Game of Thrones is back for its final season this week. This video comes from the beautiful city walls of Ávila, about 100kms to the west of Madrid in Spain.
I used to think that it was enough to be good at your job, and to be nice to people… and money, success and power would come. How wrong I was. The Game of Thrones makes it clear: if you have something of value, someone stronger will take it from you. You must be strong or be protected.
I’ve been reading a few books recommended by my readers and youtube watchers since my recent video review of The Surrender Experiment 4 weeks ago. A wonderful author that I was recommended is Dr David Hawkins. He was a psychotherapist who worked over 50 years with patients in all stages of conscious functioning.
In this post, I share some of the powerful words that I have taken from David, and then I share his scale from 1-1000 of Consciousness. Have a look and see where you believe you are on this scale.
Over to Dr David…
“Like the sun, the inner Self is always shining, but because of negative clouds, we do not experience it. It is not necessary to program oneself with the truth; it is only necessary to remove that which is false. The removal of the clouds from the sky to illuminate the negative allows one to experience the energy fields of that which is positive. It is only the removal of the negative that is necessary-the willingness to let go of the habits of negative thinking. The removal of the obstacles to the experiencing of this will result in an increasing sense of aliveness and a joy of one’s own existence.”
There is a Buddhist story that man starts clean, but as he starts to walk, the dirt from the road sticks to him. The further he walks the more he is covered by layer upon layer of dirt. After a short time we can no longer see the man underneath the dirt. In fact the man himself has forgotten that this surface of dirt is not actually him. We don’t need to find something new outside us to move up the levels of consciousness…
U2 has a song “Get out of your Own Way”. What many of us need is to get out of our own way, to stop sabotaging ourselves.
“The way to become that exciting person whom people want to know is very easy. We simply picture the kind of person we want to be and surrender all the negative feelings and blocks that prevent us from being that.”
“Write down all your faults. Write down all the faults others think you have, even if you think they’re liars. You take responsibility for it all. If you own it all, nobody has any way to attack you. If others attack you, it’s because you’re not owning something. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being stupid and ugly. (Laughter). So we admit our faults, and we stop labeling them faults. We have to get over narcissistic sensitivity. All negative reactions are not caused from outside; it’s how we choose. The way to become bulletproof is to own anything that seems a fault. The way to overcome the ego’s reaction to that is to say, “I’m stupid and ugly. It doesn’t matter; God loves me.”
“The willingness to forgive others is reflected in our own capacity for self-forgiveness and acceptance.”
“Surrender is a constant process of not resisting or clinging to the moment but instead, continuously turning it over to God. The attention is thus focused on the process of letting go and not on the content of the ‘what’ that is being surrendered.”
“With humility one can see that the mind is limited and incapable of seeing all the circumstances surrounding any event. Out of this arises the willingness to let go of condemnation and judgment.”
These levels determine the reason why people behave the way they do.
You can listen to Dr David Hawkins being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, or watch the video below where he speaks specifically about the Scale of Consciousness:
29/6/2021 – THIS IMAGE REMOVED DUE TO THE THREAT OF LEGAL ACTION BY THE PUBLISHERS OF DR. HAWKINS MATERIALS.
Thank you to all those watchers and readers who have recommended books, videos and audios after my post on The Surrender Experiment 😉
Be careful what you wish for… In the Zoo, the animals are safe in their cages, they are fed 3 meals a day, the fence keeps out predators and competition (isn’t that what Trump promised?).
We have to be careful what we wish for.
Freedom comes with a price, and that price is called responsibility. We need to practice the responsibility that allows us to deal with true freedom.
From Peter Drucker:
Freedom is not fun. It is not the same as individual happiness, nor is it security or peace or progress. It is a responsible choice. Freedom is not so much a a right as a duty. Real freedom is not freedom from something; that would be licence. It is freedom to choose between doing or not doing something, to act one way or another, to hold one belief or the opposite, It is not “fun” but the heaviest burden laid on man: to decide his own individual conduct as well as the conduct of society and to be responsible for both decisions.”
If you liked this, you will like reading Freedom is Not Fun.
Yesterday, Boris Johnson was on a triumphal march to the leadership of the UK. Today, his career lies in ruins. What happened?
Tragedy is “a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences” (from wikipedia). The essence of Tragedy is that the hero’s greatest strength will end up being the source of his failure… usually just inches from victory.
Boris Johnson lived through a classic tragedy yesterday.
UK politician, Boris Johnson is often described as a buffoon, even by his admirers. His messy, bumbling, self-deprecating persona has long made him one of the best known politicians through his appearances on TV chat shows. His greatest strength: a magnetic, charismatic character that allows him to engage all sides of the political spectrum.
His downfall: he makes so many wonderful promises that there is no way he can keep them all. His own lieutenant realises that he cannot trust Boris and stabs him in the back.
Is this Game of Thrones? No, it’s even more gruesome…
The British newspapers today are a better read than the final season 6, episode 10 Game of Thrones storyline (wow, how will Daenerys vs Cersei pan out?). (Some newspaper headlines: “An Act of Midnight Treachery“, “Gove’s thunderbolt and Johnson’s breaking point“, “Farewell to Boris Johnson the great political wrecker of our generation“, “Gove and Johnson: what happened?” …)
Just 2 weeks ago… It was all going so well for Boris.
1999: Boris was made editor of Spectator magazine, promising Conrad Black, the owner, that he would never enter politics.
Boris enters politics.
2008: Boris was given a leadership role in the conservative party, promising he would not run for London mayor against the central party candidate Nick Boles.
He runs for London mayor.
2016: Boris takes a tactical decision to lead the Brexit campaign in the referendum, giving a plausible front face to a campaign previously made up of bigots and angry white men. He promises everything to everybody.
Michael Gove promises to support Boris Johnson’s run for leadership.
Boris promises jobs to everyone who supports him.
Michael Gove discovers that 300 people have been promised leading roles in a Boris Johnson leadership team. There are not 300 leadership roles. Gove wants some clarity on his future role in the Boris Johnson team. Boris equivocates…
The morning of Boris Johnson’s accession to the throne of conservative party leadership, Gove turns on him and says he cannot be trusted to lead.
Narcissism is “the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one’s own attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.” (from wikipedia)
The narcissistic leader is missing any internal compass that guides their action. They are oriented to personal power. All decisions are short term opportunistic decisions based on the net increase in power.
It is addictive to follow a narcissistic leader. They know how to make you feel great when they need you. They know the words you most want to hear. They know the promises you want them to make. They make everything seem clear and simple.
Bonus Quiz: Can you spot any narcissistic leader candidates around the world? I’m writing a long post called “The Global Rise of Populist Politicians: Why Now?” that will be published here in the next week.
The charismatic leader does not intend to lie. In the moment that they make the promise they really mean to keep it. The problem is that they mean the promise because they see it pleases you. The moment someone else is with them, they will make a promise that pleases them. They will accumulate promise after promise, pleasing person after person… until they have made so many promises that they have to break some of them.
Be careful of people pleasers. They are better at pleasing people than at staying the course on a long and challenging voyage.
The world is not clear and simple. The problems of the world are complex and connected. No simple solution will give us back the imagined great past that has been taken away from us. It is not the immigrants who have made anyone poorer, it is that you cannot do the same work for the same rewards forever.
We must be wary of simple answers to complex, global problems. We must be wary of charismatic personalities that are willing to say whatever is needed to be said in order to gain power.
The only proof of future performance is past performance. How has this person behaved in the past. Words are cheap. Only actions show the true colours of a person.
Be careful of words.
Look at actions.
While the future is pretty bleak for the individuals, this tragedy has brought the Tory party together.
After all of the leadership bloodletting we now have 5 candidates who espouse the same 3 priorities for the future: Brexit + Social Justice + Capitalism.
Maybe it takes an individual tragedy to bring an organisation together?
There is a power tool in negotiation. I would say this is the single most useful tactic that I use in my years of selling (I sell private jets among other high value products).
It is not competitive, it is not aggressive, it is not avoiding anything.
It does not require massive intellectual development, years of training or genetic gifts.
It requires no study, no poetic ability nor any magical secret ingredients.
It is …
Silence.
Me: “What is your best price?”
Supplier: “Blah, blah [Product feature #2], blah… I can offer you €100”
Me: “Hmmm.” and wait… 10… 20 seconds… (tension increasing)
Supplier: “Ok, I can give you €90… but that is our best price”
Me: “Hmmm.” and wait… 10… 20 seconds… (tension increasing)
… and on…
70% of organisation change efforts fail.
John Kotter has an 8 step process that can reduce the likelihood that your project of organisational change (and all leadership projects mean some form of change the the existing status quo).
A big source of failure is starting action before you have put together a solid base of support and understanding before acting.
There is an excellent resource that goes into more detail for each stage at John Kotter’s website.
I just watched Thomas Hyunh speak about his lifetime obsession with Sun-Tzu, the 2,500 year old Chinese General, at Authors@Google (video at the bottom of this post). Sun-Tzu was only 30 years old when he led the smallest region of China to victory over the largest region. This victory made him famous, and made his book “The Art of War” into the widely read book that it has become.
What makes Sun-Tzu’s Art of War relevant to us today? Conflict is part of our lives. Personal relations, company market share battles, political struggle – how can we approach these challenges in an effective manner?
Whether it is military conflict or politics within an organisation, Sun-Tzu’s guidelines are relevant.
“Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win” Sun-Tzu
Number 1 is Control Yourself. Sun-Tzu is very deliberate about his guidelines of separating out Ego and Emotion from decision making. Thomas quotes him in his talk “Before doing battle, in the temple one calculates and will win” – take decisions away from field of combat. As in combat, so in life. Life decisions taken under high emotion or driven by ego desire are dangerous. They need reflection in the light of a meditative peaceful pose.
