Breakaway

“Grew up in a small town, and when the rain would fall down
I'd just stare out my window dreaming of what could be
And if I'd end up happy, I would pray”
—Kelly Clarkson, “Breakaway”

There was a sharp chill in the air, the crispness of the weather matched only by the silent sanctity of the world. Stars filled the sky, but only the footsteps beneath me could break the news to me: I was leaving this place for another, on a grand journey.

While driving my car through the winding corridor that left Custer State Park for the nearby highway I heard this very song on the radio for the first time. I’ve always looked at it as an omen for things to come. Rarely does circumstance meet with providence in such a fashion as to properly narrate your life with a meaningful song or lyric. This was one of those days.

As the following days passed and I passed through a number of states I heard the song played more times. Sometimes a change in geography is ripe for a change of mind, a change of paradigm, a change of your life: To “breakaway” from one existence and move into another.

Sometimes, though, it doesn’t require something so dramatic. Change is a funny thing: Everyone I know will often recite about it “change is the only constant” or some variation thereof. Change can be good and it can be bad, but regardless of the positivity or negativity of it, it is often the only consistent thing that can be relied upon.

A leader facilitates change, driven by the momentum created by the energy of teams. A leader takes the role of the change agent and change warrior. They fight for the change, minimizing the destruction that can be caused in its wake by transforming. Anyone can perform a transaction: A discrete exchange of things of value. Leaders, on the other hand, prefer transformation over transactions such that there is a distinct qualitative change, a change in fundamental relationships.

Sometimes change is necessary to counteract the forces of entropy. True transformational change takes a certain amount of energy: By this account it is perfect to apply to a situation in which we’re worried about the constant degradation of energy in the system, seeking to bring it to oblivion.

Proper change is meant to move an organization forward, to move everyone forward—including yourself—so to that end, go out and initiate a positive change in the world today.

The Wonderful, Whacky, Crazy Misadventures of Windows

Double your drive space. Delete Windows.

…Let me tell you: I’m about to. I currently have my computer booting on a 150 GB Raptor hard drive. This required me to move my Windows Vista and Windows XP Pro partitions onto partitions on the new drive, using the eventual method of reinstalling everything from the operating system to the suite of programs I use. A fun experience if you’re a someone like me, perhaps. It was still stressing, very stressing.

I’m down to one or two programs wanting to give me blue screens of death which I hope to solve by the weekend and image the partitions and……voila, I’ll be past my phase of wanting to delete Windows.

More of the usual stuff tomorrow.

In the Search of Change: Are People Static or Dynamic?

A question that tends to repeat itself every so often is the debate between people that think that people change and the ones that think that, fundamentally, people do not change.

Who is right, who is wrong?

Once upon a professional lifetime I worked as a Resolutions Support Consultant, or quasi-supervisor/analyst, with a major wireless firm. The team that I belonged to was an elite group of former floor representatives in the receivables management department: When you want to pay a bill, particularly when it is past due, these are the agents to whom a person speaks. Resolutions, on the other hand, was the team that these agents turn to for technical, protocol, and procedural guidance as well as to pass on escalated callers. I have several an earlier blog post about this period in my life. Despite all this fun in handling escalated callers in suspenseful situations, we were also subject matter experts in the field of wireless phone customer service and receivables management policies and procedures and all that jazz.

There were rules in “Res:” Written rules that dictated how we could behave on escalated calls, how far we could bend, how systems worked, etc. There were also, unwritten rules: The ones that you are bound to out of a sense of honor and respect for the position. Those of us serving on the team didn’t always agree with one another. The culture that predominated was one that emphasized “go ahead and prove me wrong, because that gives us both an opportunity for growth.” Substantiating and disproving matters became part of the everyday marching orders. By virtue of our position we were just right. In reality, we weren’t necessarily always right…but as a team we were.

