The sweetness of making good decisions

Life has different flavors and fragrances and in terms of decisions, sometimes they leave us with a sweet taste, other times they are a very bitter experience.

How to make the best of the decision-making process? First, let’s understand how it works…

First of all, you need a situation about which you are going to take a decision: It can be a marriage, a new job or just your hair-cut. In any case, you start your process by having different options.

The decision-making process has three main aspects that impact your choices:

1. Past experiences. They are usually definitive about decisions; that is, you will always try to repeat or avoid whatever you have experienced. That can be good or bad, according to the next aspect.
2. Logic. It has an importance in terms of filtering past experiences or understanding them and adapting them to the new context. The more logical someone is the better will be decisions related to fixed or predictable situations and circumstances. Of course, the next aspect will give the final say…
3. Soft side. We all rely on a soft side we all have, which can be a personality trace or the influence of culture, moment and period of time. Intuition or whatever you call this soft side will take whatever logic said and will try to validate or deny it, according to feelings and emotions.

To prevent undesirable consequences, you could add two other aspects or layers to the decision-making process: creativity and spirituality. By using a few techniques, like a brainstorming or a variation, you may challenge your assumptions and find out about other possibilities.

If you go into your own self using meditation or yoga, you may see things really different. That practice is particularly good in decisions which impact will last longer, like the change of a job or something related to your health.

A last thing to remember: after taking a decision, there is no way back. After all, even though you can go back somehow, it is another decision…

Negotiations in times of disruption

2016 will probably be known as the division year. It seemed there were always some problems somewhere where roughly half was in favor and half against. Even though negotiation techniques are so advanced, not much was acquired through that.

All negotiations happen with a basic standard principle:

I want something you don’t want to give me, but I know you can.

You probably want something from me that I don’t want to give you even though I can.

Let’s talk and reach some type of compromise and make a deal.

But nowadays it is much more complex:

I want something you don’t want to give me, but I think you could...

You probably want something from me that I don’t want to give you, or I cannot give you and you think I can.

Let’s struggle, see who is more powerful or who are more in need and reach some type of compromise (we will probably regret later).

These are times of disruption, which means, things are not working in the same paradigm as before and yet, the new paradigm is not working either. Looking at the bright side it is innovation in its extreme; in its dark side, it tends to generate chaos. Does it sound confused? It should…

For instance, the political aspect: in Colombia, many people who voted for YES during the peace process referendum were considered as leftist. However, most of these people I know who did vote YES wouldn’t back up Venezuelan government, which is leftist… Using that logic, any attempt for negotiation based on politics only won’t work.

Due to that, we need an alternative for it, something that takes in account the disruption process we are experiencing:

I understand I have a need or an opportunity to grow, but I am not in tune with you, your needs or opportunities.

Before talking to you, I must understand your side better and see what we both could compromise that wouldn’t hurt either of us. It would be nice if you do the same, otherwise at least my side has to make that endeavor.

We need a space and time to talk, far from the situation, using techniques that help us to reach a final commitment. Probably, it won’t be the perfect deal for neither of the sides, but it can be considered as a first stage of a long-term negotiation; possibly, it will be needed to repeat this many times more until there is satisfactions in both sides, which we hope we would reach.

It is a new era and new talents, new skills and a total new awareness are needed to help the various fragments of the big disruption we are living to reach a point of satisfaction and allow us to keep going.

Do you live to serve?

A saying has been told me many years ago:

If you don’t live to serve, you are not worthy to live

In theory, this is in the Sao Paulo Fire Brigade Headquarter, but I was never able to check the validity of that and yet, I could not agree more with the idea of service as the foundation for a fulfilling life.

In a society focused on the person and personal satisfaction, we got into a cycle of taking and taking that is parallel to a cycle of being dissatisfied and unhappy. However, when you live to serve, something different happens…

The reason is that you can only serve someone if you have something to give the person: a doctor will give her or his knowledge and expertise, a priest will gave others his faith and guidance, a mother will give her time and energy, and so on.

So, when you dedicate yourself to serve others you automatically develop some skills and capacities that otherwise would take too long to being developed.

For instance, if I want to serve others by writing this blog, I need to reflect, to write well, to improve my English (thanks for your patience, by the way!) and make many more efforts so that the person on the other side of the screen can get something out of this, something valuable.

But those skills are not restricted to the task in hand; it will also help me to improve my relationships, to get better professional projects and so on.

By living to serve, automatically you start to feel you are alive, because you are much more than what you used to think you were.

Are you able to see the invisible?

