Losing the Keys

Have you ever lost your keys? It used to be a regular occurrence for me, until I initiated ‘The Bowl’. The bowl sits near the door. It’s not one of those weird party ideas, just a place to store the keys. As long as I am disciplined about putting my keys there, I can always find them. If I don’t, a long search begins. I check yesterday’s pockets and bags. I scour the flat surfaces of the house for anywhere they might have come to rest. I try to recall my movements, where I went and what I did when I came inside.

Time passes. The search becomes more frantic and less effective. Eventually I stop and look properly. Sometimes the search involves my patient wife asking, “Have you checked here or there?”. It doesn’t help. If she joins the search it’s usually over fairly quickly. Maybe a bloke look really is a thing, but I don’t think that’s the full picture. Fresh eyes and perspective make all the difference.

Most of us have lost stuff which we then find incredibly difficult to locate. As we look, we are filtering information using criteria that we are barely conscious of. We look hard where we expect to find them and then glance over less likely spots. During the search, we may look directly at the object, but not see it. It’s all a product of our filters and attention.

 Rational Filtering

Rational filtering can be highly effective but can also be overridden by our emotions and intuition, so if it’s going to be any good, we have to pay attention. When we filter rationally, we switch on the amazing capability of our frontal cortex. We can think, analyse, segment, compare, invent, debate, rationalise, investigate, research and generally do astounding stuff with this part of our brain. It makes use of our skills, training and experience.

Intuitive Filtering

Intuitive filtering is often undervalued and underestimated in our current culture and community. Intuition draws on everything we know. We subconsciously tap into our whole life's worth of experience and arrive at a snap judgment that can be very accurate. It’s often difficult to explain how we came to our conclusion. That can make us question intuitive decisions. Sometimes we’ll decide there’s not enough evidence to support our call. We start to doubt it, and often discredit it. 

Intuition has its limitations. To be effective, it relies on sound experience and knowledge. An inexperienced person may still get strong gut feelings, and there’s a good chance they’ll be ineffective. A strong gut feeling can totally override our rational filters. Intuition can also lead us astray if there are real or perceived threats.

If we feel threatened we are likely to filter reactively. Both rational and intuitive filtering are overridden by Fight, Flight or Freeze (FFF).

Reactive Filtering

Reactive filters kick in when FFF is active. We physically see and hear less. As the frontal cortex shuts down we literally get more stupid. When we are filtering reactively:

• we miss more data than usual,

• jump to reactive conclusions, and

• fixate on less data.

Blind Filtering

Blind filtering is what magicians rely on when they practice their art. They direct our attention away from the real action, or just rely on the fact that we are not paying attention. Some research reckons we are not present, or not paying attention, 30-80% of the time. That gives the magician heaps of territory to play in. They exploit our lack of attention to create masterful illusions that seem impossible. It also gives us plenty of ways to torment ourselves with lost items that magically appear later.

Blind filtering happens when our attention is elsewhere. We miss information when we are focused on something else, when we are distracted, or simply not paying attention.  We miss a lot even when we are actively paying attention. Most of the time it’s not a problem, or it’s mildly frustrating - like the keys. But you can hide big and important stuff in those blind spots - stuff you really don’t want to miss.

The problem with ineffective Filtering

Misunderstanding - people draw different conclusions or misinterpret each other and the circumstances. There is confusion about the best interpretation.

Group Think - confirming what we think we know, rather than responding to the circumstances.

Wasted time and resources - many businesses I work with spend significant time and money going back over old ground. Re-hashing decisions, clarifying agreements, re-negotiating. They all cost!

Personal and collective stress.

Blindsides - missing crucial information and getting caught with our pants down. Sometimes we never become aware of what the issue was - we just get taken out of the game.

What are you missing?

Thrive and Adapt Principle – Believe Better

Humans have always been able to imagine a different reality and then bring it into being. It's the source of every innovation we have ever made. Research and anecdotal evidence shows that many people in survival situations stay alive against incredible odds, sometimes even defying medical science. It would be reasonable to think that they are people who are physically tough, or better trained for the situation. The reality is far more interesting – the one thing they have in common is that they believe they will survive.

