It’s been a wild trip here in Aspen. Yesterday afternoon more brilliant presentations ... although to be fair some were better than others ... and the conclusion of the day’s program were the presentations by three of the TED prize winners. If nothing else the folks who hang around TED are doing things ... exciting things, interesting things, compassionate things ... but definitely not sitting around twiddling their thumbs ...

Hey all,

One of the most intensely moving presentations IMO was given by Phil Zimbardo a social psychologist who worked at Standford for years and was the architect of the Standford Prison Experiment. He talked about “The Lucifer Effect” about “How Good People Turn Evil.” The most powerful part of this presentation for me were the raw photographs from Abu Ghraib ... truly disturbing images. Yet listening to Phil explain how people turn to evil was fascinating ... and even hopeful by the end of his presentation. He concluded with an idea I loved ... Heroic Imagination.

The intention of this entire session “Will Evil Prevail” was both terrifying and hopeful. The presenters included:

Irwin Redlener public health doctor, a specialist on disaster medicine who works with policymakers about the preparedness and lack of preparedness of dealing with potential disasters and the failure of the systems designed to deal with them.

Samantha Power the head of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy a former and current journalist she’s been a close observer of U.S. foreign policy. She spoke to the need to have people on the ground who can and will address the need for collaboration, reconciliation and peace-making.

All in all these presentation opened the way for the afternoon presentations by the TED Prize winners:

Neil Turok a cosmologist, who has established a program to create a post graduate center in South Africa for advanced math and science, with the intention that in our lifetime we will see world-class scientists coming out of Africa where this education has not been present until just now.

Dave Eggers best-selling author of “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and other books, who established a writing and tutoring lab in San Francisco to offering after-school programs to local students for free that has since opened six more chapters in cities across the U.S.

Karen Armstrong former nun and religious thinker and author, who is working towards large scale ecumenical understanding ... bringing together all the religions of the world into common conversation about humanity.

WOW! ... what a day of data and information flowing in from every quarter. As I said yesterday this has to be one of the major conference events on the planet ... if you think.

After all that the group divided into smaller groups that gathered at some local Aspen restaurants for some social time and dinner. A good time seemed to be had by all ... but more importantly from the reports I got back this morning people had yet another opportunity to connect with one another making the case for TED being a place that revolves around people connecting.

This morning it all began again ... the first session was all about “How do we create?” ... with presentations by John Knoll, visual effects wizard from StarWars/Lucas Film fame ... Amy Tan, novelist and author of “The Joy Luck Club” among other best selling books ... Yves Behar, designer who’s work includes the Jawbone bluetooth headset in addition to other award winning products and projects ... Robert J. Lang, origami artist and you’ve got to visit his website - this is not what you think about when you think about what origami is ... Tod Machover composer and inventor who built a technology called hyperinstruments and a software for making music even when you’re not a musician with a brilliant display that you’ll simply have to wait until it appears on TED.com to see for yourselves ...

This afternoon it continues ... a smorgasbord of ideas ... and I’ll report a bit more of what we’re experiencing in Aspen later today or tomorrow ... now I have to get back to the show ...

Joseph Riggio

Aspen, Colorado

I am at the TED Conference in Aspen and it’s Day Two ... you can join those of us who are either here in Aspen or in Monterey live virtually by visiting TED.com. I understand that they are broadcasting the conference in high quality video so you can at least see the sessions and take advantage of some of the most exciting ideas on the planet. Here’s my first review from the ground to whet your appetite for what is TED ...

Hello Folks,

I have been a TED.com fan for years ... I go there for inspiration and intelligence ... I recommend it to my students at Parsons ... and I’m sure after this experience my appreciation will have only increased. However, what I wasn’t able to get before was the electric energy of attending a TED conference live. Ultimately from this perspective, participating in the conference live what you get are that connections with people resides at the heart of TED.

One advantage of these connections are that they extend the experience of the presentations because it becomes possible to see the effect the presentations have on a live audience as they experience the presenter and the topic with you. Being here also immerses you in the social experience of the TED gathering. As fascinating as the presentations are, the people that TED draws ... their diversity, their range of accomplishments, their willingness to engage with the ideas ... are just as fascinating or more so. As I said, the atmosphere has an electricity to it ... and I’ve been told that even more true of the Monterey crowd.

So far the topics have covered:

Day ONE:

Among the fascinating ideas that jumped out for me have been:

Patricia Burchat, Particle Physicist from Standford University presenting on dark matter and the expanding universe.

