Imagine you are driving, and you find out that you’re almost run out of gas. You stop by at a gas station. Just before you went into the mini market, one person told you that your car has some leak, and ask you to check it out. What will be your reaction? You’ll be happy to double check your car, and you must be thankful for them, even if you eventually found out that they were wrong, you are still happy, at least someone is concerned and making an effort to tell you. It’s always good to check, and to ensure that everything is OK.

photo credit: furryscaly

Now, imagine the one in question wasn’t your car, but your idea or your business decision. How will you react? Rather than happy about it, most people will be turned into defensive mode. They will be trying to defend their idea.

The two scenarios above were taken from Egonomics by David Marcum and Steven Smith (review). The book has given me some insights on defensiveness, and here is what I want to share with you.

What are we defending…, really?

The second scenario above relates with defensiveness, because often it relates with our positive image we’re trying to hold. Car has nothing to do with our self image, but our decision and ideas? Those are things that reflects our intelligence and self image, or in short, our ego. As David and Steven put it…

Fear is the mortar that holds together the wall of defensiveness.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

Ego and defensiveness were born by fear. It’s the fear of losing what we have or what we can have. If we are not defending our ego, than who will defend them? If we lose now, will we lose again and again in the future? What will happen if we lose our face? How can we face the future then? It’s interesting to see how we can overestimate the result of our one mistake. It’s the fear of failure that leads us to be defensive.

How are we defending ourselves?

photo credit: mckaysavage

Defensiveness can easily deal with spinning our facts and ideas. We can easily exaggerate, understate, manipulate, and fabricate the information we give.

And seriously, defensiveness blocks our potential to learn. What I experience was that we often rationalize our mistakes. We put our weaknesses as an excuse. We put misunderstanding as the issue, and we daydream if only the other person understand the perspective and motive that we have.

I have read many books on personality, strengths, etc, and in a way they can become an excuse of what our personalities are, and how other people should understand us. It’s good to understand ourselves, but it’s no longer good if we disillusion that as the only reality.

“We defend our enslavements,” said an unknown philosopher, “as if they were our freedoms.” Freedom comes from inviting reality checks while at the same time holding a positive self-view. The feedback we get won’t always be accurate; the data we receive filters through the biased lens of the one giving it, as well as the one on the receiving end. But what other people tell us does represent their perception of us, and we should remember that their perception is their reality. So if we want to work effectively with them, we must understand their reality.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

How should we change?

Does that mean we need to be passive to let go defensiveness? The answer is not to be unassertive person. That is the other end of the spectrum where we have lack of ego. The answer is how we can detach our idea from our self-image or identity.

It’s a very strong point that Egonomics emphasize, how we bring the intensity from our identity (that we are defending) to the ideas (that we are proposing).

There is nothing wrong with defending an idea. If our intent is to let the best ideas win, we should be able to take any stance, on any topic, in any arena to test the strength of what we’re debating.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

Conclusion

photo credit: lumaxart

Ego is an asset, but it often becomes a very expensive liability in our life. Not only getting defensive, we are also being comparative, showcasing brilliance, and seeking acceptance when we have problem with ego.

Defensiveness, together with comparison and competitiveness, caused us to be blinded by the opportunity to see what the goods that others have. When we need to prove our identity, when we don’t have a secure identity, it’s hard for us to see how others can be better than us. But even worse, it’s hard for us to learn from them. And the big rewards, as David Marcum and Steven Smith put it very well…

If we can drop our defensive posture and listen, it gives us power-power to be influenced and power to influence others.
~David Marcum & Steven Smith (Egonomics)

Hope this article inspired you to manage your ego, and manage your defensiveness. It’s a process, but you have to start now!

Managing ego,
Robert

I have just finished reading the book “egonomics”. It shares about what makes ego our greatest asset (or most expensive liability).

I have bought this book many months ago. It was the result of impulse buying. It’s discounted yet still expensive, even worse when I checked out that the price was getting cheaper in other stores. It was funny that because of the regret, I left the book on the shelf for a long time.

Ego… I thought it was limitation that I can turn into advantages – just like the former motto of this blog, “Turning Limitation into Advantages”. I bought the book with the expectation that it will support my perspective. Alas, the book shared more of how ego is expensive liability rather than asset.

I guess it will be much better to say that the book taught me to manage the ego.

Ego gives you problem when you start noticing its early warnings, those are being comparative, being defensive, showcasing brilliance, and seeking acceptance. Rather than sticking to it, the author has given much guidance on how we can direct ego to something better, those are humility, curiosity, and veracity.

