Prime Life = Prime Results

ELÄMISEN INTOHIMO

Olen tavannut todella paljon ihmisiä elämäni varrella. Jotkut ovat jättäneet minuun myönteisen lähtemättömän jäljen, ja olen halunnut oppia soveltamaan heidän elämänasennettaan omaan elämääni. Ihailemissani ihmisissä olen havainnut intohimoisen suhteen elämään kaikkineen.

En nyt puhu sellaisista ihmisistä, jotka ovat opetelleet puhetekniikan, jonka avulla he osaavat aina vastata: ”Kiitos kysymästä, hyvin menee.” Puhun paljon syvällisemmästä asiasta. Intohimo elämää kohtaan on sellaista, että se saa meidät unohtamaan arjen surut ja näkemään asiat myönteisessä valossa. Se on toivon täyttämää elämää, jossa tulevaisuus on avoin kirja, jota itse kirjoitamme.

Haluan elää omaa elämääni intohimoisesti. On lohdullista, että se on mahdollista kaikille, vaikka olosuhteet näyttäisivät ihan miltä tahansa. Tässäkin tapauksessa oma valinta ratkaisee.

Olen myös nähnyt konkreettisia muutoksia ihmisten elämässä. He ovat löytäneet jonkin uuden inspiraationlähteen ja sitä kautta uuden elämänasenteen. Inspiraatio tarkoittaa vapaasti suomennettuna ’saada lisää happea’. Kun suostumme ottamaan toisilta lisähappea sisimpäämme, löydämme uuden intohimon elämää kohtaan.

Inspiraation löytymistä voidaan verrata tilanteeseen, jossa olemme lähdössä kesälomalle ja pitää saada monta asiaa hoidettua ennen sitä. Mietipä, kuinka nopeasti saamme ne hoidettua, kun on jotain mukavaa ja haluttua odottamassa oven takana. Ainakin useimmille meistä loma  on mukava asia, ja asennoidumme siihen myönteisesti. Niinpä haluamme nopeasti suoriutua tehtävistä, jotta pääsisimme lähtemään. Juuri ennen lomaa saamme aikaan ainakin kaksi kertaa niin paljon kuin yleensä. Mistä se johtuu? Siitä, että suostumme vastuuseen tehtävistämme ja suoritamme ne loppuun motivoituneina. Samalla tavalla käy, kun inspiroidumme: löydämme uuden asenteen elämää kohtaan.

Intohimoinen elämänasenne antaa meille paljon enemmän mahdollisuuksia kuin osaisimme kuvitellakaan.

Kuulin kerran tarinan kahdesta toisilleen tuntemattomasta kalastajasta, jotka kalastivat niin lähellä toisiaan, että pystyivät näkemään toistensa saaliin määrän ja kalojen koon. Ensimmäisenä paikalle tullut otti vastaan kaiken, mitä järvestä nousi, ja koska sitä nousi paljon, mieli oli korkealla. Hän huomasi, että toinen kalastaja heitti suuremmat kalat takaisin ja laittoi reppuunsa ainoastaan pienet.

Ihme kaveri, ensimmäinen kalastaja ajatteli.

Hetken kuluttua hän päätti selvittää, mistä oikein on kysymys. Kun hän uteli vieruskaverilta syytä eriskummalliseen valikointiin, hän sai järkevältä tuntuvan vastauksen. Toinen kalastaja totesi, ettei hänellä ollut tarpeeksi suurta paistinpannua suurempien kalojen paistamiseen. Hän oli ostanut itselleen liian pienen pannun.

Hassun tarinan opetus on, että voimme päättää hankkia itsellemme suuremmat mahdollisuudet esimerkiksi suhtautumalla elämäämme intohimoisemmin. Kun elämä tarjoaa suurempia ideoita, erilaisia oivalluksia, otetaan ihmeessä ne vastaan. Ei kannata heittää suuria mahdollisuuksia takaisin järveen ja todeta: ”Voi, kunpa minulla olisi suurempi pannu.”

Wishing for a bigger frying pan?

I would say I have met many people during my life from almost all corners of the world. Some have left a positive, permanent mark on me and I’ve wanted to learn to adapt their life attitude to my life. In the people I admire I’ve observed  relating passionately to life and all it contains.

Now, I’m not talking about people who have learned a speaking technique, by which they can always answer, “Thanks for asking, I’m doing well.” I’m talking about something much more profound. Passion for life is the kind that makes us forget the sorrows of every-day life and sees things in a positive light. It’s a life filled with hope, where the future is an open book we’re writing ourselves.

I want to live my own life passionately. It’s comforting to know it’s possible for everyone, including those whose circumstances seem bad. Even in this case your own choice is what matters.

I’ve also seen concrete changes in people’s lives. They have found some new source of inspiration and through this a new life attitude. Inspiration means, freely translated, ‘to get more oxygen’. When we agree to receive more “oxygen” from others and the universe, and breathe it in, we will find we have a new passion for life.

