How To Matter

When things don't work out as expected, when people disappoint us, who dropped the ball? The answer is more complicated than it may seem at first glance.

In these uncommon times, relating well to others on and off line is more important than ever. Stress is high and people aren’t always at their best. This makes it essential that we do our best to be our best when interacting with others. Expanding our range of tolerance is a good place for each of us to start.

Do well, Be well and enjoy.

Alert! Alert! Alert! This transmission from the High Council on the Home Planet is directed to all planetoids currently participating in the edit of the Earth planet’s Internet, as per the recent directive. The Council’s surveillance has verified that the edit mechanism has been successfully imbedded in only seventy-three of the six hundred and twenty-one master nodes controlling the Earth planet’s Internet. This limited progress is disappointing. An eleven percent capture rate is far below expectations. The Home Council is thus directing that half of your collective resources be used to continue the embedding work, while the remaining half be redirected to editing what the Earth humans refer to as Facebook. Based on the Home Council’s analysis of the node by node imbedding of the editing mechanism, a partial installation of the embedding mechanism is sufficient for the intended purpose. The artificial intelligence in the mechanism will successfully complete the embedding without planetoid assistance. This

The top of the morning to you. … And the rest of the day to all.

I’m sure that by now you are aware of fake news. Someone somewhere adds to the content of the Internet by sharing what seems like legitimate news, good information or reporting that accurately reflects some aspect of the real world. The news appears to be true and valid, when in reality, it is intentionally false or at least misleading. With this type of deception and manipulation, it’s difficult and at times impossible to distinguish the real from the fake. Our struggle for the truth is made even more challenging when we know that people in respected positions can and do knowingly tell us that the real and true is fake and just as often that the fake is really true and should be believed. The result is that we are left wondering who, if anyone, we can trust to be straight with us. For the most part, we are reduced to taking everything on the Internet with a very large grain of sault, no matter who says it or no matter the source. I regret having to report to you that as pervasive as fake and intentionally

Let’s suppose that an organization is functioning in a way that is not leading to good or desired outcomes. Things are just not working out the way we want. What to do? This kind of dilemma can develop in families, in groups from teams to social gatherings, from corner shops to international businesses. Any time people get together with a goal or outcome in mind, there is the potential for bad or at least less than optimal outcomes. So what is the cause and, more importantly, what is the fix? The underlying cause is usually some variety of the same issue. To understand how it happens, there are a few points that need our attention. • Things are always organized and functioning perfectly to get the outcomes we are getting. Were we to start from scratch, wanting the outcomes we are currently experiencing, we couldn’t do better than to encourage everyone to keep up the good work, using only the resources and opportunities available to them today. • The way people, roles, responsibilities and resources are c

What are the key steps for any leader or for anyone who doesn’t want to simply maintain the status quo? Let’s think about that. First, what do you want to happen? There are three possibilities. You may want things to improve or get better. Next, you may want things to change or be different in some way you define. Finally, you may want to prevent something from happening or prevent some danger or risk from actualizing. In short, you want to improve, change or prevent. Sure, you may want to achieve more than one of these outcomes at the same time. Second, take a close look at how things are right now. List everything that will be different when you achieve one or more of the outcomes in the first step. What will be different when things improve, when things change or when the danger or risk have been prevented? Third, step two gives you a list of things that have to be changed or modified. For each of those action elements, what will it take to change or modify each of those elements? That gives you a step-

How much better would your world be if other people just understood that you seldom intend to say or do whatever is annoying or frustrating them? Let's think about how that might work. People seldom intend to be jerks. I think we have all had to deal with someone who is just being a jerk. They are being difficult and impossible to cope with due to their seeming to be stupid, insensitive, hopelessly self-centered or clueless, or maybe all of the above. But are we ever the jerk in the picture? We sure don't intend to be the jerk but we probably have our jerk moments, at least from the perspective of other people. As reasonable and as appropriate as we try to be, even nice people like us may slip into jerk mode at times. People seldom intend to do less than their best. Do they always make an effort to do everything they can do as well as they can do it? No, people surely don’t do that. Rather, they usually make their best effort to do as much as they think is necessary and to do it as well as they think it nee

What would you never say to your five-year-old? It’s hard to say exactly what goes on your list but I suspect that things on your never say list all have a negative or critical tone or message tucked in there. I doubt that any of us would tell our five-year-old that he or she is stupid, ugly, lazy, in the way, too much bother, or anything else implying that the child is not valued or not okay. At least I hope none of us would relate to or respond to a child in ways like that. Even so, there is definitely another side to that coin. Our five-year-old certainly needs feedback, and sometimes, that feed back needs to be negative or critical. Children need to learn how to do things and how to behave. They also need to learn how not to do things and how not to behave. They require guidance, coaching and the opportunity to take advantage of our experience, awareness and judgment. They also have to occasionally deal with a firm and unequivocal “No!” The issue isn’t whether they should receive our guidance and feedbac