In a leadership parable on leadership, a prince goes to the forest to live for one year. His task: to observe all sounds he could and relate them to his master later. After relating his experience, his master sent him back as he was not content with his disciple’s achievements. After a while hearing the same sounds, the prince started to hear the unheard: a star rising in the sky, a rock moving in the sand…

That tale touched me very deeply, because the key for a good exercise of a leadership is in the unheard, invisible and intangible, those things we just perceive, but there is no measurement to it.

Big data is a big thing nowadays, it is what is making noise, but there is no comparison with the practical effect of small data, those details most programs, institutions and people ignore. Small data is invisible, unheard and intangible, but it is also very powerful: it is the small data that gave many surprises last year with Brexit, Donald Trump’s election and the victory of NO in the Colombia peace process referendum.

Leadership does not mean to leave all of the analysis, strategies and hard decisions aside, but it is time for leaders to focus differently: leaders need to change their focus from analysis to understanding, from strategies to intuition and from unilateral decisions to decisions that are accepted by others.

Otherwise, they too will become invisible.

Managing modern times

Time is fixed and rigid - every day of the year has 24 hours and all hours have 60 minutes. And so it goes.

However, as humans, the handling of these minutes and hours, those days and years, seconds and decades, is quite flexible and so the feeling that time gives us is also flexible. Who has not been in a 45-minute class that lasted 2 hours (in their head)? Or in a nice place, with this special person, a whole day that passed by in an hour?

But when we look at the times in which we live, with news that come 24 hours and changes that a few decades ago would take a decade to happen and today happen in a few months (or less), this inner flexibility traps us in the invisible hourglass that the human being uses to measure productivity, goals and life in general.

It's time to rethink how we handle time. There are several ideas that are in the air - perhaps the one that seems most interesting to me is the post-work society, that is, work as we know is disappearing; This implies that the time of many people that revolves around a closed space called office, is already changing.

Perhaps the main consequence is the level of stress, so it is necessary to remember time management is a matter of awareness. Thus, by working with that, we can soften the effects of the crazy rhythm that today makes us run and run, without reaching anywhere in the way you can say that’s it.

When it is said that class lasted a long time, it is that the consciousness was not aligned with the necessity of the moment: the student forgot about the importance of what she or he was receiving and was probably aware of other personal needs such as playing, working or being with his friends. That lack of alignment made time feels longer than in reality.

So, if you need to enjoy something you normally wouldn’t, detachment will give you exactly the experience, because you just observe it as if you were watching a movie in which there are scenes you don’t like, but they are important for the whole context. Detachment helps you to be present.

So, by aligning consciousness with reality, by immersing yourself in what is happening – as in the case of that last day close to an interesting person – time accelerates. But there are situations we don’t want to happen fast as enjoyment may be associated to longer moments. The solution is to go deep, leaving the superficiality the situations provide. In this way, one hour will feel like one hour, or even more.

Last thing: if you want to avoid the pain of that moment, love will help. The consciousness of love will make time fly. You do not need to have love for what is happening... The simple act of unconditional love, of forgiving who causes you harm and wishing them the best will cause something unpleasant to be experienced as if it was positive. And fast.

Therefore, awareness is the key for handling time as we know and as we feel. Try it…

Different ways of loving others

Love… that beautiful feeling that unites us all.

Along the years, love has changed its shape and form, manifesting in many different ways and being expressed in various dimensions. And yet, it is still very important.

I must confess I have not dedicated much time to think of love, because I used to feel (in fact, I still feel) love is overused. In fact, it has become synonym of very cheap things in the present society.

About three years ago, I started a reflection process to really understand the power of love. A still on-going practice, I have reached the conclusion that love works well due to three basic elements:

• No conditions. The more unconditional is love, that is, the more you love others no matter what or who they are, more power it will have and so it will perform in an optimum way.
• Dedication. Going into the depth of your love towards others and giving up the things you value when that is necessary – this is dedication, and it increases the intensity of your love.
• Detachment. Although they seem to be opposite, love and detachment must work hand in hand, since this quality gives you the capacity of loving unconditionally.

What does the power of love do? Well, that is for another post, but you may start trying from now on…

How to inspire other people?

Working in a team or just living in a family can be a challenge bigger than its purpose or mission, due to the way relationships go.

When there is a conflict, corrections and lessons have become short in our present time and inspiration is probably the best, if not the only, solution. The question is: how to inspire people?

Trying to inspire others by telling your own story… sometimes that will work, but not always as people have more criteria today and don’t accept things told to them as easy as before.

Being an example? That does work, but it takes its time and in some environments, like the corporate world, that won’t probably be effective.

What to do then?

The best way to inspire others is to inspire the self. Endlessly and tirelessly inspire this person you are and naturally others will feel inspired by what you are, not by what you say or what you show.

The reason is that your energy will be of first quality, your intentions will be clear and your actions will express the best of you.

How inspired do you feel today?