Finding inspiration can be compared to the situation, where we’re about to leave for a vacation and need to get many things done before it. Think about how fast we get things done, when there’s something pleasant and desired waiting behind the door. At least for most of us holidays are a pleasant thing and we relate to it positively. Consequently we want to quickly get through the tasks, so we can leave. Just before the vacation we get at least twice as much done as normally. Why is this? Because we have agreed to take responsibility for our work and we complete it, in a motivated manner. The same happens when we get inspired. We find a new attitude towards life.

 

A passionate life attitude gives us much more opportunities than we can even imagine.

I once heard a story of two fishermen, strangers to each other, who fished so close they could see the amount and size of fish the other one caught. The one who had arrived there first received everything he could get out of the lake and because he caught many fish, he felt good. He noticed, the other fisherman threw bigger fish back and put only the small ones in his backpack.

“Weird fellow”, the first fisherman thought to himself.

After a while he decided to find out what this was all about. When he asked the other fisherman for the reason for his bizarre behavior, he received a seemingly, sensible answer. The other fisherman said he didn’t have a big enough frying pan to fry the bigger fish. He had bought a too small frying pan for himself.

The moral of this silly story is, we can decide to get bigger opportunities, for example, by relating to life more passionately. When life offers bigger ideas and different insights, let’s receive them. There’s no point in throwing big opportunities back into the lake and saying, “Oh, I wish I had a bigger frying pan.”

Entropy is an immensely powerful inner friction!

 

When a person becomes accountable to himself, he has to take a stance on entropy. In common language we could call this laziness. It may be the most severe original sin. In the story of Adam and Eve one could wonder why they didn’t bother to ask God for the reason they weren’t allowed to eat from the tree before they took a bite. Were they afraid of their Creator? It seems unlikely. They had, as we do too, the freedom to choose when faced with stimulus. As far as I understand, they also had the opportunity to start a conversation with God.

 

Why were they lacking the willingness then? Could it be the same missing part, which could help people today defeat the devil of laziness- entropy? There is a saying – perfect love casts out fear. On the grounds of this, one could state if our love were great enough, we wouldn’t fear change either and along with greater love we could defeat our innate laziness wanting us in its grip.

 

I have stumbled upon many definitions of love during my life, but this is one of the best:

 

Love is the desire to enlarge oneself and aspiring to nourish the mental growth of one’s neighbor.

 

For this to be possible, one’s own mental growth must be cured. One has to desire and be capable of loving oneself before one is able to love someone else. True caring is to love another person’s possibilities more than judging their limitations. When love is formulated like this it can well be understood as the opposite of laziness, right?

 

How can laziness be detected then? It is best detected when mental growth is required. Laziness rises up every time one’s self needs to change. The entropic force says: Not yet, it’s not worth it, it won’t benefit you, it has never succeeded before. Why bother in vain? Let the others do it for you; you’ve deserved a rest. And so on. Entropy is an invisible inner friction feeling immensely powerful. It’s mental quicksand, which doesn’t seem to have a touch point at all. Laziness has nothing to do with the amount of work done, as funny as that sounds.

 

When reading this you may react (watch out for the backbone reaction!) strongly by saying, you work 40-50 hours a week, give time to your family and other valuable things. “How could I be lazy?” Active and hard working we may be, we must honestly admit, laziness lives within all of us. Most of our fears have to do with change and you may be working very hard to preserve your present conditions and circumstances.

 

It’s very hard for the human mind to surrender something it owns in order to get something of value which is yet unknown, at the threshold of change.

 

Laziness can be rejected. Most of us do this on some level every day. It happens simply by listening to the exhorting side of our inner dialogue and beginning to act accordingly. Laziness is best rejected when working towards one’s inner growth. When you learn to value your own mental growth as more important than anything else, others will begin to benefit. You always have the chance to choose something different. We can choose between good and evil. Both sides continuously exist and both sides send their signals to us in one way or another.

Choices

When something happens or is happening, your brain will ask you:

 

1. What does this mean (first and foremost to me)?

2. How should I act in this situation?

3. What will the future look like if I act this way?

4. Will the decision / choice bring me pleasure or pain?

 

This process occurs so quickly; you usually don’t have time to activate your conscious mind to help in the decision-making. Our choices are born out of our identity. How we experience and see ourselves determines our choice.

 

The human being has a need to act consistently, so we solve the issues coming our way from our identity, not with our reason, as we often think. Even when our identity has a negative impact on the choice, we still use it to make the decision. This is because of our need for consistency. Our identity also defines the point of view through which we observe the world.

 

There are many denominators behind our identity. Nearly all of them are however, learned things. And if they are learned, you can also “un-learn” them. To be scientifically correct, we can´t really “un-learn”, the forgetting occurs when we place something else on top of the old memory. Our past memories (and habits) will always remain deep in our subconscious, but the more new memories we gather, the more our old memory will fade away.

