural explanations. I'm not sure if I'm against this idea. Globalists show most, not to mention all the treacherous signs of narcissistic sociopaths, including lack of conscience and moral compass. Although there are many definitions of what makes us human, there is something like a universal requirement, regardless of culture, namely, a requirement for something like a soul. What is the soul? How about a basic desire to be truthful with others, even if it means that we will not receive everything we want all the time? It's a good starting point, but there's more to it than that. Psychologists and scientists have for many decades found a pattern of innate traits embedded in the human psyche - traits found in humans from birth that remain outside the influence of the social environment. Carl Jung is the first expert in this field of "archetypal traits" with a comprehensive catalog of case studies from around the world, including tribal Africa. An important part of archetypal or innate knowledge and traits is the notion of good and evil - we are born with the understanding that some behaviors are constructive, while others are destructive and contrary. This is probably the source of what we call 'conscience'. Unfortunately, not all people are born with a conscience. For some people, the difference between good and evil or constructive and destructive behavior is blurred or insignificant. Jung and other psychologists refer to this subclass of our species as "latent" sociopaths and psychopaths. Together they make up about 10% of each crop or group. Many of them go "latent" and are less or less harmless throughout their lives, unless certain unstable environmental conditions provide fuel for their malfunction. About 1% are born as complete sociopaths and psychopaths. These are what I would call "inhuman". This is because high levels of narcissism and sociopathy are traditional "mental illnesses" and rooted in character traits. A narcissistic sociopath cannot be "cured" of his illness because it is not a disease - they are just that. If you deprive them of narcissism and sociopathy, there will be nothing left of their personality. When a normal person comes in contact with someone who has no innate conscience, he immediately recoils; he feels like he has run into a monster. This is not an exaggeration, it is just that. Narcissists and high-class sociopaths are physically human, of course, but if we have to look visually into their psyche, we will find a wasteland - a place where ghouls lurk. They do not dream like normal people. They do not enjoy the way normal people rejoice. They are not satisfied with the things that usually excite the rest of us. They are incapable of loving others. They are unable to regret their actions and only feel sorry for when they fail to get what they want. They don't see other people as personalities - they see them as tools to use. Being a sociopath does not mean that we are not aware of how the rest of us function. On the contrary, sociopaths are very good at identifying the personal desires and aspirations of others and in imitating people in a way that makes them look "human." They are parasites by nature and thus need to be able to approach their victims victims if they are to survive. The dynamic of the globalist is interesting in that it is an example of organized narcissistic sociopathy. Globalists have led many wars, economic collapses and tyrannies over the years - all ending with great suffering for the masses. Contrary to popular belief, sociopaths and psychopaths WORK together toward a common goal, as long as there is a sense of mutual benefit. In fact, these people seem to gravitate to each other in strange ways. It is my belief that the hierarchies of globalists are actually looking for people with narcissistic and sociopathic personalities; that they do it deliberately when they want to expand their ranks. These seem to be the only aspects that are common to all of them. That's a pretty "conspiracy theory," I know. But look at it this way - how else can we explain their inclinations and behaviors? If organized destruction were the innate value of humanity, we would have died long ago. Globalists are not human, however. They are something contrary to this and if you do not understand this basic truth, they can be confusing and horrifying. Read the full article

ENVIRONMENT FACTORS AFFECTING MOTIVATION

Factors motivating students explains that motivation is the desire to continue learning and achieving the best. it is need to continue to conquering the unknown and little unknown.

Motivation as a key instrument to success needs to be well understood. success is driven by motivation.

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

The Social Environment refers to the immediate physical and social setting in which people live or in which something happens or develop.

It includes the culture that the individual was educated or lives in, and the people and the institutes with whom they interact.

Humans have needed to be sensitive to their surroundings to survive, which means that we have an innate awareness of our environment and seek out environments with certain qualities.

The social environment can influence peoples’ behavior and motivation to act.

The social environment can influence the mood.

CLASSROOM CLIMATE

Have class meetings. Class meetings provide a safe environment in which students can discuss with you and each other topics that are important to them.

A students needs a pleasant school environment, and caring teachers. A good student and teacher relationship. in classrooms, we can build a friendship. Because of some groupings, they sharing their knowledge and skills.

Classroom climate refers to the prevailing mood, attitudes, standards, and tone that you and your students feel when they are in your classroom.  A negative classroom climate can feel hostile, chaotic, and out of control. A positive classroom climate feels safe, respectful, welcoming, and supportive of student learning.

Regardless of your students’ past experiences, there are things you can do to deliberately shape the climate of your classroom into a positive learning environment. Competition and rule strictness predicted personal performance avoidance goals.

POSITIVE CLASSROOM CLIMATE

1. Develop and reinforce classroom rules and norms that clearly support safe and respectful behavior. Having classroom rules helps you create a predictable, safe learning environment for your students. Rules give your students clear boundaries and opportunities to practice self-regulation and make good choices. When students feel safe and respected both emotionally and physically, they are able to focus better on learning.

2. Promote positive peer relationships. You want to create an environment where your students support and are kind to one another. Some ways you can do this are: Notice and reinforce casual positive interactions between students on a daily basis. Deliberately plan relationship-building activities and games that encourage positive interactions. These can be long-term projects, or short and simple games designed for students to get to know each other better. Pay attention to the social dynamics of your classroom. Do some students have trouble making friends? Do some students have trouble getting along with others? Who has a lot of friends?

Have class meetings. Class meetings provide a safe environment in which students can discuss with you and each other topics that are important to them.

3. Nurture positive relationships with all students. You need to let your students know that you not only care about their progress in the classroom, you also care about them as human beings.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

The Physical Environment also gives an exposures to our students. Their mental and social benefits especially to the teenagers.

It is also for the athletes environment and how it affects their motivation positively and negatively. Develop their cognitive and flexibility of the child.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING

An assessment of a student’s demonstrated ability to perform specific tasks or relate material in an acceptable manner compared to learning outcomes.  Any assessment process which is based on examination of an actual performance (written or oral) which demonstrates the outcome in question.

There are two types of assessments:

DIRECT ASSESSMENT

Tries to measure what a test taker is doing as a sample of productive language.  Direct assessments (measures) are most familiar to faculty. Direct assessments provide for the direct examination or observation of student knowledge or skills against measurable learning outcomes. Faculty conduct direct assessments of student learning throughout a course using such techniques as exams, quizzes, demonstrations, and reports. These techniques provide a sampling of what students know and/or can do and provide strong evidence of student learning. 

However, not all learning can be measured in a direct way. For example, a desired outcome of a course may be to create more positive student attitudes toward mathematics (or writing, or team work), which are difficult to assess using direct methods.

ex: projects, thesis, exams, quizzes, oral recitation and assignments

INDIRECT ASSESSMENT

Indirect assessments of student learning ascertain the perceived extent or value of learning experiences. They assess opinions or thoughts about student knowledge or skills. Indirect measures can provide information about student perception of their learning and how this learning is valued by different constituencies.

Indirect assessment methods require that faculty infer actual student abilities, knowledge, and values rather than observe direct evidence.

  ex: surveys, group activities, interviews, repotings etc.

OUTLIERS – Malcolm Gladwell.

OUTLIERS – Malcolm Gladwell.

20191003

PART 1- OPPORTUNITY

Chap 1: Matthew effect

-          Success equals accumulative advantages

-          An example of best hockey players, coincidently they were all born from Jan- Mar. This is because eligibility cut-off is Jan. 12 month gap in age represents an enormous difference in physical maturity. To become professional hockey players, they start training at very young age of 9-10 when the physical different is so clear. The administration system locks children into patterns of achievement and underachievement since a very young age.

Chap 2: The 10.000- hour rule (Ericsson)

-          Achievement is a sum of talent and preparation.

-          The closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the “smaller the role preparation seems to play”.

-          10.000 hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything. It takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

-          Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

-          10.000 hours is an enormous amount of time. One is impossible to reach that number all by himself. One needs extraordinary opportunity to put in those hours practicing. This is where parents’ encouragement, support, money is to help.

-          What truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities.

Chap 3: Trouble with genius 1

-          Chris Langan – super IQ

-          Lewis Terman- Termites young geniuses were tracked, tested, measured and analyzed over the course of time).

-          A very common assumption of Terman and school systems “ there is nothing about an individual as important as his IQ except possibly his morals”.

-          The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point (120). Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage”.

-          One needs to be smart enough not smartest.

-          If intelligence matters only up to a point, then past that point, other things- things that have nothing to do with intelligence must start to matter more.

-          Intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated.

-          IQ- converge thinking, Creativity- divergence.

Chap 4: Trouble with genius 2

-          Practical intelligence – Robert Sternberg : Knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect.

-          Read situations correctly and get what you want.

-          IQ is analytical ability, in genes or innate ability

-          Practical intelligence or social savvy is knowledge. It’s a set of skills that have to be learned. Mainly from family (parenting)

-          2 main types of parenting: follow accomplishment of natural growth, concerted cultivation

-          Concerted cultivation – an attempt to actively foster and assess a child’s talents, opinions and skills. From which, children learn a sense of “entitlement”, act as though they have a right to pursue their own individual preferences and to actively manage interactions in institutional settings. They know how to customize whatever environment they were in, for their best purposes.

Chap 5: Three lessons of Joe Flom (successful lawyer, founder of Skadden Arps)

Joe Flom’s background: Jewish immigrants, father- union organizer in garment industry, public school

-          Lesson 1: The importance of being Jewish, being different from the rest went into business for yourself and took whatever came in the door- whatever legal work the big downtown firms did not want for themselves. – hostile corporate takeovers as it was considered scandalous.

-          Buried in that setback was a golden opportunity

-          20 years Flom perfected his craft at Skadden Arps, the world changed and he was ready. He didn’t triumph over adversity. Instead, what started out as adversity ended up being an opportunity.

-          Lesson 2: Demographic luck

-          Avoid cataclysmic events of the 20th century: great depression, world war 2

-          New York: public schools of the 1940s were considered the best schools in the country. Brilliant teachers who couldn’t get the jobs they wanted, and public teaching was what they did because it was security and it had a pension and you didn’t get laid off.

-          This dynamic benefited the members of that generation when they went off to college.

-          Magic timeline  for lawyer – born in early 1930, software programmer 1955, entrepreneur 1835

-          The most gifted of lawyer, equipped with the best of family lessons, cannot escape the limitations of their generation.

-          Lesson 3: The garment industry and Meaningful work.

-          Late 19th century: the garment trade was the largest & most economically vibrant industry in the city.