Say, for instance, I am speaking with a customer who has asked the floor representative to speak to a supervisor regarding a misunderstanding (which, generally, is what most conflicts are about). While speaking to the customer I validate their concerns and listen to their particular situation. I proceed to advise the customer that, despite their special circumstances, policy prohibits me from offering an exception. The customer interprets this as me taking a hard line and requests another supervisor. This first tier escalation turns into a second tier escalation. I continue by asking the customer to hold while I contact another supervisor, dial back into the Resolutions queue and get the next available Resolutions Consultant. I inform them about the basics of the caller and then warm transfer the call. What could happen from here is that the second tier escalation turns into an opportunity for the customer to be offered an exception. Likely, what happened, is that new information surfaced that changed the situation enough to warrant a different behavior be expressed.

In life the same sort of situation happens: We change our behaviors based on new information made available to us. We take in new information, process it and (perhaps) do a risk-reward assessment. Based on our interpretation of the new information we will change our behavior or personality, thus changing how we interact with our environment.

Again: New information changes our behaviors. It can, therefore, affect our personality. Our behaviors also shape our environment. Information that changes, however, isn’t always something that is welcome to the recipient. Often, information that conflicts with that which we believe in any degree is resisted. Information that reinforces is more easily accepted. In order to get the most benefit from new information one must be receptive of it and not outright resist it based on our prejudices and biases.

Monkey Mondays

Not all monkeys are good. There is an evil one out there.

Life Lessons from Battlemaster

3. Read the instructions. Yes, there are arguably multiple sources for “instructions” for real life…but they do exist, myriad forms as they may be. Stephen Covey, in his landmark piece Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, poses an axiom to sharpen the saw or to sharpen the axe. Long story short, essentially: Learning what you need to know before you do it—Reading the instructions—is extremely important.

Battlemaster: Life Lessons

I have long held the belief that Battlemaster is not just a part of a person’s life, but it is a way of life. Within itself, this game can teach a person many, if not all, of the things that what we can learn on our way through life. In and of itself, it is a macrocosm of what is, what was, and what could be of a person’s life.

BattleMaster is a team-oriented browsergame merging strategy and roleplaying. It is set in a low-fantasy middle-ages world and players take the role of nobles and lords.

BattleMaster is a light-weight game that can be played alongside your other activities. Although you can delve deeply into it and spend more time on it, about 15 minutes per day are enough for regular play, and 5 will do if you are in a hurry.

BattleMaster is also a game under active development. New features are being added and gameplay and balance are constantly tweaked to improve the game further. You can talk directly to the developers on the mailing list.

So, without further ado, the first addition to this ongoing list:

1. Put simply, in the often-quoted words of the 17^TH century British poet: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” The very fabric of the game is rooted deeply in the traditions of the middle ages: The “clans” or larger social team units of the game and therefore have their social rankings and caste systems. However, all play their respective roles in a larger well-oiled machine towards the end of making their respective realm work properly.

In society, as in Battlemaster, we are “wired” at our most fundamental levels to be part of a community. From the earliest stories of civilizations, this has been the rule, not the exception. Several studies have been done that prove that the more an individual places themselves in social situations, the more “emotional capital” that they deposit with others, thus increasing their chances at a betterment of their situation.

And, since I missed a post last evening I will throw in another:

2. The universe tends to unfold as it should. Good deeds, in enough frequency, do not go unnoticed; as does the opposite of this: Do bad things, and sooner or later they will catch up with you. In Battlemaster recognition often goes to the active noble that practices good judgment and contributes to the greater whole. For those that take away too much from it, however, they will—sooner or later—find themselves paying the price for their actions.

Another Funny

Monkey Mondays: Trunk Monkey

Most people, on a daily basis, go to work to earn just enough to support their lifestyle: What comes over and above that is for fun. I’ve heard the “going to work” part referred to as one’s “rice bowl” while the other I like to refer to as pie.

Don’t just work for the rice, strive for the pie!

Monkey Mondays: Code Monkey

The wonderful, the famous: Code Monkey!