There's a great example of this in Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand’s biography of Louie Zamparini. Louie was lost at sea on a life raft for 47 days having been shot down over the Pacific in 1943. On the raft were two of Louie's crew mates – Phil and Mac - the only survivors of the crash. The book and subsequent movie is well worth a look.

“Though all three men faced the same hardship, their differing perceptions of it appeared to be shaping their fates. Louie and Phil’s hope displaced their fear and inspired them to work toward their survival, and each success renewed their physical and emotional vigour. Mac’s resignation seemed to paralyse him and the less he participated in their efforts to survive, the more he slipped. Though he did the least, as the days passed, it was he who faded the most. Louie and Phil’s optimism, and Mac’s hopelessness, were becoming self-fulfilling.” Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

Ultimately, Mac passed away, while the other two survived their ordeal.

Zamparini believed he would survive. He expected events to unfold to support his belief. He gave his attention to the evidence that suggested he was right, and to the actions that supported his intention to prevail.

How does what you believe about the circumstances you face shape your experience? Is it time to 'upgrade' your beliefs?

Here's a practical example

I was coaching a young woman who was regularly experiencing conflict with her colleagues. She is a dynamic person who sets very high standards for herself and the people around her. Her ineffective belief was, “When people don’t meet the standard, they are doing it deliberately to frustrate me”. She was experiencing lots of frustration and relationships with her peers were fragmented. The harder she tried to exert a standard, the more people felt pushed around and the less inclined they were to cooperate. After some coaching, she chose a more effective belief. “The people around me also want results, they just have a different perspective on what’s important.” She started to ask people what was important to them in their joint projects. For some people, that was enough to create some common ground and they began to pull together in the same direction. For others, there was more work to be done, but her frustration levels working with them dropped.

Sometimes all it takes is to consciously acknowledge your Beliefs and to choose a better one. It’s simple to do, but not necessarily easy. If you are handy with DIY, this worksheet will help identify and shift ineffective beliefs. You may also need to talk to a friend, coach or mentor - sometimes others can see our beliefs more clearly than we can.

If you don't already have someone to help with this sort of thinking, let me know, I'd be delighted to help.

Ancient Mindfulness

A hunter using handmade tools must be completely alert to the smallest signs of prey. A gatherer constantly scans for signs that foods are ripe. Colours, scents, congregations of birds, or insects all point to food. For our ancestors, a full belly was preceded by mindfulness. Distraction was a perfect recipe for an empty plate. Many traditional cultures were also mindful of the sustainability of their food supply - Seasonal Mindfulness. Many considered their impact on their children’s children - Generational Mindfulness. I reckon we are deeply drawn to mindfulness, because we understand instinctively that we do better when we are fully present and focused.

Viewed through the eyes of our ancestors, mindful clarity seems like an essential survival skill. In our time-pressured world that same clarity seems critical to Thrive and Adapt when faced with constant change and uncertainty.

And it needn’t take too much time. People have precious little of that already. I don’t know anyone, in any role, who is sitting around with their feet up, wondering what to do with all the spare time they have. The transitions between our many roles get more abrupt with less time to reset between them.

Some transitions you might make today:

• Sleeping to awake

• Alone to interacting with others in your home

• Passive to active

• From ‘home self’ to ‘work self’ (clothing, thinking, body language, etc)

• From the comfort of home into the ‘world out there’

• Into and out of transit (cars, trains, bikes, taxis, buses etc.)

• Planning to action

• Action to review

• Into a meeting

• Self-directed to directed by a boss/team/task/customer

• From following to leading

• Into and out of decision-making

Which transitions create the greatest challenges for you?

Which do you slip into without really thinking?

Some transitions are massive, like entering a really important once-in-a-lifetime conversation. Others are small and mundane, sometimes deceiving us with their simplicity and commonality. At each transition pressure can build or dissipate. Each is an opportunity to reset our energy and intention. Or, we can be swept along over the waves and reefs of life, being pushed by circumstances, rather than being in control. If we don’t deal with the tension created at each transition, it builds.

