Jason::Adams

Took this from Keith Ferrazzi’s “Never Eat Alone” blog.  It’s something I had thought while watching Al Gore’s spectacular documentary on Global Warming.

“The group agreed that if Al Gore could tell stories during his days as Vice President and into his Presidential candidacy the way he’s doing today with global warming, the election would have looked very different.  Leaders must be able to communicate a vision, a story with genuine passion for the purpose.  It is a leader’s role to transfer vision, build trust and maintain character – all of which can be more influential and inspiring if a leader can develop an emotional current in which to communicate from.”

This is so true, if Al Gore’s campaigning had any of the passion of his documentary, then it would have been a landslide.  Where was this unique storytelling and vision ability during the election?  This shows another power of storytelling, the ability to convey a compelling and empowering vision.  Another quality I’d like to instill in myself.

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

A sign of a master actor, is when they have scenes with ciggarettes on camera.  It’s very hard to deliver your lines in a master shot (Say far away) and then be required three hours later to remember how you smoked a ciggarette between lines for a close up. Did you inhale and talk while exhaling, etc.
Interesting.

Notes on networking: You dont have to actually really have value to give value, you can create it just through bein knowledgeable. For example I am on a bunch of club lists, and information that is sent to met hat I rarely ever read. When i do see the myspace’s bulletins with people hiring, you can always send the job offers to people you may not think need it, just to show you are thinking of them and providing value. I provide information, you can sometimes structure it like its priveleged information to make it better. Myspace chloe, cultureshock, they say they hiring. I provide the rest of my networking with that information, for their benefit and my networks benefit. This provides value from my network for my network. Self regeneration in effect. What others ways can a network self regenerate like that? I should look up finding a contacts database manager on my computer, someplace where I can easily upload my contacts from my phone etc. And write in notes, information, organize it by tags etc. This way i could do a search for anyone with a related term, get their emails, and easily send out value to that list. Sort of an email list manager, for my network. Easily providing custom value. Note you can also provide value by showing your interested in something, just because someone else is. Someone is of a religion, going to a religious event to show your interested because of their interest. Can you just show interest in anything someones interested in to provide value? Or is that just building rapport? Whats the difference?

“Self improvement is masturbation, self destruction is the answer.”

 — Tyler Durden, Fight Club

“BALANCE is vital in life, physical/mental/spiritual. All parts of your life need to be focussed on and balanced. If you make the decision to sacrifice any part of your life to focus on something specific, make sure you are aware of the consequences and you will accept them when they happen….”

“We are all born perfect and complete human beings….but we sometimes let our lives get out of balance, or we listen to what other people say about us too much, or we sweat too much about the little things….we forget about the big picture, what really matters, and we neglect certain things that are important to us…”

Audiobook: First things first - stephen r. covey

Need to Live: Physical Needs, Clothing, Shelter

Need to Love: Social need to relate to other people. To belong. To be accepted. To love.

Need to Learn: Mental need to grow and to develop, and to use those talents.

Need to Leave a Legacy: Spiritual need, to have a sense of meaning, to add value, to have a sense of purpose of personal harmony and contribution.

 —-

How do you seek to fullfill these needs? These needs are external realities, they are there whether someone chooses to see them or not.

Law of the Farm - Most people go through college, cramming. Doing all of the work in one night, with a minimal amount of effort. I’m definately in that group.  What have I lost because I chose to do this? I feel like I have gained a more active social life, but what was the purpose of me going to college? Was it to increase my social circle? Was it to gain knowledge? Was it to get the paper.  The Law of the Farm is simple.  Could you imagine cramming on a farm? Putting the seed in for your crops, right before your supposed to fertilize them? Tearing up the soil, before your crops are grown? It never works, and never will work.  In the end it will always catch up to you, the hens will come to roost.

Selfawareness - capacity to stand apart from ourselves, examine our own motives, history, habits, etc.

Conscience- connects us with the wisdom of the ages, and the wisdom of the heart. Lets you sense when acting contrary to principle.

Creative Imagination- power to invision a future state, to create something in our mind, to solve problems in new ways synergistically, so that we are not a product of our past, or of our memory. This allows us to see others differently, it allows to write mission statements, it empowers to visualize ourselves living our mission statements even in the most difficult circumstances.

Independent Will - capacity to act, power to transcend our scripts, our paradigms, power to swim upstream if we so choose, to act on based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion, mood, or circumstance. WE ARE NOT A PRODUCT OF OUR PAST, WE ARE A PRODUCT OF OUR THOUGHTS and ACTIONS (our choices, response able, able to respond).

