This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…….

Free Will

“We choose to go to the moon……and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard…..because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone…..” – J F Kennedy

Of all the beasts on the earth only we humans have free will.

A Russian dog did go into space but I don’t think it was informed consent.

No bruises please…

In this life, we can strive, or hide. For some, life is about getting to the end with the fewest bruises (and the maximum number of regrets I suspect).

Good plan? If you’re like me, I’m sure you’d say “that’s a bit of a shoddy plan.”

I just can’t help it…

You may thing that you can’t afford the time to strive for more….there’s too much stuff to get out of the way, piling up, endless. But your time is yours. You have free will.

Most of what you do if you do it unthinkingly is due to conditioning. Conditioning gives you an automatic response mechanism to most situations. This is great because you don’t have the time to work out how to talk to a person you’ve never met; how to dress for a certain occasion; how to cross the road; which part of the knife to grasp.

Autopilot…

But conditioning is a kind of autopilot. The problem with autopilot is that it flies you straight and level at an “acceptable” speed.

The Eagle Has Landed

On July 20th 1969, the Eagle landed on the moon. It did not land on autopilot.

Conditioning is a blessing and a curse. Use it. But be ready to stick a knife into its heart before it sticks one into yours.

Next week…..you tell me (really – email me now).

This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…….

Conditioning

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.”

- Jawaharlal Nehru

How to stop our elephant running away? Easy – tie one foot to a small stake in the ground. The elephant can easily pull the stake out. But it doesn’t. Why? Because when it was young, the elephant was tied to a stake it couldn’t pull out of the ground. It would pull, and pull and pull. To no avail. The baby elephant became conditioned. The truth was that the elephant simply could not uproot the stake. Now the elephant weights five tons and is ten feet high and it can easily pull up the stake. But it doesn’t. The elephant has a firm view of what it can and cannot do. And it knows it cannot uproot the stake, even although it really can. The barrier is in the elephant’s head.

Some people are conditioned in the same way. They are like the elephant – they know what they cannot do and they are right. This conditioning comes from our families – “don’t bite off more than you can chew”. Well meaning, but limiting. Conditioning also comes from society – the huge pressure to conform. This leads directly to mediocrity. Then there’s mistakes and failures – we are told these are bad, so we get embarrassed and the famous fear of failure is born. Failure itself is unimportant. Our attitude towards it is crucial. And as we have said before, our attitude is our choice.

How to break out of this? First – self-knowledge. Examine our habits, values and the things we believe in. Become aware of our strengths and our weaknesses. Decide what to change. Then set goals (of course) – to organise and direct our daily activity and make the best use of our potential. Finally – develop new attitudes and habits – the ones we want and need to deliver our goals.

Turn the tables on conditioning – let’s condition ourselves. Pull the stake out the ground! As Nehru said at the top, the way you play your cards is free will.

Next week…..

Free Will……whatever we gain from life is largely a matter of choice