You don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great.
I have always heard of meditation from reading multiple non-fiction books but it is a practice, I hoped to start someday. But that changed in 2020 during the global COVID-19 lockdown; the rest they say is history. The lockdown was an anxious period for me and it was stressful with the uncertainty and rollercoaster of things happening in the world. I started meditating after watching a Lebron James calm advert on how meditation has helped him become a better basketball player and human. I am a Lebron fan and I am also obsessed with studying what makes great people thick. Lebron James has been on top of his game in the NBA for over 22 years and I was curious to get to know the backend that makes his frontend effortless. I started with the Train Your Mind with LeBron James calm session and I have been hooked ever since.
The impostor phenomenon, an experience of feeling incompetent and of having deceived others about one’s abilities, is reviewed. Impostor feelings are shown to be associated with such characteristics as introversion, trait anxiety, a need to look smart to others, a propensity to shame, and a conflictual and non-supportive family background. It is a psychological occurrence in which people doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds 1 Impostor syndrome is the psychological experience of believing that one’s accomplishments came about not through genuine ability, but as a result of having been lucky, having worked harder than others, or having manipulated other people’s impressions. (Clance & Imes, 1978).
Impostor phenomenon occurs as a result of seeking self-esteem by trying to live up to an idealized image to compensate for feelings of insecurity and self-doubt.
Meditation is a practice to calm the brain by paying attention.
I started experimenting with meditation during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The pandemic was a roller coaster of anxiety, trials and tribulations, among other emotions. I had seen the Calm advert on YouTube but decided to check it out after watching an ad campaign featuring the Train Your Mind with LeBron James session. I started with the Lebron meditation on Calm and have been hooked on meditating ever since.
“Smart people are a dime a dozen and often don’t amount to much. What counts is being creative and imaginative. That’s what makes someone a true innovator.”
In the introduction of Jeff Bezos’ new book, Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, Walter Isaacson, Author and Biographer of Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Ada Lovelace, Steve Jobs, and Albert Einstein. Walterson shares some great insights on some of the qualities that made these men creative and imaginative. He writes:
“Smart people are a dime a dozen and often don’t amount to much. What counts is being creative and imaginative. That’s what makes someone a true innovator.”
“So, what are the ingredients of creativity and imagination, and what makes me think that Bezos belongs in the same league as my other subjects?
“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”
One of the core tenents of Jeff Bezo’s thinking at Amazon is “It is always Day One,” which is a philosophy on staying nimble, having a small business mind with a big company heart. It involves maintaining a customer-obsession and focusing on the needs of the customers. Amazon strives to be the most customer-centric company in the world.
It’s Day 1. Everything I have ever done has started small. Amazon started with a couple of people. Blue Origin started with five people and a very, very small budget. Now the budget of Blue Origin is over $1 billion a year. Amazon literally started with 10 people; today it is over 750,000. That’s hard to remember for others, but for me, it’s like yesterday. I was driving the packages to the post office myself and hoping one day we could afford a forklift. So for me, I’ve seen small things get big, and it’s part of this Day 1 mentality. I like treating things as if they’re small. Even though Amazon is a large company, I want it to have the heart and spirit of a small one.
Jeff Bezos was recently asked at a recent all-hands meeting at Amazon: “JEFF, WHAT DOES Day 2 look like?” His response:
That’s a question I just got at our most recent all-hands meeting. I’ve been reminding people that it’s Day 1 for a couple of decades. I work in an Amazon building named Day 1, and when I moved buildings, I took the name with me. I spend time thinking about this topic.
“Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.”
“Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you can make a living, but if you work hard on yourself you’ll make a fortune.” – Jim Rohn
The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey is one of my favorite personal development book of all time. The book had a great effect on me with various lessons, anecdotes, insights, and principles which is a core of my daily values.
The 7th habit is “sharpen the saw” in which covey advocates preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–YOU. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities:
Physical:
Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
Social/Emotional:
Making social and meaningful connections with others
Mental:
Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
Spiritual:
Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service
“Sharpen the saw” basically means expressing all four motivations. It means exercising all four dimensions of our nature, regularly and consistently in wise and balanced ways.”
