American Heritage: Benjamin Franklin Pt. II

Hillsdale Dialogues 4-16-21 American Heritage: Benjamin Franklin Pt.  II

In today's episode, Robin Sharma deconstructs the transformational power of "Hardwired Strengthening Scenarios" into your weekly game plan.

Hardwire Strengthening Scenarios Into Your Weekly Blueprint

The things you schedule are the things you’ll get done.

Simple insight, yes. Game-changing if you live it. [The willpower researchers say that “pre-commitment strategies” like goal-setting work superbly in making change that endures].

So, early every Sunday morning set a discipline to build out your ideal week ahead. Add your workout blocks, your family meals and your massage periods. Write in your creative segments and record your times for team meetings. Get each of our key pursuits into the plan. Then lock and load on it, daily.

The Power of Pre-Commitment Strategies [to Fortify Your A-Game]

Kelen Helvetia - Tokyo

Ready to learn about “WRAM Syndrome”? [one of the primary reasons good people fail].

Set to learn how to maintain the “white-belt mentality” requires to dominate your domain and live the life of your highest ambitions?

Fascinated in learning what “the bald man in the big Mercedes” can teach us about winning, mastery and reaching legendary?

If yes, go ahead and listen to this episode of The Mastery Sessions.

The Bald Man In The Big Mercedes

When most of us run into obstacles with how we think and approach the world -- whether in terms of dealing with mental health issues like depression and anxiety or simply making progress with our relationships and work, we typically try to focus in on solving the perceived problem, or we run away from it. In either case, instead of feeling better, we feel more stuck.

My guest today says we need to free ourselves from these instincts and our default mental programming and learn to just sit with our thoughts, and even turn towards those which hurt the most. His name is Steven Hayes and he's a professor of psychology, the founder of ACT -- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy -- and the author of over 40 books, including his latest A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters. Steven and I spend the first part of our conversation in a very interesting discussion as to why traditional interventions for depression and anxiety -- drugs and talk therapy -- aren't very effective in helping people get their minds right, and how ACT takes a different approach to achieving mental health. We then discuss the six skills of psychological flexibility that undergird ACT and how these skills can be used not only by those dealing with depression and anxiety but by anyone who wants to get out of their own way and show up and move forward in every area of their lives.  

Get the show notes at aom.is/liberatedmind.

#614: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life

There are some people in life who are more than unpleasant, more than annoying. They're real, genuine a**holes.

My guest today has written the preeminent field guides to identifying, dealing with, and avoiding all of life's jerks, bullies, tyrants, and trolls: The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide. His name is Bob Sutton, he's a Stanford professor of organization and management, and we begin our conversation together with how Bob defines what makes an a-hole an a-hole, what causes their jerkiness, and the costs of having such disagreeable people as part of an organization. We then get into the circumstances of when being a jerk yourself can actually be advantageous. We then turn to how to deal with the jerks in your own life, including distancing yourself from them, deciding you're going to be better than them, and imagining you're a jerk collector encountering a new species of jerk. Bob explains smart ways to fight back against jerks, and gets into the wisdom of documenting their jerkiness, why it's occasionally helpful to take an aggressive stand, and how even Steve Jobs learned how to be less of an a-hole. We end our conversation with how to build a jerk-free workplace. 

Get the show notes at aom.is/jerks.

#627: How to Deal With Jerks, Bullies, Tyrants, and Trolls

To be a great success in business, you need to have a compelling vision, create a well-thought-out strategy to achieve that vision, and then fully commit to that strategy with action and resources.

That’s also the recipe for being a great failure in business.

