Amazing Impossible Science

Impossible Science, as designed, developed, and presented by Jason Latimer, is something we all need to see. It is incredible and wonderful. It helped me realize our potential. As he explained,

“The only thing separating the possible from the impossible was the individual wondering about the right question…Wonder changes the world.”

Jason Latimer

Incredible Opportunity

I was amazed, awed, and grateful for the opportunity to Jason Latimer at the Arizona Science Museum in March 2023. I can’t put into words the awe-inspiring feelings generated by watching his amazing presentation. What impressed me was his continual message that he did not want to trick us like a magician; rather, he wanted us to wonder and…ask the right question. As he noted often, “It’s the right question that changes everything.”

Girl Scouts

DESCRIPTION PROVIDED FOR ARIZONA SCIENCE MUSEUM SHOW:

Jason Latimer, World Champion of Magic and the Curator of Impossible Science, will change your understanding of what is possible!

Impossible Science LIVE’s unique blend of science and magic takes audiences on the journey of making the impossible possible through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. From the foundation of all science and discovery to the leading edge of technology and innovation, this live performance demonstrates how the right question changes everything. Latimer integrates all fields of science into mind-blowing illusions that will inspire your sense of wonder.

Learn how to see beyond the illusion! Challenge your understanding of engineering and physics as Latimer walks through solid objects. Discover the power of curiosity and chemistry as Jason forms water into objects. From bending light with his hands to drawings that come to life, you will not want to miss this wonderful science experience.

“Our next cure, next technology, or next revolutionary change will come from a question that has never been asked. It’s a wonder that changes the world. It’s the right question that changes everything.” —Jason Latimer

AZ SCIENCE MUSEUM

When I went to visit the Arizona Science Museum to see, Dogs! A Science Tail, I noticed a poster for “Impossible Science.” Their response was that it was a great show and I should attend. Surprisingly, we had not seen it advertised previously. It seems they have improved the advertisements now – which is great!

The show was great because it was LIVE. Jason Latimer himself performed for 45 minutes. I strongly recommend you see him live if possible and if not review his many YouTube videos and subscribe to his channel.

The “tricks,” which were actually science, were amazing. While you can see him push balls through glasses on the YouTube video below, I saw him do it LIVE – WOW!

l also saw the airplane that flies forever, an amazing card trick, bending light, shaping water without a container, and so much more. Many are shown in the TED talk and more below.

GREAT TED TALK by Jason Latimer

If you do nothing else, watch and be amazed by his TED Talk. As you will see, he asked the right questions, and that made all the difference.

TED Takeaways

For me, there are multiple takeaways from his talk, and below are a few I found especially important:

At about 2:45 minutes: “…What are these new rules and what is ultimately possible?…”

For me, this is the mindset needed to generate Idealized Outcomes, the first step of the Paneugenesis Process. For this, we must wonder what could be but is not possible now. He did this later in the presentation when he controlled and shaped water. Which we thought could never be done??

At about 4:35: “…The right question changes everything…”

For me, this means we must constantly use and develop critical thinking skills.

About 9 minutes: “…The internet is incredible. The accessibility to information is undermining wonder…we gave the internet its answers…despite all its information, despite all its answers, (it) doesn’t think. It doesn’t wonder where the information came from and it does not challenge what it knows. Search engines do not determine what is right or wrong, just what is relevant…”

at about 10:50 minutes: “…most of the wrong ideas were true at one time…”

at about 12 minutes: “…the world was not shaped but its answers, it was shjaped by its questions…”

For me, he was promoting that we all can do good.

Creating All Good

From my perspective and understanding, he is the ultimate producer of all good. He teaches us how to continually improve the process to generate better results. He helps all of us be better versions of ourselves. He helps us rediscover wonder by asking the right questions. His work can help us redefine what is possible. Right now, a new version of better, beyond the absence of problems, must be created. By using what Jason Latimer teaches us with Impossible Science, these methods can help us imagine how to create a better future and how to generate idealized outcomes.

New Idealized Outcomes will generate comprehensive improvements that will be created through net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. Jason Latimer helps us understand how we can Practice Paneugenesis!

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Why is it “Health” Care?

I have always been confused by the term “Health” care. We get care when we are sick, not when we are healthy. It is “sick” care.

I am also confused because it suggests we have health if we eliminate a disease or problem. The absence of illness is not the presence of health. Health is the presence of physical, mental, and social well-being. It is not just the absence of problems. The presence of well-being, not the absence of disease and infirmity, is precisely how the World Health Organization defines health:

Of course, they may also learn ways to decrease incidents of the same problem, but they have not learned how to be better.