-          Jewish immigrants arrived at the perfect time, with the perfect skills: trading, hardworking

-          To exploit that opportunity, you had to have certain virtues, and those immigrants worked hard. They scarified and saved and invested wisely. The economy was desperate for the skills that they possessed.

-          Meaningful or satisfying work has to fulfill 3 things: autonomy, complexity, a connection between effort and reward. “Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning”.

-          Children of these garment workers learn the same lesson – a lesson crucial to those who wanted to tackle the upper reaches of a profession like law or medicine: if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind, imagination, you can shape the world to your desires.

-          These children become professionals because of their humble origins not in spite of their humble origin.

PART 2- LEGACY

Chap 6: Harlan, Kentucky “Die like a man, like your brother did”

-          Harlan, Kentucky is very remote an lawless.

-          Violence- culture of honor. The culture of honor tend to take roots in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, such as “Sicily, Basque regions of Spain”

-          Rocky mountainside – can’t farm. Herdsman’s under constant threat of ruin through the loss of their animals. Therefore, they become aggressive and willing to fight.

-          While farmers depend on the cooperation of others in the community.

-          Culture of honor is a world where a man’s reputation is at the center of his livelihood and self-worth. (murder rates are higher, crimes of property lower). One fought over his honor not economic gain.

-          Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social & demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished.

-          They play such a role in directing attitudes & behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.

Chap 7: The Ethnic theory of plane crashes

-          High rates of flight crash in Korean airlines, different from American airlines.

-          2 different cultures: uncertainty avoidance (most reliant on results and plans, stick to procedure & tolerate ambiguity

-          Each of us has his or her own distinct personality, but overlaid on top of that are tendencies and assumptions & reflexes handed down to us by the history of the community we grew up in.

-          Power Distance Index (PDI)- power distance is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values & respects authority.

-          High power-distance communication works only when the listener is capable of paying close attention, and it works only if the 2 parties in a conversation have the luxury of time, in order to understand each other’s meaning.

-          When we understand what it really means to be a good pilot- when we understand how much culture and history and the world outside of the individual matter to professional success- then we don’t have to throw up hands in despair.

-          We have a way to make success out of the unsuccessful.

Chap 8: Rice paddies & Math tests

-          Chinese proverb: “No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.”

-          Rice farmers improved their fields by becoming smarter, better managers their own time, making better choices – skill oriented.

-          Number naming system is easier à Asian children learn to count much faster than American children who grow rice have always worked harder than almost any other kind of farmer.

-          On contrary, hunter-gathers had a pretty leisurely life.

-          The life of a rice farmer is similar to the life of garment Jewish workers in NY: meaningful and clear relationship between effort & reward.

-          The harder you work a rice field, the more it yields. A complex work and autonomous.

-          Lesson: the genius of the culture formed in the rice paddies is that hard work gave those in the fields a way to find meaning in the midst of great uncertainty & poverty. That lesson has served Asians well in many endeavors but rarely so perfectly as in the case of mathematics.

-          The secret to learning mathematics: success s a function of persistence and doggedness and willingness to work hard for 22 minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after 30 seconds.

Chap 9: Marita’s bargain – KIPP (rice paddies pattern into American public schools)

-          KIPP: a public school which is famous for math high scores. KIPP children are randomly selected, from disadvantageous background, don’t have long summer vacation, start a day early.

-          The problem with math education is sink-or swim approach. Everything is rapid fire, kids who get it first are the ones who are rewarded.

-          KIPP introduced another approach of teaching math at lower space. “I think that extended amount of time give you the chance as a teacher to explain things, and more time for the kids to sit and digest everything that’s going on, to review, to do things at a much slower pace.

-          Slower pace means more retention, better understanding of the material, make math meaningful (to let the students see the clear relationship between effort & reward).

-          Marita- a KIPP student has had to do the same because the cultural legacy she had been given does not match her circumstances either. Her community does not give her what she needs.

-          She made a bargain, escaped the constraints of their cultural legacy.

 ð  Everything we have learned in Outliers says that success follows a predictable course. It is not the brightest who succeed. Nor is success simple the sum of decisions and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Outliers are those who have been given opportunities -and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.

CrossFit PTV plans, programs, and strategizes with your individual strength and fitness needs in mind. We are here to help you meet your goals within a supportive community to achieve optimal power, sound technique and virtuosity.

CROSSFIT REDMOND CrossFit PTV – Power – Technique – Virtuosity No matter how motivated you are to get fit, starting a new fitness program can be intimidating. Maybe you’ve already tried to improve your health by joining a gym or class only to quit because it wasn’t enjoyable or you weren’t seeing tangible results. At CrossFit PTV in Redmond, we want to help you start and continue on your journey toward a lifetime of good health. CrossFit is a fitness regimen that combines movements from a variety of sports, providing measurable results that you can see and feel. Best of all, you become a part of our Redmond CrossFit community, and get the personalized care and attention you need to succeed. ith CrossFit programs designed especially for kids, free childcare, personal training, skill clinics, and open gym hours, even busy professionals can enjoy everything we offer at CrossFit PTV. If you’re a beginner, you will benefit from our welcoming, positive, and accessible approach to CrossFit. Come get healthy with our Redmond CrossFit experts. We can’t promise you that it will be easy, but we can promise that you’ll have fun.

CROSSFIT REDMOND WA – A WELCOMING ENVIRONMENT FOR ANY FITNESS SKILL LEVEL Try CrossFit at your own pace in our Free One-on-One Beginner’s CrossFit Basics Class See measurable results as your CrossFit movements develop and feel better doing it Enjoy the company of our ever-growing Redmond CrossFit community Free child care and over 35 class times a week allow even the busiest professionals to enjoy our Redmond CrossFit classes Enjoy personalized attention from CrossFit professionals who will help you succeed

You can get fit and have a good time doing it. Most people want to get into shape, but there are number of reasons why they ultimately meet with failure: They are intimidated to join a “group” They find the program boring They aren’t seeing tangible results

CROSSFIT REDMOND WA – CROSSFIT EXPLAINED CrossFit is a popular fitness program that focuses on constantly varied movements performed at high intensity, and it can be practiced by everyone who wants to feel good about their health and appearance. The movements are based on a variety of disciplines that include: Running Rowing Weightlifting Gymnastics And more

OUR REDMOND CROSSFIT CLASSES FOCUS ON CAMARADERIE AND SCALABILITY Community is also a vital element of CrossFit all over the country, and Redmond is no different. By performing CrossFit workouts with a group, the fun and competition essential to enjoying any sport is fully realized.

CROSSFIT REDMOND WA Everyone’s health needs are essentially the same. Finely tuned athletes and senior citizens both need exercise, and CrossFit acknowledges that their needs differ by degree, not kind. The skills you learn and the strength you earn in your CrossFit program will yield tangible results. You will feel better, have more energy, and be ready for the unknown.

MOST OF YOUR TIME If you work hard, you may have little time to play hard, especially if you have kids. Our in-house free child care allows you the freedom to fully focus on your CrossFit program. If your kids want to join in on the fun, we offer the following Redmond CrossFit classes:

Preschool – Ages 3-6 Kids – Ages 6-12 Teens – Ages 12-18

CROSSFIT REDMOND WA – OPEN GYM AND PERSONAL TRAINING As you progress through your CrossFit program, you may want to further refine your movements, or quicken your development with personalized one-on-one training. We offer a personal training service fully focused on your individual goals, so that you can get the most from every workout.

THE CROSSFIT PTV BARBELL CLUB Olympic weightlifting engages almost every muscle in your body, increasing your overall strength faster than any other form of athletic training. Other benefits include better physical endurance, increased coordination, and advanced kinesthetic awareness.

CROSSFIT PTV – POWER, TECHNIQUE, VIRTUOSITY CrossFit PTV plans, programs, and strategizes with your individual strength and fitness needs in mind. We are here to help you meet your goals within a supportive community to achieve optimal power, sound technique and virtuosity.

POWER – CFPTV is here to develop your overall power and strength, by degrees, tailored to your own individual fitness level. As you become stronger and develop more power, your CrossFit abilities will skyrocket.

TECHNIQUE – At the most fundamental level of CrossFit, technique is the key to safe, improved fitness. CrossFit’s Three-Part Charter – Mechanics, Consistency, Intensity – directs CFPTV in programming, coaching and education. Mechanics is the ability to move PROPERLY, in the most efficient, effective and safe manner possible. Once the mechanics of the movements are performed consistently, increased intensity will follow.

VIRTUOSITY – CFPTV is committed to mastery, mastery of the basics to “perform the common uncommonly well.” (Greg Glassman, CEO CrossFit) By taking the time to ensure movements are mastered, there is a decreased chance of injury and increased progress and advancement.

MISSION STATEMENT Commitment to continuous improvement in overall fitness for increased functional performance and a lifetime of optimal health; Provide excellent coaching to achieve maximum strength and power, sound technique and mechanics, and assist members in achieving virtuosity; Adhere to CrossFit standards and strive for professional excellence.

CORE VALUES 1. Safety. CFPTV is highly committed to correct technique and mechanics, for the prevention of injuries, increased performance and skill mastery. 2. Effort. Results are directly proportional to focused effort. Coaches will give every effort to create opportunities for excellence. Members must apply themselves with equal dedication to fully realize their potential. 3. Community. Though we are all working toward different goals, we are a group of like-minded athletes cheering each other on along the way. We support you! 4. Communication. We strive to keep an open, honest line of communication with our members and we expect the same in return. 5. Humility. CrossFit is at times humbling and we must remember that there is more to the journey than our ego. We all make mistakes and stumble along the way. 6. Integrity. Honesty starts with each person, whether trainer or member. We aim to earn the respect of our members and be of high moral character. 7. Positive Attitude. We want you to have a fun and positive experience at every visit. We strive to provide an enjoyable atmosphere while challenging you at the same time.

WHAT IS CROSSFIT? CrossFit is a strength and conditioning fitness program that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Optimal fitness is living a longer, healthier, more fulfilling life.

CrossFit has been known to cause: mental toughness fortitude happiness dedication satisfaction lasting bonds and relationships with like-minded people

CrossFit generally trains in small groups with the support of experienced coaches providing semi-personal training at every workout sessions. The workouts are different every day and are carefully designed with the intent of continuously improving all facets of your physical fitness, including:

cardio/respiratory endurance stamina strength flexibility power speed coordination accuracy agility balance

Focusing on any one facet of fitness as a specialty may be optimal for certain sports, but it is not fitness by our definition; e.g. the elite powerlifter can move extraordinary loads, but can barely run; the elite triathlete can move her bodyweight over great distances , etc. We aim not to be the best at any one thing, we aim to be better at everything.

