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Deliberate Inputs

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Somewhat connected to my last posting, [ Must I work this bit alone? ] and to noticing, I’ve been tweaking the old brainwaves lately with more reading, for reading is a big part of what I think of as my “deliberate inputs.”

We need to feed our intellect with deliberate inputs similar to the way we eat to feed our bodies; we choose healthy foods that are nutritious, and foods that fortify us and fill us with energy.

These days, the old brain is hungry, craving some hopeful, positive ideas and solutions.

Good food starts with good ingredients:

Batter Mix To Go

Perhaps more today than ever before, my deliberate inputs are often chosen for their optimism, for negativity pulls me down into a gloom I prefer to stay far, far away from. Now this doesn’t mean I choose to dwell in a Pollyanna world, for I can read about bad news too. It’s the aftermath of the hearing or reading, and the follow-up in my own attitude which matters. We can learn from everything, whether the good, the bad, or the ugly — we have to choose our aftermath, and use our positive brainpower to shape it.

How you go forward will define your future, and the person you’ll be in that future.

For instance, within my deliberate inputs these days (for they constantly evolve) are:

  • The Daily Five Minutes and other conversations (always ‘MWA job one’ with me)
  • Reading more essays by ‘thought leaders’ (I’ve been culling my RSS feeds). I’m a big fan of blogs: People who blog write to think, and they set a great example in the sharing of virtual conversation
  • Book reading. I’m a way bigger fan of books — the good ones are hard to write; they package a lot of substantial thought process, and they pull in more research
  • Writing for its physical triggering connection (writing as a way of thinking things through)
  • Gratitude journaling for Mahalo-living, and to keep up my positive expectancies
  • ‘Imi ola Change Choosing — always important for me: Focus (in goal-setting) is another word for Intention
  • Weekly Reviews so I’m balanced between what I study, and what I actually do accomplish
  • Television only via DVR’d selections. News read online or in Sunday paper editions
  • I look for biographies and documentaries: They are ‘Ike loa’s ‘learning from people’ and from their experience

As electioneering ramps up here in America, I get very concerned about what Bill Davidow has called “Life in the Age of Extremes.” There is much ‘other possibility’ within the extreme polarity of being Republican or Democrat in ideology. We must all be working on our own Deliberate Inputs to interject more hope into life.

Being hopeful, can be a direct result of Ha‘aha‘a, the value of humility, and the way we’ve spoken of ‘finding decisions’ here at Talking Story: Can you see with your ears? How open-minded are you, and how willing are you to weigh the opinions of others? Much of it is about proactive listening, so you can choose to live with a greater confidence — it’s a confidence that you’ve uncovered and discovered the best answer, because you’ve gone looking for it. It’s cultivating an optimistic attitude which will align with your values, keeping positive expectancy in your life.

So much of this starts with being very choosy and deliberate about your own inputs.

I strongly encourage you to sit with this as a writing exercise of your own. I gave you a current listing of what I think of as my Deliberate Inputs: What are yours?

Listen well to be well, and start with good, healthy ingredients.
Rosa

Postscript: On the reading front, if you’d like to come with me, and follow the rabbit trails of my finds, remember to check in with Ho‘ohana Aloha, my Tumblr — that’s where I tend to clip them.

Bonus Links: Read what Dan Oestreich has to say On Finding Confidence. He also wrote about polarity recently, in Contribution to Society.

Are you able to discount your own certainty?

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For that is what it takes to be open-minded —and being open-minded is but the start of possibility in your bigger and better thinking, thinking your brain is fully capable of.

Spikes

Voltaire said,

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd position.”

Meet Dr. David Eagleman, neuroscientist (Link to PopTech2010 Video). I love speakers who can communicate as eloquently as Dr. Eagleman. Trust me, he’s a scientist you’ll enjoy listening to!

“90% of the universe is what we call ‘dark matter.’ That’s a lot to sweep under the rug!”
— Dr. David Eagleman

In his presentation, Dr. Eagleman presents possibilianism:

At 13:52: Possibilianism is “the act of exploration of new ideas and a comfort with the scientific temperment of creativity and holding multiple hypotheses in mind… It’s not that anything goes; anything goes at first, and then we import the tools of science to rule out parts of the possibility space.”

What’s cool, is that “…possibilianism picks up where the toolbox of science leaves out; it’s where we no longer have tools to address it [the magnitude of all we don’t yet know.]”

So why should you bother with this video at all? (It will explain Possibilianism in about 20 minutes.)

In the crush of the holiday season the year will turn, and like it or not, welcome it or not, we will all do a great deal of thinking about ourselves and the world we live in. I urge you to frame your thinking within greater possibility. Give yourself a gift, and let your growth in.

In his talk, Dr. Eagleman will explain that we must seek comfort with multiple narratives.

“This is not just a plea for simple open-mindedness, but for an act of exploration of new ideas. …go back into your world, and live a life free of dogma, and full of awe and wonder. See if you can celebrate possibility, and praise uncertainty.”

This is something you have to work at, because old conditioning can fight you:

At 6:18: You don’t need to be an anthropologist to recognize that our nervous systems absorb whatever our culture pours into us” it is not coincidence that there isn’t a blossoming of Islam in Springfield Ohio, and there isn’t a blossoming Protestantism in Mecca, because we are products of our culture; we accept whatever is poured into us, right? If there was one truth, you’d expect it would spread everywhere evenly, but the data doesn’t support that”

Merry Christmas my friends. However your faith got you where you are today, I’m celebrating the possibility of where we all have yet to go in both heart and mind.