 

Our identity consequently seems to be something other than the sum of those mentioned denominators. Could our true identity be a bunch of beliefs, born out of the experience accumulated in our subconscious? I think emotional beliefs impact the forming of our identity more than the experiences we inevitably carry in our backpack.

 

The stimulus chain is always affected by feelings. Therefore one must seek and discover the appropriate feeling to find the precious freedom of choice available in every situation. We can’t change the fact the strongest feeling always wins in a competition like this. In this way it’s possible to change our backbone reactions. As a matter of fact, a human being never has to react. Instead, it is possible to choose a measured response to the feeling emerging. Reacting is unpremeditated, whereas a response is usually the product of consideration.

 

This insight – the fact you yourself can determine the distance between stimulus and reaction – is able to change your life in an instant and permanently. This happened to me. I noticed this insight brings with it a great deal of a healthy sense of responsibility because suddenly I was driven more from the inside out, than out of the power of external stimulus. This sense of responsibility entails a sense of accountability in a curiously helpful way. You always feel more accountable to yourself, when you act according to your identity.

 

In any given moment you can start experiencing positive or negative feelings. This is completely in your hands, it’s your choice. If you hear news of a war somewhere in the world (stimulus), you easily feel anguish (reaction). On the other hand you can hear the same news (stimulus) and let yourself be filled with thankfulness due to the fact the country you live in, is currently in a state of peace (proactive response to stimulus). The responsibility of the choice is yours. What you concentrate on, is your reality.

 

Therefore, if you want to change your reality, change the focus of your concentration.

THE SUBCONCIOUS

To make all of our choices, we use both our conscious mind and our subconscious. According to scientists our conscious mind is in comparison to our subconscious mind as big as the tennis ball is compared to an elephant. The subconscious is like a gigantic hard disk and the conscious mind like a processor that spins one or two programs at a time. Behind every choice there is a feeling. The mind gives justification to our decision but most of our evaluating comes from our subconscious memory bank.

The subconscious holds everything we’ve seen and felt – our experiences. These experiences are called perceptions. There is always an image and feeling attached to each experience.

The fact I always feel sick when I smell rose hip tea is because I suffered painful stomach flu in the spring of 1986 and when I couldn’t drink coffee, I tried to sip on some rose hip tea. There is such a powerful memory image and memory feeling attached to this occasion that the smell causes my subconscious to spin so fast it tells my conscious to “watch out, or you’ll get a message from downstairs”.

 

Mathematician Peter Ouspensky calculated in his book In Search of the Miraculous1, the subconscious mind may function up to 30 000 times faster than the conscious mind.

The subconscious is both an information bank and a search engine. Its job is to ensure, the human being functions as he has been programmed to function. The subconscious is in operation around the clock and delivers the same harvest sown into it. The subconscious is not capable of evaluating what is true and what is a lie. It believes almost everything it is told.

If you constantly repeat, “this is not working out”, you sow this behavioral pattern into your subconscious. If you sow in hope, excitement and faith, you will be given back the same.

Our eyes see much more than our brains can process on a conscious level.

According to studies, the total capacity of our subconscious mind is 400 billions bits when our conscious observation is only 2000 bits. More information enters our subconscious through our eyes than we imagine. The brain can’t tell the difference between what it sees and what it remembers or visualizes. To our brain the past is no more real than our goals or our vision for the future. Philosophically we could even ask, “Which is more real, the future or the past?” Our brains cannot answer this question because it doesn’t see any difference between different dimensions. The same synapses (the connections between different neurons, nerve cells in our brain) are used in both cases.

 

An old tale tells the Native Americans simply couldn’t see Columbus’ ship sailing in the horizon because they didn’t believe it was real. It took a long time for their brains to agree to register the ship as real. From this we can conclude we only see what we believe to be real or true.

THINKING PATTERNS

In 1993 around 4000 people from 100 different countries gathered in Washington for a specific scientific research. They wanted to study, whether collective thinking could have a positive effect on a city’s criminal activity – and cause it to decline. Through this test it was scientifically proven, during the period the positive thinking was taking place, crime rates declined 25%. Before the study the city’s police forces thought the whole thing was ridiculous but when they noticed the rapid results they agreed to take part in the test.

 The crucial fights are always fought inside of you, in the invisible battleground. This is where your feelings and thought patterns are. A human being makes observations all the time. Through observation we form an opinion or an evaluation and on this basis we act on it at a practical level. Our way of observing things is deeply rooted and found in our inner world.

What we are is said to communicate much stronger than what we say. The outer world can be exactly the same for two individuals but still they interpret completely differently through their own way of observing. Their thought patterns and worldviews are different and therefore their procedures are different also.

  When social or other grand currents are formed and changed, it is a matter of change in collective thinking patterns. The word paradigm, borrowed from Greek, means thought pattern. When a paradigm changes, the way of relating to something changes. This change of relating, in turn, results in a change in action. For example the results of coaching can best be measured first on the level of a change in how we relate to certain matters.

