Dynamic activity

You can't drive your body and your mind continuously at full speed in the long term. Full speed is not always really movement (whether physically in motion or just thoughts are occupying you). Being continuously in the common alert state or having to fully concentrate on a particular thing is ruining you in the long term.

A few days ago when taking a hot shower I remembered the animal kings - the lions. I often wondered in the past why in particular the lions are called the king of animals and not for instance the elefants or mosquitos.

Inspired by the lions I think in the daily life there must be a continuous dynamic change between state like the following:

• Return to the present moment
  As mentioned earlier in "In the present moment" or "There is suffering".
  
• Relax
  Just forget every To-Do's, every problem, concentrate on your body, feel your body - let your body and your mind rest.
  
• Re-align
  Review the situation, remember your goals, reorder your priorities to fit in with your life plan or just the direction you want to go. Set your next actions.
  
• Ramble
  Animals check their claim, you can check your to-do-lists and do some of your routine actions. Then you can check your working fields, the roles you are playing and get some organization into it and work on your long term projects.
  
• Speedup
  There might be a goal in sight or some problem that may want some extra action to get accomplished. This is your power-hour to get something extraordinary done.
  
• Strike
  The right aimed action in the right moment can bring you a big success.
  
• Stock
  Fill your experience pool. Refill your tanks - pull energy from your success and get fed.
  
• Stretch
  Prepare for regeneration. Stretch your body and stretch your mind by giving it free time to flow.

These steps can either be remembered easily by remembering 4R4S. And maybe the lions follow those rules and therefore are called animal kings. ;-) - However the lions inspired me to get to these steps.

I believe that it is very important to have such a dynamic change of activity - sticking to any particular phase for too long will become unhealthy.

Related post: Urging to forge at full speed, Reduce the stress factors, In the present moment, How to be happy, Slowing down, Know better and act on it, The productivity trap, Getting older.

In the present moment

Being in the present moment, just to accept everything around as it is, the noises and sights, everything, without adding thought and interpretation to it - that is enlightment and meditation.

I learned how to meditate many years ago attending a course and I continued with exercises for a while. Somehow it came that I did it less times and somehow I think I could not really get into it very well.

Thanks to Henrik Edberg at positivityblog, who mentioned the name Eckhart Tolle in his post "What Would Winnie the Pooh do?", I re-discovered - or let's say, improved - how to get into the meditation status - to return back (or forward) to the present moment and fully be there. To live in the present moment is crucial as the present moment is the only time and place were life is happening.

Eckhart Tolle has published several short videos on several issues which I really enjoyed. His talks are short although he is speaking so slowly. But anyway afterward I got more from it than from others talking fast for fifty minutes. Watching some of those videos helped me today being able to enjoy the present moment for at least 5 times and I got more relaxed. So I want to link some of his videos here as I enjoyed them so much:

• Eckhart Tolle in the Living Luminaries movie
• The End of Suffering
• Wisdom in Daily Life
• What is Meditation?
• The Deepest Truth of Human Existence
• Emotions
• Being Present in Relationships
• Why do senseless events happen?

More are available at youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/EckhartTeachings

Related posts: The tension habit, There is suffering, The fear, Reduce the stress factors, Respect by attention, Urging to forge at full speed, Hurry home ... no more running, Get focused with 3 questions, Slowing down, Between short and long term goals, Know better and act on it, Living your opportunities.

The big difference of the How

Marc Lesser gave a talk "Accomplishing more by doing less" at Google. While the talk is a bit too long for my favor there was a very interesting exercise he got his audience to do: He asked each to talk 3 minutes with his neighbor about one thing that one is doing being somehow an "extra" - something, that if not done, would make a big difference.

So I was asking myself: Why am I doing that - if I would stop it - would make a big difference?

