Crossroads Dispatches

Left Meets Right Brain: The Future of Your Job (Plus)

If a $500-a-month accountant in India doesn't swipe your accounting job, TurboTax will. Now that computers can emulate left-hemisphere skills, we'll have to rely ever more on our right hemispheres. - Revenge of the Right Brain, Wired article, February 2005, by Daniel Pink

"It's interesting, reading your blog I wouldn't have ever guessed that you were a geek," says Jon Strande. He's a geek at heart too and applauds my choice for the 100 Bloggers book project, Jon Udell. Udell is one of those been-blogging-forever-bloggers that inspired me to drop the whiny "but I have no time" excuse and get going with my first blog. Just a brief conversation with him at Infoworld's CTO Summit is where I realized the blog wasn't actually part of his InfoWorld responsiblities, he simply made the time and even the whole work/life distinction was murky. That's what passion does for you. (Or is it does to you?)

One of the dozens of reasons I started blogging was to showcase my expertise in foreseeing emerging technology trends to a wider circle than just a few co-worker. If you're a good searcher, you may turn up more geekdom posts on behalf of Pivia's (pre-acquisition) corporate blog.

Todd said last week in Seattle, "We [readers] wouldn't know what to make of it if you did write a post on tech trends."

How did I stray so far off the tech beat? I grew more and more interested in sharing the patterns tying together my eclectic interests and delving into The Intersection where innovation emerges.

In addition, after a while I was tired of getting a phone call after each technology reference. "What... I can't mention Google either?" Those muzzling NDAs (non-disclosure agreements - I'm trying to use less Silicon Valley and blogosphere jargon) from clients turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my blogging because....

[W]e're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. - Daniel Pink

Jon Strande continues, "You have obviously been well schooled in eastern thought and write with a wonderful sensibility that showcases your compassion and humanity."

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. - Epictetus

Thanks, but ummm...it's been much more about about unlearning than about schooling. But that's a subject for another post. Synchronistically, Strande then recommends the Wired article, Revenge of the Right Brain, that I've been sidetracked from mentioning here earlier (and I pointed it to Jory just minutes before Jon's email).

Beneath the nervous clatter of our half-completed decade stirs a slow but seismic shift. The Information Age we all prepared for is ending. Rising in its place is what I call the Conceptual Age, an era in which mastery of abilities that we've often overlooked and undervalued marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind...

If the Industrial Age was built on people's backs, and the Information Age on people's left hemispheres, the Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres. We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

But let me be clear: The future is not some Manichaean landscape in which individuals are either left-brained and extinct or right-brained and ecstatic - a land in which millionaire yoga instructors drive BMWs and programmers scrub counters at Chick-fil-A. Logical, linear, analytic thinking remains indispensable. But it's no longer enough.

To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch." High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. High touch involves the capacity to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning. - - Adapted from Daniel Pink's (eagerly, very much anticipated new book), A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age

These days, this is the type of trend forecasting I like writing about most. Note that Pink is not saying any one group of nationality is better at this left and right brain melding. I see talented individuals will form their own networks that transcend national and cultural boundaries. For instance, see if you can spot the pattern in this post about a highly lauded technology book.

I developed my right side and emotional capacities not out of gleefully foreseeing the future competitive landscape spread before me. I was once quite lopsided. There came a point where problems couldn't simply be figured out, calculated, analyzed and sifted. In my own life, "lopsided" was an euphemism for unhappy.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anais Nin

So if the thought of your livelihood going to India leaves you unfazed and stone cold - perhaps the intriguing thought that happiness is part of the whole mind package might be more up your alley. So, why don't more people bother if it's so rewarding? That's way way beyond the scope of this one teeny post. Short summary: Homeostatis. Commonly known as: Comfort Zone (familiar misery trumps unfamiliar possibility - even if it includes joy). And throw in the Jonah Complex in there too. But enough excuses already.

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

It doesn't work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps. - American proverb

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles Dubois

Life's Too Short to Do Business With People You Don't REALLY Want To

"It's sure a small world," ends the PR professional at the tail-end of the New Communications Forum. "Let's stay in touch."

Unraveling the conversation I recall that after a brief mention of potentially looking forward to a travel agency customer service rant (and why do bloggers get more excited about sharing bad customer experiences over the good?), the whole tsunami experience comes up anew.

One thing leads to another and I piece together that Jeff Greenwald, whom is writing post-tsunami dispatches from Sri Lanka, is her friend (see also my very first post, and this recent one).

