Living in a multicultural world

Culture defines most of our traits: what we like and what we don't like, what is good and what is bad, even what is right and what is wrong. What happens then when people from different backgrounds get together for creating a family, a project or living in the same neighborhood?

Clash! Conflict, at one level or another. To be honest, tolerance is not natural.

Most people I know who live in a different cultural context long to "go back home", a place where most of the people, if not all, share a similar religion, thought, like similar songs and eat similar food.

But most people I know in that situation are incapable to go back home, because even their home has become multicultural.

My personal experience living in that context is that this is a wonderful and unique learning experience. But, to prevent much suffering, there are a few things you can do:

• Understand if that is a permanent state or just a temporary one. If it is permanent, then go on reading the suggestions here; if it is temporary, just enjoy the moment, learn as much as possible and share as much as possible!
• See others' culture from their own point of view. Appreciate as much as possible their struggle to reach to this point in time and respect deeply the differences with your own perspective.
• Compromise - some of your cultural traits are easily to leave aside, at least when you are in this multicultural environment. In relation to other traits, which have become principles along the time and so you cannot sacrifice them, make agreements with the people around you, so they understand what you are doing and respect that, appreciating your culture.
• AVOID JOKES in relation to others' cultural habits.
• If someone jokes in relation to your cultural habits, smile and be flexible about that; it that hurt, approach the person later, when you are alone, and explain it.
• When there are things you are doing, or others are doing, which are turning into difficult situations, look for a mediator who is impartial, preferably someone who understands all the sides of the conflict.
• If it is still hurting - someone's comment, jokes around, the way people treat you - then, it is better to leave that environment. Look for a place where you feel safe, do a deep internal check in and learn whatever you have to learn, let go whatever you have to let go.

Hope that is helpful in this multicultural age!

The four functions we all have to perform

About 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to write and publish a book. It is still my only published material, in Spanish (El Camino hacia el Autoliderazgo) and Portuguese (Vencendo Limites).

Apart from the amazing experience of writing a book, what I enjoyed mostly was the possibility of understanding my life and processing whatever I have got in all these years. It was the chance I was wanted to really comprehend myself, my environment and the people linked to me.

Out of that came the idea of the four functions. In my mind, every person has four functions in life to be fulfilled and the perfect balance is when all that happens fully. Imbalance comes when I focus too much in one of the functions and avoid, or I am incapable of performing the remaining ones.

A week ago, I've posted a practical application for that, but here is the theory behind it:

• Production. This is the function we value more than any other. We are measured and valued by our productivity in life, which can be at work or by being a good mother. It is using this function that we measure our success in life and although it is really an important one, it is not the only one.
• Processing. After the production, it is good to make time for processing that. That means reflect, contemplate or meditate upon whatever has happened. Perhaps it is about your meeting with your doctor or your new chosen spiritual path. Processing helps people to identify patterns and to extract the best from their experiences. It also helps when bad things happen, enabling the individual to put a full stop to the situation and move on.
• Awareness Expansion. Then it comes this incredible talent we all have. It is basically to experience what we did not experience. Yes, that is it! For instance, through processing you could realize that if you shout at your boss, he can stop helping you in your tasks. But, what would be the best way to treat him? Using reflection, contemplation or meditation, you make your awareness to expand and you realize how much tolerance you have - and that is exactly what your boss needs at this point!
• Sharing. It is the golden moment, when you are able to transform your production, which is normally identified as the life people acknowledge you live, into something useful for others. Sharing is a smile or hug, words of wisdom and advises. Sometimes, sharing means to let others be; other times, it means to correct them. No matter what, it comes from inside, as a direct fruit of an awareness that was expanded.

I find this a very powerful idea as it makes even the most ordinary moments, extraordinary.

It changes your life and makes you live a life that is beyond whatever you produce.

Why can't you separate house from work?

