Yearly Archives: 2013

HOW we do things means everything

HOW we do things means everything

Dov Seidman, author of "How... Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything... in Business and in Life

Dov Seidman, author of “How… Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything… in Business and in Life

Philosopher, attorney and business consultant Dov Seidman was interviewed by Tom Friedman on a NYTimes colloquium and Tom spoke very highly of this book. Extensively footnoted and drawing from a wide range of sources, it is both scholarly and informative. But it boils down to, “if more people did the right thing more often, the world would be a better place.” Check out the website for the book HowsMatter.com

Several interesting insights included the paradox of the Hills of Knowledge. He ended each chapter with a graph showing two hills with a saddle in between. The lower hill, on the left, represented B students, the saddle represented C students and the higher hill, on the right, represented A students. He had learned, during his teaching years, that the students who synthesized the class material with their own experiences and ambitions and expressed their changed understanding clearly, got As. Those who did all the work and hit all the marks but created nothing new got Bs. Those who struggled to synthesize or expressed it poorly got Cs, even though they had a better grasp of the material than the Bs.

In this book, Dov mainly talks about a paradigm shift in business and life from following the rules to a values-based integrity that drives decision making and choices. He advocates inspiration rather than motivation. The Bs are the attorneys who write long documents in an effort to foresee every possible outcome. Dov talks about how the diamond trade has worked for centuries on a handshake and a “mazel.” He contrasts the management styles of blind obedience and informed acquiescence with the recommended Self-Governance. We would like to see better people and fewer rules. This book sets out the benefits to choosing to be a better person.

Also fascinating was the Afterward where he references Danny Meyer’s book “Setting the Table” for the insight that we have moved from a service economy to a hospitality economy.

“If you simply have a superior product or deliver on your promises, that’s not enough to distinguish your business. There will always be someone else who can do it or make it as well as you… Service is a monologue: we decide on standards for service. Hospitality is a dialogue: to listen to a customer’s needs and meet them. It takes both great service and hospitality to be at the top.”

The book I got from the library was not the edition with the forward by Bill Clinton. His take on integrity would have been interesting.

Search Engine Strategies 2013

Search Engine Strategies 2013

Search Engine Strategies
Got on Highway 101 at 6:30 a.m. and drove to Larkspur (took 90 minutes from Santa Rosa) missed the ferry I wanted, got off at the wrong bus stop in SF, missed most of the Keynote.  The audience was sparse, there were no free Google classes, the schwag was limited.  Worst of all was the total of three hours I spent in traffic on 101 because I was in rush hour traffic in both directions.  Not a good use of my time.  I won’t be going to SES again.

But going to San Francisco is always nice and, although it was foggy on the way over, the sky was clear on the way back and I saw the top of the 13-story sail of the America’s Cup contender from New Zealand. Shopping was fun but next time I will take the slow boat on Saturday.

Sheryl Sandberg Lean In

Sheryl Sandberg Lean In

Sheryl Sandberg Lean InHow could she find time to write a book with all she does? She’s a mother! And a wife, not to mention that other thing (Facebook) which she said was “very hard for the first six months. And I know I’m supposed to say ‘challenging’ but it was hard.”

I have always struggled with the concept of “niceness” and I was thrilled that she addressed it head on. I felt that if I was nice, executive men wouldn’t take me seriously. But there was another element. I started working in the 1960’s, the sexually predatory days of “Mad Men” when it was assumed that ambitious women would grant sexual favors in exchange for opportunity. Meaning that in order to get a level playing field, it was hoped that you would put out. Failing to be “nice” eradicated that illusion for executive men. It also eradicated mentoring. But in those days, mentoring by a man often meant… well, putting out.

Sheryl is of a different generation where this sexually predatory element has been mostly exterminated (whew!) but there is still the burden of being called unlikeable if a woman is perceived as decisive or ambitious. She talks at length about how the same behavior in men is admired. She is very uncomfortable with the double-standard, often enforced by other women, and she does more than complain about it. She offers a recipe for dealing with it.

She quotes Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, who recommends combining niceness with insistence. “Be relentlessly pleasant,” by smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals, and approaching each negotiation as solving a problem as opposed to taking a critical stance.

Sheryl Sandberg also quotes Professor Hannah Riley Bowles who studies gender and negotiations at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and adds to her observations. Professor Bowles has learned that there are two crucial things that women need to do in order to succeed in negotiations. First, women must come across as being nice, concerned about others and “appropriately” female. Taking an instrumental approach, as men do, doesn’t work (This is what I want and deserve).