My answer is: I was searching for some big project I am working on, some life plan but I cannot really find such a big thing that would really make a big difference. If not me, then somebody else will manage projects or write software - this is not MY extra. Even writing a life hacking blog is not my extra. ;-)

I am working to get my family and me fed, that is the most important of my doing. I think my extra is that I am there for my family because they love me. - If I am away I am earning money to contribute on their economic situation and when I am with them they are happy being together with me. I am a valuable person for my family. If I would escape or pass away it would make a big difference for them.

It is no matter what work I do, if I develop software, clean the toilets (indeed I do that also as we do not have a cleaning lady at home ;-) ) or if I would manage a company. Maybe I could find a big project it is worth putting a lot of effort into. But reality shows that there are only very few people like Gandhi or Einstein. Although there are websites listing a lot of important people, the biggest part of human beings are sitting at some cash desk, doing some office work or being another type of "simple" worker. It does not mean that these people cannot be outstanding performer in their workspace or in their branch. Lately I read about the most dangerous jobs and the most dangerous job listed at careerbuilder is being a fisherman! And how much fish are we eating without being aware of that! Thanks to all those doing dangerous jobs for our comfort! They are not considered as being so important because they seem to be easily replaceable by others but in the sum they are important. But while doing things that are or can be done by many others also - how can you be outstanding anyway?

So the second big lesson from asking me that question is: It is less important WHAT I do, it is more important - and makes more difference HOW I do it!

When I come home and do something together with my family it is much more important that I am present, listen to them and handle them with care. The awareness of being together affectionately is far more important than the particular thing we are doing.

And again (earlier posted in "To be important") I remember a part of a song text: It's nice to be important - it's more important to be nice!

Maybe we work on some very important project - maybe we will in the future and maybe not. Good, if we can look back and say that HOW we did our job, HOW we treated our family and friends, was good.

Related posts: To be important, Who cares?, The most important things to know, Humor heals, Respect by attention, About religions, Imagine the missing, Finding the proper priorities, Between short and long term goals, Ethic economy, Prudential innovation, Cost of substitution.

The tension habit

I am at home having problems with my back. I take it as a lession: When I look at me and trying to get aware of what happened I notice that whenever a problem arises, an email is arriving that is potential workload for me then I get tensed up - my muscles are not relaxed. People are loading me with work. It is so easy to write a mail asking somebody to get your problem to be done.

I wonder where this behaviour comes from. I immediately think of the Neanderthals stalking for animals or listening to the sounds if there probably a bear is getting close to them. - Or next thought: A soldier is at the front and tries either to stop breathing to not move - to avoid being discovered by the enemy.

Why the hell do I behave the same way when an email arrives or when I am in the middle of a big work? - It is like being out at the front. In modern offices you are always on the front because communication is not limited to the conference rooms. You have fixed phone, mobile phone, email, chat (often not only a single chat application running), people rush in...

In stone age people went out hunting then they turned back to their group hiding in a cave. Until some years ago people could hide in their houses but nowadays everybody needs to stay connected not to miss any of the important changes out there. Economy continues even while you are sleeping. The PC connected to the internet always may have bad news delivering through RSS feeds, mailing lists or other websites all of a sudden.

But the big question that remains: Does it make a difference to be tensed up? I could also face all that stuff in a relaxed manner. There is no reason to constrict my muscles.

So I am asking me now as often as possible:

1. How many of my muscles are constricted?
2. Are there more muscles constricted as really necessary to get the thing done I am actually doing?
3. Do I stress my brain and my muscles more than necessary?

And I say the following to myself:

• Relax, things will not get faster done if I am tensed up.
• Relax the muscles, relax the mind, relax the nerves.
• Slow down, I can't do everything.
• If I could do only one thing now, which thing should it be that makes most sense?
  

Last, but not least a quote from David Allen:

Your power is proportional to the ability to relax.

Related posts: How not to eat the frog, You can't urge the river flowing, All Done status, Reduce the stress factors, In the present moment.

