Ruth Pearce

Little books with mind boggling ideas

I have started reading the book by Nick Riggle called This Beauty A Philosophy of Being Alive[1]. I don’t usually read philosophy books, not because I don’t like them, because there are so many books in the world and I cannot read them all, and I choose to focus on things that feel more practical. And philosophy books tend to boggle my mind!

But Todd Kashdan, author of the Art of Insubordination[2] recommended this one! And I had to give it a try after watching their conversation on the FAN webinar last week.

Check out the recording here: Todd Kashdan Interview with Nick Riggle

Early in the book, Mr Riggle had me thinking deeply because he said we don’t ask to be here, we don’t consent. I found myself wondering “who says we did not consent to this life?” We may not remember our consent, we may not have thought about it in the same way we would as “a bounded conscious material thing”, but how can we be sure we did not, indeed, consent?

But as I continued reading - not very much farther - the real thought stopper hit me.

What are the consequences of living life today as though there IS no tomorrow?

On page 19 (yes, that early in the book!) Mr Riggle talks about the “Live life as if there is no tomorrow” mantra that is so popular in the West at least. We are all about “Seizing the day”, we have even made (good) movies about the idea...

But is it good for us?

For anxious people, it is all to easy to get hyper focused on tomorrow and the next day. We plot and scheme to prevent imagined, but often unlikely, disasters and try to anticipate every pitfall, every setback that could occur and then mitigate it (often by avoiding an experience altogether). There are books about that too (for example Homo Prospectus by Martin Seligman et al[3]). I met Dr Martin Seligman in an underpass in Montreal once, and for a moment he made me feel better about anxiety because he said that people who are anxious were imaginative. That we think of things that no-one else would ever dream of!

(Later that night, when I was imagining my return flight crashing into a non-existent mountain, or picturing myself torn to shreds after falling off a moped that I had not ridden, I was not so sure that was a compliment!)

So, it may seem like a good idea to encourage a more in the moment mindset. Focus on the here and now because we cannot know what is coming. Focus on this moment, because in the end we are all "food for worms lads…”

I disagree. Strongly. Not with the food for worms part… but with the focus on the moment part.

I get that mindfulness has a place. But our mantra of living life as though there is no tomorrow may be part of what makes us short-sighted, selfish and even contributes to the ever-deteriorating state of our planet – and aspects of our society.

If we don’t have to worry about tomorrow, then we don’t have to think about waste, we don’t have to imagine swimming in the sea and encountering plastic bags, or worse, as we swim. As we use a cotton bud to clean our ears, we don’t have to picture the seahorse that may sadly cling to it later. 

See this article: This heartbreaking image reveals a troubling reality

We don’t have to consider any kind of pollution, and as global warming is something that will reach disastrous proportions the day after tomorrow, or even the day after that, that is way too long term for most of us to ponder.

We don’t have to worry about the hurts we cause others, the long-term effects of the ways we set up our systems. We don't even have to worry about what happens AFTER we drive drunk, pull out a gun, or lose our temper just a little too much.

Our choices today will always be the problems for someone else tomorrow. Haven’t we been doing that long enough?

Let’s not be short-sighted. Let’s look to the future, picture it now and make choices now as though they will matter tomorrow.

As of today, I am adopting a new mantra.

Live today as if it IS tomorrow

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10 questions to help me check my choices:

1. How will I feel about this choice tomorrow? (Scale 1-10, 1 = regretful, 10 = thrilled)
2. What will "tomorrow me" wish that "today me" had thought about?
3. Who will be affected by my choice today?
4. How will they feel about the affect my choice had on them? (Scale 1 = resentful, 10 = thrilled)
5. If I was going to make the choice that was best for all of us, what would it be?
6. What is potentially getting in the way of that "best choice"?
7. Is the obstacle really a good enough reason to make a sub-optimal choice?
8. What is the best that can happen if I make this choice? What is the worst that can happen if I make this choice?
9. How willing am I to risk the worst outcome for the possibility of the best outcome?
10. One last time, how will I feel about this choice tomorrow? (Scale 1-10, 1 = regretful, 10 = thrilled)

And having considered those impacts, will make choices that make tomorrow look as rosy as possible because today will be gone soon enough!

