Locus of Control

Friends!

Thank you so much to so many of you that reached out to help celebrate the message of Love last week. It warmed my heart in more ways than you can imagine. The wedding was incredibly beautiful and it reminded us how much we have to be grateful for and, proud and optimistic about. So it was rocket fuel for our souls. And we did need it. So thank you for your cheers, toasts and wonderful karmic energies. Much appreciated.

This week I want to reflect more on the idea of responsibility. Why is it, that most conversations you hear about responsibility are always about someone else’s responsibility? How can that be? How many discussions do you witness where leaders are fighting about claiming vs blaming? What if our public discourse was a race to attach responsibility to ourselves rather than to another? 

When we are pointing fingers, one finger points to someone else and 3 points back at us. It’s just a helpful biological reminder of WHO we should focus our attention on when outcomes are not to our satisfaction. 

Looking for answers outside ourselves for the most pressing problems we face might feel good. But it is, as my favorite saying goes, very much like peeing in your pants in wintertime. You get an instant warm feeling but sooner or later you will start freezing!

I was trained early in my life by Stephen Covey and then subsequently by a host of really incredible and inspiring teachers who all basically sang from the same hymn. People like Kjell Enhager, Gunde Svan, Ulf Nilsson, Kay Pollack, Tony Robbins, Richard Barrett, Jim Collins, and so many others. If you distill most of their teachings it often comes back to Covey’s 1st habit: Be Proactive. You are indeed the architect of your own life. You can control your emotions. No one else can. You can influence a lot more than you think you can. But it begins (and ends) with your own response-ability. Ability to respond to what happens to you. In Swedish, we often say; "man har det som man tar det." Roughly translated as: you will feel how you deal (sorry best I could do). Below you can find a video from Stephen Covey presenting his first habit as well as a great interview by Shane Parrish with Maria Konnikova where the concept of "tilting" is explained where we must practice to identify our emotional reactions and learn how to NOT let them affect the quality of our decision making. Not easy. But very important.

Remember what Eleanor Roosevelt often said:

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

In COVID times this might be both more important and more challenging than ever. This little persistent virus is wreaking havoc globally affecting, dislocating, and really hurting hundreds of millions of people and their livelihoods. Now and for a very long time. But as usual, the public conversation around our situation seems to be more obsessed about who is to blame. If we know we might spread a virus and affect others the only sensible action for all right now is to behave as if you were contagious. Keep your distance. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. And avoid big crowds. Until we know we are ALL safe.

Over 20 years ago, I read a really important book given to me by a friend that really awakened my own thinking on the topic of responsibility. It was called The Politics of Hope and was written by the then Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, Jonathan Sacks. Since then I have read his subsequent books and find him one of the more clear and inspiring thinkers of contemporary life. In this book he says:

Our hopes are invested in governments, from which we demand more and in our more somber moments anticipate less. At the core of our culture is an echoing discrepancy between what we believe and what we know. We believe that we are faced with unprecedented choices. We know that too much of what happens to us is beyond our control, the result of economic choices or political decisions taken far away by people we will never meet nor be able to identify. Beyond the narrowing circle of the self lies a world in which we are not the makers but the made. This is the genesis of despair.

Jonathan Sacks in Politics of Hope

The genesis of despair. I could feel the pain in those words. Think about it. When you are really worried about something and you point your fingers (and therefore any hope for solutions since you are directing your energies AWAY from you) to someone far away, that you don’t know and often don’t trust, the pain, worry, and anxiety get worse. Not better. Directing your attention to things that you can control, you can do something about often produce more positive energy. To say out loud that you "got this". "I can do something about this" or alternatively “I can't do something about this and therefore I will not let this affect my emotions” is a very healthy way of dealing with our responses to almost anything that happens to us.  

I think we have taken the blame game far enough. I am convinced it is contributing to a collective sense of despair in far too many people which is effectively paralyzing both action and hope.

The good news is that we live in a democracy. If you don’t like what’s going on you can make a difference by voting. I believe NO ONE should have the right to be both disappointed in the status quo AND at the same time not participate in the election. We should all encourage our friends, families, and colleagues at work to do the one thing democracy is based on. A broad political mandate to take the country where YOU believe it needs to go. We need to do our homework, study our candidates, and support the ones who best represents our ideas and ideals. And please don’t forget the local elections. They might matter more to our lives than we think.

I like TurboVote. They offer great simple alerts and help make it easy to know what you need to do to make sure you are ready to vote. We have one of the lowest election turnouts in the western world. Look at the graph above. This is data from 2018. To some extent, this could also be a barometer of overall despair! Only about half of our voting-age population go and cast their ballot. Broader participation would not also help the electorate feel more connected and engaged it would also raise our expectations from our elected officials. Perhaps one of the reasons why politicians are among the least trusted in our society is that too many simply aren’t invested enough.

Lastly, and I really mean this. We should encourage ALL people to vote. Not just the ones that might vote for what you want. Companies should encourage their employees to vote. But all voting participation should be free from any political under or overtones. That’s NOT helpful or appropriate. Or to quote Evelyn Beatrice Hall (or Voltaire…it’s just not clear who really gets the attribution): I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.

So. In sum. Let's inspire each other to reject blame and get in the game. Let's help each other find ways to solve problems or challenges. And if we are not able or willing to. Let's just smile and move on. And finally. The least we all can do is to vote. 

Have a great week! 

This is a great conversation on many topics. Luck, learning, how to become a great poker player. But the main reason for sharing is to listen to Maria’s discussion on “TILTING” and how important it is to learn how to recognize your emotional responses and understand how they might affect the quality of your decision making.