The Frustration Factor

This is the second part of the Blogging series for bloggers and those of us who simply enjoy hearing about bloggers. Sure, there is a little musical bit at the end to reward you for listening.

Blogs, bloggers and blogging is not quite as normal as a postcard but comes pretty close. This is part one of a little series that focuses on the pitfalls of blogging. Give it a listen. The music at the end is worth listening to the blog entries if you are not into blogging.

What was your goal for the 2016 election? Has it worked out as you had hoped? Listen to consider one goal and judge for yourself.

In this edition of the Audio Tidbits Podcast, the podcasting team has assembled a little collection of insights and tips that should have a fit for most anyone. Something for everyone may be a slight exaggeration but comes pretty close. Check the episode out and see if there is something in there for you.

Greetings Earth humans. In the Big Reveal, you learned that the Great Mouse is a manifestation of our co-incursion agent’s idea of a fun game to play with the intrepid hunters. Tessa has managed to convince the hunters that she is the Great Mouse who they may capture one moon cycle if they are only persistent. We now hack into a secret meeting the intrepid hunters are having with the honchoes from the 3-letter agency responsible for the hunters’ mission and whether they will be authorized to continue the hunt. The honchoes have themselves made a discovery and have a Big reveal of their own. The futures of the intrepid hunters and their hunt for the Great Mouse are on the line. You are invited to join us as we listen in.

The Aliens Amongst Us are enjoying a relaxing train ride when the Great Mouse and the intrepid hunters interrupt their trip. Were that not unexpected enough, the Big Reveal is even more shocking. It’s not news to miss.

In little and big ways, things are changing all the time and handling the change is certainly not optional. You deal with it whether you want to or not; and how well you deal with it is at the essence of whether you succeed or fail. Recall that bear you either get or it gets you? Much of the time, that bear's name is Change.

It is probably not going to surprise you to now learn Simon also has a few little rules for dealing with change. First,

• You have to be aware of change before you can deal with change.

This surely sounds like another one of those no-brainers. If you do not know about something, you cannot deal with it; but be careful not to look at the obvious and jump to the wrong conclusion. Change is continuous and much easier to miss than you might think. Most change is not noticed, at least not while it is happening. You notice something has changed but not it is changing.

If you only become aware of change after things have changed, you are always reacting, adjusting, and trying to catch up. You cannot be proactive from a reactive position. Knowing this means you give high priority to being aware of change while things are changing. This starts by assuming change is always a here-and-now, dynamic condition. Sometimes the pace is faster and sometimes it is slower, but it never stops. If you do not know that, you have not been paying nearly enough attention. …

To move from a reactive position to a proactive position, here is Simon's next little rule.

• It takes change to deal with change.

Just as change is continuous, you must continuously change to proactively deal with it.

• If you are just the same as you have always been or are slow to change, you are already behind and falling further back.

• If you cannot see what is different about today as compared to yesterday, events are passing you by.

• If you are frustrated and confused by what is going on around you much of the time, you are likely using yesterday's map to figure out where you are today.

• If you think things are changing too fast, you are probably moving too slow.

Your old friend Simon tells this story from his youth. "The monkey bridge loomed monstrously between us and success. If perchance you do not know about monkey bridges, picture and learn."

Jim and I were twelve and had our sights on being Eagle Scouts. Back then, you could not get there without a hiking merit badge; and that only came a few miles after a mandatory twenty mile hike.

The monster hike day started early and was going well for the first five or six miles; and then came the monster hill. Twelve-year-old boys like to refer to most anything as monsters, e. g., monster sandwiches, monster hits into left field, and monster anything else meeting their varying standard for big. But the monster hill really was a monster.

Jim and I just sat there for a while, saying things like, "There's the monster hill," and "It's a monster sure enough."

This went on for a while when I asked, "How are we ever going to get all the way up that monster?"

Without a second thought and with the certainty of all twelve-year-olds, Jim said, "We are going to just do it;" and do it we did.

Things went fine for a few more miles until it started to rain. The further we hiked, the more it rained, and the more soaked we got. Even that was not all that bad until we were about half way across a field and up to our canteens in mud. Between us and the trail into the woods was a creek, nearly out of its banks and rushing south, if you know what I mean.

I asked Jim, "How do we get across this monster creek?"

His approach had not changed. "We just do it;" and do it we did.

It is no secret that stuff happens, things can go wrong, and sooner or later, you are going to find yourself up that old creek without a paddle. Plan on it, my friend. What's worse, the only way out will be up that thousand foot cliff you were prepared to jump off the top of when you took those flying lessons.

"But Simon," you say, "I cannot solve a problem I did not know about. I new there was a chance I might lose my paddle when I started up that creek; but that cliff, well, it was just suddenly there and I certainly had not planned on that. Life just moved that monster squarely into the path to my success and that is the end of that."