How about you?

[1] Riggle, N. (2022). This beauty: A philosophy of being alive. Basic Books.

[2] Avery Publishing. (2022). The art of insubordination: How to dissent & defy effectively.

[3] E., P. S. M., Railton, P., Baumeister, R. F., & Sripada, C. (2016). Homo prospectus. Oxford UP.

After reading Atomic Habits by James Clear several years ago on a recommendation from Andy Kaufman, I am a big proponent of incremental change. It works for getting things done and it works for coming back from burnout. Incremental change works. I use that approach in coaching, in my business and beyond!

New readings

So in every book I read, I look for golden nuggets. Small actionable activities that can help me and others learn, grow, make progress, feel better, create contentment, whatever it might be. Reminded by Robert Biswas-Diener and Christian van Nieuwerburgh that old books don't mean useless books, I have been dipping back into some books that are more than two years old!

This holiday my friend and colleague Lisle Baker sent me two such interesting reads. The first is the Good Lawyer by Douglas Linder and Nancy Levit and in that book on page 22 I found my first nugget.

Referencing an article in the The New York Times by Pam Belluck which explored the popular idea that reading literary fiction could make us more emotionally sensitive (intelligent). Sadly, since the publication of the book and the original research, more than just the theory has been discredited. However, I am curious to know what others think.

When you read literary fiction - not just popular formulaic fiction, but the type of fiction that leaves much to the imagination and describes complex characters - does it help you to understand and maybe even read people better?

I like this theory because it aligns with the work that Geoff Crane has been doing around emotional, social and motivational intelligence. To achieve goals we need to engage our imagination. To consider how others might be feeling, we need to engage our imagination and so on...

Here is a way to test out the theory for yourself.

Three steps in three days

Step 1: Take an assessment based on reading facial expressions. This one from the The Greater Good Science Center caught my attention.

Wait a couple of days - otherwise you will likely remember the answers to the quiz!

Step 2: read a short piece of literary fiction. Not sure where to find such a thing - well here is a link to some examples. All quick but thought provoking reads by recognized scribes. I wish there were more examples of literary works by non-white people! I will keep looking.

Step 3: Take the assessment based on facial expressions again and compare your scores.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/quizzes/ei_quiz/take_quiz

This is not the most scientific experiment - and I am not claiming that it is a basis for measuring the applicability of the theory, but I found it an interesting exercise nonetheless.

Let me know what you discover in the comments.

What is the other book you may be asking yourself... Beyond Reason by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro. Watch this space for more on the "Core Concerns"

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In addition to speaking about human skills in #projectmanagement, and #Linkedinlearning instructor, Ruth Pearce is a coach and speaker. Want to find out more about working with her?

Book a chemistry call here: Ruth Pearce Calendar

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Since 2016, I have been spending a lot of time on motivation. In coaching we often focus on reconnecting clients to their values and dreams.

It is not hard to believe that most of us want to have a sense of purpose in what we do. It is easier to motivate ourselves, keep going in hard times, and even to speak out to motivate others when we have a sense that our goals mean something.

Purpose is what makes us get up in the morning. It is what makes us choose thoughtfully and deliberately. Keeping a focus on our sense of purpose aids in decision making by helping us to baseline choices against our overall purpose.

What is your purpose?

What motivates you?

As painful as it is to watch, this clip from the movie Up in the Air always gives me pause.

AND what if you could MEASURE your motivation?

Working with motivation has been so, well motivating. In 2018 I was able to get a book published by the fabulous Berrett-Koehler publishers about the topic – Be a Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-based Project Management.

Three years later the content of the book was the basis of my first LinkedIn Learning course – Project Manager to Project Motivator: Unlock the Secrets of Strengths-based Project Management. This course has been watched by nearly 10,000 people in the 15 months since it was launched. And it will receive some additional material in 2023 to round out the topic and introduce balanced engagement AND disengagement.