As I write this, I realize this idea bleeds into so much else. On May 19, 2021, in the NYT’s Daily Podcast, “Nine Days in Gaza,” the host Michael Barbaro asked Rahf Hallaq about how it was to live in Gaza. He said, “It seems absolutely horrible due to terror and the unknown about the destruction that may come at any moment.” Despite these terrible circumstances, Michael Barbaro asked her about her dreams. Her dreams?

Is this approach wrong? Could we be backward, upside down, and confused about how we attempt to help? Could this be the best way to help? Without question, we need to help people in crisis. The crisis, however, must, by its nature, be short-term and acute. Evidence suggests dreaming about a better future beyond just not bad motivates solutions. Visualizing an inspiring future may be necessary to get beyond the emotional pain and anger of the situation.

What do you think? What are your dreams? How will you generate comprehensive improvements? What motivates you to want to create a better tomorrow? What will inspire you to develop net-positive, pervasive reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits? 

For me, an “Idealized Outcome,” something better than is possible now, would motivate me to generate all good – something that we can all work together toward achieving. I look forward to hearing how you are working to generate all good through the practice of paneugenesis.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Chunking Helps

Chunking, or taking a piece of the whole, focusing on it can help us get more done. Initially, chunking was developed to help with memory (see this post on how it helps some studying ). Chunking this the process of grouping related bits of information together, which reduces the number of “things” to manage. Let me explain it also helps us get more done.

We all want more time to do what we desire. Being a time multiplier, such that we get things done today that also makes tomorrow more efficient, helps (see Be Fruitful and Multiply – Time That is…). Language has enabled us to save time by being more efficient. Language allows us to express our thoughts and share ideas succinctly.

The Value of Measurements

The 2023 book Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants by Vincent James has helped me understand that measurements are a language. The language of measurement allows us to cooperate, collaborate and get more done. Katie Hafner remarks in the Washington Post Review of this book:

…Sometimes a book happens along whose central question is at once so profound yet so utterly simple it takes your breath away. Such is the case with James Vincent’s deeply engrossing “Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement From Cubits to Quantum Constants…”

Review by Katie Hafner, Washington Post, November 30, 2022

While measurements help us organize life, chunking makes life even more manageable. In essence, it is taking part of the whole and focusing on that part. One could think of how a calendar chunks time measurement to make it more manageable Calendars are a human creation to derive structure from the natural world.

Checklists Chunks

Another example of chunking is making a list. As I learned in Atul Gawande’s “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right” (see my review on good reads here or below), although creating a list (checklist) takes time to set up initially, it saves time and improves our ability to get things done.

MY REVIEW of “Checklist Manifesto”: This was a good book. It was a reminder that having a checklist is good for making the basics more effortless. Using a checklist frees our minds to do so much more. Despite their documented significant benefits to pilots, surgeons, financial investors, and all involved, he highlighted much hesitancy in professional areas to use checklists. Gawande was also able to integrate how to use checklists while also using successful leadership and management strategies. It is a good read and a great reminder of how simple checklists can help us function better as we avoid easy mistakes from inattention, absent-mindedness, or overconfidence.

Craig Becker’s review of Gawande’s “Checklist Manifesto” on GoodReads

Measurement Concerns

While highlighting the benefits of measures, we must remember economist Charles Goodhart’s Law, as paraphrased by Marily Straythern, “When a measure becomes a target, it fails to be a good measure.” In other words, measures are only guides and assistants. Also, although I am encouraging chunking, it is vital to remember how each chunk contributes to the whole. As a reminder, Russ Ackoff explains in this powerful 10-minute presentation below how we must focus on the whole, not just the parts, to make things better.

Helpful Measurement Chunks with Caveats

Although measures are not perfect, they can help. As I learned, the language of measurement helps us become time multipliers while enabling us to communicate, collaborate and work better. In other words, using measurements can help us generate comprehensive improvements. Measures help because they help us understand how to create net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.

Please share how your use of measurements helps you practice paneugenesis or create all good.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Powerful Chat GPT Good??

For those of us that have an interest, Chat GPT has become a hot topic. It undoubtedly has potential, however, it is also quite scary. I recommend the 2 recent NYTimes Daily Podcasts below to learn more:

The Online Search Wars

Microsoft released a version of Bing powered with artificial intelligence. Did it just revolutionize how we search the internet?

Wednesday, February 15th, 2023

The Online Search Wars Got Scary. Fast.

Our technology columnist encounters the darker side of Bing’s A.I. chatbot.

February 17, 2023  •  32:39

I encourage you to listen to both. I have used Chat GPT some. You can access and use ChatGPT on this site. I encourage you to try it and see what you think.

Here is what ChatGPT inaccurately wrote in response to:

Write an essay about salutogenesis citing Craig Becker’s work

The concept of salutogenesis, which refers to the origins of health and well-being, was first introduced by Aaron Antonovsky in the 1970s. Since then, this concept has been widely studied and discussed by various scholars in the field of public health. One of the key contributors to this field is Craig Becker, whose work has greatly expanded our understanding of the salutogenic model of health.

