The Pitfalls of Poor Choice Selection

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. - William Jennings Bryan

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals. - Stephen Covey

Choices are the hinges of destiny. - Edwin Markham

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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Abigail sighed as she climbed into bed and slid under the inviting bed comforter.  She had been straining for years to make some choices about her future and never quite seemed to make them.  Her Life was sliding away and she knew it and yet she still didn’t make the choices that she knew her Life depended on.

She reached over to her nightstand, turned the light off and buried her head under the sheets.

“What’s wrong with me?”, she thought, anticipating another long, sleepless night and yet, despite the restlessness of her mind, sleep came quickly.

Or so she thought, waking with a start.

“Trouble sleeping?”, a voice to her left asked her.

She turned towards the voice and a man was smiling at her, his eyes twinkling.

“My apologies”, he said, offering a hand, “That was rude.  My name is Gabriel.”

She shook his hand and replied, “My name is …..”

“Abigail”, Gabriel said with a smile, “Yes.  I know.”

Abigail frowned and started to ask him how he knew who she was when she was interrupted by the sound of children.

She turned to her right and realized she and the stranger were standing in a parking lot in front of a candy store.

A group of kids were running out of the store, chatting back and forth as the store owner locked the door, turned off the “open” sign and disappeared inside the store.

“Ahhhhhh, kids”, Gabriel said, chuckling.

“They are always a great source of wisdom, don’t you think?”, he asked.

She turned towards him and noticed that he was staring at her, still with a big smile on his face.

“I don’t know”, she replied, “I’ve never really thought about it before.”

Gabriel pointed to the kids.

“Take a look at these kids”, he continued, “What do you think you can learn from them?”

Abigail shrugged as she looked at the children in front of her.

Gabriel pointed at the first one.  “Take Tommy, for example”, he said, “He went into the candy store and not realizing he could choose anything he wanted, limited himself to something he didn’t like because he thought it was the only choice available to him.  He suffers from choice by limitation.”

“Or”, he said, pointing to the little girl beside Tommy, “Jenny, who got so caught up in the process of evaluating her choices became a victim of choice by indirectness and ended up being left with choosing something from what little was left after all the other kids had already made their choices.”

“Then there’s young Gerald over there”, Gabriel continued as he pointed, “who was so focused on choice by elimination, weeding out each choice by criteria that only he understands, was left with something he doesn’t like because he had accidentally rejected the better options with his excessive and unnecessary criteria.”

“I don’t understand”, Abigail said quietly as she watched the children.

“Sure you do”, replied Gabriel, “You’re choosing not to understand.  Observe.”

“Young Joel over there”, Gabriel continued, pointing to the smallest child, “didn’t make a choice at all and ended up with the last candy in the store even though he doesn’t like it, something I call the choice by default.”

“Little Vicky standing beside him had so many preconditions on what her choice should look like, something we call excessive conditional choice, that she ended up with a candy that she would gladly trade away for almost anything.  The only problem is that she has too many conditions on any trade and so she won’t find anyone who would want to trade with her.”

“Meanwhile”, continued Gabriel, “Bobby embraces choice by reaction, where he worked so hard not to choose something that someone else wanted or that would upset someone, that he chose a candy that he hated but at least he took comfort in the fact that he didn’t upset anyone.  Susan, on the other hand, using choice by consensus, asked everyone else which candy was best and ended up with a recommendation that she hated, fearing to act on her own needs and interests.”

“All of this from candy?”, Abigail, asked, “I don’t understand ….”

Gabriel silenced her by raising his hand.

“Patience”, he said, “I’m almost done.”

“Let’s see”, he said, scanning the crowd, “Who is left?”

“Ah yes”, he said with satisfaction, “Young William over there believes that orange gumdrops have magic powers and so he chose a large orange one using a process we call choice by adverse possession.  Data, while important, is ignored and thus he consistently produces poor results based on choices that don’t even make sense.”

He paused for a moment before continuing.

“And then we have one child left”, Gabriel observed quietly.

Abigail looked over the crowd of children and saw a young girl sitting on the step, sobbing with her head in her hands.

“Why is she crying?”, Abigail asked.

“She suffers from choice by excessive permutation”, Gabriel said quietly, “Otherwise known as choice by over-processing.  She is learning that when we spend too much time looking over every option incessantly or because we fear making the wrong choice, we often end up having all of our options removed from us for different reasons. In her case, she waited so long to make a choice that the store closed before she could make one and all of her options were suddenly removed.  Many times in these situations, we end up having choices made for us or as in Abigail’s case, we end up with nothing at all.”

Abigail gasped, startled by the mention of her name and as she looked more closely at the child, she gasped again.

She was looking at herself as a child.

She started to speak when she suddenly realized that Gabriel was walking towards the little girl.

He knelt down beside her, hugged her and then opened his hand to reveal a bright red gumball.

The little girl looked at him hesitatingly and he smiled back at her, nodding his head approvingly.

She took the gumball from his palm quickly, expressed a quick “thank you, mister” and ran off to join her friends.

Gabriel stood up and watched the kids run off with their candy.

Abigail walked over to Gabriel and as she reached his side, he looked at her, the smile never leaving his face.

“Not everyone gets a second chance when they make the wrong choices or in this case, no choice at all”, he said, his dark glittering eyes staring into hers.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”, Gabriel asked her.

“I think so”, began Abigail but she was interrupted by Gabriel’s raised hand.

“You’re thinking too much”, he said, “I can tell by the look in your eye that you’re about to embark on a deep analysis when the answer offered here is closer to the surface than you realize.  Act on it.”

Gabriel paused for a moment.

“Act on it”, he repeated, “No choice is a choice.  Delayed choices often end up becoming no choice.  No choice or an improper way of making choices will not produce the results you seek or deserve.”

Abigail said nothing for a moment, started to speak and then was interrupted by an unusual sound from behind her.

She turned towards the sound ….

…. and awoke with a start when she realized it was her alarm, beckoning her to return from the world of dreams.

She rubbed her eyes blearily, confused by her dream, and she reached over to turn off the alarm.

And then she saw it.

A shiny, bright, red gumball lay on the night table beside her cell phone.

To be continued.

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© 2017 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

This post came to mind after a series of meetings this morning and listening to explanations from different team members as to why they were doing what they were doing.

It is also a long-distance dedication to V. and others who hesitate to make the choices they are called to make to maximize their potential.

Many of us avoid making the choices that really matter through one or more of the following processes (borrowed from The Path of Least Resistance and expanded upon):

1. Choice by limitation - choosing only what seems possible or reasonable
2. Choice by indirectness – focusing on the process instead of the result
3. Choice by elimination - eliminating possibilities until only one one exists
4. Choice by default - choosing to not make a choice, forcing a choice to occur by default
5. Conditional choice - imposing preconditions on choices
6. Choice by reaction – making choices designed to overcome / prevent conflict
7. Choice by consensus - following the result of an informal poll that determines what everyone else wants or recommends
8. Choice by adverse possession – choices based on a hazy metaphysical notion about the nature of the Universe
9. No choice by excessive permutation – choices limited by sensory overload, causing no choice or a choice by default
10. No choice by over-processing - taking too long to choose, devolving into choice by default (or none) – similar to no choice by excessive permutation.

Few people are direct and purposeful with their choices, whether it be in selection, execution and follow-through.

Are you one of them?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy advisor and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” (note the quotes) and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here and is part of the Abigail / Gabriel series noted here.

The Reality of Statistical Improbability

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein

Nothing is worth more than this day. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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Robert sipped his coffee in the small coffee shop not far from his home as his eyes scanned the newspaper in front of him. “So much confusing news”, he thought, “How does one make sense of the world?”

He looked away for a moment to reflect upon the news when his eyes met the gaze of another man staring intently at him.  “A lot of bad news out there?”, asked the stranger.

“Seems to be”, replied Robert, returning his gaze back to the newspaper.

Moments later, the stranger sat in the chair across the table from him.  Robert looked up at the uninvited guest and asked “May I help you?”

The stranger ignored the question.

“All of this strange news kind of makes you wonder what the world is about, doesn’t it?”, asked the stranger.

Robert nodded, still unhappy that someone had chosen to enter his personal space uninvited.

