Willing the Body

Ken Robinson was a phenomenal communicator. He talked about the disconnect between the world of practice and the world of theories. Lamenting how academics can sit in universities, detach themselves and look at how the world should work from an ethical perspective, or values perspective, or a meta “how are we thinking about thinking” perspective. They can go really deep to the edge of human understanding. They don’t always have a lifeline back to where people are actually living. 

We have a wealth of knowledge that is hidden because we are not good at communicating with each other. When we are living separately from the world. We have people who are so busy, they don’t have time to think deeply. They are trying to be constructive, and so don’t have time to deconstruct. There is no time for finding holes, dangers, and unintended consequences. 

He talks of academics being disembodied, and seeing their body as a device that gets their head from meeting to meeting. The East has a more healthy relationship with the body. Yoga, for me, has also been about exploring embodied learning. At a later stage, I also started doing Five Rhythms dancing, which is part of a growing movement culture. An exploration of where knowledge sits at the subconscious level. 

In “The Happiness Hypothesis”, Jonathan Haidt uses the metaphor of an elephant and a rider. The real strength sits in the habits, scripts, loops, and behaviours that go on without thinking. Our rider may pull the strings, but the elephant must be willing. That requires a mind and body that talk.

Pulses Ripple

Reality is complex. We can’t simplify it as much as we would want to. We can create structures and simplifying stories to help us make decisions, but there needs to be an acknowledgment that we don’t all live the same lives. 

Our realities bump. Understanding requires work. No one has the capacity to understand in every way. We end up having to trust each other. Trust each other to go down different paths, while figuring out a way to stay in connection. 

We can be right on the edge of human knowledge. If there is no connection back, even if someone expands those boundaries, no one else will apply the learnings. 

There is a big tension between applied knowledge and theoretical knowledge. Opening questions up and closing down options to make tangible decisions. Sometimes by going down theoretical rabbit holes, you lose touch with other people. You live in a different place even if you are physically in the adjacent spot. 

Because of randomness, ambiguity, and complexity, we don’t and can’t understand how everything is connected. We don’t and can’t know all the consequences of our decisions. We need to build in feedback loops, and capacity to understand the impact we are having on the world. 

Actions matter. Actions have consequences. Consequences have consequences. We pulse, and our pulse ripples. The ripple is too complex for us to understand. We have to let go of that. 

We are here. We are part of the world. Making peace with that complexity is difficult and important.

Investing Time

As soon as you have the capacity to detach, and not be a productive asset, you are playing a completely different game. 

If YOU are “not required”. You have the ability to invest time. This may, or may not, be for something that will turn you back into a productive asset. 

Some areas require years of education before there is any sign of output. Sometimes, you even need to put in years of education just to be able to understand the signs! 

Money is a blunt cross-discipline tool to demonstrate output in areas others don’t understand. Someone pays you to do that? Someone pays you a lot to do that? Ok, it must be valuable. 

Not needing to demonstrate value in the short term allows you to go through long stretches of not knowing what you are doing. Asking embarrassing questions. Feeling annoying. Connecting dots. Mapping your ignorance. Not being respected. 

We sort people based on how quickly they pick things up. Sometimes, deep understanding requires admitting ignorance AND YET persisting. 

We have a bias to monitoring and action. For some things to do their work, they need to be left alone. For some things to do their work, they can’t also have to do the communication work of keeping others regularly informed.

"Show me the Money"

Boxing for Respect

When relationships are transactional, there is a need for conspicuous action in order to earn respect. 

Like insisting that someone does half the chores. Famously, in most relationships if you ask everyone what percentage of the chores they do, it always adds up to more than 100%. We know what we do. We only see what is conspicuous from others. 

When you have to box for respect, there is a temptation to indulge in destructive behaviour. If you don’t get recognised, you may tear the other person down, “I don’t think your choices are all that fantastic”. Or you have to pump yourself up, “I am actually quite a big deal.” 

To release yourself from this wrestling match, there is a need to internalise your own sense of value. To let go of the need to be a conspicuously productive asset. To let go of the constant call to prove yourself to other people, particularly if it is conflicting with your own values. 

Then your choices can become relational. There is no scorecard. There are no metrics. You give (and receive) without measure.

Ancient Greek Boxers

Stilling the Waves

Planning is not something you finish. It is the regular process of reviewing your story. A form of journaling, where you can go back and see what you thought in the past. It is difficult to plan in isolation, because that limits your sources of information and support. It is important to have someone you can speak openly to. Not as a cry for help. Not because you can't do it, are weak, or are incompetent. Because you are human. 

