Search Results for: Not for me

I was with my nephew Parker when we discovered the Fahrenheit, a level 5 roller coaster with a 97-degree drop followed by 6 inversions.

We were at Hershey Park. And fear swiftly convinced me to skip this ride – there was no way…

But my intrepid, almost-12-year-old nephew never hesitated. He was determined to ride. So I agreed to stand in line with him, but that was it.

As we shuffled among the fearless, I quickly realized that I wanted to share this experience with Parker. I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to be Cool Aunt Ann. I declared, “I’m going with you!” His face flooded with delight and awe.

The line was short – no time to ruminate or reconsider. Suddenly we were strapped into our seats and the coaster was ascending vertically – all I could see was blue sky. Fear could not protect me now!

And then we crested the top, plunging straight down, rolling right into upside down loops.

We laughed and screamed with joy! It was our favorite ride at the park. I can’t believe I almost missed it…

In psychology, there is a concept called Habituation: the more we face something that triggers an emotional response (like public speaking or talking to strangers), the more our emotional response diminishes.

Interestingly, the nervous system’s arousal actually decreases as we expose ourselves to the feared situation. Eventually we become accustomed to it – we habituate. And the fear loses its power over us.

Conversely, when we avoid that which causes us fear, we prevent our nervous system from habituating. So avoidance actually maintains and magnifies the fear!

While exposure is a proven way to overcome fear, I believe the real secret is to care about something more than the fear – like creating an experience with one of your favorite nephews!

After college, Sue Barlett taught 12th grade English at Central Hower High School in Akron, Ohio for nine years in the 1960s.

When she arrived, Sue was horrified to discover that her students (seniors!) did not know how to read.

And then she learned the reality of their illiteracy: because her students could not read, they could not pass a driver’s license test. And without a driver’s license, they were unable to find decent jobs.

Her students were about to graduate; they were illiterate; and they were destined for poverty.

Sue immediately pitched an idea to the school’s principal. He agreed – he knew the system had failed these students. How could he not support someone who was willing to try something new?

Here’s what she did… Sue went to the local DMV and obtained a copy of the driver’s license exam. She then used the exam as their textbook for the year. She taught her students how to read using the driver’s license exam. At the end of the year, they could read, drive, and forge their future.

When others falter or retreat in the face of hopeless situations thinking, “What could I possibly do?” “Not my problem,” or “This is just how things are,” Sue asked “What difference can I make?” And that conviction made all the difference for her students.

David Brooks, columnist and author of the recently released book, The Second Mountain, wrote, “At some point in life people realize that while our educational system generally prepares us for climbing this or that mountain, your life is actually defined by how you make use of your moment of greatest adversity.”

In our own moments of great adversity, we must remember that the invitation is not to change the world – it’s simply to change someone else’s world.

I really thought cycling across the country would make me happy.

But when I touched my front wheel into the Atlantic Ocean after 67 days of pedaling, I wasn’t happy. I was sad. I had spent 20 years talking about it and a whole year planning and training for it. Suddenly, the adventure was over.

I thought I was going to find happiness at the finish line. I didn’t expect to experience sheer joy from cycling every day.

So my post-ride slump was inevitable. To bounce out of it, I planned the next adventure – a bike ride from Key West to Maine the following year.

In a recent interview, actress Viola Davis was asked about her Oscar, her Tonys, and her Emmys. She shared her approach: “The three most important words to me are: and now what? What’s the next thing? What’s the next chapter? What’s the next page?” Viola intentionally looks at what she’s creating next, because the thrill of the award is not what fuels her.

A 2007 study revealed that we are happier in pursuit of goals than we are after we accomplish them. For example, we are happier getting a new job, starting a new class, and buying a new house than we are when we have the job, pass the exam, or inhabit the house, respectively.

Essentially, we are most happy when we are in the process of improving ourselves and our situations in some way.

Bottom line: positive dynamic events are better than static situations.

So get in action!

