A trip of mind

68
A Trip of Mind Ali Anani, PhD

Transcript of A trip of mind

A Trip of Mind

Ali Anani, PhD

2

Managing PartnerPhenomena Communications

Dr. Ali Anani - Managing Partner

Dr. Ali Anani : As General Manager, Dr. Ali Anani heads and supervises a team of talented young professionals, and manages the overall brand strategy - ensuring the cohesiveness and creative parts of each campaign for all Agency clients.

Dr. Ali Anani holds a PhD from the UK (1972). He has a wide experience in many fields. His accomplishments include the writing of more than eighty publications in international journals, the writer of three printed books in Arabic and one E-book in English. He has written widely for the media and presented a TV program and many radio programs.

Dr. Anani main credit is his creativity thinking where he scored among the top %5 creative people worldwide. Dr. Anani is an invited lecturer for more than fi�y international conferences and an author of many business slogans. Moreover, he has travelled to more than fi�y countries as an invited speaker and consultant and has consulted for many international agencies including UNIDO, Atomic Energy Agency, UNDP, ESCWA, private businesses and governmental agencies.

3

Dr. Ali Anani - Managing Partner

Dr. Ali Anani : As General Manager, Dr. Ali Anani heads and supervises a team of talented young professionals, and manages the overall brand strategy - ensuring the cohesiveness and creative parts of each campaign for all Agency clients.

Dr. Ali Anani holds a PhD from the UK (1972). He has a wide experience in many fields. His accomplishments include the writing of more than eighty publications in international journals, the writer of three printed books in Arabic and one E-book in English. He has written widely for the media and presented a TV program and many radio programs.

Dr. Anani main credit is his creativity thinking where he scored among the top %5 creative people worldwide. Dr. Anani is an invited lecturer for more than fi�y international conferences and an author of many business slogans. Moreover, he has travelled to more than fi�y countries as an invited speaker and consultant and has consulted for many international agencies including UNIDO, Atomic Energy Agency, UNDP, ESCWA, private businesses and governmental agencies.

4

A Trip of Mind 6A Trip of Mind (2) 8A Trip of Mind (3) 10Network Sharing Based Marketing 13A New Path of Thinking 16Instant Times and Emerging Habits 18A Challenging Writing Metaphor 22

We Have Bad Habits at Home andWork- 2 Rules to Deal with 25

Sour Feelings and Sour Food-inspirational ideas 29

We Plan and Destiny Laughs 32Emotional Marketing- New Perspectives 35Thinking On the Edge of the Box 38The Black Side of Recruiting Talents 41The Poorly Understood Fear 44The More We Know, the Less We Know 47Thinking Fast and Assuming Faster 51We Are Value Throwaway Societies 54The Adjacent Opposites 57The Journey to Finding My Purpose in Life 60Lean Management of «Emotional Wastes» 63

index

A Trip of Mind

Ali Anani, PhD

5

A Trip of Mind

Ali Anani, PhD

6

A Trip of MindThis is a random trip that took me to new ideas and inspirations. I decided to share it with you how they gave birth to new thinking..

I randomly selected one word from my last LinkedIn post and it turned out fearful. The first idea that occurred to me is to check the opposite of fearless. I got this list:

cowardly, afraid, fearful, meek, shy, stupid, timid, uncertain, unintelligent, unsure, weak, apprehensive

My eyes fell on the word weak. What is weak? I wrote weak personality and weak structure. WOW! From the two the idea of personality structure surfaced out. This prompted me to Google this term. The first thing my eyes spotted was a reference showing the iceberg of personality structure (Freudian Psychology and Psychoanalysis). As much as this reference is important, I didn›t feel hooked. So, I marched on with the trip of my mind taking me into directions that I didn›t plan for.

My search trip took me to a nice idea that I wish to share with you. “If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.” ― Masaru Emoto, Secret Life of Water, That is an illuminating idea. It is not river with no return. It is returning to myself that shall keep me strong. But I defer this idea for later.

7

I continued my mind trip with eagerness. Nice ideas along the way encouraged me to continue. My eyes fell on this lovely quote: How Anxiety Can Make Your Legs Feel Like Jelly? Overly stressed people may feel they have jelly legs that can hardly support them or keep their balance. Because most people don›t realize this is a temporary problem they worry and this in turn complicates further their suffering from having jelly legs. It is like a fire feeding itself with fuel and the burning intensifies.

The question that came to my mind is if the increased stress among employees is causing a phenomena that is not visible, which is having weal personality structures among employees would lead to having jelly organizations that feed their anxiety onto themselves rendering them weaker. Do employees with weak personality structures infect their organizations and weaken their «standing» structure because of having jelly legs?

How Anxiety Can Make Your Legs Feel Like Jelly? the answer is because many people find that their fight or flight system is activated all the time, without anything that should cause them to feel that reaction, and one of the symptoms of this problem is weak legs, or «jelly legs.» Fight or flight are two opposites that if we swing rapidly in between we may suffer from jelly legs. This is kind of «emotional stress». Is this any different from thermal stresses in which if a material is heated, dipped into ice and again and again it shall weaken because of thermal stress. Alternating rapidly between hot emotions and cold emotions may as well lead to having jelly legs, which tends to intensify.

many people find that their fight or flight system is activated all the time, without anything that should cause them to feel that reaction, and one of the symptoms of this problem is weak legs, or «jelly legs.» We live sometimes in a hesitant way that may infect us with jelly legs. We do that when we are caught between two alternatives such as will people like it or not. We swing between yes and no so fast and strain our bodies. We are not returning to ourselves and are seeking the approval of others. This is straining and self-feeding that we should try to stop.

So what is the solution…that I shall cover this in the next post

8

A Trip of Mind (2)Building on my previous post and how to manage emotions the idea that emotions are very complex means that they are simply unmanageable. What we observe are emergent phenomena and they end up in -8wave movements. I showed previously how emotions in both the stock market and mountaineers follow this -8wave movement (see Slide 10 in particular).straining and self-feeding that we should try to stop.

So what is the solution…that I shall cover this in the next post

No matter what we do, our emotions settle in an attractor that has this wave shape. In fact, moving in between two emotions such as rapid swing from greed to fear still follows this wave shape as we have a fractal movement of emotions.

My mind trip took me to the inquiry if there would be an experimental proof for this observation. My research lead me to see if pendulums (representing pendulums of emotions) would show similar behavior. WOW! I found this great video in which the springs were arranged as follows (this is a screen shot from the video)

9

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkdfJ9PkRQ

The great amusement is that upon moving the balls they generate guess what? Yes, it is waves as the screen shot below shows:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/w a t c h ? v = y V k d f J 9 P k R Q

The above findings made we wonder if our emotions are arranged similarly so that they produce the emergent wave structure that we experience.

I wonder where my imagination shall carry me. An imagination that is fostered by the wavy structure of ice on sand *background image of this post)

10

A Trip of Mind (3)I thought my trip of mind ended till Sara Jacobovici made a mind-engaging comment on my previous Mind Trip (2) post. In her comment Sara wrote «… space between emotions like, do the waves give off vibrations and/or frequencies…». This comment stirred my mind and took my mind to this trip.The Emotional Guidance Scale discusses the emotional vibrations as is shown in the figure below. It proceeds from low frequency emotions to higher frequency ones. This is a widely known scale of which I have some concerns.

11

In this scale it is much easier to move in steps. For example, if you are in the fear state, try to move on to one above (insecurity) than it is to go all the way up to joy. This is consistent of recent studies that I shared a while ago.

The real value of this scale is the mind-opening opportunities it provides. There are many studies pointing out that if fear is combined with ignorance the result is hatred, which is above fear in the Emotional Guidance Scale. Yet; it is hatred that is ascribed to many social problems. Under hatred in the scale is jealousy this meaning that jealousy is a precursor to hatred. If fear goes all the way to hatred and this builds up so what would happen?

