Author Archives: ven00kat

#243 Vulnerability

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“Vulnerability” is a universal concept. I enjoyed hearing Dr. Brown speak (see video below) and have a few insights to share. The other concepts she reviewed (shame, guilt, empathy, sympathy etc.) are universal as well, but different cultures have different rules to deal with them. This leads to the notion of, “My rules are are better than yours.” Ergo, my culture is better than yours (you are so primitive!).

Watching the talk thru the lens of an individual, I find she has a lot of good advice to offer.

Watching the talk thru the lens of where people are in the Maslow’s hierarchy, these concepts may simply not be a priority to those who are at lower levels of the hierarchy.

Watching thru the talk of my cultural background (I am an Indian who lives in USA and loves hamburger and fries, but others may have stayed in the culture they were born in), it may touch a raw nerve, because it either hits home and you feel guilt, or because it conflicts with what you’ve been taught is the “right” behavior to such concepts.

At the end of the day, each of us has to figure out how to deal with and implement these concepts for ourselves. The policies and rules proposed by our ancestors (culture!) seem to have gaps. I am guessing they never expected cultures to intermingle. Exception scenarios seem to crop up leading to inner conflict on how to deal with them.

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#242 Pleasing others (or yourself)

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In the workplace, you’ll meet two kinds of people, those who are easy to please and those who are hard to please. The former will make you feel good about yourself, the latter will push you to greater achievements. The former can make you complacent, and the latter can drain you of your energy and motivation.

Oh, don’t forget, the person you have the closest contact with in the workplace is YOU. Are you easy to please or are you hard to please? Do you set low standards that are laughably easy to achieve or do you set high standards that are ridiculously difficult to achieve? Is your goal setting predictably low, or predictably high?

Start with awareness of how you are measuring yourself. Sometimes the task is new or complex, and setting goals is hard. Devote your energies to finding out what it takes to set a goal, then set a reasonable goal followed by a stretch goal.

The “pleasing” part refers to the thoughts, feelings, and emotion that accompanies the goal setting.

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