“Picture this”, the stranger said as he smiled.  “Remember the day you and your wife met at the coffee shop?”

“I do”, Robert replied, now surprised, “How did you know that my wife and I ….”

The stranger held up his hand, interrupting Robert.  “Not important at the moment”, he replied as his glittering eyes stared into Robert’s.  “Imagine that at the moment you and your wife were about to meet for the first time, your cell phone had rung and in the process of answering it, your wife-to-be had left.  You would never have met if that had happened.”

“Interesting thought”, replied Robert.

“Indeed”, replied the stranger.  “Now imagine that just before your phone rang, someone had called the friend calling you, thus preventing him from calling you.  You would not have been called and therefore you could have spoken to your wife-to-be as you did and things would remain as they are today.”

Robert’s eyes lit up.  “I see where you are headed”, he said.  “Now if I take your thought one step further, if the person who called my friend was suddenly killed in a car accident at the moment he was about to call my friend and therefore didn’t call him, my friend would have been free to call me, I would have answered the phone and my wife would have left without me ever having met her.”

“Precisely”, replied the stranger, his smile growing.

“In fact”, continued Robert, “If I take that one step further, each of us are in fact a collection of infinite possibilities, with the potential for an infinite number of experiences at any given moment.  There is an infinite number of what-ifs that I could invent to either ensure that I meet my wife or that I don’t.”

“Yes”, said the stranger, leaning over the table towards Robert without breaking his gaze, “Please continue.”

“Well”, said Robert, “If that’s the case, then every event that I influence impacts everyone and everything that I can reach, which in turn impacts everyone and everything they can reach, etc.  The six degrees of separation in the world therefore suggests that everything that I impact eventually changes the entire world and that I in turn am impacted by everything.  In the closed system that makes up our planet, this would mean that we are constantly influencing each other and constantly creating new realities for everyone from a set of infinite reality possibilities.”

The stranger’s smile grew broader but he didn’t interrupt.

“But”, Robert said, pausing uncertainly, “That would mean that my wife and I got together despite the odds of an infinite number of infinite permutations.  If that is true, my wife and I are statistically more likely to have never gotten together than to be together.”

“Possibly”, the stranger said quietly, “What does this tell you?”

Robert paused and reflected on where his logic had taken him.

“I’m not sure”, he stammered, no longer angry with the stranger for having sat in front of him.

“If all this is true, how can this instant exist at all?”, he asked himself quietly.

“In fact”, he said a little louder, “How can any of this be real?  My relationship with my wife, my interaction with you right now, anything at all.”  His mind reeled at the possibilities …. or the impossibilities.

“Well”, replied the stranger, “The fact that we are here means that our reality has to be possible in some way, doesn’t it?  However, it does suggest that if you are more likely to be elsewhere than here, it sure makes you appreciate the rarity and uniqueness of this moment, doesn’t it?”

Robert nodded quietly.

He frowned, started to speak, paused for a moment, frowned again and then spoke to the stranger, “But if we are far more likely to not be here at this moment than to be here, it begs a question.”

He paused again.

“Yes”, said the stranger, anticipating where Robert was going, “Please continue.”

“Are you telling me that this moment in time is a complete collection of random events through time or that in order for my current reality to have happened, that someone had to have orchestrated it?  In fact, the latter seems to be the only way possible.”

“Not necessarily”, replied the stranger, “Just because we are here now, it is easy to assume that your reality was orchestrated because the current reality seems to be the only one possible.  I would suggest that the current reality is mathematically impossible and mathematically guaranteed at the same time, regardless of whether orchestrated or not.”

The stranger paused for a moment before continuing.  “Now assume”, he said, choosing his words carefully, “That someone could tell you the future and based on this knowledge, you changed your thoughts, words and deeds in an effort to avoid bad things or to create a better world for yourself or others.”

“By doing so”, Robert said, seeing where the stranger’s thought process was going, “and in following our six degrees of separation theme, I could immediately change everyone else’s future without realizing it.  There would be tremendous power contained within that idea to make a better world.”

“Slow down”, said the stranger, raising his hand, “Let’s keep the scenario simple.  Instead of creating a better world for yourself and your wife, you might inadvertently change someone else’s Life, who in turn would change someone else’s until, much further down the chain, someone unknown to you causes your Life or your wife’s to be changed for the worse instead of for the better.”

“What do you mean?”, Robert asked.

“Assume that someone can tell you that you will be killed in an accident tomorrow, breaking your wife’s heart”, the stranger replied.  “You avoid the location of the accident in order to prevent it from taking place and in doing so, you have a conversation with someone you wouldn’t have met had you been killed in the accident.  That person has a phone conversation with someone else based on the exchange with you and so on.  The final person in the conversation chain is having the conversation on a cell phone while driving and being distracted as they drive, they accidentally kill your child as she crosses a pedestrian crosswalk.  In an effort to make your personal world better, you destroy it and in fact, destroy or enable other people’s lives at the same time.”

Robert said nothing, unable to speak as the enormity of what he was hearing struck him.

“Now widen that scenario so that anyone might be affected as a result of your knowledge of the future”, the stranger said quietly.

The stranger observed Robert with some amusement.  “In fact”, he continued, “such knowledge could paralyze you into choosing to never take action again, to play Life safe, when in doing so, the choice of doing nothing is in fact an action that changes the world anyway, for better or for worse.”

“Paralysis is often as evil as recklessness”, the stranger continued as he leaned back in his chair.

Robert turned his head and looked out the window, thinking about everything they were talking about as he reflected upon a better understanding of his own reality.

“By the way”, the stranger said, “You will be killed in a car accident on your home from here tonight.  Maybe you should stay here.”

Robert awoke from his stupor as he heard the warning, turned to face the stranger and was stunned to find … that he was gone.

---

Magog frowned and rubbed his head painfully.  The AI simulation known as Terra had suddenly stopped functioning, with many of its modules freezing for no apparent reason.

An image of Gog appeared in his mind as his research colleague reached out to him telepathically.  “I think the Terran simulation has an issue in it”, Gog said to Magog in his mind.

“I know”, Magog replied.  “This is the furthest we have ever gotten to simulating a global culture but something has gone wrong.  In fact, I think I have tracked it down to a piece of rogue code that for some reason started interacting with millions of modules simultaneously.”

“Virus?”, asked Gog.

“Either that or a lazy programmer”, replied Magog, “Either way, the entire simulation is contaminated or ruined by now.  I recommend that we start all over.”

“Good idea”, Gog said, agreeing with his younger colleague, “Go ahead and restart the simulation.”

“I’ll do it immediately”, said Magog before saying goodbye to his colleague.

Turning his attention to the AI simulation, he shook his head sadly as he thought about how far the Terran simulation had come.

“Such potential”, he thought as he used the neural interface to bring up the simulation menu in order to select the simulation reset option.

“Yes indeed”, he thought, “Such potential.”

His eyes fell on the simulation reset option.

And with a final thought, Earth as known to 7.5 billion modules winked out of existence.

To be continued.

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© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

A lot of themes (some contradictory) are woven together here in a complex theme that includes but is not limited to:

• the idea that Life may be a collection of random events
• the idea that our lives may be controlled or predestined in some way
• that the uniqueness and near-impossibility of our current situation makes our situation a rare treasure to be embraced
• that knowledge of our future is not necessarily a positive gift
• that six degrees of separation highlights how easily we can impact the world or be impacted by complete strangers
• that our Life is a juxtaposition of that which is impossible versus that which is guaranteed
• that choosing to take no action is in fact an action taken
• that our existence may merely be as an artificial intelligence simulation being run by a more advanced species
• that Gog and Magog destroy our world as documented in some theological texts.

Pick and choose as you please.

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

Charlie Hebdo, the Realities of Terror and the News Media

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. - Soren Kierkegaard

Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality. - Nikos Kazantzakis

As the world mourns the senseless slaying of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris today and the policemen who were assigned to protect them, there are two grim realities that we must come to accept in the 21st century:

1. We can choose to have security and safety in our society or we can choose to have unlimited freedom.  We cannot have both.
2. Whatever side we lean towards produces greater opportunity for compromise in the other.