Just think now for a minute. remember a story in which somebody was jealous of somebody else for long times. You shall find that this jealousy turned into hatred. Mounting hatred intensifies to unthinkable acts like mass killing. The question that clouds my mind is why fear doesn›t lead directly to mass killing and it goes first to less evil emotion of hatred? The answer to this question may be because fear is a paralyzing inward feeling. It doesn›t lead to direct violence because of its passivity. A fearless heart is frozen and is incapable of action. It is when fear and combined with ignorance and wrong understandings that it turns outward and hatred to others. Hatred is energizing and therefore leads to vicious actions. prolonged hatred progresses to bitterness, which intensifies the desire to hurt others.

12

The above image may be combined with Maslow›s Pyramid of Needs so as to expand it and make it more functional. In this pyramid, a basic human need is feeling secure and free of fear. This should expand on the utility of Maslow›s Pyramid to storytelling

I know of two ladies who came from too different backgrounds. One of them came from a very rich family. In contrast the other lady suffered from poverty. As she did extremely well in the high school exam she was offered a scholarship in a good university. There she met with the rich lady. They became friendly. Post to their graduation the rich lady got engaged. In her engagement party her friend met with the brother of the man who got engaged to the rich lady. That turned the rich lady furious and didn›t accept that her poor friend has the same social status. That refusal turned into hatred and shame that ended in the rich lady killing the poor lady. It is amazing how hatred may develop into bitterness with all the fatal sequences it has.

13

Network Sharing Based MarketingThe changing landscape of business is bringing about many new changes. Even though marketers are responsible for finding a fertile soil and salespersons will be in charge of selling in this discovered soil; yet it is not that simple. One driving reason for that is that customers are not only a source of cash; they are growingly becoming a source of referrals, of mouth-advertising, of free promotion, of idea generators and many more roles. Can we market or sell using old methodologies?

The advent of social media with its massive power to network on all levels and the use of this new platform to communicate without serious barriers has shaken the landscape and the volcano of possibilities erupted.

A business would consider new strategic thinking to cope with these changes. Strategic questioning may help in shaping out our strategic thinking. Examples of questions to be asked include:

How to build a solid network and what creative metaphors would help? How t link a company network with those of its customers and friends of customers? How to create a symbiotic relationship between a company›s network and those of customers?

14

Asking unconventional questions lead to unconventional thinking and strategies. Upon writing this post the picture of fungi roots network entangling and forming a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with their host jumped in front of my eyes. Fungi bodies consist of masses of thin threads known as mycelium. These thread-like networks connect to the roots network of near plants to exchange information, nutrients and even to repel predators. Estimations are that around %90 of land plants are in mutually-beneficial relationships with fungi. plants provide fungi with food in the form of carbohydrates. In exchange, the fungi help the plants suck up water, and provide nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, via their mycelia. Is it surprising then that fungi are called The Natural Internet?

The more we learn about these underground networks, the more our ideas about plants have to change. For example, the fungi colonizes the roots of plants. In return, the plant releases defensive chemicals that help the plant stay healthy and ready for microbial attacks. Simply plugging in to mycelial networks makes plants more resistant to disease.

Now, consider the customers networks as the substitute for the fungal networks. Think creatively how to create a symbiotic and beneficial relationship to both parties. Let the customer benefit from referring to you, from recommending you, from writing about you, from sharing and liking your posts and from recommending you. Know what your customers› desires, wants and needs are and provide them whenever possible. Share their posts, congratulate them and create ideas that nobody thought of to please them.

15

More than that your customers have their networks that give them different exposure than what your business has. Their threads reach places that you might not be able to. This varying exposure will make your customers a rich source for new ideas. Feed on those ideas. Acknowledge the customers who benefit you. Write an E-book about them, or whatever they like. Entangle their network with yours. Is there a better way to hook them.

That is not all. Remember that some plants have aerial roots that expose them to light. So, are some of your customers who might build networks in the air. They are your source to the unconventional ideas. They tend to clean your reputation and defend you. They release good words about you. Extend the chain of gratitude and the degree of entanglement. Do you remember the story of the rabbit and tortoise? The tortoise carries the rabbit in water and the other way around on land. Carry your customer and the customer shall be available to carry you.

There are three primary functions of roots: (1) to anchor the plant to a substrate, (2) to absorb water and dissolved minerals, and (3) to store food reserves. Make your customer as source of anchoring,, stabilizing, information- provider and backup for difficult days.

«We can›t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.» - Albert Einstein. I would extend this thinking with a twist to say that we can›t do business on the same level with our creation of new business landscape. We need network type of thinking to align with the fact that we do business in a landscape based on networks and their connections. It is a reciprocal business climate and we need to make it beneficial for all parties.

I dedicate this post to Vishwanath Krishnamoorthy who made so many deep comments on my posts that enriched my mind.

You may find a visual and modified presentation of this post here.

16

A New Path of ThinkingMy mind was ready to write a post when my eyes fill on a LinkedIn post by the thinker Brad Fergusson. The post reads as follows:

I found myself immersed in this post and taking a different path by writing a different post.The story begins like follows: the performance of an employee may be estimated from the following equationPerformance - Desirability X AbilityBut are all people with enough levels of ability and desirability equally successful? In some cases they are not. So, what is wrong? What is the missing piece of this logo?

The above image gave me the clue to answer this puzzle. It might be commitment

17

A New Path of Thinking

that is the missing piece. Is there an evidence to support this postulation? And on a discovery mission I started my sailing. What are the components of commitment? Is there an equation for estimating commitment I was blessed with a quick finding of the equation of commitment and the details of its components.

You shall be committed if you:

Treasures--the rewards you get from pursuing the relationship or goal. Troubles--the difficulties you experience. remember that Troubles have five times more weight than Treasures- a point that I shall explain later.

Contributions--the time, energy, and tangible resources you’ve devoted to your relationship. and

Choices--the options you do or don’t have- the more options you have, the less committed you shall be.

For example, a new mother will contribute her time, and energy to look after her newly-born baby. However; if she has a twin her contribution to each one of them will be less because she has two options for the same resources of time, energy and other attributes.

You have figured it out. The equation to commitment is:

Level of Commitment = (Treasures – Troubles) + Contributions – Choices

People will perform not only if they have the ability and desire, but also if their level of commitment is high because of limited options and treasures that outweigh troubles and where they feel their contributions are making the difference.

Now, I even understand better my previous post on Network Sharing Based Marketing. The fungi and host plants share information and nutrients. They have been doing that for ages. And they are still committed. The fungi has limited choices for some basic nutrients and so are the plants. They have few options to depart company. They are willing to contribute because if the plant dies, so will the fungi and vice versa. It is survival at stake. They are exchanging food and regardless of the troubles, if any, this exchange would cost.

Rod King, Ph. D developed the ratio of (Delight/Pain). I believe it is that we may increase pain so that customers would stay committed. As I outlined in my last post building a networks of known deficiencies so that a business would get hurt as the customer would get hurt by departing is the way to keep customers. It is the creative approaches that shall find ways of doing that because we limit options and make the cost of the troubles so high that both parties couldn›t part company and even if they wanted to. Thank you dear Brad Fergusson - PBP for the Inspiration

18

Instant Times and Emerging HabitsWe are living in instant times- instant coffee, instant capturing of images, instant calls, instant services from coin machines and many other forms. Instant triggers allow you to divert your patterned thinking and move into new space of thinking. I find myself opening few windows simultaneously to check ideas and probe their worth. Instant emerging tweet triggers that send you in pursuit of fresh news are among the detracting forms of the instant societies we are turning into. Social media mirror these phenomena. Instant messengers, instant reply, e-mail alerts and instant sharing of images and videos and the instant possibility of connecting with others all exemplify the way our societies are turning into instant ones. You need more examples, just download a video and see how patient you are with the downloading rate.