Invest in friends who will challenge you. Find friends who won’t challenge you, but will listen deeply. To build a sense of autonomy and consent. To build a practice and set of tools for dealing with the pulse of life that feels productive, in whatever way you choose to define productivity. So your choices resonate and build on what matters to you. 

The beauty of being human is that that is such a difficult question. The answer evolves and cannot be reduced to numbers. It certainly can’t be reduced to two numbers where you divide one by the other, compare yourself to others, and spit out a chocolate box answer. 

It is not a conversation about more and less. It is not a conversation about categorising people into good enough and not good enough. It is not weighing. It is not measuring. Planning is just practicing being alive. Consciously taking each step. Stilling the waves of anxiety. Focusing on what matters.

Knowing the Game

Knowing what communication game is being played, and how to play it, is fundamental. Like when someone comes home from work and they need to dump. They just need to moan. To whine. To vomit out the bad day. They don’t necessarily need someone to fix the problem. They don’t need to be fed back what has come out. That’s gross. 

Part of communication is often simple observation and attention. We do not always need feedback. Sometimes you need periods where you are just getting stuff done. Feedback-free action. Where you are a little kinder to yourself and just relax into whatever your automatic process is. Trusting yourself. 

In Yoga, you relax into the posture. Sometimes you are stretching hard, but at other times you stop trying and focus completely on deep breathing. Letting your body be where it needs to be without beating yourself up. Do not only have one tool in your toolbox. Planning is both creating a plan, and detaching from that plan. The only thing you can be certain of is that it will not play out in the way you thought. 

Planning is like financial modeling. You can have disdain for the projections and trying to measure everything, because it is so obviously going to be wrong, but sometimes it is still worth doing. Simply as a tool for thinking through problems. We think in stories, and simple things that are wrong still let us nudge towards an understanding of advantages and disadvantages. We can only think in simplifications of reality. Then adjust how we lean into the chaos with different games and tools.

Allowing for Bull

It is worth reading the book, “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. The name sounds terrible. I put off reading it for years because the title seemed repulsively insecure and insincere. I was wrong. There are very valuable principles clearly articulated. One of those key ideas is building on what people say. We want feedback. But we want feedback in a way that we actually believe that the person giving it wants us to move forward. We want to feel like they are being constructive. If you are constantly niggling at someone, and tearing them down, what you are not doing, is allowing a Bull Quota. A Bull Quota is when you suspend your disbelief. Allowing a buffer for things that can distract you from the important stuff. That quota can eventually be full, but not allowing it prevents deep listening. Like when you are watching a movie. If you are intent on critiquing each word and pointing out the holes, you won’t be able to enjoy the story. Are you looking for the truth in the story? Are you even looking for something that contributes? Because everything has gaps and holes, as we clumsily try to communicate from one grasp at reality to another. Don’t live in the holes.

Don't prematurely call Bull

 

Alternative Worlds

“Price is not Value” is perhaps the most important lesson to learn in navigating wealth creation, financial planning, and building a career. I constantly find myself wanting to believe price is more than it is. Feeling like the way I see the world is reality. All price is, is a communication tool between different realities. We see the world based on what we have seen. We see the world from within our self and community created containers. That is where value sits. Price is where different value systems briefly and fuzzily meet. Price is a crude tool to artificially, and temporarily, simplify qualitative ideas of what something is worth down to a number. As individuals, we can then rank and compare all the other things that come into our decision making. Then make choices based on bringing things into and out of our world, based on price.

 

Talking to Each Other

Money is a smarter form of barter. It is a communication tool that allows us to match asks with offers, without needing to swap needs. Money is not a physical thing that does work. It is a placeholder. A story that sits on top of reality to help us make sense of things. To smooth. To spark. To support. It is up to us to look through the story to see what is fundamentally happening. To make things that matter happen. Money should be durable. If you sell something for money, it must still be usable when you find the thing you want. It should be portable. Easier than carrying a belligerent goat to market. It should be uniform and stable in value, so that we trust it. Money itself is not an investment. It is a place holder or a buffer for doing things of value. A blunt tool to count things that cannot be counted, by finding two people who think the number makes sense. The fuzzy value is less than the ask, and more than the offer. If we had smart money, it would be able to understand people and their asks and offers. Like smart cars being able to talk to each other to avoid traffic jams and keep people moving efficiently without dying because they are distracted. Smart money would keep us all moving with strength, flexibility, and control.

