The Dalai Lama came to SF and spoke at the Bill Graham Civic Center a week ago.

Before this event, I didn’t even know who he was and what he believed in. Turns out that he’s been exiled from Tibet for a long time now and has lived more of his life in other parts of the world, giving him a broader perspective than previous Dalai Lamas. Talk about presence — as he came to the stage, he received standing applauses from the thousands of people in attendance. His spoken English was decent, but occasionally relied on a translator for complex words. He wasn’t an eloquent speaker, but communicated with strong confidence and depth of understanding.

His message was simple — to talk about how to produce positive change, which requires you to have a positive state of being first. The value for me in going was probably two-fold: to witness a spiritual leader engage a “foreign” audience and to validate what I currently know about life, humans, and happiness. Overall, I felt good about what I heard and that he shares perspectives that I agree with.

So here are some of my notes:

• Do you see adversity as an opportunity for positive change?
  • This is a perspective question. About how you see issues and problems, similar to if you see a glass of water as half full or half empty.
• His objectives are two-fold: promoting human values and religious harmony
• Mental issues like worry, fear, anxiety cannot be addressed by the physical elements
  • When you are not happy (a mental state), physical things like money or career titles are not going to help you address this long-term. If you take a look at people who do achieve their financial and career goals, do they really become happy? or are they still unhappy but now with even higher aspirations? Unhappiness needs to be solved in the mental domain.
• If one tries to control his external environment, there are so many sources out there to disturb you. This approach is like trying to cover the world with leather so that you wouldn’t hurt your feet walking around, instead just cover your feet with leather and leave the world be
• Continue to recognize how similar people are. In one way or another, we seek truth and compassion. We are all born from a mother and survived by “mother’s milk” and affection.
  • Fear brings additional complications and feelings that prevent you from seeing the reality of situations. He believes that this is why people turn violent, because fear has prevented them from seeing what’s actually happening and instead lead them down potentially inhumane actions like killing.
  • One way to counter fear is compassion. Confront enemies without losing compassion and then you can have meaningful dialogue, as opposed to violence. Also, view people as a part of you, not foreign to you.
  • He believes that some animals (e.g. turtles and butterflies) don’t have the capacity for affection and compassion, depending upon if the babies of these species require the mother there in early stages of development.
• He believes that all religions have an underlying, shared principles like forgiveness, faith, compassion and respect, however religion is sometimes the cause of wars and violence
  • How do you determine the “best” religion? If we’re talking about an individual, he/she will probably believe in one truth or one religion. If we’re talking about groups of people, there will be a mix of different religious beliefs and who’s to judge for the group which one is right for each individual? The “best” depends on the individual’s preference.
• When talking about peace, he shared hopes that the rich would be more willing to serve the poor by lending their expertise more so than money, while the poor work on improving their mental outlook of the world and build more self-confidence.
  • He pointed out that when the poor face worldly frustrations, it can more easily translate into violence.
• In order to produce positive change, individuals who seek this must find inner-peace first. Start small by bringing peace into your own home, among your friends, in work, in your city, and grow this.
  • I think this is a really important point and can be widely applied.  For instance, in college, I was pretty self-conscious about being fun and funny around people.  Over time, I realized that in order to be fun, I had to have fun.
• In the Q&A, he was asked “what advice do you you have for parents that want their kids to grow up compassionate”?
  • Answer: I’ve never raised kids. I’m a monk. <everyone laughs> But I can say, spend more time with your kids and show them compassion.

WOW — a pretty deep, articulate, and funny speech from a Harvard psychologist around how humans become happy and unhappy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/97

My scatter-brained takeaways include:

• Our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. We think having options and flexibility are good but actually, having options and flexibility generally lead us to more self-doubt and potentially misery. On the other hand, being forced one way tend to give us more support in making peace with our choices.
• Defend yourself when you have options and too much flexbility by being confident in the choices you make without looking back. He admits that there are “good” and “bad” decisions but my opinion is that this can only be done in hindset. When you make decisions, you probably don’t have all the information at the time so you have to guess. If decisions do feel like they were wrong later on, maybe we should be nicer to ourselves because we don’t have fully visibility into our futures…
• How can we become more confident in our choices? Since 2M years ago, humans have developed the frontal lobe which allows us to derive what he calls “synthetic happiness” – a way of imagining that something is actually going well when it’s not. Although, he gave numerous seemingly ridiculous examples of people who claimed to be happy [like a guy who was in prison for 30+ years and the guy who turned down the McDonald's franchise], he proved through research that people do have the capability of imagining that they really do like something, when in the past, they didn’t.
• “Synthetic happiness” is real. My interpretation is that this is synonymous to “brainwashing ourselves” (or telling ourselves that we are happy) and it has material impact on our happiness…
• Lastly, remember that when our ambition is bounded, we work joyfully. When our ambitions aren’t bounded, we could lie, cheat, be depressed, and sacrifice things that are important. My interpretation of this principle is truly that “ignorance is bliss”, but when situations in life break us out of this ignorance, we pursue ways to bound our ambitions and ideals again.

Cheers!