 With our inner eyes we see events in two separate dimensions:

 • How it should be (an opinion based on values)

• How it is (facts)

 With the help of these dimensions we interpret all observations from reality around us. Very few of us are practically aware of the existence of these dimensions – or maps. All this is the basis of our thought patterns. We see the world through ourselves, not neutrally or objectively at all. We are conditioned to see the world in our own way and changing these lenses doesn’t happen in an instant.

   Being and doing can’t be separated because they affect each other. Doing stems from being, where the needs, values, feelings and thought patterns of a human being lie. Our inner seeing becomes our paradigm, our thought pattern. If we become more conscious of our paradigms, we can take responsibility to change them. A new paradigm can’t be created without giving up the old and this is the core of change. We can have fine plans and goals but if we don’t have enough desire to give up old thinking patterns, the fine goals will be in vain.

 The pain of giving up is one of the greatest obstacles to growth. Our experiences are very important in the formation of our thought patterns. In a way, we are constantly telling ourselves a story of what the world looks like. In order for our worldview and our paradigm to stay together, we need this story. When we receive information, we compare it first to our experiences and following this our feelings respond giving the final interpretation. In practice we always choose the procedure bringing us the most satisfaction and through which we can best reject the threat of resentment.

Rakkaus.

    Ihmisen elämän todellinen arvo on siinä, mitä hän muille merkitsee. Se on luonnon laki. Jos kuvittelen merkitseväni muille enemmän kuin todelliset hedelmäni kertovat, elän valheessa. Puu tunnetaan aina hedelmistään. Jos kuviteltu kasvuni ei näy muille, täytyy katsoa peiliin entistä tarkemmin. Mitä tehtävää varten olen maailmaan tullut? Olenko tullut saamaan vai antamaan? Miten voisin elää arvokasta elämää? Mitä arvokas elämä on?

 

Arvokas elämä on toisen laittamista itsensä edelle. Se on elämän rakastamista siinä määrin, että saan suurimmat nautintoni kun huomaan muiden kasvavan minun oman kasvuni myötä. Rakkaus on jotain mitä tehdään. Se on verbi, ei suinkaan tunne. Kutsumme usein ihastumista rakastumiseksi, ja toki se usein rakkauden alkuvaihe onkin. Mutta rakkaus on jotain muuta kuin tunnetta. Se on suurempi kuin tunteet ja toimii tunteista huolimatta. Se on teko, joka on vapaasti valittavissa. Kun suhde elämään on kunnossa, valitsemme rakkauden. Rakkaus on se arvo, joka meistä näkyy elämämme kautta muille.

 

Dostojevskin, jonka isä toimi köyhien lääkärinä, hautakivessä on teksti: ”Jos vehnänjyvä ei putoa maahan ja kuole, se jää vain yhdeksi jyväksi”. Tuon suuren kirjailijan mielestä todellinen hengellisyys on sitä, että ihminen antaessaan saa takaisin enemmän, jopa satakertaisesti. Tällainen antaminen edellyttää, että on ymmärtänyt rakkauden todellisen merkityksen. Fokusoimalla omaan napaansa ihmisellä on vaara jäädä yksin rationaalisen järkensä kanssa. Järkeä syvempi lähde on rakkaus. Vapauskin on vaillinaista, ilman rakkauden ulottuvuutta. Mitä enemmän ruokin ja annan tilaa toisen ihmisen henkiselle kasvulle, sen enemmän kasvan myös itse. Sadonkorjuun laki pätee tässäkin. Mitä kylvää, sitä niittää, vieläpä samalla mitalla.

Beliefs form Your life!

In the Middle Ages enlightened circles started using metallic forks as cutlery. The forks were forged out of either iron or silver. At first they were two-edged. The tale tells us the forks were soon ostracized because they were believed to be tools of the devil. The belief was based on the fact, when forks were beginning to be widely used, people started dying from poisonings or inflammations caused by mouth diseases. The forks were so sharp, when people used the utensils a bit too eagerly, they pierced their gums. Because mouth hygiene wasn’t yet on the level we have these days, the gum cuts caused inflammations leading to death. The devil has many means available!

Beliefs determine the way we relate to situations and through this our choices in them. What exactly are beliefs and where do they originate?

A belief is a strong feeling something is true, although it hasn’t been scientifically proven. To an individual, a belief has the same value as truth. Therefore beliefs determine the way we relate to our surroundings and ourselves. If the quality of our lives depends on choices and beliefs determine our choices, beliefs and changing our beliefs must be given particular attention. Your beliefs determine whether you feel like a good lover, an affectionate father, a wanted employee, trusted expert, reliable affiliate and so on. Behind every decision there’s a belief. If you succeed in doing something in a new way, it means you’ve succeeded in changing your belief.

The changing of beliefs doesn’t necessarily happen consciously. It may well be, you are imperceptibly conditioned to new beliefs. For example in a new work place where there is a different working culture to your former workplace. Things are done differently than what you’re used to and soon you’re a part of the new culture and the new culture is a part of you. Or after a marital crisis you encounter a new person, who gives you faith again to believe again you’re worthy to be loved, cared for and trusted.

