The power of reflection

Reflecting is a powerful tool. Before taking over his first term, President Obama talked about in relation to leadership and I guess from time to time all of us start to think on things we have to think about… Clear?

However, the power does not come by thinking or speaking. Reflection is something much more complex and at the same time, very simple to do: you let your thoughts go deep and deep into the roots and branches of any situation.

Still, that concept is not enough. After all, people who are used to brood onto something do that all the time and yet, they don’t look so powerful.

For instance, let’s say your company is starting to cut jobs and yours is in risk. A normal person would probably think something like this:

Oh no, they are going to fire me! What can I do, I don’t have any qualifications!! They can’t do that, can they?

Now consider an optimistic person:

Nah… they are not going to fire anyone. It is just another rumor. How can they fire us, who else are going to do the job? In fact, I think I am about to get promoted…

A reflection process would start like this:

They are firing people… let me understand the owners’ point of view. Of course, they have to save their investment and by cutting some people out, they will save money. However, if they save money like that, the remaining people will get more tired and productivity in the middle term will decrease, causing customers to go for another place.

The three samples are based on real thinking process. The main difference between reflection and other ways is that the person goes into a Detached Observer stage.

It is like playing chess: your strategy only works because you are out of the chessboard. Maybe if you were part of the game, you wouldn’t sacrifice that horse… Reflection means detaching from reality, without ignoring it, and then let your own thoughts go for its solution or conclusion.

Maybe your lifestyle does not allow you to stop and reflect, but at least once a week you just should do exactly that: just reflect about life, understand its process and find the best way to deal with it.

Do you have patience?

In a very fast-paced world, some virtues are not so cool and patience is one of them for it is connected to slow-moving men and women, weak individuals or very old people.

In fact, patience is connected to the reality of the world. If it is not for patience, your parents would not have expected you to be born – after all, NINE MONTHS!! So many things you can do during that time!!!!

For example, food and maturity come from a season and it is hard to be sped them up. When humans mix science with nature, results are not pleasant to everyone and there is a big wave in the world trying to revert that we did to our own food; same thing applies to maturity, which has its process and it is different to each person.

My observation is that patience is not the problem. The real challenge is how to discern between having patience and being slow. It is not that simple… Let’s take the example of a career.

On one hand, patience will help you to develop it in a pace that won’t stress you out but it will guarantee a good result at the end of the road. You will be focused on learning more than having immediate success as you know achievements will come along the way.

However you cannot just wait for things to happen. You will be pushed, threatened, taunted and even blackmailed by your bosses, co-workers, spouses and relatives to go for it! After all, your youth won’t last forever and maybe is already fading away…

Patience is good, it helps with health and it helps you to reach those goals you want to get, but it is not enough. No virtue or value is enough, they all need a partner. In the case of patience, its partner is perseverance that will help you to not accommodate to the situation but break reality and start your own change process.

OK, if you leave patience aside, you will be hurt as you will succumb to others’ and yours own desires, instead of waiting for the right season when fruit will be ripe. But if you don’t engage patience with perseverance you will live a very dull and boring life, and it is quite possible many of the things you are expecting won’t happen. After all, it is not only sowing seeds, you have to water and take care of whatever you have sown too.

Just perseverance without patience… Well, your life will be a big adventure, but you will probably miss some opportunities to just relax and flow with the flow.

At the end of this wonderful journey we all live, the most important thing will be the sense of balance. Life is all about balance… So, go and start it right now. Patiently…

The power you get by taking breaks

As our world evolves into a global village, with everything linked to everything, productivity is pushing us hard.

It is strange; as the world grows, more people would engage into tasks that would improve productivity. However, this is not happening and companies are decreasing their staff - especially the more creative - by their own will or just because these people are being widespread along the globe.

The negative effect is that those who remain have to produce more to keep the pace the department was having before. After all, less people should not mean less production...

Add to that the fast pace a person lives in the society with so many movies, parties, plays, Facebook posts, etc. Add to that an increasing health and spiritual consciousness, and add to that the importance to family and you will have a very stressing picture of people rushing around, virtually or physically, trying to fulfill all their duties...

In United States, many companies are encouraging their employees to take vacations. In many companies around the world, bosses are insisting with people to take a break now and then. An editor for a very important magazine decided to go to another country for the week-end - by himself, no spouse and no family...

