Manage To Engage | Businesses Grow When People Do

In the last episode, I extended an invitation to all of you:   When you want to accomplish something great, when you look at a challenge in front of you, don’t just look at the content of it; don’t just look at the skills, learning, and actions that doing the thing requires.   Instead, ask yourself, “How is this challenge testing me? How is life inviting me to be a bigger version of myself here?”   Because, if you don’t consider the context of the challenge and choose to test yourself, then you’ll wind up on the receiving end of what life has to offer. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Are you great at anything, or do you want to be great at anything?   We’re all good at some things, but only a select few of us are willing to do what it takes to experience greatness – and if you ever have experienced greatness, in anything, you know that it only comes as a result of being tested.   So, in this four-part series, we’ll be looking at life through the frame of being tested, and we’ll start today by analyzing the content of a test versus the context of a test. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, I shared a story about a delightful day I had at the beach – and why getting to that point of contentedness required accepting that I had no control over the arising phenomenon that I experienced, like rain or even my initial frustration.   Today, I want to help you take that practice of acceptance and apply it to the situations that arise in your life and in your business, so that you can then focus on managing the things that you actually do have control over. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, I presented the idea that the pursuit of happiness, the conditioning that happiness is something we will achieve after we accomplish XY and Z, lies at the root of our illusion of control.   It’s a seductive illusion that gives us the comfort because, in one sense, we feel like we have control over our experience. But in another sense, it means we’re also responsible for failing to accomplish XY and Z to achieve happiness, and that can lead to an endless cycle of suffering.   Today, I present to you a path to end that cycle of suffering and find serenity – but I warn you, it doesn’t come without a price. I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.

You have no control over your life. Also, you have total control over your life.   Both of these statements can be considered true, and that paradox lies at the heart of this three-part series on Surrendering the Illusion of Control.   This isn’t an entirely new concept for the podcast. We’ve discussed, in the past, our collective, innate desire to control reality; this shared delusion that we know how reality works and how it will continue to work, usually resulting in suffering and shame. You can learn more about this in the four-part series Conclusion: Waking Up, which released in March 2019.   But while that series focused on breaking the delusional assumption of control and the resulting shame spiral, this series focuses on the paradox of control in the context of self-management and happiness.   So let’s dive in. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Last week, we discussed how both the mission and adventure mindsets are equally valuable and dangerous. They come from a place of either trying to take total control over your life or accepting that you have no control whatsoever, but both of those perspectives are incomplete.   The apparent truth is that you are not always in control and you are not always helplessly experience what life throws at you; you and reality are co-authoring your experience of life.   One needs to have intentions, goals, and desired outcomes – and one needs to be able to let go of those things when life is calling them to adventure, to uncertainty.   So, to finish this series on Mission Vs. Adventure, we’ll share a couple stories about when and how people strike that balance, and how being aware of this duality will benefit you as a manager and self-manager. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, I invoked a modern proverb – Life is a journey, not a destination – but you’ve likely heard this at some point earlier in your life, too. Although this is often interpreted as a suggestion to slow down and smell the roses, this helpful saying can also be viewed as a rebuke to the mission mentality that dominates our society, especially in business.   We are too focused on the objective as our goal, in part because we’re conditioned to relate to things at the level of knowledge. So, we fail to see that the transformation we undergo during the journey is more necessary than the actual thing we are trying to achieve.   Now, you may be thinking that I’m trying to persuade you that there is no use for the mission mentality, but that’s not true either.   Today, we’ll delve deeper into the story of Josef and the Lawnmower, and I’ll share the moment when I accepted the call to adventure – and I’ll share why both the ability to adopt a mission mentality AND the ability to identify and accept

In the last episode, we defined the difference between a mission and an adventure.   A mission is like in a heist film: there’s an objective, a plan, and coordinated execution of the plan – and if the plan is not executed appropriately, the objective can not be completed.   On an adventure, on the other hand, you have a sense of your objective, but you do not need to execute on a meticulously crafted plan to accomplish that goal; you either purposely don’t make a plan or you surrender to the adventure not being plannable.   So, when I approached fixing my lawn mower with a mission perspective, I had certain expectations about how things would go. When those expectations weren’t met, there was suddenly a problem – but I created the expectations that birthed the problem that, then, caused my suffering... so I created my own suffering!   And we all do this. We all crave control and create expectations, then we get upset when they’re not met – but, the vast majority of the time, things don’t go the way we

Over the next four episodes, we’re going to engage in a conversation about how we, as people and managers, approach tasks and getting things done – and today, we’re going to frame that conversation by defining the difference between a mission and an adventure.   But, to start off today’s conversation, I invite you to join me in a brief meditation so that we can all approach this discussion with a similar mindset. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