It’s quite frightening our brains have already created a consistent structure, by which decisions are made in our innermost being. The decision making power is so strong; it strives to determine our thoughts, feelings, interpretations, evaluations, and actions. Do you ever even wonder why you choose what you choose and how this process occurs? Isn’t it true that Success comes specifically from successful choices, so this question is of uttermost importance. Quality choices are, by the way, often a result of good judgment and this in turn, is mostly based on experience. In your experiences there’s a lot, which hasn’t worked. Therefore it’s important to detach oneself from failures.

Which one is more important to you: the fear of losing or the joy of achieving? The answer tells a lot about your beliefs. You see, the hardest thing for a human being is to surrender ”achieved benefits”, the experience level at present feels safer than the seemingly unsure promises of the future. The visible life you have right now feels much more real than what is in the future. Yet both dimensions are just as real. The law of cause and effect works: What you sow today, you will reap tomorrow, or at least sometime in the future.

The true desire to grow as well as courage is weighed when one has to leave behind something that seems secure and functioning in one’s emotional world.

  

Hyveet

 

 

    Onko ihmislapsi hyvä syntyessään maailmaan? Tai olisiko kysymys parempi kun sen esittää kuinka hyvä ihminen on syntyessään maailmaan? Olen miettinyt tätä jonkun verran ja tämä on osoittautunut hyväksi keskustelun aiheeksi valmennuksissa. Pohdinta vie useimmiten toteamaan, että ihminen joutuu valitsemaan hyvän.

Hyvä tai hyveet eivät tule automaattisesti. Jos ajattelee pientä lasta, on aika mielenkiintoista nähdä kuinka nopeasti hän alkaa suojella omia vähäisiä tavaroitaan muilta. Sitä omaa nukkea ei kovin mielellään anneta naapurin tytölle lainaksi, saati sitten omaksi. Onko tämä vanhemmilta opittua, kun se tapahtuu näin varhain? Epäilen.

    Ihmisessä on paikka hyveille hänen sisimmässään. Se on varmaankin Luojan sinne laittama. Haluamme tehdä hyvää, mutta vietit saavat meidät horjahtamaan. Meille on siis luontaista tehdä hyvää, mutta joudumme valitsemaan sen. Jos emme harrasta aktiivista valitsemista, ajaudumme viettien vankilaan, jossa aistit alkaavat ohjata. Hyvyydessä on valtava voima. Hyveiden tekeminen vaatii päätöstä tehdä hyvää. Eläimet elävät vaistojensa ja aistiensa varassa, mutta ihmiselle on annettu mahdollisuus valita. Tämä koskee myös hyveitä. Usko hyvään ja hyveet kulkevat käsi kädessä. Jos jaksamme uskoa hyvyyteen, syntyy pohjaa uskoa myös näkymättömään.

   Ihmisen elämän todellinen arvo on siinä, mitä hän muille merkitsee. Se on luonnon laki. Jos kuvittelen merkitseväni muille enemmän kuin todelliset hedelmäni kertovat, elän valheessa. Puu tunnetaan aina hedelmistään. Jos kuviteltu kasvuni ei näy muille, täytyy katsoa peiliin entistä tarkemmin. Mitä tehtävää varten olen maailmaan tullut? Olenko tullut saamaan vai antamaan? Miten voisin elää arvokasta elämää? Mitä arvokas elämä on?

   Arvokas elämä on toisen laittamista itsensä edelle. Se on elämän rakastamista siinä määrin, että saan suurimmat nautintoni kun huomaan muiden kasvavan minun oman kasvuni myötä. Rakkaus on jotain mitä tehdään. Se on verbi, ei suinkaan tunne. Kutsumme usein ihastumista rakastumiseksi, ja toki se usein rakkauden alkuvaihe onkin. Mutta rakkaus on jotain muuta kuin tunnetta. Se on suurempi kuin tunteet ja toimii tunteista huolimatta. Se on teko, joka on vapaasti valittavissa.

   Kun suhde elämään on kunnossa, valitsemme rakkauden. Rakkaus on se arvo, joka meistä näkyy elämämme kautta muille. Dostojevskin, jonka isä toimi köyhien lääkärinä, hautakivessä on teksti: ”Jos vehnänjyvä ei putoa maahan ja kuole, se jää vain yhdeksi jyväksi”. Tuon suuren kirjailijan mielestä todellinen elämä on sitä, että ihminen antaessaan saa takaisin enemmän, jopa moninkertaisesesti. Tällainen antaminen edellyttää, että on ymmärtänyt rakkauden todellisen merkityksen.

   Fokusoimalla omaan napaansa ihmisellä on vaara jäädä yksin rationaalisen järkensä kanssa. Järkeä syvempi lähde on rakkaus. Vapauskin on vaillinaista, ilman rakkauden ulottuvuutta. Mitä enemmän ruokin ja annan tilaa toisen ihmisen henkiselle kasvulle, sen enemmän kasvan myös itse. Sadonkorjuun laki pätee tässäkin. Mitä kylvää, sitä niittää, vieläpä samalla mitalla.