Can you remember your daddy? Most daddies I know now, who are friends of mine, they made their best effort to leave job behind them and just enjoy the freshness of an everyday growing family. However, a couple of months ago, one of them was telling me about a "torture" performed by his wife: when she arrives home, she tells him everything that happened at her job. EVERYTHING. Jokingly, he said it was like she was taking 8 hours to tell him what she went through her own 8 hours...

Well... is it really possible to leave aside job and just go and be a good dad or mummy, husband or wife? Or is it better to share with a partner or children what is going on at their job?

I have to tell you... No, you really can't leave aside your job, but you can do something...

We are whole people, with several areas to work about. We have our careers, hobbies, friends, families, our spiritual path, health concerns, and a big etc... What we do normally is focus and refocus; sometimes the refocus is too intense, and we end leaving something away for good, or forgetting something.

One proof of that is history: for centuries, people used to live at the same place they used to work, along with everything they used to. If the person was rich, even his or her place of devotion and health would be the same...

By trying to split ourselves in pieces, we get into a subtle form of stress, which takes up the form of boredom, dissatisfaction or the sense of being in a pressure cooker. In fact, traditionally family and friends were a big source of comfort when something went wrong at the work, and it is still there for those who are at school or when health is an issue.

But, to do what my friend's wife does... that is really torture!

A suggestion: work on the areas of your life through four different perspectives. I will be talking about that in my next post, but for now...

1. When you are engaged into something, like your work, just do it. Be flexible if some other area (your kids for instance) requested your attention, but otherwise, just be the winner you are.
2. After finishing something as a day at your job, take a short time for processing it. Instead of commuting or drink with some friends, sit down for a while and talk to yourself, understand what happened.
3. Look for something you have learnt that day, perhaps a good lesson of humility or a realization on how good you are at what you do. Enjoy that feeling.
4. Share the lesson, realization and whatever you acquired as an outcome of your day.

In that way, you will join the pieces of your life together, you will avoid boredom and the pressure. At the same time, other areas will be affected positively by that.

Try it yourself!

How to work BETTER, or how to be a BETTER person working?

What do you value more: to work better, or to be a better person working?

There's no doubt we need people who work better and better. At a time of crisis as it is the present one, we need people who are able to produce more with less or who can break records in sales. Most leaders I know are very concerned about that factor.

Unfortunately, not all these people are really good, in terms of their attitude or even ethics. Under the pressure of productivity, they can cheat or make false promises to their customers. Eventually, some of them are caught and they have to re-evaluate their own behaviors; others become billionaires.

What about putting ethics and attitude as a priority? It does not work necessarily to increase productivity. I remember that piece of Senge's book, where a company decides that Honesty was good enough to be their value. According to the book, a new salesman questioned that by simply putting a probable situation: if a customer wants to buy something we don't have, should we tell them that? Initially  others acted as that was a silly question: of course, you don't tell that to a client. But then the leader in charge was clear that if they put Honesty as one of their values, that is one of the things they will have to tell their customers. After a heated discussion, they finally reached to a compromise and the company did experience losses for sometime, but after that, its sales went up and up. Naturally, if their company did not have a product, possibly others didn't; customers slowly realized they were telling the truth and they started to value that.

Possibly, this is what will happen:

1. If a person starts to focus more on the self, it is possible that at the beginning his or her productivity will decrease. That will happen because of some decisions - not working after such an hour - or new courses to help them in their decision - a meditation course which proposes moments of silence during the day.
2. During that time, it is important the person talks a lot with her or his co-workers, spouses and friends in general. That means, whatever the person is doing should be very clear in his/her mind.
3. After sometime, productivity should start to increase. That will come mainly from some changes in the behaviour - punctuality, for instance - or a better attitude - helping increasing sales.
4. What if productivity is not improving? Possibly, the main answer is that the person is in the wrong place. A career research will be excellent to understand which position will be better served by a person like her, or him.

The main point here is that there is no better reward than the feeling of inner success, but its outcome should be an external success too.

So, what do you value more: to work better, or to be a better person working?