Michael V. Ivanov's Blog, page 3

Imagine yourself on the London bridge last Saturday night — Sympathy VS. Empathy

I will be honest. I did not enjoy writing this article.

It makes me sick to my stomach to truly imagine myself in the place of some of the witnesses to the London bridge attack as I recount the stories in my own words.

Sympathy is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters, while empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another.

Imagine it’s Saturday night. You are out for a couple of beers with some friends.

Someone suggests you all go to another bar just across the London bridge. “It’s a better vibe over there,” they say. You all step out into the warm spring night and start making your way over to the next establishment.

There are people everywhere in the streets, its the weekend. The group walking ahead of you is a little drunk, singing and laughing, as they stumble along the sidewalk. There is a couple walking behind you, holding hands. Others are following them.

You hear the squeal of tires and immediately guess it’s another young kid showing off, spinning the wheels on his dad’s sports car.

You laugh. You were his age once and know what it’s like to crave attention from the ladies.

You hear the roar of an engine as the pedal hits the floor and look ahead to see a pair of headlights swerve towards the sidewalk. It’s not a sports car, it’s a van.

“Drunk idiot!” you say, “He’s going to hit somebody clowning around like that.”

The tires hit the curb and the van bounces onto the sidewalk. The folks ahead of you jump out of the way but someone moved too late.

Someone was hit.

The van is not slowing down.

It’s coming towards you and your friends, still riding the sidewalk, and now you aren’t thinking anything else besides jumping for your life. You fall to the ground as the drunk driver narrowly misses you and turn around just in time to see the couple behind you get clipped and spin through the air.

The engine continues to roar and that’s when the thought enters your mind, “He’s not drunk, he’s aiming for people.”

The van smashes through the next crowd of people just entering the bridge sidewalk and slams into a guard rail .

Three men jump out.

They run up to a woman, lying motionless on the ground as you gather yourself from the pavement.

You look up.

The three men are not checking to see if she is “OK.”

They are stabbing her repeatedly.

What do you feel right now?

Is it Anger? Hate? Sadness? Fear?

I’ll give you a hint, it is empathy.

You see, if you are like me, you have read the headlines of last Saturday’s terrorist attack on the London bridge and as you did, you thought, “Damn it!!! What the heck is going on in this world!?”

You felt Sympathy, for the innocent people who were killed, hurt, or experienced this disgusting event.

You felt anger and a vicious hate towards the cowards who did this. But, eventually you moved on with your day, just like I did.

It wasn’t until I read several articles and half-a-dozen witness accounts that I truly felt disturbed to the bone. It was only after this that I haven’t been able to shake the images I created in my head.

Sympathy breaks the heart, Empathy breaks the spirit.

 

I have a challenge for you my friend.

Let us not simply sympathize with people as they have their life torn from them. Let us not be sad for them and “pray for them” as their world gets turned upside down and ours remains stable.

Let your spirit feel them. Let your heart be moved. Let their pain stir you inside until you refuse to be distracted by your little world.

“ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” —Edmund Burke

 

Let us not ignore evil and stand by, thankful that it wasn’t us, thankful that we ourselves dodged the bullet.

Let’s treat the experiences of others as if they were our own and stand against evil, using the same boldness they use to tear us apart, to bring the world together.

There is a better way to live!

Thank you for reading! I am nearing the release of my BOOK, based on living the extraordinary life. Find it ( HERE ) 

Where your eyes go, energy flows.

Why you can’t move away from the negativity that plagues your life.

When Scott Summers, a member of the X-Men, first discovers his superpower, it comes in the form of an uncontrolled blast of energy from his eyes that destroys everything in it’s path when his emotions surge.

Until the young man learns to control these beams of energy, he causes a lot of damage to himself and his surroundings.

It is only his visor that finally gives him relief of the sporadic head pains and control of his vicious power.

But unlike Scott’s eyes, our glare does not destroy the things we look at, but instead destroys our lives as we focus on them.