All CrossFit gyms are independently owned and operated, usually by individuals or small partnerships. Each has its own unique culture and spin on how to implement the CrossFit methodology, but for the most part we all believe in three definitive characteristics that are central to CrossFit: 1. Constantly varied—A constant variety of movements, combinations of movements, duration of work, frequency, etc. are used. “Varied” does NOT mean random. All of our training is carefully planned with the aim of optimizing your fitness. 2. High-intensity—Doing more work in less time. What is work? Work in physical terms is moving a load over a given distance. The Level of Intensity is increased by increasing the load or the distance, or by decreasing the time it takes to move the load over a given distance. This can be applied to all movements including moving the load of your own body weight; e.g. standing up from a chair is “work”; standing up from a chair while holding a baby is more work and more “intensity” because the load increased while the distance and time stayed the same. Perceived intensity is relative to the ability of the individual – we will help you find the level of intensity that is appropriate for you. 3. Functional movements—These are fundamental, innate, natural movement patterns; e.g. walking, running, sitting down, standing up, squatting, jumping, pulling, pushing, throwing, climbing, picking things up off the ground, carrying things, etc.). Functional movements are by definition the most efficient way to move your body or an external load to perform work. These movements are the basis of all of our training

SO…. WHY SHOULD I CROSSFIT? To live a longer, healthier, more fulfilling life. To be better at most things; to specialize in not specializing. To look and feel amazing.

Why Some People Have a Lack of Empathy (And How to Deal with Them)

We all have interacted with some people that seem to have a lack of empathy, at some point of our lives. I know that those experiences can leave us feeling frustrated, unsettled, angry, disappointed, and even betrayed, mainly when we need support.

It gets even harder and more painful if you are in a relationship with someone who is unable to put themselves in your shoes, or when we consider some of these people our friends, or maybe even worse, when those people are family members and we have to be in contact with them frequently.

In this article, I will share with you the signs when someone is lacking empathy, why some people seem to lack it, and how to deal with them, so you don’t feel so frustrated and disappointed, and you can lead a happier life.

What exactly is empathy

According to Dictionary.com, Empathy is:

the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

The word originates from the Greek word “empatheia”, meaning physical affection or passion.

PsychologyToday.com defines Empathy as:

the experience of understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings, and condition from their point of view, rather than from your own. You try to imagine yourself in their place in order to understand what they are feeling or experiencing.

They go on to say that Empathy facilitates prosocial (helping) behaviors that come from within, rather than being forced, so that we behave in a more compassionate manner.

In other words, empathy is when you’re able to put yourself in someone else’s position, both at an emotional and intellectual level.

Additionally, Empathy is one of the defining characteristics and foundational pieces of emotional intelligence.

True compassion means not only feeling another’s pain but also being moved to help relieve it ~ Daniel Goleman

Signs that someone lacks empathy

Even though human beings are social creatures by nature, empathy doesn’t come naturally to all of us. Some people are more empathetic than others. In more extreme cases, some people suffer from Empathy Deficit Disorder (EDD).

As Douglas LaBier, Ph.D., a business psychologist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and the Director of the Center for Progressive Development in Washington, DC. said,

Empathy Deficit Disorder is a pervasive but overlooked condition. In fact, our increasingly polarized social and political culture of the past few years reveals that EDD is more severe than ever. It has profound consequences for the mental health of both individuals and society.

He explains that when you suffer EDD, you are unable to step outside yourself and tune in to what other people experience, especially those who feel, think and believe differently from yourself. That makes it a source of personal conflicts of communication breakdown in intimate relationships and of adversarial attitudes – including hatred – towards groups of people who differ in their beliefs, traditions or ways of life from your own.

Here are some signs that will help you identify if someone around you lacks empathy:

They jump fast into criticizing others without putting themselves in other people’s shoes.

They seem to be cold or just out of touch for people that are suffering or are less fortunate.

They believe 100% in the rightness of their own ideas and/or beliefs, and judge anyone who does not hold their beliefs as wrong, ignorant or stupid.

They have trouble feeling happy for others.

They have trouble making or keeping friends.

They have trouble getting along with family members.

They feel entitled to receiving favors and use you to serve their needs without showing appreciation. They will even get offended if they don’t get their way.

In a group setting, they will talk a lot about themselves and their lives without really caring about what other people share.

They do or say something that hurts a friend or a loved one, and tend to blame his/her actions on them. They truly believe that the fault is in the person receiving the hurt because they reacted poorly, were rude or were oversensitive.

The truth is that without empathy, it is hard to create deep emotional connections with others.

Why some people lack empathy

Empathy is an innate and a learned skill that is shaped by how we are wired when we are born, and our own environment and life experiences. To experience empathy to some extent, it means that we have to get in touch with our emotions.

People who lack empathy were probably raised in families who were avoiding to get in touch with their feelings and even condemned others for feeling their emotions. Some people have learned to shut down their feelings early in their lives to such a degree that they closed off their hearts and can’t even feel their own feelings – they certainly can’t relate or feel other people’s feelings.

As a result, these people end up lacking self-compassion, self-love and are disconnected from their authentic self and divine connection to source. They are probably not even aware that such disconnection is like a defense mechanism from their ego because if they empathize, they need to relate, get in touch with their feelings and feel the pain.

In most cases, developing and cultivating empathy is possible only if the individuals are willing to change how they relate with others, and consciously choose to retrain their brains. Due to our brain’s neuroplasticity, we can create new brain patterns.

However, there are other cases in which lack of empathy is associated to severe disorders such as narcissism, anti-social personality disorders, and psychopathy. In these cases, these individuals need to get professional help if they are open to it.

How to deal with people who lack empathy

I know how difficult it can be to deal with people who lack empathy being a sensitive and caring person. When you try to express your feelings, instead of compassion and understanding, you get anger or judgment back.

It’s painful because sometimes we can get stuck in a vicious cycle where the more they don’t understand you, the more you feel hurt, and the more you want them to understand your feelings. It’s almost like pleading for validation.

Here’s the thing: Most of the times, talking with these people will lead you nowhere, and will leave you feeling completely depleted.

Here are some easy-to-follow steps, so you can deal with people who lack empathy:

1. Don’t take their anger or judgments personal.

By doing this, you can get off the emotional roller coaster. It’s not about you. Remind yourself that they are the ones that have a problem connecting emotionally with others at a deeper level. There’s nothing wrong with you!

2. Don’t try to make them understand your feelings.

Trying to instill empathy or insights in them is a waste of your time and energy. This will only increase their anger and judgement.

3. Talk about facts with them.

Instead of talking to them about how you feel, or how something they did or said made you feel, talk about facts and what you think. It’s easier to communicate this way because they won’t feel blamed or shamed.

4. If you don’t live with this person, try to distance yourself from their company.

You don’t have to end the friendship or stop visiting your family member, but you need to set some boundaries and be mindful of your interaction with them. Keep the connection superficial to avoid arguments and don’t expect depth and understanding.

5. Cultivate or nurture relationships with people who you trust.

Spend time with people who you trust and make you feel safe to share your inner world and your feelings with. Those who might have shown signs of empathy in the past.

6. Know that your value and worth does not depend on their validation and opinion of you.

Our self-worth should never be based on approval or validation from others. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you realize your true value: How to Build Self Esteem (A Guide to Realize Your Hidden Power)

7. Take loving actions towards yourself.

Offer yourself kindness and practice doing things that reflect self-love – eat healthy, get enough rest, pursue your dreams, work on yourself, develop a spiritual life, surround yourself with loving and positive people.

To give you more ideas, here’s a list of 50 Small Things You Can Do Every Day to Really Love Yourself

8. Ultimately, if you feel too overwhelmed, get professional help.

Find a caring and compassionate therapist or coach who can be there for you and offer guidance during painful times. Unfortunately, our friends and family can’t always provide all of the emotional support that we need at times.

If the person that you’re dealing with shows a willingness to be more open to change and become more empathetic and caring, then you have a real opportunity to strengthen your relationship with them.

Summing it up

There are many reasons why some people lack empathy. Dealing with these people is not easy and may leave you feeling frustrated and disappointed. But with my advice, you learn that you can’t change someone, however you can change your attitude towards them.

Remember that you can’t save everyone but you can love yourself enough to not let people who lack empathy to overpower you. Set boundaries and do what makes you happy. Ultimately, don’t be afraid to get professional help when you are overwhelmed.

Featured photo credit: Stocksnap via stocksnap.io

The post Why Some People Have a Lack of Empathy (And How to Deal with Them) appeared first on Lifehack.

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Cordelia Fine, Will Working Mothers’ Brains Explode? The Popular New Genre of Neurosexism, 1 Neuroethics 69 (2008)

Abstract

A number of recent popular books about gender differences have drawn on the neuroscientific literature to support the claim that certain psychological differences between the sexes are ‘hard-wired’. This article highlights some of the ethical implications that arise from both factual and conceptual errors propagated by such books.

Meet Sarah.

Sarah can “identify and anticipate what [her husband] is feeling—often before he is conscious of it himself.” ([4], p. 118). Like the magician who knows that you’ll pick the seven of diamonds before it’s even left the pack, Sarah can amaze her husband at whim, thanks to her lucky knack of knowing what he’s feeling before he even feels it. (Ta-DA! Is this your emotion?) Sarah is neither a fairground psychic nor the somewhat irresponsible owner of a futuristic brain wave interpreting machine. She is simply a woman who enjoys the miraculous gift of mindreading that, apparently, is bestowed on all owners of a female brain:

‘Maneuvering like an F-15, Sarah’s female brain is a high performance emotion machine—geared to tracking, moment by moment, the non-verbal signals of the innermost feelings of others.’ ([4], p.119)

Sarah is just one of the many curious characters who populate lay science books about gender. She can be found in Louann Brizendine’s book The Female Brain, one of several recent popular and influential books arguing for fundamental and ‘hard-wired’ differences in male and female psychology.

Unfortunately, scientific accuracy and commonsense are often casualties in the ugly rush to cloak old-fashioned sexism in the respectable and authoritative language of neuroscience [10,19]. Mark Liberman, whose online Language Log offers wry and meticulous critiques of pseudoscientific claims about gender differences, has described some popular authors’ use of the neuroscientific literature as “shockingly careless, tendentious and even dishonest. Their over-interpretation and misinterpretation of scientific research is so extreme that it becomes a form of fabrication.” [18].

