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.
I talk and often post about designing for MORE GOOD, not just less bad. To enable this, I use and require my students to use the Paneugenesis Process. As noted in many posts, including Less Bad ≠ More Good – We Must Create Good, Make 2020 Your Best Decade Yet… and many other posts, I describe the 4 step Panueugenesis Process this way:
Practice Paneugenesis using this 4 Step Process
Operationalize Desired Idealized Outcome
Determine an Idealized outcome that is better or improved from what is possible or able to happen now
Must incorporate Systems Thinking so the outcome benefits are on multiple levels without any seen harm to other levels
Discover and Develop Necessary Precursors to make Desired Outcome Possible
Research to discover what must come before the idealized outcome, what must be true for the desired outcome to occur
Assess current process to discover and learn current processes used or must be created to manifest ideal outcomes
These Precursors are goals that must be achieved before an Idealized Outcome can be realized.
Optimize the Process to Develop Skills and abilities that make Precursors possible (this is Green Grass philosophy, it’s designing a process to help the grass grow)
Develop good practices (append existing or start new processes)
Update unneeded, outdated, or inappropriate actions to ones that created an idealized vision,
Focus on what causes more and more blades of grass to grow, and…
Plot Progress to document, demonstrate, and celebrate Improvement
Measure and document progress forward toward the idealized outcome
Plan and develop the next steps to enable continual improvement
Experience has documented that the hardest part is also the most important. This is step 1 which requires Creating and Operationalizing an Idealized Outcome. To operationalize means all parties understand the goals and aims.
People often avoid generating an idealized outcome and fall back on the default of noting problems that explain why things are not ideal. That is easier, and most importantly, if improvement beyond the status quo is desired, doesn’t actually make things better. It can’t be better than the status quo because Prevention Can’t Work and Problems are Irrelevant!
I noted all this because Damon Gameau and his team appear to have created 2 films that Operationalize Idealized outcomes. These 2 movies are 2040 (I ordered and watched them)
And Regenerating Australia. Right now information suggests this movie is not available in the US yet, but I am trying to get a copy. Please advise if you know how I can get a copy.
I encourage you to learn more about his work so you also can be inspired to use the Paneugenesis Process to generate and create idealized outcomes. I look forward to learning about how you generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.
In 2014 I wrote this post, Dad Our House is on Fire!…People are Amazing! I wrote this because I was in awe of the amazing generosity we experienced after our house burned down and we lost most of our belongings. As I noted in that post, despite the awful news we hear 24/7, I believe most people are good. I also believe people want to help others. Scientifically this makes sense because it makes us feel good.
To my delight, I once again was in awe of amazing generosity of others. As I noted in 2014,
“… my belief that people are amazing has been confirmed.” Again!
My belief that people are good has been confirmed again – people are amazing! This time it was confirmed when my wife and I went Lowes to pick up some lattice for our yard.
Lattice punchased at Lowes
I have a Prius which has a hatchback and almost everything fits. This time however we were about 2 inches shy of being able to get the lattice into the hatch. As we picked up the lattice to return it to the store. a gentleman, with broken English gets our attention and says, “do you need help?” We explained we did and he then offered to carry the lattice pieces in his truck to our house. People are amazing!
We loaded the lattice in the back of his truck and asked him to follow us. Of course, if you believe the news, he would have driven away with the material. He did not. He kindly brought the material to our house, helped us unload it and said he was glad to help. We offered to pay him, but he refused. People are amazing!
Overall, it was a nice, net-positive pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interaction. This is a way to practice paneugenesis because it helped generate more good, not just less bad. That act encouraged me and my wife to pay it forward, thus causing a positive pervasive ripple, as it also reinforced our belief that most people are good and kind. People are amazing!
Make it a great week by being the amazing person you know you can be. Also please share your stories of yourself or others paying it forward!
