The Power of Delusion

I was flicking through a selection of new books recently and came across a small and curious tome confidently titled 'The Power'. On further inspection I discovered it was (and still is) Rhonda Byrne's sequel to her pseudo esoteric 'money factory' 'The Secret.' In brief, Rhonda's core message is that you can be, do or have anything or anyone you want in your life. If you believe then you'll achieve. All you have to do is focus on the power of your intention, send your wishes out into the universe and abundance will come your way.

Naive, magical thinking?

Maybe.

I read a few pages of the book and then abandoned it. I then came across this article in The NY Times .

Now, I"m not entirely negative towards aspects of Byrne's perspective and approach in principle. A little positive self delusion can be very helpful, providing there is an underlying understanding and acceptance that our life's events are often a fragile combination of the chaos of randomness, luck and the power of our intentions expressed in behaviour. When things work out it is usually the coming together of these elements in the right place at the right time with the right people.

I am also a great believer in the idea that if we can find a way to 'creatively' respond to the given circumstances of our day to day existence we may survive and conquer many of life's challenges and even do very well. If we have high levels of energy and are contagious enough we might even be able to make some of the things we dream about and desire happen. But to deny that there are limits to our ability to have everything and anything we want is dangerously delusional.

If we use the analogy of an artist painting on a canvas we can view the undeniably influential objective reality of the world in which we live ( matter, bacteria, genes, atoms, planets, rocks, trees, gravity, weather etc) as the canvas on which our minds paint images and create our individual interpretations of the world. All will be fine..... providing we stay on the canvas. Once we start painting outside the frame we enter the world of imagination. I really like this place and spend much time painting off the canvas. However reality bites hard and we have to find a way to balance fantasy and reality. Otherwise we can begin to totally delude ourselves and at worse, take others with us.

Books like 'The Secret' and 'The Power' may reveal a partial truth about our circumstances and the human condition. But if we believe (as Byrne and her ilk suggest) that these ideas are the whole truth.....Well, some of us may never recover from the dissapointment.

All you need is………

John Lennon was probably one of the greatest pop song writers of all time and the song All You Need is Love was the hippy anthem of the nascent 60’s green, sharing and caring culture.

A time of embracing personal freedom, creativity and sharing everything from ideas and beliefs to material possessions. Among this emerging community sole ownership or possession of anything was deemed an outdated and meaningless concept.


Even our ideas of owning a permanent self or soul was challenged by the introduction of Eastern religions and philosophies like Buddhism, Daoism and Zen.

Lennon’s lyrics offered the suggestion that we let go of striving to do something and just play the game of Love. It’s easy!


Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game It's easy.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - It's easy

The message is that if you’ve had a thought or idea, someone else somewhere else has had or will have a similar or the same idea. So why bother?

But what does this mean for innovation and evolution?

Those ‘Boomers’ that remember the case of the sixties girl band The Chiffons vs George Harrison of the Beatles will recall how similar Harrison’s Hymn to Hare Krishna ‘My Sweet Lord’ was to the Chiffons celebration of their man in the song ‘He’s So Fine.’ In fact the melodies are identical and ultimately cost Harrison his reputation as an innovator and a small fortune in a well publicised court case.

There has been a recent trend online for open sourcing, sharing and giving away ideas. But this is on the wane after most people were finding little benefit in the practice other than seeing others exploit their ideas for individual gain. Also as the concept of IP gains traction in an economy where quantity and price compete, new ideas are the new currency.

It's becoming more and more the case that the only sure way to differentiate yourself in a crowded market is to be totally original and find a niche.

So does this mean keeping your ideas to yourself and getting to the marketplace first?

If John Lennon is right there probably is someone, somewhere who has already thought of your idea. So what to do when you find out that your unique, game changing idea for a product, service, novel or film script has already been thought of?

Do you give up and resign yourself to witnessing someone else enjoying the fruits of their success with your idea?

Or do you:

Carry on regardless?
Make yours better, bigger, cheaper or more exclusive?
Steal their best bits and add it to yours?
Collaborate with the competition?
Go and work for the competition?
Buy the competition?
Go head to head with the competition in a very public way?
Do the exact opposite to your original idea?
Sabotage the competition?
Claim they ripped you off and sue them?
Celebrate their success and use it to promote your idea?
Find out how they got to market faster than you and adopt their process for your next idea?
Carry on producing your idea and give it away for free?