I ended the last episode by sharing my inner identity crisis, and now I want you to consider your own. When is life calling you to be something different than your self-prescribed identity suggests you are?   Take a moment to think about that question before we get into today’s conversation about how our skewed perception of identity affects our ability to be managers. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Most of us embody identities built on our interpretations of the past, but there’s a huge gap between saying “I’m funny” and believing “I’m a funny person” – and it’s one our minds are happy to bridge through a healthy dose of delusion.   Understanding who or what you are being called to be, in any given moment, requires a degree of meta realization that few people have.   So, today, we are going to expand the practice of realization that we started in the last episode by exploring that question: Who am I being called to be, in this moment? I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Today, I want to bring your attention to a paradigm that causes everyone suffering, almost every day: What Is Vs. What I Think Should Be.   Everybody shoulds. We are all naturally included to think things ought to happen a certain way because... well, because that’s the way we think it ought to be. But when we impose these delusions about reality onto ourselves, we’re just choosing to suffer.   Realizing the suffering caused by your self-inflicted delusions is a practice, which means you have to practice it every day, and today is as good a day to start as any. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Most of us are conditioned to normalize disappointment, from a very young age, but that behavior has a dark shadow: normalizing our reactions to disappointment.   So to wrap up this four-part series, I want to help you denormalize disappointment in your life so that you have a frame to start managing it better. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, I shared a story to illustrate how we fall into the trap of disappointment, and how we can ultimately start managing disappointment.   So, to recap, there are four steps to managing disappointment:   Notice the disappointment. Notice the resistance to disappointment that is inevitably within us. Accept the disappointment as being part of life. Then operate inside of the parameters that you have.   Today, I will delve deeper into this process, as well as the internal needs and fantasies that can inhibit our ability to go through it. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Today, I want to share a story about my neighbor and I.   It’s the story of how I first started managing my disappointment, at least intentionally, and accepting the truth in the idiom “you can’t choose your neighbors.” I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Disappointment is inevitable. You could even plot it on a graph, with time on the X-axis and the likelihood of disappointment on the Y-axis. Given enough time, everyone you ever meet can be plotted onto this graph.   However, we have a choice when it comes to how we relate to disappointment.   So, to start this four-part series on managing disappointment, we will discuss how people usually experience disappointment and how we can start bringing more awareness and intention to our relationship with disappointment. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

As we wrap up this four-part series, we also reach the end of my online course, “Accountability, Metrics, Money, and Shame,” which is free for Clear and Open members.   But unlike most classes you’ve probably taken, this isn’t where your work on accountability, metrics, money, or shame ends – at least, I hope it isn’t. The choice is up to you.   Today, I have an assignment that will help you take this course forward into your life, and it’s the most important assignment from the entire course. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

We’ve discussed the Dunning–Kruger effect on the show before: the psychological phenomenon in which people who are not good at something tend to think they’re better at it than they really are. So the less you know, the more you think you know.   But this cognitive bias can only exists in relation our misguided assumptions about reality – namely, our assumption that we know how reality works and will continue to work. And at this point where our assumptions and biases meet, it creates delusion.   When we start chipping away at this delusion – and in the process, start chipping away at our resistance to change – we can actually find a lot of power in the act of not knowing, and today I want you to embrace that power. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, I asked a question: What universal, daily part of the human experience is irrefutable proof of how deluded human beings are?   The answer is dreams – we all dream, and while we’re dreaming, we usually buy into that reality. Then we wake up and we’re confronted with a contradictory reality.   But despite the fact that we experience this delusion every morning, we go through the day assuming that our mind couldn’t possibly have the capacity to fool us while we’re awake; we assume to know who we are, how life works, and that tomorrow will be just like today.   But if we look back at the evidence we have from our own lifetimes and all of recorded history, what’s really real is that reality is constantly changing and constantly telling us, as individuals and as a society, that we’re wrong.   However, we don’t like being wrong, and when reality holds us accountable by showing us we’re wrong, we often feel shame. So today, we’ll start to explore this complex dynamic between ourselves, re

We live in a state of delusional acceptance. We accept that reality is the way we believe it is, in spite of a universal, daily experience that directly contradicts that assumption.   What is that experience? Let’s figure it out together – and on the way, we’ll learn how we can use this knowledge to become more accountable to reality as it really is.   This four part series is an excerpt from the conclusion of my online course, “Accountability, Metrics, Money, and Shame,” which is free for Clear and Open members. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)