The past paragraph is ok…

Craig Becker’s work on salutogenesis builds on Antonovsky’s ideas, but also expands upon them. Becker emphasizes the importance of the social determinants of health, which are the economic, social, and environmental conditions that influence health outcomes. He argues that understanding the social determinants of health is crucial for promoting health and well-being.

The past paragraph is not accurate.

Becker also highlights the importance of resilience in the salutogenic model. Resilience refers to an individual’s ability to bounce back from adversity and maintain their sense of well-being. Becker argues that resilience is a key component of salutogenesis because it helps individuals to cope with the challenges they face and maintain their health and well-being.

This is also not accurate.

One of the key contributions of Becker’s work on salutogenesis is his emphasis on the role of agency in promoting health and well-being. Agency refers to an individual’s ability to take action and make choices that promote their health and well-being. Becker argues that agency is a crucial component of salutogenesis because it allows individuals to take control of their lives and make choices that promote their health and well-being.

Again, the past paragraph is not accurate

Another important contribution of Becker’s work is his emphasis on the importance of social support in promoting health and well-being. Social support refers to the resources and assistance that individuals receive from their social networks. Becker argues that social support is essential for promoting health and well-being because it helps individuals to cope with stress and maintain their sense of well-being.

This is ok but not emphasized…

Overall, Craig Becker’s work on salutogenesis has greatly expanded our understanding of the origins of health and well-being. By emphasizing the importance of the social determinants of health, resilience, agency, and social support, Becker’s work provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how individuals can promote their own health and well-being. His work highlights the importance of empowering individuals to take control of their lives and make choices that promote their health and well-being, while also recognizing the crucial role that social support and resilience play in achieving these goals.

Inaccurate summary of my work

This is not accurate. You can see it wrote some general things about salutogenesis but it was not very accurate to my work. I do not emphasize social determinants, agency, or reslience in my work. It was even less accurate when I asked:

What research has Craig M. Becker, Ph.D. done related to salutogenesis?

It pulled incorrect resesarch citations.

I then asked about paneugenesis, the term I generated, published, and use in my work. It gave credit to another researcher. UGH!

Please try ChatGPT here and share your thoughts on your experience. Good, bad, scary, damaging, liberating????

Please help. I work to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits, The practice of paneugenesis. It appears ChatGPT does not. I look forward to hearing about your experiences.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Meaning from Meaninglessness

Meaning and purpose are powerful forces in life for me. For that reason, I have discussed these concepts on this blog with these posts,  Its All Meaningless! Here is How to Create Meaning!; Making Sense of Chaos, Meaninglessness, Disorientation; Randomness & Creating Outcomes; Everything Happens for a Reason! Make it Good! and in others. Despite my attempt to address these ideas, I thought David Foster Wallace’s commencement address (video) below made an even more powerful statement.

I hope this video inspired you to create meaning in your life. I do this by working to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. Please share what this video motivated you to do. Thank you.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Need More Good Progress(DD#1)

I am reading Austin Kleon’s short book, “Show Your Work.” His book recommends a daily dispatch that shows your work and documents progress. For years, I have been developing techniques, strategies, and practices to generate more good, not just less bad. I need to do more, so I am adopting his strategy of posting regular work dispatches. Here is an overview of my progress to date.

More Good Progress…so far

I have been working on this task for over 30 years. My mission is to emphasize more good focus for the long term. Less bad is essential in short-term, acute situations. I have yet to hear that people disagree with this effort, but the idea has not diffused or circulated as needed. The focus on less bad or less pathology dominates our world. Therefore, I will use Austin Kleon’s advice and post my work to hold myself accountable.

During my efforts to date, I have been working as a professor since 2001 and have a Ph.D. from Arizona State University. I have about 100 national and international publications and presentations about how to create or cause good health, which, as research has also demonstrated, effectively prevents or ends bad health…as a by-product. This work is summarized in the linked publication about the paneugenesis model, “Going on Offense to Promote Health Promotion Gains.” Additionally, the linked 2019 article by colleague Dr. Michael Stellefson discusses this idea by categorizing these efforts as a promotion of “Chronic Wellness.” For more, see the article, Planting a Tree Model for Public Health: Shifting the Paradigm Toward Chronic Wellness

If you are interested and have time, below are some links to presentations, papers, and online resources to my work. The best way to learn about my work is the 17-minute linked presentation, Create More Good, Not Just Less Bad. I gave this talk to the sustainability committee at East Carolina University (ECU).  