Given that the average person in the western world demands freedom as an inalienable right of humanity, we trade away the opportunity for perfect safety and thus make terrorist attacks in the west not only possible but inevitable.

If we accept that such attacks are inevitable, then the notion that they are shocking and surprising is simply not logical and yet the news media runs banners such as this one on CNN.

As they run such banners, the rest of the world reels in shock, anger and dismay, falling to the negative emotions that modern news media seeks to evoke – negative emotions that will not produce any measurable, effective solutions moving forward but serve to keep us off balance.

Some would argue that the news media is reporting the news but I would counter that argument with the notion that if such events are inevitable, then they are in fact not news at all but rather just another routine event.

Meanwhile, other news that is much more shocking but cannot be leveraged by the news media goes unnoticed.

For example, 24,000 children under the age of 5 will die today from tainted water but that is not news since it doesn’t evoke enough emotion that can be used to attract viewers and ratings.

We have infrastructure including energy and water production and distribution that is open to an attack that could kill tens of millions but this is too frightening to comprehend so we don’t talk about that either.

But sadly, a terrorist attack offers just the perfect blend of outrage that touches our heart and spirit, drawing an outpouring of anger and grief that is just right for the news media.

Even more sadly, a group of innocent people died today in the Charlie Hebdo attack at the hands of misguided cowards.

And most sadly of all, innocent people will die from terrorist attacks in the future.because we collectively choose freedom over security.

When we make such choices, attacks like the one in Paris today shouldn’t surprise us because such attacks are inevitable.

And since we have made the choice that enables such an inevitable event, it is not newsworthy at all.

That’s not to say that such attacks cannot be prevented.

I’m also not suggesting that we not take a moment to honor those who died at the hands of cowards today.

But a preventable attack is something we are unwilling to invest in and in doing so, we acknowledge that today’s loss, while shocking, is somehow still acceptable.

While many would protest such a supposition, I would counter their protest with the idea that it is results and not merely desires and intentions that define how we see society.

If we truly wanted a totally safe society, we would draw a line in the sand and say that no more innocent people like the ones lost today will ever be lost to terrorism and we would then do whatever it takes to accomplish this.

However, I think we lack the desire to do what it takes, thereby defining a level of “acceptable losses” in society despite our cries to the contrary while making those lost today to have been lost in vain and without surprise. 

I also think in making the choices that we make, we give “the news media” more opportunity to share negative information that serves no value at all outside of shocking the people who made the collective decisions in the first place.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum

One of my readers asked me what we define as “acceptable levels of loss” in society. 

It’s a great question that I don’t have an answer for.

Do you?

Addendum 2 – January 9, 2015

It is more than three days since these events began and as I write this, the terror suspects are holding hostages as news media blasts this story live around the world.

This is unfortunately providing terrorists with the very thing they desire – free press for their cause.

I wonder what would happen if we didn’t report terror events at all (or just minimally), thus not providing the mouthpiece that the terrorists desire.

I doubt that the news media could be so self-disciplined as to give this a try.

What do you think?

Who Defines Your Reality?

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - Albert Einstein

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality. - Iris Murdoch

The #1206 “fiction” series continues ….

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Abigail sat in a busy restaurant, sipping on her latte and smiling in anticipation of her husband’s arrival.  It had been a busy day for both of them and as darkness approached, she shivered slightly in excitement as she reread his text “On my way, my love.  Be there in 10 minutes.”  As she took another sip of her latte, she happened to glance up over her mug and found herself staring at …. herself.

The person she was staring at seemed to be equally shocked and surprised and after a moment, she asked quietly, “Are you …….. me?”

Abigail stared in surprised but said nothing and then her alternate self sat down beside her as they both continued to stare at each other.

“What’s happening here?”, asked Abigail.

“I have no idea”, replied her alternate self, “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

“My name is Abigail”, said Abigail and her alternate self almost simultaneously and then there was silence again.

“This is not possible”, said her alternate self, “How can you be me?”

“I don’t know”, replied Abigail and then there was silence yet again.

“This is crazy”, said Abigail, breaking the silence and trying to get control of her thoughts.  “My husband Gabriel will surely know what’s going on”, she added.

“I was married to a guy with the same name”, replied her alternate self, “What a strange coincidence.”

“Was?”, asked Abigail.

“Yes”, her alternate self replied, “He was killed in a plane crash about a year ago.”  She pulled our her cell phone and showed an image of a news website, describing the airline, the flight and the tragedy that had befallen everyone on board.

Abigail frowned at the image, took out her own cell phone and Googled the information about the flight.  Google returned nothing of interest and there were no plane crashes of note anywhere in the world at that time.

“How odd that our husbands have the same name”, said Abigail.  Blushing with embarrassment, she said, “I’m so sorry …. had.  Oh, I don’t know what I am trying to say.”

“It’s ok”, said her alternate self, “We had just been married when he had to leave on a business trip.  His return flight crashed in a snowstorm and everyone was killed.”

“This is wrong”, said Abigail, “Something strange is happening here.  Gabriel has never flown without me.  Who are you really?”

“Well”, replied her alternate self, “I once read about this thing called multiverses where an infinite number of each of us exist simultaneously, each living our own reality.  Maybe in some strange way, we have been connected from two different multiverses.  In mine, my husband has been killed.  In yours, your husband is still alive.”

Abigail’s head began to spin as she thought about this.  “He will be here in about 10 minutes”, she said, “He will know what to make of this.”

Her alternate self frowned for a moment before replying.  “I don’t know if I want to meet him”, she said quietly.

Abigail thought for a moment, nodded and then reached for her purse to pull out some photos.  Having found them, she turned towards her alternate self to see if her alternate self recognized any of the people in the photos and realized that her alternate self had vanished.

She shivered with a sudden fear that swept over her and reaching for her cell phone, she opened the text exchange with Gabriel to tell him that she loved him and that she needed him.

Or she tried to, anyway.  She noticed that the text exchange had disappeared.  Frowning as to why, she opened her contact list to choose his name from the list but his name didn’t appear there either.

Her heart began to beat harder as the fear in her grew and with shaky fingers, she dialled Gabriel’s number.  After several rings, she heard a voice on the phone:

The number you have dialled is not in service.  Please check the number and try again.  Recording 12-06.

Something strange struck her and she Googled about the flight she had searched for earlier.  She was shocked as the search results described a plane crash that had killed everyone on board. 

Gabriel’s name was on the victim list.

To be continued.

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© 2014 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Alternate Ending:

I played around with the idea that she called friends and family to ask whether they had heard from Gabriel and nobody knew what she was talking about or who Gabriel was.

Background:

I have always been fascinated with the concept of the multiverse, where an infinite number of each us exist simultaneously.  There are some interesting theories about the possibilities that can be created if we could change which multiverse we are in, either just in perception of the multiverse or in a physical form.

In such a situation, if two multiverses accidentally or purposely overlapped, would or could the two realities meld into one.  Would the mere suggestion of a different reality in one multiverse in turn create such a reality in the other?  If the reality changed for someone in a multiverse, was the original reality ever real in the first place?  How would we know and whose reality would be the real one?

If such things could happen, consider the idea of someone who was committed to an institution and who rants and raves about what they claim to be a life partner who vanished, a life partner that we assure them never existed.  How do we know that they didn’t experience such an event?

How would we know anything at all?

Series Origin:

This series, a departure from my usual musings,  is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

Creating Allies Versus Antagonists–When Ego Makes the Choice

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. - Edmund Burke

Remember that when you meet your antagonist, to do everything in a mild agreeable manner. Let your courage be keen, but, at the same time, as polished as your sword. - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

As the dusts settles from the Alberta by-elections, a children’s story comes to mind regarding how certain parties executed during the election and the results that they produced.  The story goes like this.

There was once a hen and a pig who were thinking about starting a breakfast restaurant together.  “Let’s call it Ham and Eggs”, said the hen excitedly.  “That’s no good”, replied the pig sadly.  “Why not?”, asked the hen.  “Well”, sighed the pig, “You are only participating in it while I am fully committed.”

The story came to mind as I reflected on how people who are fully committed to an endeavour tend to make smarter choices about whether they create antagonists or allies in their day-to-day execution because they have much more to lose if they choose poorly.