Second, a woman must provide a legitimate explanation for the negotiation. Men don’t have to legitimize their negotiations, they are expected to look out for themselves. Women, however, have to justify their requests. One way of doing this is to suggest that someone more senior encouraged the negotiation (“My manager suggested… “) or to cite industry standards (“My understanding is that jobs that involve this level of responsibility are compensated in this range”).

Sheryl Sandberg offers a third crucial strategy to negotiating success. “Think personally, act communally,” she advises. Even if you you feel stridently feminist when negotiating your salary in order to get paid the same as the men for the same work, keep in mind that you are negotiating for all women. “And as silly as it sounds, pronouns matter. Whenever possible, women should substitute “we for “I.” A woman’s request will be better received if she asserts, “We had a great year,” as opposed to ‘I had a great year.’ ”

She's not bossy
I felt the book had the right balance of self-revelation and personal experience, and guidance from others. I liked the quote from Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer of Cisco Systems, and the former CTO of Motorola because it echoes Jeffrey Immelt’s thoughts on the subject. “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”

How to deal with people successfully was my favorite part of the book. Sheryl quotes Alice Walker who said, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking that they don’t have any.”

Diebenkorn DeYoung

Diebenkorn DeYoung

Diebenkorn CoffeeNormally I would put this image on the right side of the column because of the way the woman is facing, but Richard Diebenkorn’s composition of images showed me that this isn’t always right. The point of view of the artist is from THIS side.

I liked this painting the best of all in this show because I felt she was French and I felt I could smell the coffee and hear the almost inaudible sound of her enjoying the first sip. The key is that I felt something. Which was a relief because I HATED the first paintings in the show. They were his early, abstract works and they were awful. And I wasn’t the only one in our group who thought so. Of course, there were others who seemed to have “drunk the kool-aid” and swooned over everything. This show was limited to the work he produced in the Bay Area. He didn’t get famous until he moved to Santa Monica.

In the bookstore we found some books with his “Santa Monica Series” and those abstracts were wonderful. I realized they would look wonderful in the new, modern houses that were being built in the Hollywood Hills by the successful people of the time. I realized that Richard Diebenkorn was a very handsome man with a master’s degree in art who was very articulate about his process and his vision. I liked his quotes which were painted on the walls better than the paintings in this show. He was very social and I suspect he romanced the people he needed to in Los Angeles to get the coverage he wanted. The museum’s descriptions of his work were devotedly pandering.

cavallo pointThe best part of the day was lunch at Cavallo Point in Fort Baker. After we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, we took the first Sausalito exit and took a right into Fort Baker and wound around past the beach and the Children’s Museum to find this wonderful resort built into the old buildings. Lunch had enced at Murray Circle, but we enjoyed their upscale Pub Grub on the porch. I had four tiny fish tacos embellished with radish slices and Hollyn D’Lil had the mussels featured on the website. Even the chips and dip was classic yet refined. Made two new friends: Liza who teaches Feldenkrais, and Robin Hale, international midwife to the poor. She told amazing stories of her three visits of Afghanistan.

The view was sensational and the old buildings had those wonderful, old-fashioned second story porches with rockers facing the protected cove of Fort Baker. There were some more modern units behind them, up the hill, with more conventional architecture and probably better plumbing and wiring. The the old-fashioned places were full of charm and featured a cooking school and a full service spa facility. A great place to get away and recharge while being only minutes from the city.

Gorgeous place intentionally kept secret. Don’t tell anyone.

How to Stop Suffering

How to Stop Suffering

Like trees, our physical body is changing. It’s born, grows, stabilizes, declines, and will die. But what about ‘this,’ in which our awareness of these facts is arising? Various names have been designated as pointers to ‘this’ — concepts like God, Pure Awareness, the Unconditioned, Pure Being, or the Great Mystery.   These concepts are pointers to the ineffableness that comprises our unchanging essence.

Suffering arises when we refuse what’s changing.   It’s never the event that causes suffering, but our attachment, aversion, or feigned neutrality to it.   What’s astounding is to realize that suffering, attachment, aversion, and neutrality are changing movements within a vaster background of unchanging essence.   When we’re willing to shift attention from foreground to background, we realize ‘this’ that’s always present, but all to often ignored and forgotten.

So what happens when we relinquish attending to the ever-changing foreground movements of our body, senses, and mind -— to sensations, emotions, and thoughts -— and instead turn our attention to realizing ourselves as the unchanging, which has no defining characteristics,   is outside of time and space,   is never in need,   yet is one of the most vital inquires we can make during our lifetime.