19

The more we get into the habit of instant services and information, the more we expect to get things delivered in no time. If we advertise we expect instant rewards. We are getting more impatient with waiting times. Where would all this emerging habits lead us to?

Emergence brings changes with it. The explosion of information is one example. Just Google any search items and in few seconds you shall get million of citations. Which ones to read? Mostly, you shall be in an instant decision-making situation based on many attributes such as: the title, random selection, eye-capturing image, video with a nice thumbnail, order of the citations in the page or other factors. You need to be creative in capturing the senses to make people read your stuff.

Creative solutions are emerging. Twitter, for example, is rewarding ads with many clicks by lowering the fees of these ads. As the lifetime of tweets is decreasing you need to add fresh tweets quite often. Shrinking times and more work is required reflecting the mounting stress placed on our shoulders.

Realizing which materials travel fast and attract readers may furnish the opportunity of using this material as a «carrier». For example, a tweet that is retweeted with very short cycle times are candidates to for you to retweet and meanwhile use the tweet as a carrier like a dandelion uses the wind to «carry» its seeds. This is kind of parasitic advertising.

20

Mentioning the dandelion brings a second issue into this discussion. Have you ever watched Seeing how things grow like a dandelion. Growth takes time and only when we see the full cycle of growth we enjoy it and observe development as they look backwards on the growth process. This is a serious issue as we may not see things instantly. We need time to do that. It is surprising how impatient we are getting. The dandelion video took time to produce and the process is shown in less than two minutes video. Yet; some viewers move the video forward to skip frame and see how it ends. This is tempting me to conclude that:

Observation is going to be a victim of the emerging instant habits. One observation that captured my eye and is worthy of observing is shown on this

video on Time lapse - whole gecko eaten by ants in just a few hours! If you watch the video or the screen-captured frame below (if you don›t have time to watch the video) is of ants feeding on the gecko in great numbers, and yet I have not

seen two ants colliding. It is amazing how ants do that and what lessons we may derive from them.

21

Is this due to the ALEE Effect in which Allee was able to demonstrate that conclude that aggregation can improve the survival rate of individuals?

It occurred to me to offer the idea of new classification system for postings on social media. It is derived from ACFOR. is an acronym for a simple, somewhat subjective scale used to describe species abundance within a given area It is the easiness and almost time free ease of publishing that mey tempt us to flood the internet with posts.

A– The species observed is «Abundant» within the given area. C– The species observed is «Common» within the given area. F– The species observed is «Frequent» within the given area. O– The species observed is «Occasional» within the given area R– The species observed is «Rare» within the given area.

Should we classify our posts accordingly? How will this affect our frequency of posting? We don›t fly- but time flies. It is getting more difficult to catch time than to catch your shadow?

I look forward to your feedback.

22

A Challenging Writing Metaphor The number of publications is growing rapidly. Readers have less time to read and look for quick «injections» such as solid synopsis, talking images and reflecting keywords.

Why do you want to write? Do you have a unique idea to publish so as to get feedback? What is a unique idea? Is there a metaphor to help us in writing with uniqueness?

These questions were bombarding in my mind. I went back to the ACFOR Scale and tailored it to reflect on ideas.

23

I could also project ideas on a Long-Tail Distribution (or, I should I say Long- Neck Distribution, or as in this image it is both long-neck and short-tail combined)?

The Long-Neck Distribution of Ideas

Ideally, we are looking for an idea that is rare as it has not been discussed on a wide scale with the simultaneity of having high value for the reader.

Idea seeds what comes to my mind next. What seeds are rare, sold at profitable prices? Why such seeds are rare and do they serve in for high-value added ideas? I started my journey that ended on landing on the Wasabi seeds. Wasabi

24

is a rare plant that grows in limited areas of Japan. To grow, these seeds have strict condition of limited temperature zone tolerance, very specific exposure conditions to sunlight, correct nutrients and watering procedure. Being rare apparently comes from the unique growth requirements. Do you have a rare idea? Why is it rare and very few people thought about it?

So, rare writing ideas require growth under specific conditions. Too much exposure to sunlight, flooding them with many divergent thoughts might hurt the «idea crop». Not only that as wasabi seeds require long times to mature. Seeds of great ideas are similar and need time to mature. being rare also means their acceptability shall be low at the beginning. As banks are reluctant to fund startups wasabi projects so are readers of rare ideas they not accept rare ideas with open arms. Endurance is the secret in following up on a writing ideas that are rare, take time to crystallize out under strict conditions only to find out that they are not welcome! Writers must stick to their vision and pursue it because they realize these limitations.

Planting wasabi seeds is challenging and need hand-on expertise. You need to try, and only to find the result is a dead plant. Writers may try repeatedly to grow the rare seed of their ideas only to find that the art of writing is rewriting. A writer is not writing on a normal idea and rare ideas need specific writing conditions.

harvesting of the wasabi plant require different procedures than what farmers are accustomed to. It is a challenge to change the habits of farmers. It is even a more difficult task for a writer to find people who would change their habit of accepting a new harvest that requires new harvesting mentality.

Will rare ideas continue to be as rare as rare nutrients? The supply of rare ideas is limited, but their demand is limited to. What a waste!

I dedicate this post to all writers who generated rare ideas of quality, but were not received with the attention they deserve.

25

We Have Bad Habits at Home and Work- 2 Rules to Deal with It amazes me how some seemingly relevant phenomena pass unnoticed because of procrastinating on reporting their relevance or because of shortsightedness in observing the relevance. We all suffer from bad habits at home and work, emerging bad societal habits and bad habits of some customers. See this and this. So, how to handle them. This post offers two rules to deal with bad habits.

We have live example of long-standing experiences on how to infuse habit changes. Equally, we have experiences in changing habits of birds and animals that may benefit us in managing changes of habits. I am sharing few examples with you and charting out two rules based on these experiences.

Chicken have the habit of eating their own eggs. Once a chicken tastes a broken

26

egg and enjoys it develops the habit of eating eggs. This is a costly habit to the owner. How to change this habit?

A quick suggestion would be to kill the egg-eating chicken. This is an easy solution; however if other chicken develop same habit would the owner kill them all? There must be better solutions

A far better solution to change a habit that is also extensible to humans as I shall explain later is following 1st rule, which I formulated as follows»If a person or animal has the habit f doing something you don›t like then force that person or animal into actions they don›t like».

Let me explain this by examples. In the case of the egg-eating chicken filling the egg with a repulsive filling material to the chicken will stop the chicken eating the eggs. Keep repeating this action for few days then the chicken behavior of avoiding eating the eggs shall progress into a habit. Once the chicken develop this habit you don›t need to do fill the eggs with the pungent material anymore.

This rule I am suggesting has been tested. For example, in a female secondary school the girls used to print the mirrors in the restrooms with their lipstick. The cleaners had to clean the mirrors frequently each day. Nothing worked to stop the girls from their acquired habit. The above-mentioned rule worked: the girls were doing an action the headmaster didn›t like. Then force the misbehaving students with an action they dislike. The female students were invited to a session to see how the cleaners cleaned the mirrors. Guess with what they did an actual cleaning? With the toilet water- that was enough to stop the bad habit.