Peter Ward, Paleontologist who talked about the relationship between global warming ... the transition from reptilian life to mammalian life ... the impact of bacterial blooms and hydrogen sulfide ... life preserving medical technology ... the Gaia Theory - NOT! ... and my favorite, the lack of intelligent life in the Universe other than on Planet Earth (I’ve been a proponent of this idea to the bane of my intellectual standing according to some for years ...) how’s that for list of things to connect?!!?!?!!

Craig Venter, Genetics Pioneer and Paul Rothemund, DNA Origamist talking about synthetic life forms.

Susan Blackmore, Pyschologist who took Richard Dawkins work on memes and expanded them into a full fledged science, memology.

In addition there have been a couple of kick-ass musical performances including one be Kaki King, who you must hear if you have never heard here before ... she’s an incredible guitarist with a virtuoso technique!

BTW I have to say that I’ve never been to a better organized or higher quality conference in my life! These people are brilliant at putting together a world-class conference. From the logistics to the on-site coordination and help, to the extra-added “goodies” like the best conference gift bag I’ve ever seen ... beyond what I’ve even considered could be possible as a gift bag. The organizers and sponsors are totally into making TED the best conference on the planet ... while keeping it feeling totally non-commercial!

So you are probably getting that I am having a blast and learning a lot in the process ... and we’re only half way through Day Two. What I find so exciting revolves the excitement of ideas ... not so much what they are ... but much, much more about what they do ... they way the replicate and expand once they become public. It feels like being in the midst of something important ...

What personally excites me has to do with the idea of integral thinking ... or convergence ... ideas coming together, effecting one another, expanding from their own force ... ideas expanding beyond the boundaries of fixed categories and being considered as an interplay of a unified dynamic system that we call the Universe. This idea has yet to reach formal education that still insists upon categories of ideas, subject areas, domains of expertise. The entire academic/professional paradigm demands evidence ... proof ... of expertise as gained in a “primary area of interest.” In college these are called “majors.” In professional life these are the gates that hold out anyone without the right credentials ... regardless of proclivity, experience or skill. Yet here at TED ideas come together ... and are accepted without boundaries.

I’ll follow up after I’ve experienced a bit more of TED live ... doing my best to share some of what I’m getting here with you. And, I’ll likely be adding in a bit of my own commentary in one way or another over the weeks and months to come.

I’m thinking, “If they let me ... I’m coming back again next year.” I think I’ve become a TEDster.

Joseph Riggio

Aspen, Colorado

Everyday I get dozens of promotional emails offering me the opportunity to get rich ... get thin ... get strong ... get successful ... without having to do much at all, except of course to buy the program on offer. Yet every time I look at what it really takes to join the ranks of world-class elite level performers I find that the price of entry virtually always includes serious work. The question then becomes, “Do you have what it takes?”

Good Evening All,

I've been a busy little bee ... in part doing projects for clients (I've been back and forth to Europe about twice a month for the last six months), preparing for upcoming programs (we've got a MythoSelf Intensive coming up in Italy this summer, an Intentional Performance Retreat coming up in Denmark this July, and we're planning a MythoSelf Facilitator's/Trainer's Training in NJ later this year ... and that's just what I have on the boards right now ...), I've been writing and reading like a madman as well (to tell the truth the proper sequence is reading and writing).

So it would be fair to say on average I've been at it somewhere between ten and twelve hours a day between five and seven days a week for months on end. But, what I wanted to share has to do with the simple realization that what it takes to perform at elite levels includes the persistence to stay with it through the intensity of prolonged exertion - either physical and/or mental.

In examining what elite performance looks like in various contexts ... academia, athletics, business, politics ... one thing becomes immediately evident: elite performers work harder and longer than mediocre performers. It may be most interesting that these elite performers perceive this particular quality of working harder and longer not as work at all. For elite performers, what would be perceived by ordinary folks as extreme amounts of work ... i.e.: mental and/or physical exertion ... simply becomes what they do.

Despite the tendency and proliferation of offers to minimize the work it takes to succeed, elite performers tend to work harder and longer than most mediocre performers would be able to attain or sustain.

While it may be most obvious to recognize such high-level output in physical activities, like professional or olympic sporting events, the same kind of exertion exists among virtually all world-class, elite performers ... like top academics for instance. These folks tend to read more, write more and interact professionally more than all their colleagues who do not perform at the same world-class, elite levels. When we look at world-class, elite entrepreneurs/executives they simply work harder and longer than virtually all their contemporaries. World-class, elite business professionals do more, e.g.: close more deals, have more meetings, manage more people and they spend more time ... on average over sixty-five hours per week on actual work activities - not just time spent sitting at their desks.

