Tag: trust

Kindness

Fabrizio1 Comment

Kindness starts from understanding that we are not alone.

That despite our uniqueness, the pain we feel, the challenges we face, the preoccupations that keep our mind busy are common.

That what we are going through is the reflection of what our neighbour has lived for the past six months.

That the person who does not reply to our message is not having a better day.

That it is difficult for our partner to figure us out, just as it is difficult for us to figure them out.

Kindness is an act directed at ourselves first.

Kindness is for every day of the year.

Merry Christmas!

P.S.: I have not read many books this year, but one I enjoyed is Storynomics, by Robert McKee and Thomas Gerace. I am giving away 5 Kindle copies of the book, to the first 5 people who leave a comment to this post and share one thing they got from my blog.

You stay

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When you are in a bad mood, your productivity goes down. The quality of your work is not as good as usual, even getting started feels painful. You are cranky, you put negative narratives first, you fail to appreciate what good there is.

Being in a bad mood also poisons everything around you. And most importantly, it makes people in your life be in a bad mood to.

There is no remedy to being in a bad mood. It just happens.

The only sensible thing to do is put all the residual resources into breaking the direct link between the mood and yourself. Indeed, often when you are in a bad mood, you look at yourself as a bad person too. That’s dangerous.

Moods come and go. You stay, often improved. If you can appreciate this difference more, nothing will stop you.

To meet an emotion is first to acknowledge it and then to feel it enough to get the message it carries. The feeling carries the message but it isn’t the message, and we won’t get the message without feeling at least some of the emotion. The message, of course, is very likely to be a form of emerging self-knowledge.

Dan Oestreich, How To Meet A Strong Emotion

The stranger

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Every group has its own rules. And when you belong to the group, there are two things you have to do.

First, you need to figure out what the rules are. This might seem trivial and simple, but actually it often takes time to dive deep into what the group cares about and how stuff gets done. Tension and crisis accelerate the process of understanding, as there is no better time to appreciate the set of values of a group than when shit hits the fan.

Figuring out the rules happens over time, it is a continuous effort. And you can’t wait for it to be over before asking yourself if what the group believes in aligns with what you believe in. Are you at home, or are you a stranger?

Now, if the answer is that you are a stranger, you need to be able to appreciate the fact that setting out to change the rules is only one option. It is often easier and possible to go and find a group whose rules better align with yours.

One way or the other, staying in the group that makes of you the stranger is probably not something you want to consider. But you know that already, don’t you?

Gold

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If you can build relationships across groups, you are worth your weight in gold.

When you are given a task, when you are assigned a responsibility, when you have work to do, it is easy to forget about others. Yet what you do impacts them, and what they do might be significant for what you want to achieve.

Establishing and maintaining relationships with people who work in other departments, in different industries, in rival companies, in apparently antithetical roles is one of the most critical skill for success.

And that is true even if you are working on your own. Particularly if you are working on your own.

Ramble

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Be careful when you speak without having your ideas clear.

Particularly if you are in a position of power.

Too often half formulated ideas, biased opinions, personal preferences become some sort of a norm in a small, vertical group. And the norm is always difficult to challenge and to change.

You owe it to the people around you.

If all you can do now is ramble, now is a good time to let others talk.

P.S.: How worst is this nowadays with the widespread use of tools such as Slack or Teams! It would really be great if companies would stop to look at tools as solutions, and rather train their people in their usage and best practices. Companies are not ready for instant communication.