In the case of the by-elections, I had had interactions with the Alberta Party in the past and believed them to be a genuine voice of change, representing a non-hyped, data-focused leader of change that the Province (and other jurisdictions for that matter) needed.

In the public debate that occurred, I mused about how Greg Clark, the leader of the Alberta Party, appeared to win the debate.  I tweeted such during the debate and wrote about it later here - Greg Clark–A Refreshing Change Or Just Another Politician?

However, in subsequent interactions with Stephen Carter (his lead strategy person for the campaign) and before I made a decision regarding the Alberta Party one way or the other, Mr. Carter, without caring who he was speaking to, decided that I served better as an antagonist rather than an ally (or at least leaving me neutral at best).

With taunts regarding how much I did for others (or not) without any knowledge of my service to others and in providing flippant answers to serious questions (which I wrote about in Greg Clark–Politicians and the Importance of Optics), it appears that his ego and his belief that a win was “in the bag” invited him to discard myself and others as potential allies and in doing so, invited us to become potential antagonists instead.

Observing the traffic in social media, it appears that the Alberta Party’s selection of Mr. Carter’s raw online style backfired, drawing the desired attention but also creating a large pool of antagonists who may not have cared otherwise about the Party had it not been for how he interacted with people. I realized when people were actively campaigning against the Alberta Party because they believed it to be the Arrogant Stephen Carter Party that something had gone amiss with the Party’s strategy.  In certain groups, such as in schools, the actions of some of the Party’s faithful would have been considered bullying – hardly the role model for young people.

How large an issue this was in regards to the final result of no wins for the Alberta Party will largely depend on who you ask.  Whether the Party will be honest in its post mortems will also be a large matter of conjecture.

However, it causes me to stop and reflect upon how we choose our antagonists, enemies and allies, not only in politics but in Life.

Sometimes we may not be able to secure a person, people or organization(s) as an ally but we would do best not to awaken them as our antagonists also.

Because while the Burke quote at the beginning of this blog post may generally be true, the strengthening of our nerves and skill that is produced by antagonists is only apparent when the ego is such that it allows such learning lessons to be acknowledged and absorbed.

Otherwise, people just end up creating scenarios of themselves versus the world and in such cases, it is always better to bet on the world.  In other cases, they just end up bitter as illustrated here in this delightful quote from Despair.com.

The Bottom Line

Life has enough complexities as it is and there are many times when we wished that there were more powerful people in our corner.

In such situations, I think we are better off choosing our allies carefully, lest our thoughts, words and actions produce the exact opposite effect, creating antagonists or enemies when we least need them.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS In the blog post Answering The Cry For Help, I referred to the true story of a predator who was assaulting and in some cases, extorting things from women once they had been put in compromising situations.

The warning of choosing enemies wisely extends in these situations also.  People who exist to hurt others shouldn’t forget that they will eventually run into someone more powerful than they are and that their actions are creating very powerful enemies that will eventually produce justice.

It’s only matter of time.

Our thoughts, words and actions produce a steady stream of allies, antagonists or people who are neutral to us.

We must choose wisely in order to maximize the nature of the people we create around us.  They will, after all, often decide the result that we produce in our Life.

We should choose as if our Life, personal or professional, depends on it.

Because it does.

Building Foundations on Rock or Sand

“Leaders in business and government, who fail to see the holistic interdependence of our planet, are destined to cause its demise.”  - Said Elias Dawlabani, Memenomics: The Next Generation Economic System

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” - Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV)

The #1206 “fiction” series continues ….

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On a hot, sticky summer afternoon in Manhattan, I stood on the corner of Wall St. and Broadway and watched idly as people hurriedly went about their business.  “Everyone going nowhere in a hurry”, I thought to myself.

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by a voice to my right as a deep, baritone voice said “It seems like everyone is in a hurry to go nowhere, doesn’t it?”.

Startled that someone had voiced the very sentiment that I was thinking, I turned to face the origin of the musing.

The tall, impeccably-dressed man facing me smiled amusingly, seemingly aware that his comment had startled me.

“You’re right”, I replied, “They are in total oblivion to what’s going on around them.  I guess ignorance is bliss after all.”

“Possibly”, he replied, pursing his lips for a moment. “However, even ignorance is fleeting. Every person is eventually forced to acquire wisdom or pay the price for their ignorance.”

“What do you mean?”, I asked.

“Would you walk with me for a moment?”, he asked.  Nodding my consent, we began to walk down Wall St.

“Imagine you have a dollar”, he continued as we walked slowly down the street.  “You lend me the dollar and I use it as collateral to borrow a second dollar so now I have two dollars.  I lend the two dollars to a friend and following the same process, he converts it into four dollars.  He buys food with some of the money and passes the rest on.  Some friends later, the current top person in the lending pyramid is now in possession of over a thousand dollars.  That person buys weapons with some of the money, sells weapons to make more money and then lends the rest.  A couple of friends later, the current top of the chain uses the money to buy political influence or power and sits on the rest of the money.”

“There is nothing strange about that”, I noted.  “Many of our investment vehicles work exactly like that.  That is how the world works.”

“Very true”, my companion nodded.  “Now let’s assume you have an emergency in your Life and you need your dollar immediately.  You come to me but I don’t have the money you lent me so I ask for it up the chain.  The guy I lent it to realizes that he will have to give up his food and is not happy with that and so he tries to get some of the money back from the guy who bought weapons.  That guy realizes he will have to give up some of his weapons in order to be able to satisfy the request and decides that that is not an option.  So he in turn asks people higher up the chain to give up some of their money so that someone can send a dollar back down the chain to you.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “The people at the top, not wanting to give up the power they have bought with their money, decline the request and so despite a lot of perceived money in the system, no one is able to return a simple dollar to help you.  However, the person at the top decides he is willing to lend you a dollar with exorbitant interest if you are desperate enough.  While you have accepted this approach in the past, you now decide to exercise a legal process to force me to return your dollar to you and in the process, the pyramid collapses as people at various levels are forced to give up food, weapons or power.  This causes them to turn upon each other to protect what they perceive is their right to own.  Meanwhile, the guy at the bottom, you, just wanted your dollar back but in your inability to get your dollar back unencumbered, you are in the least powerful position of all and your world collapses.”

We walked in silence for a bit before he concluded.  “The person with the smallest ulterior motive is also the one with the least amount of power but the one who will be punished the most for merely asking for what was rightfully his.  Seems awkward or unfair, doesn’t it?”

“I guess”, I replied as I mulled over his words, trying to decide if they made sense or not and whether or not I had somehow contributed to this if true.”

We both paused for a moment before I asked, “But if that’s the case, who would benefit the most from such an arrangement?”

“Now that is an excellent question”, he replied.  “Seeking the answer to such a question would prove to be of great value for humanity.  Unfortunately, few have such courage to pursue it.  It’s like being the first family to settle in a neighbourhood that a city is rehabilitating.  Few have the courage to put their family at risk by being first but everyone wants to reap the reward derived from driving the bad elements out of a neighbourhood in order to reclaim it.”

He was silent for a moment, allowing his words to sink it, and then he asked, “What type of person are you?”

“I’m not sure”, I replied, “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

When my comment produced no reply, I looked around and my companion was gone.  Momentarily confused, I looked around me, knowing that he couldn’t have disappeared that quickly.

As I continued to look around in bewilderment, I looked up and realized that I was standing in front of the Federal Reserve ….

…. and I wondered.

To be continued.

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© 2014 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Series Origin:

This series, a departure from my usual musings,  is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

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The Significance of Insignificance

What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world's beauty, is everything! - H. P. Lovecraft

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance. - Pablo Casals

From a dream I had last night …. my regular programming will return in my next post. :-)

Approximately 10,000 years in the future ……..

Orbiting an unknown star many light years from Earth, a planetary system has just been saved from certain annihilation.  While the details don’t matter, a lone Terran stands in front of representatives of the saved planets, receiving gifts of gratitude and honor that are bestowed upon him.  When asked to explain why he did what he did, he has no explanation other than “It was the right thing to do.”

Unknown to him and lost in the minutiae of the 400 generations that preceded him, his lineage had vaulted into a new direction because of a random act of kindness that had been bestowed upon an ancestor long forgotten in the pages of history.  The details of the event are long forgotten.