I have spoken in many forums about the way in which Character Strengths connect us to our motivation, about intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation. …

So, imagine my excitement when I learned we can MEASURE motivation.

When I met Geoff Crane of Adaptimist Insights, I was excited because this is a person who has dedicated more than 10 years to researching the assessment, he was showing me. I love well researched assessments. And even better for me, he had been studying thousands of project managers as part of his work. My tribe. It is so rare that anyone I speak to has paid specific attention to project managers, that I had to ask him to repeat himself!

Although the assessment started out life as an update to emotional and social intelligence measurement (more on those in future blog posts), motivational intelligence – or PURPOSE had appeared in the data. Geoff and the team had identified three competencies related to purpose.

The first is MOTIVATIONAL SELF-EFFICACY.

Many of us know and admire people who are high in this competency. They are the ones who always seem to keep their eye on the ball, they don’t get distracted or put off, they aim high and don’t settle for less! The challenge of being highly self-efficacious is that we may not be satisfied with what we do achieve or may become unrealistic about what is achievable which can lead to sticking too long with a goal.

We tend to admire people who are “driven” In this way, but there are advantages to being lower in this competency. Low MS people tend to be easy going, can change direction quickly without getting frustrated or upset, they tend to take life moment by moment and not think too much about the future. The challenge tends to be indecision and reactivity- low MS people tend to go with what feels best right now without considering what might be best going forward.

The second competency is MOTIVATIONAL INFLUENCE

This is the ability to motivate others to act in accordance with OUR goals – to help us achieve our goals. The strength of high MI is that individuals can get more help accomplishing their purpose, the challenge is that that may mean that people are persuaded to do things that are not good for them or the greater good. High MI is sometimes equated with charisma. And charismatic individuals are persuasive but there is no guarantee what they will focus on as a goal.

Low motivational intelligence people often feel that they are at the whim of others. They often prefer to work alone and may have trouble delegating effectively in the absence of formal authority. With authority, they can be effective leaders in situations where there needs to be one decision maker because they tend to be knowledgeable about their subject area.

And the third competency in this group is PERSEVERANCE.

This is the difference between planning to do something and seeing it through when faced with a challenge. Often perseverance is related to a sense that the task is easily doable, that others will support our choice of the task and that we think the behavior is desirable. Low perseverance individuals will often find reasons not to pursue the goals, finding errors and gaps in their plans that may not be as large as they perceive them. High perseverance people tend to keep going after their goal relentlessly which in extremes can mean that they trample on the feelings of others or lose sight of personal commitments which can damage relationships.

COMPETENCIES CAN CHANGE and can BE Changed

Whatever our levels of each of three competencies, there are challenges AND strengths, AND more importantly, we can change our levels. These competencies can be learned and developed! We can also learn to apply them selectively – choosing when to push through and evaluating when the cost is too high, or the goal no longer makes sense.

Motivation and others

When we understand the motivational competencies of the people we work with, we can develop strategies to boost their natural strengths and mitigate the challenges. And ultimately that means we can get more done. Which is a great opportunity for project managers!

So what do we see?

Let’s look at the scene from Up in the Air again.

How did Bob, the character being made redundant fair in the three competencies?

Motivational Self-efficacy? Did Bob believe in his goals? Had he succeeded in similar goals? Did he see others achieving their dreams? How was his self-talk?

Motivational Influence? Was he able to persuade others that his goals were a good idea? Did he get others to help him?

Perseverance? How easy was his goal? Did he think others would support it as a goal? Did he believe it was a worthy, desirable, admirable goal?

How did his purpose change?

When he was studying it seems he had high MS. He studied, he worked at a high-end restaurant to maximize his learning. As soon as he had a family to worry about though he put his goals aside and exchanged them for new goals. It seems he did not really consider pursuing his dreams. That first paycheck tempted him away and onto a new path. He quickly changed his priorities and gave up on his original goals.

Not that there is anything wrong with choosing a new path. For some people having a family and doing work that pays enough to comfortably support that family is motivation enough. But there is a difference between reasoning the choice out and i