A short linked paper, “Creating Positive Health: It is More than Risk Reduction,” describes my approach to generating positive outcomes and not just avoiding bad results. Another published linked paper, “Salutogenesis 30 Years Later: Where do we go from here?”,  is about salutogenesis and describes how using this health-causing or creating framework/theory could help. A comparison of the traditional pathogenesis approach and salutogenesis is available in the often viewed (over 35k views) YouTube video: Pathogenesis & Salutogenesis with this 2021 update. I have also posted this video, Exceeding Expectations, about how to do better than not bad.

My work has resulted in developing the Salutogenic Wellness Promotion Scale for Young Adults, Adults, Older Adults, and Arabic populations. I have also worked on a childhood version for schools to improve health and education. If you are interested, see this article, Pilot Assessment of the Scholar Checklist: A Tool for Early Childhood Health & Education.

If you are interested in learning more about these scales, I linked an article validating my positive health scale, “Validity Evidence for the Salutogenic Wellness Promotion Scale (SWPS).” I have also linked an article about how focusing on generating more good helped us understand what helps students thrive. The study used the SWPS to measure the process, and what we learned about the student’s lifestyle process and it relates to doing well is described in the”What Helps Students Thrive” article.

Other videos about my work are available on my YouTube channel. In addition, this is a link to this blog on Positive Health Leadership, where I explore many related topics in over 400 posts. This blog also can be reached at www.bewellr.com. Please contact me if you have any ideas, thoughts, concerns, complaints, suggestions, or questions or are interested in learning more. 

Now What??

Unfortunately, I have not made desired progress in transforming society toward more good, not just less bad. However, I will forge ahead, and I hope you will help. My current efforts focus on disseminating these positive health ideas and practices and assisting people in adopting these practices. I will use the Diffusion of Innovations Theory to guide my future work. I hope to publish a related article soon.

Please share any advice and contact me if you want to help at bewellr@gmail.com, beckerc@ecu.edu, 252-328-5312, or on this blog. I look forward to hearing from you about how we can work together to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Foundation for More good??

I recommend our focus be on generating more good, not JUST less bad. I am now reading the 5th edition of the classic, “Diffusion of Innovations,” ©️2003, by Everett Rogers. It has been good. On page 69, I thought he did an excellent job of pointing out why more good can be more effective than JUST less bad. He stated: (emphasis added by me)

… A preventive innovation is an idea that an idnividual adopts at one point in time in order to lower the probablity that some future unwanted event may occur. The unwanted future event might not have happened anyway, even without adoption of the preventive innovation, so the relative advantage is not very clear cut to the individual at the time they are urged to adopt by public health programs. Also the prevented events do not occur, and thuse they cannot be observed or countedFor these reasons, preventive innovations…have a relatively slow rate of adoption.”

Everett Rogers, PhD – p. 69 “Diffusion of Inovations” 5th Ed.
Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition: Rogers, Everett M.: 8601300412962:  Amazon.com: Books

What do you think? Do you agree this provides a good foundation for why the focus should be on more good, not JUST less bad? Please share your thoughts on the best ways to move forward. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Manifesting a Good Message

I know it is an impossible show and could not happen. However, I found Manifest, a series on Netflix, an interesting show. I look forward to its continuation on June 2, 2023. What I found most interesting in the series was the repeated message that everything is connected and that we all are on the same lifeboat. The often repeated message in the show is that we should help everybody do well because we all do well when we all do well. This is also the finding of my research. According to my work and many others, we are all connected, and the ripple effect of doing good causes good that ripples out.

If you are one of my readers, you will see how this also relates to yesterday’s Post, about Stephen Post’s book, “Why God Things Happen to Good People.”

In other words, Manifest seems to promote the creation of all the good messages I send out. This message is that all good can be accomplished by generating comprehensive improvements. I note that this is the concept of Paneugenesis – which literally means creating all good. Practicing paneugenesis is accomplished by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits (see video below). Please share how you generate comprehensive improvements by practicing paneugenesis!

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Why Good Things Happen

As a takeoff of Harold Kushner’s fantastic book, “WHEN Bad Things Happen To Good People,” Stephen Post offers WHY Good things Happen to Good People. (see Everything Happens for a Reason! Make it Good! for a discussion, I posted about Kushner’s book). In grad school, I led a discussion about Kushner’s book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Only then was it brought to my attention that the title was not WHY, but WHEN. WHEN does not explain; WHY does. A change from when to why is profound. Even so, throughout Post’s book on Why Good Things Happen, he cites supportive research his Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (IRUL) sponsored.

Dr. Post does a fantastic job documenting why and how good things happen to good people for taking beneficial actions. At the end of the book, he suggests this is ultimately selfishness because we get the most for ourselves by giving to other people. “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” is a good read that reinforces how being a good person helps others as it also helps us. I thought he especially did an excellent job helping us learn how to be better listeners and better communicators with each other.