She's a private (artists create for its own intrinsic rewards, not the adulation of fans) travel writer and photographer. She knows the Wild Writing Women (I'm at their conference later today). She knows Backpack Nation. And more connections are made. So it's well...a very small world, indeed. We both share a passion for travel and writing and travel writing. Seeing her face ignite, I encourage her to post her travel journal entries into a personal blog - purely for self-expression, if nothing else.

Something inperceptible clicks. A bond is made.

The "It's a Small World" effect is the hallmark of friendship. Of Kindred Spirits. And it's not bad for sales either.

The best salespeople - I'm not talking the slick fast-taking ones - I mean superb master salespeople genuinely love getting to know people. (Calvin is the quintessential salesperson. Truly.) They are fascinated by the unique qualities of each person they encounter.

If you've ever done business outside of the United States, you know that personal relationships are de riguer. Nothing is rushed - sit back in that Italian chair and have another glass of vino - we have to get to know each other first before money comes into the picture. And I'm at a distinct disadvantage if my competitor has known you since they helped you bandage your scraped knee riding your first bicycle to the alpine village elementary school you both attended. Long deep relationships are fundamentally about trust. And it's about like-mindedness and ease. I like you. We do business someday perhaps because life's too short to work with people you don't really want to. Simple.

Business is simpler than I even realize some days. Blogging really is too.

I think it's important to get to know the people you are doing business with. - Lenn Pryor, also known as Microsoft's top blogger's boss

The fact is I simply don't have time to sit down to a two-hour siesta with each person I'd love to get to know better - and manage time to sleep, eat, and bathe. (I'm sure I'm leaving out something vital  from the list- no not email, more like breathe.) The blog is the absolute closest thing to "being there" face-to-face I know of - if you can't sit down to coffee with me, or share a few drinks at the pub (I've never been a golfer, so swinging some clubs around is definitely out), then read my blog. I dread the day I might not have time to even read every piece of personal email or something horrid like that.

I worked for a CEO for six months and had my share of one-on-ones (something many employees never ever get a chance to do as companies grow). I'm not engaged in any project right now, but I feel I've gotten a better sense of Biri and what he thinks and what's important to him that I wasn't aware of since he started blogging. No one's time ever scales quite well enough - particularly busy executives'.

For all the global reach of the Web, I've never been hired in the last 13 years - permanent or contract - without a previous referral - it was 100% about someone I knew in the face-to-face world. But that's changing for me already with my blog. Folks do hire solely by your blog. A website simply doesn't cut it - it's like playing consultant roulette.

Not a services firm - doesn't apply? I'm a product person at heart, trust me. (Consulting is excrutiating painful in its non-scalability to me.) I've gone to the trade shows. I've seen your competitors. All of you happen to be the recognized world class leader expert authority in [insert your carefully crafted jargon here] excellence. Pretty much verbatim copies of each other's press releases too. And it's all more or less strikes one as the same widget on the shelf too if you ask the passersby, not the industry insiders (and we could have told you that - that is, had you asked us). Ah, yes, the colors are different in your logo and it's a bit more stylistic than theirs (and you think that is your brand).

A blog is a collection of digital content that when examined over a period of time exposes the intellectual soul of its author or authors. - Biz Stone, Who Let the Blogs Out? (via 800-CEO-READ)

(I'd strike out the intellectual - it's extraneous.)

So many folks are looking for overnight quantifiable measurable payback from their blogging efforts. The self-expression and more nuanced payback is practically immediate in time compared to the commercial return. I know people personally that have steady business today because of their childhood buddy in a small town in Europe. Same goes for Asia, or you name the continent. You have your own story, I'm sure, too. What's the ROI of a lifelong friendship? Dunno, I guess I'm just not that good at math.

Shepherds and Bakers and Dreams

I gave Stowe Boyd a ride to Oakland Airport last night after the New Communications Forum.

He asked me what my dreams were.

I said I was in the process of reevaluating everything after the tsunami and to ask me again in a month. The truth is I was already reevaluating everything before the tsunami. The tsunami was the proverbial camel that broke the straw's back (yup, it's reversed on purpose). The big thwack to complacency.

It's very strange flipping through my newly returned journal. The books I reference in the last few pages are now....Where? Perhaps someone else is now reading Finger Pointing to the Moon, The Alchemist, Tuesdays with Morrie, and Real Magic (couldn't finish this one - too many bullet point lists, not enough story).

Only one of those books did I bring on the trip.

All of the others were discovered serendipitiously in Koh Lanta book exchanges and chosen in actuality by my boyfriend in what Paulo Coelho would clearly see as an "omen". (And why should I be stunned to find yet another omen - I see from his site that Coelho is also working on a tsunami aid book project.)

