Become a social magician.
Recently I seem to have become somewhat obsessed with the idea of “self”. What is it? How is it created? Etc.
I’ve turned to one of the many books that I own as I look for some information that might make the self more understandable to me. The main book that I have been reading is Inside Out and Outside In. Which has a really good chapter on Object Relations Theory and a decent chapter on Self Psychology.
If time allows I’ll be blogging my thoughts on this.
-N
On today’s show I talk about a few ideas that are not my own. I first heard about this set of ideas via a TED talk by Danial Goleman. He talks about mirror neurons, and social neuroscience both of which are really fassinating ideas.
If you want to see the original talk you can do so by playing the video below.
In the show I give my understanding of mirror neurons, and how humans sort of adjust their behavior when in groups (any thing more than just one person is a group) to meet the emotional equilibrium of the group.If my understanding of how mirror neurons work is flawed or just plain wrong please email me and let me know.I plan to talk about this some of the other content of this talk at a later date.
Hope that you enjoy the show.
Take care.
-N
I just saw this amazing little power point presentation about how to make really good power point presentations over at academhack.
| View | Upload your own
Everyone should go check out academhack by the way. Now.
-N
I was reading a book called The Path of the Human Being by Dennis Genpo Merzel. the book is about Zen Buddhism, and I’ve really enjoyed reading it.
One of the things in this book that really struck me was in chapter six when Merzel is talking about how he was feeling burned out on teaching…
What came up for me was that I didn’t enjoy teaching anymore. The drive that had kept me going in Zen practice, and had pushed me to become a teacher, seemed to have dried up. Teaching just wasn’t fun anymore. After facing my felings and just sitting with them, some space opened up and I was able to decide all over again to enjoy this. You see, I had fallen into the trap of thinking too much beore each talk. I’d even debate with myself: “If I talk about this, then some people won’t understand because they don’t have the background; but if I talk about that, then some of the old-timers will be bored to death.” With my mind so full of thoughts, how could there be any space to simply enjoy teaching? After I saw the rut I was in, I was able to renew my commitment to just have fun and now worry about trying to teach anyone anything. As long as I am enjoying teaching, everyone else seems to enjoy it more, too.
…getting burned out on what you do is something that has a huge impact on your level of social skills. People who are burned out have negative impacts on the people they socially interact with, and have less overall success.
I personally believe that the study of Zen (and Buddhism in general) can help a person grow social skills that will foster a feeling of well being, and that one of the effects of this feeling of well being will be improved social skills, and greater success in life.
If you interested in reading more about this check out the books by Merzel via the link below.
“God, your’re to humor what Hellen Keller would be to competitive paintball.”
Having wits is a social skill that can score you many a point. I believe that the above quote is a wonderful example of wits in action.
To see the original comic that this quote appeared in click here.
And because it is just so damn funny, here is another quote from QC:
Dora: This is Mystic Slaughterbeast’s new record! They’re pretty much the hottest fantasy metal band in Norway right now.
Faye: Their… their CD cover is a picture of a dragon having sex with a naked blond chick while beheading a unicorn in space.
Dora: It’s pretty awesome, huh?
Point to that quote is that sometimes pointing out the ovbious can bet rather witty.
For the original comic click here.
Last one. In comic #457 three QC characters were talking to each other about what animals rock singers are, and Martin (one of the main characters in QC) says…
Keith Richards is clearly a scarecrow made our of beef jerky.
I found that very funny… like laugh out loud funny. If you want to see the original click here.
What is a master? I would say that he is not someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to do his best to discover a knowledge he already has in his soul.”
This book can be downloaded in a a PDF format . It can also be torrented if you like.
Today when I got to work I opened up my web browser and checked reddit to see what was interesting in the world. I saw this article about how a dude named Frank Pringle (no wikipedia article on him yet… but I’m sure one will pop up soon) has built a recycling machine that can suck the oil and / or natural gas out of anything thing.
The machine is a microwave emitter that extracts the petroleum and gas hidden inside everyday objects—or at least anything made with hydrocarbons, which, it turns out, is most of what’s around you. Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running).
What does this have to do with effective human social behavior you might ask. Good question!
At the begining of the article is this little bit of really smart social behavior.
I’ve been told the oil companies might try to assassinate me,” Pringle says without sarcasm.
What makes this brilliant is that if Mr. Pringle does end up suddenly dead there is that little quote, which regardless of whether or not the oil companies kill him, will mean that he becomes a legend in death.
Also, if the oil companies would have a dude like Pringle killed because of this invention (which to me does not sound all that far fetched… really) they might think twice about it after seeing him make comments like that.
Seriously I can see the VP of assinating scientists on a conference call.