In my experience there are at least two aspects to this phenomena of world-class, elite performance:

The second aspect, Education/Training/Practice/Experience, are mulitple expressions of the same phenomena ... i.e.: conditioning the system to respond when it counts. For arguments sake we could call this aspect, learning. To be more specific we should call it something like "effective learning" ... i.e.: learning to perform when it counts to produce results that count. This may be especially true when everyone around you thinks your down for the count!

However, I believe we have to consider another less obvious and most critical factor ... DRIVE! What I mean by "drive" includes the internal motivation an elite, world-class performer brings to the task.

Elite performers decide that they will succeed ... despite the condition ... despite the evidence to the contrary ... despite what would prevent or stop others from succeeding ... these folks simply have the personal drive to succeed at all cost to themselves.

In the old days my boxing coach would call this drive to succeed, HEART ... in fact it was the single most praiseful thing that he would say to or about anyone ... "You/They have HEART."

It takes great HEART to succeed. This translates into the willingness and the ability to persist and do what it takes to succeed. I haven't ever met, heard about or read about a world-class, elite performer who doesn't have heart. Even the folks who appear to be lost souls ... drunks, drug addicts, social misfits ... you name it ... who are nonetheless world-class elite performers have heart where it counts in regard to their domain of performance.

We can all think of them ... actors, actresses, musicians, athletes ... who have ruined their lives by their extreme inappropriate habits and/or behaviors ... who are nonetheless world-class, elite performers in their domain of expertise. Yes, when you look into their lives you find that they have innate capability—even genetic advantages for their particular skills, they have the best training/coaching available to them, and often they also have full-time handlers that can run interference for them when they misbehave. However, these folks also do what it takes to perform at the levels they do ... hundreds and thousands of hours of practice that no one ever sees ... a lifetime of interest and attention on their area of expertise ... precision focus on details unimaginable to folks less capable ... they have what it takes, and I'd argue it all begins with the drive they have to do it.

So what am I on about? Simply, that most people don't and won't do what it takes to succeed at a world-class, elite level of performance.

I'd guess that for some folks the idea that what it takes to succeed includes extraordinary effort ... working harder and longer than most people can ... signals an unpleasant scenario given what they'd like to believe. Yet what becomes incredibly obvious to anyone willing to look beyond the "I can make you rich ... thin ... successful ..." promises you'll find so many modern day gurus offering, are that the most successful world-class, elite performers are capable of extraordinary amounts of work and the kind output, learning, results and successes that come with it.

I'd like to share in closing that the simple solution to all this hard work, the solution that almost all world-class, elite performers find for themselves, begins with focusing your efforts on something meaningful and significant enough to you to capture you completely. I love Joseph Campbell's language for this kind of focus ... FASCINATION.

Simple ... find your FASCINATION and find yourself in the company of world-class, elite performers.

Joseph Riggio, Performance Development Specialist
Princeton, NJ

PS - Stay tuned for the details of the 2008 upcoming programs with Joseph ... or drop a note to Nancy if you just can't wait!

Shifting your orientation from *GOAL SETTING* to holding a particular way of orienting out towards the world ... what I call simply *BEING IN THE WORLD* ... opens the possibility that what you desire, your most deeply held expectations this upcoming year may in fact fall into place as a function of becoming ready and responding as the real-time information flows towards you from the world.

Howdy ... and Welcome ...

It seems appropriate to offer a welcome to the *NEW* front page of BlogNostra as well as to the New Year. Especially after my last posting about ending the year in appreciation and gratitude ... with a sense of anticipation about what the coming year will bring ... I wanted to set the tone for *NEW* beginnings.

I know that for some people who travel in my circles it may be common to do some goal setting around this time of year. And, of course if you happen to be a self-help, self-improvement, self-development groupie you may even have gotten some emails suggesting that the most important thing you can do at the start of the will be to set your goals and write them down. Many of those suggesting that you write your goals down base their opinions on bad research and old learning. Specifically, the idea that writing down your goals has a direct and immediate impact on achieving them because they believe that those who write down their goals have a better track record of achieving them than those who do not. Personally, I don't know of any definitive research that has established that as a fact, nor do I know of any serious social scientist claiming this to be true.

So what do I recommend instead? Well I really don't care if you write your goals down or not, but I do care where you are beginning from before you begin setting anything like a goal. I find that many people begin thinking about goals as a way to fill in what they perceive to be missing from their life. Another way of saying this would be, they begin from what they want to be present for them in their life that they don't yet have. To a large extent all the evidence I have suggests that where you begin from determines where you will end ... a kind of recursive loop that creates itself.

