Cossie's Food for Thought

Choosing to be wrong

For a week that started with so much promise - this one has been a stinker.  I ended last week spending a great day with family, friends and food - and then watching my team (The Highlanders) win well - against the odds.  Everything was looking great and then Monday came...

We had started renovations on the home and office and my help was needed - and I climbed deep into 'the box' and slammed the lid shut.  I don't know where it started but I got so bent out of shape that everything was like a another strip of flesh being slowly torn from my heart.  I started to question the value of relationships that are priceless.  I struggled with a migraine - which I carefully fed with chocolate and then wallowed in the delicious pain that intensified.  I shut myself down and cut myself off.  I had gone from a quest for responsiveness to a campaign for resistance in the blink of an eye.  All of the time believing that this was something that others were doing to me!

There were 2 moments that challenged this funk I was in.  One was when I found myself, in the supermarket, making an old man with a walking stick go around me when I could so easily have stepped out of the way - and as he walked past - seriously thinking about kicking the stick out from under him.  Does a genuine victim scheme about tripping up strangers and find pleasure in it?  The second moment was when I realised I missed my granddaughter.  Her mother moved from our home into a flat at the weekend and so Tamryn went too.  I had been face to face with this chubby cherub - almost every day for the last 3 months - being smiled at and talked to - and now there was a hole.

The bottom line is that I was wrong.  The world had not turned against me.  My family had not abandoned me.  The old man had not offended me.  I had just been wrong in a moment - and had initiated a chain reaction of judgments and justifications to keep me from facing the facts - that life doesn't always go to plan - and that I am free to choose to be wrong.  Check this TED talk from Kathryn Shulz about being wrong when you have time (17 mins):

 

Funnily enough, I found out this morning that we had $8,000 ripped off from a credit card overnight and I dropped myself from the golf team for the weekend but, funnily enough, the world has not come to an end.  What had changed?  I visited Tamryn yesterday and re-connected, a friend called and talked for an hour and another friend sent me this clip that just made me laugh:

 

Maybe I need to spend more time choosing to be wrong about the negative impact other people are having on me.  Food for thought ....

Under Pressure?

Have you ever felt under pressure to perform and deliver a result?  I am not sure how it is for you - but the feeling I experience when under pressure is one of anxiety.  It starts in the pit of my stomach, as a tightness, and spreads up the torso into shallow breathing and a hollowness - a feeling I associate with a 'fight or flight' adrenaline dump.  This is all good - if the challenge before me is one that requires fight or flight - but most of the time my challenge is to deliver on something a little less vigorous.  At work it might be to complete a proposal or to make a difficult phone call or to choose between doing a task or spending time with family.  In sport it is usually around the need to sink a putt to win the match.  My reality is that the pressure I feel has a direct inverse correlation to the likelihood I will deliver.  For me - more pressure = less success.

I played a golf match today against two friends.  It is a regular event and very competitive.  I shot into an early lead but soon found myself worrying about the next shot, the last shot, the end result and the way they were perceiving me - based on the shots I wasn't making.  I was worrying about everything, my anxiety levels steadily grew and my performance suffered.  I struggled to be present and still in the moments that required it most.  How different my game is when I just play for the pleasure of it all.  This contrast is beautifully illustrated in my favourite 'golf as life' movie - The Legend of Bagger Vance.  Junnah, a one-time local hero, has been talked into representing his town against the world's best golfers and is struggling under the pressure....

 

I was always taught that pressure was good and that 'when the going get's tough - the tough get going'. Just suck it up!  Man up!  Withstand the pressure.  This may be true when experiencing G-forces - but maybe not so much when the pressure is in my mind.  I have learned, through working with Arbinger's approach to self-deception, that there are tell-tale signs available to me, in my very experience of life as I live it, that can let me know when I might be in 'the box' (a state of self deception where I distort the truth in order to justify a previous choice).  One of those signs, for me, is the feeling of anxiety when I get worried about my image - that carefully manicured portrayal of how I wish to be seen - by myself and others.  

Contrast that crushing feeling of anxiety with the soaring feeling I experience when I am 'in the zone' - present and engaged in the passionate pursuit of something that I feel drawn to.  I could call it pressure but there is no anxiety here.  It is more like excitement and joy.  It is, for me, a state of exhilleration where time seems to stand still.  So - passion is like being in 'the field' and pressure is like being 'in the box'.  In the field I am more likely to succeed because I have no fear of failure - I accept all results as feedback which I can build on.  In the box I limit my chance of success because my fear of failure is all-consuming.  

I recognised today that the pressure I was feeling, standing over the putter, was the weight of 'the box' and with that came the realisation that it doesn't have to be that way - I have a choice.  If the pressure comes from the way I perceive myself in relationship to the task and the worId - then I can change my frame.  I can get out of 'the box' by choosing to focus, instead, on the passion that brought me here in the first place and responding to what is needed in the moment.  I can choose passion over pressure.  