Show respect to the team

When you meet a person then get aware of all the effort that was/is necessary to get and keep this person "up and running". There were/are a lot of people contributing to the health of a person while growing up:

• Parents (especially the mother)
• Grandparents (often being continuously a very great helping hand)
• Aunts, Uncles and other relatives
• Close friends (often they behave as close relatives)
• Other people doing public services (e.g. doctors)

Samples of work done:

• Changing diaper
• Preparing to eat
• Paying food, clothes and all the other necessary equipment (which often makes it necessary for parents and relatives to forgo about things for their comfort)
• Paying assurances
• Education
• Surgeries
• ...

When you are aware of all that effort needed, you may also get aware that everything positive you are doing to this person will also make other people happy - those people giving their best to support this person ensuring a healthy and happy life.

Take into consideration that all those people did their best but nobody is perfect. That team of parents, relatives, friends and others did the best from their knowledge to avoid negative impacts and gave their best possible on the person you are meeting. No matter what size the team was/is and who were/are the members - they might have created some "unwanted side effects" also (neurosis and so on). Where work is done there are also mistakes happening.

And the person you are meeting might also be making a lot of effort currently to take care of other persons himself (children, parents that are bedridden).

Say thanks to the team that is supporting you, say thanks to those who are supporting those you love and do your best to continue the supporting work of others wherever possible.

Related posts: Little respect, Respect by attention, Unattended mode, Knowledge is freedom, Be united.

Stake your claim

The problem: You feel hemmed in because you don't want to hurt others and don't want to trigger litigation.
You may be (already) convinced that hate and anger are bad habits and only cause suffering. You are a peaceful person and want to help people reducing their suffering and achieving their goals for god's sake.

The problem is that while trying to satisfy all the others your power gets consumed and maybe exhausted. And while helping the others and getting more and more productive to make others achieve their goals you feel that you loose opportunities and realm to act.

The reason: Others discovered that they can utilize you for achieving their goals and they make use of it.The reason is quite similar as mentioned earlier in the post "Stop the service". Others got used to your assistance, your helping hand, your support and as people's thinking is mostly concentrated on themselves they neither recognize that they are consuming you. And not enough in their unconscious mind they might think something like "if not me than somebody else will take advantage of this guy".

As people's thinking is mostly concentrated on themselves waiting for those utilizing you to give you something in back or to stop utilizing you is no solution. That day will not come - in contrary they will increase their demands if you do not stop it.

The solution: Stake your claim.
You have to set limits for others "stepping around on you"! Empathy is a great thing but trying always to satisfy others and help them achieving their goals on your costs will ruin you in the long term!

You have to thump your rights! You have tell others the limits and if they do not respect you then you have to fight others when breaking inside your fences!

Search for peaceful solutions whenever possible but some people simply do stick at nothing and sell their own grandmother to clear-cut their path and people behaving this way must be stopped!

Related posts: Stop the service, Dissolved aggressiveness, An eye for an eye, Man in the middle or honor the people, Switch to authentic mode, How to rebuff somebody, The wise talk less.

Efficient meetings

I have been on an interesting meeting lately. The big boss joined the meeting in a rush, told taht he has only 10 minutes time - and left after about 15 minutes. At the beginning I thought that he is just a fan of Parkinson's Law (I wrote earlier about my opinion on this) - but observing the situation I learned the following things:

• Have a team that you can trust.
  There were 3 other people in the meeting and I think he has chosen the attendees very wisely. There was one who I imagine to be a creative head with ideas and he was the excited. The second was the critical eye and the third the one with the technical know-how.
  
  
• Have very few and clear goals and have your team be aware of those.
  When the big boss joined the meeting he clearly stated his goals. However, the team already knew since one or two weeks ago (because they already told us in advance to get prepared).
  
  
• Don't give others too much time to answer your questions.
  If the others have too much time to respond to your questions they can talk you into something step by step. If one has only few time to respond to your question the other has to get to the point directly.
  
  
• Ask the most important questions that are needed for you to make decisions.
  Those questions can be: What do I get? What does it cost?
  