“It’s the economy stu**#?!” was a famous catch phrase when Clinton ran for president and in a book by Paul Begala about George W. Bush’s presidency. As the title states, “It Still the Economy, Stupid”.
book by Paul Begala
This idea seemed to catch on because the economy seemed to be instrumental in peoples lives. Most people cared about the economy because they thought the state of the economy would have an impact on their lives.
Research continues to document that the things around us, such as the economy, greatly impact what we do and what we think. From a more general perspective, it’s not the economy, it’s the environment that is most influential.
Social Cognitive theory (also referred to as Social Learning Theory) explains how thoughts (cognitions), behaviors, and the environment continually influence one another. As any one of these factors changes, so do the others. Therefore, when we alter the environment, our thoughts and behaviors will also change, reciprocally. It is what is referred to as reciprocal determinism. If you are interested in learning more, you can watch this short video.
The power of the environment drives many recommendations. The simplest recommendation is to have healthy food in your house, prepared, and it will more likely be the food you eat. This simple point was driven home for me when I saw how we changed our home environment for our new puppy. For some reason he liked to play with our bolt cap covers on the bottom of the toilet (see pictures). To solve the problem, we put out toys and removed the bolt cap covers. He now plays with better toys and we don’t have a problem. All of this happened by “simply” changing the environment. How can you change your environment to get the outcomes you desire?
Simplicity, however is sometimes overrated, there is always more than one causal factor and this alone make simplicity incomplete. Still, Einstein was a fan,
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Preparing healthy food and having it available in my home generates a health promoting environment that makes health more likely. Making healthy food available is a time multiplier (see Be Fruitful and Multiply – Time That is…) I find myself, upon reflection, using time multiplier options all the time. Many actions, that take time initially, can create an environment more likely to generate desirable outcomes. For instance my wife and I share the notes App on our iPhones. It took time to set up, however now whenever we run low on things, or need to get something, we put it on our shared list and we are more likely to get and have things in our environment that we need. In this way, our digital environment helps our home environment.
Idea from this post: Design your environment to make your desired outcomes more likely. The environment enables or inhibits desired outcomes. Though it will take some work initially to create the environment you want, the time spent creating that desirable environment, will save your time – as Rory Vader explains, it is a Time Multiplier.
Behaviors Become Habits
It is important ot remember that any action taken sets the foundation for a habit. (see What We Do Without Thinking, Sharing “Atomic Habits” Wisdom from James Clear … and more. The environment we live in determine if engaging in that behavior will be easy or more difficult. Understanding this means we should design your environment to make desired behaviors easier so a better life can take care of itself because as behaviors become habits, it will be what we do without thinking. Habits are also great time savers, or time multipliers.
Please share how you design you environment to generate comprehensive benefits by enabling more net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.
As I took out my compost this morning, I noticed more growth under a tree my wife had me clear last week. I didn’t want it to become a big problem, so I pulled these small growths out before they got established. As I pulled out these small plants, I found that the roots were long and connected. Wait a minute???
We, homo sapiens, the human race, are nature (We are Just Talking Apes). Shouldn’t we act like nature? It seems we can trace our successes to when we collaborate like the late Ray Anderson demonstrated at Interface, where he boosted profits as he made life better for everyone and everything (see We Must Make It Better – Saving the Planet not Enough!, Did we give up? Hospice for Earth? We Need Better! and others) and we can trace our problems of waste and environmental degradation to times when we fail to act like nature. Acting like nature means we should make life more livable for everyone and everything, which also means we are living a good, vitality-generating life. Personal and planetary health are connected, interdependent and necessary.
According to my weeding this morning, nature seems to be telling us that LOUD and CLEAR are stronger when we cooperate and work together. Being strong means finding things we can cooperate on and using that part to create a connection from which we can grow strong together. To generate the comprehensive benefits we all desire, we must create net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions from which everyone and everything benefits.