Throughout the book, he suggests 40 ways to give love – 10 areas in 4 domains (Family, Friends, Community, & Humanity). His 10 ways to capture Love include:

  1. Celebration – gratitude through ritual
  2. Generativity – generating love
  3. Forgiveness – freeing the self from guilt, pain, rumination, and bitterness
  4. Courage – confrontation with caring, what he calls Carefrontation
  5. Humor – used to convert pain to joy
  6. Respect – civility, acceptance, reverence, and appreciation
  7. Compassion – empathetic, emotionally caring
  8. Loyalty – loving over time and difficulties
  9. Listening – giving attention and foundation of relationships
  10. Creativity – the spontaneous, joyful expression of life

All of these 10 suggestions provide great ways to share love. For each, supporting research evidence of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” is provided. Of course, he is also saying good people should do these 10 things.

Better Listening Suggestions

He offered many communication suggestions, which I thought were especially good. A couple I have been working on using include using my mirroring ability to be able to better empathize with what others experience. This, he suggests, may also help me better understand. Another way he suggests improving communication is by repeating back emotional words heard and asking for more information to better connect. Using this, he suggests a way to empathetically probe without judgment. He suggests this method can help us all connect better. I like these suggestions and will work to use these ideas. Have you used these techniques? Please share how they work for you.

Belonging Insight

Another insight I liked was about belonging. As I have seen many times, one of our most basic human needs is to belong. Interestingly, Post says when we change, such as to a quadriplegic from an accident, or even more simply, when entering a new group, we will feel as if we don’t belong.

Throughout life, we often change into different kinds of people. A person may be newly married, become a college student, or do any other new activity. We don’t feel like we belong when entering a new area because it is different. The feeling we experience, according to Post, makes us feel like an outsider and alone. He says it is at this point we want what we had yesterday — that is, to feel like we belong. In other words, he seems to be saying we are experiencing what Kahneman and Tversky called Loss Aversion and want what we had yesterday. There are many interesting and helpful suggestions throughout the book. It was better than I had expected.

Below is Dr. Posts TED Talk, “Its Good to Be Good“.

It is All Connected

Sometimes art imitates life, and other times, life imitates life. Well, at least I often see things in shows I find meaningful. A meaningful concept I recently saw was the repeated message in the Netflix series Manifest, that it is all connected. As I have noted many times, it is all connected.

Capturing the idea of connection, at the end of his book, Post says this is all about selfishness. As I noted in the review I posted on GoodReads and Google Books, “…While all this is good, we must also ensure these actions do good for the environment, or all will suffer. I hope he pushes for not just selfishness but selfish, selfless, synergy, so these promoted interactions become net-positive, pervasive, and reciprocal so everyone and everything benefits,” as I promote with the Paneugenesis video below. Everything is interconnected, so we must generate more good by generating comprehensive improvements. True selfishness is selfless, “…if you understand how the world works” stated President Clinton in the 1-minute video below.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Need to Bring the Cradle Home

We need laws that encourage, support, and reinforce organizational behaviors requiring corporations to take care of their products through their full lifecycle.

I have written about the “Cradle to Cradle” rather than “Cradle to Grave” care discussed by McDonough and Braungart in Cradle to Cradle and Upcycle. Their books discuss the life cycle of products from the beginning, Cradle, until they are not used anymore and disposed of, Grave. Their concept was to use products until the end of their useful life. When products cannot be used anymore, the products should be “upcycled”, not trashed, so the materials from the product can be used again. See Concept: Create More Good, Not Just Less Bad.

Overall they are referring to the organizations that extract material, then manufacture a product to sell, which eventually ends up as waste. Their concept was for organizations to be responsible for the products and all it took to make them until the end. The end, however, should be an “upcycle” where it is used for a greater purpose or at least where it is used as recycled material for new products, so more virgin material does not get extracted. While I understood this intellectually, I did not understand what it meant until I picked up garbage on our beautiful Greenways in Greenville, NC.

While picking up garbage on the Greenway, I realized there was no way to trace back these waste materials. Of course, many would suggest we should just more severely restrict people from dumping their garbage. That solution, however, is unlikely to work. Penalizing people is a day late and a dollar short. After all, nobody likes being told what to do to cause less bad. They want to be responsible for more good.

Hard to See Financial Benefits

At first glance, the benefits of being responsible for products from the cradle to the grave are hard to see. These benefits are what Kahneman & Tversky would call mental illusions. In reality, with effort, having organizations be responsible for their products through their lifecycle can be financially beneficial for them as it also benefits society, as a by-product. In a Karma-like fashion, organizations that do good for society get more business due to the good feelings generated by their efforts. This is true and has been documented by Interface, Inc., a modular carpet company (see We Must Make It Better – Saving the Planet not Enough!)