• Learn something new
• Change, improve something
• Launch a new program at work
• Experiment with a new tool for your team
• Start volunteering
• Plan an adventure
• Tackle an intrepid goal

Happiness is not a finish line to cross; it’s an ever-evolving journey that we get to create.

At the root of every upset is a missed expectation.

That gap in our expectations often results from assumptions about a situation, a miscommunication, or a misunderstanding.

Essentially we can trace every disappointment, frustration, or altercation to an Expectation Gap.

• We expect the price to be $100, but there’s a hidden $10 fee.
• We expect the room to be quiet, but someone starts talking loudly on their cellphone.
• We expect people to wait in line, but someone cuts to the front.
• We expect the meeting to end at 3:00, but it drags on until 4:00.
• We expect a peer to help, but they don’t.

We can bridge these Expectation Gaps using a myriad of strategies:

1. plan for delays
2. document verbal agreements
3. clarify expectations
4. ask questions for context
5. confirm deadlines, time zones, acronyms
6. lower expectations

And then I stumbled upon a powerful way to bridge the Expectation Gap when I met Alfredo recently…

Alfredo’s teenaged son is autistic and an avid skateboarder. When he goes to the skate park, he watches in awe as other skaters perform tricks. Eager to learn, he immediately approaches the skaters to ask for advice, often getting too close and in their face.

This creates an Expectation Gap – the skateboarders are not expecting the overzealous new kid to invade their personal space. Armed only with assumptions, their automatic reaction is to recoil.

But before they do, Alfredo’s son immediately explains, “I have autism so if I’m acting inappropriately, please let me know and I’ll back off.”

A powerful strategy: to deal with a potential or inevitable missed expectation, acknowledge it!

By pointing out the gap, we not only reset other people’s expectations, we bring vulnerability and transparency to the situation.

ps. Since Alfredo and his wife empowered their son with this strategy, the skaters have taken him under their wing, teaching him many new skating tricks and protecting him at the park.

When I biked from Key West to Maine in 2012, I hired a young woman to drive my RV and support me as I pedaled up the East Coast. In New Hampshire, she flooded the RV and destroyed my computer which had been on the floor.

It ruined an otherwise fabulous experience for me. I couldn’t get past it. I was obsessed with “why” it happened. Why did she forget to empty the tank? Why did I leave my computer on the floor? Why didn’t she feel contrite?

I was stuck – I needed an explanation, a story, a lesson to be learned. As a result, I wasn’t making the shift from “why?” to “what’s next?”

Why are we fascinated with why something happened? Because we all love a good story! The world does not make sense to us without identifying a cause-and-effect. The Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb says, “Explanations bind facts together. They help them make more sense.”

Behaviorists call it “Narrative Fallacy” – our tendency to look at a sequence of facts and weave in an explanation to give a situation meaning. This mental game seduces us into thinking that identifying the cause-and-effect actually makes a difference.

But the problem is that we get stuck in the backward-looking story instead of using the facts for forward-looking action.

Many bosses are obsessed with explaining the story behind their results instead of just looking at the results (the facts!) and moving forward.

“Why something happened” is merely a distraction from taking action.

By shifting our language from “Why?” to “What’s next?” we can shift our focus from the story to the facts, thereby freeing us to determine the only thing that actually matters: what are we going to do next?

Movie star Mae West (1893-1980) was famous for her fearlessness. She’d walk into saloons and say, “Who here needs to know me?”

The rest of us walk into rooms of strangers and look for anyone we tangentially know to save us from the dreaded awkwardness of appearing alone.

But navigating new people is not about looking like we already belong.

Research by the University of Waterloo reveals that the best way to make a great impression and get new people to like us instantly is to believe that the people we are about to meet will like us.

In other words, the secret is self-confidence.

When we expect to be accepted, we behave warmly and people want to connect. But if we expect to be rejected, we behave coldly and people don’t want to connect. Face it, who wants to talk to the frosty, standoffish new person in the room?