The result is not.

Meanwhile in another galaxy …….

A culture is breathing its last, the culmination of a million years of struggle, evolution, victory, knowledge, peace and then struggle again.  The survivors, if there will be any, vow revenge on the race of starfarers that they befriended, only to realize they had been duped by representatives of the race who took advantage of them and ultimately destroyed their culture.

A fleet of star ships observes the collapse of the once proud culture from a distance.  The commander of the fleet watches his monitor, disappointed that this culture couldn’t have been stronger and more up to the task before them.  In his effort to demonstrate the power of ruthlessness, they had failed and now paid the price.  “Too bad for them”, he thought, “But there will be others.”

The commander was proud of his lineage going back generations, constantly proving themselves scrappier, tougher and more ruthless than anyone.  Survival had depended on it and his family had adapted to it perfectly.

400 generations preceding his, someone in his past had needed help and had been denied, forcing a person to adapt to the difficult realities of Life. The details of the event are long forgotten.

The result is not.

The Significance of Insignificance

I hear and read lots of material about how an act that lifts someone or destroys them can have a ripple effect, both laterally to others and vertically to the descendants of the giver (or selfish person), the recipient and the observer of such acts.

I wonder if we paid more attention to the potential impact in a much larger way then we might pay more attention to the actions we take (or don’t take).  Such actions (or failure to take action) are not limited to ourselves but also include the actions (or lack of) by colleagues, family members, friends, community members, business leaders and governments. 

When examined in the proper light, every action (or inaction) matters, bringing us closer to or taking us further away from our potential.

What do you think?

Meanwhile in another galaxy …….

In service and servanthood,

Harry

NSA Leaks: Balancing Justice and Indignation

Observing the actions of Edward Snowden in regards to the NSA leaks, I can see why he did what he did but I have to disagree totally with his approach.

Let me explain.

Back in the early 2000’s, I was traveling through one of North America’s top 10 busiest airports and I happened to notice an event that really disturbed me.  Now in fairness to the people I was observing, one of the curses of being a long-time strategy advisor to Wall St. and Fortune 25 organizations is that you are always analyzing everything around you, even when you know you should be relaxing or minding your own business.

As I observed the security personnel in action, I realized that I had just witnessed a way to get an explosive, a gun or some other unwelcome device past airport security.

With a great amount of concern, I dutifully wrote an email to the federal authorities, explaining my credentials including in large-scale security architecture on Wall St., outlining what I witnessed, expressing my concerns about the potential that could be created and so on.

Some time later, I received a very polite but formal dismissal in response, basically suggesting that they were the experts in airport security, I was not and closing with a “thanks for writing anyway” type of closing comment.

In the fall of 2012, I happened to be traveling through the same airport and at the same security gate, I noticed that the same security hole was present. (Don’t bother asking me about it – I will not respond to queries asking what the security concern is.)  I mentioned this scenario to a Chief Security Officer of a major airline and he acknowledged that my concern was legitimate.

Now if I wanted to get all indignant about how no one was paying attention, how people were at risk and such, I could have easily gone to the press and blown the story wide open.

And in the meantime, as the great wheels of bureaucracy churned away, mulling over what to do to address the issue, my righteous indignation would have enabled less-than-desirable individuals or organizations to initiate an action that my righteous indignation was trying to prevent.

So … in this example, it would be open for debate whether a detailed public disclosure would help or hinder efforts to enhance airline security.

Hero or villain status would not be determined by that action but by subsequent actions that took place.

Fast forwarding to today …..

As far as Mr. Snowden is concerned, I agree that the US Federal Government’s surveillance and cyber defense (and attack) programs may seem to be a little over-reaching.  I recently mused about the trouble that these programs could create in my blog entry “The Coming Storm”.

However, for the many people suddenly waking up and fearing surveillance, the development of such programs goes back to the 1960’s and earlier, including programs such as Echelon and others.  To suddenly be startled by such technology is to not be paying attention to what one’s own elected officials have been doing for the past 50 years.

Recognizing that we get the government we deserve can be a difficult pill for many to swallow.

With the long-time existence of such programs, we have to face some basic realities:

1. We can have total freedom from surveillance or we can have total personal security.  We can’t have both without compromise on both sides of the equation and given that many people prefer security over privacy, the use of such technology is inevitable.  Whether or not the use of such technology should be limited requires a detailed analysis of what motivates human beings.

2. Most people who fear such surveillance, if in the same position as the leaders of today and offered the use of technology to do their job, would use it.

3. As long as human beings are involved in the equation of privacy versus security, we will always have the concern of the weakest link, whether it is the occasional person using the information for personal gain, someone selling it to a foreign power or some other compromise of the information being gathered.  Having experienced identity theft multiple times at the hands of bank employees, I still have no choice but to use banks in my day-to-day affairs or withdraw from the world’s financial systems.

4. Any government will take action to protect what it perceives to be its national interests, no matter how legitimate others perceive those interests to be.  Those of us who have signed security clearance covenants know exactly what actions will be taken against us should we violate such covenants.

5. People who exhibit rabid, fanatical stands against such surveillance programs actually expedite the implementation of them.  Take a look at Alex Jones, well known conspiracy guy, and his interview on the BBC last weekend for an example.  If you were responsible for national security, outbursts like this would make you nervous also.

Mr. Snowden’s actions, while understandable from a righteous indignation standpoint, are in defiance of these basic realities.  On the other hand, his actions are a warning to NSA and other groups to tighten up control over access to delicate information (Mr. Snowden had access to a lot of information despite his relatively short time in the intelligence community).  Imagine if his righteous indignation had caused him to sell information over the course of many years instead of releasing it to the press in a big explosion.

As far as the damage potential of his actions is concerned, the amount of damage done will depend on perspective and the events that follow the initial event.

The bottom line

For Mr. Snowden to go public with his info may have seemed like a good idea at first but it does undermine national security and potentially enables enemies of the state to adjust their execution in a manner that circumvents national security programs.

And when (not if) that happens, while one may think one is a hero, one may be inadvertently enabling someone who in the future will compromise the personal safety and security of many people … including people important to you.

Should such an event occur and someone who matters to you is threatened as a result, would you still consider the original person who acted with such indignation a hero or a villain?

Perspective is a powerful force, isn’t it?

When an information compromise or a terrorist act occurs in the future, we will be reminded once again that no matter what approach we take, we will always be faced with the notion of the weakest link – that human frailties will always be present no matter how much we wished they weren’t.

As for the people who are against surveillance, that horse has long since bolted out of the barn.  Surveillance is here to stay and the more people strive to rid the world of it, the more pervasive (and possibly covert) it will become, if for no other reason than out of fear of the people who oppose it.

Do you prefer safety for your family or freedom for them?

The answer is not an either/or - we can have both but to have both will require compromise.

And it will always come with risk.

No other scenario is possible if safety AND freedom are desired and human beings are involved in the mix. 

To expect anything else is to assume that human beings are far more perfect than they are and to assume that such complex, flawed beings can create simple, perfect solutions.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Polls and Surveys–An Insult To Your Intelligence

I am amazed at how many people allow their opinions and their passions to be directed merely because someone stated that “poll x claims that x% of people feel / believe ___whatever____”.

It seems that a majority of people cite these polls without ever understanding what went into the poll, how the questions were directed and what the ultimate intentions of the pollster / media were.

While many pollsters and media claim to be belief-agnostic (whether in politics, business, religion or anything else) if we believe that they can turn off their own feelings as they direct the course of their business then we are also acknowledging that they are not human.

Consider this hypothetical poll.

Let’s assume that I am conducting a survey in your city in which one of two choices must be made.

Scenario: I am driving down a steep hill when suddenly my brakes fail.  Ahead of me is a sharp curve and I know I can’t make the turn.  A crash is imminent and I have been given a choice as to how the crash will manifest.

Choice 1. There is a five-year-old child on one side of the road, playing happily and I will steer my vehicle onto this side of the road.

Choice 2. There are ten five-year-old children (including your own) on the other side of the road, also playing happily and I will steer my vehicle onto this side of the road.

