Foundation For Change

Agreement Agreement is the foundation of society. The glue that bonds us through struggle, and the light in the darkest times. A bold claim, so let's begin from the inside out, to illustrate an expansive idea. Internally we're wired for agreement and disagreement. We hedonistically strive to shed pain from our lives, and seek what is universally pleasurable. The Big-5 personality model, elevated to scientific utility by Goldberg in 1981, has agreeableness as a core factor of our personality which has later been vigorously extrapolated cross -culturally, and longitudinally. Agreeableness is pondered by the evolutionary psychologists to be something akin to the virtue which allows us to stick together in groups and work toward common goals, something mostly unique in this world, especially across generations. A spectrum of agreeableness exists however where negative can exist on both ends, see one high in agreeableness will likely put others needs above their own, find themselves...

Ownership I really need to talk about ownership. Writing my first few blogs made it a curious choice of where I might take things next. I've selected ownership because I find it both an instrumental and fundamental virtue for success both at work, and at home. Starting with a strong influence on me, Jocko Willink, this principle is the title of a great read, "Extreme Ownership", by he and other ex-US Navy Seal, Leif Babin. With roots in hard-line masculine thought about being tough, hardened, and exercising a self-discipline very few can match, this concept is a peculiar one for me to adapt. To be accurate though, the book is a curious and highly effective balance between engrossing war stories from Iraq, and modern-day business consulting; a fusion that works. Firstly, I must confess, I've long had a fascination for the military in general. I always thought it would be my oath, but it wasn't to be... And that is okay. I've channelled this dream into somewhat ...

Hesitation Hesitation is the enemy of change, and thus, the enemy of growth. A funny thing though really, do you think all creatures ponder their thoughts to the extent that they may consciously stop their own actions? Hesitation after all is not necessarily akin to fear. Although fruit of the same weedy tree, spawning out dendritically in our brains, it's not necessarily agreeable that hesitation occurs the same way that fight, flight, or freeze may. There is much philosophy surrounding hesitation as a subset of fear. My favourite example is that from the behaviourists. Albert Bandura coined Social Learning Theory, paving the way for a mechanism that is still contemporarily relatable. That is, around experience. The argument being that every experience is made up of many smaller experiences, and the smaller down you break each, the closer you get to some micro examples that are strikingly familiar to you, having happened the same as before. In this way, the phenomenon of Déjà vu ...

When? The when is often the most challenging of any endeavour. Often completely tied up in our own psychology, I'm sure we're all going to resonate with, "This year I'm going to get fit" type goal. The problem is that our pre-contemplative stage is often subconscious and difficult to conceive. We then rush to contemplation. It feels good, so most of us spend a great deal of time contemplating what, how, and when. Launching from here without structure is often disastrous for two reasons; 1. We don't achieve our goal, and are overweight by Easter again, and 2. We feel bad. Whilst some of us cope better with failure than others, sometimes managing to use our cognition to re-frame these to lessons, or reflections on small gains. Others however dwell a great deal on these failures, creating negative feedback loops that crash our dopaminergic reality into the ground profoundly. Sometimes making it very nearly impossible to get out of bed, or get anywhere on-time. Th...