How People Work

A bunch of things happened recently that made me believe more in the observation of … people observe the SAME things but think, react, and feel DIFFERENTLY. And acting differently manifests in different opinions, emotions, and behaviors. So I think part of the reason why some people think that the glass of milk is half full and others half empty, is because that’s what they want to see. What are things that constantly bugs you in the world or consistently makes you feel crappy? Perhaps it’s the way you are seeing the situation and you might have an opportunity to start practicing another intepretation that makes you feel better. So let me share what I’ve been noticing.

People observe same things but think, react, and feel differently. I was in a meeting the other day and presented the data around average start-up costs for a business. It’s roughly $6K for an individual and $20K for a group of people. Steven, a vice president of strategy, interpreted those numbers as pretty high, considering that most people have a hard time saving money and instead are constantly living paycheck to paycheck. Brad, a senior vice president, interpreted those numbers to be really low, that it only takes some pocket change to start a business? The only way for us to find the right interpretation was to ask the real judge, people starting small businesses. To them, this amount money is a lot.

Expert sources. both Tony Robbins and a guru-coach by the name of James Flaherty believe that this a key input to helping people improve. But they explained it in slightly different ways. Tony explains these principles in terms of meaning. What are your definitions of life, relationships, or your own identity? If you believe that humans are creatures of consistency, then humans will do what it takes to make those definitions come alive for themselves. So if you see life as a challenge, you will probably seek out challenges. If you see life as sustaining deep relationships, you will probably spend lots of time nurturing the closest people in your life. So if you hit a wall in life, Tony recommends changing a definition or meaning that isn’t working for you anymore. James uses the word interpretation instead where coaches need to be aware of the different interpretations that a client has to things. To see which interpretations are like roadblocks, keeping clients from their goals.

An example I’ve noticed. Now that I’m finishing up the 2 year rotational program, we’ve been given a list of potential full-time jobs that we could seek. At first glance, the list was pretty shabby for my interests … loosely jobs with more forward-thinking, tackling brand new problems, and in a environment that is very adaptable and light on its feet. There was only 1 of these jobs. For a week or so, I was a bit troubled that there was only one and that it somewhat lacked the people development stuff that I’ve been eager to spend more time in. This was my interpretation of the list and the options I’ve had.

During week two, I felt much more uneasy. Some recommended that I take some time off to explore the people development avenue, whereas some recommended that this one job could give you some competencies that would be helpful in coaching … especially since it an environment with lots of change (people tend to stress in change), responsibility, and uncertainty. So day by day, my opinion would waiver and I’d tell people very different things from one hour to the next!

Fortunately, I thought about this stuff and realized that my interpretation of what’s been going on was stressing me out. Taking a step back, I realized a few things that put me to ease:

• I’m lucky to have a lot of caring people around me to help me through these decisions
• I have good options … there is a job that is a potentially a good candidate for me and a good backup option, taking leave, that I would look forward to as well.
• So what’s the worst thing that could happen? nothing really…
• I’m fortunate to know what I want to be doing in the future … directionally. This way, with either of these options, my attention in that job or during leave would be around this direction.
• Got some money in the bank so that I could cruise for a bit … but not forever.

So as a result, changing my intepretation, put me to ease. I’ve been able to enjoy my days much better — without this stuff on the back of my mind. I feel less stressed about a decision where I have really good options — no need to stress so much. So yes, you could call this brainwashing yourself or giving yourself more perspective with a hint of optimism.

Just logging a few to-do’s:

1. Finish up my “first deck” on Myers Briggs.   I’ll be using it for small groups at work!
2. Write a blurb on how I got into all this “people” stuff in the About Us section.
3. Be proactive on getting links to other people’s blogs and communicating out about my boring one.

Have a good weekend!

On a random weekday, we went out for dinner with a few friends and had a Thinking vs Feeling realization. The learning at the end … lemme set the stage.

Short story short, Matt was having a tough week at the start-up since his work was giving him extra responsibilities in preparation for a demo for some large clients. After a “quick” dinner, he expected to be back home to do some work.

From my perspective, we were going to dinner to chill with some Berkeley friends who I haven’t connected with for a while and wanted, let them get to know Ben & Matt, and check out their pad as well.

So after dinner, we got into a minor argument about when to go home — immediately after just browsing their apt versus after 2 commercials of watching Desperate Housewife at their apt. We were arguing over which was only a 30 minute difference, so I reacted in a “this doesn’t make sense why we’re arguing about nothing” and he seemed to be reacting in a “don’t you understand I’m really busy” way. So I would say “T” stuff like, “I thought I set the right expectations, let me know in advanced next time if you have such a time crunch”. He would say “F” stuff like “but I haven’t been getting much sleep lately, you know it’s been crazy for me”. Inside, I wanted to say “then why did you come” and I’m sure that he wanted was thinking “selfish bastard”.