 

Don’t we all have this power?

 

Our brains have worked very hard over many years of our human existence to protect us from predators.

Whether it was the saber-toothed tiger, an attack from the next village over, or losing our mate to a stronger man, our brain has evolved to spot danger and send us warning signals.

It is like that beam of burning energy from our eyes, drawing us in, wherever we may look, always analyzing and sending stress chemicals through our body.

The problem is, we no longer have saber-toothed tigers to watch out for yet the brain continues to spend massive amounts of energy on searching for anything that is a potential threat.

We took things that hurt our ego, self-esteem, or social status and conditioned the brain to identify them as threats.

This is why it is so much easier for us to zero in on the negativity and ignore the beautiful things of life. We are wired to look out for it. We must “survive.”

If we don’t fit in with our looks or behaviors, people won’t like us and our social status is threatened. If we don’t make money, we don’t eat. If we don’t find a partner, we will die alone. If we don’t find a job we love, we will live a life with no purpose, and “waste our time here on earth,” as we think.

All of these things consume our minds and a massive amount of our energy is spent focused on these “threats.” We go around grumbling at all of the negatives of life because that is all we are focused on and where our eyes go, energy flows.

 

We need a visor of our own

 

Just like Scott, we at first cannot control where the blast of negative optic force is directed. This force is more powerful than our will to control it and we submit to it’s vicious pull.

 

Psychologists have known for a long time that in order to change a behavior or thought pattern, we must not try to change it with “all of our might.”

The more we focus on NOT doing a thing, the harder it becomes to fight it because our minds process everything as an image.

So even though we try hard to NOT see our lack, that image remains at the forefront of our thoughts.

To make a change, we must create new images, new directions, new goals to focus on. The only “threats” we have are ones we create in our thoughts. We must simply shift our focus.

We need our own optic visor, a shield of the mind or sight, if you will. We must not look in the direction of that which brings us down but instead, focus our eyes on where we DO want to go.

Think of your eyes as beams of light, whatever you shine at, you will gravitate towards.

Sure, you cannot simply avoid your bills and assume they will magically disappear. We need to work these things out, But…

If we wish to change, if we wish to live a more vibrant, positive, directed life, if we wish to rid ourselves of the negativity that we are magnetically drawn to, we must shift our focus and set our eyes on a new direction.

It will take a lot of practice, but soon, you will harness the power of your mind and just like Scott Summers, use it to your advantage, to get you to where you want to go.

There is a better way to live!

Thank you for reading! I am nearing the release of my BOOK, based on living the extraordinary life. Find it ( HERE ) 

How to: The simple 3 step guide to dividing people

A “Nazi” and a “Communist” take an Uber together.

A few days ago I was in Seattle for work.

We finished up our project early and decided to catch the Mariners baseball game being played in town that evening.

We ordered an Uber and hopped in, heading for the stadium.

On the ride over, we learned our driver was born in Germany. His grandpa fought for the German’s in WWII, and ended up in a Russian prisoners camp for 13 years.

I thought this was neat because I was born in Soviet Russia, and my grandpa fought against the Germans in WWII. He ended up in a German death camp for prisoners of war.

Here we were, nearly 65 years later.

We rode in the same car and we shared stories of a disturbing time in human history, a “Nazi” and a “Communist,” as we would have been called not too long ago.

There was no hate. Why would there be?

The war was fought by young boys, convinced they were fighting evil, justified in their actions. But it was started by manipulative, power hungry, ******* (Insert expletive here. I personally like the word “bastards.”)

So how do you divide and create a hate between people, to the point of them murdering each other?

Easy.

1. You make them believe they belong to a great cause, even greater than human life. 

We humans have an amusing characteristic. We NEED to believe in something and be a part of something.

It’s what gives us meaning, a sense of belonging, a sense of community. Sharing a common belief with others gives us comfort in that we are not alone or crazy.