Maybe real toughness is the ability to keep my eye on the passion of life and remain untouched by pressure and anxiety.

Food for thought......

Can we maintain integrity?

Can competition undermine integrity?  I was watching a Rugby League match on TV at the weekend and, as a spectator, I was frustrated by some of the tactics.  Players were complaining bitterly to the ref about being held down too long in the tackle by the opposition when, in reality, they were actively preventing the tackler from getting off.  We sometimes call it 'milking the penalty' and we see it in sports and life. I engaged in a bit of it myself when I was playing rugby and, to be honest, I still tend to do it at home and at work.  All's fair in love and war isn't it? Everybody is doing it aren't they?  No harm no foul?  Do unto others as they might do to you - only do it first?

Competition is not inherently bad - but it can bring out the worst in us.  Our integrity is tested and my quest for performance (being at my best) can be overwhelmed by my quest for preference (being seen as the best).  One quest cares for the game and everyone involved while the other cares only for the result that best suits me.

What is integrity?  There are many definitions but I tend to think of it in terms of consistency and wholeness - where our actions model the values we espouse both individually and collectively.

Cressey's Fraud Triangle proposes three dynamics that are in play when we choose to 'break the rules'.  There is an opportunity to cheat, there is pressure that can be be soothed by our cheating and there is a rationalisation for doing it - an excuse to make or someone else to blame - that justifies our actions.  When I reflect some of the times I have cheated myself (and others) these dynamics have all been present.  An opportunity arose (the ref wasn't looking), I have been under pressure to deliver a result or to maintain an image (we were behind on the scoreboard), and there has been a story to tell that can justify my actions (they got away with such and such).  The big problem is that every time I do this I find myself needing to do it again because I come to believe the justification I created.  I now operate in a world where much of my energy goes into maintaining the story that makes my wrong seem right - instead of investing my energy into us being at our best.  I am self-deceived or, as Arbinger would say, I am in 'the box'.

Remember the Titans is a movie that portrays a great example of someone choosing performance over preference.   Bill Yoast is the successful coach of a champion High School football team in Virginia during the 1960's.  His school was 'integrated' in 1971 and he was replaced as head coach by Herman Boon - a black man.  This clip starts at a point where Yoast comes under pressure to put himself first....(watch though to the 6:40 mark and ignore the free stuff thingee):

 

Great leadership inspires great results and Coach Yoast left no doubt concerning his choices.  Integrity empowers influence.

All of us have opportunities, every day, to choose between preference and something bigger.   What would it be like if I put more focus into the success of 'we' - playing at my best and encouraging my playing partners to be at their best also?  Maybe I should read this post before I next play my kids at cards :-)

Food for thought....

 

Choosing to be unstoppable

This week's post is for those of us who seek to make a difference - for the good.

Have you ever tried to do something different and felt exposed to the cutting winds of isolation? - alone, disconnected and criticised? There seems to be a deep-rooted need, within most of us, to feel included and accepted.  However we choose to describe different - it is a lonely space to occupy - fully open to the scrutiny and ridicule of others.  What's worse is that many see different as threatening - a rogue element needing to be recovered, mitigated, alienated or eliminated.  

This defensiveness is understandable, particularly if the change threatens the 'health' of the whole - but, in reality, most of the time it does not.  The difference simply challenges the culture of comfort enjoyed by the many.  

Leading change requires courage; the courage to stand exposed and to 'do our thing' until others find the courage to join.  Leading change sometimes requires us to 'dance as if no-one is watching' and yet to trust that they are getting the beat.  This clip is worth watching.  I saw it on one of Seth Godin's blog posts a couple of years ago and have often about it since:

 

Resisting the temptation to write our lead dancer's performance off to chemicals, let's just assume that he was dancing simply because he felt that it was the right thing to do at the time.  Talk about exposed.  Every one else is sitting around - and he is not just swaying to the music - he's going for it.  The camera's are on him and over 4 million people have watched his performance.  We could say that a minute on his own is not so long - but another clip on YouTube shows him full-on dancing for at least 8 minutes before this song ever started.  In the end his persistence pays dividends - people realise that he is unstoppable and they are drawn to join him - from a trickle to a rush.

Being unstoppable is a choice we can make.  We can step into the open and start the dance or we can look for those that are already out there and join them..  Every change worth making has a tipping point ,after which momentum takes care of the rest.  In this example it took at least three.  After that it was easy.  It takes real courage to stand or join before the tipping point is reached and yet they are the only ones that really make a difference - even if they don't always get the credit.  

It makes me wonder where I might be hiding in the crowd, going with the flow and keeping my head down.  It also makes me wonder where I might be faltering - worrying too much about the opinion of others.  Whether first or third - and no matter how long it feels we have been up there on our own - others will come.  We just need to prove ourselves to be unstoppable.  

Food for thought....