The Art of War History Channel Part 1

"Know your enemy and know yourself and in 100 battles you will never be in peril"

"To win 100 battles is not the height of skill, to subdue the enemy without fighting is"

"Avoid what is strong.. Attack what is weak"

SUN TZU

Peaceful Warrior Edit (Part 2 of 3)

"A warrior is not about perfection or victory or invulnerability... he's about absolute vulnerability, and that's the only true courage"

"A warrior acts, only a fool reacts"

"There is no stopping nor starting, only doing"

Finding your own North Star

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean Everybody Isn't Out To Get You

Don't look now, but a lot of very powerful people are trying to stop you from reaching your North Star. Unless we deal with them, you might as well call off the whole trip. The conspirators who marshaled against you are the very people who exiled your essential self in the first place, the ones who put your overgrown social self in complete command of your life. Right this minute, they are rallying to keep you from making positive changes. Who are they? Everybody, that's who. People in general. Society at large. The whole six-billion-member kit and kaboodle we call the human race.

You think I sound a teensy bit paranoid? Hey, I didn't come up with this on my own. I have many, many informed sources. My clients have a very firm grasp of what Everybody thinks, and they share the information with me almost every day..

Ah, yes. Everybody seems to know what Everybody thinks. It's fascinating to get a bunch of people together to ask about Everybody, because, though each individual is convinced that he or she has a finger on the pulse of some universal Zeitgiest each of their Everybodies turns out to be a very small slice of the human pie. Your view of Everybody is completely different from my view of Everybody, which completely from, say, Saddam Hussein's view of Everybody.

In fact, everybody's Everybody is composed of just a few key people. Our social nature makes us long to fit in with a larger group, but it's difficult to hold the tastes and opinions of more than five or six individuals in your mind. So the resourceful social self creates a kind of shorthand: it picks up on a few people's attitudes, emblazons them on your brain, and extrapolates this image until it covers the entire known universe. The vague compilation of folks you call Everybody is what psychologists call "the generalized other".

No matter how deeply your essential self longs to find the real love, the real mission, the real meaning of your life, your social self will not let you embrace these things as long as Everybody disapproves. The social self isn't opposed to your reaching your North Star, per se: it just won't allow you to proceed toward it until you get Everybody's permission. Actually, the social self would prefer that you don't do anything, anything at all, until Everybody kneels down and begs you to do it.

The social self wigs out when you begin to listen to the essential self, because the latter immediately begins to suggest that you do things your Everybody might not like...

Essential Self: I hate this job.

Social Self: Don't you dare quit! Do you know how that will look on your resume? Everybody will think you're a complete failure.


Remember, your social self is just trying to keep you from getting hurt. Everything it says may be partially true. What your social self doesn't know is that 1) very few people actually feel this way; 2) these people are not like to be the best source of information about your ideal life; and 3) there may be a whole bunch of other people who would actually praise and accept you for doing exactly what feels best to your essential self. By installing a hypercritical social group as your definition of Everybody, your social self may well be keeping you from the Everybody who will applaud and support your quest for your North Star.

The way to solve this problem isn't to reject or condemn your social self; it's just doing its well-meaning best. No, we're going to give the social self exactly what it wants - Everybody's approval - while also allowing you to take directions from your essential self. This is the only way to find your North Star, but you may not like how we have to go about it. See, you want the Everybody you have now, the people whose influence landed you in your present life, to approve of your essential self. This will happen right after Hell becomes the official Olympic ice-dancing venue, and you may have that kind of time, but I don't. I'd rather take the quick approach by exchanging your present generalized other for a whole new Everybody.

Finding your own North Star (pp.59-61) by Martha Beck

Bruce Lipton - 2011 Tapping World Summit

Workflow Management -- Five Steps of Success

Because the work at hand is a process not an outcome, a journey not a destination, I call David Allen's work flow model 5 steps of (not to) success. As important as having certain outcomes or ends in mind, the process and journey is even more so. This is why "stress free productivity" is the central message of interest here. Having already comprehended GTD in the literal sense, now a more meaningful understanding of all this is dawning. Here I will sum up these 5 steps in as illuminating yet concise manner as possible:

1-CLEAN, CLEAR, COLLECT or TOSS OUT all loose ends. Use in-baskets, notepads, email and voice mail, etc:   In essence, ELIMINATE all stuff that is taking up valuable space (including body toxins, via exercise/sauna). Clear the decks and neaten up the area so I am ready and able to work.

2-PROCESS & FOCUS Intentions - What is this thing in my in-basket? What is the desired/intended outcome for it and the next action steps necessary toward completion. Get an increasingly more in-focus sense or vision of what it is I am doing, step by step accomplishment that begins with bringing immediate tasks and goals to conscious aware.

3-ORGANIZE & STRUCTURE - Details of Implementation: Having a Plan and acknowledging the practical physical details necessary for creative implementing and manifesting into meaningful desirable outcomes. Daily Task Lists (Next Actions, Phone Calls, Errands, Appointments, etc), Master Task List, Schedule of Appointments and Work Obligations. Projects List, Areas of Focus (Mind Rooms), Long Term Goals and Visions, Someday/Maybe Wish Lists.

4-REVIEW & RESPOND - The trickiest part because it is about REMEMBERING, not just updating and refining the lists but knowing the right CUE to ACT (the next step). Proper review not only establishes everything neatly and to perfection on paper or digital calendars, via daily, weekly and monthly reviews of all lists, but more importantly PREPARES YOU TO ACT at the appropriate time and place, as if one was going on stage in theatrical performance (and sometimes before a large audience!).