Here's a snippet from my journal, December 22, 2004:

The old man pointed to a baker standing in his shop window at one corner of the plaza. "When he was a child, that man wanted to travel, too. But he decided first to buy this bakery and put some money aside. When he's an old man, he's going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable of any time in their lives of doing what they dream of."

"He should have decided to become a shepherd," the boy said.

"Well, he thought about that," the old man said. "But bakers are more important people than shepherds. Bakers have homes, while shepherds sleep out in the open. Parents would rather see their children marry bakers than shepherds."

... The old man continued, "In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own destinies."

- from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, yet another populist author whose work is translated in 56 languages - and it's not a business book

Objectivity Isn't Depersonalization

Journals, Journalists, Weblogs. Tom Foremski, SiliconValleyWatcher, in the journalism panel brought back to mind yesterday these are all variations of the same roots and the same theme.

Journalists strive for objectivity, says Shel Holtz.

Actually, it is spiritual seekers whom strive for objectivity. That's nirvana. I don't know about you, but I'm still a long way from enlightenment.

Instead of objectivity, what we typically get is the varnish of objectivity in the bland substitute form of depersonalization.  Carefully extracting any semblance of life out a written piece doesn't magically make it objective no matter how hard we try.

A former journalist at the Blog Business Summit shares in a conversation that he struggles to find his own voice after decades of reporting.  He'll experiment with a personal blog to see if he can uncover it. He's been trained to be objective. His editor always preached, "I'd rather have a good reporter than a good writer."

I don't think it's just media that strives for this "objective" depersonalization, but corporations and businesses have taken their cue in their own communications to customers, partners, investors, employees and the larger community for untold time.

After nearly a week of traveling (Blog Business Summit, New Comm Forum kicked off by Robert Scoble's 40th birthday party), I arrive home last night to find my long lost journal in a U.S. Customs inspected package. Stamps from Phuket, Thailand give away the contents.

My journal and my disposable camera (with my only photos of Koh Jum) are the only material possesions I cared a damn about trying to get back. I had heard everything was looted in the ensuing post-tsunami aftermath of the evacuation and recovering bodies on Koh Phi Phi. That said, after the wave rolled back to the sea on the small beach nothing tangible was all that important.

I've been thinking about stories of late. They are one of many ways of sense-making (someone used that term this week). Tomorrow I'm off to the Wild Writing Women conference. To write. Stories. I have some stories - not notes - to share from this incredible week soon, but the arrival of my journal has me in a quite different place.

Why do stories matter so much? Where would I start....Well, here's one reason:

An enemy is one whose story we have not heard. - Gene Knudsen Hoffman

My last journal entry is dated December 24, 2004. It's a long piece. The final words I penned before the tsunami that ravaged the Indian Ocean and the lives of all of us caught up in a torrent were scrawled as reminder to my own self.

They are about true objectivity. And that is worth striving for.

Seeing means such a state when all your projections cease, when you have no viewpoints. When you do no have individual eyes to impose conditions, when you have no emotions and desires to project, then seeing happens.

See the desert when you are not thirsty; the desert cannot deceive you then. - Finger Pointing to the Moon: Discourses on the Adhyatma Upanishad, by Osho

Life's Too Short To Stray Off Your Passion

Because of Microsoft's pioneering and successful forays into corporate blogging, Lenn Pryor, Robert Scoble's boss, is bombarded with folks calling him for tips on replicating their success: "Do you know an agency that can do this for us?"

He is reluctant to recommend outsourcing. "I think it's important to get to know the people you are doing business with," Pryor says as a slide behind him silently blares, "Get bloggers who are passionate about the company to write for it." He continues, "Don't think of this as solely in the realm of PR or corporate communications department."

"Passion always sells," I hear Pryor say just this very moment in the closing podcasting session speaking of Adam Curry.

Passion, passion, shmassion.

Easier said than done.

Finding and staying true to your passion, that is. The first step to being a successful blogger these experts say. (And from my standpoint to a successful you-name-it.)

At Nike, it's my job to inspire. I try to touch everyone, from shoe designers and marketing staffers to sales teams and retail folks to regional offices and Nike's vendors; it's my job to push their creativity to the limit. I call myself the Katalyst (the 'K' for Kevin), because I help spark change. Others call me a sports evangelist because I travel around the world and speak to people about how sports can change lives, including my own. - Rules of the Red Rubber Ball: Find and Sustain Your Life's Work, by Kevin Carroll

Former Nike Katalyst Kevin Carroll kicks off his book with this quote:

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.

He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.

To him he's always doing both. - James Michener

Thank you James Michener. Now that might serve as the universal explanation for all bloggers that struggle to answer if their blog is either a business or a personal blog.