Money is a Co-ordination Tool

Creating a Why

Money and words are a form of communication. A way to hear stories. You can reflect on and learn through other people’s stories. Your reflection will change as you change. Part of my story is Apartheid in South Africa. I cannot let go of History. I refuse to let go of History. Because it is such an important part of understanding. We carry all this knowledge with us. Some written, some aural, some in the way we dance, the way we make our art, the way we build community. Part of being human is this beautiful, deep, painful, glorious, connection to everything. The future, the past, and other people’s now. That source of understanding gives us a powerful view of the why of why we make our decisions. I believe that life does not have meaning. We give it meaning. We create meaning. Books like Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” and David Duncan’s “The River Why”. See what your values are. See what is important to you. Then create a bolder life.

In Power or Empower

If you want a problem to be solved quickly, all the decision makers need to be in one room with no distractions, and intimately involved in doing the work. If you want a problem not to be solved, make those doing the work write memos and get other people around a boardroom to make the decisions based on what is on that paper. There is deep irony in the loss of meaning around the word Capitalism. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” is effectively a tearing down of the memo factory. Let decisions be made locally by those who they affect. Not in isolated bubbles with oceans between realities. Virginia Postrel vividly describes Tacit Knowledge (the stuff we know but cannot communicate) in the book which completely changed my mind about the desirability of benevolent dictators and central planning (“The Future and its Enemies”). The world is too complicated, ambiguous, and random to concentrate power. The way you build endurance, resilience, and creativity is by creating more decision makers. That means building buffers and engines of capital for everyone. It means letting other people make different decisions to you.

Connecting Us

I have done lots of formal presentations. Despite that, I always put in hours of preparation. Each one is brand new, crafting a clear message. A cardinal sin of presenting is apologising to the audience that you were busy, “I did not have time”, and so “slapped a few slides together.” Like arriving late for a meeting, that is the same as saying your time is more important than theirs. Except, you can multiply that by the number of people giving you their attention. I did lots of dry runs. As many as I could with dummy audiences. Ideally people who give good feedback, and are anal in slightly different ways. Some about typos. Some about visuals. Some about facts. The key to communication is realising that how you intend to say something, and how it is heard… is not the same thing. Listening is a part of sharing information. That is why we are all wired to detect the difference between a conversational tone, and someone vomiting their world view on us. The only world view that matters is the one that connects us.

Learn about presenting with Garr Reynolds

Price is not Value

You can put a price on anything on this. That is why it is a useful communication tool. Because even if you have completely different worldviews, you have this point of connection that is price. You do not need to understand each other. Computers are not sentient, but a string of ones and zeros can convey information that can lead to action. The computers do not understand the underlying reasons, but they know what to do. Price is similar. It literally does not care. It is a tool between two people who care very much. Two people who determine their own value.

The Matrix isn't Reality. Price isn't Value.

Don't Be Jam

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”. How you make money has got nothing to do with who you are! Making money has very tight constraints. You need a container. You need to be able to charge. You need a way to get paid. To turn an idea into money, you need to be able to describe very clearly what you are selling. What is the problem that you are offering to solve? What is the alternative reality you are going to deliver?

In a way that I say, “I can make Jam. Do you want Jam?” And you go, “I know what Jam is. I want Jam. You have got Jam. Yes, please can I have that.” I hand you a container. You hand me money. That is how it works. It is all about Jam, and having a container to put your Jam in. A way to sell it. And the vital point is… you do not want to be Jam.

When asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, no one ever said, “I want to be Jam.” That is just the problem you want to solve. And the next week, you might not be selling Jam. You might be selling books, dry cleaning services, a haircut, or coffee. It is just a problem. You are not the problem. The problem is the problem.

Choices have Consequences

I studied money partly because I hated it. Not money itself, because money isn’t a thing. Money is a communication tool. Mostly I hated the unchosen constraints and impact on relationships. Money fights. Money anxiety. Money in the driving seat. There are various stories of Alexander the Great coming across a Yogi on a rock. One trying to conquer, one working on acceptance. Life is about choices, and choices have consequences. Not all good ideas are good business ideas. Personally, I would rather focus my energy on the good ideas that are terrible business ideas. But this reality dictates that we at least have to tip our hats to the world of supply and demand. Where price isn’t value, but a sorting mechanism shifting things you can count and control. If you learn to understand risk, planning, and investment, you can gradually still the waves and choose your constraints. Conscious of the consequences, but with a point of focus.