Many thanks to Liz Danzico for introducing me to David Eagleman.

On the 5th Day of Christmas: Wonder

Wonder. To have an inner capacity that can always make room for awe and wonder is such a blessing. To return to child-like innocence and acceptance, to be rendered speechless, and have it feel good and right, never helpless. To not have all the answers but feel it is perfectly fine not to, to just have wonder.

How is wonder an Aloha Virtue for you?

Decision Making: How do you do it?

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I am not asking this question as the preface to a definitive how-to blog posting, but to you individually and directly:

Are you aware of the process you go through when you make your most important decisions, the ones which leave you with absolutely no regrets, no looking back?

For instance, is it a very solitary process for you, concentrating most deliberately on what you think, and what you then realize you believe, or is it important to you to bounce your gut instincts off others too? Do you write yourself through it (I do… my morning pages is a BIG part of my process) or do you talk your way through it? Do you bother documenting it at all, or visually mind-mapping it?

DecisionMaking

Photo Credit: “How’d we get here, again?”
by Margolove on Flickr

This is where I am coming from
(with the decision making question)

I have been focused on starting my 2009 by making a series of key decisions for me, for I believe that despite how painful this is for many of us, the current recession we are in has a significantly important silver lining, that of an open-mindedness to reinvention that is unprecedented in my lifetime (or my truly conscious of it lifetime).

And if you know me at all, you know that I love the prospects of creative reinvention. Most of the thought leaders I know, are open-minded contrarians.

Thus I have been systematically looking at all my systems and processes (because I am also organizationally obsessive), and challenging myself with pulling the rug out from under any automatic pilot I might be on. In my case I started with a time audit (a practice that Dwayne has coached me well in over the years I have known him), one synced with a comprehensive monthly review (just longer in scope than a Weekly Review) and then I listed all the tools I use (primarily with my productivity practices and digital software to start) so I could go down the list, and ask myself these questions in regard to every single thing listed:

As you read them, get a for-instance in your mind, such as the email program you use, the blogging platform or RSS reader you use, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, whatever… just choose something.)

  1. Am I still diligently purposeful with using this tool for my original intention, or not?
  2. If yes, is this still the best possible tool or process for me (with that still-worthy intention), or am I now aware of a new one which is better, and should replace it? What are the pros and cons of sticking with this versus switching?
  3. If no, am I completely clear on how my purpose has changed? Do I need to newly explore my intentions so that my attention (and thus both my time sink and resulting results) matches up optimally?

You will recall our learning that the intention and attention match-up is very, very powerful! Ho‘ohana: Redefine the word “work” and make it yours.

For me, the key in this process is coming to clarity – working “wide awake” and conscious of how I work and making sure my why? is still valid, versus sleep-walking or going through the motions.

There is also the simple realization that our purposes do change as time goes by, and that’s okay – in fact, it probably is good: we’re learning and progressing. So… we should be sure we are not stuck in the automatic pilot of an old process that does not give us optimal results.

How can decision making help us feel?

So as I do this, fully realizing why my current decision-making process is filling me with such new energy, I want to stop for a moment and encourage you to do the same thing: Understand when you soar with making your key decisions.

It is a knowing about yourself, and how you do what you do, that is very valuable. It is valuable to you, to be fully aware of how you make your best decisions, because then you can always be sure to repeat your process. It fills you with confidence, and it is highly likely that it boosts your energy levels – it certainly does for me.

It is very valuable to the rest of us too, our knowing that you make sound decisions. This is a way that you can very easily serve us as your community of fellow human beings.

If you talk about this at work, with your team, or with your boss or peers, you can help them identify their best decision-making process too. I am sure you can imagine the win-win that could be.

Look for the gut-level results to know if your decision making process is working for you, or if you have to tweak it. You want the bold stuff in this list of bullets, not the italics:

  • When you have arrived at your decision, do you feel confident, or are you still left with questions?
  • When you have arrived at your decision, is it easy to tell others about it clearly, or are you still unsure how you would articulate it?
  • Did you start to take some concrete actions moving you forward while still within your decision-making, or did you arrive at a decision still not sure where to start?
  • If you had been documenting your process, did your excitement about the decision cause you to abandon your documentation in favor of just doing it, or are you still documenting diligently to be sure you didn’t miss something?
  • Do you feel newly energized even if it is a tough decision to take action with, or did your decision-making process leave you feeling tired and drained?

I would wager that 2009 will in some way present you with a major decision of some kind. I am no psychic, and I have no idea what that decision may turn out to be about for you, but 2009 has just shaped up to be that kind of crucible-for-many year (remember this Jim Collins quote from the other day?).

When you embark on that kind of crucible decision-making, pay attention to what your process is, realizing that there are three different parts to it: Your thinking/choosing process of decision making (which this talk-story is about), the decision itself, the execution of that decision which is more accurately called decision management.

If you have a decision making process you feel works very well for you, share more about it with us in the comments would you? Let’s learn from each other, so we all get better at it.

Postscript A bit more about this:
I believe that despite how painful this is for many of us, the current
recession we are in has a significantly important silver lining, that
of an open-mindedness to reinvention that is unprecedented in my lifetime (or my truly conscious of it lifetime).