  
• Trust your team.
  Seem to be a double entry - as already mentioned above? - No, the point is: Setting up a team you could trust is one thing. Actually really trusting the team members is a second step that clearly came out at the meeting in my opinion. When the big boss left, he left in the full trust that his team will manage the details.
  
  
• Be prepared.
  The big boss had an overview about the topic and situation and he had some important background information.

Related posts: Parkinson's law and quality, Why investing enough time rules, How to rebuff somebody.

Stop the service

The problem: People loading you with work.
Many like to be important and many do hard work at lower levels. For both the opportunity of being a manager is sugar on their ego. Those who usually do hard work at lower levels are often argued if something is not done (fast enough). They like it if they can play the other role once a time.

What I am talking about here is not (necessarily) boss related. There are a lot of other people also trying to load you with work who are on equal level as you are.

And the worst what than can happen: They complain that you are not performing enough.

Such situations usually cause anger and litigation with collegues, family members (yes even your wife/husband or even children can load you with a lot of work).

The reason: They got used to your assistance, your helping hand, your support.
People find out quickly from whom they can get easy help to solve their issues. Those who have a helper syndrome are easily found by those who are looking for patronage. And people like it to be helpful and to achieve a lot of goals. But this can exhaust your power.

The solution: Stop the service.
I do not mean that you should refuse any support completely. But from time to time it is important to set or raise the limits - for you and also for the others. This is different from learning how to say "No" because the problem I am talking about is usually addressing something you already accepted somehow earlier and you get utilized. Maybe you accepted to give a little help and slowly the issue grows up. So you are already in the middle of something.

If you just stop when a thing grows too big and you feel to get utilized then others get the opportunity to notice their exaggerated request for your support.

When to temporary refuse: When family members or important colleagues are asking too much in too few time then usually a temporary refuse is the appropriate action. Retreat for a while and use the time for relaxing, personal development or for your hobby. Depending on how penetrating people are demanding your services the longer you should refuse.

When to completely refuse: Some people might simply got used to the fact that you are a friendly person always trying to help. If they do not play an important role in your life and you are not expecting a big change in this then it is better to stop completely supporting them if they get too cumbersome and annoying.

It is always better to simply stop the service than quarreling and arguing about your occupation and engagement!

Related post: Setting borderlines, Stake your claim, How to rebuff somebody, Scoundrel days, Productivity limits, The family.

Principles over rules

While growing up you are trying to figure out how things work and you build the rules according to your experiences. There is in general nothing wrong with this as it works in a lot of cases. You learn that glass bursts when it falls down onto the tiles, you learn that 2+2 is 4 and so on.

We feel more secure and it makes our decisions easier when we have rules. However, often we could get a better outcome if we do not only have rules but also have principles and pay more attention to principles than on rules in cases we are not sure about the next step. More - it can be better to completely prefer to focus on principles over rules. World is very complex and so your rules can also become very complex and you could easily loose the overview and further you get inflexible.

This summer I read an article (How to Renew Yourself as a Leader - Part 1) that shows a very good example where principles are more important than rules: If you are leading a large teams than you can't have the overview what happens at lower - more concrete - levels. You have to rely on the team members in their ability to proper valuate and decide what to do. So you have to rely on their intelligence to realize the big picture.

Defining principles and goals is more important than defining rules.

Although rules do not necessarily have to be very concrete they have an inflexible character. You would also label the word "goal" with the attribute "fixed" - however the way how you achieve the goal is free. Principles are more a direction - a helping hand when it comes to decisions.

Related posts: Setting borderlines, Direction over goals, Focus by direction, Focus by decision, Finding the proper priorities, Between short and long term goals, The main purpose, Living your opportunities, The golden rule, Replace constraint with freedom, Considerations on decisions.

Distractions and sleep

What distractions have to do with sleep?

You are more vulnerable to distractions if you did not get enough sleep!

It does not make a difference to the number of phone calls arriving but if you didn't get enough sleep then

• Other things you are usually able to ignore (e.g. collegue talks in the background) drag you away from your current thoughts.
• It is far more difficult to get back to focus.
• You are suffering because of the higher impact of distractions.