It's a song. It's an affectionate term for a programmer. It's a cultural icon of monkey-loving geeks everywhere!

Thermodynamics and the Degradation of Society, Part 1

“A lost horizon in an ocean of flames.”
—Def Leppard, “Desert Song”

Remember back to when you were younger, playing with your friends. When you were in constant contact or communication with them your bonds strengthened and you grew closer. In a sense, you became second nature to each other. The same could, perhaps, be applied to your first girlfriend or boyfriend or such. On the other hand, when you were out of contact for enough time things had a tendency to decay: You were not so much as in-sync as you were before; what was second nature now becomes a glimmer of a sense of what once was. You grow out of touch, what synergies existed because of what you had now lack the true functionality of what could be.

Physics is the study of the relationship between matter and energy. Thermodynamics is the study of energetic interactions or the lack thereof. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, over time, a system will gradually grow more into disarray. When a system is being formed if there are any chaotic elements involved, those chaotic elements will only grow more prevalent throughout the life of that system. The only way to avoid complete systemic entropy is for the addition of energy to take place.

Energy, to the physicist, is anything ranging the continuum from heat to electricity; from the grand force of gravity to the strong nuclear force that holds the stuff that comprises us together. Energy, to you and I can be anything from effort to affection. Remarks that build confidence to those that seek malice. There are multiple types and factors involved with these kinds of energies that we use to interact with the world in everyday life. We could do something evolutionary: A task performed with a degree of competence, confidence, etc. We could, on the other hand, do something revolutionary: Not something that is a simple degree of effort and task-oriented, but seeks to be transformational to the end being sought. Additionally, this can be positive or negative. Things that are positive in nature will add positive energy to the system at hand; while negative things done will add to the chaos of the system in the same way that entropy seeks the complete disruption of it.

This Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems: A sense of the Galilean approach to physics shining through—simplification for the sake of simplification. The lives we live are rarely in a closed system unto themselves, rather they are open to the context of the environment surrounding it. Energy can be exchanged or events and situations otherwise influenced by the goings-on of the systems surrounding it. In other words, our lives are often directly influenced by our environment and indirectly influenced by those situations and environments around us. This is why context is always very important in, well, anything.

Now, for the bigger picture: Laziness and apathy are things that breed chaos. Have you ever wondered why Patton was such a great general? His famous adage that “something done now is better than something perfect tomorrow” goes to this end. By doing nothing in this moment and waiting for another for your plan or execution to be perfect you risk the system growing more entropic than you could handle or that could fit into your plan’s parameters.

Consider this a multi-part entry. More to follow.

Self-Efficacy

“Play the game—You know you can't quit until it's won,
Soldier on—Only you can do what must be done”
—John Parr, “St. Elmo’s Fire”

When you are confronted with a task, what is your paradigm: Do you view a potentially difficult task as something to avoid or something to be overcome? How you have learned and continue to learn new tasks is not solely done through the effects of your own actions: Instead, humans being the social creatures that they are, we learn through coding information that we see modeled in our everyday lives. New information has greatly become democratized in the world of today: Much more so than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Our ability to take in this information and apply it towards our success has not increased along with the availability of the information, however.

Social learning has pre-requisites: Many of them being tied closely to the communication model of sender-message-receiver with their associated barriers. While many environmental factors can cause a person to be less apt to take in new information en route to success, there is—as is nearly always the case—at least one thing able to overcome any barrier to success.

Mental states are a vital part of the learning process: Intrinsic factors such as self-motivation, self-discipline, and a sense of—you guessed it—self efficacy all contribute to a person being in the proper paradigm to take away ample return from their learning activities.

Adults, for the most part, are experiential learners: We learn with a kinesthetic approach as opposed to visual or auditory. In most adults this not only contributes to the usefulness of a skill set, it also helps with retention and continued motivation: When you are successful at something, your proclivity at being successful increases: Success begets success.