I have seconds to choose which side of the road I am going to crash into and must choose one of them.

In my hypothetical poll, 85% of people choose the lesser of two evils, steering the vehicle onto the side of the road with the lone child.

1% choose choice 2 because they are not taking the survey seriously and want to see how I will react.

14% get so incensed over the survey that they walk away and refuse to answer.

Now, depending on my intention for conducting the survey, it would be completely honest to make this headline announcement.

85% of people in the city of ___your city____ would wilfully take the life of a child if they had the chance to do so.

It’s a pretty outrageous statement, isn’t it?  However, while you don’t really feel this way, the poll can be demonstrated to prove this point.

Now the pollsters conducting the survey don’t tell people taking the survey whether or not steering onto either side of the road automatically means the death of whoever is on that side of the road.

The survey results also don’t state that people taking the survey were forced to choose a choice that had the potential for death; that there was no option 3 which would have produced no deaths at all to innocent children.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that I will have made a statement using a “trusted” survey source with irrefutable mathematics citing that the poll is accurate within 98% (plus or minus 2 percentage points) 19 times out of 20 and so it must be accurate.

And yes the stated poll results will be accurate, in a twisted sort of way.

But while technically accurate, does it tell the truth?

Does it REALLY summarize what you or the average good person actually believes?

Probably not.

The bottom line is this.

Do you prefer to be informed based on how others want you to think or do you prefer to be informed based on your own assessment of knowledge, data and facts?

The answer to this question determines whether you are a leader in this world or you are one of the many sheep.

The answer also identifies whether you are living your life to the fullest or you are a stepping stone for someone else who is living their life to the fullest.

Which do you choose to be?

What are you doing about it?

Or are you waiting for a poll result to help you answer these questions also?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

If You Wait Until It’s Really Painful ….

…. it may be too late.

I had the privilege last night to speak to Steve Nicander.  Steve is an amazing man, having reduced his weight from around 650 pounds to 270 pounds and he is not done yet.  The story of his courageous journey can be found here.

As I listened to the story of his incredible journey, I had to ask him, “What motivated you to change?”.

His answer was blunt and authentic.  “I was in so much excruciating pain that I didn’t know how much longer I could continue”.

When I asked him what would have happened if he had pushed through the pain without making changes in his life, his reply was equally authentic, “I would have been dead in less than a year”.

Many times when organizations come to me for help, they are in a similar position.  They have deferred or avoided important decisions, each decision seemingly insignificant at the moment but each one contributing a little more towards an inevitable, painful future.

The reasons for avoiding the decisions are common across many situations but the end-results are also … sadly … very similar.

They eventually find themselves in a very painful position, where decisions need to be made quickly, where the actions that must be taken may be extremely difficult or expensive, where the ego that says “I still have it under control” must be set aside and yet, if they delay much longer, they won’t have anything to fight for.

The life of their project or organization hangs in the balance.

Just as Steve’s life hung in the balance.

Unfortunately, many organizations and human beings don’t realize that every choice they make or fail to make takes them closer to or further away from a future  filled with unlimited potential or painful disaster.

When we don’t appreciate the importance of every choice, we have a better chance of creating a future of reduced potential then we do of creating an empowered future.  Unfortunately, the little bit of pain that we add with each poor choice is not noticeable until often it is too late.

While we think the choices that we have to make today are difficult, it is better to face them today then face life-or-death choices tomorrow.

Steve waited until he was forced to make a choice.  Fortunately for Steve and for the many who will be inspired by his journey, it still wasn’t too late to make the right choice.

Not every person or organization will be so lucky when they reach the point where they are blinded by “pain” and don’t know whether to stop and get help or push through the pain.

They may be closer to finality then they realize.

When decision points are placed before us, we must always choose to step up and make the best choice we can.

We must choose to make them as if our Life depends on them.

Because it does.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My Musings-in-a-Minute version of “If You Wait Until It’s Really Painful ….” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Changing Your Perspective

I’m sitting in a coffee shop this morning where a food drive is under way to help the local food bank.  They are accepting whatever one chooses to give – non-perishables, money, etc.

As I observe the customers frequenting the coffee shop, there appears to be very few people contributing to either the food bin or the money container.  In our busy world, it is easy to overlook those who ask for help.  Sometimes we rationalize that too many people are asking for our help and it is time for someone else to carry the load.

It is important for all of us to know that for as abundant as our Life may be, the truth is that we are never far from being the one who needs help.  Life teaches us humbling lessons – not when we want them or are ready for them but when we need them.

I know – I’ve been there.  Most honest people will admit that they have been there also.

I noticed something else this morning.  When I change my viewpoint from one of not many people contributing to one of many people giving generously, I noticed that many more are giving to the person collecting.

Some people would say that visualizing more generous people actually creates a future of generous people.

Others would say that we see what we choose to see and so by changing my lens, I perceive what I wish to see – more people giving from their heart.

Others would say it is luck or coincidence.  Unfortunately for them, I don’t believe in either.

I believe everything happens with purpose.

And while many things feed your purpose (vision, mission, goals, beliefs, networks, knowledge, skills, talents, opportunities, courage, wisdom, etc), I am reminded this morning that one of the key things that is essential to what you experience is your perspective.

You have the power of choice – use your ability to choose your perspective to your advantage and to the advantage of others.  Act as if your personal and professional Life depends on it because it does.

What you choose to see today is what you create for yourself and others.

What do you see right now?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

My Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Changing Your Perspective” can be found here.

A Quest for Authenticity – How Many Lives Are You Living?

For my “Musings-in-a-Minute” version of “A Quest for Authenticity”, please click here.

I am running into more and more people these days who are living two or more completely different lives.

One life is the life of their dreams – passionate and living on purpose.  In this life, they are living their dreams, creating their own companies, making a huge, positive impact on the world.  Many of them are best-selling authors, in-demand speakers or high-powered consultants offering advice to the elite.  Their home life is right out of Leave it to Beaver, the Brady Bunch or some other idyllic family experience.  They live in a world where they speak freely and passionately about their purpose, their faith, their ideals and core values and their vision of the world. It is a beautiful life without fear of anything.

What a beautiful image they weave.

The other life is the life the same people are currently experiencing.  They are frustrated with their boss, their business partner, their client, their spouse, their children, their President or Prime Minister or someone else.  They feel frustrated that nobody seems to care about their vision for the world.  They are afraid to expose their core values, their faith or their belief structure.  They are afraid to stand up and speak out when they witness something that is legally, ethically or morally incorrect.  With this in mind, they assume their own personality is flawed or unworthy and thus they create new personas based on the situations they find themselves in.

Life is challenging enough when you have one life to live.

How do these people manage when they are living two or more lives?  They live one in private, one at home, one with friends, one at work, one at church …. the list goes on.

No wonder people are more stressed now than ever – they are worn out trying to be something that someone else wants them to be.

What’s wrong with us just being ourselves?

As with many things in life, we are either all in it or not in it at all.  This applies to us living our life on purpose, embracing the talents, gifts, resources and dreams that each of us are blessed to have.

How can we expect to establish momentum and traction in life when we are living so many lives at once?  That’s a lot of traction to acquire and will result in a life of complexity and frustration.

Consider these examples:

1. The person who witnesses an illegal act in an organization and chooses to say nothing so that they will continue to be perceived as a team player or so that it doesn’t impact their ability to score some other position they are seeking.

2. The person who joins boards or organizations that are totally out of congruence with their own personal values, but they do so because it “looks good on the resume”.

2. The individual who has a strong faith in God or other Higher Authority but keeps it to themselves when amongst friends or coworkers so as to not be portrayed as a Bible-thumping proselytizer to be avoided.

3. The person who talks incessantly about the dreams they have for self-employment or rebuilding their organization – and years later are still telling the same story after having made almost no effort to put the dream into action.

4. The team leader or company owner who constantly complains about their team in private but publically praises them (praising them because they know that a team’s performance is a reflection of its leader).

5. The people that protect (or even promote) a “look the other way” policy, since they know if someone really knew what was going on in the organization, the person in charge would be questioned as to why such apathy and indifference have gone on for so long.

6. The folks who attain some level of public office and immediately focus on how to get re-elected, forgetting that they are there to represent a group of people.