I had been trying to push this positive agenda for much of my career with intermittent partnerships. I now have a great team of advisors and collaborators, and the progress has accelerated tremendously. Like the plants I picked this morning, my experiences have demonstrated I am stronger when I cooperate with others. Please share how you found a way to collaborate and how that can strengthen us.
We all now live in what seems like a very busy time. More than ever before, we are constantly bombarded with more information on a regular basis through our phones, TVs, and other media platforms. The constant onslaught of information causes us to be distracted or not fully focused on what we are doing. It is when we are not consciously determining what we are doing that habits seem to play their biggest role. Habits, according to Dr. Woods book, are what happens, or what we do when we are not thinking, distracted and or otherwise occupied. They are what we do automatically.
She documents that much of our life, upwards of 50% or more comes automatically, or are habits we can do without thinking consciously about the act. These are the things we have done over and over, and because we have done them over and over we have come to favor these acts. These acts are ones we will now defend and use because they are familiar and easier to do than to consciously think about what should be done. As she continually documents, we rely on habits because consciously thinking or developing new behaviors is exhausting.
The book especially resonated with me because my work focuses on health and or working on lifestyle behavior changes. While doing healthy actions once is not hard, it is difficult to regularly engage in healthy behavior. It is hard because society often encourages us to make less than optimistic choices. For these reasons and many more, this emphasized to me why it is vital to have healthy habits so we can be healthier from good life behaviors we automatically choose.
While that sounds simple, she did not sugar coat the idea and lead us to believe it would be easy to create habits. She explained habits take a lot of time and effort before they become automatic. According the research, on average it would take 66 days of repeated behaviors to make actions automatic. That means 2 months and 1 week is the needed time to create habits and will be needed for our actions to become automatic.
Although it takes time an effort, she provided a strong argument for why making the effort to create good habits would be worth the effort. At the end she says we should create habit because, 1. It helps people get more done and 2. It creates a more integrated and simple way to live. I think these are things we all want and are why I strongly recommend this book
Overall, Dr. Wood helps understand how can AUTOMATICALLY take actions that can generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. I look forward to hearing how habits improve your life – please share.
As made clear in “Don’t Look Up“, the recent Netflix movie, we do not have time to debate, It is Go Time. The movie is a great analogy of current times and a cry for critical thinking and action.
It requires reflection and optimism that we can make a difference. We also must believe our action can make a difference. As Israel Zangwill reflected:
“Take from me the hope that I can change the future, and you will send me mad.”
Israel Zangwill, English dramatist (1864-1926).
Daily news seems to express concerns that it could be too late, including in this recent Washington Post article:
Of course, what option is there? The ONLY option is to do good, feel good for doing good and be regenerative, not just sustainable. Review of the interconnected world clearly demonstrates, the world wants to regenerate. The awesome thing is that the only way we can save ourselves is also the best way to create the best life for everyone and everything. We all benefit from generating comprehensive improvements when we are creating net positive, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.
Nature does this, in all ways, including with the “Wood Wide Web”, where roots distribute resources most efficiently so trees make up a healthy and vibrant interdependent forest. The trees don’t fight for survival, they share to create overall success. That is how nature works.
We wall want a better world – for that to be we will need to dream big. Idealized Outcome are dreaming big because they are things that are not possible right now, but could be with work and effort. We need nature to do what it does. Chris Redmond shares his Idealized Outcome.
What is he talking about? He is talking about turning deserts into gardens. After all, since we have turned gardens into deserts, we should also be able to turn deserts into gardens.
This dream idea is ongoing in the Sinai desert in Egypt. Below is one example of creating a garden, or trees, in a desert.
Here is the Science – More Undoing
So how could this happen. It can happen by using good science. As Allan Savory came to realize, ideas he was taught and were the prevailing style of knowledge, was wrong. He discovered good science enables nature to do what it does best, make life more livable. When nature works, it generates comprehensive benefits and makes life more livable for everyone and everything. In his TED presentation, Allan Savory explains how we can make life more livable…..