I'm still at the Blog Business Summit now and I'll be writing highlights in a few days (after New Comm Forum). (Although I can definitely say that the highlight was the face-to-face interaction with fellow bloggers like Todd, Jennifer, Jon, Stowe, Marc, Robert, Janet, TJ, Buzz and more.)

On his way out of the conference center, Todd hands me a copy of his favorite book and I can't help but flip through it during the rest of the closing sessions today.

Robert Scoble, the poster boy for business blogging, reiterates (yesterday in his keynote too) the keystone of The Corporate Weblog Manifesto: that passion and authority are the two things critical to a successful blog.

You should know more about your product than anyone else alive, if you're writing a weblog about it. - The Corporate Weblog Manifesto

I say you should love your passion more than anyone else alive. Well, at least according to you. Carroll shares his own personal story of how a simple red rubber ball led to his life passion - sports.

Finding your red rubber ball is only own half your battle. Once you find it, YOU MUST FOLLOW IT, and that takes courage, strength, and imagination. In my own journey, I've discovered guidelines, or rules, that will help ensure you never lose sight of your red rubber ball. - Rules of the Red Rubber Ball, by Kevin Carroll

This dimunitive 'creation' (a better descriptor than 'book') has chapters like: Discovery! Commit to It, Seek Out Encouragers, Work Out Your Creative Muscle, Prepare to Shine, Speak Up, Expect the Unexpected, and Maximize the Day.

In fact, Carroll's book endeavor itself is its own example. Interested publishers balked at his demands for his innovative colorful, artful (read: EXPENSIVE) graphics and printing. He stuck with his vision and self-published with a successful first run of 7,500. And now those same publishers are suddenly (not surprisingly) re-interested....and in doing it exactly the way he wants it. 

Finally, Robert Scoble mentions that you need to be embedded part of your community if you are going to be the passionate authority. (BTW, I highly recommend A New Brand World to capture the essence of Nike at its peak.) Nike was founded by athletes for athletes and lived, breathed and preached the allure of sports. They exuded their love of the sublime and the colossal aspects of the participative sports that united them with their core customers. And then - and only then - did Nike work back to product.

Wholeheartedly sharing your passion (and there are thousands upon thousands of ways to demonstrate) evolves to become every Katalyst's lifework - regardless their job.

It's Not the Worst Day of The Year

I just don't buy that today, January 24th, is the most miserable day of the year. I'm actually sitting in Robert Scoble's keynote at the Blog Business Summit in Seattle this minute (more on that later) and I'm not feeling miserable whatsoever.

Since it's the 24th, I'll share my top 24 posts of 2004 (honestly, it may just be the 24 posts I could still remember and the list was compiled pre-tsunami). I'm trying to determine the best post of the past year for the 100 Bloggers project. If you have a fave, please let me know your vote.

1 The Art of Validation

2 Tell Me What To Think - Except Think Big

3 Stuff: A Portrait

4 On My Papi...And More

5 We're Great, And Greater Than Ourselves

6 Strong Opinions Lightly Held

7 Big Sky Mind: The Origin of Ideas, Part 1

8 Never Vote Straight Party: The Origin of Ideas, Part 2

9 Blogs As Truth-Telling Networks

10 Multicultural Blinders, Marketing Myopia Continued

11 Banking on Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity

12 Steal This Idea

13 Self-Indulgent Bastards Are We?

14 Two Deadly Sins of Mixing Love, Spirit and Marketing

15 Companies, Brands and the Role of Allies in Our Lives

16 Wounded Souls and Healing's Place in Brands

17 Friends of the Wee Voice: The Freedom of Friendship

18 Friends of the Wee Voice: Fresh Vision

19 Blogs Backwards? Nope, Just Right Now

20 PR, Product Management and Pigs With Lipstick

21 Lance Armstrong on Transparency

22 Dogma Secretly Lurks in Cafes, Blogs and Marketing

23 80-Hour Weeks are Bunk

24 Our Deepest Human Need

Life's Too Short to Entertain Unbelievers

Lance Armstrong is back in the news I noted yesterday. Seems as the French authorities are astounded - yet again - that it's possible to achieve what he's achieved purely with grit and grace.

"I was tested 22 times in 2004 alone... I do not use -- and I have never used -- doping products," the American added, saying he was "sure to be vindicated" in the affair." - Armstrong: 'Sure to Be Vindicated', Eurosport

Funny, it was a French team, Cofidis, that threatened to fully terminate Armstrong's contract and eventually forced him to accept the mininum athlete's payment. They didn't believe he'd ever race again. And in the middle of his third chemo cycle is when they decided to break the news.