Success is all about the behaviors that we have and how they converge with our environment. The relationship between individual, behavior, and environment are all intertwined in an interdependent yet causal interaction with one another: Each can have a bearing on any of the others in the triad. The individual can affect the behavior can affect the environment can affect the individual or the environment can affect the behavior or any other combination therein, for example.

The trick is to take charge and make the individual have more bearing on all else instead of allowing the individual to be controlled by all else.

So, the next time you see that task that you’ve been dreading think of it in terms of personal growth and having a high amount of internal drive with the end in sight.

Relationships

“He said look behind your own soul And the person that you’ll see
Just might remind you of me”

—Collin Raye, “Not That Different”

Sometimes the bonds that tie people together and simultaneously separate them aren’t that much at all. While logic dictates the metrics of our relationships, emotions will offer an additional valuation or devaluation to the mix; said another way: We may size a person up…but our hearts determine the risk we’re willing to take.

Look back over the years at interpersonal relationships you’ve had with others: Friends, acquaintances, loved ones, so on and so forth. What has made them tick? Which things made stronger the bonds of friendship and love or otherwise weakened the ties that bind us together?

I travel much for my work. This allows me to listen to many podcasts and music, and to do much thinking. Often a particular song or notion will bring to forefront a thought of the past: A person, a feeling, an episodic extent of my past which lingers much like the pain of a broken heart. Lately my thoughts have been in many places ranging from my previous successes and failures to the relationships that I have had with people. By contrast, those that I have today are much fewer than I’ve had in the past, for one reason or another. They’ve said that a tree that moves much lacks deep roots: Perhaps my roots in my current community haven’t grown too deep. I made new acquaintances rarely, friends even less these days. This is more an issue with lack of opportunity, less lack of ability.

Psychologists have a chapter in text books about the struggles that one will face in different decades, different stages, of their life. In the twenties the grand struggle seems to be between acceptance and aversion. How does this fit in with the risk that a person will take?

Risk is a function weighed by metrics but decided by the heart…certainly this is some sort of oddity. Risk management is a science of numbers, not feelings. Feelings, also, can lead to irrational decisions: Impulsive and maladaptive. Impulsive decisions can rely on faulty intelligence received or bad assumptions made.

One of my current areas of study is decision-making theory: What is the “just the right” amount of intelligence and/or assumptions that need to be made in order to make a decision that is the right one? Diminishing returns are quickly realized when trying to receive perfect information to make the perfect decision, and the practical making of decisions “in the field” requires less time than is allowable for perceptually sufficient intelligence in order to make a sufficient decision. I feel that, in the end, conditioning will need to be done to the individual wanting to learn the method for expedient decision making because the most efficient way for it to work will be in an instinctual basis.

On another note, perhaps the person that doesn’t perceive risk properly, it could be said, likes to feel the pain of poor decisions or maladaptive practices in decision making. All other explanations escape me at this time.

A Kind of Magic

“One dream…one soul…one prize one goal
…One golden glance of what should be
Its a kind of magic
One shaft of light that shows the way, no mortal man can win this day
It’s a kind of magic”
—Queen, “A Kind of Magic”

In the ebb and flow of everyday life, people can often lose sight of the goal. A study I recall seeing some years back indicated that the most successful leaders in the business world believed that they had a distinct calling, a destined purpose, and that drove them to succeed in a world where others could not.

All my life, free choice aside, I have felt that I’ve a purpose about me: A destiny. Life is a story that unfolds at whichever pace that you allow it, complete with chapters and climaxes. If you are willing to take the time to step back from the everyday monotony that is life you may find the opportunity to read between the lines, in the absence of life just coming out and telling you things. Sometimes life will come right out and tell you something, sometimes it will be more subtle. Once upon a time, while on a tour in Honduras, I had a chaplain—a lieutenant colonel that was a Vietnam-era medic in the Special Forces—approach me (although he was my superior, we was very friendly and we had become good acquaintances) and inform me that I was destined for great things. At the ripe age of 18 I was partly naïve to the full depth of what he was saying, partly stupefied with the notion of what he was saying, and partly feeling happy because it affirmed something deep inside of me.