So this example triggered a realization for me that T’s tend to react until things make sense. I’m guessing that F’s tend to react until the other person can empathize with the situation first. So basically we weren’t listening to each other in the way that we wanted to be listened to. You gotta satisfy both, it just comes down to who’s going to go first.
So my area of improvement to connect better with F folks is to ask myself “does this person understand that I understand how he/she feels?” So when appropriate, empathizing first, making sense later.

Now if you sit through my 1.5 hour Myers Briggs course, you walk away with a FREE giveaway! I mean, I can’t even believe I’m giving this away for FREE. What a great bargain — you learn more about yourself & people AND you get a FREE book?? No friggin’ way.

This book isn’t publicly available — just through certified folks. Look how Amazon teases you to keep waiting and waiting for the book to become available. Look, it’s not going to be available because you gotta take the course!

The introductory book that has detailed information on all 16 types and teasers into type-based career interests, problem solving, and dealing with change. (Ronni, I could ship you one!)

Most people have things that they want to change about themselves. Usually these things are around changing current behavior … I want to exercise more, I want to drink less, etc. We’re able to follow our plans and make change happen for a few days or weeks … but it doesn’t stick long-term.  Why not?  I think people forget to work on changing their mindset, along with their behaviors.  So here are a few ways to think about this:

I remember learning something from one of our VPs of leadership development that I wanted to expand upon:

Change = Pain + Vision + First Steps

The bigger the change, the more answers you need on the right side and be really clear & explicit of what these things are. So I think formula makes sense to a bunch of people. If you’re trying to manage food quantity better, the pain is excess calories, vision is improved health + fitness, and clear first steps could be just eating roughly 75% of the portions.

But stopping here hasn’t really worked me. Some additional things that have helped me improve my chances:

1. Write down all your thoughts on paper. Seriously!
   • This is so key to materialize all the swarming ideas into something that you can refer back to later. It will serve as a snapshot of your thinking. And you can keep referring back to it day after day, instead of constantly circling back to things you’ve thought about over and over again.
2. Why you want to change in the first place? Are your standards for yourself too high or too low?
   • What is the real motivation? Why do you feel like this is important? If you think of an answer, keep asking “why or so what?” to drill down on the core motivation.
3. What’s painful about what you’re doing today? What’s the consequence of not changing?
   • This is critical to understand because it will really increase your ability to change. Let’s say there are two people … both want to drink less and both think drinking is fun. The first person wants to because his doctor told him that his liver is getting damaged. The second person wants to because he doesn’t want the additional calories. Who’s more likely to succeed? There’s much more at stake for the person who has a health risk — this overrides the “fun” temptations.
   • What can you do if you’re the second person? Try to attach your painful consequences. So if it’s not enough that you’re taking extra calories, tell yourself that you’ll rip up a $20 dollar bill. If not this, think of ways to make this behavior painful. Because if you don’t, the “fun” will have the best of you.
4. What other rewards are you going to give yourself instead?
   • You existing behaviors has its benefits and now you’re going take it away from yourself. How can you replace the current rewards with other rewards? Everytime you successfully do the new behavior, if needed, try to attach other rewards. For me, other rewards are things like 5 minutes of singing, giving a friend a call who I haven’t talked to in a while … these things feel good with no repercussions on what I want to change.
5. Visualizing what the future looks like, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year!
   • At each stage, how do you think, how do you talk, how do you feel, etc. I try to play this back every morning, briefly. The words on my whiteboard help me remember what I’m supposed to visualize.
6. Repeat … build repetition.
   • Change isn’t all about changing your behaviors. It’s also about changing your mind. It takes the same rigor and isn’t a flip of the switch type thing. Hopefully these things are written down and you can reflect on it for just a minute every morning.

Lastly, the more you can socialize what you’re up to with others, the more likely you will hold yourself accountable. Pretend you’re like a public figure, so that even in the confines of your home, it feels like your behaviors are being watched. Creepy thought, yes. But don’t you think it’s must easier to break when you think nobody’s watching?

We’re not perfect creatures, so everyone has their ups and downs. For me, the hardest thing is to reverse poor eating habits that I’ve had since elementary school. Hopefully, constantly improving yourself is fun for you, even when it’s tough. Please enjoy the journey and the rewards!