It felt like a vote of no confidence. It felt like they thought I was dying. I got the message Cofidis was sending: I was a dead man. - It's Not About the Bike, Lance Armstrong

So it's no surprise that when a man rises from the dead and goes on to win six Tour de France's in a row - well, you're a bit stunned. Perhaps miffed. It just can't be possible.

I just happen to be reading (and nearly finished) with It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, by Lance Armstrong, his autobiography published in 2000. Here's one of the central themes:

Something told me that fear should never fully rule the heart, and I decided not to be afraid.

I wanted to live, but whether or not was a mystery, and in the midst of confronting that fact, even at that moment, I was beginning to sense that to stare into the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. Once you have been that scared, you know more about your frailty than most people, and I think that changes a man. I was brought low, and there was nothing to take refuge in but the philosophical: this disease would force me to ask more of myself as a person than I ever had before, and to seek out a different ethic.

A couple of days earlier, I had received an e-mail from a military guy stationed in Asia. He was a fellow cancer patient, and he wanted to tell me something. "You don't know it yet," he wrote, "but we're the lucky ones." - It's Not About the Bike

After the near-death bout with cancer the first thing Armstrong did wasn't to get back into racing, but to start a foundation. He'd shift into a greater-than-myself purpose.

I wanted the foundation to manifest all of the issues I had dealt with in the past few months: coping with fear, the importance of alternative opinions, thorough knowledge of the disease, the patient's role in cure, and above all, the idea that cancer did not have to be a death sentence. It could be a route to a second life, an inner life, a better life. - It's Not About the Bike

Getting back into racing was a tougher decision. He vacillated: "I couldn't help but feel that cycling was trivial." But ultimately I think he sensed he had to be the example for his foundation. If he truly believed in the human capacity - which is at the core of his foundation - he'd have to walk the talk.

Trust me, this post isn't about bashing the French. We all do our little bit in underestimating and belittling human potential, including our own.

[I] had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe - what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery.

To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.

Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until this cancer, how we fight every day against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these are the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or catasclysmic millenium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit.

So, I believed.  - It's Not About the Bike

To Spectate, or to Act - That is the Question

I've just picked up the most captivating book. Eric Liu writes "lyrically" as the jacket states. (I can attest it's true). Guiding Lights is a vivid illustration of writing with a personal tone and as paradoxically as it may sound also being the conduit for the source of your stories.

The style is reminiscent of Po Bronson's uncategorizable What Should I Do With My Life? which weaves personal narrative with the stories themselves. Bronson too became part of the book as the relationships in-formed and sculpted him.

Liu writes, "My confusion, though, is whether to be drawn in as a spectator or as a fellow participant - an actor." Typically writers, especially journalists, observe, capture and report from an "objective" distance, but bloggers embed themselves in the story because they can't help but be changed by it and they willingly allow the story to lead them. Thus, both spectator and actor.

The content and premise itself is precious and what initially drew me in. He's interviewed "teachers" and "students" for Guiding Lights: The People Who Lead Us Toward Our Purpose in Life. And here we mean teaching and learning in the broadest boundary-less sense. And where "classrooms" span the gamut from boardrooms, arenas, concert halls, theaters, kitchens, and places of worship.

Here's a blurb about Ivana Chubbuck, Hollywood's most sought after acting coach, where he leans a bit more towards the personally revealing.

[S]he asks me to go over one part of the scene again, in which the widower reads aloud a letter of condolence awaiting him at his apartment. "This time," she says, "I want you to read the letter to yourself, silently, and imagine it's your father that the letter is about." I do. She studies me for a moment. "Now read it to yourself again," she says, "and imagine that it's from your daughter." I do. And now, to my surprise, my throat gets dry and constricted - not from nervousness but from the impulse, the unbelievable impulse, to cry. I've been reading silently, not even looking at her. "Now read it aloud," she says. I do, and the improvement over the first attempt is palpable.

[...]

When I conceived this book, I had spent a decade on a fast track of career achievement, collecting one shiny merit badge after another. Youngest this. First that. But slowly and insiduously, the badges, rather than the way they were earned, became the point - and once that happened, the joy of doing was replaced by the imperative of achieving. My hunger for the next great resume line - and my anxiety that the wave would evaporate beneath me - was warping my sense of what mattered. I could see that. And I sensed that this book, and the journey it would require, would re-center me. I had no idea how but I had an instinct that it was time to search. Of course, as this search had unfolded, I've been hounded by the fear that inner peace, if it arrives, will neuter me and drain me of ambition. The more I listened to Ivana, the more I understood that she mesmerized me because her unadulterated obsession with winning, her starkly Darwinian view of life, was a reminder of the self I was trying to tame - but not kill. She writes in her acting guide: "We human beings love to watch the quest, the fight. We are drawn to the person who gives every ounce of his being to win." That is precisely why I am drawn to her. My confusion, though, is whether to be drawn in as a spectator or as a fellow participant - an actor.

