I have read all the One minute books… I saw that the One Minute Manager touched on my Achilles’ Heel…
Each of these One minute books teaches some attitude, or a thing to do, that makes you and the people you work with happier, more productive, etc.
Except…
Occam’s razor says: everything should be as simple as it can be but not simpler.
Pop psychology is simplistic. You find yourself nodding vigorously as you read it. But when it comes to doing it… oops. You cannot do it.
The One Minute manager’s job is to catch people doing the right things.
Most people cannot. Most people keep their eyes on what you do wrong, what they do wrong… what needs to be fixed. But most importantly they cannot see what is.
When they look at things they immediately attach judgment or label or some explanation… on top of what is being done, or what someone did.
That was 100% me. I could only look at things one way: did they match my agenda of how something needs to get done or not.
And when you look that way you cannot see the person as a person, you cannot see anything about them, because all is about what you want. What you approve of. What you say should be.
As I am preparing my brain to lead the Playground, I am starting to look at what you are doing through that filter.
You are a misery maker. Your constant comparing makes you and others, and life miserable.
It is not an accident that the second part of the title of the Playground is: it is never too late to have a happy childhood.
The whole course will be about all the ways you made yourself the miserable grown up you are… and it attempts to train you to become an adult.
An Adult is someone who can be happy regardless of the circumstances. And it is all circumstances!
For me it’s been a long road to hoe, to become an adult. For many decades it looked like I was never going to get there. No matter how many times I read a book like the One minute manager, I’d be critical, and I’d be miserable.
The turnaround, the turning point came with President Trump.
Me, like seemingly everyone, was keeping my eyes on the president, pondering on my chances of survival, my chances of happiness. I was piling judgement upon judgment… and I was getting literally morose.
And one day I noticed that while I was judging, criticizing, feeling superior, I wasn’t doing my job: running my business. I looked at people: this is a Trump supporter… bad, this guy voted against Trump… good.
The divide and conquer philosophy of ancient war leaders really worked on me…
And suddenly I saw that it made no difference to me what anyone thought, what Trump did, whether he was smart, stupid, or any of it… the only thing that matters to me and to my life is what I do and how I do it.
For you, you may not care what Trump does, but what your children do… that drives you bonkers. What your boss, your co-workers… your husband, your clients.
And if you look, your life is not changing, because you are not busy doing what you need to do and how you need to do it… you are busy judging and feeling superior.
Or maybe it is your health… you are so busy worrying whether you have enough energy, or how you feel, that things fall by the wayside and you don’t even notice.
Or maybe the environment, or the industrialists, or the politicians… or the weather! Or the vegans, the Paleo people, or the poachers, or who knows what.
And you are not in your life doing what YOU need to do, seeing what is with sober eyes, without judgment, without label, seeing things what they are.
And when I ask you, you cannot see that you can’t see what is there. EVER. You can see your judgment. You can see the labels. But you cannot see the thing.
Peeling away the meaning, the judgment, the agenda, the interpretation, the story, the good, the bad, the ugly, is hard.
Even if you see it. But before you can do it, you have to see it first.
My challenge is to open up your capacity so you can see it.
See it, see yourself, see the other, and be happy.
It is all circumstance… and you can become an adult.
There is no person who is always an adult… because adult is an ego state… When I muscle test your starting point measurements, one of the measures is how much you are able to be in adult. Your happiness is the same number. Because only in adult state you can be happy.
The general populations has the capacity to enter adult mode 7% of the time.
Some participants already registered in the Playground are below the general population in this regard.
So you can see why the Playground is keeping me up at night… how am I going to turn a bunch of unhappy people to happy?
There are still two more days that you can register in the program. If you ever wondered if anyone can do anything to make you happier… what they would do?
This program is the answer… to learn to see what is, below or behind what you see now: your story, your judgment, your labels.
You think you see it, but you don’t.
And you didn’t… when you were a child either.
The Playground is a hands-on workshop… and I will make you work. It is every other Sunday.
Email me if you want to be considered.
PS: As usual, I am trying to give this article a minute to breathe…
And just like when you allow wine to breathe ((I don’t drink wine, or anything alcoholic, if you are worried)) some good stuff is coming up.
I can see that the purpose of watching movies, especially of other cultures, Singapore, Korea, the Ukraine, lately, is to train myself to see things for what they are, and rein in my tendency to blame, fault, despise, judge entire cultures.
And I am noticing improvement. A sudden jump in my ability to just be with what is, and not be completely jerked by the tail of the dog… my judgment.
If I can do it, you certainly can. I have a judgmental soul correction and a very judgmental Horoscope sign.
If you don’t want to do the Playground live, you can ask me to give you a discount, and you’ll get access only to the recordings. Useful, but not as hard hitting as being on the call… on the hot seat.
Read the original article: What is real? Are you twice removed… like a cousin?