I’ve just enrolled in a year-long coaching school program and wanted to share some quotes that I’ve come across:

• Time is a created thing.  To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying ‘I don’t want to’.
• You fix your life, your work, and your world by fixing yourself

That is all.  Cheers!

Last week, I went to Sacramento for an introduction to the Step III assessment that is coming out later this year. The results of this assessment is supposed to evaluate how well you use your type functions! And the vision is to help individuals make their perceptions clearer, their judgments sounder, and their lives closer to the heart’s desire. But if anything, it will help bring about great discussions about personal development. Keep in mind that now someone won’t even have to learn the Myers Briggs lingo to understand the Step III results. This is contrary to Step I and Step II where you do need to have an understanding of Type.

It’s a common misconception that for the Myers Briggs, the numbers that you get as a result mean “how good you are” at that dimension. It actually means how confidence the test is in your scoring. However, this new assessment will provide color into your competency in your functions.

Here are just some gems that I noted from the session:

• You can be aware of things, but it takes time to integrate it into your life. When you read a self-help book, you might have heard of the concepts, but how well do you live by them?
• Good development means you are tolerant of other people but run your own affairs
• Poor development means you tell other people what they should do and neglect your own responsibilities
• Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise … Thomas Jefferson
• Strong E’s and J’s are likely to get promoted for their ability to just make decisions. At times, they might make decisions with very little information! In time however, this will catch up to them when mistakes get costly.
• Child development can go wrong with over-indulging parents. They grow up with the wrong expectations, for example, that they will get what they want from life. That people will be able to figure out what you want from your tantrums or body language.
• If children are raised amid constant crises, they will grow up thinking that they don’t have the resources to match the world. Or, they will get so defensive that they will think that the best defense is the best offense … to become hyper-aggressive people.
• Overall, people need goals and work better with goals … idleness deteriorates humans.
• My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items, which I notice, shape my mind.
• Coaches will spend most of their time around appreciating a person’s skills and identifying what’s important … this is because it’s easy for people to take their skills and assets for granted.
• If a client reacts with an emotional “It’s wrong” attitude to an assessment, there’s likely something worth talking about here.
• Test to see if you need some personal development help …
  • Do you feel like you have sufficient resources to meet the demands of the world?
• Build confidence and self-motivation, while reducing strain in your life. These words are assessed in Step III.
• The Step III has been piloted with CEO’s and other high-powered individuals and the good news is that they found tremendous value in this assessment. It told them something new.

It fascinates me the subtle differences in the words efficacious, effective, and efficient. It was introduced to me in one of my Myers Briggs books.

According to Webster …
effective: producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect <an effective policy>
efficient: being or involving the immediate agent in producing an effect <the efficient action of heat in changing water to steam>
efficacious: having the power or capability to produce a desired effect <an efficacious remedy>

Additional meaning …
effective stresses the actual production of or the power to produce an effect … more focused on the fact that there was a good result rather than who or what was caused the good result.
efficient suggests an acting or a potential for action or use in such a way as to avoid loss or waste of energy in effecting, producing, or functioning … so something that saves time.
efficacious suggests that you possess of a special quality or virtue that gives effective power. This is how individuals ought to think about how they add value and be givers. That they possess something special and unique, something that only could have come from their unique, lifelong journey.

Yes, a cheesy picture from Google Images

People in this world are producing results and saving time constantly … but what are the results and time savings that the world gets from the efficacious you? What’s the contribution (big or small) that you could make efficaciously?

I was reading a Myers Briggs related book when then paragraph jumped out at me. Here’s what the book called I’m not crazy, I’m just not like you says word for word …

Quote: “Teachers attempt to show us how to pay attention to information, to direct our focus on priorities. They also may reveal our ignorance. Some of our earliest experiences are with school teachers and with our parents, teachers of another kind. But as we grow older and become more judicious about how we spend our time, we make our own decisions about what is worth knowing. We become more aware of the inner voices of experience that guides us. And as we grow in maturity and understanding, we realize that the greatest teacher is the one within”

This hits home for me as I find myself focusing more time with existing friends and pursue opportunities that call to me rather than those that I feel like I should take on. So what’s your “teacher” saying?

I’ve been using Google Calendar for a week now to track progress in areas that I’m working on and it’s been really helpful! The biggest benefit is that it keeps me honest. For now, it’s also my homepage everytime I open my browser and I don’t find it hard to keep up-to-date.

Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like… each color indicates a separate calendar.

Just a preview of what this stuff means for me.
Green – a 1 to 5 qualitative rating on how I did in terms of eating healthy & portion control.
Brown – # of drinks I had that day
Pink – I write a few sentences about the emotions I felt that day.
Blue – Workout schedule
Orange – Events

Another cool feature is that you can share calendars with friends and see them in one view. Pajau and I share our events calendars, so it’s easier to plan stuff.

I watched some introductory webinars about the Strong Interest Inventory Assessment and wanted to share some high-level notes. It’s a widely used assessment for career counselors (e.g. at Stanford). They ask you questions like … how interested are you in the following: making a speech, writing a report, or doing research work. It looks helpful as a starting point, since it gives you directional advice and should help you find a job you would enjoy today. The gap of this assessment is that it probably isn’t as useful long-term because it tries to fit you into careers that already exist in the world. I’m an idealist who hopes that your future job is a job you create and it will be a combination of your skills + passions.

