iMindShift with Steve Chandler

You grieve ... you learn

"You grieve, you learn,  

You choke, you learn,  

You laugh, you learn,  

You choose, you learn,  

You pray, you learn,  

You ask, you learn,  

You live, you learn."

~ Alanis Morissette

What I love about the lyric of Alanis is that it describes so well the third category of experience identified by Nassim Nicholas Taleb as anti-fragile.

The first two categories are 1) fragile and 2) resilient. When a box is marked "FRAGILE" that means it breaks easily and is vulnerable to shocks.

The second category, resilient (sometimes called robust), means that it can withstand a shock. If you ship champagne glasses mark the box fragile. If you ship a bowling ball you don't have to mark the box because it is resilient.

Most people live their lives in the first two categories. And by most, I mean 99% because they do not even know of a third possibility. That's why there is no word for it.  

That's why Taleb had to invent the word antifragile.  

For the package bearing something antifragile would be marked "BENEFITS FROM SHOCK."

A candle is fragile to a strong wind. The wind blows the candle out. But a forest fire benefits from a strong wind. It is not resilient to the wind, it grows from it.

Most people are either fragile or resilient to rejection...to hearing a NO. They either get upset and depressed (fragile) or they learn to be okay with it...to withstand it without being upset (resilient).

But there is that 1% who have learned to benefit from a NO.  

They learn from it.  

They grow from it.  

They even welcome it. They are anti-fragile now, and they are powerful as a forest fire.

Same is true with divorce. Most people are only seeing the possibility of the first two categories. They are either devastated and depressed over their break-up (fragile to it), OR they have learned to "get through it," withstand it and survive (resilient).

But what if there were a third category?

And what if we could learn to go there?  

 

Allison Pescosolido

Allison Pescosolido has created that third possibility for people "going through" divorce.  

She calls it a reframe.

And when you have done her intensive program, you are no longer merely resilient to your divorce.

You are stronger for it.  

You have reframed every aspect of it. You have used it now to improve dating skills, improve your sense of freedom and maturity, and to strengthen your independence and your capacity to apply your love to all of life.

She calls it DIVORCE DETOX and you can find her here: http://divorcedetox.com/.

In my own world I work with a lot of coaches. I had a coaching prosperity school for years. Today I have a very intensive three-day workshop that I put on with master coach Rich Litvin that teaches coaches to move out of the first two categories into the third. The next seminar is May 17 - 19 in Los Angeles....Marina del Rey, actually. If you are a coach whose career, practice and prosperity have been going from fragile to resilient, you can register here to begin your move to antifragile in the category of prosperity: http://thatconfidenceguy.com/prosperous/.

Why should we live our lives in the first two categories only? Either fragile and vulnerable (a weak victim) or resilient, and withstanding things (a stoic victim).

Why be a candle in the wind, when the very real possibility is to grow like a forest fire?

Can I not find such a fire in my heart?

ANTIFRAGILE: Things That Gain from Disorder

 

IF A THING IS WORTH DOING IT'S WORTH DOING BADLY

"We're not looking for the correct method, we're looking for the incorrect method."

                              ~ Keith Richards

    I found this Keith quote in Seth Godin's wonderful new book, The Icarus Deception.

    His quote is a great refresher for anyone attempting to create anything (a service, a product, a business, a life).  Creativity thrives when it is fearlessly unaware of whether I am doing it right or not.... creativity and quality-of-product thrive when they have a lot of heart and very little head.

     That was Nassim Taleb's point about being willing to make a mess of things in the name of making something that will be timeless and popular and sell like crazy... like the Bible (which is disorganized to say the least) or any of the great books that follow no formula or outline or ANYTHING bureacratic or thought-out-in-advance or planned carefully.

    Kathy and I once went to a talk given by Lee Child in a little bookstore in Scottsdale. He is the author of the wonderful, colorful,  bestselling Jack Reacher series of books. He said he never plots or outlines his stories. He never knows from one page to the next what's going to happen in the book. He just wakes up and pours his heart into it. A controlled explosion.

    Taleb compares the messy beauty of an emerald forest with the carefully organized-and-planned freeway system in L.A.  

     One is beautiful and timelessly alluring and the other is a repulsive hell on earth. Messy wins again. Because organic has heart.  Synthetic loses again.

    No one wants to read your book if it's organized like a textbook or business book. No one wants to feel that fear that was in you when you put it together, editing even before you wrote it. Trying to use the brake pedal to drive with.

     Most people I coach try to "create" that way. With one foot on the brake and the other foot amputated by a premature quest for acceptance.

    It's the classic HOW TO taking all the steam out of the WANT TO. I created an audio program that addresses that issue....why be modest...solves that issue. It's a mess of a program. No script. Clearly ad-libbed. You probably think I am going to now try to sell it to you.

   That would be the correct thing to do, because all the marketing gurus tell you how to sell and grow rich. I am just going to give it to you, it's called The How To versus the Want To. Email my business partner and audio publisher Maurice at [email protected] and he will send it to you.  

     By the way, the clients I coach do not use their brake pedal to drive with for very long.  I help them see how ineffective it is.  

     Try it with your car.

     Then sit in your car for an hour or two and ask yourself if you've been living your life this way. With this abundance of caution.

   I know I did that. But only for about five decades. Then it hit me as I slowly pulled my foot off the brake: I'm not getting anywhere this way.