So you slowly undermine the value of life while pushing the importance of your agenda. Give them only two options and they will choose a side.

They will sacrifice their integrity, just to belong, just not to be different.

Psychologists have found this to be true a long time ago.

2. You convince them their opposition is the enemy. 

Here is where “Propaganda” comes in. Bring in the mainstream media.

Now that they have chosen a side and they have approval and are not alone, you make the opposition an enemy.

Sounds like our last election and current situation doesn’t it? I have lost Facebook “friends” over this last election, and I don’t even know a damn thing about politics or hardly discuss it for that matter!

If I don’t think like they do, I’m the enemy.

Those who can divide people will always conquer.

3. You convince them they are justified in their belief.

We are great at justifying our actions and beliefs. Little by little we can pass off the blame, or point to other reasons, excuses for why it’s not our fault or our problem, that things are a certain way. We didn’t start it!

How far can we go if we continue to justify our behavior? Well… we will kill people for it.

You’re thinking, “Hell no, not me, I know where to draw the line.”

False. You just haven’t been pushed hard enough… yet. Your line will move as long as collectively, the boundaries are moved. Another experiment by psychologists in the 60’s showed that if we are not solely responsible for an action, we will compromise our “boundaries.” See the Stanley Milgrim experiment.

Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and our own beautiful media, excelled at this simple 3 step “Guide to divide.”

We look back and think about how stupid people were back during WWII. How could they be so ignorant, killing innocent jews, innocent civilians!?

But let’s step back and do some massive self-examination.

Look where we are currently at, not because there is a real divide, but because we again got suckered into choosing sides, hating any opposition, and justifying our own hardened hearts.

We are too easy. Any evil moron with an agenda can get us fuming in minutes, ready to kill.

Let’s be smart people. Let us not be divided.

Let us remember this; before religion, before politics, before our loyalty to our countries, before our sports teams,

 “Before we are anything else, we must remember we are humans”

There is a better way to live.

Thank you for reading! I am nearing the release of my BOOK, based on living the extraordinary life. Find it ( HERE ) 

Angels in plain site… but you just call them “Mom”

It’s early morning and still dark outside, already she has said a prayer for you while you sleep.

She can transform a seed into a child, a house into a home, a bag of groceries into a meal, and a child’s tears into a smile.

She’s cleaned your poop, cut your hair, tucked you in, and held you tight.

She will gladly lay down her life for yours. There is nothing in the world that can tear you from her hands of gold.

She has sacrificed her body and put her dreams on hold… to raise you so that you can go and build yours.

Who is this woman, nothing short of an angel? Well, you just call her “Mom”.

Today is Mother’s day and again, we are reminded to love on the ones who have given us the greatest gift we could ever receive, the gift of life.

Life can be beautiful but life can also be a pain in the ass. We have work, we have responsibilities, we have deadlines, and we have bills.

Every day we have a hundred things, screaming for our attention. It’s so easy to forget to stop and lift our grumbling heads from our phones. It’s so easy to forget that the very women we often take for granted, have given us this gift.

They are angels walking among us.

Her silver hair is always in a bun. Her smile never leaves her eyes. And her words are ever so full of life.

Today I am reminded to look at this mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, sister, and woman, through a new perspective.

If you want to see an angel, you must only lift your eyes.

They call this one Anna. But me, I just call her “Mom”.

 

 

 

I am nearing the release of my book, look HERE

Leaders don’t ADVISE, leaders LEAD

The guy in the leather jacket is Mike, a Portland Oregon Hip Hop artist.

The good looking gentleman in the gray sweater, is me.

When a few friends and I arrived at the partially stripped Vance Creek Bridge last Saturday, Mike had been sitting at the start of the wet and rusted beam for over an hour.

He had his video crew waiting on him, trying to film a music video on the bridge.

The beam starts at 20′ above the ground and eventually turns into the second tallest railway bridge in the United States.