ENVY

 

The nest of envy is located in the ego of a human being. With ego, we usually mean a kind of mechanism, assigned to keep the person together, to preserve the self as whole. Person comes from the Greek word persona and means the masks that were used in front of the face in antique Greek theatrical performances. Ego doesn’t emerge before we need to use our person in relation to other people. If you are alone on a desert island, your ego doesn’t really have any significance.

 

The ego wants to come in the way of growth, and in many cases some kind of envy is in question. Envy is born, when self-appreciation is on a very low level. Envy is a problem related to self-esteem. It causes ill-disposed feelings towards others when they are better and more successful. When envious, a human being protects itself of wounds that they feel their self-esteem is suffering. When a person is envious, they project their own mistakes and deficiency on another person. An envious person may for example moralize strongly in order to cover their own urges and passions.

 

Defense is psychologically healthy per se, because a human being has to protect their life and inmost. We probably need a bit of positive envy to stay alive. Positive envy gets us motivated and makes us work for some goal. Negative envy, which in turn is greedy and exploiting, is a completely different matter. It goes so far, that the person is prepared to sacrifice something of their own good, in order to harm the other. Envy prevents learning, because we don’t want to accept the good, that someone else has to offer.

 

The goal of envy is to destroy the good that someone else owns. Envy only needs a bunch of presumptions, that we make ourselves believe are true. Excessive gossiping and unhealthy curiosity are signs of negative envy. The need to get to dig in someone else’s life and secretly enjoy their failures and weaknesses sells well. Just look at the circulation of gossip magazines. This kind should not be confused with normal curiosity, which is a natural mechanism in the human being. Healthy curiosity is needed, to learn new things constantly.

 

Envy is a reflection of poor self-esteem. It causes addiction and helplessness. The more envy there is in a work community, the more helpless people are. If you often feel negative envy, I recommend that you stop for a moment. If you surreptitiously notice that you really wish for harm for the person, you better start enhancing your self-esteem. Instead of asking yourself, what new reasons you could find to cherish your envy, as yourself, how you could enhance your self-esteem.

 

Start seeing yourself as a content and fair person, who allows others to succeed and live their own lives in peace. Focus your mind on growing your sense of being valued, not on feelings of unfairness. You will soon start noticing, that others don’t annoy you and cause you envy as much as before. As we remember, whenever we focus on something, it’s significance starts growing. When your concentration isn’t fixed on other people’s accomplishments, you will find a new feeling of responsibility and accountability in you. You will notice that you yourself are responsible for your life and you won’t feed the resentment with weeds of envy.

Muutosjohtamisessa kannattaa ottaa käyttöön aivot!

Kun mikä tahansa tiimi kokoontuu, aivojen mielestä on aina kysymys ”vain” ihan tavallisesta laumakohtaamisesta. Riippumatta siitä, mitä aihealueita kokouksessa käsitellään ja missä hierarkian tasolla ollaan, aivojen neurologiset ja fysiologiset reaktiot kohtaamisen aikana riippuvat enimmäkseen sosiaalisen viitekehyksen tulkinnasta. Tiimin eri jäsenten aivot tuottavat jokaiseen eri tilanteeseen joko myöntävän tai torjuvan impulssin. Tahtomattaan ryhmän eri jäsenet istuvat miettimässä itseänsä suhteessa toisiinsa. Tutkimukset osoittavat, että tämä tapahtuu alitajuisesti.

2000-luvun alusta lähtien olen pitänyt eri puolilla Eurooppaa ja Yhdysvaltoja yli tuhat johtamiseen liittyvää työpajaa, joissa tavoitteena on ollut löytää uusia keinoja johtaa tuottavammin. Voisin sanoa, että jokaisessa tilaisuudessa ovat olleet läsnä samat kolme pullonkaulaa: tulosta pitäisi tehdä enemmän, aikaa ei tahdo olla tarpeeksi, ja ihmiset eivät sitoudu muutokseen tarpeeksi tehokkaasti. Yhä uudelleen olen joutunut toteamaan, että riippumatta toimialasta nämä haasteet ovat yleismaailmallisia. Tehokkaammat it-järjestelmät, on-line-kommunikaatio, järkeistetyt prosessit ja tehokkaammat tuloskorttimittarit ovat vain pieneltä osin ratkaisseet mainittuja haasteita.

Nykyään on saatavilla paljon tuoretta tutkimustietoa siitä, miten ihmisen aivot oikeasti saadaan valjastettua sitoutumaan muutokseen. Aivotutkimus osoittaa selvästi, että ratkaisevaa kaikessa on se, mihin ja miten fokusoidaan. Ei siis ihme, että jos keskitytään vastarintaan, sitä varmasti myös nähdään joka puolella. Tai jos keskitytään prosessien viilaamiseen, ihminen unohtuu helposti.