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” —Abraham Lincoln
Privacy is not keeping things secret; it is deciding who to share what information with, at what time, and in what context.
Jennifer Golbeck is a Professor in the College of Information Studies and Director of the Social Intelligence Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received an AB in Economics and an SB and SM in Computer Science at the University of Chicago, as well as a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Professor Golbeck began studying social media from the moment it emerged on the web, and she is one of the world’s foremost experts in the field. Her research has influenced industry, government, and the military. She is a pioneer in the field of social data analytics and discovering people’s hidden attributes from their online behavior, and she is a leader in creating human-friendly security and privacy systems.
Here are my favourite takeaways from viewing Dr. Jennifer Golbeck’s Great Courses Class:
The Johari window was created by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955 as a way to better understand yourself and the communication between you and others. It is a model for soliciting and giving feedback. It is a communication model that has four quadrants and two dimensions (Myself and Others)
The model is a 2x 2 grid which represents things that a person knows about themselves on one axis and things that others know about them on the other axis. By plotting the levels of self-knowledge and the knowledge held by others the person can develop a greater understanding of their personality and how they are perceived by others.
In 1969, Management trainer Martin M. Broadwell, describes the Four stages of competence in a Gospel Guardian article titled: the four levels of teaching, he writes:
A few are gifted with the ability to teach well without working at it. Others must learn the skill. For most of us, learning how to teach means studying and practicing and seeing what we did right and wrong. According to Broadwell there are four levels of teaching:
Unconscious Incompetent.
This poor creature who is a very poor teacher, but doesn’t know it. He goes on in the same old way, perhaps lecturing in a dull, monotone manner, unaware that he is wasting his time and the students’. We can do nothing towards improving this fellow, because he can’t be changed until he reaches the next level, which is the “Conscious Incompetent.”
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid – Epictetus
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish excerpt from the 2005 Steve Jobs Commencement Speech
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog,which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: It was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters. Don’t wish to seem knowledgeable, and if some regard you as important, distrust yourself ~Epictetus.
I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening. – Larry King
I am not the best of listener, it is a weakness am taking conscious effort in trying to remedy. It is a constant battle for me to stay silent when someone is speaking. It is a life long journey, just like any habit. You can Learn and Unlearn any thing you put your mind into.
I am committing to Listening for a change. Here are some thoughts and insights on Listening that could help:
The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings. What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view. – David D. Burns (Psychiatrist and Author)
We hear half of what what is being said, listen to half of what we hear, understand half of that, believe half of that, and remember only half of that. If you translate those assumptions into an eight hour workday, here is what what would mean:
You spend about four hours listening
You hear about two hour of what is said
You actually listen to an hour of that
You understand only thirty minutes of that
You believe only fifteen minutes of that
And you remember only seven and a half minutes of it.
Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. ― Bruce Lee
How do you answer the question: What do you do? Do you answer with your present/past Job Description(s). For Example:
The above responses are what have done in the past/presently doing but they are not who I am because I am constantly re-inventing myself like we should all be doing. We need to constantly be in Permanent Beta Mode.
Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes. – J.K.Rowling
In the The Start-up of You, Reid Hoffman notes:
Technology companies sometimes keep the beta test phase label on software for a time after the official launch to stress that the product is not finished so much as ready for the next batch of improvements. Gmail, for example, launched in 2004 but only left official beta in 2009, after millions of people were already using it.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness That most frightens us.
We ask ourselves Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small Does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, As children do. We were born to make manifest The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; It’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others.
I developed my keen interest in playing various board games such as Scrabble,Monopoly and Chess after watching the Akeelah and the Bee Movie.
Our deepest fear quote is originally from Marianne Williamson, I agree profoundly with the statement.
Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them. – John Wooden
We give ourselves various excuses/reasons and we talk ourselves out from achieving our greatness by saying things like : I am too young, I am too old, I am too skinny, I am too fat, I am too dark, I am too this I am too that.