How do I use these endowments? Keep a journal, this helps create self awareness. You observe your own involvement. Enhancess all others as well. What do you write in a personal journal? If you dont like a result your getting in your life, write about it. How do consequences flow? Analyze self defeating proccesses. Write and observe. This will help you make WISE choices. Educate your concscience by learning, listening, and responding to it. You can read/ponder about, learn from previous experiences, learn from others.  Take time to be still and to listen to your deep inner voice. Act in harmony with your inner voice. Independent Will? Learn to make and keep promises. Value your word. It’s like making deposits into your personal integrity account, therefore the opinion we have of ourselves is increased. Make and keep your promises, especially to yourself. Don’t over promise or under deliver. This will help level out the emotional ups and downs of your life. Build your sense of honor. Honor is greater than any mood.
A mans life was totally broken, full of flaking, a life of procrastination and selfishness. He must tap into his unique human endowments. Will you get up in the morning when you say your planning to get up? Will you simply get up in the morning? –How will this help you ask?– YOUR body is the only instrumetn through which you operate in life. If you dont get control of your body, how can you control the expressions that come through your body and your mind. –Dont know if you can?– Do you think you could for a week? –WILL YOU GET UP WHEN YOU DECIDE TO GET UP FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK? — After that week, your life will become more integrated. Little steps, keep commitments with yourself, keep the commitments a secret, and way for the people around you to notice changes about you.  Making and keeping promises to yourself, helps you keep promises to others. If you don’t you will hurt the relationships around you.   Creative Imagination? Use visualization. This is a mental excercise used by world class athletes and performers. Use this to nurture the quality of your own life.  Try to visualize a circumstance that would create a feeling of discomfort or pain. Instead of seeing yourself react as you normally do, see yourself act on the principles you are convinced will create results. Use courage and consideration.

Step 1: Connect with your vision and mission - Organize your coming week. Connect with whats most important as your life as a whole. Context gives meaning. What do you care about? What makes the moments in your life meaningful? What do you want to be and what do you want to do? What kind of person am I? What kind of contributions do I want to make? What are the most important relationships in your life? Most important responsibilities? What feelings do you want to have in your life? (Peace, Happiness, etc.) How would you spend the coming week, if you had 6 mos to live? Where is your true north? See beyond your present reality, to become what you are not yet. Live out of your imagination instead of your memory.

Step 2: Identify your roles - Important roles in family, in community, other areas of life.  They represent responsibilities in life.  Vice president? Parent? Spouse? Personal Development? A clear set of roles is needed. Do these roles work well together for the accomplishment in your mission or vision? Sharpen the Saw role: Foundation for succes in other roles, a metaphor for the energy we invest in increasing our personal capacity in the four fundemental areas, the physical, the social, the mental and the spiritual. We are so busy sawing that is producing results, that we forget to sharpen our saw. To maintain or increase our capacity to produce results in the future. The way you see the problem is the problem. Don’t be dichotomous. Think of many things. Life is one indivisible whole. Friend? Employee?

Step 3: Select Important but not Urgent Life Goals for each Role: What is the most important thing I could do in this role, this week to have the greatest positive impact? Look at the week in the context of a longer term, vision, mission statement.  Without principles goals will never have the ability to produce quality life results. A principle centered goal, is the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way.

Step 3: Create a descicion making framework for the week:  Organize on a weekly basis, not on a daily basis. Keep focus on a more long term goal, rather than just whats in front of us. HEADLIGHTS? The key is to offer integrity in that very moment.

Step 4: Train yourself to ask these questions, review what you did. What goals did I achieve? What decisions did I make? Did I fullfill goals in my role? Did I keep my endowments and principles in mind? Focus on contributing rather than consuming.

Quality of life, absolutely depends on how much you align everything in your life to true north. To where you want to be, your goals and vision in your life. Principle centered life.

Just read a bit about the history of Socrates, and his amazing story.  How much dedication to his own reality did it take to accept his fate instead of renouncing his thoughts.  Socrates always asked questions… he was famous for being the old guy that walked around Athens asking people questions about things they considered common sense.  Socrates was patronized his whole life for asking these questions, and hated when he proved people wrong.  He would constantly change peoples common sense beliefs, whether it be about courage, ethics, success, prosperity, etc.  Then because three people decided they didn’t like him meddling around “with their thoughts” they brought trial against him, one that was intensely unfair and one that proved Socrates existence as a whole right.  The reason socrates is so famous is that he set the principle, he made it okay for Philosopher for ages to come, to ask questions, he showed that the popular opinion was not always right, and led the path for many to change the way we think today.

After he was unjustly accused guilty and sentenced the death penalty, he was asked to renounce his “beliefs” or what he called philosophy. All that he had to do was follow popular opinion and he would be allowed to live.  He chose to drink the cup of hemlock, and die gracefully as his friends and family looked on in tears….  Socrates is the symbol of unpopularity.  He knew and believed in his own thoughts, when everyone around him thought him wrong.  He knew that logic would eventually prevail and after death would be shown to be right.  I hope to have this much conviction in my thoughts, and be able to back up everything I do in life with this much confidence.  I only hope to learn a small amount that Socrates did about popularity, and learning to travel the unpopular path…. I’m off to meet Akeef for some lunch so I’ll stop rambling now. Just some thoughts.