Have you ever asked yourself what kind of story your life will be? Could it be a tragedy, a love story, or an epic? Will stories be told about your ill exploits, or will people recall your good repute that you have with the community? One thing I’ve learned lately is that it is never too late in your life to make yours the story that you’ve always longed it would be. Focus and effort will beget competence, further begetting confidence in your abilities in shaping the environment around you. The trick: Work on those things that are directly within your influence and that area of influence will grow, given time.

Life is the content that fills the chapters of our lives. Some sentences are simple prose, some dialogue can be profound, and there may be plot twists that boggle the mind: But in the end it is the story that we have woven to fit our personality and how we interact with the world around us is ultimately the one that we’ve chosen to live, the one that we’ve approved to be published, and the one that we’ve written.

Let tomorrow be the first day of the rest of your life written however you’d like it.

Monkey Kick.

A monkey, a ball, and a tropical island. A fun little Flash game to help you pass the time by.

My Wildest Dreams

“Once the world was new our bodies felt the morning dew
That greets the brand new day, we couldn't tear ourselves away
I wonder if you care, I wonder if you still remember
Once upon a time in your wildest dreams”
—The Moody Blues, “Your Wildest Dreams”

Last weekend I had a long talk with a good friend. I came to the realization that my sporadic social aversion comes from people letting me down. When calculating an interaction with someone, I become more apt to decline or cut short the interaction because that person or people, in general, have let me down either in a particular instance or as a pattern.

Perhaps my standards are unrealistic, but a detached analysis of situations past indicates otherwise. I want for someone close to me to have a warrior spirit: To value their relationship with me enough to not just give up at the first or second signs of distress: To feel that I’m valued more than less significant things in their life. I’ve had an opportunity at this kind of relationship on a few occasions, but the opportunity passed me by for one reason or another. When I wasn’t letting myself down, other people let me down. Over time, the pattern made me cynical. Now I just wait for people to let me down.

Romance was abundant when I was young. Emotions flowed freely between individuals and the barriers to expression were much less rampant than they are today. It has been said that love is often clouded with fear and doubt, and I feel that is the only dynamic that I may know anymore when it comes to romantic love in interpersonal relationships. I’ve not found the fact that there are any out there anymore that will go over, above, and beyond to express their feelings for me; instead I feel there to be definite differentials in my life where I’ve found myself expressing my emotions for someone and not feel them properly reciprocated. At best, it’s frustrating; at worst, it adds to my fear of having and cultivating real, true love once again in my life.

I keep asking myself whether this was manifested my professionalism and workaholic persona within me, or if it was manifest because of it. Perhaps it even qualifies as an example of the ergo hoc post proctor hoc fallacy: Coincidental correlation. Regardless, the more I go through it with the fine-tooth comb of logic, I can’t seem to reason a way out.

Mean People and the Little People that Call Them Mommy and Daddy

Wednesdays will be for wisdom found on T-shirts, bumper stickers, signs, and the like.

Today:

“Mean people breed little mean people.”

Just think of the ramifications: Kids, just like their parents. Scary as hell, if you ask me.

Emotions as a Force Multiplier

“Live life like the owner of a heart of stone
No one touches, touch no one
But the road gets weary when you’re all alone
I’ve spent too many nights looking over my shoulder
And the ways of the world make a heart grow colder”

—Richard Marx, “Wait for the Sunrise”

A good friend once enlightened me with the bit of wisdom that “people do things, ultimately, to find entertainment value.” You go to work so that you can afford to be entertained. You spend money on the best tickets for such-and-such an event to be entertained. Entertainment begets positive emotions, and people ultimately do things to lead to delight, happiness, satisfaction. Call it the pursuit of happiness, if you will. With all this talk of emotion, where does it fit into things? Yes, people condition their actions to sway away from negative feelings and to sway towards big things. Look in the news and you’ll find stories that are likely manifestations of people with hurt feelings.