“I was just going to have this guy wacked, but if I do that now than I’m sure there will be some sort of investigation. I know, I know… Chances are that if we have him killed and there is some sort of investigation it wont matter because well… WE ARE BIG OIL YO! But seriously people.. do we really want the hassle?”
…
I’m feeling kind of spunky this morning if you can’t tell.
-N
I use to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read:
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructable be found in us.”
Somehow, even before I heard the Buddhist teachings, I knew that this was the spirt of true awakening. It was all about letting go of everything.
From this book:
This is a test to see if I can publish a Podcast via the Podpress plugin.
If it works than there will be a slick looking little player thing under these words that will allow you all to listen to the show here on the web.
If it REALLY worked than this RSS feed will allow you to subscribe to the show.
-N
I don’t carry business cards.
There are lots of people (in fact most the people who I know) who do carry business cards with them all the damn time, everywhere they go. Some of the business cards are really creative, well thought out, visually appealing little bits of paper or plastic.
Nonetheless, even though I recognize that some business cards are cool, interesting, and appealing I still don’t carry them.
Why?
Good question. Here is my (several) answers:
~1~
I have received a TON of business cards. I have also thrown out / accidently lost on purpose many business cards.
Just because you get your card in a person’s hand does NOT mean that they will remember you, or that they will contact you at some later date. I just means that you got your card in their hands. THAS IT.
Some people might argue that if you card is in the person’s hand they are more likely to remember you / contact you later. This might be true, however I personally believe that if a person you meet takes the time to contact you later it is not because you have him or her a card, rather it is because you used some good social skills to make a good impression on that person.
In other words they remember you not your card. They contact you because you impressed them somehow, not because you got your card in their hand.
~2~
I find that for me (and I’m sort of reluctant to tell you all this because if you all start to do it it will lose it’s originality… but what the hell) people have remembered me more because I don’t carry or give out cards.
Here is an example- I’m walking the floor at a conference and I meet a guy somehow, and strike up a conversation. The guy who I’m talking with says to me “Do you have a card or something?”
I reply “No, I don’t carry cards. If you need a card to remember me I did something wrong. Just go to magic spell casting dot com and you can get my contact info there.” (I then pull out my phone and say) “Or, if you want to give me your contact info I’ll contact you.”
People seem to be impressed by this. It is a thing that other people don’t do, so when I do it people sort of raise their eyebrows, they take notice.
Behaviors that break patterns, but don’t piss people off, are the sorts of things that get remembered by people. See what I’m saying?
In addition to this me putting their contact info into my phone gives ME the power to contact them. I find that people are FAR more likely to call me back if I have called them first. I think this is because people are more motivated to return calls to contacts than they are to make that first phone call to a new contact.
~3~
Cards cost money, they take up space when I travel, they take up paper (and when you a person like me who is attempting to shrink your carbon footprint you do small to use less paper), and often times the information on them becomes out dated before I can give them all out.
In short- I find that business cards are more a pain in the ass than they are a refreshing cool breeze in the face…
(Does that metaphor work?)
…they tie me down more than they free me.
I guess when I do the cost benefit analysis of hauling cards to events, the benefits just don’t out weigh the costs.
~4~
After a person gets a card they feel like they can just walk away from you. I believe that people feel this way because when they get a card from someone they BELIEVE that they will contact that person later.
However, as I have all ready stated, that is rarely the case.
This is just one of those social behaviors that I think people have sort of adopted with out really thinking about it. It is a habit that has formed before people realized that it was forming.
The result is that to many REAL human interactions have been cut short because people exchanged cards.
The longer you talk to a person they more likely it is that they will remember talking to you, and that they will remember you as a person.
~5~
The last reason I don’t carry a card is because I find that they act as a bit of a distraction…
I speak from experience here, you see I use to carry cards. I remember one day before I went to a big conference I spent a LONG time making up a card. I wanted the thing to be prefect, so I really worked at the damn thing.
(I know not everyone is crazy about this stuff like me… so I’m speaking only for my self here… but I’m a person who can lose tons of time to detail… this is fine when I’m getting making money for paying attention to detail… but when I’m not getting paid it is just a huge fucking waste of my time…)
Then when I did go to the conference I gave out the cards and people glanced at them then shoved them into their pockets.
Most the people who got my card and shoved the card in their pockets did NOT call me back.
Conclusion: the huge amount of time that I spent making this damn card could have been spent in a much more productive manor.
In short: Because I’m that kind of person who gets really into detail, the creation of a card is something that sucks time, energy, and mental resources away from things that they could be better spent on.
~Fin~
And there you have it. Neil Gorman’s five reasons to not carry.
Hope you enjoyed reading it.
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