All this, I assumed, was my neurotic interior monologue, perceptible only to those to whom I chose to reveal it. I should have known better. I asked Ivana one day what in her nearly three decades of teaching has helped her ward off laziness - or worse yet, contentedness. She laughed. No matter how stable and balanced she may become, Ivana said, "I'm in a business that creates drama and trauma whether or not I want it, and that helps me keep up my edge." She reflected on a sister who had made different choices, and who in Ivana's view gradually surrendered that edge. She lives a normal, perfectly admirable existence today, in leafy suburbs, with minivans, kids in sports leagues. We moved on to other topics, talked for another hour. As I left her that afternoon, she stopped in the doorway and said: "You know, you have to keep stretching." Was she recapping life's rule or suggesting one for me? I responded with an ambiguous, "Mm-hmm." She paused, and as I walked through the door she looked at me and said, "Don't settle for a nice little life."

Mind, Work, or TBD: The Source of Authentic Happiness

Tom Peter's new website poll is about the source of "authentic happiness."  That's always a very very good question to be asking, but I found absolutely no answer on the poll that even remotely aligned with my view. 

I've been reflecting on (and taking more action related to) neuroplasticity, homeostatis, mind training and its effects on personal creativity and innovation as well as joy, meaning and empathy.

And last night at the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course I'm taking, I was handed fascinating research with insights into areas as diverse as enhanced immune function to meaninfulness at work to reading people's emotions accurately to personal contentment done in 2003 by Richard Davidson, PhD, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. (I couldn't find it online; the original article I'm quoting from below is in the Dr. Weil's Self Healing newsletter, September 2003, based on research published in July/August 2003 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.)

I'll refrain from adding too much of my commentary as I think the results speak for themselves.

Earlier research by Dr. Davidson, using brain-imaging technology and EEG readings of brain electrical activity, suggested that each person's brain has a natural "set point" for good versus bad moods. People who are generally happy and calm typically show greater activity in the left side of the brain's frontal area compared with the right side. In contrast, those more prone to sadness, anxiety, or worry typically show more activity on the right side of the frontal area and less on the left. Life's ups and downs may alter your ratio of left versus right activity for a while, but it will tend to return to its usual level.

What Drs. Davidson and Kabat-Zinn discovered is that meditation can apparently shift this emotional set point in a more positive direction. The study looked at stressed-out volunteers from a biotechnology firm, who were randomly assigned to one or two groups. A group of 25 people attended eight weekly classes in mindfulness meditation (which involves remaining aware of bodily sensations and thoughts, without passing judgment on them) and participated in a seven-hour retreat. They were also asked to practice mindfulness meditation for an hour a day, six days a week. The 16 people in the control group didn't receive meditation training until the study was completed.

The researchers found the meditation group had a significant increase in activity in the left side of the brain's frontal area, and they also reported feeling more positive emotions in their daily life. (The control group didn't show these changes.) In addition the meditation group showed enhanced immunity: They produced more antibodies in response to a flu shot than did the control group. So meditation may not only make you happier but may also keep you healthier.

My instructor, Bob Stahl, last night also noted that most of the biotech employees had reported that their sense of "meaningfulness" in their workplace was low prior to the study. And the meditation group reported an increased sense of meaning at work at the conclusion of the study.

While this new study revealed that even novice meditators can reap health benefits, other recent research has some extraordinary effects from long-term meditation practice. When Dr. Davidson had the chance to test a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk at his laboratory, he found that the monk's brain had the highest ratio of left versus right activity out of all the 175 people tested, suggesting an unusual degree of emotional contentment. Paul Ekman, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, tested the startle reflex of a different Buddhist monk by exposing him to noises as loud as a gunshot: While meditating, the monk was able to suppress this reflex, his face not moving a muscle. This was unprecedented display of mental control over a supposedly automatic response.

If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's latest, Blink, or seen any of the excerpts or reviews, then this next section will definitely catch your eye.

Dr. Ekman had previously developed a test of how well someone can read other people's emotions from rapid, subtle changes in facial expression (the test involves watching a video-tape of these fleeting expressions and attempting to identify the correct emotion). Most people do poorly on the test, but when Dr. Ekman tested two advanced Buddhist meditators, they got nearly perfect scores. This suggests meditation may actually sharpen perception and enhance empathy.