Richard Miller, Ph.D
http://www.irest.us/

Anusara Yoga Meredith Rom

Anusara Yoga Meredith Rom

Photo of Meredith Rom by Meredith Rom

Photo of Meredith Rom by Meredith Rom

Yoga One opened a new studio in Santa Rosa and offered free classes for a few days. I checked out Meredith Rom‘s Anusara Yoga class because I had read about their recent scandal in Southern California.

I knew this style emphasized flow and feelings of love. Meredith moved through the room with fluid grace and gently connected with each student, quietly asking about injuries and introducing herself by name. She asked us to create an intention for the class and suggested love, compassion or beauty. We briefly chanted OM and went through several rounds of down dog, plank and cobra to open up the front of the chest. While the postures were mainstream for an introductory class, the vibe was distinctive. Very loving, both toward the inner self and the all the people in the class.

I was especially touched by her guidance as we slipped into a brief moment of shivasana. Meredith said, “Connect with your inner core of goodness.” Wow! This is so different from the Catholic indoctrination “You’re not good enough for God. You came into this world stained with original sin” and the repetitive chant at Mass, “Lord I am not worthy that you should come into my house. Say but the word and my soul shall be healed.” Catholic children are taught that they are, by definition, stained and unworthy.

This Anusara Yoga proposes a profound shift. I found two really interesting posts by Meredith on Elephant Journal.

  1. 10 Ways to Know if Yoga is Working
  2. Her review of several powerful books and an elite class for yoga teachers

Tip number 5 in the second link above is a quote from Mathew and Terces Engelhart’s book, Kindred Spirit.

I make powerful requests as an exercise in worthiness and remember that “no” doesn’t mean anything. I build my self-worth by making powerful requests and get at least one “no” everyday.

I am starting to see it is important to keep the concept of worthiness in my mind. It’s not just what I put into my body, it’s what I hold in my mind too. I am learning that toxins are not limited to food and beverages. Consciously choosing loving thoughts is as important as choosing to breathe into the discomfort in yoga. I am going to continue to check out Meredith Rom’s Insights.

Goat Rodeo at Green Music Center

Goat Rodeo at Green Music Center

Goat-Rodeo_largeGetting onto the SSU campus and finding a parking place was a Goat Rodeo. Forty-five minutes before showtime, I got on the end of the line of cars on Rohnert Park Expressway waiting to get in the single lane campus entrance closest to the Green Music Center. The line of cars crawled all the way to a parking lot near the front of the campus and I had to sprint to make it to my seat in time. Next time I will arrive MUCH earlier and have dinner there, or I will enter through the multi-lane front entrance, because it is closer to last-minute parking.

The music was fabulous, as I knew it would be, having listened to the CD so many times, and re-watched the Colbert Report show featuring them. I was in the hall (as opposed as out on the lawn as for Pink Martini) upstairs in the balcony facing the performers. There is another raised seating area behind the performers. My location had been described in the Press Democrat as acoustically optimum. I was distressed that I did not hear the acoustic version of the CD by burping up $80 for a ticket. It was amplified, and my friends who were on the lawn, and enjoyed the excellent video coverage, heard exactly the same thing I did.

I was hoping that this string quartet, which is what it is, could be heard unamplified in the hall. It was a great performance, wonderful stage presence by Yo-Yo Ma and Chris Thile. My favorite performer, both on the CD and live, is Stuart Duncan, the fiddler. Must purchase more CDs of his work.

I think Edgar Meyer, the bass player and composer of most of the work, will become considered a classical modern composer. His work is elegant. The Strings blog published an interesting interview with them about the technical aspects of their work. My favorite piece, however, was his transcription of a Bach piece for two flutes and a continuo. It was performed on the Bass, Cello, and Mandolin. Only Yo-Yo Ma used music. And he pointed it out.

High Blood Sugar Linked to Dementia

High Blood Sugar Linked to Dementia

What you want to see on your glucose meter.

What you want to see on your glucose meter.

High blood glucose levels are tied to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia in a new study.

“We found a steadily increasing risk associated with ever-higher blood glucose levels, even in people who didn’t have diabetes. There’s no threshold, no place where the risk doesn’t go up any further or down any further.” The association with dementia kept climbing with higher blood sugar levels and, at the other end of the spectrum, continued to decrease with lower levels.

This held true even at glucose levels considered normal. Among those whose blood sugar averaged 115 milligrams per deciliter, the risk of dementia was 18 percent higher than among those at 100 mg/dL, just slightly lower. The effects were also pronounced among those with diabetes: patients with average glucose levels of 190 mg/dL had a 40 percent higher risk of dementia than those whose levels averaged 160 mg/dL.

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/high-blood-sugar-linked-to-dementia/?smid=pl-share