So sleeping enough is not only healthy but also a productivity boost.

Related posts: Take care of you, The value of rest and review.

Hunting for degrees

Lately I was decluttering one of my drawers when I faced some older certificate of a course I attended. I can see that nowadays you get those everywhere. You get them already for attending presentation sessions where you don't have to accomplish a single exam.

But sometimes when I look into the newspaper on the job advertisements I can see that some new kind of degree is often requested. Even here in Austria they have some good sounding new titles - "new", because they haven't been there when I was passing by (from about 1992 to 1996). They sound good but I do not have an idea for what they stand for.

From time to time in our company we are searching for some new IT professional. And it happened already sometimes that we hired some Microsoft Certified Professional. But often it turns out that these people do have their knowledge only from those courses made especially for getting through the certification exams and this often has only a few in common with the knowledge you need for real world projects.

And the mania does not stop there. There are people "collecting" degrees and certifications and they decorate their rooms with those! For some of them getting a specialist in something and get up working moved completely out of view.

I do think that their are some kind of degrees which do mean that you are facing a person that is well prepared for specific real world scenarios. But the way how is dealt sometimes with those degrees and certificates is often exaggerated.

While hunting for degrees people often forget that the two important factors are:

1. Knowledge and
   
2. Experience

A lot of courses are a time waste and you should carefully choose which degrees you want to achieve. If they don't present content that matters, than don't waste your time there!

Have the focus on gaining knowledge that improves speed or quality of what is your job or what you want to do. Improve those parts where you can gain money from.

Even if everything is labeled with very cool names, basically the same jobs have to be done as earlier. But unfortunately the main goal to transfer as much knowledge as possible is often not the first priority. There are either certificates you can buy (maybe sometimes the answers to the test questions and sometimes maybe the complete certificate.

So watch out to accumulate knowledge that is relevant for your job or daily life and gain experience working with it. In reality there is no substitute for this process.

Related posts: Who cares?, 101 posts or how to improve step by step, Knowledge is freedom.

How not to eat the frog

Yesterday I told about the phrase "eat the frog" in "Eat the tadpoles". And after stumbling over the frogs of borneo site, this post is dedicated to the frogs.

Here are the tips:

1. Have a diet day where you strictly don't eat frogs.
   What it means in your daily life: Have a regular day where you do some part of your work that motivates you (if really all of your work is demotivating than you should consider changing your job). When you get problems to solve brought from customers or from co-workers or from the boss then put them aside for the next day. If you can't avoid dealing with them then shift your diet day to another day - but do not skip it!
   
   
2. Transform the frog - if you like cocktails, mix your frog and have a frog-cocktail.
   This is the most anti-frog-tip of this post - what it means: If you face a problem that you don't really want to care about then try to modify it in a way that it matters to you. Example: When I have to write a new program to solve a specific problem that I do not consider to be useful also for other customers then I search for some common problem and try to write the program in a more general way so it can be used also to solve similar other problems and hence be useful for more people.
   
   
3. Hand the frog over to somebody who likes frogs.
   When you get notice of a problem it is not necessarily you that has to deal with it. What is a problem to you might be the core service that is provided by other people. Example: If somebody asks you to change a website layout this might bring you in trouble because you hate it struggling with style sheets, but your co-worker might like to do web-design.
   
   
4. Just wait - the frog might prefer returning to the pond.
   The frog-version of: "Some problems dissolve silently if you do not disturb them".
   
   
5. Put it to other similar frogs and create a frog farm.
   If you get often similar problems it might be a good to develop a common strategy dealing with those - making it a core service of your company for instance. This might include to hire a new person (or find one already there).
   