7. The people who draw too much from their network, expecting everything for free but who feel incensed if the network pushes back and requests compensation for knowledge shared (or the network reaches out to them and asks of their time for free in return).

8. Leaders who hide behind complexity and noise on their projects because they don’t want people to see that there may be something they can’t do.

9. People who promote or teach the “miracle product du jour”, knowing that they are doing it for the money and that they don’t really believe in the value of what they are pushing.

Some people are oblivious of living multiple lives.  Many people realize the multiple lives they are living and for them, this adds extra stress, because they want to escape from those multiple lives – to get back to the core of what they are.

For some reason that escapes them, it is easier said than done.

However, as in many situations, they are driven by fear.

1. Fear of not being accepted.

2. Fear of having a dream that others may ridicule.

3. Fear of expressing an interest, belief or value that others may not embrace or support.

4. Fear of expressing their faith at a time when some people may not find it “cool”.

5. Fear of being perceived as not being in control of their life, be it personally, professionally or otherwise.

6. Fear that we have only one whack at something (as in political office) and so rather than being judged on our performance, we immediately set out to assure our continued re-election by becoming vague, fuzzy and not clearly aligned with any issue.

7. Fear of not being viewed as intelligent, good lucking, connected, skillful, empowered or anything else as our peers.

8. Fear of failure, thereby introducing the notion that it looks better to be thinking big all the time than to risk it all and fail. 

Since we are bound up by these and other fears, it is better to portray ourselves as the ideal person in the other person’s eyes.  That way, you feel more comfortable with the “new you” since it seems to draw accolades from others.

Guess what?

We will attract people much more in congruence with who we are when we express our true self – when we are authentic with ourselves and others.

After all, if we are not our true selves, how do we know that any of our relationships are authentic?  There’s a good chance that our relationships with different people are as artificial as the personalities that we created in order to be connected with them in the first place.

We discover how real or artificial our public personas are when we need help.  If people vanish when we need them, there’s a good chance we have not built our relationships on solid, authentic values and belief systems.

Why would we want to create a life that is that complicated?

Isn’t life complicated enough?

As Scott M. Peck wrote in The Road Less Travelled, the opening line is “Life is difficult”.

Given that life is difficult, why don’t we choose to live one life ?

One that allows us to embrace and maximize our gifts and talents.

One that allows us to live by our core values, not someone else’s.

One that will occasionally cause life to be pretty scary but will produce more powerful results, important learning lessons and rich memories.

One that will have a greater potential to leave a positive legacy on this planet, since I doubt that any of us are dreaming of a life of smaller results than we are currently experiencing.

One that allows us to live by our faith if that is an important part of our life.

One that may produce fewer relationships but relationships that will be stronger, higher quality and more authentic.

When we reveal our true self, we attract people and circumstances that are more in alignment with our core values and belief structures.

When we do this, we live one life, a much simpler concept than multiple lives.

That’s not to say that this automatically makes life easy.

However, when life gets complex, if we are living by our core values and are aligned with others with similar values, it helps to know that we should push through because the results are worthy enough to persevere for.

If we are pushing something that we are not in alignment with, then we often wonder why we should bother.  After all, we may be pushing for something important for someone else and not for ourselves – living a life for someone else.

If that’s the life we want to live, then we should select a person that we are living our life for and ask them if we can leave their name on our headstone when our end-of-days has arrived.

We might as well, since we lived their life based on their values, beliefs and expectations anyway.

Wouldn’t it better to be remembered for who we are and not for how we reflected the best of someone else?

Exactly – so what are we waiting for?

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For my “Musings-in-a-Minute” version of “A Quest for Authenticity”, please click here.

Appreciating What We Create – A Lesson from Michael Jackson

For my “Musings-in-a-Minute” version of this blog entry, please click here.

The world was saddened yesterday by the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson’s death was seen as particularly tragic, given the gifts and talents that he had contrasted with the many seemingly bizarre events and actions in his life.  He lived a life in deep physical and mental anguish.  As one person noted this morning on the radio – he died beloved by millions but loved by few.

One of the sad elements of Michael Jackson’s passing is how some people are focusing on the unusual elements of his life – the charges against him in the early 2000’s (of which he was acquitted on all counts), his child-like way of being, his unusual behavior with his children (who can forget him dangling his child from the balcony) and other actions and behaviors that we cite as strange, bizarre or unusual.

Many choose to be critical of many of these actions.

While it is true that we shouldn’t condone them or dismiss them, there is, however, something that we need to understand about his actions and the actions of other people like him.

We own responsibility for who Michael Jackson was – the good and the bad.

I’m referring to the “royal we” – society itself.

We created a society that craves for the talents of people like Michael Jackson.

In doing so, we enable the actions of many people around him, starting from his parents and moving right up through the ranks and the years to his handlers, agents and such.  There are many people who will use someone like Michael Jackson to achieve their own selfish need or to satisfy the need of the populace at large at the expense of others.

We do this with a lot of celebrities.

We do this with a lot of corporations – demanding that their products be sleeker, sexier, smaller, lighter, more colorful, more feature filled, provide an unreasonable rate of return, etc. and we want it now.  Later on, we punish the company when we discover that they took a lot of moral, ethical and perhaps legal shortcuts to get there.

I’m not saying the shortcuts are right nor should they be dismissed.  However, I am suggesting that many of us who criticize may have taken the same shortcut if the opportunity to please the populace existed and the reward was as great.

We may deny it but the fact remains that most of us have our price.

If we examine the financial turmoil that we are in today, we are constantly looking for scapegoats to hang high.  “How dare they do this to us”, we cry, “We have been robbed.”.

And yet, the warnings have been coming for years.  We chose to ignore them because life was too good for most of us – why worry about tomorrow when the life of today is great?

If we look at the incarcerated individual, many look down on them as disgusting, immoral, perverted, twisted, deranged, insane or some other word.

A word that allows us to differentiate ourselves from them – to establish a magical line that separates good from evil.

It is however, a word that also hides the fact that these people for the most part are created, not born, that way.

If we had the same genetics and identical life experiences, there is a high probability that those people would be looking down on us using the same words, as we would be inside the walls and they would be outside.

I’m not suggesting that people not be held accountable. 

There are also incredible examples of people who have overcome staggering odds to become phenomenal role models in society.

We should spend more time trying to figure out what brings out that positive element of their life, to help others discover this magic elixir of converting a lost life into one of profound, positive impact.

Until such a magic pill is discovered, we should be more cautious about looking to blame the other person or criticizing them for everything that affronts us and ask ourselves “What role did I play in this?  If nothing else, maybe I could have held more people accountable and exerted more positive influence.”

Because in the end, a few variations in our Life path are sometimes all it takes to send us in a direction that we criticize when we see it in others.

We need to change our behavior, otherwise greater corrections are in our future.

Let’s create positively and proactively.

Let’s do the absolute best we can with everything within our influence.

Let’s be consistent with our expectations – let’s be cognizant of the downstream impact of our needs, wants and desires – on ourselves, on others and on our environment.

Let’s cherish what we create – the good, the bad and everything in between.

Let’s try harder to cherish more, criticize less, understand more, help more and love more.

When we see something that affronts us, let’s put more energy into solving it or healing it then criticizing it.

After all – whether we like the results or not, we created them as a society.

All of them.

So let’s make a choice to own and create better results – as leaders, as family members, as contributors to community and as residents on this planet.

Michael Jackson did some things wrong in his life.  He did a lot of things right.  He overcame a lot.  Despite some of the things that he did that were wrong, he left a legacy to millions.

John Ruskin had a stone on his desk with one word carved in it. 

The word was “Today”.

What are you doing with the gift of today to leave a positive legacy to others?

Look within before looking outside.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

For my “Musings-in-a-Minute” version of this blog entry, please click here.

Creating an “Oprah Moment”

I receive hundreds of emails every day, many from people who are soliciting me for money, ideas or something else that they are in need of.

Many of the solicitation emails are from complete strangers and most of those get deleted pretty quickly.  We can’t help everyone.

Some time ago, I received a message from a complete stranger and as I read the message, I did not experience the desire to automatically hit delete.  In fact, as I read it, something in the back of my mind told me to sit up and pay attention to this.

