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#223 Phobias

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Everyone has phobias. These are deep rooted fears that sometimes drive irrational behavior. Whether you get away with showing your phobias depends on how much power you have. Thus innocent people get locked in an asylum, while the powerful get to become dictators of a whole country.

If everyone has phobias, you have nothing to be ashamed about. How phobias get created is interesting, psychologists and psychiatrists make a living by trying to answer this question. Thus if you go to a shrink about your phobias, they will see your world thru their lens, and may make you sound crazier than you are.

If you go to a friend or well wisher, you will likely get bad advice if such friend or well wisher is seeing your world thru the lens of their phobias.

Your best bet is to explore your own phobias by developing deep self awareness. As you self awareness increases, you will go thru the stages of grief. While the Kubler-Ross model has five stages, my theory is that different people have different number of stages. The more stages of grief you go thru, the bigger your task of understanding your phobias before you attain mastery over your phobias.

Thus, if you are in a blue mood, use it to discover your phobias, and establish where you are in the stages of grief. It will be more productive than reacting with anger or other negative emotion.

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#220 The eye of a needle

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In most projects, there comes a moment that can be termed as the “eye of a needle.” This is the point where you are stuck, facing a stalemate, or a Mexican standoff. At such points, you have to shed a lot of baggage before you can move forward.

If you are stuck in the workplace, look for the following in your baggage and shed them:

  • Assumptions on which you based your decisions.
  • Terms you thought were non-negotiable.
  • Constraints that are not really constraints.
  • Bad decisions you are trying to hide.
  • Bad news you don’t want revealed.
  • Mistakes you are trying to cover up.
  • Your ignorance and incompetence/lack of skills.
  • Personal grudge or dislike for a co-worker.
  • Need to be in control and “build kingdoms.”
  • Your specific baggage goes here…

Shedding baggage is not easy. Ask any film maker who has to edit the footage down to fit the film in the target time. Ask any writer who has to write within a defined number of words. Ask any executive whose big bets did not work out.

Above all, ask yourself, “What baggage do I need to shed before I can move forward?”

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