A nice story testifies for the applicability of this rule. A man used a donkey to carry sacs of salt to the other side of a water stream. The donkey had to cross a small wooden bridge on its way. On a hot day and as the donkey was crossing the bridge few naughty boys were around and they pushed the donkey into the water below. The salt melted and the donkey felt relieved from the blazing sun. Next day the donkey voluntarily threw itself in the water and next day. It then developed the habit of doing that on an autopilot. The owner didn›t know what to do. He consulted many people and the winning suggestion was by applying the rule I am suggesting here. I hope you guessed the answer. Don›t jump for it and leave the habit of jumping. Well, find an action that the donkey dislikes. Instead of carrying salt- make it carry clay. When the donkey threw

27

You have a cat at home that has the habit of jumping at furniture and you wonder if you able to apply the rule I am suggesting here? Well, little knowledge helps here. To apply the rule you need to know what cats dislike. Cats hate sticky materials and cold water. Spray the cat with cold water each time it jumps onto furniture. Do that frequently because the pleasure of jumping shall soon be offset with the pain of feeling cold. The bad habit shall end soon.

You have a problem with your son because he doesn›t like to study? A problem with an outstanding employee who has the habit arriving late to work? You can apply the previous rules to change these bad habits?

Our societies are becoming distracted ones with people getting distracted from work, friends, conversations and active life by constantly «playing» with their mobiles. We need to know why. cats start to scratch when feel neglected. They have this habit. his is a strong emotional trigger. cats are not only hungry for food, but also for emotion. They need some attention. Do that, but not on the

itself in water the clay absorbed water and became heavier. The owner kept doing that till one day the donkey stopped throwing itself in water. That time the owner put again salt sacs because a donkey doesn›t know what it carries.

28

expense of annoying you if they fail to get what they want. The rapidly growing habit of distraction needs special care to deal with. Habits Substitution Or Purposefully Distraction- Habit Substitution would help. for example, if you have no time to give emotion to a cat find something for the cat while you are out that keeps the cat happy doing something it likes with the simultaneity of being less-attention demanding from your end. If the cat enjoying kicking balls give her a place to play with them. By the time you come home the cat is not bored and is exhausted from playing and thus demanding less attention.

The 2nd rule here is «Don›t punish habits based on needy emotional triggers- rather reward them with likable substitutions».

There are more rules. For now, I say it is not always Rule 1 or Rule -2 it could be both together.

29

Sour Feelings and Sour Food- inspirational ideasThe question that occupies my mind these days is whether sour emotions and sour food have something in common. Would our bodies receive sour food the same way it receives sour news? Would then sour food be a physical metaphor for sour news and sour feelings?

let me address the question in a different way. If you eat sour food what feelings follow? Likewise; if you hear sour news what do you feel? Or, when we eat sour food how do we feel like? Recent studies show even facial expressions reveal our feelings towards the food we eat. Facial expressions towards bitter tastes reflected in frowning, turning up their noses, opening their eyes wide or screwing up their eyes. Different tastes show different facial expressions.

A very interesting research has established that feelings share some very real biochemical links with our nervous, endocrine, immune and digestive systems. This great link throws light on how our bodies talk to our minds by revealing

30

some puzzling findings. It is the information carrying molecules that cause our arousals to feelings- apparently regardless of their origin. These molecules perform a vast range of functions. They travel through our extra-cellular fluids and hook up with specific, highly selective receptors located on cells throughout the body. Once attached, they impart molecular messages that can dramatically impact our physiological functioning at the cellular and systemic levels.

It turns out that biochemical reactions to mental and emotional stimuli – your everyday thoughts and feelings – occur not just in the brain but also, often simultaneously, in virtually every system of our body.

If you are writing a story and you want to be consistent in expressing the inner feeling- then watch somebody who has is eating a type of food with a taste that resembles the feelings of the person the writer is describing. A writer can even go a step forward- by showing how a character›s negativity advances to positivity, to give one example. Like sweet milk that may turn into a sour one so are some characters who receive sweet news only to turn them sour. Watch that and record the facial expressions to reflect the visual changes of the character to give an honest description of this change of feelings. Tastes generate feelings and different feelings show different facial expressions.

But more than that is how same material may produce different tastes. Back to sweet milk, we may produce different tastes from it depending on how we treat it. By adding lemon juice or vinegar to it produces different grades of sour milk. Novel characters may be as sweet as sweet milk, but adding drops of sour incidents might ferment in their bodies to different feelings and different behaviors accordingly.

31

Great leaders are few in numbers.

I have a new definition for them. Great leaders are those leaders who make you feel the sour sweet.

There is a rare African plant that if you take it granules and stick it on the tongue and roll it around for about a minute so that every surface of the mouth is coated then you take sour lemon you shall taste it sweet. Great leaders and heroes know how and when to produce «granules of sweet news» so that we feel the sour sweet.

A lemon shall only give lemon juice- it is how you change the juice creatively that makes us different. It is also up to us to give sweet juice or a sour one. We might excrete inside us acidic feelings that turn the sweet juice into sour one. It is stress, worry, procrastination hatred, envy and other negative feelings that turn our sweet life into sour ones. People might look for a coating «shield» to protect themselves from the sour breath of negative people.

32

We Plan and Destiny LaughsHuman relationships are complex and the complexity builds up as emotions have a prominent role in initiating, prolonging and terminating relationship. Adding sweeteners, salty materials, kneading, stretching and folding of the dough and having a doubtful attitude on the dough represent a metamorphic picture of the human relationship.

Flour behaves differently when mixed with water. The reason is that two molecules in the presence of water build a relationship by cross-linking their chains. The resulting protein is the ill-famed Gluten. Upon kneading or stretch and folding Gluten produces elastomeric strands of Gluten. Fermentation of starch, a major component of dough, carbon dioxide gas which is trapped by the strands of Gluten and thus increasing the volume of bread. This is a good example of «cooperation»

33

between two chemicals to produce a voluminous dough with some order resulting from the oriented strands.Order coming out of Disorder

Stretching and folding has been used extensively to represent chaos. If you place two adjacent marks on a dough and stretch and fold the dough few times the two dots separate widely. This is a disorderly and complex behavior. I dare say that:

For every disorder there is an order acting in the opposite direction. For every chaotic human relationship there exists the possibility of finding an orderly possibility within this chaos.

Like two molecules that produce resilience from the cross-linking of chains of two cooperating molecules, can›t we then build same within the extended dough of the human relationship? We need chains of people to have their interests cross-link so that chaos may breed order. No, we need majority to do a useful action that the chains may trap like starch producing gas, which are trapped by the strands to give resilience to the whole system while increasing its value.

My dear friend Dr. Vincenzo de Florio is a prominent researcher on resilience. His wonderful publications testify to what I am saying. I don›t know if this idea shall appeal to him. I know for example, we may increase the resilience of asphalt by adding rubber to it. Far better would be producing resilience in situ, whereby members of a human network would find interests that they may cross-link to each other that act as a resilience-building relationship.

We have always associated the flour dough with disorder. May be this is one reason that distracted our attention of the way order emerges from building healthy relationships with this order.

I mean here building using the chaotic dough of relationships as a carrier to order-building.

The flour dough is amenable the timing of adding a new material. I f you want to prevent gluten formation then you need to add a barrier to prevent two molecules that cross-link by changing their behavior. Adding butter as a first step will coat the two molecules and this eliminating their ability to cross-link. Small things that change the behavior of components and the behavior of the whole system accordingly. We may do that in life. Just find the people who shared interests to cross-link each other and stop them doing that. You may change a society because of small actions. And we are doing this without noticing. The strong anti-gluten campaign are mounting and gluten-free products are invading the markets.

34

There are no conclusive proofs that gluten is harmful except for a minority of people. New industries are emerging based on freeing your food completely from gluten. The dough is showing the Butterfly Effect. A minority of people who suffered from Gluten are spreading a hostile attitude to all products that contain gluten. Truly, the dough is retaining its reputation as an example of chaos. A food with a negligible amount of gluten next to one with claims of %100 gluten-free. Very minor differences that shall sway their marketability on different trajectories even though they are very near on the starting dough.

We plan and destiny laughs. Can we build in-situ resilience in the chaotic human emotions?

35

Emotional Marketing- New PerspectivesTwo real stories come to my mind and arouse me to write this post.

The first story is recalling my days at the glorious University of East Anglia (UK) where I did my PhD. I went there to do post doctorate research. It was summer time and one of my students attended the university. He was newly married. On a beautiful summer day we were in the open green yard of the campus exchanging memories. Suddenly, my students› wife saw from a distance a man walking his dog. She turned reddish and said «dogs scare me». As the dog got closer to us she lost nerves and became really scared. Suddenly, the dog ran loose and headed directly to her. It was miraculous that the dog didn›t bite her. What message did the lady send to the dog that she was afraid?

The second story is one that I am moved by, but don›t remember where I read it or the exact wordings. A blind man has a signboard saying «I am blind. Please help».

36

Few passersby donated money. A lady passes by and wrote on the backside of the signboard «Please help me enjoy the spring as you do». WOW! as many people donated money.

These two stories show how emotions bring actions and how they may increase the rate of action. In the first story a dog «locks» itself to a definite cite (the lady) and not people accompanying her. In the second story emotions reaching their «transition states» and giving the product: action of donation.

The AIDA Loop is constitutes of Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Emotions triggered the dog to act and the passing by people donate. Will Emotional Marketing then lead faster to actions symbolized in purchasing?

New research findings throw much light on answering questions related to emotions and how they act. Emotions causes certain message-carrying chemicals to be excreted in our bodies. For example, people donated more money when they watched images of a patient›s cells infected by cancer. Their bodies produced a hormone connected with empathy and feelings with others and so they acted by donating money.But there is more to this story. People donate when feeling emphatic, but why do they go to a specific cite and lock to it? Why the key of donation finds its properly shaped lock? These people would still donate to other deserving parties, but why this case in particular? To answer this question I find the work of Enoch Tan extremely illuminating. In his post titled Awareness locks Reality and Emotion attracts It he discusses two laws. In the first one «The law of attraction says that what you focus on with your consciousness will be caused to manifest in your experience of reality». This explains what the lady experienced in the first story I mentioned earlier. The second law is The

37

Law of Freewill bases itself on awareness. Images increase our awareness and our freewill will lock our choices to donate to a particular choice. I would add here that commitment reduces options. The freewill based on knowing and being aware of a particular issue increase the commitment, thus reducing the options and for actions then to be locked in one place.

Recent research opens the field of emotional marketing wide open. Science is now showing us with increasing clarity that our feelings and thoughts can help make us sick (or well) in a variety of ways that are definitely not “all in our head.” Contrary to all previous understanding that emotions are dealt with in the brain might not be true and that our whole body is involved. Thanks to new imaging technologies, research scientists have now been able to demonstrate how thoughts and emotions cause distinct neuron-firing patterns within various parts of the brain. They can also observe how these patterns coincide with chemical releases and reactions throughout the body.

These research findings shall lead to improving our understanding of emotions. Marketing to be successful must end up with action. This wave must propagate to action. I therefore prefer to draw the AIDA Loop as a wave. How to make this wave «attract» similar waves and have visual representation of these waves to enhance the freewill of customers is a wave worthy of riding.

38

Thinking On the Edge of the BoxI am not n the mood to write, but a post saying Think Outside the Box aroused me. Do we really need to do that.? Creativity has many definitions, one of which is change the familiar into unfamiliar and vice versa. So, think inside the box is the opposite. But this is going to the other extreme. Then how about thinking on the edge of the box? It is where tension of keeping the balance is a dominant player.

39

Thinking in the box is like staying in your comfort zone. You experience no challenges, changes are limited and the driven for creative solutions is dim. You are happy the way things are going and you are devoid of real challenges.

Companies that focus on their inner core strength and are happily building on this strength end up as losers. Kodak is a striking example of in-box thinking, which led the company to where it is now. Building on strength without taking care of the changing world outside is a recipe for bankruptcy.

Thinking outside the box may expose our minds and hearts to the tension of rapid changes that stress us because we have no control upon these changes. We feel helpless to the degree the outside environment. We become like a sheet of paper going where the blowing wind takes it. Rapid changes impossible to control. Creativity becomes an impossible dream. You are lost of your core roots and have no direction to follow. Helpless minds are helpless in generating creative ideas.

I still remember when a lecture I was giving sometimes ago. I gave one example of SInger, the sewing company. One trainee commented that Singer manufactured fridges as well. I was surprised for always Singer meant quality sewing machines. Moving away from deep core strengths because of market needs will not work in the long run. We have to see a tree yielding many different fruits at the same time. Why then some companies insist on having many different products from the same tree?

We all have experienced moving from a dark zone to suddenly into the bright sunlight. Or, when driving getting confused by the bright sun and we rush to the sun screen for help. This is what we encounter in sudden moves of our thinking from the darkness of the in box thinking to the bright sun of out of the box thinking. So, what is the solution? It is on the edge of box where we may still care for our core strengths and improving them. Let us go back to the tree example and ponder on its image below:

40

The tree is exposed to varying conditions in its air surroundings and its roots are exposed to changes in the soil composition, fungi growth, nutrients and water. You notice that the tree has leaves that are in direct exposure to the outside world, whereas other leaves are less exposed to the environment. This gradation helps the tree adapt.

Organizations must be exposed to the outside world to see new trends and envision the future. They are in contact with their external customers to get ideas from them and complaints. These inputs are circulated to the inner departments who in turn adapt. This is a continuous process.

It is on the edge of chaos that creative self-organizing happens. Likewise. it is on the edge of the box that great things happen. It is the edge of choices, of ideas, of adaptation.

It is because of our familiarity that we keep drawing the box in a cubic shape. How about drawing it in a tree-like shape? Strange attractor shape? Or, are we happy in thinking outside of the box while using a conventional shape of the box? Or, are we thinking of a void box? How about filling it with a tree?

We need to be creative? We need to change our familiarity with the out of the box thinking first.

Brad Fergusson- you know that one of your posts triggered the idea of this post. Thank you.

41

The Black Side of Recruiting TalentsTalents are rarity and companies are in a race to employ them. I believe one beautiful aspect of employing talents is the beauty they have in their hearts for whatever they do. They are productive because they have the lights in heart to photosynthesize their ideas so as to germinate great flowery plants. The talented inner beauty might not be observed by every manager.Talents Need Talented Attention

Because talents are a rare breed, they need special attention. The productivity of talents vary with many factors including the «make up» f the talented person, the work environment and the surrounding environment. Talented people produce seed ideas that may show different germination patterns. Rare talents produce rare seeds of ideas that may behave differently from normal idea seeds. Equally important is the environment in which idea seeds are planted. Like real plant seeds which grow in deserts some seeds have very special requirements such as

42

they shall only bloom if rainfall arrives at the proper time and that a winter freeze occurs before they will bloom. A talented manager realizes that not all seeds behave similarly.Recruiting Talents Could Be Risky

Talented people have the inner beauty in their hearts that helps them be productive. It is this inner light that may bring risks to businesses. Like a rare plant hosting a parasitic plants, so rare talents may bring along problems of employees benefiting while hiding from the talented employees. They are like the plant Rafflesia arnoldii, which is a rare parasitic plant. This parasitic plant is capable of producing one of the largest flowers ever known. But how does it produce this flower that may draw attention away from the host plant with its size and rotten smell? It is because this parasitic plant has no roots or leaves. It is hiding in the host plant and It only becomes visible when its buds emerge through the host bark and develops into the large, fleshy flowers. Talents may become a rich source for providing ideas filled with nutrients to some people to grow secretly and then to flower and spread the place. Only, later for talents to leave.They are the ones who did the work and the talents become obscure from light and the light in their heart dims.We see this in life. One example is a soccer match. A talented player comes up with a creative idea to score goals. And who gets the credit at the end? Most likely the «idea seed generator» is forgotten.