   
6. Build (and sell) anti-frog fences.
   Problems usually do have reasons why they occur. Try to find the reason and implement a solution to avoid facing the problem at all. You can either sell those solution. Look at anti-virus software. Some people are not sure if it is not them also producing the viruses. ;-)
   
   
7. Paint it red with blue stripes, welcome it and create a hype around it.
   The frog version of: "It's not a bug, it's a feature" - and there are many things I associate here... - But important: Check before at Frogs of Borneo if such a frog already exists (you might to use other colors then). ;-)
   
   

Related posts: Eat the tadpoles.

Eat the tadpoles

"Eat that frog" is a phrase often cited in combination with procrastination and will tell you to start the day with the biggest, most important task. - What the phrase itself tells is that if you start the day eating a living frog then you can be calm the rest of the day because the worst of the day already happened.

I have noticed that - at least in software development - when I start with the most important and biggest task it often eats up the whole day. So it's not me eating the frog, it's the frog eating me. ;-)

The result often is, that sometimes neither the big task is finished nor a lot of other things so I end up with the same amount of things open and nothing was finished. Searching for application bugs (that often turn out to be problems of third-party-components and I sit there hours to search for workarounds) is for my job the best example here. But I imagine that for other jobs it can be preparation of presentations and so on.

What then happens when even the next day a lot of other smaller (or bigger) things are added to my task lists I either cannot focus well any more on the main big frog task because I feel overwhelmed with the amount of work. Indeed one big task seems to produce less stress than the same amount of work split in many small tasks.

And last but not least many small frogs or even the tadpole tasks can grow up and produce more difficulties when they don't get done in their early stages of growth. So it is better to eat the frogs when they are still tadpoles/polliwogs.

So what I do is:

1. Start with the more predictable tasks.
   I first pick the smaller tasks that are more predictable and more reliable to be finished within the estimated time. - To get 3 things off my list early in the morning is a good start into the day.
   
2. Split big tasks over several days.
   Big tasks and especially those that are difficult to estimate because quite unpredictable in amount of work really needed I do always split over several days. For instance a task estimated with 6 hours is split over two days each 4 hours. So there is another 2 hours spare. And further it is often better to do something else when facing a difficulty. After a pause and step back the problem gets clearer when looking at it again later.
   
3. Schedule some time for the unpredictable interrupts.
   I schedule some extra time a day for the small frogs that other people come to me with during the day.
   

Related posts: Early intervention, Procrastination and interrupts, How not to eat the frog.

Problems and Dilemmas

The problem: Some sort of problems are easier to solve than others.
Have you noticed that with some problems you struggle more than with others although the complexity is not higher or the problem does not seem to be really more difficult?

The reason: Some problems are problems and some are dilemmas.
Not all problems have the same "meta" structure and thus they should be treated differently.
Sample: You want to by a deodorant spray. So you go to an appropriate shop and search for the shelf where the deodorants are.
Scenario 1: There is only one type of deodorant spray there available. - In this case you simply take it, go to the counter to pay and that's it.
Scenario 2: There are plenty of different types and brands available. - In this case the effort needed to buy a deodorant can be much higher because you have to choose first.

For scenario 2 it means that you are in a dilemma - you are facing several opportunities. You have to analyze and evaluate the options and choose the best fitting solution. This also means that you have to be more aware of your own favors and priorities.

The solution: Identify the character of a problem and deal with it accordingly.
The first step is to identify the different problems. With some training you could identify the different problem types early:

The "normal" problem: Something does not work or something new should be achieved. Characteristics of this type is that you face a new field of interest or you have been disappointed Steps:

1. Define the problem and/or desired outcome.
2. Gather required information to get an overview or to know more details.
3. Get or build the necessary tools to solve the problem.
4. Solve the problem by doing solving actions (paint a picture, construct a house, ...).

The dilemma: Several goals should be achieved but there is some sort of deadlock and a decision is required.
Characteristics of this type is that you are blocked in proceeding and the next action is not clear to you. Steps:

1. Review your set of goals and prioritize them.
2. Review the information you already have.
3. Decide whether it makes sense waiting until probably more information is available.
4. If waiting does not make sense then take your decision now and accept the consequences you can already expect and also those that you do not see yet - as you can be satisfied that you have taken the decision from your best knowledge that was available yet.