Action Needed

Right now, we only have cradle-to-grave legislation for hazardous materials. Why don’t we do it for all materials? People are supposed to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, and since corporations are considered people, they should be held to the same standard. Upon reflection, however, this would not be a problem but a benefit. Being a better steward of their business and the materials used would yield less expensive operations, better processes, better use of resources, and a cleaner world.

In other words, seeing all the garbage in greenways showed me what happens to the cradle if it is not brought home. (ok, not a perfect analogy) I know there is more to be done – such as advocating for new laws. However, we could begin to generate comprehensive improvements by moving toward a default standard that helps organizations be responsible for their goods from the cradle to the grave or, ideally, cradle to cradle. This means we should push for legislation, laws, studies, and more that document the benefits to organizations, people, environments, and more when actions upcycle used goods, not just cause less waste.

In other words, “nudging” organizations, with better regulations, to be more responsible for their products, so they do not become garbage like I saw on the greenways could help generate comprehensive improvements. These new laws would push organizations to work like Interface, Inc, which has been able to create net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, and profitable synergistic processes from which everyone and everything would benefit.

Please share information about other organizations that have learned how to bring the cradle home by following a path to generate more good and how it has made them more profitable and better contributing members of society. I look forward to hearing from you.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Randomness & Creating Outcomes

I read Nasim Taleb’s books, “Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Our Life and in the Markets” and “Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable“, in 2014 and 2015. I created this post a few years ago but just noticed it was not published. His books are great, and they have provided great insight. I encourage all to read his books. I updated these posts – Enjoy. Please share your thoughts when you read his work.

books
blackswan

To me, his books explained that although hard work cannot cause success, it is a necessary ingredient. Without hard work and preparation, success at anything is less likely. In our world, the idea of random success seems unfair and is not something one can hope to occur.

Even though we want to believe hard work is enough, we know that our world is random. Too strong a belief in randomness and its influence over our life is debilitating. Despite this contradiction, we want to believe we can influence life even with the powerful and overpowering influence of random events. As Israel Zangwill, an English dramatist proclaimed,

“Take from me the hope that I can change the future, and you will send me mad.”

Israel Zangwill – Ghetto Tragedies

In his excellent books, Nassim Taleb provides an interesting perspective on the situation related to the idea of randomness and how it affects our lives. His perspective seems influenced by his work as a Trader on Wall Street.

An excellent point he explains in his books is how we are a backward looking species, and our hindsight bias makes past events seem less random than they were. Our brains automatically fill in the missing pieces. He artfully explains how our biased brain works and how randomness affects us. He often cites and uses the work of Nobel prize-winning psychologists Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, who examined how our biases impact the decisions we make under uncertainty. They concluded that life often leads us to misread reality and have “Mental Illusions”. (see Undoing Needed because Mental Illusions Impact Us).

While he documents that we are designed by nature to fool ourselves, as Kahneman & Tversky’s work has shown, we have an opportunity to tilt the table in our favor. The opportunity exists because we evolved in a much slower moving world than exists today. As he notes, this means we are more susceptible to chance, but we can improve our chances by being prepared like nature.

As he explains, great and extensive preparation cannot and does not cause success, but it does improve the chances for success. It can tilt the tables in our favor and improve the probability of success. From my reading, it means that although hard work to prepare cannot cause success, success without hard work and preparation is unlikely.

He further explains that, unlike nature, we do not overprepare but should. Nature, in essence, prepares for the next occurrence by over-preparing for higher exposure. This is why nature builds redundancy with spare parts, i.e. 2 kidneys. Over preparing, as is done by nature, which we are a part of (see Updated: We are Just Talking Apes), also means we have the capacity to exceed expectations. This function by nature is also documented by Jane Benyus in Biomimicry (see Parallel NOT Linear Means Create Positive AND Prevent Negative)

Instead of building more capacity, we do the opposite by using leverage such as debt or worst case scenario preparation. As he notes, this type of testing cannot be only for what has already happened because the data for what could be worse does not exist. This becomes even more relevant with ongoing climate change. He calls this naive empiricism. As he explained, contrary to conventional wisdom, our body of knowledge does not increase from a series of confirmatory observations (i.e. Turkey killed 1 day, but all other days were ok, so we cannot predict).

As Yogi Berra mused:

“Its tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

Some insights from these books were:

1. We are more emotional than we are rational. We can train ourselves to be more rational, reasonable, or logical; but we need emotions to be able to function effectively. Training our emotions is good but we must remember that we cannot be Spock from Star Trek because we could never make decisions without emotions.