Summary & a Way to Generate All Good
Sir David Attenborough the famous natural historian from England has created for Netflix a wonderful documentary, “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet“. This amazing show highlights an even more comprehensive picture of what has happened and how we can generate all good. I strongly encourage you to watch his documentary if you have Netflix, if not, see with someone who does. It is good. Here is a trailer.
If you are interested in learning more, below is the segment 60 Minutes did with Sir David Attenborough that is quite interesting.
What is your dream? What Idealized Outcome are you working toward developing? My projects are focused on helping or “nudging” people toward developing regenerative lifestyles. Regeneration is creating all good and is a way to practice paneugenesis. I encourage you to learn more about Regeneration from Paul Hawken’s 2021book, Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation and his complementary Regeneration website.
The 2021 Halloween Message is about getting things done. To get things done you have to do it. It cannot get much simpler than that. Often we think we have to believe it or understand it to do it, however recent research confirms, we think or believe it after we do it. In other words, according Andrew Huberman’s work
Beliefs do not change our actions, Actions change our beliefs.
Andrew Huberman, PhD – Stanford
The simple message, if you want to get something done – do it. Can it be that simple? I am sure there is more to it, however I know when I implement the 10 Minute rule, which means to just commit to doing something for 10 minutes, I get things done and feel better for it (see Jerry, James & Kelly Help Us Get Things Done).
As I note often, doing things is good for you, selfish and they can be good for others, selfless, and if done right, help everyone and everything. Try it out, engage in pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions to generate comprehensive benefits. Those actions will provide information to support the belief that you are a good person and part of the solution.
Thank you for what you do and please share the beneficial actions you take so we can learn from your successes.
It seems every day I get hit with more messages telling me the same thing, we need more good, not just less bad. We can do things that not only benefit ourselves, but also leave everyone and everything else better. Transactions where each side just trades goods, is not enough, our transactions must have positive ripples. Even President Biden’s plans seek to “Build Back Better”.
Overall, I am continually learning we can be better when doing good. For example, last week I saw, “Kiss the Ground“, a movie that demonstrated how farmers, food, nourishment and society can be better through better methods. My wife shared something that makes her life better and also improves our world. I also read an excellent journal article by Ilona Kickbusch, PhD, Visioning the future of health promotion , that explained there are better methods needed for the future and was how she was visioning this for the future. I keep hearing we can do more good, not just less bad.
When I say it must be more good, not just less bad I mean the more sustainable, selfish, selfless, synergistic way of doing. For example, my wife changed from dairy creamer to almond milk creamer and she prefers the almond creamer, its better – selfish. Choosing almond rather than a dairy based creamer is good for the environment and animals – Selfless. My wife, getting a better morning brew and the opportunity to feel good about herself in a better environment means she can have a better day and help more kids – she teaches – synergy. Only when it is more good, will we stick with changes and only then will we want to look for more ways to be more good, not just less bad.
“Kiss the Ground” is a movie about better soil, which makes better food, enables farmers to earn more money, can capture more carbon and makes better food. The food nourishes us more, which means we want more of this food that the farmer feels good about selling, because he knows it also benefits the environment, so he wants to make more of, etc. etc. it goes round and round of more good, not just less bad.
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Halbert Dunn devised of the concept of Wellness. He explained wellness must be:
Strong enough to activate devotion of time, resources, and energies toward understanding and culturing health in a positive sense
Halbert Dunn (1959, High Level Wellness for Man & Society)
As he stated, Wellness, which I define as progress, (See Experiencing Wellness = Progress Toward Desired) must be strong enough to devote time, resources and energies toward it development. I think he meant that its achievements should mean enough to us that we want to work toward its achievement.
For example, the 2021 JAMA article, Association Between Structural Housing Repairs for Low-Income Homeowners and Neighborhood Crime by Eugenia C. South, MD; John MacDonald, PhD; Vincent Reina, PhD, showed fixing up house, not only gave people a better place to live and a better life – the better community also had less crime. Could it be because people watched out for their neighbors, had more pride of ownership, or other reasons. Yes! More good, is has more of an impact than less bad.