Tutkimustulosten mukaan useimmilla johtajilla vasen aivolohko, loogis-matemaattinen päättelykyky, on arjen toiminnassa huomattavasti enemmän käytössä kuin oikea lohko.  On valitettavaa, että liian usein looginen älykkyys vie turhan paljon tilaa muutokseen sitoutumiselta, johon tarvitaan ennen kaikkea aivojen tunnepuolta. Jos keskitymme prosesseihin, mittaristoon ja suoritukseen, on liian usein lopputuloksena, että koko organisaation “ihmiskoneisto” käy vajaatehoisesti. Jotta saisimme tulevaisuuden organisaation sitoutumaan muutokseen entistä eheämmin, tarvitaan lisääntyvää ymmärrystä siitä, että kaikki organisaatiot ovat ennen kaikkea sosiaalisia järjestelmiä. Nykyaikana tätä ymmärrystä tarvitaan aikaisempaa enemmän, koska yhä useampi yritys organisoituu matriiseihin ja koostuu virtuaalisista tiimeistä. Aivoille on esimerkiksi todella hankalaa, kun jollakulla on kaksi esimiestä, joille tekemisistään raportoi.

Onneksi tähän kaikkeen löytyy nykyään täsmälääkkeitä. Sen lisäksi, että aivot ovat ennen kaikkea sosiaaliset, ne ovat myös hurjan joustavat. Aivoja voidaan ”muuttaa” milloin tahansa, kun se tehdään biologisesti kestävällä tavalla. Muutoksesta voidaan tehdä totta ja vastarinta voidaan kääntää ”myötärinnaksi” uusien ajatusmallien ja keinojen avulla. Tärkeintä on altistuminen aivan uudenlaiselle ajattelulle. Tason nostamiseen tarvitaan uusi paradigma, uusi ”totuus”. Vanhasta poisoppiminen ei teknisesti ajatellen ole aivoille tutkimusten mukaan mahdollista, mutta kun panemme tarpeeksi ponnekkaasti uutta ajattelua ja toimintaa peliin, vanhat tavat joutuvat väkisin unholaan.

Esimiehet, jotka ymmärtävät aivojen anatomian aina tunteita myöden, pärjäävät paremmin ihmisten kanssa ja saavat helpommin aikaan dynaamisen ympäristön, jossa muutokseen suhtaudutaan tuottavammin. He pystyvät myös tehokkaammin ja kestävämmällä tavalla saamaan käyttöönsä ihmisen kokonaisvaltaisemman potentiaalin. Siinä missä työntekijä joutuu kamppailemaan uuden ajattelun ja uusien tapojen kanssa, johtajien suurin haaste on itsetuntemuksessa ja itsetutkistelussa. Olen ollut havaitsevinani, että aina silloin kun johtaja itse kokee jo olevansa ”perillä” eikä enää tarvitse sparrausta, ihmiset hänen ympärillään voivat jossain määrin huonosti. Tarvitsemme lisää sellaista käytännön johtamista ja ajattelua, jossa johdetaan ensisijaisesti esimerkin kautta, myös biologisesti kestävällä ja siksi tuottavalla tavalla.

Jos jaksamme huolehtia siitä, että seuraavat viisi osa-aluetta (David Rock´ia mukaillen) ovat kohdallaan, saamme aivot tukemaan muutosta:

1. Status, eli kuinka arvokkaana ihminen pitää itsensä suhteessa toisiin. Tahtomattammekin vertaamme itseämme muihin, ja siksi pelkästään keskusteleminen esimiehen kanssa aktivoi määrättyjä (huoli)alueita aivoissa. ”Olenko yhtä arvokas kuin muut ja säilyykö arvovaltani ja asemani muutoksessa?”
2. Turvallisuuden tunne tuottaa aivoissa hyväksyntää. ”Tuleeko muutoksessa liikaa yllätyksiä vai voinko luottaa siihen, että minulle kerrotaan tarpeeksi etukäteen?”
3. Autonomia tarkoittaa sitä, että koen pystyväni vaikuttamaan muutokseen jollain tavalla. ”Muutos saa tulla, koska minulta on kysytty mielipidettäni ja minua on kuunneltu.”
4. Ryhmän tuki on oleellista jokaisessa muutoksessa. ”Kyllä tässä hyvin käy, kun teemme tämän yhdessä:”
5. Reiluuden tunne on piste iin päällä ja saa aina aikaan myönteisen tunteen aivoissa. Urheilulajeissa samat pelisäännöt koskevat kaikkia. ”Kohdellaanko minua samalla tavalla kuin toisia?”

EMPATHY

Doesn’t it feel nice and secure to be with a person, who understands how you feel? When you get the feeling, that another person looks at the world through the same window as you, something inside of you gets thrilled. You get a warm, good feeling, and you want to spend even more time with that kind of person. What I am aiming for here is of course the much spoken world of empathy, sympathy and compassion.