Life surely does have a way of biting you on the backside when you are least expecting it. Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you; and that cliff is definitely the bear that is getting you today. Life can undeniably be a bear now and then, a thousand foot monster standing between you and success, an obstacle so wide you cannot see its edges, so high you cannot see its top. It is totally eclipsing your future. …

Coach knows. He has been there before. You are rightfully discouraged. You are totally bummed-out and definitely not in any mood for another one of Simon's little rules; but try this one anyway. You never know. It might be just what the doctor ordered.

•You cannot come up with a creative solution until you have creatively defined the problem.

Start by asking, "If this is not an insurmountable barrier to my success, then what is it?"

The answer is it is a problem to be solved. Since a problem is the difference between how things are and how you want them to be, your challenge is defining and then reducing the difference. Your problem is not the thousand foot cliff. What is it, then?

•"I want to reach my goals."

•"I cannot paddle on up the creek since I am without a paddle."

•"There is a thousand foot cliff between me and success."

"Okay, Simon" you say, "There is my problem. I am completely stymied."

No, a good try but you do not quite get it yet. Your problem is you want to reach your goals and have not yet figured out how. You tried paddling your own canoe and it did not work out quite the way you had expected. Coach will not chastise you for not having a healthy skepticism for what might go wrong nor for not knowing what you would do if it did not work out; but you are well-served to consider Simon's little rules the next time you head up the creek.

•You want to reach your goals.

•You do not know how to get there from where you are.

•Your problem is reducing the difference between what you know and what you need to know to reach your goals.

There you go. You have one of those frustrating, nasty knowledge deficits. Your internal resources have left you a little short for the moment. What to do? Either dig around in your internal resource bank to see if you can come up with something or call someone who can give you a knowledge opportunity.

"What do you mean, call someone? Did you forget I am up a creek without a paddle? How do you expect me to call someone from here?"

Use your cellular phone. Surely you did not go up that creek by yourself without your cellular phone, did you? You said you took a chance on losing your paddle; so you did at least plan on how you would call for help if it actually happened, didn't you? You do understand it is possible to get yourself so far into the muck it would even test a success super-star to get out, don't you?

You are right. Even Simon needs to be reminded of his own little rules now and again. You can only start from where you are with what you have; and you have a serious problem to solve.

If Simon were a certified success guru instead of someo...

Intuition is an elusive phenomenon. We know it exists but find it difficult to describe or explain. We experience insight, recognition, or understanding; we know what to do or not do; we can predict outcomes and avoid dangers. But how do we know? Where did the knowledge come from? Why do we now know what we didn't know just moments ago?

That is the "Now I see," dimension of intuition but there is more. The new insight or understanding does not appear to derive from careful analysis, thoughtful contemplation, or logical deduction. Those processes are important and thoroughly embraced but intuition is of a different order of things. We know, suddenly it seems, what we didn't know and aren't sure how or why. We just know.

It is tempting to attribute the product of intuition to latent psychic ability, to an untapped sixth sense, or to offer other metaphysical etiologies. Doing so makes intuition at least mysterious and perhaps close to magical. When moved into that arena, intuition becomes an ability or "power" that defies analysis. The goal is more to enhance or increase than to understand. …

Alternatively, intuition may be understood as merely a sub-process within the broader context of thinking and understanding that leads to awareness and insight. Its distinction is neither mysterious nor magical. Rather, it is an absence of cognizance, existing outside of the Range or scope of what is known or perceived. We know but are not in touch with the process that resulted in knowing.

From this perspective, the activities and processes that lead to intuitive insight and understanding are the same as those that lead to any other knowledge and comprehension. The difference is whether we are aware of those activities and processes as they happen or can only infer their presence retrospectively. If we are aware of them in real time, we are thinking, judging, analyzing, and forming ideas and conclusions. If we are only aware of the outcome, the insight, the "sudden" knowledge, we are using our intuition.

Just as some people have more capacity for conscious, intentional thought and analysis, some people have more intuitive capacity. They process more information and analyze more complexly at a level below awareness. The point is that intuitive capacity varies from person to person and for each person under different circumstances. That notwithstanding, intuition is only a dimension of one's cognitive capacity. Being highly intuitive is, of course, desirable just as having a high capacity for logical analysis or a high capacity for inductive reasoning are desirable. Functioning at a high level within any dimension is desirable. The point to keep in mind is that one's composite capacity determines success and achievement and not any specific sub-component.

That brings us to this point. All of us have some intuitive capacity and we all make decisions and choices based on intuitive insight and understanding. Further, for most of us, our intuitive capacity is far more developed and potentially useful than we know. To the extent to which we are able to manage and exploit that intuitive capacity, we will be more effective, will make better decisions, will experience more accurate insight, will make the right choices more often, and will be more successful.

Whatever your level of intuitive capacity, use all you have, whenever you can, to whatever extent your experience tells you works for you. It's good stuff, no better and no worse than other areas of intellectual acuity.

Ivy has a well-trained dog, a well-trained dog has she. If you want to hear more about her well-trained dog, listen in with me.