In my own way, it has been my focus to Create More Good, Not Just Less Bad as I explained in this 17 minute presentation I made to my university’s sustainability committee.
Creating more good was also what McDonough and Braungart highlighted in their book Upcycle (see Concept: Create More Good, Not Just Less Bad). Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollander also emphasized less bad is not enough to generate more good.
Over and over evidence continues to document that we should focus on how to create more good, not just less bad. To make things better, we have to also fix what we broke. Either way, it is the best thing we can do because we will be making a contribution, Selfish, that others will benefit from, Selfless, and then there will be a better world, Synergy. #SelfishSelflessSynergy
I continue to work to generate comprehensive improvements by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions from which everyone and everything benefits because it makes my dash – , valuable. The Dash is the poem written by Linda Ellis where the dash represents the time you were alive (i.e. like for my dad, 1932-2019) He made his dash valuable.
I am hoping these posts will inspire you to make your Dash even better by engaging in selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions that help everyone and everything. Please share how you generate #SelfishSelflessSynergy!
As the Family Circus comic explains, National Parks are a hard act to follow. I had the good fortune of visiting many national and state parks this summer. My wife is Swedish and now that she is a citizen and living in America – she wants to see it all. I am glad she has pushed us to make these trips, on the way to a family wedding. I am better for it. We visited these state and national parks (I added a few pictures):
White Sands, the gypsum is interesting
Zion – the Narrows were an amazing hike
Coral reef
Arches,wow
Grand Canyon – North Ridge
Canyon lands
Yellowstone
Grand Tetons
Glacier
Red canyon
Golden Gate Bridge
Redwoods
Pacific Coast Highway
and so much more…
What a wonderful benefit provided by our tax dollars for all to enjoy. The parks were and are awesome. They were clean, well run, educational, and overall better than I had anticipated. The staff was friendly, helpful and very knowledgeable. I strongly encourage all to enjoy any state and or national park you can.
I believe I am using awesome as it was meant to be used. I was awed by the grandeur and wonders of nature at the parks. It was amazing how the earth is able to adapt to what happens and the beauty created in the process. It could an earthquake, volcano or even change in temperature, everything else then adapts. The results are interesting and often beautiful. We usually miss amazing changes in nature because nature works on slower time frame than humans. Of course the earth will always be fine, however it may not be as hospitable to humans as is predicted from our burning of ancient sunlight. We must keep this in mind and listen to the experts with regard to climate change (see Stop the Death of Expertise)
Technology, however, made our visit to these parks even better, MUCH BETTER than expected:
The amazing technology that enhanced out trip was the Gypsyguide App. A person we met one of the camp sites we stayed it recommended it. The GyPSy Guide app was beneficial and educational. There are many downloadable programs for must part and they cost between $8-$20. If you are interested, you can learn more about it here at the GyPSy Guide website.
As we toured the parks, the GyPSy Guide app would provide interesting information about the site. Even though we did not have wifi all the time, it knew where we were and it provided a guided tour at Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, and as we drove the Pacific Coast Highway along the pacific ocean.
We learned so much. It made the sites more interesting. As we were driving it told us about the history many interesting facts I would not have known otherwise. For instance, we learned that most of these national parks were run by volunteer directors when they were created at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.
The app was helpful because it would tell us to stop at MUST SEE sites and explain about each of those sites. It would mention all sites but only said some were MUST SEE. I am sure we would not have stopped at many of those sites and been asamazed as we were if we did not have the GyPSy Guide.
Although technology is sometimes frustrating, on the whole it can be quite helpful and it can be wonderful. The GyPSy App is an example of how technology has enhanced our lives. Interestingly, Dan Brown addressed the intersection of humans with technology in his book, “Origin“ (see post: The Multiple Perspectives of Dan Brown’s “Origin”).