If I have to pick a summary that describes those 3 traits, it will say “detaching our identity from ideas”. You will be amazed at the tremendous power you’ve got if you are secure on your identity. We don’t have to prove how good (or how bad) we are. It’s neither over or lack of confidence, but we have intelligent and genuine self-respect and respect of others (humility).

Humility does not mean gentle and soft, humility can be intense. The intensity to protect our identity can be replaced to the intensity to progress and solutions. Rather than protecting and assuming we know all things, humility will be willing to seek for more answers (curiosity).

Humility will also lead to the desire for truth and stick with it (veracity). We are happy to be corrected when we are detached from our identity. It’s part of our desire to progress, to learn from the truth and what we have mistaken. And even further, to stick with the truth, throughout the process of growing and improving.

This article is a simple summary of the book. I can say that the book speaks so much to my life as it speaks to the circumstances I am in right now. It is the circumstance created by my ego, and something that I have to learn to change.

Grab the book with the link above if you found that it’s important to work on your ego.

For your success,
Robert

Hi readers, it’s been a while since I am writing. Today I want to share with you my speech for the Toastmasters International Speech Contest. You can find the video at the bottom of the article. You can choose between reading the script (which I have slightly adjusted) and go straight to the video. And by the way, it’s actually pretty much similar to the article The five steps to win with your limitation.

…Let me start by wishing you Happy Valentine Day. Any of you has a chance to spend the Valentine Day with your loved one? That’s great. I don’t have a girlfriend yet, but if I do here is what I’m going to say…

Honey I loved you so much, that I prayed for an angel to watch over you. But surprisingly, the angel came back after few seconds, he told me, “Robert, I’m an angel, why should I watch over an angel?”

Everyone is disabled in a way, only that the physically disabled is more visible.

They might be different.. they came from different world, they speak seemingly different language, yet they have something in common. And more than that, they complement each other.

No, I’m not talking about man and woman, I talk about the 2 books that I recently read, Getting Things Done by David Allen and Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. While one is considered business/productivity book, the other is considered as spiritual book. Nevertheless, they indeed have something in common. They complement one another, especially in one thing… that is to help you to get things done!

Free our mind…

photo credit: the trial

I guess most of us are used to keep a lot of our “things”  in our mind, and that includes our to-do list. Here is what both of them similarly suggested: Let it go from your mind!

Keeping them in mind is a waste of your space in mind, and more importantly that will steal you from the presence, from the now.

It’s a waste of time and energy to keep thinking about something that you make no progress on. And it only adds to your anxieties about what you should be doing and aren’t.
~David Allen

… or you are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of focusing your attention on the one thing that you can do now.
~Eckhart Tolle

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When I ask you what your strengths are, what comes to your mind? You might consider all the personality tests you have taken, it can be MBTI, DISC, or Tom Rath’s Strength Finder 2.0 (which is what I have taken recently).

This book, on the other hand, asked us to identify our strengths from our experience, not from those what the tests told us. Marcus suggested the acronym SIGN to help us identify our strengths, those are S for Success, I for Instinct, G for Growth, and N for Needs.

While S or Success can be a good start to help you identify your strength, your success can drain your energy instead, and you are simply unhappy about it. Therefore, you need to look up also on the other areas of growth, those are the I, G, and N.

I or Instinct is something where you have an “I-can’t-help-but” quality to them. It’s what you feel before doing it. For example, I can’t help but create a system or workflow to make things easier or faster to be done. That’s one reason why sometimes I’m quite slow in finishing something, or keep on changing things (such as my blog’s theme) to make it is easier for me to be productive.

G or Growth is the area where you grow the most! It is what you feel while you are doing it. Marcus said as if it is your interest, as if it is your true happiness, and yes it is the area where you will find yourself wanting to practice, read more, find new techniques and grow.

N or Needs is about how you feel after you’ve done it. You might be tired, but psychologically, you are excited and fulfilled, and of course you’re looking forward for other opportunity to do the similar thing. For example, system and efficiency is a strong need in my life, I enjoy the opportunity to arrange things in order and make a process efficient. Even if it’s tiring, and sometimes frustrating, there is something of satisfaction after I have done it.

The core concept is that our strength will fuel our energy, while our weakness will drain our energy.

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Maybe the best productivity book so far, this book has inspired me to build a system to get things done. When it comes down to principle, these are the two cores that David emphasized…

(1) capturing all the things that need to get done, both now and later, both big and small into a logical and trusted system. And it has to be created outside of your head and off your mind, so that you can vacate it for the thing you need to do.

