BRILLIANT ARTICLE: 21 Ways Rich People Think Differently Than Average People rsvlts.com/2012/09/06/21-… via @RSVLTS … READ IT!!!
Archives for November 2012
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Foolish Wisdom … Making The World Go ‘Round …
“Foolish wisdom is about dealing with the world in ways you have not before …”
Challenge is …
Most folks can’t get out of their own way
What I mean by “most folks can’t get out of their own way” is that they lead with their limitations. Of course, they don’t mean to … heck, they don’t even know their doing it 90-plus % of the time … but they do nonetheless.
The reason most folks lead with their limitations can be boiled down to just a few things:
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Their limitations are intertwined with their “success formula” – i.e.: how they know to create the successes they do
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They perceive the world from a limited point of view that’s relatively fixed and unchanging, i.e.: myopic perception
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What they’ve experienced is what they think they’ll always experience, i.e.: they project their past into their future
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The education they’ve had defines the world for them as they know it, i.e.: they haven’t learned to use their senses
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Reality as they know it to be has a singular form that’s unchanging, i.e.: they seldom if ever challenge their beliefs
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Truth/Knowledge/Learning … whatever … all exist “out there” beyond them, i.e.: expertise is external to them
I’m sure I could extend the list, but why? If you don’t get the pattern from what I’ve included above, more items in the list isn’t going to make it any clearer for you. In fact I could probably make it just one list item and cover the whole gambit …
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Only socially validated and reinforced values are acceptable to them, i.e.: what they know instinctively and intuitively is put aside when they are confronted by others who demand socially acceptable “proof” … they are externally organized and other-referencing, versus internally organized and self-referencing
Now there’s nothing wrong with being externally organized and other-referencing per se … BUT it’s a function of interplay between context and content … and timing. When you know you don’t know, and you seek external input, from experts or otherwise, that’s wise … BUT, when you have gathered the information and knowledge you need the ultimate decision about what it means always remains personal … ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE WHAT’S TRUE FOR YOU.
This may seem obvious and self-evident, and to a very great extent it should be and is so. The challenge for most people is clear however …
SELF-DOUBT
FWIW I’m a big fan of doubt … until I don’t. To quote my own mentor, Roye Fraser …
“When in doubt don’t.”
What Roye taught was that doubt meant, “not enough information” – simply meaning, you need to gather more information than you have, so you can remove the doubt. So until you become settled within yourself don’t take any action you don’t need to take before you need to take it.
The key in that statement is: “until you become settled within yourself don’t take any action you don’t need to take” …
Yet, the deep challenge for most people is they’ve never learned how to know when they are settled within themselves, so they continue to look for and count on external information and validation, i.e.: social proof.
What to do about it …
(escaping the pattern of leading with your limitations)
This is in a very large part why I’ve shifted the presentation of what I’m doing around to focus on the idea of “Foolish Wisdom” … i.e. dealing with the world in ways you have not before (that will make you more successful).
“Foolish Wisdom” is the wisdom of the Fool
This seems so very self-evident, yet most folks have forgotten who or what the Fool truly represents.
The Fool doesn’t represent stupidity, mental limitation, sensory inhibition or even immaturity as some seem to think.
The Fool represents the innate, naive, childlike wisdom that perceives with clarity and without distortion what is happening around them.
The Fool is NOT childish, but childlike … a distinct difference. The Fool first perceives and then acts, without prejudice. When you get that last statement you’ll get how profound the position of the Fool truly is … beyond where some vast majority of people can or do act from themselves.
Let’s step back for a moment to an earlier part of this post. Take a look at these four bullet points again in relation to the statement about who the Fool perceives and acts:
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They perceive the world from a limited point of view that’s relatively fixed and unchanging, i.e.: myopic perception
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What they’ve experienced is what they think they’ll always experience, i.e.: they project their past into their future
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The education they’ve had defines the world for them as they know it, i.e.: they haven’t learned to use their senses
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Reality as they know it to be has a singular form that’s unchanging, i.e.: they seldom if ever challenge their beliefs
You can see that if these bullet points are accurate about how most people operate, it’s almost diametrically opposed to how the Fool operates. The typical person’s operating position is mired in prejudice, based on what they have been taught, what they’ve experienced and what they already believe. As it says, “they project their past into their future” … and this applies to how they judge what they haven’t experienced or learned about yet.
In working with some of the largest, most progressive and most well-funded businesses in the world, I’ve had the opportunity to counsel the senior most leaders of those organizations regarding decisions they needed or wanted to make (and sometimes about the ramifications of decisions they’ve already made). I’ve also spent thousands of hours in rooms with these same folks doing developmental training and facilitation work with them.
What I’ve found again and again is that these bright, extremely well educated, accomplished and successful individuals sometimes don’t know their rectum from a hole in the ground when it comes to making good decisions, taking meaningful action and/or leading others to do the same!