Many parasitic plants don’t have the chemical that is needed for photosynthesis. They depend on host plants for their food. One example is broomrapes. It does not have chlorophyll and therefore in order to germinate, grow and flower it must get its nutrients from the host plant. Talented people have lights in their hearts and minds and they are capable to feed who might be undeserving to grow. They have the built-in light to synthesize ideas with the risk of doing that for the wrong staff.

43

This might be a daring article. But thinking of an undoubted talent in soccer like Maradona and why he thrived in Napoli and not Barcelona throws questions on why talents leave. A study published in Forbes showed ten reasons why talents leave. lack of appreciation and disrespect to the person they report to were prominent factors.

Talents do bring added value, but with the cost that they also attract non-performers. Truly, in life we don›t get anything for nothing.

It is not enough to take care of the talented requirements, but also what risks their recruitment bring as well.

44

The Poorly Understood FearA simple question: what is the opposite of fear? This is an important question as we behave between opposites such as strength and weaknesses. If one pole is fear then what is on the opposite pole? If you answered courage then you fall in the same trap that I fell in for long times.

Fear varies in intensity and types such as fear of heights, fear of plants, fear of the unknown, fear of loss, fear of beauty and fear of failing are just few examples. Some fears we understand, but some fears like fear of plants are still ambiguous.

Long- standing fear may also develop into other passive state o senses like shyness. There is a neurobiology of shyness. At least three brain centers that mediate fear and anxiety orchestrate the whole-body response we recognize as shyness. Think of it as an over-generalized fear response. So fear may appear in different faces.State of Senses and Actions

45

if you sense a food as distasteful then your action would be to stop eating it. By the same token if you sense fear your action would be to fight or flight. Fear is not an action: it is a sense. Fear of something you don›t know or know little about creates hate; which in turn leads to violence. fear could also lead to folding into oneself. This reminds me of the Shy Plant. This plant, scientifically known as, Mimosa pudica is a creeping annual often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, defending themselves from harm, and re-open a few minutes later. To see what action «shyness» does to this plant I strongly advise the reader to visit this link. It is mesmerizing.

The Opposite of Fear

So, what is the opposite of fear? It is not courage as courage is action whereas fear is a state of your sense. We have different views on this issue, but aren›t in contradiction. In one case the author sees peace is the opposite of fear. According to this post, the opposite of fear is a sense of state the author named is peace. You are in peace with yourself when you are almost free of fear. In another post, the author states that the opposite of fear is trust. When there is trust in self, fear disappears.

46

We have to remember that opposites always co-exist. The overwhelming on one should not obscure the fact that the other exists. I covered this topic in my presentation titled: Coexistence of Opposites. So, while we suffer from fear, we must stay assured that trust/peace are there to help. It is purging those «sleepy» senses and tilting more towards them that helps. It is putting oneself in the positive state of senses. If we stay in one state of sense then most likely we develop this sense as a habit. I call this «Senses Habits». These states become our zone of comfort even though they hurt us. We need to balance the opposites states of senses so that we don›t get addicted to one on the expense of another.

A second approach would be to change your actions if you are in one state that leads to a repeated action. I have a friend when angered by his wife he would break anything. How to change this habit or alleviate its consequences, his wife asked me? I applied Rule 1 s stated on my post on LinkedIn titled « We Have Habits at Home and Work:

«If a person or animal has the habit f doing something you don›t like then force that person or animal into actions they don›t like»

I suggested to her to buy a false crystal glass and pretend it was terribly expensive. The husband later threw the glass and it shattered. His wife started complaining about him breaking a «piece of her memory». Since then, then husband has the habit of asking his wife before breaking anything of asking «is it expensive? . That gives the wife the few seconds `to calm my husband and make him feel peace within».

47

The More We Know, the Less We Know Look at the fractal below and sense what emotions you feel. Look at the same fractal again in presence of others and see if your emotions vary. Look at different times at the same fractal and check if you still have the same emotions.

48

Did you experience same emotions? Mixed emotions? Did you find that the «social emotions» are contagious to yours?

Looking at fractals is a beautifying experience. Some of us will get hungry to know more about fractals. This hunger turns to enthusiasm, which translates into action. If a group of us are present and started doing the same action what would happen if there is only cone pc available to the group to check the internet? May be we experience some emerging patterns. I draw this conclusion from my experience watching the lovely video below.

The video shows six hungry puppies moving randomly with almost no interactions among them. However; when a limited amount of milk is poured in a bowl their hunger made them enthusiastic to act and push each other to reach the milk. An emergent behavior emerged: circling the bowl in a pinwheel pattern.

The sequence may represented as follows:

Hunger> Enthusiasm> Action> emergent behavior.

49

Fish schools initiate from fear of swimming alone. This drives the action for fish to swim together. This action in turn generates a sense of feeling safe. It is turning the emotion from fear to safety that prompted their collective swimming action. Or, may be.

Could anybody speculate this behavior? We know now that a pattern exists, but we find that we are deeper in the unknown. We know more to know less.Our Hunger for Knowledge

Hunger for knowledge drives us to satisfy this hunger. What if we have the opposite emotions? We have experienced this . The missing love among most students to math and statistics make the students repel the idea of learning these two subjects. How do emotions evolve? What do we now about them so as to improve the missing appetite of students learning these two subjects or any other subject we don›t like.

There is a great study on the reaction of students to learning. In this research the researchers first clarified how the role of affect, and more specifically emotions, in mathematics learning and problem solving can be conceived. I quote the following from the research document «Students’ mathematics-related beliefs, but especially their self-beliefs related to math (e.g., their expectancy and value beliefs), have been shown to be influential factors determining the interpretation and appraisal processes constituting their emotions». That is to say emotions and beliefs feedback to each other.

Emotions change fast. In the case of students trying to solve the math problems showed different emotional developments, as I summarize in the image below:

50

Emotions vary and so will our beliefs and actions. Our emotional experience have their own landscape that is affected by the society around us, our beliefs, emotions,The Emotions Butterfly Effect

There is a great study on the reaction of students to learning concluded that small differences in the knowledge and beliefs as well as in the specific characteristics of the local social context that determine the initial appraisal processes, result in significantly different emotional experiences of, for example, anger or fear with possibly different behavioral consequences. Is this different from our reactions to seeing the fractals, the puppies video or us taking a task that we don›t like. It is amazing how leaders may try small changes that may enhance the performance of employees and send them in flying colors, or vice versa.

If the complexity of the previous discussion is not enough, then how about the recent discovery of three new emotions by Hallmark? The first emotion the project successfully isolated was «requiapathy,» the combination of relief and guilt that comes with the sudden realization that you no longer miss a dead loved one. That discovery quickly led to the uncovering of «seprudity,» the feeling of appreciating a coworker›s dedication without fully understanding his or her job function, and «trepatiousness,» a synthesis of rage and jealousy, though more muted and often accompanied by a sensation of weighlessness.

Notice that emotions are like chemicals as they react. Relief and guilt generates a new emotion, named requiapathy, pertinent to losing a beloved one. I believe DR. Edward Lewellen must have a special interest in this new finding. There is a very interesting studies on the combination of emotions. Emotions Mapping is very demonstrated and it shows how emotions react with each other.Learning Organizations

Yes, indeed learning, but how to manage emotions towards learning that drives actions when the emotions of learning are varied among employees? In recent work environments in which the cycle times of new products is diminishing, the need to innovate rapidly new products, the need to understand customers› emotional drive are just few examples of how much more we need to know.

We are living in a fractal world of discoveries that is leading us into a larger fractal of our lacking-behind knowledge. But the more we discover, the less we find that we know. Will this spur our emotional drive to learn? Or, will it subdue our drive to learn for we find that we are chasing an impossible dream?

I would rather know how much more I need to know.

51

Thinking Fast and Assuming FasterIs fast thinking healthy all the times? If you say yes then I invite you to read this post in full.

Let me start by showing the images below.

52

In the upper part the water is quiet and you can see below the water surface. In contrast, the lower part shows turbulent waters and it is very hard to see below the water surface.

Our brains consist of around %73 water. Our hearts are similar. Our brains and hearts are essentially water that we fill with ideas, emotions and imaginations. Ideas come fast and emotions may be running high. These ideas and emotions are like wind and they may make the water in our bodies turbid. These are the moments when we should stop and smell the «ideas and emotions». Ponder and take a breath. We are then only seeing the surface and you don›t know what is going under our «heart and brain». We must stop and allow the water to calm and then restart.

Failing to do so results in costly actions. Look at the stock markets everywhere when the volume of trading increases rapidly. Like the waters of a river that become turbid when running fast so are the waters of stock markets. They become turbid, investors see only the turbid surfaces. They feel lost, become irrational in their thinking and rush fast to finish their dealings. What investors actually is that they make the water more turbid for themselves. They make the bad worse and no wonder few people make profits in the stock markets.

We are all investors. We invest our times and energy in doing what we do. As I am writing this post I am thinking how many posts shall be shared today. The rate of publishing is increasing so rapidly that the «waters of publishing» are turbid. We perplex readers with so many different posts running at the same times. Are authors making the waters more turbid for the readers?

The rate of change is getting so fast that it makes me wonder how many theories are there on change management that are wrong. They assume that change is slow and the waters of change are quiet. No change management is possible unless we make the waters of change less turbid.

It is so easy to grow your social networks and very fast. You are like me constantly receiving offers (which I decline) to add few thousand followers immediately for less than ten US dollars. Yes, grow your network fast and make the waters of your social network turbid and become unable to see what goes underneath.

53

Keeping pushing the waters in our hearts and minds higher and higher will only lead to turbulent hearts and minds. Are our societies turning into «confused societies»? Is our social capital eroding? when water runs fast we make assumptions about people and we believe them- only to lose. fast changes may lead to fast assumptions that are wrong.

We are limited in time and space. Rapid growth of posts, technologies or whatever is bound to reach levels beyond our capacities. At that time either we self-organize or go into deep chaos and more chaotic than turbulent waters. Turbulent waters hit a rock and lose energy to get quieted. What rocks shall we hit.I dedicate this post Magdalena-Maria GROSU to for her relentless efforts to build a healthy social capital.

54

We Are Value Throwaway SocietiesThe World Bank warned that global solid waste generation was on pace to increase 70 percent by 2025, rising from more than 3.5 million tons per day in 2010 to more than 6 million tons per day by 2025. This is a continuing trend and we need different thinking to deal with issue. These facts coupled with the increasing tendency to make convenient throw-away products such packages will ensure that the waste throwaway trend shall keep gaining momentum.

There is a fundamental question before addressing this issue. This question is pertinent to our view of wastes as cheap materials not worthy of keeping. This is regardless the costly impacts of throwing away wastes on our ecosystems. What we do is turn a waste into a major harm.

55

The increasing trend of bad throwaway habits stems from our negative thinking and attitudes. If we just change the attitude to: we have cheap resources of materials- how to turn them into useful and marketable products? This way our perspective changes from low-quality wastes to opportunity-providing wastes.Examples Testify the Previous Claim

Baby napkins are thrown away with the gel sacs inside them. These sacks help babies stay dry as the gel absorbs water more than 50-40 times its volume. A creative mind found a use for this gel in container gardening. The gel helps the plant in the container to retain water, repel insects and keep it fresh for long times. The container might be another waste such as shopping bags. This way we may even grow plants in arid areas. What a wonderful idea that is! Combining two wastes to produce nice fruits and variety of plants. Somebody might say it is repulsive to use gels taken from napkins. Well, there are many gels used in pharmaceutical packages, electronic packages and in all packages that are sensitive to water. Wouldn›t it then be a great ideas to show your family how two waste products combine to make valuable applications? You can even teach the family in-house how to select the container and the plant within a thoughtful strategy. Strategy is knowing your direction. What plants to select? What are the requirements of those plants (you may change the plant for customers want)? What space requirements? What are the water requirements so that you may determine the amount of gel to use? What soil to use? what are the critical success factors? For example, a slight contamination of the gel with salt might reduce the absorbing water capability of the gel by a factor of eight. This fact teaches us a lesson: contaminants might be low in ratio, but their negative action is drastic.

The gel mostly used I acrylic. The same material that w may use in decorating pools and in the manufacture of the coating of fiber optics. It is similar to the material used as an adhesive in the sticky notes papers. Sticky note is mostly

56

yellow. The reason is that initially the adhesive gel was applied on yellow waste water. Again, a genius example of using waste.

I remember when I was a kid (that was long times ago) my teacher asked a class how could they hold water in their hands. Few students answered by freezing it to ice first. One student was smart enough to answer and also by adding salt so that the ice so that it wouldn›t melt easily. My late brother, Azzam, answered «I don›t have to do anything- I can simply hold the water easily in my hands». The surprised teacher asked ironically «but how». My brother showed him his hands. The fingers were attached to each other with flesh in between like those of a duck. You might mock about the ideas in this post, but remember they might have a hidden value and we may hold them without difficulty. This is precisely how the gel works and holds water. It has a holding capacity because it forms waterlocks through internal bonding.

We need «Idealocks» so that we may hold new ideas instead of throwing them in the waste basket.

57

The Adjacent OppositesSome comments send the author into new lands that he has not even thought they exist. One comment did that to me. Martin Jay commented on my discussion thread titled Self-Organizing Is a Form of Emerging Rewards by saying «I found «Thinking Fast and Slow» by Daniel Kahneman an amazing recommendation by renowned thinkers. I have just got the copy. Might take time to complete this. I would love to hear about its relevance to Dr. Ali›s thought provoking post». Thinking, Fast and Slow is a best-selling 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Daniel Kahneman. It is amazing how changing names changes perspectives. We are familiar with the notation that our brains have two parts: the left half is for logical thinking, whereas the right part is for imaginative and creative thinking. Logical thinking is slow because it requires reasoning. In contrast, creative thinking may take no time as it comes as a spark. The two opposites are neighboring each other. However; too much use of one may subdue the other.

58

We may go on and change the names of the two parts of the brain. For example, the energy-consuming half and the relaxed half. This change of names also create different references in our minds and new ideas may emerge accordingly. I wonder if I call the two haves the relaxed versus the energized would still have an effect on us. Would I dare to name the logical part as the conversion half and the right brain as the divergent half? I have already dared. Diversion and conversion next dor to each other. One half of the mind focusing and the other sending us on a journey of creative imagination.I still could go on and call one part the habitual part as we tend to go in our comfort zone of repeating what we are familiar with. The other half of the brain is the inhabitual or infrequent part. Again, two opposites adjacent to each other. Are we living in the struggle of the opposites or their synchronization? Reverting to using habits is a form of fast thinking. Imagination is faster than logical thinking. So, when it comes to habits are we experiencing two fast thinking operating simultaneously?

59

Would I be right to call the two halves of the brain the fearless and the fearful halves? Or, may be better, the focused and orderly thinking half of the brain versus the unfocused and disorderly part of the brain? One part of the brain that generates chaotic ideas whereas the other half tries to suppress chaos by trying to put idea-generation into order. I could go on and name the left brain the tree and the right brain the forest. The left brain focuses and sets up orderly steps for logical thinking. The right brain sees the broad picture, the whole landscape and then may generate divergent ideas. Our minds are in the struggle between seeing a focused possibility or lots of them. This is similar to instructing a cook to use curry spice versus instructing him to use a spice of his choice. In the first case we focus his attention to one choice> because of having the habit of eating curry-spiced food we know the outcome and logically it is something that we like. In the second scenario we are giving the cook the choice, but we are not sure of the outcome. May be the food would taste good or not. There are doubts, adventure, discovery and hidden costs if we opt for this scenario. We are not in the comfort zone of selecting a car as long it is black. We are taking our option of selecting a color that we may later regret or not.There are people who tend to use logical thinking much more than imaginative thinking. And there are people on the opposite tending to use imaginative thinking than logical thinking. And there are people who switch between the two opposites. Who are happier? More productive? I dedicate this post to my friend Martin Jay who provoked my mind to go astray- hopefully to find my way.

60

The Journey to Finding My Purpose in LifeAmazing are the definitions of many words that we use daily such as strategy, leadership and purpose. So many definitions that send our minds in different directions and varied experiences accordingly.

My purpose for life is a question that clouds my mind quite often. What to do that I am passionate for? Will what I do have a value for others? Have I succeeded in finding my life purpose? Is it my purpose or copied from someone I admire?

I come from a scholar family (six PhDs) all spurred by educated parents. My late father Ahmad Anani was a renowned author. He wrote a book in English on The Early History of the Gulf Arabs. He influenced us by rewarding every one of us with nice presents for every book we read and summarized correctly. This way my brothers and I became addicted to reading.

61

As much as I liked reading, my mind loved chemistry and reading chemistry books. Even though I never scored less than a full mark in math; I hated to study engineering. I still don›t have the passion to draw engineering diagrams. I used to buy test tubes to experiment with preferring that to buying ice cream. I enjoyed the discovery and the uncovering of the unknown. It is the revealing of mysteries that grabbed my heart and hooked my mind.

I finished my PhD in chemistry and went on with my passion for discovery that resulted in more than 80 research papers in international journals.. Then one day I asked myself if doing more research was my purpose in life. I increasingly started to enjoy writing, but I felt I was writing for chemists only. I found my passion bifurcating in two directions: doing research or writing on topics of my choice. I realized my need to focus. Having many choices or passions is distracting. It is like having a TV with hundreds of channels. You end up watching almost none.

The question that changed my life was why use what I call separation thinking? Why does it have to be this or that? Why not both? Why not use my scientific background to tackle social issues and write about them? Since then my life took a different course and I have been engaged in doing that. I wrote four e-books and three printed books in Arabic. This is a tiring, but extremely enjoyable journey. Life is not what you take; it is much more what you give. Like a plant it takes the toxic

62

carbon dioxide and produces Oxygen- without which we cannot survive. I need to live a life where I feel I am contributing to the world and not to myself. What a wonderful life I enjoy when I am able to turn a toxic idea into a life-enriching one. Isn›t this a noble chemical reaction that is worthy to write about and expose to the world?

I keep asking myself as days roll by this question: if a pot oozes what it contains, then what I would like to ooze and what shape of a pot I wish to be? Creative ideas that link distant fields together to help people see different perspectives of the familiar is my answer. That is what I want and love doing. Find creative ideas and share them. What comes next is beyond my control and shouldn›t really bother me. My concern is re-fill the pot with more ideas, act on them and then share them. This loop shall take me to new levels without me noticing. A new me might emerge.

Who has a greater value in life: one who discovered a drug that relieved millions of sufferers or money-rich person who kept boosting about his wealth? It is our choice to be this or that. My purpose in life is to give people something of value. If I succeed that is great. If I fail at least I tried and I have the opportunity to learn and develop.

I dedicate this post to Dr. Edward Lewellen who wrote a message for me yesterday, which spurred me to write this post.

63

Lean Management of «Emotional Wastes»Amazing are the definitions of many words that we use daily such as strategy, leadership and purpose. So many definitions that send our minds in different directions and varied experiences accordingly.

My purpose for life is a question that clouds my mind quite often. What to do that I am passionate for? Will what I do have a value for others? Have I succeeded in finding my life purpose? Is it my purpose or copied from someone I admire?

I come from a scholar family (six PhDs) all spurred by educated parents. My late father Ahmad Anani was a renowned author. He wrote a book in English on The Early History of the Gulf Arabs. He influenced us by rewarding every one of us with nice presents for every book we read and summarized correctly. This way my brothers and I became addicted to reading.

64

Amazing is the number of citations on emotional wastes. Google produced more than staggering (62) million citations on emotional wastes. It occurred to that our experiences on lean management might be extensible to lean management of emotions. The combination of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing produces a combination of five rules that work extremely well together. Emotional wastes are known to exist. See, for example the article entitled “Emotions- It is a Terrible Thing to Waste”. It is valid, therefore, to apply the combined rules of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) to the manufacturing of emotional waste that we produce such as those experienced by investors in the stock market.

The main idea of using these laws is to increase overall speed and enhance customer satisfaction by focusing on improving the flow and speed of work processes. LSS has five approaches that are most efficient to reduce waste while maintaining speed. My idea is that the flow of emotions and the speed with which emotions flow are subject to the same LSS laws. The examples are extracted from the emotions prevailing in the stock markets; yet they are extensible to all forms of negative emotions whenever they are experienced.Overproduction of Emotions

Manufacturing Overproduction

Emotional Overproduction

Overproduction: Refers to producing more than what is required. This results in wasted products and labor

Investors in the stock market tend to overproduce emotions asymmetrically . The production of fear is faster than the production of greed

Excessive Transportation of Emotions

Manufacturing Excessive Transportation

Emotional Excessive Transportation

65

Excess Transportation: Refers to transportation costs that add to customers costs, but do not add value to the end product.

Investors in the stock market carry their feelings to each other, which results in herd behavior. When this exchange of feelings flows rapidly, chaos initiates.

Overproduction of Emotions

Manufacturing Overproduction

Emotional Overproduction

Overproduction: Refers to producing more than what is required. This results in wasted products and labor

Investors in the stock market tend to overproduce emotions asymmetrically . The production of fear is faster than the production of greed

Excessive Transportation of Emotions

Manufacturing Excessive Transportation

Emotional Excessive Transportation

Excess Transportation: Refers to transportation costs that add to customers costs, but do not add value to the end product.

Investors in the stock market carry their feelings to each other, which results in herd behavior. When this exchange of feelings flows rapidly, chaos initiates.

Excess Inventory of Emotions

Manufacturing Excessive Transportation

66

Emotional Excessive Transportation

Excess Inventory: Refers to having more inventory than what is required to finish the project

Some investors have a high holding –capacity for their feelings. These investors need to avoid excessive storage of their feelings because they become costly and unsafe as they lead to bursting.

Excess Inventory of Emotions

Excess Processing

Excess Emotions

Excess Processing: Refers to using more labor force than what is needed.

Investors tend to overreact emotionally to the fluctuations of stock prices. They tend as well to mix their bad feelings into worse ones. For example, when investors mix anger and sadness together they have an experience known as depression. Refer to the map of Mixing Feelings for more details.Correction of Emotions

Manufacturing Correction

Emotional Correction

Correction: Refers to wasted time fixing a problem because it was not done correctly the first time

Some investors need to avoid having to correct the wrong expression of their feelings because they can not correct the spill-over effects of other investors

67

Motion of Emotions

Manufacturing Motion

Emotional Motion

Refers to wasting time to run errands like pick-up parts

Avoid wasting energy collecting pieces of left memories. People tend to remember the last and peak events. Likewise; investors tend to build on their last experiences and the previous peak experiences. They tend to pick-up old memories to build future scenarios

Are emotions amenable to treatment as industrial products?

68

A Trip of Mind

Ali Anani, PhD