That’s what my guest argues in his book The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure. His name is Michael Raynor and we begin our discussion by describing the strategy paradox: the fact that the same sound strategy can lead to both success and failure. We discuss how the outcome then depends less on the strategy itself, than on the idea you decide to bet on, using the example of the way Sony employed the right strategy in backing Betamax in the VCR wars, but still lost out to VHS. Raynor then explains the limitations of forecasting and adaption, the approaches companies typically use to navigate the tension between needing to commit to something, and being uncertain they’ve committed to the right thing. He then unpacks two more effective ways of developing strategic flexibility: separating the management of commitment from the management of uncertainty, and acquiring a portfolio of assets that will increase your optionality. We end our conversation with whether the strategy paradox can be applied not only to making decisions in business, but to making decisions in our personal lives as well.

Get the show notes at aom.is/strategyparadox.

#630: The Strategy Paradox

When he was nine years old in 1872, Black Elk, a member of the Lakota tribe, had a near-death vision in which he was called to save not only his people but all of humanity. For the rest of his life, Black Elk's vision haunted and inspired him as he took part in many of the seminal confrontations between the Lakota and the U.S. government, including those at Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee. 

My guest today is the author of a biography of this native holy man. His name is Joe Jackson and his book is Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary. We begin our conversation with a background of the Sioux or Lakota Indians, including how the introduction of the horse turned them into formidable hunters and warriors and how their spirituality influenced their warfare. Joe then introduces us to Black Elk and unfolds the vision that he had as a boy which would lead him to follow in his family's footsteps by becoming a medicine man and guide him for the rest of his life. We then take detours into the seminal battles between the U.S government and the Lakota that Black Elk witnessed firsthand, as well as the Sun Dance and Ghost Dance rituals which helped catalyze them. Joe then explains why Black Elk converted to Catholicism after the Indian Wars and how he fused Lakota spirituality with his newfound faith. We then discuss why Black Elk decided to tell his vision to a white poet named John Neihardt and the cultural influence the resulting book, Black Elk Speaks, had on the West in the 20th century. We end our conversation discussing whether Black Elk ever felt he fulfilled his vision. 

Get the show notes at aom.is/blackelk.

#633: The World and Vision of Lakota Medicine Man Black Elk

Life isn't an easy road to navigate. We're moody creatures, susceptible to an array of psychological setbacks, emotional ups and downs, fruitless searches for meaning, and trials posed by anxiety, depression, and despair. It's the kind of journey one needs a survival guide for, and my guest today says one of the best can be found in the writings of existential philosophers. 

His name is Gordon Marino and he's a football and boxing coach, a professor of philosophy, and the author of The Existentialist's Survival Guide: How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age. Gordon and I begin our conversation with how he personally found existentialism, and how his coaching intersects with his teaching. We then get into what existential philosophy is all about, and the thinkers and authors who are considered to be existentialists. Gordon shares what he thinks is the greatest existential novel, and which of Soren Kierkegaard’s books he most recommends reading. From there we delve into what Kierkegaard has to say about anxiety, how he thought existential angst was the ultimate teacher, the distinction he drew between depression and despair, and why he argues that procrastination is one of our greatest moral dangers. We then unpack the different models of living an authentic life that the existentialists espoused, and what Nietzsche meant with his injunction to "live dangerously." We then get into the existentialists’ take on love, why love is actually hard to accept, and why you should presuppose love in others. We end our conversation with what boxing can teach about existential philosophy. 

Get the show notes at aom.is/existential.

#635: The Existentialist's Survival Guide

Is your mindset, map, motions, measurement, and money all a straight and arrow or do you need to check those gauges?! Brad breaks it down in this episode of Dropping Bombs with no guest. If we analyze everything on the micro it will help us figure out everything on the macro.&nbsp; &nbsp;If you get the first four M’s correct; mindset, map, motions, and measurement, you will NOT have money problems. Getting better isn’t something you did, it’s something you do and you do it every day. Your mindset equals your beliefs. Your map equals where you are going. Your motions are your habits, actions, choices, and decisions. Your measurement equals how you are measuring things and if you are AT ALL. Lastly, your money equals what you are getting in return for the value you are sharing and how much money your money is making you. Take a look at your M-Gauges/Life-Gauges and make 2021’s resolution count.

#630: The Strategy Paradox

The Art of Manliness

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