The “standard path” that many senior business leaders take (and you can include most entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals in this group too) … is to use past performance to determine the future direction and action they should, will and do implement. STUPID! STUPID!! STUPID!!! Not only do they do this in their organizations as leaders … often based on “best business practice” bullshit … they also do it in their personal lives. STUPID! STUPID!! STUPID!!! (I can’t say or emphasize this enough regarding this ridiculous pattern of thinking and behavior.)
Okay, let’s back off a minute … calm down and cool off, shall we?
Why would anyone do this if it were such a stupid thing to do?
Three profoundly powerful reasons:
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Because it’s embedded in their success strategy
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Because they’ve learned that this is the way to do things
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Because it’s socially acceptable to do it this way
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And, when they do they get massive CYA (Cover Your Ass) benefits
Simply put, they don’t know any better … so they do what they know.
On the other hand, the Fool always knows that they don’t know … so they can’t do (act on) what they don’t know … instead the Fool acts “in time” based on real data/information in the system as it emerges, i.e.: their perception, decision-making and action strategy is always emergent.
Where to go (I’m going …) from here …
I’ve learned a tremendous amount of how to help people make transformational change in the last two plus decades of doing the work I do … and most of it revolves around helping them to unwind bad learning.
The starting point of real change is the ability to accept that what you’re doing now, and the way you’re doing it doesn’t work … or at least doesn’t work as well as it could. You’d have to be willing to try what you haven’t tried before … and YOU can’t do that … literally!!!
YOU can’t do what you haven’t done/tried before, because YOU won’t even be able to recognize it if it bit you on your arse!!!
You can literally only see, hear, feel, taste and smell what you are already accustomed to … until the doors of perception you operate from are opened further than they are now …
YOU CAN’T DO THIS YOURSELF!!! …
It must be done from outside of YOURSELF
There are pretty much two ways to get there … i.e.: outside of yourself:
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You can step aside from what you now know and believe … putting all your learning, experience and beliefs aside
-or-
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You can allow someone who has been where you haven’t been perceptually to open the doors of perception for you
This is the work I’ve now committed myself to doing, i.e.: working with clients to provide them with Foolish Wisdom … pointing to the emergent present with enough clarity, humor and provocation so that they can see, hear, feel, taste and smell it for themselves.
In this regard I see myself as the “Wise Fool” leading the way by proving that I don’t know … claiming to neither possess nor offer anything except the most valuable thing of all for the truly wise … NOTHING.
Hell, that must be a claim you can believe …
“When you come to me I promise you I’ll do my best to neither have nor give you anything, and if we’re successful you’ll leave with NOTHING for yourself.”
There’s really only one good reason to pursue Foolish Wisdom for yourself …
Because you want to make better decisions and take more meaningful action in your life.
By making a commitment to become a Wise Fool yourself –
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you’ll become a better leader …
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you’ll experience life more fully …
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you’ll transcend the limitations that you now encounter repeatedly …
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you’ll find a way to achieve what you haven’t before …
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you’ll transform your relationships – with your spouse/lover, children, parents, friends, employer, employees, co-workers – EVERYONE …
you’ll begin …
Having the experience of YOUR life!
(both on your own and with others)
Foolishly yours,
Joseph Riggio, Wise Fool and Provocateur Extraordinaire
Princeton, NJ
PS – Soon enough I’ll be announcing my workshops for 2013 … in the meantime you can still register to attend the MythoMania program here in NJ on Nov 29 and 30, Thursday and Friday … and it’s almost FREE, my gift to the MythoSelf community each year …
MythoMania 2012 Register NOW
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Is The Future Of The Universe Uncertain?
CAUTION: Please don’t read my musings on the nature of the Universe, Reality and How To Live Your Life Well … unless you already know me or it’s just gonna piss you off …
I’ve been exploring the concept of teleology for years. That the future “pulls” the present towards it forms the basis of teleological consideration. Or maybe it would be better put to say that the present contains the future that draws it forward within it.
Understanding that the teleological consideration differs from the idea of historical precedent driving the system forward resides at the core of the consideration I’ve been exploring. In other words there are two primary explanations that are used to explain why the system evolves/unfolds as it does:
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The system is deterministic and like a billiard table the events that have been set in motion create effects in the system that continue driving the system forward until all the energy in the system is used and the system runs down in entropic ruin.
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The system is teleological and is heading to an end point that is given and pull the system forward in a particular direction in an ongoing way such that it cannot but manifest the form that is intended by the system in the same way that a seed cannot but produce the plant it contains.
I don’t actually believe in either explanation myself, and at the same time I am much more a fan of the latter in terms of the way I choose to organize my own personal experience on a pragmatic level. However …
I don’t believe the system even exists as is popularly expressed or experienced within the current paradigms … e.g.: religious, scientific, social, etc.
My personal experience is that the evolution/unfolding of the Universe is simultaneously unknown and complete, i.e.: the Universe is neither evolving or unfolding … and that our experience of it in ordinary terms is simply a reflection of a source experience that goes beyond anything comprehensible within the construct of a material Universe operating within the boundaries of physical laws (even at the quantum level), and/or constrained by space and or time.
