Adaptability - How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For

Mary Jane Ryan's Book on AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For offers helpful guidance for all of us coping with change that is suddenly forced on us.  Mary allows all of us a brief period of time to BMW (B*tch, Moan and Wine) prior to adapting to change.

Like stressed lab rats we all need a bit of TLC for comfort during an unexpected stressful live event.  Lab rats stress is reduced by petting the fur.  For each of us we need to figure out what positive thing in our life reduces our stress.  Stressed individuals suffer from tunnel vision unable to think creatively about possible alternatives.  Setting aside time to do a brief mindfulness meditation can be one way to reduce stress.

Mary recommends parallel processing several options at once when responding to an unexpected career change.  This is similar to spreading risk by taking a company stock option, cashing it out and investing it in a wide array of different investment categories.

Katie Goodman's book, Improvisation for the Spirit,  serves as inspiration for the tactic of Ready, Go, Set recommended by the author.  The author recommends testing and evaluating solutions before they are 100% ready.  You can make adjustments based on evaluation and improve the product.  I've done this with video production and it's helped out with the learning curve by learning rapidly from my mistakes.  Hint: Keep the camera stable when doing green screen work. 

Mary frequently references Amanda Ripley's excellent book, The Unthinkable.  People respond to unexpected change in many ways.  Many people are simply frozen by fear.  This is why flight attendants are trained to yell at people during an emergency to break people out of this state of inaction.  After the World Trade Center plane crash people milled about for up to 45 minutes prior to taking action to save themselves.  Mary advises finding someone who is taking action, model their behavior and get yourself out of this unproductive rut. 

The book was helpful to me as our office will be moving from our comfortable building with private offices that we occupied for the past 60 years to a new collaborative work environment.  I am trying hard to move past the BMW phase and work to make the new surroundings less miserable for my co-workers. 

Letting Go of Your Tortured Mind - 33 min.

Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills

Steven Novella's 24 lectures describe in great detail the ways our own brain can trick us into making incorrect assumptions about the world.   For example are wired to give more weight to personal anecdotes than scientific studies.

He also advocates not strongly weighting the results of one scientific study but waiting for other confirmatory results.  If the results of the study are confirmed and are valid the additional studies will use the original findings as a launching point to advance knowledge.  As in the case of psi research the opposite is true.  Studies have not built on each other.  The research has not moved forward and people engage in creative pleading as to why no effect is observed.

According to Dr. Novella,  most people are unaware of the clumpiness of random data.  If we cherry pick samples of data there will appear to be an effect.  People can test this by checking on long runs of heads or tails when flipping a coin.  Eventually over 1000 flips the heads and tails will average out but during the course of this flipping exercise there will be runs sometimes exceeding 10 in a row of heads or tails.

Silverwood Park, St. Anthony, MN - Reflection - N. Carlson

The term, Pareidolia,  is the tendency to ascribe meaning to random bits of primarily visual or auditory information.  Because our brains are very good at face recognition we often convert random visual stimuli into a human face.  We can see a face in the clouds or on stains in tapestry.

This series of lectures provides helpful tools for scientists and the general public trying to make sense of the vast amount of information begging for our attention.  Dr. Novella strongly advocates critical thinking and approves the efforts of Professor Richard Muller (NY Times: Climate change skeptic) to conduct a fresh analysis of the data on climate change.  Professor Muller had legitimate concerns about the earth surface temperature data and the techniques used to analyze it.  After excluding unreliable temperature data reporting areas, urban heat zone and using nearly 100% of rural reporting stations he concluded that the observed 2.5 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature over the last 250 years was best fit to a similar increase in known greenhouse gas emissions.  The periodic dips in temperature best fit to large volcanic eruptions.  Professor Muller pointed out that this did not conclusively prove causality but he challenged others to find another cause for the observed temperature change that matched the data.

For further information please consult Steven Novella's Skeptic blog.

The guide book to the lecture is available here:  Your Deceptive Mind - pdf

Preview of Your Deceptive mind - 2 minutes

My Word is my Bond - Roger Moore

Roger Moore offers a look into a career that spans decades and moves toward an enlightened view of the world. 

Audrey Hepburn ask him to join in these charitable efforts and Roger gladly accepted. I actually found the charitable work he's done persuading governments to assure people get iodized salt to be the most interesting part of his life.  Many unscrupulous people will allow people to be miserable by selling salt with out the added iodine to people in poor countries.  The efffects of iodine deficiency during the developmental year can result in learning defects or mental retardation.

Roger's take on James Bond was different than Sean Connery.  He felt the gentle art of persuasion was more effective than force.  He however did use force when the director asked for it.  Roger has a dry British sense of humor referring to his Co-star Maude Adams as Mud.  He did not suggest any romantic onscreen romances with his co-stars in the Bond films. He actually found the company of several of them to be very disagreeable.

Roger Roore's friendship with David Niven was similar to Roger Wegner's.  They both thought David's last wife was a detestable human being. 

In summary, Roger's evolution from a young actor to humanitarian provides a lesson in making the most of your life from a man who doesn't take himself too seriously

Early career - 4 minutes

Part 1 - 10 minutes

Part 2 - 8 minutes

The Price of Inequality

Joseph E. Stiglitz offers a progressive democrats prescription for fixing the US economy by taking measures to reduce the inequality in income distribution.  A significant portion of the book is a rather depressing litany of how the US fails to measure up to other countries with respect to equality of income distribution and opportunities for people to move up in society.  He suggests that rising out of poverty to wealth is part of American mythology not supported by the evidence.

He points out that the current economic system provides rewards to individuals managing money that is not in proper proportion to the individuals benefit to society.  The ratio of CEO pay to the median pay of workers has doubled since the 1970's.

As noted in Linked, income inequality is based on a power curve.   When rules are applied to a random system, some individuals are quicker to understand the rules of the game or are able to write the rules to benefit themselves.

Mr. Stiglitz advocates raising the maximum tax rate and keeping the inheritance tax on the upper income earners. The interest rate on student loans should be much lower because banks do not have any risk associated with the loan because the loan is one of the few that are not severable in bankruptcy. This should give loan co-signers pause.

It is interesting to note that many of the founders of a company (Microsoft) that Mr. Stiglitz suggests engaged in monopolistic behaviors are also people who run some of the largest charitable foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   There is also a club that billionaires can join if they make a promise to give away more than 1/2 their fortune through The Giving Pledge.

For those who want to join the one percent, not break a sweat and play by the current rules.  How to get rich in America? It is almost impossible to get into the the top 1% in income by actually doing productive work according to John Macintosh's Satirical comment on Income Inequality in America.  John writes a letter to a son he never had about how to move into the top 1% in income.  You need to find a job that allows you to benefit from managing other people's capital preferably more than $100 million.  Skim off one to three percent annually for management and you are set.

 89 minute lecture

22 minutes - reform tax code to improve economy