This has nothing to do with "manifesting" or "attraction" in the ways those ideas have become so popular lately. The idea I'm suggesting builds on the premise that only by beginning from a positively organized state will even come up with the kind of goals that are present in and from that state. In other words there are two potential orientations:

An INHIBITORY STATE organized in relation to limitations,
e.g.: what you don't have, what you haven't achieved, what you don't want ...

An EXCITATORY STATE organized in relation to possibilities,
e.g.: what you have, what you've achieved, what you want ...

What you begin to consider from the INHIBITORY STATE will be how to avoid failing or how to avoid what you don't want ... even if that means something like not wanting to be poor, or alone. Regardless of what comes up in the INHIBITORY STATE it will carry the seeds of limitation within it. So, even if you succeed in avoiding the limitation, you will still be focused on limitation and avoidance.

What you consider from the EXCITATORY STATE will be how to attain success or how to attain having what you want ... including sustaining the experience of operating successfully already. In essence the EXCITATORY STATE operates in a self-referential, self-organizing way to create ... and re-create ... itself ... i.e.: systemic recursion.

An EXCITATORY STATE establishes systemic recursion where the system become self-organizing and self-referencing, forcing your attention outwards towards the world ... what might be called a "READY STATE." In turn operating from an outward directed orientation allows you to act in and on the world in relation to manifesting the external realities you desire - both on your own and with others.

I'm proposing that instead of organizing in regard to goals, you organize in regard to establishing and sustaining a constant state of readiness ... a position that you can act from instantaneously in regard to real-time information in the environment. This position ... the READY STATE ... organizes you precisely in relation to manifesting the specific realities you desire.

From a READY STATE it can be argued that there will be no need to establish or organize in relation to goals - although you could. The orientation of the READY STATE itself becomes enough to set a direction forward. Operating from the READY STATE positions you to succeed while maintaining a particularly powerful position ... without defaulting to or even necessarily referencing goals that had been organized without the benefit of real-time information in a world that operates at light speed. When you choose first for how you are in the world ... your BEING-NESS ... then all the other pieces fall into place in direct relation to that way of being.

HAPPY NEW YEAR & BUONA FORTUNA!

Joseph Riggio
Ebeltoft, Denmark

While we often want to “restart” at the beginning of the New Year, I find that taking the time to reflect and appreciate what transpired in the year coming to an end always serves to inspire me for the year coming up ... and ending in gratitude for what I already have somehow seems more deeply satisfying than endlessly looking forward to what I might have, or have not, “someday.”

Howdy all ... and welcome to the Year's End!

Well it has been a good year all in all in the Riggio household, albeit with its ups and downs. I think I make this judgment against the weighted value of each thing that I track for in my life and when I do that I'm left with the overwhelming sense that I am truly blessed indeed!

For example it has been a tough year in some ways with a court battle that I came out the worse for at the start of the year. I have to say that I learned a few things about the injustices of our legal system and the farce that plays out as justice ... truly eye opening in the worst possible way for me on one hand ... and on the other a transformational revision of some of my most fundamental thinking. And, while that particular episode will wind up costing me about $750,000 or more before I'm done with it, the learning is probably worth a few million to me - at least one in terms of pure educational value and another couple in what I'll be able to turn it into over time (you know the lemons into lemonade rule, once you "GET IT" you'll find that it becomes a simple choice you make ... or not).

Yet set against that, it has also been one of my most successful years in terms of designing, producing and delivering MythoSelf® programs, working with some new clients, developing new models and also setting things in place for some new and extremely potentially prosperous partnerships in the upcoming year. So when I balance it all out, what could have been a devastating loss at the start of the year played out as a couple of lessons learned and somethings to put behind ... where they, the characters involved and the farce of the drama, belong ... as well as some fantastic successes and the tremendous memories that go with them.

Then I think, "What about closer to home?" Again, against the backdrop of some difficult times my family and me have pulled together as we always do and are finding ourselves closer to one another and what we hold to be most important than ever before. And, in this category all those I love are healthy ( if not necessarily all wealthy `;~> ) and I know I'll always have them in my life regardless of what else may come ... a pretty specific prediction that I made a while ago that has proven out in every way. A true blessing as I've said. While "loyalty and honor above all" means little to most, and everything to a few I also got to find out something about who my friends are ... so in the face of what could have been very difficult times the outcome has been that I've learned who I can count on and who will be there when the proverbial manure hits the fan (among some other important things)!!! Heck, "What's that worth?"