The closet description I get of this comes from the work of quantum physicist David Bohm, and his work “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” where he poses that Information not Matter or Energy forms the essential structure of the Universe.
So the question, “Is The Future Of The Universe Uncertain?” becomes an essential, or “deep,” question. From this question we can begin to uncover what I refer to as what is “real” – the essence of what you can count on to be true based on your own self-verification alone. Answering a “deep” question becomes important only if you want to become free in the sense of becoming a fully realized adult human being, fully developed and mature in your own right
When you get beyond the childish illusion that life as you know it is “happening out there” somewhere, being able to self-determine your experience becomes the primary objective. It forms the entire basis for having your own life versus the one imposed upon you from birth. This is what I refer to when I use the words “free,” “freedom,” or “liberation” in the context of living your life.
We are taught two conflicting ideas that by the time most folks are in young adulthood trap them, A) that we are self-determining, i.e.: we possess free will, and B) that the Universe is deterministic and therefore our destiny is out of our hands, i.e.: we are the product of our ancestry, environment and personal history and trapped to live out our lives within those boundaries. In some cases there is a belief in a G-d or gods that also play into the equations tilting the deterministic trajectory of our lives one way or another. So we lose twice, A) we’re responsible for everything we do and must suffer the consequences therein, and B) we have no real control over our lives and therefore must accept our fate.
Yet what if both scenarios are simply incorrect, i.e.: the result of wrong thinking perpetuated by millennia of wrong thinking, deepened by theologians, philosophers and scientists ad infinitum???
What if everything we experience is simply subjective hallucination, phenomenological projection, imagination … what if our entire lives are just what we make up about them?
What if David Bohm is right, and the Universe is structured on Information and not Matter or Energy? What would that mean to living your life out as you know it?
Well this has been part of the essential quest I’ve been on for two and half decades. I’ve answered it fully for myself … and I’m what you can call both self-realized and self-satisfied, but I’ve continued seeking the means to articulate the premise I’ve been living in the work I do, including my efforts at writing about it … like here in Blognostra.
It continues to intrigue me that some folks want to know what the benefit of becoming self-realized and self-satified as a fully adult human being, i.e.: attaining fully maturity and the realization of our potential as human beings, is … and the answer continually comes up NOTHING … not a darn thing, other than the reward of being an adult human being.
The reward of being an adult human being of course is that you’ve stopped living the lie, the illusion … you’ve taken over your life, and you can begin to have the experience of living it … YOUR LIFE!
This was enough for me to trash everything I thought I had when I began this journey, including trashing all the beliefs I had about what made being in the journey worthwhile, e.g.: fame, fortune, relationships … and I replaced those beliefs with a burning desire to become free. By “burning desire” I mean an internal fire that consumed me as I knew myself to be then … someone I long ago stopped being.
What I now know is that the future of the Universe is meaningless, largely because what we think of as “the Universe” doesn’t exist as we think of it … “IT” merely is and isn’t becoming anything it isn’t already … it’s done, and so are we … from the moment we are conceived.
I had to get there, to the conclusion above, after many years of burning away all the beliefs that had become stacked and layered and intertwined about the “real” nature of the Universe as a physical, energetic experience held in a space-time continuum, quantum or otherwise.
In getting there I had to burn away all the illusions I had about who I was … who I am … who I could … would … will be/become … and get that I am done, as done as the Universe already is done. I could make it simple or trite, depending on your point of view, by saying we are literally dying from the moment we are born, but that wouldn’t capture the truth of that simple statement within the paradigm of denial most people are living from today.
A bit less trite would be the more direct comment that life is meaningless … utterly, dismally meaningless … but, despite the truth of that statement, saying it that way would engender despair in many of my readers and prevent them from reading on to the deeper message I want to convey.
From where I stand today, the realization that life is meaningless is also meaningless … and that amuses me to no end. I get who I am … what I am … the singularity that is evident when you take but the time to look … and ask the questions that lead to the irreconcilable truth … the truth of what is real when there is nothing left to consider and you’ve reached in inevitable end.
So then,
After you’ve reached the end, decided to do the work required to grow up, toss aside the standard bullshit that surrounds 99% of what most folks consider ‘truth’ or ‘the way it is’ what they consider ‘real’ … and you come to the actual realization that no matter what you do you’re already dying and when it’s done it won’t matter a scat … you can begin to consider what to do with whatever time you’ve got left.
This is when it get’s interesting … and a teleological proposition comes in handy …
But let’s save that for another time, eh?
Joseph Riggio, Wise Fool – Provocateur Extraordinaire
Copenhagen, Denmark
PS – HEY … you wanna really be provoked … and maybe gain the life you’ve been missing?
Come to MythoMania 2012 at the end of the month in Princeton, NJ … register here:
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Two days with me … a few MythoSelf pros … food, fun and lots of naked romping in the woods
(NOTE: Just kidding about the naked romping in the woods part … unless you find yourself in the mood to organize that outing yourself after hours … who knows … MythoMania has been known to create more and few ‘unexpected’ outcomes …)