I would say our visits to these parks created interactions that made our lives better and helped me appreciate nature. It motivated me to want to generate comprehensive benefits by creating regenerative, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. I encourage all of you to go and enjoy a state and or national park when you can. Plan for it now, don’t just put it on a list to do someday, go as soon as you can to enjoy our wonderful parks!
Trees cool climates and also help with climate change. Planting trees in neighborhoods that do not have many trees would be another example of generating comprehensive benefits by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.
Plant trees, generate oxygen
As reported in Scientific American,
…communities of color have 33% less tree canopy on average than majority white communities, the analysis revealed. And neighborhoods with 90% or more of their residents living in poverty have 41% less tree canopy than communities with only 10% or less of the population in poverty. (Greenwire, Sept. 16, 2020).
As summer 2021 has demonstrated, heat waves have become more common. Trees are nature’s way to cool the planet. So simple, more tree planting helps the environment by trapping more carbon, provides more home for animals, cools the neighborhood, and therefore benefits everyone an everything. Please share plans that we can participate in to help plant trees.
A recent July 12, 2021 New York Times Daily Podcast, “A City’s Steps Toward Reparations” helped me better understand how wonderful and needed reparations are for society. When I first heard about reparations I, I had many questions and doubts. While I thought it was a good way that we could possibly makeup for some of the horrible ways African American’s were treated, I was unsure how reparations would help. However after learning about how the reparations were done in Evanston Illinois, to subsidize housing, I realized it was much better than I had thought.
During our history, African American’s had difficulty getting and owning property, not because of what they had done, but because of redlining laws, prejudice, and as we learned, because it was stolen. I encourage you to listen to the linked wonderful NYTimes Daily podcast so you also can understand how helping others helps move society forward for everyone and everything.
Success breeds success, good begets good (See Good Begets Good and Bad Begets Bad: Green Grass Theory). We must do all we can to enable people to be the best version of themselves. Helping African Americans get what was previously withheld from them will enable them to meet at least their basic needs so they can move toward self- actualization. This therefore is an example of not only how to practice paneugenesis, but how to enable Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
This would be an example of how society can’t generate comprehensive benefits by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless interactions from which everyone and everything will benefit and while all improve, we can fix some things we had done wrong.
I noticed I had several drafts about the same theme. In all these drafts I was wondering, why do people believe I think outside the box?
Out of the Box thinking is described to be when people think in an original or creative way.
I had always assumed that thinking outside the box meant you were being creative and finding better solutions. I assumed it meant you did not accept traditional norms and that a person thinking outside the box was not doing things the way they were always done. This is accurate, in a sense, however there is more to “Outside the Box Thinking”, at least according to Wikipedia, and it all started with 9-Dot Puzzle.
What Would be “ThinkingOutside the Box“?
I work in the health field and my focus is on what creates, generates or causes better physical, mental and social well-being. How is that original or out of the box thinking? Couldn’t that represent in the box thinking, just from a different angle? While I don’t go directly at well-being, I focus obliquely on factors associated with improved well-being such as relationships, personal and group development, physical activity and food selection. Although the goal is not specifically well-being, it is pretty direct. We also know that John Kay explained to us why, For Complex, Oblique(Obliquity) is More Effective.
Well-being, life, health and society are about as complex as it gets. This then suggests that traditional and prevailing approaches may not be as effective as they could be. This may also may explain why traditional approaches in health, business and the environment could benefit from a different perspective. From an outsiders view, it seems they started by thinking outside the box and need a better perspective. Lets review:
For Business: thinking generally focuses around how to decrease costs and avoid problems…Instead of thinking how can we serve customers better while we also, simultaneously, clean the air, land and water from their uses. In other words how can we be multipliers of our time (see: Be Fruitful and Multiply – Time That is…) For many, and based on how society has progressed, it appeared our “Take, Make, Waste” system was effective. However, if we take a different perspective in the box, as Ray Anderson did with “Interface”, that takes into account that everyone and everything is connected. Using this approach, Ray demonstrated how we can be even more effective, efficient, profitable as we also improve everyone and everything. (see We Must Make It Better – Saving the Planet not Enough!)