Or do you let it go and keep sharing in the knowledge that you have an infinite capacity to generate creative ideas.

All you need is…..belief!

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Dream on!

In the last few days I have very much been reminded of this quote:

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
-George Bernard Shaw

Which lead me to this one:

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thought. With our thoughts, we make our world."
~The Buddha


The possibilities............

5 keys

Here are 5 keys that could unlock and release the energy to help you innovate and evolve in life and work.
Create, Communicate, Connect, Challenge and Change.





CREATE – Who you want to be in 4 fully integrated dimensions.

1. Body - Ask yourself whether you are as physically fit as you could be, then take action.
(Most human beings are predominantly visual and often judge a book by it’s cover so think about how you would like to appear in terms of what you wear and how you move in the world).
2. Heart- Take some time to explore your level of emotional intelligence. Daniel Goldman's thoughts and theories will help with this.
3. Mind- Assess wether you have enough information and knowledge for what you want and need to achieve in life and work.
4. Spirit- Define your personal beliefs, drives and motivators. The book by Lawrence and Nohria called 'Driven: How human nature shapes our choices' is a good place to start.

COMMUNICATE – Your V.I.B.E clearly (your values, ideas, beliefs and experiences) - let people know who you are.
Take some time to develop your communication skills.
Learn how to structure ‘story’ to help you talk about who and what you are succinctly and with impact. Stephen Denning's book on story telling for leadership has some interesting ideas.
Understand how your behaviour can help to convey the deeper meaning in everything you do and say.

CONNECT- With the 4 perspectives of human being.
How you feel and think is directly influenced and affected by your physical condition, the environment in which you live and work and the people that you share your time with. Making the connection between these perspectives helps to create a balanced experience. Reach out to others and start conversations about things that interest you through social and professional networks.


CHALLENGE – The currenty reality.
When you hear phrases like:
“But we always do things this way”
“If it ain’t broke don”t fix it”
“It’s just change for change sake.”
“Better the devil you know.”

Try asking “What if……?” “ If we could…….?” or “ Why not?”

CHANGE – One small thing each day to experience a new way of being.

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My Space - For creativity.

I read an interesting article in Scientific American Mind magazine about creativity and environment. It's an ongoing question how our work environment affects our creativity and productivity. Any research so far has come up with little more than - stick a pot plant in the office...that'll get 'em innovating like crazy! But our work cubicle might just hold the key to employee happiness, engagement and creativity!




"..a cubicle is more than a mere physical workspace. In recent years, social and organisational psychologists have begun to amass evidence that the character of people's personal work environments affect their performance in profound and surprising ways. The size of our desks, our proximity to natural light, the quality of the air we breathe and our privacy (or lack thereof) - are all major predictors of our comfort, our contentment and our productivity."

But it might not simply be a question of getting a fabulous Soho design team in to jazz up the open plan. The latest research has shown it's more about the control an individual has over his or her environment. Or to use the first third of Dan Pink's triptych - a sense of 'autonomy'. In this latest study 4 groups were put to work for a short period of time in 4 different environments and then monitored for productivity and creativity. The four environments were set up as follows:

1) A lean basic office space - "a sanitized space containing only the items needed to perform the tasks: a pencil, paper, bare desk and a swivel chair"

2) An enriched office space - "decorated with plants and art, including several bright Georgia O'Keefe-style pictures"

3) The empowered office space - where participants were provided with the same art and plants as were used in the enriched office space but were allowed to arrange them however they chose or not use them at all.

4) The dis-empowered office space - where "participants were given the opportunity to decorate, but when they had finished doing so, the experimenter rearranged the office so that it matched the enriched condition"


And take a guess - in which environment were participants happier and more productive?

Yes, indeed. You guessed it. Number 3. Participants in the 'lean' or 'dis-empowered' environment were the least productive. Whilst participants with some control over their environment were twice as productive as those in the enriched environment.

Autonomy really does seem to lead to increased productivity. Of course this could lead to anything from graffiti-ed office partitions to foam parties in the board room.

Or it might just start with letting ME decide where I put my pot plant!

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