Garret Kramer's Blog, page 37

The Magic Bullet

We all want to feel good. When our level of well-being is high, no matter what confronts us, life seems effortless and uncomplicated. Contentment and success come easily. What do we do, though, when our level of well-being is low and we feel dejected, pessimistic, or insecure? No one wants to feel this way; from this perspective, every life situation seems awful.

What if I told you that there is no strategy, tool, technique, or activity that will elevate your state of mind? In fact, if you reach for an external elixir, you will only feel worse in the long run.

Yes, I am aware that this principle flies in the face of conventional performance, therapeutic, motivational, or self-help solutions. If a person is feeling down in the dumps, there must be something that he or she can do. Right? Well, since I don't believe there's a magic bullet, let me point you in a direction that I was fortunate enough to come across many years ago.

You can't fix an internal malfunction with a foreign game plan.

To raise your level of well-being, you must uncover the reason why you are low. Not the external, circumstantial, or illusionary reason—the true reason: Your thinking has hit a temporary snag, and since you looked outside for the explanation and fix, your mood and performance have followed suit.

In other words, to feel better, all you need to do is understand the principle of thought. Not what you think or why you think it—just the fact that human beings think. And while our thoughts sometimes produce wayward feelings, all thoughts are arbitrary, meaningless, and innocent.

What if, once you understood this, the rest would actually take care of itself? Could it be that simple? The answer is yes. A person's struggles are never situational; they are always a figment of his or her own thoughts. That's why the minute your thinking slows down, new thought arrives, your feelings change, and you then see the exact same circumstance in a totally different way.

What we think is meaningless—it is the feeling a thought produces that guides us.

For example, if I'm thinking negative thoughts about an upcoming presentation and, as a result, I'm feeling insecure about my ability as a speaker, the last thing I want to do is search for a new strategy to reach the audience. Why? Because my insecure feeling is telling me that I am not seeing the situation clearly; I must be still. If my presentation needed my attention and action, the feeling would be matter-of-fact, obvious, and direct.

There is one more thing about this subject that you need to know: looking toward the principle of thought and your feelings, when you are struggling, will not necessarily make you feel better in an instant. But it will prevent you from making matters worse by turning to a fix when you're not competent to do so. Instead, if you simply go about your business (or stay in the game, as I like to say), your mood will start to trend upward—all on its own.

The bottom line is that if you deeply understand that your thinking (and only your thinking) forms your current reality, you will also see that fixing a thought-created perception by applying an externally created cure will not work. It's like putting a trap under your bed for a monster. Remember, like a young child who is temperamental one minute and gleeful the next, if left alone, your level of well-being will always self-correct to clarity, resiliency, and contentment.  Hmm, maybe we are born with a magic bullet after all.

 

The Passion Pursuit

There are many interviews of the late Steve Jobs floating around the Internet today. Many are quite informative; some very insightful. In one, however, Jobs insists that finding and pursuing one's passions is the key to happiness and success. I disagree. I believe that it's possible to be passionate about anything. The ability to be passionate rests within each of us; it does not depend (as Jobs suggests) on the perfect career, mate, lifestyle, or something outside of the individual.

Looking outside for your passions is a never-ending quest.

My message is that, on this topic, Jobs is pointing us in the wrong direction. I wanted to play hockey in the NHL, for example. I was passionate about, and excelled at, the sport in both high school and college. Problem was: I wasn't quite good enough to reach the top level no matter how fervently I approached the quest. As another illustration, I recently met with a terrific high school athlete who was struggling academically. She complained that physics, among other school subjects, was not interesting. "There is no way that I can become passionate about a discussion regarding space and matter," she claimed.

In each case, can you see the drawback in Jobs's theory? That is, pursuing your passions does not lead to well-being. Well-being leads to becoming passionate. On days that my state of mind is high, for instance, I love to give talks; on days when I'm low, I struggle to utter a single word. So, because I find myself in a fairly good place most of the time now (thankfully), speaking to audiences has become a passion of mine. Likewise, I loved hockey when I was much younger, but the truth is that I loved just about anything back in those days. My passions were a symptom of my high state of mind; they were not the cause of it.

Passion is the result of inner well-being. That's why it's difficult to be passionate about even your favorite subject when your mood is low.

So, then, what do you do when, like the high school athlete, you are struggling to remain attentive because you feel that the subject matter is too boring? Or what if you're a pro athlete, and you get traded to a city that doesn't appeal to you? Or what if you feel that you are stuck in a dead-end career, but you still must put food on the table and support your family? The answer is: simply look inward to the quality of your thinking at that moment—salvation never exits in searching for the next "best thing."

In other words, the value of your thoughts, feelings, and mood will vacillate, and, as they do, so will your level of passion—the topic at hand has no power over your ability to remain engaged. Yes, sometimes (like Steve Jobs did) we should change careers, teams, or even subjects in school. But for long-term success that choice must always be made from an elevated state of mind. Remember, being passionate says a whole lot about you—and very little about your current surroundings.

Why We Hate

Hate has nothing to do with someone else. Hate comes from your own thinking. If the human race could grasp this understanding, things would get a whole lot better around here. To eliminate behavior (including poor performances) fueled by hatred, however, we must first recognize why, at times, we tend to think hateful or judgmental thoughts.

We are all prone to hateful thoughts from time to time; hateful actions—that's a different story.

Consider a person who has just been fired from a job. Odds are that his thoughts about his former boss will not be exactly kind. In fact, they may be downright rageful. But while it may look like these thoughts are due to the boss, these thoughts are actually the culmination or continuation of a pattern of thinking that began randomly. Not long ago, one negative thought led to another, and then to another. Pretty soon the person's mood and level of awareness was in the dumps—and the result: poor performance at work and, ultimately, termination.