Mike was scared as hell and so was I.

To get to the wood railroad ties of the bridge and ultimately to “safety”, you must first walk across 70′ of slippery metal.

I crawled the first time across.

When I came back, Mike was still fighting his fear with 6 different people giving him advice on the best way across.

I offered to go back across with him to lead the way and Mike immediately took me up on my offer. We had never met but we had a common enemy, the ground below.

One butt-slide at a time and cracking a few jokes along the way, slowly but surely we made it over and Mike over came his fear.

Mike & I making progress
Actions, not words, are the ultimate results of leadership.
-Bill Owens

I was surprised when Mike took me up on the offer, for all he knew I could have been a psychopath who would push him off the bridge once we got to the highest point.

But there is something about leadership that we seem to forget, especially when it comes to leadership of a large organization, a company, a group of people, or even a relationship.

When we end up in a situation that requires us to lead, we believe that it is by our words that we must lead.

Suddenly we create lists, send out emails, make calls, and talk in meetings all day long about what needs to be done and how it should be done. With a fist on the hip and a pointing finger, we become the experts.

We don’t need to DO the tasks right? We are the leaders for goodness sake! We have a responsibility bestowed upon us … is what we think.

What did the GREAT kings and military leaders of their time do? Send 18 year boys into battle and watch from a hill?

No.

They were in the heat of the battle with their life on the line alongside everybody else.

If we want to inspire, we MUST lead by example. We must not advise from the safety of an office, from the comfort of our couch, or the security of solid ground.

To inspire action, we must be willing to take the first step and show the way.

Only then will they follow… and we become leaders.

There is a better way to live!

3 P’s that consume your daily thoughts: Pain, Problem, Purpose

There are 3 “P” words that consume our minds when we are not busy masking our thoughts with our daily tasks.

There is our PAIN

Our “pain” is the job we hate, the financial situation we are in, the fears we deal with, the insecurities we mask, or the mundane cycle of life we live in. It is the place we are in now, the place we want more than anything to ditch and move on from.

It is that thing which causes all of us to say the same thing over and over again: “There HAS to be a better way”

Our pains are what cause us to seek something different, to step out and search for a different way, to try and do things differently. They are what drive us to seek change.

Then, there is our PROBLEM

Our problems are what stop us in our tracks. Our “problems” are what make us go back to our pains and repeat the cycle.

Every time our PAIN hurts us enough to try and do something about it, our PROBLEM stands before us with a stern finger, pointing us back to our places.

Problems are our excuses. These are the things we use as reasons for why we continue to hang out in the cycles, drowning in our PAIN.

We say, “But the problem is… I don’t have the skills”,

“… I don’t have the resources”,

“… I don’t have the knowledge”,

“… I don’t have the opportunity”,

“… My situation doesn’t allow me”,

“… I’m just not a motivated person”,

“… My bills won’t pay themselves if i quit”,

“… It takes money to make money and I don’t have money”.

My list can go on forever. Only you know what problems hold you back and only you can come up with your list. But the fact remains, these “PROBLEMS” keep us from discovering our PURPOSE.

Finally, we have our PURPOSE

Our purpose is not what people have made it out to be. This magical THING which drives us to sell everything we own and serve at an orphanage in Africa. It is not something that requires us to lose all of our joy in the simple pleasures of life to serve in a monastery.

It does not require us to lose our passions and desires, or our dreams. Our PURPOSE is how we find true meaning for our lives, how we contribute to this world. Chances are, your passions and dreams are EXACTLY where your purpose lies.

Steve Jobs filled his purpose by being Steve Jobs. It really is that simple. No orphans, no shelters, no saving puppies, just technology that changed the world.

So when your PAIN tells you that you are not where you need to be but your PROBLEM keeps you there, your PURPOSE is never discovered and the viscous cycle continues.

WHAT DO WE DO!!!?

We must not mask our PAIN with our phones, with our TV shows, with our weekend binges, and with meaningless relationships.