But confidence isn’t a networking skill like strong handshakes, eye contact, and listening. Confidence is an emotion. And like all of our emotions, we just need to manage it. How? Through self-talk, emotional intelligence, and practice.

My favorite strategy? Don’t tackle the entire room. Start with the first person you meet, like the receptionist, the waiter, the meeting planner, the executive assistant. Smile, connect, share a laugh, and get ready for the next person.

Boost your confidence one connection at a time, like stepping stones.

Some easy ideas:

• Practice with strangers everywhere
• Ask, “What’s the biggest difference I can make with this one person right here?”
• Find something to compliment right away
• Remember they’re struggling with confidence too
• ps. Wear what makes you feel great!

If you want to progress your ideas, your career, and your opportunities, walk into a meeting or a room of strangers from a standpoint of contribution, not fear. 

As Shark Tank investor Barbara Corcoran remembers, she didn’t do well in school. But her mother always celebrated Barbara’s wonderful imagination.

When a teacher once told Barbara she’d always be stupid, her mother said, “Don’t worry about it! With your imagination, you’ll learn to fill in all the blanks!”

Always curious how far she could go in life with that imagination, Barbara launched her real estate firm in 1973 with a $1,000 loan. To generate leads, she created a quarterly report of real estate data trends called The Corcoran Report... because no one else did. She mailed it to The New York Times which published it, affording her instant credibility.

Barbara sold her firm in 2001 for $66 million and became an investor on the television show Shark Tank.

In her words, “It’s not that I was great at real estate. I’m just really great at marketing.” That’s her creativity at work!

Creativity Research
In 1968 systems scientist George Land, Ph.D. conducted a research study to test creativity in 1,600 children at age 5 and again at ages 10 and 15.

He discovered that their creativity plummeted from 98% creative at age 5 to 12% creative at age 15.

His conclusion: non-creative behavior is learned.

Likewise, psychologist Louis Mobley launched the IBM Executive School to ignite innovation in leaders. His approach: creativity is an unlearningprocess, not a learning process.

So how can we unlearn our own non-creative behavior?

• Ask radically different questions
• Question assumptions
• Self-knowledge (become aware of those assumptions!)
• Grant permission to be wrong
• Surround ourselves with creative people
• Play games, solve riddles, tackle puzzles
• Experiment, explore, experience
• Celebrate imagination!

We don’t need to learn to be creative – we already are! We just need to unleash that superpower from years of atrophy.

In 2006 Lady Gaga had dropped out of NYU to pursue music, but then Def Jam Recordings canceled her contract. After crying on her grandmother’s couch, her father gave her one year to figure it out.

Also in 2006, music manager Troy Carter’s star client canceled his contract. Carter’s business suffered, his home was foreclosed, his car was repossessed. He teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

Right after signing with Interscope Records, Gaga hired Carter to be her manager. They worked nine months developing her music, but Interscope kept giving Gaga’s songs to other artists to perform,relegating her to a songwriter.

Carter and Gaga fought for control of some songs that she would perform, like Just Dance and Poker Face. But radio stations wouldn’t play them.

So they took her songs and performances to global audiences directly via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In Carter’s words, “We super-served underground music communities” on these fairly-new social platforms and in clubs until her music caught fire.

And their perseverance paid off.

• To date Lady Gaga has sold over 27 million albums and 146 million singles. She has won Grammy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and an Academy Award.
• Since signing Gaga, Tory Carter has managed music stars like John Legend and Meghan Trainor, and launched his own investment company, Atom Factory.

Throughout their journeys, Lady Gaga and Troy Carter faced many opportunities to claim defeat, blaming a myriad of excuses.

Instead they found a way.

We all have excuses:

• Lack of time, money, resources connections
• Battling bad bosses, peers, technology, traffic
• Suffering injustices, trauma, and drama

But at our core, we are not unlike Lady Gaga…

• When we want something, we find a way.
• When we don’t, we find an excuse.

What lies between the excuse and the way is our conviction!