It wasn’t the way it was written.  It had nothing to do with the subject.  However, something in the message resonated with me and I decided to dig deeper.

The author of this email tells an incredible story.  It is a story of a woman living in Germany in the 1960’s who was in a situation of relationship battery.  She was rescued by a knight in shining armor whom she fell in love with.  Her knight, who was stationed in Germany with the US military, was transferred out of Germany and went to serve in Vietnam.  She never heard from him again.

However, she discovered that she was pregnant and gave birth to a son. 

It was her son who reached out to me.  He is now a strong family man himself who runs his own company in the US. 

He is hoping to find his father, to say thank you for being there for his mother during her time of need.  He seeks nothing other than to express gratitude for giving him life, a life that he expresses gratitude for on a regular basis.

Why did he reach out to me?

The man he seeks is Harry Tucker.  He has been reaching out to all the Harry Tuckers he can find with the hopes that he can find “the one” to whom he can express his gratitude to.

Something told me not to delete this email.  I did my own check of this person and found that his story appeared to be legitimate.

I felt a strong calling to help this man and a friendship ensued.

I think he was just as surprised to find a complete stranger who wanted to help him as I was that I felt so strongly to help him.  :-)

In the course of using my network to find the other Harry Tucker, I have become reconnected with people I haven’t spoken to in over 30 years.  I have also been connected with other incredibly passionate people who are adding to my life in so many ways as we all become gripped with the desire to find the other Harry Tucker. 

As we make progress towards finding this guy, I am witnessing something else.

I am watching love and kindness develop between a bunch of complete strangers over a story and a group of people who could just as easily mean nothing to us.

We are creating what I like to call an “Oprah moment”, the type of thing we often see on shows like Oprah where a bunch of people find their heart seized by a purpose-filled calling and they go for it for reasons they can’t explain.

Sometimes the story is the classic reunion of long-separated people that causes the viewers to cry and laugh as they watch and listen to the story of seemingly impossible odds that were overcome in order to create the Oprah moment.

Are we heading for an Oprah moment with this story?  I sure hope so.  Nothing would make me happier than to see these two men embrace and to tell their story.  All I can say for now is that the sequence of events that have transpired since this gentleman and I have connected are beyond simple coincidence.

I believe we are being guided by a Higher Authority who seems to be guiding us in an interesting direction.

The way this manifested makes me realize that there are many Oprah moments developing all around us.  In some, we are being invited to answer someone else’s call.  In others, we are hoping someone will answer ours.

In either case, there is an unlimited pool of connected, intelligent, kind, loving people waiting to help manifest these Oprah moments.

In a world where the media wants us to believe that everything is falling apart, including human values and virtues, I believe that the reverse is true.  I believe that human values and virtues are alive and well.

What stands out is what we choose to focus on.

If we believe the world is filled with hate, violence, disrespect, distrust, lack of faith and people focused on destroying everything of value, then we are right.

However, if we think that the world is filled with love, kindness, faith, respect, trust and people committed to offering a helping hand to those in need, then we are right also.

We attract and create that which we believe in and embrace.

The Universe is constantly sending us signals of potential Oprah moments.  Whether they manifest or not depends in large part to how receptive we are to these signals and whether we take action once we have received the signal.

Remember how those Oprah moments always make us feel good when we see them or read about them?

Imagine how they’ll make us feel when we are participating in one.

C’mon …. make the rest of us cry and laugh and feel good about humanity by embracing or creating one.  Let’s open ourselves to feeling the love that envelops us when our heart is seized by an Oprah moment.

Right now.

Our beautiful world has an infinite supply of potential Oprah moments.

There is at least one within each of our spheres of influence right now …..… waiting.

We need to be alert and receptive to them.

Once we are there, we just need to step up and participate in them.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Creating A Different Kind of Noise

What a cacophony we are bombarded with these days:

• increasing issues regarding global warming
• terrorism
• the Iraq war
• the war in Afghanistan
• coming soon according to some – the war against Pakistan or some other nation that displeases us
• an energy crisis
• a health crisis
• a financial crisis
• a public wave of murder / suicides related to the financial crisis
• swine flu (just when you thought you had reached your saturation point of bad news)
• a level of political correctness so powerful that we can’s say anything that might offend anybody (which means we can say very little)
• a level of political bullying, such that if you voice specific opinions on certain subjects, you are immediately publically vilified (meanwhile we say – it’s a good thing we aren’t as ignorant to the opinions of others as they were in the 15th century).
• an increased sense of paranoia that something or someone is ready to kill us at any moment unless we relinquish our freedom in exchange for security.  Interestingly enough, the people we are relinquishing our freedom to are the people who tell us we are in trouble.
• a litany of misinformation, including the soldiers of Abu Ghraib  prison who were punished as rogues that violated the human rights of Iraqis when we now discover they were acting under orders from the top of the US administration.

Is it any wonder that our minds don’t melt from an overload of such negative information?

I think they have melted somewhat – we just haven’t figured it out yet.  Some people suggest that our minds have melted so badly that we have lost the ability to self diagnose or that we have correctly diagnosed the issues but we are too tired or afraid to do anything.

I don’t believe this to be true – I believe that our passion burns hot and deep.  Many of us just need a little help bringing this burning desire to the surface.

When I write blogs or articles that reference the need to assert our passion more, to love others more, to follow our faith more (however we define it) and to make a greater difference in the world, hundreds of people privately applaud me but most are afraid to do so in public. 

They fear repercussions from family, friends and co-workers.  Some are politicians more focused on being re-elected than doing what they know is the right thing.  As one friend noted – '”Do you realize that your thoughts are needed but not welcome in the circles of authority?”.

How unfortunate.

In a part of the world founded on encouraging an exchange of thoughts (without necessarily having to agree with them), incubating a belief in the “American Dream” (or the Canadian equivalent), being passionate about the things important to us, holding civil and corporate leaders to specific standards of morals and values, and championing rights and freedoms important to our ancestors, it seems to me that we are losing the strength or interest to assert our beliefs, our passions and most importantly, our voice. 

Some of us have become intimidated to the point where many of us (not all, thankfully) fear for our reputation if we publically follow our heart.  Meanwhile, our spirits may feel crushed by the constant bombardment of bad news and we are caught in an internal tug of war, knowing what needs to be done but being afraid to do it.

Sometimes it is difficult to see that in this onslaught of bad news there are passionate people out there making a difference in the areas where we need it most – empowering us to effect positive change for our environment, promoting the health and wellness of people around the planet, building peace within humanity and strengthening the ecological / economical future of our planet.

We should be grateful for these people.

We should find a group that aligns with what we hold to be important for ourselves and our families and join that group.

Groups like Canada’s World, World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, Oxfam, the Clinton Foundation and others are leading the way to making a difference.

If you don’t know who to speak to, reach out to someone like me – people like me love to connect passionate people with other passionate people.

If you don’t like these organizations, don’t complain about them.  Use your energy to help them improve their offering and execution.  If you feel that you caught in a trap of excessive complaining without action, reach out to this group, A Complaint Free World.  They’ll help you get back on track.

If existing groups still don’t work for you, create a new group that makes a difference.

Whatever you do, find a way to help contribute to the needs of the world.  Don’t wait – many of the challenges on this planet are accelerating and need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Let’s create a different kind of noise – one built around making a difference instead of focusing on how things are allegedly falling apart.  It would be great if our actions spoke so loudly, that we would not be able to hear each other speak.

Many famous writers and philosophers over the years, going back to biblical times, note that we create what we focus on.

So let’s stop focusing on the end of times and instead, focus on a world filled with people aspiring to make a difference for others.

As the great Louis B. Armstrong sang in “What a Wonderful World”:

The colors of a rainbow.....so pretty ..in the sky
Are also on the faces.....of people ..going by
I see friends shaking hands.....sayin’.. how do you do
They’re really sayin’......i love you.

I hear babies cry...... I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more.....than Ill never know
And I think to myself .....what a wonderful world

It is indeed a wonderful world.

If we really love our children and our children’s children, we’ll keep it that way.

For those who follow sports, it’s like being up three games to nothing in a best of seven series.

It’s ours to win or lose.

What side do you prefer to be on?

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry