Victor Frankl and Man’s Search for Meaning

“Suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end.” The Four Noble Truths of the Buddhist philosophy

Suffering is a human universal. M Scott Peck begins his book The Road Less Travelled with the words “Life is hard.”

Victor Frankl wrote a powerful book “Man’s search for meaning.” (full text at google books) It is half autobiography and half textbook on human psychology. Frankl survived three years in the Nazi concentration camps, passing 6 months in Auschwitz. Only 1 in 30 of those that entered the camps survived. Frankl noted that it was not random. Those that survived had something that those who did not survive did not.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Victor Frankl

Frankl said that those that survived the horror, disease, starvation and mistreatment of the concentration camps had a purpose to their life – and believed that there was something worth surviving for – a loved one that they will see again, a new theory that the world needs to hear, a project still to complete. A concentration camp is an extreme form of suffering, but all life includes a little bit of difficulty, challenge, stuff you wish wasn’t so, stuff you wish you had.

A good friend once told me “God would never give you an obstacle that he didn’t know that you could overcome”. Nick Vujicic has overcome an obstacle that is bigger than anything that I have ever had to face. (video here).

Nick Vujicic has an incredible attitude. He has a really good reason to be allowed to feel sorry for himself, but he chooses not to. It was clearly not an easy journey, but it began with belief that there was purpose to his life and the challenges he needed to overcome.

There is a powerful video of Victor Frankl speaking over at TED.com.

Why the Rhetorical Journey?

A friend of mine, Roger, asked me “Why do you call the blog The Rhetorical Journey?”.

I am a fan of U2. I have been since I was 10 years old. On the album “Rattle and Hum” there is a recording of an interview between a journalist and Bono and The Edge of U2. The journalist asks them “what are you doing?” and The Edge replies, with laughter, “We are on a Rhetorical Journey”.

A Rhetorical Journey

I didn’t know what Rhetorical meant, but it sounded like a cool thing. To me a Rhetorical Journey is a journey searching for meaning and purpose; a desire to travel, to experience to see and feel and experience all that life has to offer. I have always thought that U2 is one of the few musical groups who completely reinvent themselves every 5-6 years. They travel, they seek new inspiration, they seek new answers. No album is ever a simple repeat of what worked in the previous album.

I was in hospital the last two days for an operation. I don’t like needles. I spent the time waiting for the operation working to keep my brain full of other thoughts and not allow room for thoughts about needles, knives or operations to enter my head. I spent about 40 minutes in a clean ward with 6 others getting wired up before we were wheeled off to our respective operating rooms. At a certain moment I looked up at the ceiling and thought “hospital ceilings are horrible. Green paint and florescent lights. How many people have this as their last view of life.”

This blog is a journey away from anonymity for me. These are ideas that I think about and have often written about in my own private notebooks. It is sometimes painful to press “publish” and put my half-formed ideas out for all the world to see and comment on. I am generally surprised by the positive feedback that I receive and has been a big motivator to keep the habit of blogging (It might be a bit sad, but I do pay attention to which posts get comments, RTs on Twitter, Shares on facebook…).

I had felt for a long time that I had no base to talk about life – I can’t point to massive success or some other external “validator” that my ideas might be useful. I was greatly helped by an insight from a friend, Tony Anagor, who has decided to take a step back from his successful business and build a role as a “life coach” (check out his website Keep The Bounce) – helping others understand and take steps to achieve their dreams (in work, family, personal lives).Tony told me that he had gone to one of the first Anthony Robbins conferences in Europe. This was about 18 years ago in London. Anthony Robbins was only at the beginning of his journey towards the famous motivational guru that he has become today. Tony went to another Anthony Robbins conference a couple of years ago where Anthony was now successful, confidante to Presidents, a millionaire author with his own resort in Fiji (here is his TED talk).

My friend told me that the first conference was the most powerful of the two. Robbins was on his own journey of discovery and the conference was about Robbins sharing his pains, fears, steps of his personal journey. The second conference was powerful, but less authentic for being so professional. Robbins had lost any of his own doubts about his own path and is clear on his purpose today. It was harder to connect to the guru Robbins than to the “on a journey” Robbins.

I saw then that I do not need to point to my successes (few), but only remain humble (I fail often), open to ideas, stories, people and provide my mundane, simple commentary on these experiences that appear in my life.

This then is my Rhetorical Journey.

Are your values a danger to your health and happiness?

On Friday I heard a story about values and the importance of not just accepting other’s value systems without ensuring they are right for me.

I remember reading a book on psychotherapy and the “pathological critic” (Self-Esteem by McKay and Fanning) that described four criteria to evaluate my personal values that allow me to check whether my own values are “healthy”.

Flexible – healthy values allow for exceptions and accept room for some mistakes in the process of learning new things. Unhealthy values often include the ideas never, always, all, totally, perfectly – which are likely to end up creating feelings of worthlessness. “I should never make mistakes” might sound like a worthy ambition, but is likely to generate stress in all but the most safe situations.
Owned – healthy values are owned: critically examined and right for me. Unhealthy values are inherited without critically determining if they are right for my personality, needs and circumstances. They are often our parent’s values that we have accepted as valid without a process of checking whether they are right for my life.
Realistic – healthy values are oriented to outcomes. Unhealthy values are absolute and global, prescribing behaviour because it is morally “good” or “right”. “A good parent keeps their children safe from danger” is unhealthy – there will be situations where the parent has little control over the situation eg bullying at school, underperfomance in sports.
Life enhancing – healthy values do not diminish or narrow me as a person – they allow pursuit of areas that are positive, nourishing, supportive to my needs. Unhealthy values are life restricting – “I must always be happy and positive” is not life enhancing – it denies that there will be moments that I am sad, frustrated or angry – and it is restrictive to deny my full range of emotions.

Why do some people find games more fulfilling than real life?

This is another blog post inspired by a TED video. This one on the world of online games by Jane McGonigle.

Humans spend 3 billion hours a week spent playing online games. This is a lot. Many American teenagers will have accumulated more hours playing online games than school hours by the age of 18.

Two questions: 1) why? and 2) what are they learning?

The answer to number one is quite simple. I can approach this as a economist might approach it. Each individual case will have their specific reasons, but on a massive scale people play because there is something better about being in the virtual game world than they get in their real world. Jane McGonigle in her TED talk identifies 4 specific disciplines that are part of a gamer’s experience of the virtual game world.

Urgent Optimism – extreme self motivation, the desire to act immediately to tackle a problem and to start now with a belief in a good chance of success. There is a constant belief in the existance of the epic win – a winning outcome that you sense will be bigger and better than anything you could imagine.
Social Fabric – instinct to trust. The attitude of gamers in virtual online worlds is to trust and share resources and challenges with unknown strangers.
Blissful productivity – we know that we are happy when we are working hard. The average gamer of World of Warcraft plays 22 hours a week. These are not 22 hours of watching the clock, waiting for the coffee break or the school bell to ring. These are 22 hours of intense problem solving, collaboration, trying and trying and experimenting until the gamer achieves an outcome. Gamers know that they are most fulfilled when they are totally absorbed in their tasks.
Epic Meaning – gamers love to be attached to awe inspiring missions. They might be tapping buttons and shifting pixels, but they believe that this is connected to a really worthwhile purpose – saving the galaxy, taking Argentina to the world cup final, defeating evil.

An the answer to question 2 – what are they learning? Jess says they are learning to be “super empowered hopeful individuals”. The pity is that they are not taking these super powers – persistance against all odds, trust and openness to strangers, desire to work hard and faith in something bigger – over to the real world.

What can we do to make real world more like these games? What can be done to allow kids to feel that it is worth working hard to build something important?

The three types of work

There are only three types of work:

Bad work
Good work
Great work

I think you probably know what sits in each of these categories.

Bad work is pointless. It is a waste of time. It is the basis of Dilbert cartoons. Sadly, most organisations are superb at creating bad work: bureaucracy, meetings to plan other meetings, outdated processes that bear no relation to what customers require.

Good work is the bread and butter, the stuff you do well, you are trained to do. It is comfortable and you probably do it well. Good work is necessary and there will always be some in your life.

Great work is the work that matters. It is meaningful to you, has an impact and makes a difference. It can be enjoyable, but it can also be quite uncomfortable. It is new and challenging so there exists a possibility of failure.

The answer is not to stop everything and focus only on great work. I was reading the Changethis.com manifesto “Stop the Busywork: 7 counter-intuitive ways to find more time, space and courage to do more Great work” by Michael Bungay Stenier. His years of experience coaching people suggest that most people lie in the range of:

10-40% Bad work
40-80% Good work
0-25% Great work

Michael suggests an exercise: You draw a large circle on a page and create your own work pie chart – how much of what you do is bad, good and great? What sorts of things fit into good and great? What is in the great category that is also of immediate and strategic value to your company?

What makes you a Well-Paid Expert?

This is relevant for anyone who communicates regularly from a position of authority – doctors, scientists, professors…

3 Types of Experts

I have had several people who have expertise say to me “but I haven’t been successful myself”. Toni Nadal isn’t better at tennis than Rafa, but he knows how to get results. Michael Porter hasn’t run a business, but he has spent a lifetime interviewing people that have. There are 3 types of experts:

The Result Expert – Proven ability to get specific results for others
The Research Expert – Has interviewed performers and has a deep knowledge of tools, strategies and tactics in an area
The Role Model – Has been successful

Tim Ferriss has an interesting perspective: “you can learn more from the person who shouldn’t be good, but is than from the person who is naturally excellent.” Roger Federer has every natural gift to be a top tennis player. Rafa Nadal had to really fight to become number 1. Most of us can learn more from Rafa’s approach than we could learn by understanding Federer.

Four Actions of Experts

There are four things that the best experts do:

Choose mastery. Choose continuous learning. Choose to read, to review, to focus intensely on a continuous process of learning and growing in the specific field in which they are experts. Go deep rather than go broad.
Regularly interview other experts looking for patterns and best practice.
Create arguments based on four parts:
1. What we should be paying attention to
2. What things mean
3. How things work
4. What might happen
Simplify complex ideas with frameworks

Four Actions of Wealthy Experts

There are four further things that can differentiate the wealthy expert from the plain expert:

Package their knowledge: Write, speak, record – put knowledge into a form that people are willing to purchase
Campaign vs Promote their knowledge – each interaction leads to a further interaction
Charge expert fees – charge more than you are comfortable with
Focus on:
1. Distinction – Keep studying the competition and keep innovating
2. Excellence – Be better
3. Service – Be helpful and responsive

These 8 actions come from this video from Brandon Burchard. Brandon helps others become well-paid experts.

I like his explanation of what differentiates a true expert from non-experts.

I will finish with a thought from Charles Handy, the Irish business philosopher who was one of the founders of London Business School.

“The aim of education is to give someone the self belief that enables them to take charge of their own life.” Charles Handy

This is the true aim of any expert.

Who would you bet on?

Warren Buffett gave a talk to a group of MBA students at the University of Florida in 2007. The video is at the bottom of this post (on the blog). He starts with an interesting question.

He says [2:30] “Think for a moment that I granted you the right to buy 10% of the future income of any one of your classmates for the rest of his or her lifetime. You can’t pick one with a rich father, that doesn’t count. You got to pick someone who is going to do it on their own merit. Which one are you going to pick?”

Imagine 100 of your colleagues, family, friends. Who would you choose? Are there two or three faces that come to mind? Maybe if you are lucky with your friends, 10 or 15 jump into your mind. But, you have to choose one.

Warren suggests that there are various methods to do the final selection. Would you use school or university grades? GMAT? Most likely not. These are not great indicators of success in life.

If not grades then what? How about your best friend? Set up a pact – “I’ll choose you if you choose me”. A good plan? I don’t think so.

So, if grades aren’t the criteria; If friendship isn’t the criteria; then what should be your criteria for selecting the person to place your bet on?

Warren says that he has 3 criteria:

Integrity – coherence between values and words, words and actions; responds well in bad times as well as the easy times.
Energy – gets up every day and starts moving.
Intelligence – here, Warren clarifies that he is not looking for grand strategic planning type intelligence; not for chess type intelligence – but for a type of course correction intelligence that allows for small course corrections that mean that instead of running headlong into a brick wall, there is enough intelligence to change course and only receive a glancing blow to the shoulder.

A good basis for selection? Do you know who you would bet on? Would it be yourself? You already own 100% of your own future income… are you a good bet? In a future blog I will give three ideas to improve your energy, intelligence and ability to live your values. Interested?

On goal setting. How I do it. (Do not try this at home)

I was on the Air Europa flight back from Madrid sat with JC Duarte and Manuel Vidal-Quadras. At a certain point we watched as JC pulled up an impressive iPhone application that allows him to track his time. This led to a discussion about how to be effective with time. I feel that I am not effective with my time and can easily waste hours on the unimportant (facebook, searching for information on Wikipedia and reading 10 other interesting but not directly relevant web pages). I do however, tend to be good at achieving my goals. I know I could be a lot more effective, but keep myself to aim to achieve 3 important things each day.

I took some time to think about how I manage myself to achieve goals. I am interested in others’ strategys and tactics to effectively achieve the important things in their lives.

Daydream & Visualise Benefits: I imagine myself in the future having accomplished the goal. I try to write a few words about this image. My top priority goal this year is write a book. I can see it available in all those airport bookshops that I pass on my travels. I am too good at this bit and can sometimes end up living in a future, better world rather than being truly present in the here and now.
Be Realistic: This is where I need to work harder. I find it easy to imagine the benefits and to be optimistic about achieving them, but hard to be realistic about the obstacles that stand in the way; and getting down to systematically overcome these obstacles. I write two significant obstacles that will make it difficult to achieve the goal. Writing a book is a lonely process – I decided that I need to write 1000 words every day – and publish a blog post about once a week.
Brainstorm: How can I overcome these obstacles? The benefits can only come about if I am serious about overcoming the obstacles. Is there a way to minimise the obstacles? How would someone else overcome these obstacles? If I can’t see how to overcome the obstacles I think it is better that I admit that I am not going to achieve the goal. I am not good at this. I want to believe I can be great at everything.
Action plan: 9 years of Accenture means I can do this in my sleep. Break the goal down into actions – list the actions. Establish rewards for achieving significant progress points along the list of actions. Set dates. Write it down. I like the feeling of crossing out actions as I complete them (~~like this~~). No online tool has ever given me the same satisfaction as a big blue line drawn through the text on the page. I have hired a coach to help me with the book. We have worked on a list of chapters – completing chapters is easier than completing the whole book in one go.
Start: Just a few minutes right now.
Public Commitment: I tell people that I will accomplish a goal. I just told you that I will write a book. I also want to give a speach to an audience of 5000 people one day. I want to take my daughter to Disneyland (haven’t decided Paris or Florida). I tell different people for different goals. I have some sports/fitness friends and they know that I will run a sprint triathlon this year. It would be better if I was able to let them know about the obstacles and how they could help (sometimes with a simple “come on man”; the swim is the big challenge for me in the triathlon). I attach a date to when I mean to achieve the goal. June 6 is the sprint triathlon. August is the book. I need to decide what is the best age for my daughter’s first Disney experience…

My current list of life goals is on the right panel of this blog.

The roots of violence: Rights without responsibilities.

I listened to Warren Rustand speak on Leadership to the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last week. Warren is a man who has fit the experiences of several lifetimes into his own – he has been in public service, in academia, involved in not-for-profits and has been chairman or CEO of 17 organisations.

He spoke of the seven blunders of the world, a handwritten note by Gandhi that he gave to his grandson Arun on their final day together, not too long before his assassination. These seven blunders are the roots of violence.

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle

An eighth was added by Ghandhi’s grandson:

Rights without Responsiblities.

Number eight underlies the rest of Gandhi’s “blunders”.

The message from Warren’s session on leadership was that life comes with responsibilities. If I see the future clearer than those around me, then I have a responsibility. If I feel more confident about the situation, then I have a responsibility. If I know more than those around me, then I have a responsibility. If I have a comfortable life, a roof over my head and food on my table, then I also have responsibilities.

Scary. I can’t choose to opt out.

Tiger, Mozart and the Pogar sisters. How you too can become excellent. (World class even)

Take a look around you.

Take a look at the people you work with, the people you meet at parties, even the people you just casually pass in the street.

How do they spend their days?

Most of them work. They do some other activities as well. They sleep, eat, cook, hang out with friends, watch TV, play sport and some might play an instrument. Nothing, however, comes close to the hours that they dedicate to work.

Now, ask yourself, honestly, how well do they do it? Well enough to not be sacked? Maybe well enough to get a promotion now and then? But are any of them awesomely great at what they do? Truly world class? Excellent?

Why? How can they spend so much time at it, going through school, through university, maybe even an MBA, some executive seminars, coaching, mentors, high-flyer programs… but they are not great at what they do.

Why?

Some people have been working for a long time. They have been going at it for 20, 30 even 40 years. After all these thousands of hours most people are just plain ok at what they do.

This is sad.

I am currently reading “Talent is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin. This is a well referenced book on what does in fact lead to great performance.

“Being good at what we want to do – playing the violin, running a race, painting a picture, leading a group of people – is among the deepest sources of fulfillment we will ever know. ” Geoff Colvin.

So, what does lead to great performance? What is the secret that Tiger Woods, Mozart, Jack Welsh, Steve Jobs have found?

First, let me tell you what it is not due to:

Experience (alone)
Innate abilities
High general intelligence, powerful memory or other “general” cognitive ability.

Let me now tell you what 30 years of scientific research say it is due to:

Deliberate Practice.

What is deliberate practice? “For starters, it isn’t what most of us do when we’re practicing” Geoff Colvin. The key piece of scientific literature on this subject is “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance” by Anders Ericsson.

There are five things that characterize Deliberate Practice:

It is designed specifically to improve performance
It can be repeated a lot
Feedback on results is continuously available
It is highly demanding mentally
It is not fun

A note on Tiger, Mozart and the Polgar sisters (top 3 female chess players): It was due to something they were born with: Their fathers. Earl Woods was a golf fanatic and an expert in the process of teaching. Leopold Mozart published the leading book on violin instruction in the year his son was born. Lazlo Polgar wrote “Bring up Genius” before marrying and deliberately putting into practice his theories with his three daughters.

I finish with a sentence for my friend Piero in response to a profound statement that he managed to use in normal conversation “the zero point field that sustains the energy of the universe”. In the words of a group of scientists investigating talent: “Whatever it is that an IQ test measures, it is not the ability to engage in cognitively complex forms of multivariate reasoning”.

They are saying of course, that high IQ doesn’t help you succeed in the real world. If you are interested I will write more on the three models of deliberate practice: The musician model, the chess model and the sports model. Only if you are interested…