Ah well, no wonders there. The highest goal of meditators is to embody and exude "unconditional compassion" which is essentially a flowing loving-kindness to all sentient beings - a very advanced practice indeed. In my own experience, it is impossible to attain that state if if you are harboring any lingering resentment or judgment towards anyone, including yourself. (Thus you now understand why it's difficult.) In his latest research measuring brain gamma waves, some of the highest-frequency and most important electrical brain impulses, Davidson compared a highly skilled group and a novice group. I found it most revealing that the researchers did not select the common breath or other object-oriented meditation.

Buddhist teaching describes that state [of unconditional compassion], which is at the heart of the Dalai Lama's teaching, as the ''unrestricted readiness and availability to help living beings.'' The researchers chose that focus because it does not require concentrating on particular objects, memories or images, and cultivates instead a transformed state of being.- Miami Herald, 1/18/05

Additional resources: Meditation Can Modify the Brain, Research Shows, Miami Herald, Jan 18, 2005 (reg req); more of Dr. Davidson's research; additional related articles via Fouroboros and Feb 2004 MIT Technology Review article, "Meditation and the Brain"

A Dose of Humility: Adopting a Personal Tone, Being a Conduit in Blogs, Business and Life

[Dr. Frank] Ochberg designed the Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Victims and Violence. After years of talking to the winners, he says the best stories are those in which the reporter sees herself as a conduit, the means by which a source can tell his story, he says. Whether it's a doctor discussing a horrific day of amputations or a mother describing the loss of her children, when the reporter lets the source tell the story, the story gets stronger. - Poynter Online, "Covering Trauma & Tragedy: What it Takes"

In additional to journalism, any perceptive business person can surmise my point is also that the best marketing, the best products, or the best _____ most often emerges if we drop our agendas for a moment and allow ourselves and our companies to be simply a conduit that welcomes our customers with a space to speak and be listened to.

Reflecting on my More Space essay related to empathy in business, I notice that one can totally miss the mark when the emphasis and interest in empathy skills stem primarily in its effectiveness in persuading and selling - rather than in understanding. And this is a risk factor in many blog initiatives as well.

My totally unintended foray into citizen journalism as well as being on the other receiving end of the media coverage left me with a few lasting impressions. I was turned off by media people that distanced themselves from the depth of the story, and me. They had their questions and story outline written in their minds, and didn't truly listen to see where the dialogue naturally unfolded of itself. I was distraught to be sure, but that's to be expected in these situations; a light touch would have ellicited a far different response.

You walk off a C-130 in Bangkok from tsunami-torn Phuket and the media is busily snapping pictures from afar. But all too often they didn't engage with their subject matter - whom by the way happen to be frightened and shaken human beings, not pieces of building wreckage strewn on the beach. Talking about the event with media (small and big) and what I witnessed was far from healing; I only did it as I thought it might help with getting attention on the area and its relief needs.

If media professionals aren't trained in handling people with sensitivity and empathy, I'm not sure that untrained citizen journalists and employees unskilled in interpersonal communications will fare much better. I say this because it wasn't only the media that was unempathetic. Even friends and (gasp!) church members can be at a loss on how to communicate with you and unintentionally and potentially cause more harm than good. The only cathartic, healing and thus human conversations that occured were with others familiar with trauma - even if they were complete strangers - as well as those that weren't throwing up barriers to "getting too close."

It's all to easy to dismiss and lump all big media as inhumane and soul-draining (and for that matter corporations), but that shifts the responsibility away from individual journalists and employees.  And reading some excellent coverage lately by empathetic writers, some Poytner Online articles, and the Dart Center for Trauma & Journalism site has me understanding that good journalism - and by extension, good journalists - isn't supposed to be soulless.

I know bloggers get on their high horse sometimes, but merely wearing the blogger label and installing a Movable Type weblog does not instantly imply an authentic voice and a connecting conversation. Citizen journalists and business bloggers aren't necessarily going to be any better at this stuff than big media and corporate public relations without an intention and commitment to be fully human.

[A] blogger has the option to adopt a much more personal tone than a journalist can. Most print publications have a house style which journalists have to adhere to, but on a blog, he can express himself as he wishes, which, in turn, increases the degree of familiarity that readers feel towards him. - "Blogs - The New Journalism", India Express, by Amit GVarma

Note that Amit GVarma, the India Uncut blogger whom chose to cover the tsunami aftermath in Tamil Nadu from his blog rather than for traditional media, stresses that we are given an option as bloggers to adopt a more personal tone. My sincere hope is that bloggers of all stripes and persuasions will see the inherent and differentiating value in saying yes! to this choice.