What I am saying is that, in the above example, being fired is not the cause of the person's errant thoughts; being fired is a symptom of his errant thoughts. And this is an essential distinction to make. Why? Because those of us who blame outside factors for our wayward thinking (rather than looking inward), will have virtually no choice but to take our anguish out on the supposed cause—in this case, the boss. Test this for yourself. Think back to one of your most temperamental moments. Be honest. Was your volatile behavior the result of the situation (or person) you encountered, or your state of mind at the moment you encountered the situation?

Feelings of rage mean we are not seeing the world clearly; we must be still.

The truth is that one's hostile perception of any circumstance is the direct result of viewing it through the blurred vision of a low state of mind. It's got nothing to do with a boss or anything else. If we were seeing the situation clearly, while we might disagree with it, we wouldn't be feeling hateful, bound-up, or irritated in the first place.

So, the next time you are tempted to unleash your fury on another human being, remember this: Hateful thoughts will occasionally occur, but they are 100 percent self-created, arbitrary, and innocent. Thus, relief can only be found in the fact that we form our perception of others from the inside out—100 percent of the time.

What Is

As we pause for The Holidays, I decided to reflect on the principles that determine the quality of our performances, relationships, contributions, and lives. My list is by no means complete or perfect. So please send in your comments or additions. The only thing I ask, before you do, is that you remember that these entries apply to all of us—they describe a common understanding, not individual ethics, values, or standards.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Here goes:

 

1. The greatest teachers serve to bring out the inner wisdom in those they teach.

2. You are born with all the wisdom that you'll ever need.

3. A universal energy runs through, and connects, each and every one of us.

4. The brain is biological; the mind is spiritual.

5. The content of your thoughts is arbitrary. There is no explanation for why you think; what you think; when you think it.

6. The content of your thoughts is insignificant. There is no reason to apply a strategy or technique to fix your thinking.

7. You can perform at your best even if you're thinking wayward thoughts.

8. The human mind, if left alone, will default to clarity.

9. Your thoughts create your feelings; your feelings create your moods.

10. Your feelings are a built-in defense mechanism that tells you to move foreword or be still. 

11. We form our perceptions from the inside out—your current mood determines your outlook on the world around you.

12 . It is not putting "what is" into practice that will change your level of well-being; it is your perspective on "what is" that will do this. So, point yourself in the direction of these principles and let the rest take care of itself.

 

Here's to a great 21012,

Garret

Time and Your State of Mind

What if I told you that the past, present, and future all happen simultaneously? I know, it sounds really "out there"—and you are probably wondering what this has to do with performance—but just bear with me for a moment.

Many scientists have sought to explain the principle of time, and there are many theories, yet what if we could understand time better by looking at the quality of our thoughts and moods? When your state of mind is high, don't the past, present, and future meld together? When your mind-set is low, doesn't time become severely fragmented as we tend to lament the past and fret about the future?

When conscious, we automatically appreciate the past and visualize the future.

To illustrate this intangible understanding, last week I had an in-depth conversation with a baseball player. He spent a couple of days with me, at first bemoaning his past season—with injuries and personal issues off the field, he was convinced that his career had been set back a year. I told him that just wasn't so; his current state of mind was simply obscuring his perception of time.

I said, "I am 100 percent certain that the events of this year are setting the stage for your future as a player. Your life situations are not meant to get in your way; they're meant to show you the way."

He looked at me inquisitively.

As his thinking slowed down and his level of consciousness rose, however, his perception of both the past and the future started to clear up. He spoke about how (since he couldn't travel with the team) he had rededicated himself to his wife and family over the previous several months. He mentioned that watching games from the team sky-box (as he recuperated) gave him a different perspective on his teammates, opponents, and the game in general. He asserted, "It's crazy, but sitting here right now, my injury kind of makes sense. I can envision how my growth as a person off the field is already contributing to my success on the field next season."

Understand time and you will live and perform unencumbered.

In other words—in this player's mind—the past, present, and future were all playing out at the same time. The events of the previous season, of course, hadn't changed. But the quality of his thinking had, and, with it, his faith grew as possibilities for his life became obvious.

My message here might sound ethereal, yet it is worth considering: As our thoughts and moods become more lucid, our past starts to make sense, we become engaged in the present, and we're able to visualize the future as if it's already occurred. So, the next time you are worrying about your previous or upcoming "season," think about this: the past, present, and future have all happened already—they're not in your control. You are truly free so you might as well just let go.

What We Can Learn (at this point) From the Penn State Tragedy

This dreadful topic has shaken the world of sports and beyond.  Here is where I stand, as of right now, about what we can learn from it. My perspective relates to Coach Paterno, Coach McQueary, the Penn State administration, trustees, students, victims, and you and me.

 

1.  We should never take the state of mind of another person as "a given."

2.  Just because you think it, doesn't mean it's true.

3.  People stumble mightily when decisions are made from insecure states of mind.

4.  A person's state of mind is what creates his or her perception of a circumstance.

5.  Nothing or no one is greater than anything or anyone else.

6.  Wayward choices are not the cause of dysfunction; they are the symptom of it.

7.  Weighing the pros and cons of a decision revs up thought and stifles reason.

8.  Insular environments often limit creativity, awareness, and clarity.

9.  Adhering to the edicts of a "culture" binds a person's thinking, thwarts free will, and creates followers who are not capable of coming through in the big moment.

10. The opportunity always exists for healing, growth, and progress—no matter how tragic the circumstance.