5-ACTION & WILLINGNESS - If it means starting exactly where you are here/now and noticing directly in front of you what needs clearing, cleaning, collecting, processing, etc, then DO IT. Although the most streamlined and well prepared actions arise out of proper organization and review, there are immediate responses to the environment that are also within the individual's responsibility to take action, spur of the moment situations that crop up during the day. There is also the action of DEFINING WORK, which is essentially what David Allen's system for "Getting Things Done" is for. The final follow through is in the ACTION, the forward moving progression by which the idea becomes an actuality.

*If there is a Sixth Step I would equate with the Sixth Sense... this is Intuition and Inner Guidance system, beyond the purely concrete and practical aspects, which is really no other than your own core VALUES.

JDZ

Freewill versus Environment

"Life is a complexity of hurdles" says a co-worker in a current conversation I'm having. How appropriate to the blog I am about to write! There are many who take the new age perspective that say environment plays no role at all, which is also to say that personal experience and karma plays no role. However untrue in the ultimate sense, both ego and environment (subject & object) may be, they are so very true in light of *the present moment* and what IS. In light of what actually is, there is good karma and graceful expression, where our thoughts, feelings and actions are intuitive, in harmony; and more commonly there are experiences that reveal how imperfect and often out of alignment this 'intuition' actually is.

It is from this base of existence, from the Earth (not from the Sky) that one must proceed, through trials and tribulations on this plane, and only in this way is freewill a possibility in this life. A specific context, a matrix of human earthly experience must exist in order for our Essence or Spirit to have life, meaning and creative substance. With all the joy that comes with being on Earth, there are also certain realities... like living in a world gone mad, where it is only the wealthy and well to do who cannot understand why everyone around them is not all love and light all the time. Maybe good karma got these folks to where they are now, and it is most deserving, but then many seem awfully judgmental toward any/all who struggle and whose present karma is in taking the uphill road of obstacles, challenges, sacrifice and ultimately selflessness.

This morning I got called into work suddenly on a day that I wanted more than anything to have off. Because of this and because my partner also had to work, the cat was not allowed out, was crying and miserable. At least two us would've been happier, supposedly, if I had stayed home today as originally planned... but that did not happen. I was called and I came, and am not in a position to turn down extra hours. That is the reality... to a large extent living within the limits AND being flexible, ready for anything and everything. "Living life on life's terms" as they say in 12 Step Programs.

So in my humble opinion it is not the individual who denies and shuts out the world that finds freedom and discovers the Divine Grace and Benevolence, but he/she who immerses oneself in the process, is willing (on occasion) to sink deep into the depths of pain, sorrow, compassion and learn to live comfortably with the discomforts of existence.

Joel David Zenie

The Productivity Investments

We can all be more productive, as individuals and organizations. There is always value that can be added with only the resources at hand. But what increases productivity? Not more resources, as a rule. More money that produces the same result per dollar spent is no improvement. What generates more for the energy invested is the conscious insertion of at least one of four things that don’t happen by themselves: clearing, focusing, structuring, and action.

(1) Cleaning and clearing. Any activity that does not handle its own waste appropriately is going to increase drag on the system and cause unnecessary effort to endure and deal with accumulated residue. What’s not needed any more? Old projects, outworn policies and procedures, old un-renegotiated commitments, hung up body toxins - anything taking up space and attention and not creating value, when removed, will increase flow and output automatically. But it takes intention and action to eliminate stuff - it becomes more and more inert if it isn’t consistently infused with conscious interest.

(2) Focusing. Psychic and physical forces are automatically mobilized with a focus and rapidly dispersed and exhausted without one. What’s the purpose...for this meeting, this proposal, this vacation, this department, this desk, this job? What are we trying to do? Where are we going? Clear answers to these questions create energy which produces results with less effort. But it takes focus to direct a focus. Unattended, distraction creeps in like a thief in the night.

(3) Structuring. Look around at the physical structures you see right now. They exist not as value in themselves but for what they create – comfort, protection, support, communication, focus, visibility – with minimal energy expended. With no structures we would have a heck of a time maintaining those experiences with just our own bodies. With no list of all our errands at hand when we’re out and about, we’re likely not as productive as we could be. If no one is designated to answer the phone, everyone has to waste attention on it when it rings. If my paint brushes are not in order, I’m limiting my creative expression. Structures don’t show up by themselves. Productive people are always asking: How can I better organize and streamline what I’m doing?

(4) Action. It’s easier to move when you are already in motion. It takes less effort to redirect something going in the wrong direction than to get something going from a standing start. Fear of the unknown and of potential negative consequences of imperfection can easily create the analysis paralysis. If something needs to be different than it is and there is no “next action” decided yet, there will tend to be debilitating angst as well as zero motion. Initiating a simple next physical step is often the key to releasing stored energy and generating productive momentum. But it requires a concentration of intention to hold the mind steady toward a pinpoint of action.

Any one of these four dynamics can improve the quality and quantity of your outputs, but each requires a conscious effort to employ. And any one of them, underemployed, can undermine it. You could have a clean, focused, active department that lacked good job descriptions, and it won’t be as effective as it could be. A team could be well structured, working, with clean in-baskets, and still not be focused on what they needed to do appropriately. And you could have a hard-charging goal-oriented, organized executive with tons of incomplete communications and commitments weighing him down like an albatross.

A person in sustainable high performance keeps a focus on what’s important, captures and organizes all the open loops still relevant to their life and work, and consistently takes action on expressing and completing that which is theirs to do. If you’re not operating from that place as much as you’d like, which of these productivity-relevant areas is your weak suit right now? Which might be the improvement opportunity for your organization, or for your family? Are things as clean, focused, structured, and active as they could or need to be in all meaningful areas? What would be a good investment strategy?

"A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment." - Walter Lippman

For more David Allen Company tools and educational content, check out our GTD Products section at davidco.com. For our online learning center, visit GTD Connect at gtdconnect.com. ©David Allen Company 2008. All rights reserved.