Here's a list of writers, bloggers, and articles that have really made me believe that it's not solely a question of whether you write for the New York Times or Gawker or Corante, but how you engage in the process that makes the difference:

India Uncut's Tsunami Despatches. I've already lauded Amit's excellent writing.

Dart Center for Trauma & Journalism site in general is a fabulous resource on ethics and handling stress and includes journalists' own personal stories, and outstanding advice for bloggers as well (found via TsunamiHelp Wiki).

Poynter Online (excellent) Series for Dealing with  Tsunami, Trauma and Journalism.

Being open to emotional experience makes you a better reporter. If you can't empathise with those whose story you're reporting, you won't be able truly to reflect their experience. But being open, and engaged with intense human distress, means also being open and vulnerable to its longer-term wounding impact. [And that's why the Dart Center is committed to help writers and journalists handle the lasting impact of feeling and relating deeply.]

Below I include snippets from some moving empathetic writing:

The Hindu's three-part series, by Amitav Ghosh, internationally renowned novelist: See Overlapping faults, No aid needed, The town by the sea (via India Uncut).

I turned to follow him and we were heading back towards the blazing palms, when he stopped to point to a yellow paint box, peeping out of the rubble. "That belonged to Vineeta, my daughter," he said, and the flatness of his voice was harder to listen to than an outburst would have been. "She loved to paint; she was very good at it. She was even given a prize, from Hyderabad."

I had expected that he would stoop to pick up the box, but instead he turned away and walked on, gripping his bag of slides. "Wait!" I cried. "Don't you want to take the box?"

"No," he said vehemently, shaking his head. "What good will it do? What will it give back?" He stopped to look at me over the rim of his glasses. "Do you know what happened the last time I was here? Someone had found my daughter's schoolbag and saved it for me. It was handed to me, like a card. It was the worst thing I could have seen. It was unbearable."

Jeff Greenwald's Tsunami Relief Dispatches, EthicalTraveller.com.

We have no toys for the nearly 600 children in Komari, but we will give them a sport kit. The word goes out for a children's meeting, and the response is electric. The kids leap up from The Lion King, and form two groups — boys and girls — around us. Harshana takes center stage, and conducts the poll.

"How many for cricket!" he demands.

The boys' hands fly up.

"How many for volleyball?" The girls' hands wave.

"And how many for football?" This time, every hand in the group shoots into the air. The choice seems clear — but there are hundreds of kids. Lyn, Harshana and I exchange a look, and shrug.

Ten minutes later, we witness what must be the most satisfying sight one can see in the world of disaster relief. Scores of formerly listless kids are running and shouting in an open field, their football and cricket games in full swing. Some distance away, the Sri Lankan Army's Special Task Force is helping set up the volleyball net.

We leave before the inevitable happens, and the Frisbee ends up on someone's roof.

Advice From One Who's Been There, by Patrick Hamilton, award-winning photographer.

He recalled “running on pure adrenaline” for most of the time. After the first couple of days, he said, there was a slight lull in the output expected of him, so he decided to go out and photograph some of the bodies.

“But when I got out there, I just put down my cameras and helped out instead. I helped recover bodies because that’s what needed to be done and I was there. Those images, which I didn’t capture on film, still fill my brain.”

At the time, Patrick and wife Yasmin had a daughter, Tatjana, who was only six months old.

“I was out in the Sissano Lagoon when this little body of a baby floated past and was scooped up by someone in a net.

“That hit me pretty hard, but I learned that it’s important to cry, to have a release from all the tension that builds up.”

A Question of Faith in the Face of Disaster, by Emma-Jane Kirby, BBC.

And its an ugly thought that journalists like us raise our profiles on the backs of stories such as these. I just wanted to stay in the shower forever and wash off the fact that I was pushing my career forward on the back of twenty-six tiny children’s deaths.

It was a basketball court. In one corner were two or three basketballs and in the rest of the basketball court there were twenty-six white coffins. I was shocked to see how small the coffins were, and they were all open. Some of the children were sitting up in their coffins. They were a sort of grey colour and very battered and bruised. Their families had sat them up so they could dress them in their favourite football colours.

One little boy was being dressed by a Red Cross worker who was sobbing as he was doing it. Another child was being cuddled by his big sister - who couldn’t have been more than twelve. She was saying to him, ‘It’s okay, we’ll let you go back to sleep. We’re just putting your football kit on then we’ll let you go back to sleep’.

If you are aware of additional related resources and examples of journalism and/or writing, please let me know.