2. Wild success is possible but we need luck. Luck however cannot happen without being prepared, and being prepared takes hard work. Like Gladwell explained in “Blink” and “Outliers”, we can trust our gut to make great decisions but that gut must first be trained well – 10,000 hours to become an expert. In other words, the age old saying that hard work leads to success is only partially right. Hard work cannot guarantee success, but without the work, success because highly unlikely.

3. A final point that has stayed with me from “Black Swan” was “the absence of evidence is not evidence of its absence.” This is something I now apply to many aspects of my life. He provides examples such as breast milk, which they did not initially see as beneficial because of what was measured. They only looked to see if problems were caused, not if benefits were gained. No evidence of benefits does not mean there were none.

Nassim Taleb seems to suggest we should work to generate comprehensive improvements by working like nature. As he details, we cannot rely on randomness but can generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits by over preparing. Please share how you overprepare and how it has helped. I look forward to hearing from you.

PS For a different perspective on the same ideas – see Its All Meaningless! Here is How to Create Meaning! and Making Sense of Chaos, Meaninglessness, Disorientation

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Great New Years Message!

Vic Strecher, who wrote “Life on Purpose” and “On Purpose” also regularly publishes Purposeful tips. For 2023 he sent a great New Year’s Message. I want to promote his message about taking action to make good things happen.

“His Recommendation – frame messages as something positive to do, not something to avoid or something you will not do. Not taking action does not make good things happen; it may only possibly stop bad things from happening. Our life is about what we do because doing good things can””crowd out” bad things; as noted in previous posts, “His Recommendation – frame messages as something positive to do, not something to avoid or something you will not do. Not taking action does not make good things happen; it may only possibly stop bad things from happening. Our life is about what we do because doing good things can “crowd out” bad things, as noted in previous posts,

For the New Year 2023, focus on what you will do, not what you will avoid. I focus on creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone benefits. Doing this is the best way I know to generate comprehensive improvements. Please share how you make 2023 and beyond even better.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Feature positive is real

Aloha from Hawaii. An interesting fact I learned is that it is pronounced HaVaii, not HaWaii. The V sound should be used when a W is in the middle of a word. The W does have the W sound if the W is at the beginning or end of a word like for Waikiki beach.

Aloha Stock Photos, Royalty Free Aloha Images | Depositphotos

Our visit to Hawaii also made me think more about a post I had started that was about the Feature Positive Effects. The Feature Positive Effect describes how we are more aware of and cognizant of things that are present rather than items that are absent. In Hawaii, we are constantly in nature and it becomes more present. With the aloha spirit, no beaches can be private in Hawaii – all must have public access.

Making Research Real

As a student and as a professor, I find it most important to understand what I am learning means to me in my life and how I can use this new knowledge in my life. Feature Positive Effect explains that we see the presence of things more than their absence. This may be why prevention efforts are generally less effective. Why should people be willing to try to eliminate something that does not exist? Remember if we are preventing something, it cannot exist now.

Even so, what does the Feature Positive Effect mean in real life? I noticed an example recently. Toward the end of the semester, I grew a beard. Many people commented about the beard, probably because it was present. Then near the end of the semester, I shaved it off. Nobody said anything. In other words, the absence of the beard was not noticed, only its presence. Even when I said something to people they responded with a comment such as, “oh yeah, it is gone.” To me that could be an example of the Feature Positive Effect, Default to Truth, or Status Quo Bias since no beard is normal for me.

Most of us want to make a positive impact in life. Feature Positive suggests we should do something that results in the presence of something noticeable, rather than prevent something which results in the absence of something we don’t want. For this and many other reasons, I attempt to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic benefits so everyone and everything benefits – the presence of something good. I look forward to hearing about how you create the presence of more good things.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Architecture Creating All Good

On Halloween, October 31, 2021 60 minutes shared an amazing story about MASS, Model of Architecture Serving Society, a non-profit architecture firm. Using the best designs, they developed hospitals that were amazing. Please watch the 60 minutes story below to learn more. However the most amazing part of this story is how they built on their initial success.

Building on Fantastic

After creating hospitals for Rwanda that better serve their communities by using locals sources for labor and material, they have now created a regenerative university in Rwanda. The story is linked to the headline below

MASS Design Group Establishes a Model for Regenerative Construction in Rwanda

The development is expected to be the world’s first carbon-positive university

More about MASS

On 60 Minutes Overtime it shared this story about why they use a film maker to share their story.

You can see the full 60 minutes session here.

Below is also a TED talk by Michael Murphy, “Architecture that’s Built to Heal”, shares more about how this amazing story started. He says we are designing hospitals to make people healthier as it reduces its environmental footprint.

Most important to me is how MASS demonstrated how their architecture techniques can generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. I am sure many more are doing this, please learn from these fantastic people at MASS and share how we can build on their successes!