In the short-term, that build-up makes life and work less pleasant and effective than they could be. In the long-term, all those moments potentially add up to one big reckoning, when something big and important gives way, and we are forced to face their accumulation all at once. People face them daily in the form of major health challenges, failed relationships, projects, and businesses. Some pay with their life.

How do you deal with the big and small transitions of your day?

Here's a tool for clarity, presence and focus in the middle of moments of pressure or transition.

A Daily Lesson in Survival

Every day I see someone pick up their phone while driving. The instant they do, they enter a survival situation.

Research by Professor Dingus in Virginia quantified this. He says, “Taking your eyes off the road to dial a cell phone or look up an address and send a text increases the risk of crashing by 600 to 2,300 per cent.

If people were genuinely aware of this risk, they would never pick up the phone on the road. It is a genuine, life-at-risk survival situation. To take the risk, there’s got to be a lack of acknowledgement of the circumstances they are in. Either a sense that, ‘I’m so bloody good at driving, this risk doesn’t apply to me’ or ‘The traffic is cruisey, I’ve got heaps of space and time’. There are only three possible outcomes.

1. A near miss - this is the best possible outcome. It might shake the driver out of their complacent denial.

2. A sudden, violent reminder that Phone + Driving = Accident. This is, at the very least destructive, always traumatic and in the worst-case scenario, fatal. Definitely a bad outcome.

3. The driver gets away with it, reinforcing their delusion - this significantly increases the future potential for 1 or 2 to occur. The fact the driver got away with it increases their sense that they are not in a survival situation. They are more likely to do it again, in increasingly busy traffic conditions, and for longer periods of time.

All survival states are like this. The risk may not be directly to life or limb. It might be measured in financial or relationship terms, but lack of decisive and timely action will inevitably lead to a confrontation with the risk. What critical situations do you face but chose to ignore? Where might your blindspots be?

Reference. Dingus, T, Hanowski, R and Klauer, S “Estimating Crash Risk: Accident data must be considered in the context of real-world driving if they are to lead to realistic preventive behavior”. Human factors and Ergonomics Society, 2011

Adapting Under Pressure

In 2004, I was part of specialist survival crew for the Pilbara grand finale of Pushed to the Limit a BBC reality show to find Britain’s toughest family. We gave the two final families a few days of survival training and set them off on a multi-day survival challenge. It was tough. It was hot. They were far from their comfort zone.

Each family had two adults and two under 18 years old. One family was a single mum, 21-year-old daughter, 16-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. The 14-year-old was the stand out example of adaption for the week.

On a particularly tough day they walked many kilometres along a river in the Pilbara. They’d done it hard, making many mistakes and errors of judgement that sapped their energy and stacked the deck against them. They were on the verge of giving up. Mum had been the stalwart leader of the team, but was exhausted. She had carried 15 litres of water all day even though they were walking beside large fresh water pools. Even with the abundance of water she was badly dehydrating herself. The family lost their compass and flint. Confusion about navigation and inability to light a fire added to the pressure. Late in the day they dropped their tin can, losing their ability to purify water by boiling and make a cup of tea (tea is a great way to create a sense of control and familiarity under duress).

The family began to fragment. The 16-year-old son became a constant burden to the rest of the group and was pushing them to pull out of the contest.

At one of the checkpoints they were met by Chris Ryan (ex-special forces and BBC host) who got stuck into them about their poor performance. The 14-year-old burst into tears, followed by others in the family. It was a low point for all of them and looked like it might be the end of their story.

A short while later the 14-year-old daughter made a massive adaption. She lifted her head and dried her tears. She reflected on Ryan’s feedback with the family and decided that they needed to lift their game. She stepped up to lead the family. For the rest of the scenario she drove leadership, planning, support and motivation. She held the family together and rallied them through their toughest moments.

In that moment, and for the rest of the course she was an Adaptor, taking full responsibility for her results and rallying her family to do the same. She made no excuses, and was prepared to fully face the circumstances. She was prepared to carry others if necessary. Pulling out was no longer on her radar. She brought strength and certainty to a difficult situation. Her family made it to the finish line largely because of her leadership.