Related posts: Finding the proper priorities, Find the root problem, Considerations on decisions.

Spam critics

The problem: Loosing self-esteem due to overwhelming criticism.
To prevent from social exclusion it is necessary to seek for confirmation. Without approval of our actions in the world and communicating with our fellow human beings we would not be able to live together. So social adjustment is important.

But it can happen that critics of others occur in masses reducing your self-esteem and it could cause depression.

The reason: Greed for love and credit, Fear of others, bad social adjustment.

• Bad social adjustment:
  If you in general are very lonely, only have a very few friends then it might be necessary to quality proof your strategies for social adjustment.
  
• Greed for love and credit:
  You might already have poor self-esteem and therefore seeking confirmation, credit and affection everywhere. Every critics is again reducing your already poor self-esteem. And others with the same problem not able to increase their own value try to reduce yours.
  
• Fear of others:
  Others may fear your power, your authenticity, your charisma. In such cases it also can happen that you are criticized a lot.

The solution: Appreciate every constructive critics and discard the rest.
There are two ways to deal with different kind of critics:

• Every critic is a chance to learn. Critics are donations to you to help you in your personal development. But these must be constructive. You might have a number of friends (more likely less than five) who you fully respect or at least consider being constructive and honest real friends. There can also be family members playing such a role for you. Critics coming from those should be considered with a higher priority and you should deal with it.
  
• To deal with critics is work for you, because you have to deal with the problem - analyze, think of other strategies, review. And the big problem is that there are spammers here. And be careful with social hostility. Getting completely negated by others can drastically reduce self-esteem although you do not need to consider those people (or let's say their critics). People, continuously offending you and telling you that you are wrong on any little opportunity should be considered as spammer and hence they can be ignored.

You cannot please everybody - focus on those who matter for you (basically the family, close friends and customers).

If they breath down your neck then just tell them what they want to hear (for instance that you are terrible sorry) - give sugar to the ape and just let it go. This is probably the most easy way to get rid of them. They are not part of you - you do not need to be honest and sincere. Although in general you should like to be a honest and authentic person, there are brick-walls where you need to search for new methods.

For those who fear your power you can deal with them the same way as you deal with spammers, but you can see it as a confirmation for you!

Related posts: Who cares?, All Done status, When to criticize, The family, Primary motivator.

Man in the middle or honor the people

The problem: People being greedy to feed their ego.
You might know very well that being greedy to feed your ego is cause of suffering and hence you hold it down to keep it in it's fences. But there is also a lot of suffering produced by other people being greedy to feed their ego.

Sample: It can be seen often that in groups there are some people that always trying to be the most attractive point. Such people by tendency do also not allow other opinions than their own (this is some sort of "man-in-the-middle-attack" ;-) ).

When we see such people we get often annoyed of them or we are just tired of dealing with them.

The reason: Missing respect and credit.
We often find such people aggressive in some way, but it is "simply" their desperate effort of getting some respect and credit. Actually in our intuition we do avoid them or we fight them but the last thing we would give them is a little respect and credit although that is what they really want.

The solution: Do something for other people's ego.
Why not doing something good for those people? Even if you are very good in holding down your ego, you also need confirmation, respect and you need to be honored. And even if you can live completely without any validation response from other people that you are on the right path in your personal development and do the right things right, it gives you power!

That does not mean that you should sit down, being proud of your glory and stop working! You should use the glory as a fuel to go ahead!

Do give other also some fuel and so the power to do more healthy things than being greedy to feed their ego!

And while you are honoring others you are doing a good exercise in taking your own ego back. Which also is good because of several reasons, for instance:

• You do usually know very few about a thing so staying in the back to watch a while is not the worst idea.
• When you are in the front line you are watched by all and every little mistake is noticed and goes to your account.
• You can develop more empathy when you are in the back watching.
  

Related posts: Little respect, The most important things to know, To be important.