• Grounding Principle: What people do is a reflection of their interests. Measuring interests rather than abilities.
  • This assessment helps you determine what you’re most motivated to do right now in a career. Over time, they believe your main motivations don’t change, but the order of them do. For example, if Socializing is most important to you today and being Artistic is secondary … these probably switch over time.
• Foundationally they use the framework of General Occupational Themes, which are below. As an exercise, I put down some opinions about how these might correlate to the Myers Briggs.
  • Realist (“The Doers”) … possible correlation to ES types
  • Investigative (“The Thinkers”) … possible correlation to IT types
  • Artistic (“The Creators”) … possible correlation to NP types
  • Social (“The Helpers”) … possible correlation to NF types
  • Enterprising (“The Persuaders”) … possible correlation to TJ types
  • Conventional (“The Organizers”) … possible correlation to SJ types

Hmm, I’m probably Investigative, Social, and Enterprising as my top 3. Which might mean that it’s top-of-mind for me to learn more about this “people development” space, see how it affects the people around me, and see if “solutions” or theories that develop as a result, grow into something bigger.

WOW. I attended a two day coaching seminar at a school called New Ventures West in the city. The content was rigorous mentally AND emotionally, made deep connections immediately with the caring folks there, and personally became aware of my own deep, personal blind spots. Discovering these spots drained me, but afterwards I felt amazing how I had several body sensations that represented long-time subdued emotions.

Anyways, I think I’ll be forking over $8K to take the year long, coaching certification course next year!

Selfishly, I’ll document my own personal learnings here … and not reviewing the general methodology they practice. Simply, they try to accept the current state the client is coming to you as and try to improve upon it. They take an approach that leaves the client empowered to self-correct and self-improve.

1. You are what you practice.
2. Use the five elements model (immediate concerns, commitments, future possibilities, mood, personal/cultural history) to quickly get-to-know people.
3. During coaching intake or assessment, try to avoid fleshing out a hierarchy of information or understanding of a client. Instead take on words or phrases that you don’t understand their meaning of, and find the links necessary to gain their interpretations.
4. To build rapport for first-time relationships with clients, consider sharing how your body is feeling at the moment and open them up to share as well.
5. Imagine people as seeing the sky through a straw. Coaching helps find a new point in the sky to look at and helping them move & grow the straw.
6. Coaching can be as simple as dropping a drop of red dye in water. Help someone see one thing differently can change their life.
7. Don’t flood clients with information or advice. Try to ask “is this useful?” as a filter.
8. If you dig too deep into trying to understand the “why”, you may find yourself wasting time on discovering a nice-to-have. You might be a shy person that doesn’t want to be one anymore and trying to understand why the heck you are a shy person might be a waste of your time. Instead, you might want to accept that you’re a shy person and take actions towards changing it.
9. Putting yourself in another person’s shoes is good, but don’t forget your own state and power that you can bring to the relationship.
10. What domains of competence are you trying to solve a problem? If you choose the wrong domain, your solution will be ineffective. The domains are self-management (“I”), group (“We”), or things (“It”) domain? Look for gaps or strengths in these realms.
11. If you’re procrastinating, what are you pretending not to know.
12. Words that come out of people’s mouth generally tell less than 10% of the story. Look for body language, energy, gestures, tone, etc.

Here are some insights from leaders in the Intuit Leadership Development Organization about the importance of peer coaching relationships. I didn’t write about how to get started … but obviously we all know “peer coaching” happens all the time between close friends informally. I think it’s effective to make it formal … more to come.

What is peer coaching? (my crack at a definition) Peer coaching relationships are deep, personal connections you have with a few individuals (who face similar challenges as you do) with whom you can give and get earnest feedback.

As you read on below, think about … how important is it for me to formalize some peer coaching relationships?

Why is peer coaching important? More so than mentor-to-mentee relationships? Or leader-to-direct report relationships?

Note: Their responses are not exactly word-for-word, but I used their key phrases to piece together sentences.

Brooks Fisher: ex-Chief Marketing Officer, now Vice President of Learning and Development

Peer coaching is the bedrock for individual development. You can learn a ton from your peers … what’s working, what’s not. If you are regularly trying to meet with a leader, it’s like trying to create appointments with God. It’s important to get continuous feedback from individuals you trust. I’ve observed that the best people actively seek feedback from others.

Eric Hummel: Vice President of Leadership Development

Peer coaching is the a powerful way to accelerate an individual’s growth. I used to be a clinical psychology for 18 years, and I’ve seen proven research showing that this is true. I’ll try to find these articles for you sometime.

Felicia Gefvert: Senior Program Manager of Leadership Development

Peer coaching is build around the philosophy of learn-teach-learn. In other relationships, like a mentor/mentee relationship, it’s very one-way … one learner, one teacher. With peer coaching, both individuals are actively coaching and learning at the same time, so both sides get value and practice.