There are several researches on the topic, but the most important point here is that those breaks we take allow us to breath and calm our body. It is a moment to enjoy someone else's company and especially not talking about whatever we were doing just before.

It will definitely increase productivity as we will come with refreshing ideas and new decisions.

Do you want to be more productive? Take a break from whatever you are doing and check the results.

A day for doing one task at a time

Just observe yourself, for instance, while you talk to a friend, your spouse or your child.

• How long could you sustain a thread of conversation for, without interruption or diverting to another point? Don't exclude even the smallest break...
• While talking, did anyone got a cell phone and start to do something there?
• Did anyone started to look at a television, their computer or a tablet? Slightly?
• Maybe outside?

I am sure you see the patterns there... They have been forming for many decades now as our attention has been decreasing in alarming ways.

Without noticing, we are becoming six-second-attention people and its effects on our society can be huge. The reason is that our society is based on relationships; relationships are based on conversations, and conversations are based on dedication and focus.

If you want to help this pattern shifts, I have a suggestion that may help you: have a day without any interruption.

A trick for that is doing a task at a time. I was inspired by a true story: during the Vietnam war, a young man to be recruited was sharing with his Buddhist master about all the dreams he had. While sharing, he was eating mandarin orange; his master noticed that before finishing eating one segment, he had already put another one in the mouth. So, the master told him to finish eating a segment, then go on putting another one... The young man did it, but not only with the mandarin. He also did it with his own dreams: speaking about one, sensing it and only then talking about another one.

There is still a debate if we can do more than one task at a time. Although some say yes and even share ways of doing it, others say that our brains - the most spectacular computer in the universe - can only deal with one thought... Well, until they  decide it, just experience a day where you start something, enjoy it and finish it.

Try it. Do something from beginning to the end, and only that thing (OK, maybe you can hear some baroque music while working...). It will probably be a slow day, so chose it carefully (don't upset your boss!). While doing it, check your thoughts and enjoy the experience of starting, developing it, enjoying it and finishing it... Try your best to have one thought, one emotion and one situation at a time.

A skill you will develop by doing it is concentration. It will be natural after a few hours and with that concentration, you will start to be able to focus when others are talking with you. You will be interested in their stories and lives and just get merged into it.

Slowly, you will help to recover the very basic of our society.

By doing. All. One thing. At a time.

Beyond chaos

Have you ever felt you were in chaos and then you were able to leave it?

Chaos is, according to my own thinking, a stage of change. In fact, it is a very important stage as it precedes the final result, which I simply call Transformation.

Let's take sand from a beach... That is a simple change - the sand goes from the beach to a workshop. Then, put fire on it, creating a crisis between all the molecules there. When it reaches the point of chaos, someone will take it and shape it, and you will have a glass, the transformed sand.

When you go through chaos that is good, theoretically. It means you overcame both stages, the simple change (I call it transition) and crisis, and you are about to embrace the final transformation of your life.

Imagine however that our sand is alive. Imagine it struggling when you transport it to a workshop. Imagine it suffering and keeping the fight against the fire that will melt it, until the point where it can become a glass... It is quite possible the sand, or part of it, can escape the workshop and one day, goes back to the soft beaches.

As humans, we are alive. We only go through change if we really want or our surroundings are pushing us and we can't prevent it. And, when it is time for a crisis our struggle will be amazing, we will look for a leader to lead us out of it, or we ourselves will become a leader and help others to leave it. If it does not work, then chaos will come, and again we will struggle and fight for our lives. During a change process, we will make our maximum effort to go back to our comfortable beach...

However, if we act as it is supposed for us, as humans, to act and try our best to leave chaos, aren't we missing something? Aren't we missing the beautiful chance to be a different person or a person with a different awareness?

Chaos is ugly. It hurts. It is not easy, but we can always do something to live through it: we can learn, we can be our own leader and set new goals; we can survive and use that survival as an example to others.

Instead of trying to go back to our comfortable spot on Earth, a new awareness comes from chaos and it is as precious as a pearl...

So, before your next or first experience with chaos, learn a bit more about who you are and your potentials. Work more on your self-leadership and understand the change you are going through, visualize the final outcome of this process and embrace it in your heart.