So – for God’s sake, isn’t this enough? But I was speaking to someone from my creative writing group last night about how I sometimes reach out of who I really am when I am writing in order not to appear to emotional or sentimental… but a criticism of when I write like that is that I appear too cold and distant. So – in crouching down and trying to appear to be something I am not – I am actually making things worse, not better.

It made me think about people who are not being who they really are because they are stuck in a certain role or feel that they can’t show who they really are. Each person has a beautiful and unique message to send to the world, but I think so many times we just crouch down instead of standing up and shining. If there was more of that, things would sure be much more interesting.

Research into human judgment has found that how we perceive a particular offer’s value is highly influenced by any relevant number that enters the negotiation environment. Because they pull judgments toward themselves, these numerical values are known as anchors. In situations of great ambiguity and uncertainty, first offers have a strong anchoring effect—they exert a strong pull throughout the rest of the negotiation. Even when people know that a particular anchor should not influence their judgments, they are often incapable of resisting its influence. As a result, they insufficiently adjust their valuations away from the anchor

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Lately, I have realized that I have had a “fitness anchor”, a level of fitness determined by the friends around me. I generally think of myself as pretty fit – able to go on 100k bike rides, lifting relatively heavy weights (for a girl of course). Even at an aerobics class the other week the instructor commented on the fitness of my core due to many months of consistent yoga practice. But – since Lori, one of my fittest friends, started training for competitive Mixed Martial Arts, my anchor has been reset. You can see her training regimen on her Jiu-Jitsu Sensei Blog here:

We went through a series of conditioning exercises, including: 100 squats, 60 leg lunges, 2 minutes of jumping up and down from the ring, 2 minutes of sit-ups (while lifting a 4kg medicine ball up over the head then passing it back to my partner), 2 minutes of sprawl push-ups (while passing the medicine ball back and forth with my partner in between), 2 minutes of doing boxing punches with resistance bands. And after that, we started our skills training.

So – with my anchor reset by Lori’s example, I am stepping up my fitness routine by adding more weight workouts and two spinning workouts a week. This whole situation has reminded me how much your friends and people around you influence you and your decisions in life… and it has made me think how my friends anchor me in different ways, both positively and negatively. How about you?

I remember one of my very well-spoken and confident friends from University saying that sometimes a wave of embarrassment would pass over him after while driving, and he would hold onto the steering wheel so tight until his knuckles turned while and it passed. I couldn’t believe even HE could be embarrassed – since he was so cavalier about things… but it seems like everyone has an area of their lives where embarrassment strikes.

To help cure me of my situation, I turned to the Internet… and found that admitting that you are embarrassed is one of the best ways to diffuse the situation for everyone. In: Caught With Your Pants Down? The Psychology of Embarrassment it says:

And, if there’s any doubt that 99.9% of embarrassment is in your own mind, consider the example of British actor Richard Harris who sang the role of King Arthur in Camelot twice a day for seven months. One evening, Harris forgot the words to a song. He stopped in mid-stride, halted the orchestra and went to the edge of the stage where he said in his lilting British accent: "Four hundred and twenty eight performances, and I have forgotten the lyrics! Would you believe it?"

Because people feel sympathetic towards others caught in the throes of embarrassment, Harris received a standing ovation. Somebody then cued him on the words, the orchestra started again and he finished the musical in high style and grace.

"Research shows that people who are embarrassed, and simply admit to it and then stalwartly carry on, are tremendously well liked," Dr. Gross says. It seems to make them more human. "When you admit to embarrassment, you show the incident is not shameful. Nor does it show any defect in your character. "It only shows the embarrassing incident was nothing more than a brief lapse," he says.

Wow – so I guess I will stop being so embarrassed about being embarrassed.

Goes to show that people can always surprise you… it also shows how different people see you when they know you have a talent. Very brave Paul! Enjoy .

I think that "whatever doesn’t kill you" gives you an opportunity to grow personally, but you can also choose not to grow – you can choose to stay the same. Or… you can be not strong enough or aware enough to grow. So – I find this expression pretty useless, especially for people that are going through difficult times. It isn’t helpful. Sometimes people just want to put a happy face on things, which I get, but for me it is better to live in truth.

Here are some possible rewrites:

• Whatever doesn’t kill me gives me the chance to get stronger
• Wouldn’t it be great if this thing that feels like hell but isn’t killing me could make me stronger?
• This thing that isn’t killing me could be the next train to self-improvement, but maybe I will wait for the next train.

"Which road do I take?" she asked.

His response was a question: "Where do you want to go?"

"I don’t know," Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn’t matter."*

I like Alice. Having direction makes the thousands of choices that shape life easier to manage. After that it is a matter of self-control (an Achilles heel for me too ) and focusing on what is most important. Tall orders, both of them. Since many aspirations have some element of chance it is hard to put a time-limit on fulfilling them. You leave yourself open to the possibility of getting what you want rather than counting on a specific outcome. For years, I had a quote taped onto the side of my cubicle from actor Harrison Ford, which I now know by heart:

"Hard work and a proper frame of mind prepare you for the big break that finally comes along… or doesn’t".

*Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

York is a commuter school in the North end of Toronto. The parking and layout of the buildings are frustratingly Kafkaesque, but once you get there, it is rather beautiful even though it is cold and awful out. The class was filled with a variety of business people, mostly men in their 30s and 40s and most of them in Purchasing or Sales from what I gathered through their personal style our lunch break chats. 

At one point in the course we were asked to examine what our natural style of negotiation was: dominating, collaborative, obliging or avoiding. I found that mine tends to be collaborative and obliging which is fine for some situations but not for others. For example, if there is a direct conflict of interest (eg. an argument over price) this style does not work.  Also, the more dominant technique does not work when people have a common interest, because if you are very dominating, you might not be able to uncover your common ground.

So – like many situations, the key is to analyze the situation, then respond in a way that is appropriate. It is the quick analysis (the space between action and reaction) that cues you not to react in the automatic or natural way, but act in a strategic one instead.

We did a number of different simulations during the course. In one at the end, we were to simulate a cross-cultural negotiation, where my opposing team was asked to act very aggressive (Western-style) and informal and my team asked to act politely and formal (Asian-style). During the time that we played those roles, we got absolutely nothing resolved – so it was obvious how challenging it is for people to negotiate when there are true cultural differences.

Classes like that (and being crestfallen back at work) make me wish I could be a student forever!

Yesterday I was listening to the radio and a news report came on about a tragic car accident that killed five high-school students from the same school. The grief councilor came on the air to say "it is especially sad because these kids were so popular". What would happen if the students were unpopular or were part of a small group of tight-knit friends? Would that make a fatal car crash less sad? Of course not.

I thought the same as I read about the horrifying Robert Pickton case. Pickton, a BC pig farmer, confessed to killing over 49 women. Anti-poverty advocates are asking the media to stop focusing on the fact that the women were in the sex trade and refer to them as "women" instead of "prostitutes". Also, police were slow to respond to the missing women because of their status and neighborhood. Is one family’s tragedy less sad than another’s because of the deceased’s lifestyle? To me… it isn’t.

In a totally different context, I thought this as I saw the silly fight between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump on YouTube. Trump says he is worth several-billion dollars while O’Donnell is "chubby". When he says he is worth several-billion dollars, it sounds like it means more to him than an accountant’s balance sheet calculation, it sounds like he is measuring his self-worth.

Once we start measuring our worth in terms of popularity, profession, wealth or appearance we are playing a losing game. What does popularity mean when you move to a new city? What does your profession mean if you are suddenly unable to work, after an injury or a downsizing? What does money mean if you get stranded on a desert island? All of these things can be lost or they lose meaning in different contexts.

The concept is simple – it is espoused by most religions and psychologists and the majority of us understand it on some level… but somehow reporters and news-makers keep trying to portray one person as more valuable than another based on external things. The problem is, propagating that view of one’s worth makes us forget that we are all valuable, regardless of popularity, profession or wealth.

I read today that airplanes do not stay on track for their entire flight. Instead they spend most of their time completely off track, and rely on their instruments to give them constant feedback as to their position in the sky. The pilots then adjust accordingly… but to be perfect about following the path is impossible.

This is a good analogy to life and the continual striving from being where you are right now, to being where you want to be. The feedback instruments are advice from friends and family, successes and failures, your insights and your instincts.

I was having a drink with a man the other night and we decided that we wanted to do away with the regular small talk and ask each other something original. I decided on "do you have a pet?" (yes, it doesn’t sound that cool written down, but it is hard to be cool in these situations). It turned out that his profession was rescuing animals from precarious situations across the city of Toronto – usually cats and dogs but sometimes tropicals or lost indigenous Canadian creatures. Why did I choose to ask this man about pets? Because this type of premonition has happened to me before, I think that it has something to do with meeting thousands of people in my life, and now I can see patterns.

So, that instinctual feedback is a good thing. I also like the premise that planes approximate a perfect course, rather than achieving it. I remember sitting through Physics class in my Undergrad, measuring ground speed, angles and other attributes associated with flight for exams and papers while feeling some doubt. Of course it is unrealistic to think that messy life , even in the hands of professionals, can be as perfect as a mathematical equation. My calculations were only producing approximations.

When it comes to personal development and occasionally going off track, that too is a good learning from airplanes. Because despite the messiness… most planes actually safely reach their destinations. So – it is true that the fulfillment of a vision frequently isn’t as perfect as you want it to be, and the path is messy, but getting to that vision is the point of the whole thing.

Thanks to Stephen and Steven for these ideas.

I thought about how much I have developed in the past 5 years. In the same time that he has learned to crawl, walk, read, write, do Sudoku puzzles, play video games, play hockey, negotiate with his older brother and sister, make everyone laugh with perfectly timed jokes… what have I done? Yes, I have some accomplishments academically, professionally and personally but they are nothing compared to my little nephew’s achievements – which are not unusual for a five-year old.

Someone told me that there is an inverse relationship between aging and developing. So, if from 0-1, you grow at a 1/1 rate, from  29-30 you grow at a 1/30 rate and at 98-99 you grow at a 1/99 rate (or at 1% of where you were at 0-1). Even though a Developmental Psychologist would likely contest the science behind this – the main idea that growing and developing are easier when you are younger makes sense to me. I think it is possible to cheat the system through concerted effort… but, this idea does inspire me to do act now on the things that are important to me, since later they will surely be more difficult.