For the Environment: thinking generally focuses on how to clean up problems, using the “Take, Make, Waste” to bend nature to our will….Instead of thinking how an we work with nature as all other creatures on earth has done to live in a way that makes life more livable. The idea of living in ways that generate a “Net Positive” has been outlined by Jane Benyus, Kate Raworth and many others (see: Parallel NOT Linear Means Create Positive AND Prevent Negative, Aim to Thrive, Not Just Grow for a Better Tomorrow)These ideas have also been operationalized by McDonough and Braungart in Cradle to Cradle and Upcycle.
In Health: thinking generally focuses on how to treat diseases and or avoid risk factors…Instead of thinking how can we increase physical, mental and social well-being. The majority of the focus and effort being used by health is how to find disease and treat it. It is as if we are trying to be a day late and a dollar short with regard to improved well-being by “Thinking Outside the Box”. We could be in the box using Antonovsky’s salutogenesis and focusing on what causes health. Many of these ideas are capture here: We Need to Use the 3rd Alternative
As I reviewed this information about “Thinking Outside the Box”, a proverb came to mind:
“To change and to improve are two different things.”
German proverb
Time for a Reboot
Sometimes we need a new start, a reboot. We need a reboot because now some things are backward, upside down and confused. Let’s get in box and use a better perspective. Life is all about probabilities. It is time to turn the tables in our favor by getting “In the Box” and using a better, “Net Positive” focus and perspective that uses oblique factors related to helping everyone and everything.
A “Net Positive” results from using a Selfish, Selfless, Synergy focus. Selfish, Selfless, Synergy efforts help generate comprehensive benefits by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits, or the practice of paneugenesis. Please share you engage in #SelfishSelflessSynergy so everyone and everything benefits.
Last week in my post, Being Paid in Multiple Ways, and in many others I have emphasized how quality, environmentalism and generating health can generate comprehensive benefits from which everyone and everything can benefit. Evidence suggests these methods that bring all these benefits together are more efficient, less expensive, impact more people in a positive way and are better for the environment, which of course helps everyone and everything.
In other words, a lot of my posts are what Rory Vaden called “Time Multipliers” (see Be Fruitful and Multiply – Time That is…) because over time, they give you more time to do what you want to do. It reminded me of how Steve Jobs explained the computer was a bicycle for the mind because it helped you do things better and faster. Steve explains this concept here and below.
All this came to mind as I was listening to Amber McReynolds TED talk, “An election system that puts voters (not politicians) first”. She describes a voting system that brought everything together and showed how it helps everyone learn more, do more and be more involved. The voting system she describes can help our government be a bicycle for society. Better voting from more educated citizens enables a better system that will function more efficiently. I strongly encourage you to listen to Amber’s talk – it is very powerful and empowering.
I also realized this post is overdue, especially after learning more about the hidden massacres like the described in this NYTImes Daily Episode, The Burning of Black Tulsa. If we work together, many answers will evolve that can help everyone and everything make progress. As we all know, voting is a current issue and Biden puts Harris in charge of efforts to protect voting rights. If we use Amber McReynolds ideas, we can not just protect voting rights, we can improve the voting system.
Please share how you will help empower and enable yourself and others to be the best version of themselves so you can feel the glow and pride for acting in selfish, selfless, synergistic ways. I believe this this was captured well by Simon Sinek and Time Shriver podcast in Episode 34: Learning to Love with Tim Shriver. Though they talk about problems, it seemed they were promoting us to help others more and to practice paneugenesis by doing selfish, selfless, synergistic actions.
My hypothesis, that has been supported by a lot of evidence, is we can generate comprehensive improvements by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic acts that benefit everyone and everything. What do you think?
Positive Health Leadership 