Saturday, May 14, 2016

Human Doings Versus Human Beings

https://www.facebook.com/HuffingtonPost/videos/10153725769876130/

You need to watch this.  Jay raises some very important points about life and being happy.
He also gets into the very powerful awareness of being versus doing.  It is a common trap to confuse the two, especially by assuming that they are interchangeable.  They aren't.

I especially like his idea of a "to-Be" list rather than a "to-Do" list.  Being busy rarely equates to being successful or even to being truly productive.  In fact, just looking at the phrase "being successful" gives us a valuable clue (hint: the phrase is not "doing successful").  Doing something has a finite implication. When you do something, it's done and you can forget it and move on to the next thing - the next possession, the next person, the next job, the next goal, and so on and so on.  Being suggests permanence.  When we choose to BE we can make lasting changes in our personal state; lasting improvements in ourselves that we can continue to experience every moment of every day if we choose to.

Trying to do so much, we lose the chance to be so much more.  In the end, the doing becomes the past and disappears, leaving us being no better than when we started - just exhausted like a hamster on a wheel.

On the job, we are obsessed with skills, titles, roles and KPIs when we should be seeking to change the fundamental quality of who we are - rather than just what we do.  Companies tend to hire people for specific job skills rather than taking the time to uncover who the people actually are - and more importantly who they will become as part of the firm's success journey.  When we start to do this, we start to hire not just for culture and fit; we start to hire for potential rather than just past performance.  We start to see the career as a journey in being more, rather than just a collection of things someone has done.  We create the opportunity to evolve and grow.  

Jay calls out the difference between making a living and making a life but it's not enough.  Words have meaning.  Asking someone what they do is not the same as asking them how they are (or, even better, learning WHO they are).  Our engagement with each other need not be activity-based.  It can be experience-based.  We can teach ourselves to care more about how and who people are than just about what people do.

Think about the people who inspire you.  What attributes do they have that you want to have for yourself?  It's not just about what they have done, since the doing is a result of the being. You will find that many great accomplishments started with being rather than doing.  The change in mindset empowers the person to achieve what they set out to do.  Before doing something differently you must be differently.  To do more, first you must BE more.

Tony Robbins suggests how to increase your BEING power:
1) feed your mind- read every day, especially about those people that inspire you
2) accept the challenges - recognize that great people become great by dealing with adversity
3) move your body - change the way your mind works by getting your blood flowing
4) think bigger - a plan worth doing is a plan worth doing BIG
5) fail - learn not to be afraid of what could go wrong. It's not the end of the world
6) let yourself be grateful - feel the gratitude attitude

Define your own success. Choose your own version of happiness.  Own your outcome.

BE MORE.

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