What inspires me now

As a part of the blog I share with you things, people and events that inspired and continue to inspire me. Today it's two books I am thinking of and reading right now, and my son with his amazing thoughts on life.

• Blink: The Power of Thinkng without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• "our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way...We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that - sometimes - we're better off that way.”  

I bought this book 10 years ago in an airport to fill my time during the flight, it resonated with me very deeply and still does. I lost the book several years ago, but it has never left my mind. Intuition has long been my natural strength which I have long been using very weakly. Whenever I find myself inwardly exclaiming to myself "I knew it!" about something I FELT but didn't believe, I recall the story. Recently, in some other book I read that our subconsciousness works far better and faster than any computer ever created, we make decisions in an instant, based on deep and thorough calculations, done by this helpful "built-in genius", but the results of these calculations are usually blocked by something far more powerful that we can imagine - our mind and consciousness. Logical reasoning, beliefs, psychological barriers and protection in an instant slam down the gate to our subconsciousness blocking out useful conclusions and gut feeling we need so often. The book not only admits the fact that intuition can be right, but states that it can often be more correct that logical reasoning, and our task is to recognise when it can fail and learn to trust it reasonably.

• Prisoners of Our Thoughts by Alex Pattakos, Stephen Covey
• "I am convinced that, in the final analysis, there is no situation that does not contain within it the seed of a meaning." 

This book was mentioned by Stephen Covey himself in his other book "First Things First". Being a busy-and-give-me-more-tasks person like I am, I dove into yet another book on time management and then stumbled upon a very simple question - what's important and why? Talking about this Covey referred to works of Viktor Frankl, a former prisoner of Nazi concentration camps, who survived it just by finding a meaning behind the suffering he had to go through and see. This book reminds me of why I am doing things I am doing and really helps during moments, when things seem meaningless, or my doings - in vain.

• "Sometimes I think of life as a slice of bread. Every day we eat a small piece of it. When we've eaten it all, we die." - my 9yo son said to me one evening as we drove to a supermarket. 

This association delighted me, and reminded me instantly of one thing: it is important to enjoy the taste of every bit of this slice, without losing a crumb of it, concentrating on it 100% while it's still in my mouth, because it is limited, and one day it will end. Even if reincarnation is real, it will be a whole new slice of bread, baked and given to me by someone other. 

How to find courage?

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness there is something more important." Stephen Covey 

One great way to overcome fear, or rather to dissolve it, or push it aside, if you wish, is to remember WHY you are doing what you are afraid to do. If one WHY is not enough, ask 5 WHYs, every time thinking about the wider goal that is behind it.

I had a fear of leading a team meeting in my project. We have them very informal, and still I was shy and afraid that I am not prepared enough, and people would think I am not a good enough PM, blah-blah-blah - you know it. 
And then I started thinking: "Maybe I shouldn't make these meetings at all, if I am afraid? Can I drop them?" "No," - I said back to myself - "I need them, becauseI need to get information on what everybody's doing and share information on what are next tasks in line" "But I can make it via files," - I argued back to myself again. "Nope, people don't read files, they prefer to talk and see. Also, this way I can be sure everybody got this information, I also can ask back the whens and hows to be even more sure people are doing the right thing." So, WHY I needed this was to exchange up to date information and assign tasks ASAP. But WHY was that important? Because I need to deliver a project on time. And WHY is that important? OK, one argument is me being a "good PM" - the Ego thing - you know it. Experience shows, such arguments just don't last. Ego arguments are too fragile and weak to withstand a solid long-lived fear or shyness, so that was not enough. So I asked myself again WHY is it important to deliver the project on time, this time looking for someone else with the same need. The clients need it to be delivered on time, they really need it. WHY again? Because they have their own deadline to achieve, beyond the organization and even country! Now, that is enough argument to FEEL we are actually working for some of a GOAL here, and it IS important to deliver on time, and for that it IS important to exchange information operatively.

Of course, I am a bit exaggerating here. There are other ways to meet this deadline, and even if we don't do everything on time, people can still do their job, but ... I have seen client's faces when they say how annoying it is without the system that we are writing. And how they wait for it. Now, THAT really makes me feel "in my right" to do whatever I am afraid to do, because we are doing a very important job here, and no excuses are good enough to forget or skip a meeting on such an important matter.

So, find The Argument behind all arguments that you have. It must be beyond yourself, beyond your organisation, sometimes it might even be beyond cities, countries and generations. Important is that in the end it should make people's life easier, and people - happier. Selfish goals and arguments just won't work, that's how our nature is. 

So, find your courage in the BIG WHY, find that ultimate reason and goal why you are doing this. And get going.