“Those angry will be happy again, and those wrathful will be cheerful again, but a destroyed nation cannot be brought back to life” Sun-Tzu. Strong emotions will go away, but actions can never be undone. Battle that is driven by revenge, by anger, by frustration is not good battle. Personal conflict that is driven by anger, revenge is not good for either party.
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osQ2bLUd0UA&list=TLp3MFP1RQA6E
I was watching the UK version of the TV show “The Apprentice” a few months ago. This particular week’s challenge was to sell caravan and camping equipment at a trade show.
Early on, there was a key decision to make: Which model of caravan would the team try to sell?
Now, this was a trade show where the typical attendee was 60 years old and the teams had this information. This was not a show directed to young people, nor was it an audience that would be represented by the word “innovative”. This was people looking for solid, reliable caravans.
The team lead, lets call him Joe, asked for advice from one of his team members, who I will call Tom. Now, Joe has already agreed with the rest of the team that they should choose a proven, well-priced model…
Joe: “So, Tom, what do you think? Should we go for the hip, modern campervan or the older, proven model?”
Tom: “I think we should go for the modern one.” (I am surprised at this advice)
Joe: “Really? I like it a lot more… but… are you sure it is right for this market?”
Tom: “I think we can manage it.”
Joe: “Right, ok… I’ll go with your advice.”
Skip forward to the end of the week… Joe is in the boardroom defending why his team did so incredibly poorly. It was clearly because he chose a caravan that would be impossible to sell to the actual audience of the trade show.
Tom was playing the game supremely. He was being friendly to Joe and acting the part of a loyal team member, whilst really setting Joe up for a fall.
In real life this happens all the time, but it is very hard to see – because the manipulators like Tom are very good at the act, and we only see how they deal with us. We don’t see or hear what they are saying to others behind our backs.
Modern western society forces a dilemma onto its citizens: How do I maintain a good balance between good, long-term, trusting relationships and individual achievement. The achievement often has to come by me winning and another person losing.
Machiavelli first put down the principles of individual achievement over trusted relationships back in 1500s in his book The Prince.
TV Series such as The Apprentice, Survivor and Big Brother are exquisitely designed and edited to open a clear window for the viewers into the scheming, manipulative words and actions of the competitors. They can often go for weeks believing that Tom is a wonderful friend in the house, whilst the audience has known for weeks that Tom is playing the true friend to several others and manipulating the whole house.
It is addictive watching.
I think it is addictive, because deep down we all know the game.
Chris Anderson, Owner of TED
Presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance, not speaking style or multimedia pyrotechnics. It’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. If you have something to say, you can build a great talk. But if the central theme isn’t there, you’re better off not speaking. Decline the invitation. Go back to work, and wait until you have a compelling idea that’s really worth sharing. Read More
McKinsey & Company
Conventional change management approaches have done little to change the fact that most change programs fail. The odds can be greatly improved by a number of counterintuitive insights that take into account the irrational but predictable nature of how employees interpret their environment and choose to act. Read More
Dave Kerpen
All 11 concepts are simple, and yet, perhaps in the name of revenues or the bottom line, we often lose sight of the simple things – things that not only make us human, but can actually help us become more successful. Read More
Tristan Wember
In this article we introduce five models for leading change. No single model isright. However, they all have something valuable on offer and can help us to navigate our way through complex organisational situations or circumstances. Read More
In times of crisis, we prefer Visionary Leaders. Hope is a strong motivator to current action when the situation is difficult.
In the years leading up to 2008, the USA was stuck in two protracted wars, and an economic crisis sparked by the subprime lending collapse. In this context of uncertainty, the big factor that helped to sweep Barrack Obama into the Presidency was that he was seen as an inspiring and visionary leader. His message gave hope for a better future to come.
The Ethos-Based Speech model uses the force of the leader’s personal and professional credibility combined with hope to move an audience to take action. It is a vital tool for effective leaders when facing times of uncertainty and crisis.
Likewise, Ronald Reagan came to power in a time of uncertainty. He was a powerful visionary speaker. His speech after the Challenger space shuttle disaster was a very clear Ethos-Based speech structure and delivery.
The Ethos-Based Speech follows this simple structure:
Starts with a moment in time “4 years ago” or “When we founded this company” or “70 years ago”. Past describes a situation where things were “good”. Past sets a common context. Ronald Reagan’s speech after the Challenger space shuttle disaster begins with a story about what happened 400 years ago – the founding of the USA. This creates a common context and connection for his audience.
Describes today’s reality. Often this is a negative in contrast with the Past. There are challenges. Not everything is rosy. However, the audience needs to see that the leader lives in their world, sees what they see. This clear seeing of today’s real situation establishes credibility. Ronald Reagan’s Challenger speech tells of what he and his wife Nancy saw on TV that morning, how they felt and what it meant. He then speaks to the children, then to the teachers, then to the families of the dead astronauts. He is direct and clear about the real situation and the feelings.
Imagines a better situation in future. “5 years from now, I see a company that is strong…” Outlines what the hard work we need to day will achieve. Connects todays difficulty with a purpose.
I made a short video last week to explain some of the advanced modules we run in IESE for Persuasive Communication skills.