Then, too, with the buzz-phrase ‘hard-wiring’ comes an extraordinary insistence on locating social pressures in the brain. In The Female Brain, for example, the working mother learns that she is struggling against “the natural wiring of our female brains and biological reality” (p. 161). According to Brizendine, combining motherhood with career gives rise to a neurological “tug-of-war because of overloaded brain circuits” (p. 160). Career circuits and maternal circuits battle it out, leading to “increased stress, increased anxiety, and reduced brainpower for the mother’s work and her children.” (p. 112). But Brizendine promises her female readers that “understanding our innate biology empowers us to better plan our future.” (p. 159). It may startle some readers to learn that family friendly workplace policies are not the solution to reduced maternal stress and anxiety, and that fathers who do the kindergarten pick-ups, pack the lunch-boxes, stay home when the kids are sick, get up in the night when the baby wakes up, and buy the birthday presents and ring the paediatrician in their lunch hour are not the obvious solution to enhanced maternal ‘brainpower’. No, it is an appreciation of female brain wiring that will see the working mother through the hard times. (Predictably, Brizendine never even hints that the over-wired working mother consider the simplest antidote to the ill-effects of going against her ‘natural wiring’: namely, giving her partner a giant kick up the neurological backside.)

What accounts for the success and appeal of the new field of neurosexism? Most lay readers, of course, have neither the background nor the resources to question the many inaccurate and misleading claims made about gender differences in the brain. There is also recent evidence that neuroscientific explanations enjoy a special “seductive allure” [20]. People’s capacity to spot the unsatisfactory nature of circular psychological explanations is significantly reduced when impressive-sounding neuroscientific terms are introduced.

Yet surely there is more to it than this? The back cover of The Female Brain offers to explain why “a man can’t seem to spot an emotion unless someone cries or threatens bodily harm”. Were we to pick up a different sort of book that made an equally unusual sort of claim (a guide to pets, say, which promised to explain why cats can’t climb trees), we would immediately put it down and go in search of a more reliable text. Yet The Female Brain is a New York Timesbestseller, translated into twenty-one languages and featured in newspapers, magazines and TV shows around the world. What, exactly, is the draw of gender stereotypes dressed up as neuroscience? For men, perpetuation of the idea that they lack women’s hard-wired empathizing skills is a small price to pay for licence to lay claim to more valued and potentially profitable psychological advantages. According to another popular book about gender difference, The Essential Difference [1], “[t]he female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.” (p.1). As Levy [16] notes, this translates to the idea that “on average, women’s intelligence is best employed in putting people at their ease, while the men get on with understanding the world and building and repairing the things we need in it.” (pp. 319–320). Levy adds, “[t]his is no basis for equality. It is not an accident that there is no Nobel Prize for making people feel included.” (p. 323).

For women, a possible explanation of the appeal of neurosexism lies in the palliative system justification motive, “whereby people justify and rationalise the way things are, so that existing social arrangements are perceived as fair and legitimate, perhaps even natural and inevitable.” ([11], p. 119). Jost and colleagues have found that lower status groups have a remarkable capacity to rationalize what goes against their self-interests, internalize limiting stereotypes, and find legitimacy in the very inequalities that hold them back (see, for example [12]; [11]). If a frazzled mother can tell herself that her hard-wired powers of female empathy uniquely position her to intuit that the red-faced, cross-patch baby wants to get down from the highchair, then there’s no need to feel cross that she’s the only one who ever seems to notice. If she can take seriously Brizendine’s claim that it is only when the children leave home that “the mommy brain circuits are finally free to be applied to new ambitions, new thoughts, new ideas” ([4], p. 143) she may feel less resentful that the autonomy to pursue a career unhindered, a freedom still taken for granted by her partner, is now no longer extended to her.

Similarly, Davis [9] has recently suggested that gender role attitudes may fall in line with life, rather than vice versa. Davis’ recent longitudinal study of gender ideology found that young adults shed their gender egalitarian beliefs once they had children, but only so long as their procreation was normatively timed, indicating that it is not the experience of having childrenper se that causes gender ideology to change [9]. Rather, there may be something special about taking on a culturally loaded adult role. Davis asks whether it is, “because there are few structures in place to support egalitarian marriages and child-rearing practices that individuals fall away from egalitarian practices and, as a reflection of their new interests, alter their belief structure to reduce cognitive dissonance?” ([9]; p. 1037). And as Cameron [5] has noted in her popular critique The myth of Mars and Venus, the effect, and also perhaps the appeal, of the idea of “timeless, natural, and inevitable” differences between the sexes is that it “stops us thinking about what social arrangements might work better than our present ones in a society that can no longer be run on the old assumptions about what men and women do.” (p. 177). Popular neurosexism permits us to sit back and relax, with its seemingly neat explanation of our social structure and personal lives. The answer, ‘Oh, it’s the brain,’ offers a tidy justification for accepting the status quo with clear conscience.

We can currently only speculate on the enervating effect of popular gender science books on male nappy-changing frequencies, or female patterns of leaving the toilet to be cleaned by someone else. However, there is evidence that accounts of gender that emphasise biological factors leave us more inclined to agree with gender stereotypes, to self-stereotype ourselves, and for our performance to fall in line with those stereotypes (e.g., [2, 7, 8]). Moreover, other research from the social psychological literature has shown that presenting cognitive or emotional tasks in ways that make them seem diagnostic of gender tends to set up a self-fulfilling prophecy (e.g., [ 3, 14, 15, 21–24]). Research such as this underlines the point that,

‘the psyche is … not a discrete entity packed in the brain. Rather, it is a structure of psychological processes that are shaped by and thus closely attuned to the culture that surrounds them … the mind cannot be understood without reference to the sociocultural environment to which it is adapted and attuned.’ ([13], p. xiii).

This important observation is one usually ignored by popular accounts of gendered ‘hard-wiring’.

Mark Liberman has suggested that “misleading appeals to the authority of ‘brain research’ have become the modern equivalent of out-of-context scriptural fragments.” [18]. Noting, along with Rivers and Barnett [19], that baseless neuroscientific ‘facts’ about gender differences are already having an impact on educational policies, for example, he argues that journalists have a real responsibility to fact-check the accuracy of neuroscientific claims. The need for journalists to take on this responsibility takes on an extra import when one considers our susceptibility to poor neuroscientific explanations, together with the way that biological accounts of gender, and the stereotypes about male versus female abilities that they promote, can measurably alter our beliefs, self-identity and abilities.

Finally, of course, let’s not forget the sheer embarrassment factor. The successful nineteenth century book, Sex in Education (subtitled Or, A Fair Chance for Girls – somewhat ironically as it turned out) argued that education was selectively perilous to girls and young women. Its author, Harvard Medical School professor Edward Clarke [6], proposed that intellectual labour sent energy rushing dangerously from ovaries to brain, threatening infertility as well as other severe medical ills. From our modern vantage point we can laugh at the crudely obvious prejudice that gave rise to this hypothesis (as biologist Richard Lewontin [17], p. 208 dryly remarked of this hypothesis, ‘Testicles, apparently, had their own sources of energy’).

Yet it seems we may have little cause for complacency. Who wants future generations to giggle in astonished outrage at our crude attempts to locate social pressures in the brain? (Here it is, Michael! I finally found the elusive human ‘maternal circuit’. See how it crowds out these circuits for career, ambition and original thought?). Nineteenth century medical opinion proposed that girls who overtax their brains might never reproduce. Twenty-first century neurosexism warns that women who reproduce risk overtaxing their brains. It is, perhaps, a little less progress than many working mothers would have hoped for.

References

Baron-Cohen, Simon. 2003. The essential difference: Men, women and the extreme male brain. London: Allen Lane.

Brescoll, Victoria, and Marianne LaFrance. 2004. The correlates and consequences of newspaper reports of research on sex differences. Psychological Science 15: 515–520.CrossRef

Bonnot, Virginie, and Jean-Claude Croizet. 2007. Stereotype internalization and women’s math performance: the role of interference in working memory. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43: 857–866.CrossRef

Brizendine, Louann. 2007. The female brain. London: Bantam Press.

Cameron, Deborah. 2007. The myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clarke, Edward H. 1873/2006. Sex in Education: Or, a fair chance for girls. Boston: James R. Osgood & Company. Ebook retrieved from The Project Gutenberg.

Coleman, Jill M., and Hong, Ying-Yi. 2008. Beyond nature and nurture: the influence of lay gender theories on self-stereotyping. Self and Identity 7:34–53.CrossRef

Dar-Nimrod, Ilan, and Steven J. Heine. 2006. Exposure to scientific theories affects women’s math performance. Science 314: 435.CrossRef

Davis, Shannon N. 2007. Gender ideology construction from adolescence to young adulthood. Social Science Research 36: 1021–1041.CrossRef

Fine, Cordelia. ‘Boys set adrift by dud science.’ The Australian, 25 July 2007.

Jost, John T., and Orsolya Hunyady. 2002. The psychology of system justification and the palliative function of ideology. European Review of Social Psychology 13: 111–153.CrossRef

Jost, John T., Mahzarin R. Banaji and Brian A. Nosek. 2004. A decade of system justification theory: accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology 25: 881–919.CrossRef

Kitayama, Shinobu and Dov Cohen. 2007. Preface to Handbook of Cultural Psychology. New York, London: The Guilford Press.

Koenig, Anne, M., and Alice H. Eagly. 2005. Stereotype threat in men on a test of social sensitivity. Sex Roles 52: 489–496.CrossRef

Klein, Kristi J.K., and Sara D. Hodges. 2001. Gender differences, motivation, and empathic accuracy: when it pays to understand. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27: 720–730.CrossRef

Levy, Neil. 2004. Understanding blindness [book review]. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 3: 315–324.CrossRef

Lewontin, Richard. 2000. It ain’t necessarily so: The dream of the human genome and other illusions. New York: New York Review of Books.

Liberman, Mark. No date. Blinding us with science. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/∼myl/languagelog/archives/004618.html. Accessed on 12 September 2007.

Rivers, Caryl, and Barnett, Rosalind. ‘The difference myth. The Boston Globe, 28 October 2007.

Skolnick Weisberg, Deena, Frank C. Keil, Joshua Goodstein, Elizabeth Rawson, and Jeremy R. Gray. (2008). The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (in press).

Spencer, Steven J., Claude M. Steele, and Diane M. Quinn. 1999. Stereotype threat and women’s math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 35: 4–28.CrossRef

Vick, S. Brooke, Mark D. Seery, Jim Blascovich, and Max Weisbuch. In press. The effect of gender stereotype activation on challenge and threat motivational states. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. DOI 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.02.007.