(2) disciplining yourself to make front-end decisions about all of those “inputs”, so that you will always have the “next actions” that will move you forward to get things done.

The process itself consists of 5 stages:

1. Collect: capture all the things that might represent something you have to do!
2. Process: as you have your “stuffs”, the next thing is to process it, that is to question them with the following questions: “What is it?”, “Is it actionable?”, “What’s the next action?” (if it is actionable), and just do it if the action takes less than 2 minutes.
3. Organize: processing your stuffs will organize them into 8 categories, those are “trash”, “incubation tools”, or “reference storage” if it’s not actionable. Actionable items will go to “Projects” and “Project plans” if it requires multi-step actions, otherwise, you can either delegate it (”Waiting list”), defer it to be done at specific time (”Calendar”), or do it as soon as you can (”Next action”).
4. Review: Simply putting it into the list will have no point if you don’t remember the list. Therefore review is necessary. David suggested weekly review, and as you’re doing it, you’ll trust your system more, and you’ll be more motivated to keep it.
5. Do: The process is created for you to feel good about what you’re doing at any point of time. And for that, David mentioned the challenge very clearly, that is “to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the right choice”.

Here is the image that explains the whole process much better…

To help you with the challenge of choosing the right actions to do, David suggested the 4 criteria to pick the action to do; those are context, time available, energy available, and priority.

To prioritize your actions, I found that the six-level model that David shared is helpful, it starts with your current actions, current projects, area of responsibility, 1-2 years goal, 3-5 years goal, and eventually your life goal.

The book also suggested many more details and tips to increase your productivity. I’m also still in the process of integrating this system into my life. I hope to share more updates on the actions/tools I’m experimenting to get things done.

Enjoy the book, and get more things done!
Robert

I got to know Eckhart Tolle from Oprah’s podcast, when his book, A New Earth has been featured in Oprah’s book club. And it got me interested to know more from his first book on spirituality, The Power of Now.

As the title said, we can tap into personal power when we focus on the present. We are not our mind, a message that is strongly emphasized by Eckhart Tolle. The mind needs time, and that’s what it talks about… It talks about the regret of the past and the worry of tomorrow. The mind often forgets about now, it forgets to enjoy what you have and what you’re doing now.

This book is on spirituality, and Eckhart is a contemporary spiritual teacher who is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition. It taught me some good stuffs, but some I found misguiding, especially his own interpretations on what Jesus said in the bible. For him, God is a matter of consciousness, something that I can’t agree with.

Nevertheless, I learned something from the book, it is much deeper understanding about worry and the present. It’s just like what Jesus said, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Another inspiration I gleaned was about the surrender, which is a much better attitude we need to work on, I’ll share more about it in the future.

Robert

This is the first part of series on Habitudes, or the habit of attitudes. In the first book, Tim Elmore shared the importance of leading our own “self” beyond leading others.

As he emphasized, leadership can be represented as an iceberg, 10% that people can see is your skill, while the 90% is your character, much bigger and the one that can even bring the big cruise ship “Titanic” down.

Habitudes furnishes images that teach you leadership truths. They will enable you to wisely influence your world. Images stick. Images illustrate. They carry layers of reality. You’ve heard it before: a picture is worth a thousand words.
~Tim Elmore

The book comes with full-page photo to help us remember on the habit we need to develop. In fact, it is the point that Tim is trying to emphasize, that we will always remember the principles and practice them. As what he said, discipline is the key that help you cross from where you are to where you want to be.

I have shared some of the principles I have learned from this book, those are the starving baker, and the pop test.

You can check more about the series of books Tim has, together with his ministry here.
Robert

Readers, how have you been? It’s been a while since I’m posting in this blog. I’ve been away for holiday in Surabaya Indonesia, and taking it as a chance to have a break and think through my plan for the new year. Time has passed and here we are in 2009. It’s a bit late, I hope it still feels new to you, and I want to say HAPPY NEW YEAR to you!

Reflecting on year 2008

photo credit: Todd Baker << technowannabe

I’ll just kick in with a project that Robert Hruzek has: BLOGAPALOOZA! or what I learned from 2008. I love the idea of reflecting on my journey in 2008 through the posts I have written. The project requests us to put one favorite post per month in 2008. It will be posted in Middle Zone Musings, and here is the preview special for my readers, with some reflections on my life on that month:

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