Bad Days: “Don’t miss the chance to do good just because you are having a bad day.” When I heard this earlier today, it sent my mind in two directions. I wonder how often I do that. How often do I hold back or just not help because I’m having a bad day. Probably more often than I want to admit. Perhaps even more telling is wondering where I would be today if people had always held back and not helped me just because they were having a bad day. Consider this. I was eight or nine when I was trying to put the bridle on my pony. I was in a field at the edge of town and Tarzan was not being very cooperative. Instead of standing still and letting me put the bit in his mouth, he picked that time to jerk back and try to run away. I lost my balance and fell, somehow managing to have a stick poke into my leg. Since I could stick my finger into the resulting hole, even at that young age I knew that stitches were likely in my future. I managed to walk to a nearby house and knocked. I asked the lady who came to the do

I thought we might spend this episode having some fun. Sometimes we hear things from famous people that sound like something useful and maybe even important. When we do, we might do well to ask whether what is said is actually valid or if we just think it is reasonable because someone famous said it. Perhaps even famous people are as capable of silly talk as the rest of us. Let's consider a few examples, knowing that what we say is as likely to be silly talk as it would were we famous.

I have included a few notions that I think are interesting if not actually exciting. Perhaps you will agree. Give it a try and see what you think. Either way, I'm sure you will enjoy the tune from Kevin.

I suspect most if not all of us know about the notion that we tend to see what we expect to see, hear what we expect to hear and so on. The idea is that we tend to reframe our experiences to fit with our expectations. We may think that we are always objective but we aren’t. For example, this is in part why two people can hear the same politician speak and go away with quite different impressions. One of us may think that the politician is a great person who speaks the truth and the other thinks he or she is corrupt and can’t be trusted. The tendency to see the world as conforming to our preconceptions is called “Confirmation Bias.” Let’s shorten that to “CB.” CB reaches out in other ways when we aren’t expecting it. If we go out for the evening for an expensive meal at a fancy restaurant, we are likely to judge the food to be better than the fair at the corner diner, even if that is not objectively true as judged by experienced food critics. If we buy an expensive watch, we tend to think that it keeps bette

Are you old enough to remember Ozzy and Harriet? If so, you will recall that only the children argued and then only in the most considerate and polite way. Everyone was thoughtful and, well, nice. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, just think about how well you think other families get along with each other when they get together for a summer barbecue or a winter holiday. If you think they get along great or at least better than your family does, you have bought into what we might call the Ozzy and Harriet syndrome. If that doesn’t work for you, take your imagination along with you to work. Picture a workplace where everyone is positive and in an up mood all the time. You and your coworkers are always thoughtful, considerate and, well, nice. It’s always a pleasure to go to work and a joy to spend time with your coworkers. If you are still struggling to get up to speed with all of this, focus on your relationship with your parents, your significant other, your children, your friends or maybe even y

I send this Special Valentine along to you with my appreciation for the time you spend listening and with my best wishes for you and yours. If this Valentine touches a tender spot in you, please pass it along to someone who matters to you.

If you have seven minutes to help our alien visitors, they are sending out their request. Listen to the podcast, and if you can make sense of it, email me and I will pass your info along. Our announcer person has the email address for you at the end of the episode.

May be you are totally cool with your lease on life and have zero interest in renegotiating your lease. If so, right on. You are definitely one of the lucky ones. It’s also possible that you think you own your life and are not reduced to leasing or even worse, certainly not to being just a renter. I suspect you also have the perfect answer when asked how many of you it would take to put in a lightbulb. You know don’t you? Sure you do. It would only take one of you. You could just hold the lightbulb and the world would revolve around you. I’m sorry. I know that’s not you. I just tossed that in there to put off any of those high-and-mighty types who might have unintentionally pressed play and started listening in on our conversation. They think they are above the rest of us. You know the type. They aren’t above anyone but sure think they are. They also think they are entitled and don’t know that they are only leasing the space they have among us and can have their lease canceled without notice at any time. But

What comes to mind for you when I mention “cooperative?” Now consider what comes to mind when I mention “not cooperative.” For me, the only notion that comes to mind is “Uncooperative. Let’s try the same exercise with ”relaxed.” For me, several emotions come to mind such as up-tight, anxious, agitated, upset, restless, and so on. Even so, I divide the emotional state into “relaxed” and “not relaxed.” The point is that I divide emotional states into two states that I can characterize as “X” and “not X.” Try it for yourself. For example, What is the alternative to being “affectionate,” to being “supportive,” to being “trusting?” You likely come up with a few words to describe each, but those words are just ways of being more specific about “not affectionate,” “not supportive,” and “not trusting.” If we were to stop here, the conclusion would be pretty simple. The target emotion is either present or not present. What’s more, We also divide emotions into two more groups: good and not good. Being cooperative is

Do you aspire to be a super hero? If so, this is a tale for you. If not, you may want to listen anyway since sometimes we may have super powers that have escaped our attention. Your best bet is to press Play and have a listen.