Walton, Gregory M., and Geoffrey L. Cohen. 2003. Stereotype lift. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 39: 456–467.CrossRef

Wraga, Maryjane, Molly Helt, Emily Jacobs, and Kerry Sullivan. 2007. Neural basis of stereotype-induced shifts in women’s mental rotation performance. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2: 12–19.CrossRef

Importance of Value Education

New Post has been published on http://eduandlearning.tk/2017/06/10/importance-of-value-education/

Importance of Value Education

Seven sins: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character,commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Just in case you believe that great social problems are beyond your scope, consider this story: God said to me: Your task is to build a better world. I answered: How can I do that? The world is such a large, vast place, so complicated now, and I am so small and useless. There nothing I can do. But God in his great wisdom said: Just build a better you.

– Anonymous

The moral values present a true perspective of the development of any society or nation. They tell us to what extent a society or nation has developed itself. Values are virtues, ideals and qualities on which actions and beliefs are based. Values are guiding principles that shape our world outlook, attitudes and conduct. Values however are either innate or acquired. Innate values are our inborn divine virtues such as love, peace, happiness, mercy and compassion as well as the positive moral qualities such as respect, humility, tolerance, responsibility, cooperation, honesty and simplicity.

Acquired values are those external values adopted at your “place of birth” or “place of growth” and are influenced by the immediate environment. Examples of acquired values are one’s mode of dress, the way you bless, cultural customs, traditions, habits and tendencies.

The main causes of moral degeneration are:

– Lack of respect for the sanctity of human life.

– Breakdown of parental control of children in families

– Lack of respect for authority, seen through the brazen breaking of the law and

Total disregard for rules and regulations

– Crime and corruption

– Abuse of alcohol and drugs

– Abuse of women and children, and other vulnerable members of society.

– Lack of respect for other people and property.

To solve all these type problems it is necessary to know the main causes of the above problems. We know today children are tomorrow’s citizens. If we give good education to the present day children, the future of the next generations will be well. My opinion education is the solution for all types of the problems. Now we are living in the modern century. If we use science and technology in the proper way it is not difficult for us to solve all the problems of the non-moral and value things.The main object of the study is to inculcate moral and value based education in schools and colleges and to know the attitude of intermediate students towards moral values. Gandhiji advised the inmates of Sabarmati Ashram on the practice of the following values in their day- to-day life:

1. Ahimsa

2. Non-stealing

3. Non-possession

4. Swadeshi

5. Manual work

6. Fearlessness

7. Truth

8. Chastity

9. Equality of religion

10. Removal of untouchability

11. Control of palate

Important life goals and personal characteristics:

Life goals and Personal characteristics are very necessary for all types of persons in the society.

Life Goals:

– A world at peace (free of war and conflict)

– Freedom (independence, free choice)

– Wisdom (a mature understanding of life)

– Happiness (contentedness)

– An exciting life (a stimulating, active life)

– Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all)

– A comfortable life (a prosperous life)

– Self-respect (self-esteem, feeling good about yourself)

– Salvation (religiously saved, eternal life)

– Mature love (sexual & spiritual intimacy)

– Social recognition (respect, admiration)

– A sense of accomplishment (I’ve made a lasting contribution)

– Family security (taking care of loved ones)

– True friendship (close companionship)

– A world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts)

– Inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict)

– Pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely life)

– National security (protection from attack)

Personal Characteristics:

– Self-controlled (thinks first, restrained, self-disciplined)

– Honest (sincere, truthful, disclosing)

– Loving (affectionate, tender, caring)

– Ambitious (hard working, aspiring)

– Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful)

– Responsible (dependable, reliable)

– Independent (self-reliant, sufficient)

– Broad-minded (open-minded, able to see other viewpoints)

– Polite (courteous, well mannered)

– Forgiving (willing to pardon others)

– Intellectual (intelligent, reflective, knowledgeable)

– Helpful (working for the welfare of others)

– Obedient (dutiful, respectful)

– Capable (competent, effective, skillful)

– Logical (consistent, rational, aware of reality)

– Clean (neat, tidy)

– Imaginative (daring, creative)

– Courageous (standing up for your beliefs, strong)

Hogan (1973) believes that moral behavior is determined by five factors: (1) Socialization: becoming aware as a child of society’s and parents’ rules of conduct for being good. (2) Moral judgment: learning to think reasonably about our own ethics and deliberately deciding on our own moral standards. (3) Moral feelings: the internalization of our moral beliefs to the degree that we feel shame and guilt when we fail to do what we “should.” (4) Empathy: the awareness of other people’s situation, feelings, and needs so that one is compelled to help those in need. (5) Confidence and knowledge: knowing the steps involved in helping others and believing that one is responsible for and capable of helping.

Today we facing so many problems like terrorism, poverty and population problem. It is necessary to inculcate moral values in curriculum. Education is an effective weapon. Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it is his handsand at whom it is aimed. (Joseph Stalin)

Curricular Activities:

Due to liberalization, industrialization and globalization rapid changes are occurring in almost all social sciences. The value possessed and their attitudes according to the changes should be known up to date vast changes are occurring in the education. So called philosophical foundations of India are declining day to day with the country in a state of social turbulence, the goals and functions of formal education need to be reassessed and updated. Through education we can change the world.

– By giving a place for moral values in the curriculum.

– Moral values can be explained through stories and illustrations.

– Through poetry, novel and stories we can inculcate moral values in the students.

– Role play of a good story in the lesson.

– Educate students through posters, advertisements and dramatizations; those are all a part in the curriculum.

– By introducing a course on moral values as a part of its Master Degree in Developmental Administration.

– Giving course training to students to develop moral values in the society.

– By educating citizen through direct contact by setting up local offices across the religion.

– First of all educate women in the society. Mother is the first teacher. Motivate every woman to know about moral values through special course like “Gandhian Studies”.

“IF WEALTH IS LOST NOTHING IS LOST”

“IF HEALTH IS LOST SOMETHING IS LOST”

“IF CHARACTER IS LOST EVERYTHING IS LOST”

BEST OF ALL THINGS IS CHARACTER – FATHER OF INDIAN NATION MAHATMA GANDHI

Source by Naraginti Reddy

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Your Type & Your Life

As seen in the previous entries, one’s personality style can be seen as both a map to one’s inner geography and the scaffold of one’s outward direction - The experiences & people that you seek out & the way you react to them, as well as the ways you change or stay the same are all mediated by the inner filters that organize your experience, and once one considers all that it’s easy to see how one’s personality can be tantamount to a kind of ‘destiny’  or self-fulfilling prophecy - 

Therefore, one may want to know just how exactly one got stuck with theirs. 

Inborn Differences

At the present state of our knowledge, it is safe to say the the ‘Tabula Rasa’ theory is ripe for the trashbucket - Indeed we continue to learn more about how human babies aleady come ‘preprogrammed’ with an astounding lot of ‘software’ & in the process substantiate what anyone who had multiple children or numerous siblings may have observed for themselves: That tiny humans already come with notably different behavior patterns; and indeed it’s common knowledge at this point that both predispositions for disorders and ordinary run of the mill personality traits can run in families, though the exact interconnections of everything still present considerable mysteries. 

In the psychological jargon, it’s common to use ‘the term ‘temperament’ for the hand of inborn tendencies you’re deal with an conception which gives you a range of possibilities & provides the base material for the environment to act upon, and ‘character’ for the possibility that is fnally realized through interaction with the environment & personal choice, the finished product if you will. 

Almost from the first moments of life, parents may notice particularities in their new mini-me: Some babies cry a lot, some don’t, some are more easily soothed than others.  Some quickly develop regular eating & sleeping patterns whereas others are harder to train to any pattern, some are meek & easygoing while others are prone to strong reactions - 

Each of us enter the world with our own particular constitution, theshold and reaction patterns, and a study begun in 1956 has since shown that behavior at the age of 3 is a powerful predictor of personality in adulthood - A rambunctious baby generally becomes an active adult, a shy baby a reserved person etc. Turns out even small toddlers who have barely mastered talking & going potty can already be assesed & quantified by the following means:

Activity Level - Even an infant has a characteristic level of activity vs inertia, from sluggish to enegetic

Regularity - Some are regular in their eating, sleeping and other biological functions 

Aprroach vs. Withdrawal - when presented with a new toy, food, peson or stimulus, does the baby generally react positively with interest or negatively & fearfully?

Adaptability - Does the child learn & adjust to new stuations & tasks easily, or do they have difficulty adjusting to change?

Threshold of Responsiveness - What does it usually take to get a ‘rise’ out of the baby? A stong sensory stimulus like a loud voice, or a mild one such as a soft voice? Does the child easily become overstimulated by sensory experiences?

Reaction intensity - Some kids react loudly to everything, whereas others are typically less intense in their positive & negative reactions

Mood - Even babies have characteristic mood patterns, varying from predoinantly cheerful to frequently unhappy

Distractability - Does the child tend to focus on tasks on hand, or are they easily 

Attention Span and Persistence - How long does the baby typically stick with an activity, and wll they pesst despite difficulty?

...across cultures and regardless of the parent’s attitudes & actions. Even physiological responses (such as pupil widening & heartbeat increase in response to stress) can be measurably different as early as 4 months. 

Of course genes alone don’t cause a baby to react to a new face with tears or an adult to go to pieces after a breakup - what they do determine is the way an organism’s brain develops and the range of its normal neurobiological & biochemical reactions that characterize its personal style of responding to the environment & like everything in the human body it can break or be broken. 

Genes may present a range of possibilities, but it is experience that determines what becomes of those possibilities.

Environmental Impacts - A more systemic perspective

From birth, an infant begins to learn from others, adapt to their experiences within the family & to develop styles of coping with the environment - but in the light of the above, and of recent findings, this has to be viewed as a more reciprocal relationship: Rather than being passive victims of what life dishes out, we influence life just as life influences us: 

Life shapes what will become of our genetic possibilities, but our inborn nature also affects what will happen to us. It’s not just that different people react differently to the same stimuli, but rather, from the beginning, a baby’s temperament affects the experiences they are most likely to have. A child’s temperament influences how their parents may react to them - and how the baby in turn reacts to the parent’s reactions, demands & expectations depends on those same qualities of temperament, resulting in a wide variety of parent-infant interactions. 

Say, you have a meek, mellow, easy-to-handle baby - their parents are likely to be quite happy with them, and the baby themselves will learn that their parents are easy to please and that the world can be a pretty fulfilling place. Cranky babies, however, may iritate & frustrate their parents, some of which may overreact & mistreat them. A baby of more challenging temperament may bring out the worst in their parents, especially if those parents are immature or incompetent, with the result that the fussier baby will have an even harder time dealing with the parent’s negative reactions & become even more difficult to manage, whereas a chill undemanding baby will have their adaptability rewarded with love & attention - 

If you consider this it’s easy to see how two babies could end up with completely different experiences of themselves, the world & their parents even within the same household. A child that’s more of a handful may be more stessful to their parents and elicit more unpleasant responses such as criticism or anger, to which they are in turn temperamentally  more sensitive than other kids - a more sensitive kid may require more patience & undestanding than many parents can give, especially if the parents in question are immature, inexperienced, inflexible, disordered or bogged down with stress, conflict an outside factors like their financial situation - And if the parents are outright abusive, a child that talks back will probably bear the brunt of it. 

This doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with a “fussy” baby- they’re just within the normal range & divesity of child developement, and indeed, given favorable circumstances, it may even present its own advantages: Place that same cranky baby in a well-to-do family with good verbal skills, and it will likely develop a higher IQ by age five than would their meek and easy-to-manage peers. In such families, a fussier temperament turns into an intellectual advantage because parents from higher educational and economic backgrounds tend to talk, communicate and interact more with these demanding children in their efforts to get them to adapt better, and this added stimulation promoted intellectual developement. 

Studies conducted on tribal societies even suggest that they have better survival chances in times of scarcity - precisely because they make more noise & demand to be fed. Also, cultural attitudes can put a quantifier on this - in our society schools & nurseries are very comformist places where the staff needs to deal with a lot of kids so a more rambuctious child may be penalized, but a warlike society may prize aggressive behavior (and of course that’s where gender stereotypes rear their ugly head again because we at present accept a lot more ‘wild’ behavior from little boys)

The “Goodness of Fit” Theory

So what can we conclude from this? Well, that the interplay between the factors involved in making a person is complex, but we knew that already.

For every developing child, they ey to wether their inborn temperament will mature into a positive outcome is what researchers call ‘goodness of fit’ - wether the baby’s individual temperament can fit harmonously into their family & large environment - Can the growing child with their innate abilities, wants and behaviors and the family or social environment meet each other’s needs and demands? 

Every temperament provides advantages & disadvantages depending on the environment. When the parents, teachers or surrounding culture repeatedly asks more of a child than they can give at a particular time, the stress on the child may begin to distort the way their personality develops. But if the fit is good, it can ehance strenghts and help overcome vulnerabilities. 

Most children develop resilient personalities that carry them through even the worst stresses of adulthood without developing psychiatric disorders then or later - experience toughes them but doesn’t distort them. On the other hand, though more rambuctious kids are at higher risk, just about any child can develop behavior problems from the excessive stresses that result from a poor fit - A very outgoing, active family may repeatedly push & demand too much from a sweet, quiet, passive stay-close-to-home child. A quiet, careful, stay-at-home family may uneccesary restrict forward, adventurous behaviors in an active, outgoing child. A sweet, cheerful,  loving baby may be born to a very depressed mothers who can’t give the baby the rewarding feedback that healthy personality developement requires. An easily distracted child may develop a problem if their parents insist that they concentrate for long amounts of time without a break -

And though the parents of a child with problems may think the child’s temperament is at fault, the difficulty actually lies in the nature of the match between parent and child - and the opposite is true: An attentive, patient  family may protect a kid with sucky genetics from developing problems by potecting it from life experiences to which they may be especially suceptible & prevent them from falling into unhealthy patterns, turning what could have been the beginning of much difficulty into temporary growing pains. 

As for the noxious factors themselves it is to be noted that, overprotecting a naturally reactive and/or sensitive child actually made the reactiveness more likely to stick & result in a more shy or inhibited person than when the parents were accepting but made age-apropriate demands on cleanliness and behavior. 

Another thing to note that it is less individual incidents and more systemic situations than can do harm, particularly in the child’s early years - To their surprise researchers found that divorce or the dead of a parent did not predict negatives outcome, but witnessing repeated conflict between the parents did - in other words the common cliché of “staying together for the children” may do more harm than good. 

On that note...

Tipps for Parents

Do not try to treat all your children identicaly, but rather, accept and respect your child’s fundamntal inborn style & recognize that they may have special needs  relating to their temperament. Objectively identify the child’s strenghts and vulnerabilities, and support their positive qualities and individual nature. 

Above all, do not blae yourself or your child if they don’t meet your expecations. Don’t fight your child’s inborn temperamental qualities and don’t punish them for having difficulties. Keep in mind that your child’s temperamental difficulties do not in themselves meant that they are destined for trouble later in life - unless you get into a viscious cycle of negative reactions to each other. In fact, with good management, your rambuctious hell-toddler may turn out to be a highly creative, unusual, even exceptional person like many a famous leader.  

A child with temperamental difficultis needs strong, loving management so that they can learn good coping skills.

Your Adult Life

Though your basic personality is ‘done’ by the time you exit your childhood, experience & biology continually mold & modify you, building on what has gone before and sometimes pointing you in new directions. 

Diseases, injuries & medical conditions can sometimes alter long-established personality patterns (usually in an unfortunate direction), but barring such illness or injury, the brain physiologically remains adaptable thoughout the aging process, capable of reacting with the environment to form new connections among brain cells and to alter old ones - Indeed according to the latest neuroscience, the potential ability of brain cells to adapt or change may never deteriorate thoughout your entire life cycle -

Heck, the process of aging may even modify your personality in a rather pleasant direction. Researchers have detemined that people’s ‘panic centers’ decrease in activity after age 40, which is perhaps why most people seem to naturally mellow as they reach middle age. Adaptation may come easily or wth difficulty, but generally one’s pattern of responses always carries a built-in potential for expansion & change with it.

Interview: Ryan Daniel Beck

Ryan Daniel Beck is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, and visual artist. I'm not sure if he'd describe himself as a philosopher but, after reading his interview, I'm sure you'll agree he's an active thinker on a whole bunch of levels.

How would you describe you what is it that you do?

I consider myself a visual art teacher, working through the medium of dance. Unlike the static forms of sculpture, photography, or painting, my medium is constantly changing and evolving, but the underlying principles of visual art remain constant.

Have you always done this for a living or did you transition from something else? What triggered your decision to make a change?

Prior to teaching and choreographing, I was a working dancer, performing around the world. I danced for Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, as well as concert work with MOMIX, Danny Ezralow, and Dario Vaccaro.

What is the most challenging thing about practicing your craft? How do you deal with that challenge?

The biggest challenge for choreographers and teachers relates to funding and time management. Fortunately, I have had some serendipitous opportunities that allowed me to pursue choreography and teaching in an unfettered way. I know many teachers and choreographers who simultaneously juggle multiple jobs just to continue practicing their craft. It must be a labor of true love, otherwise it would be too frustrating and unsustainable.

Do you still practice? If so, what do your practice sessions look like?

My personal practice sessions are primarily geared toward conditioning and maintenance of my own instrument (the body). I ask a great deal from my dancers, and I believe in leading by example. I would never ask a dancer to do something that I am not able to physically demonstrate (knock on wood).

Where do you find inspiration?

Inspiration for me comes in the form of a curious mind. I strive to maintain an attitude and environment of saying “yes” when a new experience presents itself.  Whether it is a food I’ve never tried, a location I’ve never seen, a film I’ve never viewed...whatever. As a visual artist, shapes, forms, textures, lines, geometry, symmetry, asymmetry all inspire my movement in different ways.  And all these things give me information when I am developing new processes of creation. The final dance is just a documentation of the process that my dancers and I conducted.

Where are you when you have the most a-ha moments?

Usually in the dance studio. There is a quote that says, “Creativity is making mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to keep.” When I am in the studio with dancers, we intentionally create a playful atmosphere, that allows us to make lots of “mistakes.” My job is to select a handful of these “mistakes” and mold them in a meaningful, mindful way.

What do you do to maintain a creative flow?

One of my personal favorite exercises, involves the Russian Turkish bath on East 10th. It is wonderfully shabby establishment, rich in history and culture. The heat is almost unbearably intense, and will “creatively meditate” in that warm darkness. Something about the tranquility of the flowing water and the visceral sting of the radiant heat, creates a highly sensory mental place that feeds my creativity immensely. My mind goes wild when I am there.

How much do you rely on feedback from others to help shape your ideas?

Feedback is helpful when I am creating an immersive environment for the audience. However, if I am making a statement through my work, I am more concerned with the authentic justification that I use as the foundation for my movement. And since this authenticity originates internally, I tend to disregard outside feedback, since it lacks the perspective that I have in the first person. Its like putting on noise cancelling headphones to create the sensitivity required to hear your inner voice.

What is the greatest obstacle to creativity?

If you work from a process-based approach, you must take into account that the process will yield a final product, but it might take some time. Its like waiting for a seed to germinate. The commercial market demands high productivity and prolific content. But the smart artist knows that each process is different, and sometimes quality takes time. For example, Pina Bausch would create just one show a year, since six months of rehearsal was dedicated to research. For Richard Serra’s first show, his process involved hundreds of experiments with different material combinations, resulting in just few, interesting “mistakes” that made the final cut and were included in the gallery exhibition. But it literally takes hours and hours to drudge through the “process” before the final product reveals itself.   

When you complete a project, how often does it resemble your initial concept or conceived idea? How important is this for you?

It depends on the client and the project. If I am working in a commercial environment, it is more important that the client is satisfied and happy with the result. So in this instance, I play a much more active role in making sure that the result falls within “industry standard.” Its as if a client says, “I want something that tastes like a Caramel Machiatto from Starbucks.” Well, in that instance, I am not going to generate a process that “might” yield a product that tastes like a dirty martini. It must fall within the client’s expectations, but with a “signature twist”. Using the coffee analogy, I would make sure that the product tastes like Starbucks, but was served in far more sophisticated glass, with an unexpected flourish of cinnamon garnish. In this way, the client is satisfied, and I can walk away from the project having improved the original concept. On the other hand, if I have the luxury of time and there are no pre-determined expectations to be met, I love to go on a wild adventure, without any notion of where the final product will take us!

How do you know when you’re done?

In the same way you know that you are done eating...you feel full and satisfied

How do you resolve creative differences with clients or creative partners?

If its a commercial client, the trick is to allow them to think that the idea was their own. This is especially true if I am dealing with a middle manager, who is trying to impress their superior (CEO, director, etc)  I am more than happy to lavish credit on someone for an artistic choice, knowing that the long term dividends are more valuable than short term validation. On the other hand, if I am collaborating with other creatives on project, I am careful to choose like-minded individuals, who understand that no one “owns” any idea, and we are all on the same mission to find the BEST solution for the show, no matter whether it originates from me or someone else. Leave the creative ego at the door.

What keeps you motivated even if you don’t connect personally with the project?