We must not seek temporary band aids. We have to face our PROBLEM. It is in the gray unknown, that line that divides us, that we will discover our PURPOSE.

If our PROBLEM is bigger than our PAIN, we will not find our PURPOSE. We will allow it to keep us in the mediocre, comfortable, “safe” life, just going along, neither being too hot or too cold.

If our PAIN is bigger than our PROBLEM, we will find a way to over-come our problem and shortly after, discover our PURPOSE. Something has to give!

You can settle for your PAIN or choose to fight your PROBLEM.

I would like to encourage you to fight your PROBLEM and find your PURPOSE.

There is a better way to live!

How to be more confident around people

“Emotion is Motion!”

“EMOTION IS… MOTION”

It’s 8 hours into a Tony Robbins seminar and we have yet to see Tony.

My ass and my back hurt.

Finally the 6’7 giant makes it to the stage.

The previous hours of pushy, overly confident speakers, trying to sell us on their academies and training’s are over.

Robert Herjavec and a Gary Vaynerchuk hologram were the only reason I have not walked out up to that point.

Finally, Tony comes out and proceeds to set the place on fire. He had a rave party going. 7,000 people out of their seats, on shoulders, jumping on their chairs for a good minute with music blaring. We were getting a lesson on confidence, body language, and emotion.

A funny thing he taught us, about the way we approach people, whether it’s in a business setting, among friends, or people we are only meeting for the first time.

“Emotion is Motion” — Tony Robbins

 

The way we feel at the exact moment that we engage in conversation with another human will determine how they see us. It will determine the mood of the room. It will determine whether the person we just met will even like us.

Motion changes our physiology, which in turn, changes our emotion.

I have previously written an article on body language based on a popular TedTalk by Amy Cuddy and have experienced for myself how simply ACTING more confident actually makes us more confident. How changing your body posture actually changes your brain to feel different.

Closed in, arms crossed, holding your neck, speaking quietly, shaking a hand softly all show one thing. Lack of confidence. This may be how you feel in a place that is out of your comfort zone or in an environment that you feel inadequate in, but your body language only reaffirms how you feel.

The cool part… you can change that. Even if you do not FEEL confident, you can ACT confident and change your brain to FEEL confident.

At the seminar, we got to experiment this with thousands of random people.

FIRST EXPERIMENT:

Here Tony tells us ( in his obnoxiously loud voice ), to introduce ourselves to people next to us we do not know but we have to act like we are super intimidated by them.

Body language was identical across the room. People were quiet, avoided eye contact, shook hands softly.

SECOND EXPERIMENT:

Now, we were to introduce ourselves as if we are annoyed to see the person.

People spoke abruptly, shook hands quickly, and avoided eye contact. It was awkward and uncomfortable, even as an experiment. (Remember, we’re actually introducing ourselves to random people).

THIRD EXPERIMENT:

Here Tony tells us that we are to introduce ourselves to people in a way that if they decide they do not like us in the first couple of seconds, our families get murdered!

I think I cracked a lady’s knuckles with my handshake and just about went flying over a chair, chasing a guy down to introduce myself.

I’m starting to see a pattern. It really is interesting to see how confident you BECOME, even in a “fake” example.

FINAL EXPERIMENT:

In the final experiment, we were to engage in conversation ( still with random people ) as if they were a long lost friend or family member that we have not seen in years.

It gets pretty weird when complete strangers are laughing and hugging as if they have known each other all their life. But it works.

It really is just a simple mental shift. It comes down to motion, the way you carry yourself, the way you change your body language, raise your voice, make eye contact and be more physical with your handshakes or hugs, you truly feel a change in your confidence.

The next time you are feeling anxious about a meeting, a social gathering, a first date, or whatever it is that causes you to lack in confidence, remember that emotion is motion. Move! Be conscious of the way you carry yourself and BECOME confident.

There is a better way to live!