Map of Alexander's Empire and Route

Market Knowledge

Tacit Knowledge is the idea that there is stuff we know that we can’t explain. Virginia Postrel explores this powerful concept in “The Future and its Enemies”. That was the book that changed my mind about the pipe dream of a benevolent dictator, or even the desirability of central decision making. The stuff we really know is embodied. This means that decisions are best made by the people they affect. Not you. Not me. Not some undiscovered saviour. Real Adam Smith Capitalism is in the market-places where everyone has a voice. Small businesses. Small customers. Where price makes no pretence at being value. It is just an agreement between a buyer and a seller. Just a word that makes both participants happy. Capitalism is not Corporatism. Capitalism is the idea that you can build resources and reinvest them. That money/capital can be paid and our labour can be set free. Community Wealth (Capital) can empower people from the bottom up. Amplifying voices through an exchange is a much clearer indication of what people need, than a powerful representative (hopefully) making (good) decisions on their behalf.

Markets need Bottom Up Power

Projecting Demons

Projected confidence and imposed binaries. If, like me, you feel ill-equipped to make sense of the world… where do we start? There is no shortage of (confident) people claiming to know the truth, who are really frustrated that “other people” aren’t willing to listen. There is no shortage of public and private (binary) duels, where “you are either with me, or against me”. I don’t see a lot of evidence of considered, empathetic, and skilful mediation, arbitration, reconciliation and community building. I see a lot of preaching to the choir. I don’t see a lot of mirrors. I see a lot of microphones. Many of the people with the appropriate skills are in the Mental Health Space. Unfortunately, many of them are really busy trying to create businesses out of Mental Health. In survival mode. Unfortunately, most of us are really busy. Occupied. Distracted. Full. Rushed. Before you can do anything of value, you need to still the waves. Creativity starts from a place of silence.

Giovanni Fontana (1420)
Figure with Lantern Projecting a Winged Demon

Mapping Ignorance

It is important to map ignorance. Here be dragons. My impression is that we don’t have the necessary tools to unpack many of the complicated issues we are currently facing. There is far too much false confidence and debate going on. I have been part of “Men’s Groups” and “White Men’s Groups” trying to create containers for conversations to self-reflect. One common thread has been the over use of challenge. Like in the public debate, there seems to be limited ability to genuinely listen and gather information. Superficial curiosity is often strategic, still anchored to a particular pre-packaged conclusion the questioner is looking to confirm. It is like we are still engaged in the long history of Crusades and Civilising Missions. Having not learnt the lessons of the unintended consequences of true believers pushing into worlds they don’t understand. New tools are required. New rules of engagement. New honest map building.

Psalter World Map

Laager Mentality

What is it like to be a bat? Thomas Nagel asked this in an essay exploring the limits of our ability to understand things beyond human concepts. We can’t be a bat. Even other humans are hard to understand. The world we see, and understand, is cumulative. Words get shared meaning. Sentences reflect experience. Big ideas tie small learnings together. Conversations build on each other. Which makes it hard/impossible to understand people without that work. A “Laager” is a fort made of a circle of wagons. Laagers were used by the Boers during the Great Trek of the 1830s. After the Napoleonic Wars, the British took control of the former Dutch Colony on the South West tip of Africa. Clashing worlds led to a mass migration of Dutch-inhabitants to avoid British administration. When the wagons came under attack, they would draw into a circle with the cattle and horses on the inside. A Laager Mentality is a defensiveness, however valid the complaint, to circle around your own to protect them. To protect the world you understand. Right or wrong. Bat or man.

Shared Words

“Do you believe in God?” This question had an easy answer in Westville where I grew up. We had a shared vocabulary. Yes, the people who went to the Catholic Church by the Robots (Traffic Lights) at the top of Westville Road thought a little differently. But God was still an old white dude with a beard. Then schools opened up to other races and suddenly Youth Group on Friday wasn’t necessarily all my buddies cup of chai. Vocabs expanded. I moved on from Christianity, but if I ask friends I grew up with “Do you still believe in God?”, I have to be prepared for a deeper conversation. The God they likely believe in now, is not *identical* to the one I grew up with. Or at least the one *in my head*. The word doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. The same is true in other hard conversations. We don’t have a shared meaning for the word “Racist” and “Privileged”. We do seem to have progressed to where Racist is an insult. Something no one wants to be. An accusation worthy of defence. Increased cultural understanding and cooperation is a fundamental part of wealth creation. Social Capital is the backbone of any ability to generate an income or capital. No one is self-made. Self-empowerment starts with shared words and hard conversations.

Words are Created