I probably wouldn’t agree to do a project that failed to resonate with me personally….I mean, what’s the point? I suppose I could do it for financial reasons, but to me, art is sacred and I would feel massively uneasy doing something “artistic” just to pay bills. I would rather do something non-artistic or gratis.

What do you do when you are stuck and have some sort of deadline or other pressure?

I am very proactive in making sure I don’t get stuck in the first place. I am constantly creating content and documenting it. I am perpetually writing down ideas for future processes I want to try. I don’t wait for a deadline to present itself and then create. I have a stockhouse and reservoire of ideas and concepts ready and waiting when the opportunities present themselves.

How do you achieve your creative vision with a limited budget?

One of the beauties of process based art, is that you become keenly aware and skilled in the art of “rules.” A creative process is like a game that you play for a specific project.  And like all games, it has “rules.” For example, I might say that today’s dance project has three rules: “all the movement must be related to the color green, it can only involve your elbow and your hips, and it must alternate between stillness and bursts of speed.” Interestingly, people generally associate “rules” with limitations, but in this sense, it gives my dancers a focused and specific area, within which they are able to play and explore. If I give them too many choices, it becomes overwhelming and unfocused. So to answer the question, if budget is an issue, I will simply incorporate it into the “rules” of that project. Humans have been creating works of art for thousands of years, with little to no “resources” at all. For the tenacious artist, a “limited budget” is just an opportunity in disguise.

What are the top 3 tools in your creative tool kit? ie. software, pencil, paper, journal etc.

1. My passport

2. My music editing software

3. My five senses

What are the top 3 creative habits that have proven to be the most useful for you in your career?

1. Constantly replacing self-doubting thoughts, with what I know to be true internally

2. Surrounding myself with non-dancers (designers, musicians, animators, physicists, etc)

3. Living everyday with a deep sense of gratitude and curiosity

If you could offer a single piece of advice to a budding professional, what would it be?

Originality is innate...you were “original” the day that you were born...therefore, since originality comes from within, it is not an external goal to be discovered….the more sensitive you are to your inner voice, your background, your heritage, the smell of your grandmother’s kitchen, the texture of your lover’s skin, the time you got stranded in Albuquerque, the moment you realized that you were no longer a virgin, the earliest memories you had from childhood, your most personal insecurities, your receding hairline, your cellulite, your bad ankle….every single thing that makes you who you are….when you bring all of this into your art, it is DEEPLY original and no one can deny you that….they might be able to critique your execution, but they can never argue your source….PERSONAL IS UNIVERSAL

The Power Of Togetherness

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/the-power-of-togetherness/

The Power Of Togetherness

A Research Paper By Océane Staib Evin, Executive Coach, IRELAND

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.– Helen Keller Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.– Michael Jordan The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. – Babe Ruth No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. – H.E. Luccock Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a team of people. Steve Jobs TEAM: Together everyone achieves more.

Whilst increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity have re-enforced the necessity of having several people brainstorm on issues to better identify the root causes and find solutions; whilst all research highlight how expertise in topics is no longer sufficient to find solutions in this complex world; whilst quotes pour through social media to highlight the power of team/group/tribe over the individual, leaders continue to, despite their awareness, think, at some level, more individual than group, team than organization.

Bringing people and teams together to maximize the outcome is often harder than it sounds, it is not only about creating a good team spirit, it requires leaders of an organization to sincerely care about others and the goals of the company, more than their own egos or personal goals and to trickle this mindset and spirit throughout the organization. It also requires to adopt and spread growth mindset in which growing and learning become the drivers rather than being right or wrong. It requires building an environment where shame has no place, an environment in which everyone shares, is listened to, and learns from each other, an environment where mistakes are considered as opportunities to improve and evolve.

Many Leaders have today gained the awareness of the importance of teamwork, group work, and skills to build strong teams. They value the development and successes of each individual more than their own, still, these leaders tend to set natural boundaries to the concept of “Togetherness” and common growth.

Last but not least, Covid 19 pandemic and the move to a significantly more virtual world, has put a terrible break on people’s ability to build relationships through simple exchanges around the coffee machines, meetings, and seminars and share on simple topics and concerns which do not require meetings.

Coaching can be of incredible support for leaders to further build and capitalize on this notion and power of togetherness, in creating new ways of developing relationships, removing the unconscious boundaries they have set, and taking not only their teams but their entire organizations to new levels of “Togetherness” acting as ONE larger team with One Larger Ambition to face every challenge with more agility, flexibility, adaptability, and POWER.

How cultures and education impact the ability and desire to be “fully” part of a group

As leaders pro-actively develop their skills and adapt their attitudes to develop strong teams, many underestimate how their education and culture can impact their most profound and natural reactions thereby sending involuntary signs of individualism to others. Indeed, when growing up in individualistic cultures of Western Europe and North America which comprise autonomy, independence, self-sufficiency, and uniqueness, people tend to be self-reliant and emphasize standing out and being unique. “I think, therefore I am”  from Rene Descartes resonates in the ears of many “Westerners” where people tend to describe themselves using personal characteristics “I am analytical, sarcastic, athletic…”.

Even when they praise and promote teamwork they still see themselves as one unique individual within a group and picture what their person and each individual can do rather than focus on what the group together can achieve, each member contributing to the strength and diversity of the group as a whole. In fact, how would one who describes and identifies himself though others – as people do in many African Cultures – as guided by the “Ubuntu” philosophy where one only exists through others, through the community, and where people describe themselves as “I am a good partner” “I am a good leader”, have approached the same difficulty and challenge? Indeed, Ubuntu is a concept according to which your sense of self is shaped by your relationships with other people. It’s a way of living that begins with the premise that “I am only because we are”; “I am because you are” or “ I am human because I belong, I participate. I share.” The approach is very far from the famous “I think, therefore I am” of Descartes and research has proven time and time again the impact of Culture on our Natural and Innate behaviors.

One of the key roles of coaches is to support clients in gaining awareness of their natural biases and help them act and think beyond these biases. Supporting clients to help them see that even if they think beyond their own interest as individuals, they may naturally still tend to think of the interest of a smaller group than what they could or should such as Team vs organization, or more simple to see how a person who they may consider as a weak link in a group due to lack of expertise actually highly contributes to the overall group dynamic and this weak link is, in fact, cement to the group through their empathy and ability to listen to the flow of information and extract the key ones.

Natural Biases: “My Teams vs the teams of my peers”; “My team vs. the team I am part of”; “My Team vs. the Organization”;

The perception of leadership nowadays is very much different from that in past years. The idea where one heroic individual single-handedly generates results by enforcing his will is considered outdated. Leadership is now considered a “team sport”. Company managers and other people in leadership positions need to work together with their employees to accomplish goals and initiate changes.

A qualified executive team knows how to build a team, maintain momentum, and foster excitement in all levels of the corporate structure. But how can this be achieved?

Most leaders and executive teams have realized that defining a clear purpose to drive their teams’ engagement is not enough, they also need to create strong team dynamics. Today, most companies, big ones, and smaller ones employ coaches to support their leaders create the right dynamics within their teams and stories relate all the transformations and successes within the teams led but one item often remains …. Teams work in Silos as these leaders manage to create wonderful team dynamics but tend to dedicate less energy and attention to the dynamics of the other teams or the bigger teams. How to support Leaders build strong dynamics for the overall organization, beyond the team(s) they lead?

As Patrick Lencioni explains in his books “The Advantage” and “The 5 Dysfunctions of a team”, are organizations healthy enough to tap into their knowledge? When describing his model of Organizational Health, and the priority of building a Cohesive Team he explains that despite the attention brought to build a successful organization, 95% of Leaders naturally will tend to put their top priority on the team their Lead vs the Team they are a member of.

They do it naturally as they spend more time with these people, hire these people, have the most expertise in this field, and are thereby more comfortable with these people; also, the team they have built is generally what will give them the most immediate, measurable and direct recognition. Putting a priority on the team you are part of requires significantly more courage and effort. To build strong and healthy organizations is strong not only to build strong teams but it is even more important to build strength in the executive team leaders are part of for the company and the organization as a whole. The role of Executive Coaches can be a real asset to support Leaders in building this habit to think and act beyond their team and even put Top Priority on the team they are part of vs the Team they have built.

Important questions in supporting the client gain awareness could be:

I hear you receive great recognition from your team, boss, and peers for having built such a strong and effective team which is remarkable:

How do the teams of your peers feel about you?

What dynamics have you built with your peers?

When have you managed to sponsor a project driven by other teams over yours?

What benefit would sponsoring a project driven by other teams over your give the organization?

How would your team benefit from you building more cohesiveness and clarity with the other members of the Exec Leadership team?

How would other teams benefit from you building more cohesiveness and clarity with the other members of the Exec Leadership team?

These questions can lead the client to gain awareness of the benefits of putting a higher priority on being part of the Exec Team than their own team and drive further cohesiveness and strength for the entire organization.  Support clients in going beyond the natural boundaries of “Togetherness” they have set for themselves and do feel comfortable with.

Fairness, Empathy, and Trust as pillars to building real “Togetherness”

To build a genuine “Togetherness” in which people feel safe to express their thoughts but also share their mistakes to allow everyone to learn from them and build on them, there must not be any place for shame. Brené Brown explains in “Dare to Lead” on Empathy and Shame resilience, “Empathy is the most powerful connecting and trusting tool we have and it’s an antidote to shame. Empathy is a hostile environment for shame, an environment it can’t survive in because shame needs you to believe you are alone and it’s just you.”

“When we are in shame and we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” Brené explains that the first one must recognize when they are in the grip of shame then learn to practice critical awareness as to when we are shameful all we see is our flawed self, alone and struggling. We think we are the only ones, that something is wrong with us, that we are alone. It is only when connecting with others we can see that we are not the only one. One must reach out to others and speak shame.

Here again, a coach’s role can be critical in creating an environment for the client to safely reach out, share his thoughts, and making his shame simply less important by verbalizing it. Through this verbalization, the client may also realize that his issues are in fact universal, that we all fight silent battles against not begin good enough or not belonging enough. In doing so the coach supports the client to recognize when they are in the grip of shame and from there practice critical awareness.

A coach can also support the client identify when he creates an environment that allows for shame to come in for others and see how to address this. Support the client to gain further awareness that shame will not survive in an environment in which fairness, empathy, and trust are present and supporting the client in building an environment where fairness, empathy, and trust are fully present. Here again, coming back to the healthy organization presented by Patrick Lencioni it is not only about building fairness, empathy, and trust within our team but about building in the entire organization. The coach can support the client realizing that he/she may at times favor his own team over others and think through how to ensure that every member of the organization, beyond his team, feel treated fairly by himself/herself and every other executive Leader and that the trust is sufficiently strong to express their thoughts.