Wouldn’t it be great, if other people after meeting you would be in a better mood than before it? What a great goal in life and in encountering others!

Empathy appears in many different forms. The core of empathy is recognizing your fellow human being’s feelings without words. We don’t often express our feelings, but they emerge through:

– tone of voice
– expressions and
– appearance

The ability to interpret these clues is based mostly on enhancing one’s self-awareness. When we understand – and control – our own feelings, we can learn to better understand other people’s emotional states. Empathy is like a radar, that is in action around the clock. Others of us are skilled in the use of this radar better than others. Nevertheless, we all have it. And we can all be better at it.

Robert Levenson has performed extensive scientific studies on empathy. In his tests he has used married couples and their conversations.

In a university laboratory two types of conversations were held between married couples. In the first conversation the spouses went over the day’s events in a neutral ”How was your day today” fashion. In the second conversation they argued about something, that they genuinely disagreed on. During the mild argument Levenson measured the testees’ physiological reactions, like facial expressions and the heart rate. After the argument one of the spouses left and the other stayed in the laboratory. The one who stayed in the room watched the conversation on tape and at the same time told what he/she had been thinking in each situation, although he/she hadn’t said it out loud. Then the person leaves the room, too. Now the other testee comes in to tell about the course of the conversation from his/her point of view.

In the body of some testees significant reactions took place during the experiment. The body started to copy the spouse’s body’s actions and empathize into the spouse’s part. When the spouse’s heart rate quickened while speaking on the tape, also the watcher’s heart rate quickened; if it slowed down, this also happened to the watcher. But note that this didn’t happen to all the testees. Only the empathic ones did this type of emotional following.

This kind of intense following of emotions, empathy, requires for a person to temporarily push aside their own feelings. Otherwise the messages coming from the other won’t get through. When aspiring mutual agreement, it’s crucially important to put one’s own feelings temporarily aside.

When two people meet, their bodies immediately start mirroring each other. They naturally pursue harmony in rhythm, movements, appearance, tone, and posture. This isn’t conscious, it happens automatically, without us wanting it to. It happens deep on our non-volitional side. We can’t help it, for exactly that reason, that the mechanism is located on our non-volitional side. We learn the basic skills of empathy in our early childhood, but it can be practiced throughout one’s whole life. We all have the necessary neural pathways, and practice awakens them to function. When you combine understanding other people’s feelings, different viewpoints and caring about them, the prerequisites for functioning sociality are born.

THE TRANSMISSION OF FEELINGS

We affect each other’s feelings. It happens all the time, even in silence. Feelings are transmitted from one person to another in the same way as viruses. We are all in the exchange of feelings. It doesn’t require any certain volition. We constantly collect feelings into our own bank through observation. We are influenced by others and we in turn influence others. The strongest emotional state always wins. It has been discovered, that the strongest emotional state wins even in a situation, where a person is sitting with two others silently in a circle. That strongest emotional state transmits to the others like a virus, and in the end joy, happiness, fear or depression has devolved into the others.

 

Think of a situation, where you come into the coffee room of your workplace, when there has just been a rather lively confrontation between people. You immediately sense the strained atmosphere. You don’t need to wonder, whether everything is all right or not. You know that there has been quarreling in the room, because you feel it intuitively. You have to work hard to keep yourself apart from the feelings that float around in the air so strongly.

 

Feelings are easily transmitted, and therefore influencing through feelings is supremely effective. Actually nothing is as effective. Reason never gets over the emotional threshold, because it is too logic to keep up with the pace of feelings. Even to the most consistent explanation a great lot of feelings have to be attached, in order for the message to go through.

 

I have often heard the claim that negative emotions would spread faster than positive ones. So far I haven’t found any scientific evidence that negative emotions would spread faster than positive ones or vice versa. Thus I settle for stating that whatever feelings in question, their influential speed is really rapid. What has been proven is that positive feelings are factors that both support to the body’s health, and improve effectiveness at work. But that is a whole other story.

Energy flows inside out

If your emotional energy suddenly seems to disappear, try to ask yourself WHAT is draining you energy (not WHO). If you think it is a person, it is merely a projection of yourself. If you for example happen to be envious to somebody, the person in question is not really important. The important dimension is your minds “shadow”side, that makes the projection. In fact, that person is your teacher (this is not easy to admit :-)).

The more you focus on the other person or persons, the tougher the “teacher” gets. The point is to get the new insight that is offered to you, not to be angry at the teacher. The main thing is to find the root cause for your energy drop. It is never another person, even though it feels so in the critical moment. I know, all this is easier said than done :-)). But true.

If we make the mistake and believe that some particular person is the cause to our weakness, we surround ourselves with fear and guilt, and our accountability towards ourselves disappears.

Instead we need to focus on our own energycenter, and find the leverage for new energy from inside and not let the outside affect us that much. Focusing on the teaching, not the teacher, gives us the insight that wisdom is quite often offered to us through challengies. That makes us more thankful even during harder times. And thankfulness brings us peace and harmony.