The military thickened my skin, hardened my heart. I don’t feel that people are born with the capability to withstand a lot of negative emotion: Instead, it is a conditioned response to their environment. In a more technical description, emotional coldness is not necessarily a genetic function, but more a manifestation of environmental factors. By the time that I was out I was ready to put my game face on in a matter of micro-seconds: A stern-looking Patton, of sorts. I developed a single, multi-purpose emotion. I was the epitome of a warrior: I could withstand great bouts of the cold, cold world and deal with a given mission however it was called to be dealt with: I could present a warm and kind persona or a firm, mission-oriented one.

Before the military, I wasn’t this person. Often withdrawing into my introversion at the sign of the feeling of failure, I spent this time in deep reflection and constant learning. I came equipped with a warm heart and a mid-western attitude of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Years after being out of the military the warmth came back to my heart. The process to master is the balancing act of detachment from emotion while not losing your humanity. I still get hurt from things that I need to be detached from. I take things too personally sometimes; on the other hand, I still have the warrior in me that serves more a functional purpose.

The form of emotion or the function of fight: Herein lies the art to developing yourself. Image is everything, and people expect a leader to be simultaneously compassionate and strong. Indeed, it’s not easy.

Emotion can be a force multiplier, but it needs to be the right kind: It needs to match the purpose at hand. Self-loathing will not benefit you when the mode you need to be in is confidence. A healthy dose of ego might do the trick there, however. Be mindful not to allow the irrationality of emotion to enter the stage, though. Irrationality can be coupled with panic in some cases, and panic is caused by the sudden onset of fear or similar emotions that will otherwise cloud your better judgment.

"Monkey Business Monday" - One of the First Famous Monkeys

The chimp from the original Tarzan movies celebrated his 75th birthday recently.

I wonder if there were bananas served with the cake?

Coming Around Again

“So good on paper, so romantic, but so bewildering…
…I know nothing stays the same
But if you're willing to play the game
It's coming around again.”

Carly Simon, “Coming Around Again”

My mantra has been to always “go forward,” no matter what else is going on personally or with an organization. Bureaucracy, management theories, and whatever else aside, one should always be moving in a direction towards the goal. However, sometimes one can inadvertently lose sight of their progress towards this goal.

Comfort is that thing which dulls optimum effectiveness. If you get too comfortable, you’re prone to laziness. You’re prone to foolishness. A lesson from the military: When you step outside your comfort zone, only then can you experience true growth, whatever venue in your life that might be. “It builds character,” is what people say of those things that are generally unpleasant: This is why. Character is defined as someone with good repute. Perhaps doing tasks that others see as unseemly give you a good reputation? I personally think the direct meaning behind this word, in this case, isn’t necessarily…correct. Rather good reputation is built around those individuals that have shown effectiveness and efficiency in the completion of their tasks. Performing above the call of duty offers a qualitative essence to an easily quantifiable task. In other words, people notice extra effort: People notice moving forward.

Everything in life can be deduced to a game. Not the manipulative sort that will inevitably come to many a mind, but a game in the auspices of economics: An interaction between multiple intelligent agents with their own agendas, motives, and rationales. Outcomes and scenarios can reasonably be deduced with previously known, currently gathered, and assumed information regarding the other intelligent agents in said game. With this methodology one can often control their own actions to control the desired outcome of the situation.

Mind you, this is not manipulation: It is control. The difference is intent. Manipulation is a principle of the unprincipled, whereas control is a principle of the science of management. One is maladaptive while the other is required in business.

People generally resist change. People will find their optimal state of being and stay there. Sometimes this means being ahead of the curve, sometimes this means complacency. It is never too late to become the person that you want to become: If the benefit of the potential reward outweighs the discomfort that you have for putting the necessary effort and energy into the scenario, then you will find a way to make it happen. Internal motivation can overcome all.

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