The power of “Togetherness”, of group work, of building strong, cohesive teams, has been demonstrated again and again. Many organizations and leaders hire coaches to support them in developing their skills and sensitivity to building strong teams still many organizations and leaders tend to limit the power of togetherness, setting virtual barriers to the notion of “Togetherness”. These barriers can be driven by the influence of the culture westerners have been brought up with but also by comfort, ease, and search for recognition.

I strongly believe Executive Coaches should also support clients in identifying these natural barriers to building stronger “Togetherness” beyond their teams and even their organization. This notion of “Togetherness” should in fact have no limit as the more people feel fairness, empathy, and trust, the more they are safe to share and seek advice/support and give advice support, the more everyone can mutually benefit from the exchanges.

To conclude I would like to also invite people to think of the power for small companies or entrepreneurs of building togetherness even with your competitors. Indeed a natural reaction of many small companies would be to see how they are better than competitors to reassure themselves and sell their strength. They try to gain further market share convinced that gaining market share can only be done by reducing that of others and forgetting the mutual strength that can be built together.

Taking it beyond your organization – building with your competitors

But here again, building with competitors is about building a trustworthy and transparent business environment that also generates trust for clients. Indeed, giving positive light to other companies will show that you are honest, willing to work to win business from the client, and are trustworthy.

Working with competitors can allow being stronger bypassing business back and forth, relying on each other if you can’t make a deadline, fit in that extra project; you may even be able to collaborate on big projects and work toward common goals you couldn’t achieve on your own.

I would also share 3 key reasons shared by Robert Tuchman to build with competitors which I would extend to 3 key reasons to build “togetherness” in a limitless way:

Sharing information is often mutually beneficial

Teaching accomplishes more than withholding does

It is always towards the greater good in this case it is always better for the Industry.

As such the coach should support his clients to potentially build beyond the natural barriers they may have set for themselves, their organization, or their business.

Reference:

Individualistic cultures and behaviors, Kendra Cherry, Reviewed by Amy Morin, LCSW, December 2020.

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown,2018

Vertical Development in the Workplace Peter Bluckert,18 September 2019

Gestalt Coaching, Peter Bluckert, 30 décembre 2020

‘I Am Because We Are: The African Philosophy of Ubuntu, by Steve Paulson, September 2020

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-skills/adaptive-leadership/: What is Adaptive Leadership?

Research Paper: Building Great Teams With Coaching

Harvard Business Review: 3 Tools to Help Leaders Steady their Teams during a Transition, by Victoria M. Grady (March 30, 2021)

How Mastering Teamwork Will Make Your Organization Successful, by Alex Kowtun, Forbes Councils Member

The Advantage and The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by PatDysfunctionsi

Patrick Lencioni In “The Advantage” and “the 5 Dysfunctions of a team” books

Why Working Together With Competition Will Improve an Entrepreneur’s, Bottom Line.May 10, 2012

5 Reasons You Need to Work With Your Competitors by Robert Tuchman

Original source: https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/research-papers/the-power-of-togetherness/

Interview: Ryan Daniel Beck

Ryan Daniel Beck is a contemporary dancer, choreographer, and visual artist. I'm not sure if he'd describe himself as a philosopher but, after reading his interview, I'm sure you'll agree he's an active thinker on a whole bunch of levels.

How would you describe you what is it that you do?

I consider myself a visual art teacher, working through the medium of dance. Unlike the static forms of sculpture, photography, or painting, my medium is constantly changing and evolving, but the underlying principles of visual art remain constant.

Have you always done this for a living or did you transition from something else? What triggered your decision to make a change?

Prior to teaching and choreographing, I was a working dancer, performing around the world. I danced for Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, as well as concert work with MOMIX, Danny Ezralow, and Dario Vaccaro.

What is the most challenging thing about practicing your craft? How do you deal with that challenge?

The biggest challenge for choreographers and teachers relates to funding and time management. Fortunately, I have had some serendipitous opportunities that allowed me to pursue choreography and teaching in an unfettered way. I know many teachers and choreographers who simultaneously juggle multiple jobs just to continue practicing their craft. It must be a labor of true love, otherwise it would be too frustrating and unsustainable.

Do you still practice? If so, what do your practice sessions look like?

My personal practice sessions are primarily geared toward conditioning and maintenance of my own instrument (the body). I ask a great deal from my dancers, and I believe in leading by example. I would never ask a dancer to do something that I am not able to physically demonstrate (knock on wood).

Where do you find inspiration?

Inspiration for me comes in the form of a curious mind. I strive to maintain an attitude and environment of saying “yes” when a new experience presents itself.  Whether it is a food I’ve never tried, a location I’ve never seen, a film I’ve never viewed...whatever. As a visual artist, shapes, forms, textures, lines, geometry, symmetry, asymmetry all inspire my movement in different ways.  And all these things give me information when I am developing new processes of creation. The final dance is just a documentation of the process that my dancers and I conducted.

Where are you when you have the most a-ha moments?

Usually in the dance studio. There is a quote that says, “Creativity is making mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to keep.” When I am in the studio with dancers, we intentionally create a playful atmosphere, that allows us to make lots of “mistakes.” My job is to select a handful of these “mistakes” and mold them in a meaningful, mindful way.

What do you do to maintain a creative flow?

One of my personal favorite exercises, involves the Russian Turkish bath on East 10th. It is wonderfully shabby establishment, rich in history and culture. The heat is almost unbearably intense, and will “creatively meditate” in that warm darkness. Something about the tranquility of the flowing water and the visceral sting of the radiant heat, creates a highly sensory mental place that feeds my creativity immensely. My mind goes wild when I am there.

How much do you rely on feedback from others to help shape your ideas?

Feedback is helpful when I am creating an immersive environment for the audience. However, if I am making a statement through my work, I am more concerned with the authentic justification that I use as the foundation for my movement. And since this authenticity originates internally, I tend to disregard outside feedback, since it lacks the perspective that I have in the first person. Its like putting on noise cancelling headphones to create the sensitivity required to hear your inner voice.

What is the greatest obstacle to creativity?

If you work from a process-based approach, you must take into account that the process will yield a final product, but it might take some time. Its like waiting for a seed to germinate. The commercial market demands high productivity and prolific content. But the smart artist knows that each process is different, and sometimes quality takes time. For example, Pina Bausch would create just one show a year, since six months of rehearsal was dedicated to research. For Richard Serra’s first show, his process involved hundreds of experiments with different material combinations, resulting in just few, interesting “mistakes” that made the final cut and were included in the gallery exhibition. But it literally takes hours and hours to drudge through the “process” before the final product reveals itself.   

When you complete a project, how often does it resemble your initial concept or conceived idea? How important is this for you?

It depends on the client and the project. If I am working in a commercial environment, it is more important that the client is satisfied and happy with the result. So in this instance, I play a much more active role in making sure that the result falls within “industry standard.” Its as if a client says, “I want something that tastes like a Caramel Machiatto from Starbucks.” Well, in that instance, I am not going to generate a process that “might” yield a product that tastes like a dirty martini. It must fall within the client’s expectations, but with a “signature twist”. Using the coffee analogy, I would make sure that the product tastes like Starbucks, but was served in far more sophisticated glass, with an unexpected flourish of cinnamon garnish. In this way, the client is satisfied, and I can walk away from the project having improved the original concept. On the other hand, if I have the luxury of time and there are no pre-determined expectations to be met, I love to go on a wild adventure, without any notion of where the final product will take us!

How do you know when you’re done?

In the same way you know that you are done eating...you feel full and satisfied

How do you resolve creative differences with clients or creative partners?

If its a commercial client, the trick is to allow them to think that the idea was their own. This is especially true if I am dealing with a middle manager, who is trying to impress their superior (CEO, director, etc)  I am more than happy to lavish credit on someone for an artistic choice, knowing that the long term dividends are more valuable than short term validation. On the other hand, if I am collaborating with other creatives on project, I am careful to choose like-minded individuals, who understand that no one “owns” any idea, and we are all on the same mission to find the BEST solution for the show, no matter whether it originates from me or someone else. Leave the creative ego at the door.

What keeps you motivated even if you don’t connect personally with the project?

I probably wouldn’t agree to do a project that failed to resonate with me personally….I mean, what’s the point? I suppose I could do it for financial reasons, but to me, art is sacred and I would feel massively uneasy doing something “artistic” just to pay bills. I would rather do something non-artistic or gratis.

What do you do when you are stuck and have some sort of deadline or other pressure?

I am very proactive in making sure I don’t get stuck in the first place. I am constantly creating content and documenting it. I am perpetually writing down ideas for future processes I want to try. I don’t wait for a deadline to present itself and then create. I have a stockhouse and reservoire of ideas and concepts ready and waiting when the opportunities present themselves.

How do you achieve your creative vision with a limited budget?

One of the beauties of process based art, is that you become keenly aware and skilled in the art of “rules.” A creative process is like a game that you play for a specific project.  And like all games, it has “rules.” For example, I might say that today’s dance project has three rules: “all the movement must be related to the color green, it can only involve your elbow and your hips, and it must alternate between stillness and bursts of speed.” Interestingly, people generally associate “rules” with limitations, but in this sense, it gives my dancers a focused and specific area, within which they are able to play and explore. If I give them too many choices, it becomes overwhelming and unfocused. So to answer the question, if budget is an issue, I will simply incorporate it into the “rules” of that project. Humans have been creating works of art for thousands of years, with little to no “resources” at all. For the tenacious artist, a “limited budget” is just an opportunity in disguise.

What are the top 3 tools in your creative tool kit? ie. software, pencil, paper, journal etc.

1. My passport

2. My music editing software

3. My five senses

What are the top 3 creative habits that have proven to be the most useful for you in your career?

1. Constantly replacing self-doubting thoughts, with what I know to be true internally

2. Surrounding myself with non-dancers (designers, musicians, animators, physicists, etc)

3. Living everyday with a deep sense of gratitude and curiosity

If you could offer a single piece of advice to a budding professional, what would it be?

Originality is innate...you were “original” the day that you were born...therefore, since originality comes from within, it is not an external goal to be discovered….the more sensitive you are to your inner voice, your background, your heritage, the smell of your grandmother’s kitchen, the texture of your lover’s skin, the time you got stranded in Albuquerque, the moment you realized that you were no longer a virgin, the earliest memories you had from childhood, your most personal insecurities, your receding hairline, your cellulite, your bad ankle….every single thing that makes you who you are….when you bring all of this into your art, it is DEEPLY original and no one can deny you that….they might be able to critique your execution, but they can never argue your source….PERSONAL IS UNIVERSAL