The Art of Possibility

After listening to Benjamin Zander's TED talk, and hearing about his book, I was given Exclusive Books vouchers as a parting gift from my colleagues in Cape Town.

The 4 books I got were The Zander's `The Art of Possibility', `Fooled by Randomness', `The Google Story', and `Gary Kasparov's Why Life is like Chess'. I read the first one today, inspired by the TED talk.

The theme of the talk is much the same as of the book and it is very inspirational. I was always a cynic. Well, that is not completely true, if you read my ridiculously optimistic and bright eyed Std. 6 creative writing. It is more true that I always regarded with suspicion `motivational' speakers. Maybe more so after growing more disillusioned with religion. I am realising that there is actually a lot of value in these `approaches to life', that offer no superstition or ritual, but simple processes with which to deal with whatever life throws at you, and throw back!

One of the things they speak about is having pre-programmed ways of dealing with situations you know you are likely to face. The example they give is of falling out of a boat while white water rafting. Repeating phrases `toes to nose', and `look for the boat, grab an oar'. People think they can swim and ignore these, but when being thrown around in the water not knowing up from down, phrases like these can save your life.

I have heard a similar thing about practicing dialing `911'. Apparently in panic mode, you may forget what to do... practicing dialing emergency numbers may save your life.

I have spoken before about how much I learned about myself by playing poker. Poker is a long term game. If you allow yourself to get upset about individual hands, or even games, you are going to get upset a lot. When you look down at the cards you are dealt and see `AA', you think... I have to win, this is MY hand. I have waited more than 200 hands to see these cards. Then you lose... and often with overplayed `AA' you lose big cause you just can't let go.

Knowing how you react to situations in advance, like getting that `AA', and deciding in advance how to act or rather when to let go can make all the difference.

1. Realising when you are `seeing red' and being illogical because you are angry.
2. Knowing you are about to say something you will regret.
3. Becoming Anxious.
4. losing sight of the bigger picture, taking yourself or something too seriously.

These are all things we do, and know we do. Wouldn't it be great if you were able to catch yourself in the act, and stop yourself before you do it!

Reckon that comes with practice.

Anyway, read the book... only 200 pages and in my view pretty insightful. Like everything there will be bits you use and bits you don't.