In addition it has been one of the most successful years in my history as far as I can recall in terms of taking things forward for me professionally. Material I've been working on for a decade or more has begun coming together in new ways that will be exploding in 2008. It seems like the incredible diligence to staying the course has led me to my own personal Shambhala, where much of what I've been aiming at seems to be in the process of unfolding completely ... like the bulb of a precious and rare flower planted long ago, tenderly cared for and nurtured finally coming into full bloom.

I think the only word I can apply to this year ... would be "GRATITUDE" ... simply, incredible gratitude.

Best regards and ... have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!,

Joseph Riggio
Princeton, NJ

Just to tempt you a bit I thought I'd pass out a few tidbits about some of what I have planned for 2008. I'll be sharing some of the flavor of new programs I'm developing and the ways I'm spicing up some of my existing programs over the next few weeks. For example, here's what I'm planning for my Power & Language tele-coaching series in the first half of '08:

The premise of the entire Power & Language tele-coaching program has to do with how language and power interact ... and how those who wield power use it to make things happen and get things done, both on their own and with others. So I've decided I'll be offering a Tour de Force" on some of the most profoundly powerful aspects of language that I know of ... incredibly powerful ways of using language that transform those who apply them.

What I'll be presenting will be based in part on John Searle's work on Speech Acts.

Assertives - speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition
Directives - speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular action, e.g.: requests, commands and advice
Commissives - speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, e.g.: promises and oaths
Expressives - speech acts that expresses on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition, e.g.: congratulations, excuses, thanks
Declaritives - speech acts that change reality in accord with the proposition of the declaration, e.g.: baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife

John Searle, (1975) "A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts"

However I'll be doing my best to put it all into simpler terms and make it a bit more accessible than John Searle sometimes does in his academic writing. And I'll do this by offering this material in a more accessible structure as well as in more accessible language for most people, unless you're a doctoral student (or graduate) in analytical linguistic philosophy.

For example I'll be addressing Searle's taxonomy of speech acts as follows:

Assertives = Observations —vs.— Expressives = Opinions/Judgments

Declaritives = Pronouncements That Can Change/Create Reality

Directives = Requests and Offers ... Ways of Changing the Future and Enrolling People

Commissives = Promises, Agreements and Commitments ... Relationships, Trust and Outcomes

Specifically, I'll be presenting the ways in which our speech acts, both interpersonal and intrapersonal, impact our way of being in the world and the results we get ... or fail to get, both on our own and with others. And, I'll be expanding on the work of Searle with some of the early work of Bandler and Grinder as they were in the process of developing what later became NLP (neurolinguistic programming).

What I'll be pulling out from their early material comes from what they called the "Meta-Model" a means of directly working with Transformational Grammer/Syntax and Semantic Wellformedness.

Simply put ... this is the stuff of transformational magic in the domains of personal and professional development, as well as the source code for developing elite individual and team performances. And it will be exactly what I lay out in detail so you can put it to immediate use in your own life with the start of the 2008 season of Power & Language.

And ... best of all you still have a few more hours to take advantage of the Power & Language 2007 Year End Special Offer, and all you have to do to get in on the first three months of Power & Language in 2008 while it's still 100% FREE is click on this link to send a letter to Nancy with the subject 2007 Year-End Special Offer.

For your convenience I'm copying out the complete original offer for you below:

Normally, I offer two free months when you sign up for my Power & Language" tele-coaching program or my monthly audio newsletter Unconventional Advice, but if you click here to send a letter to Nancy with the subject 2007 Year-End Special Offer I'll sign you up for three months on both absolutely free ... with no obligation or risk, and then if you decide to continue you'll get the complete access to the entire Power & Language archives as well ... over two year's worth of tele-coaching calls available for immediate download!

BUT I ASSURE YOU I WILL NOT MAKE THIS OFFER AGAIN IN 2008 ... just click here to send a note to Nancy with the subject line 2007 Year-End Special Offer and she'll come back to you with all the details before the clock strikes 12 midnight on January 1st 2008 ... ACT NOW!

[Note: This offer is only available to new subscribers, existing and past subscribers of either Unconventional Advice or Power & Language are not eligible for this offer.]

Don't wait for the ball to drop! After midnight tommorow (1 January 2008) you'll miss this incredible window of opportunity ... so ACT NOW ... click here and send your email out to Nancy before the clock strikes twelve ... 2007 Year End Special Offer !