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Becoming our Best Is Best

I was honored that Sydnii Robinson Co-authored this post with me. Thank you, Sydnii.

Complaining begets more complaints. Anger begets more anger. And optimism begets more optimism.

Simon Sinek

As Simon Sinek suggests, what we do creates more of what we have done. In other words, “Good begets Good”. Evidence suggests that if we work to become the best version of ourselves possible, this will generate good for all. This runs counter to many of our efforts. It seems we are always trying to solve problems. For instance, we want to “End violence,”; “Stop Inactivity,”; or “Stop eating Fat”. While these actions may be morally correct, they do not create what we want.

Ending violence cannot give us what we want, love and caring. Love and caring, however, have the potential to “crowd out” violence as it creates the reality we desire. Stopping what shouldn’t be done does not and cannot cause what can be done. It may provide room to do the right thing, but doing the right thing takes courageous effort and action. For example, we cannot end procrastination unless we do something.

As a personal example, I have had back trouble every 6 months or so. Then we finally realized my legs are different sizes, only a 1 cm difference. This slight difference altered my walk and caused severe back and hip pain. It is all connected.

When I first got the small lift for my shoe, it felt like I had someone else’s legs – they felt strange and uncoordinated. Not doing anything, of course, would mean it would continue to feel strange. However, with walking and attempts at running, my legs are beginning to feel normal again. As noted by Deming’s Appreciation for a System, General Equilibrium Theory, Risk Homeostasis Theory, Zoobiquity, and so much more, when we change anything, we change everything. As John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, noted:

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it is attached to the rest of the world.

John Muir. All things in the universe are interrelated.

An Exception?

I believed ending bad cannot cause good. However, after I saw Seaspiracy, I thought there was an exception. The recommendation in Seaspiracy is “…to stop eating fish” to end ocean fishing. The logic seems sound. If we stop eating fish, the demand for fish will stop. After demand decreases, because it is a connected system, the lack of demand will end ocean animal agriculture. However, upon reflection, that was too simple. Either way, I strongly recommend you watch Seaspiracy if you have not seen it yet (the trailer is below – it is on Netflix).

To me, one of the most fascinating and enlightening facts in the movie was the role fish and their excrement play in managing both carbon and the health of coral reefs. We have heard warming is hurting the coral, but we haven’t heard that healthy coral reefs require more fish, and the bonus is that more fish also will capture and store more carbon as they enhance the health of coral reefs. Please share what you find most fascinating in the movie.

Another impactful takeaway from Seaspiracy was that deep-sea fishing, called bottom trawling, causes an estimated 3.9 BILLION acres of seafloor deforestation per year. This means sea floor trawling is way more destructive than land deforestation, estimated to be 25 million acres per year. Despite its immense damage, it is not seen by satellites or by people living near it because it is underwater. It is alarming and certainly justifies the “stop eating fish” recommendation. Can some experts share their knowledge about this information and data to confirm these concerns?

Linked Facts from Seaspiracy

Deprivation Never Works

It seems obvious; however, the recommendation to “stop eating fish” is too simple. As the Losada Line, Kahneman & Tversky’s Loss Aversion, and Gottmans work with marriage documents, we need more good, not just less bad to ignite action. Not only will people feel deprived, making it unlikely for the action to continue, but research also demonstrates that unless we provide people with a better alternative, doing without, such as doing without seafood, will not take hold. On top of that, the proclamation that we should not eat fish will add guilt when seafood is eaten, and this will lower life quality of life.

What do we do?

To do something that can make a difference in this interconnected world, take action to become the best version of yourself by eating whole plant foods. As noted in the movie by James Cameron, Game Changers, plant based nutrition is the necessary ingredient for athletes and people to perform and think their best.  The action recommended to be our best in Game Changes means we don’t eat fish.

In other words, eating plant based nutrition to become the best version of ourselves is also what will be best for the world and will also help solve the problem of animal agriculture.

Wonderful Example

Brad Lancaster provides a great example of how to do good that begets more good as a “Water Harvester”. I encourage you to watch as he shows how doing good begets more good.

Eating Our Way to Extinction

I also recommend you watch Eating Our Way to Extinction. It does a good job of documenting our situation and supports actions we can take to help us become the best version of ourselves. The actions recommended in this movie will also benefit everyone and everything.

I live to make my life as good as possible, and doing so helps me become a better version of myself. What I find rewarding is that my actions to improve myself generate comprehensive improvements. These improvements also lead to net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions from which everyone and everything benefits, which is paneugenesis or creating all good. This post shares more ways to become a better version of yourself that will also make a positive contribution. What more could we ask for?

Please share how you make your contribution so we can learn from your actions, and also share how you integrate this idea into your life. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker & Sydnii Robinson

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com