Tag: environment

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

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.

Walking on Greenways

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

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

Prevention can Be Harmful

As noted in the Prevention Can’t Work and Problems are Irrelevant! post, a prevention and problem focus is not a path to improvement. I only noted that prevention and problem elimination does not improve. However, some research has now demonstrated that prevention efforts can be harmful. In other words, prevention efforts can actually make things worse than if nothing was done at all. The Scared Straight! program provides an example.

Scared Straight!.jpg

Studies of results from several Scared Straight programs showed that those in the program had increased crime rates and higher re-offense rates than those in control groups. Though they are unsure why this peer reviewed research suggests that a focus on prevention caused more harm than doing nothing. This example suggests focusing on causing more good, not just less bad.

“Field of Dreams Illusion”

It is as if we have fallen under a spell and believe the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” when they said, “If you build it, they will come”. That is a dream. It takes more to create a new reality, specifically, it takes action to create a desired reality.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

Thinking too Small

Focusing on problems or prevention is “thinking too small,” and it is easier. Deciding what you don’t want is simple. Putting in place what you do want is harder and takes more effort. As an example, it is easier to not like where we live. However, as Melody Warnick and others demonstrate, creating an attachment to a place and having a higher quality of life takes action.

As noted in the Become by Doing post and by Andrew Huberman, Ph.D.:

Beliefs do not change our actions, Actions change our beliefs.

Andrew Huberman, PhD – Stanford

Supporting Podcast

Simon Sinek has offered and provided many valuable resources, including his excellent book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. I highlighted some of his work in this post, Talk without Your Phone – Everything can Benefit. Besides all that, he also has a good podcast called “A Bit of Optimism…” I listened to episode #57 when he talks with Pat Berges, and he explains how he took action to cause what he wanted. Throughout the episode, he discusses how his actions created the desired reality, so I am adding it to this post because it seemed relevant.

The podcast webpages describe the episode this way:

Don’t you hate it when you’re coasting along — not a care in the world — and then it feels like life comes out of nowhere and hits you like a car, almost paralyzing you? Well, for Pat Berges, that wasn’t just a feeling…that actually happened.

Like many of us, Pat is not a natural optimist. He had to learn how to find optimism during this dark period. Not only did it help him recover, but what he learned continues to help him be, well, optimistic.

I encourage you to listen to this good podcast with Simon Sinek and Pat Berges.

Doing Good Better

The answer seems to be Doing Good Better, which is the title of an excellent book by William MacAskill. In this book, he promotes methods for effective altruism. In the book, he cites multiple data sets and empirical evidence to document that taking better actions to do good is necessary to cause or enable more good.

Doing Good Better book cover

As another example, developing an attachment to place has been shown to improve well-being as it improves the place, reciprocal determinism. Specifically, Melody Warnick, in her 2 books, If You Could Live Anywhere and This is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are, discusses 10 actions to use to develop an attachment to a place. More information about her work can be seen here (posted July 2022). You can also listen to this podcast with Melody here (also posted below). The methods proposed by Ms. Warnick, which I strongly endorse, will simultaneously improve a person’s quality of life as it improves one’s attachment to their place.

In simple terms, these are the actions she suggests:

  1. Buy and shop local
  2. Walk & Bike
  3. Get to know your neighbors
  4. Enjoy assets – spend time in the area
  5. Experience nature
  6. Volunteer
  7. Eat local food
  8. Be civically engaged
  9. Create something
  10. Build residence

Developing Attachment = Paneugenesis or All Good

Melody Warnick provides a fantastic example of practicing paneugenesis to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits. The 10 actions espoused by Ms. Warnick, which I strongly support, will create an attachment to place as it yields selfish, selfless synergistic benefits from which everyone and everything benefits. Please get Melody Warnick’s books to learn how to improve your life and share the benefits you experience as you take action to gain “attachment to place” by practicing pangeugenesis.

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

Creating a Better Tomorrow

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

  1. 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
  2. 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.
  3. 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…
  4. 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.

Be Well’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

Trust but Verify

Hurricane “Ian” ravaged Florida and the east coast in September 2022. Some were fatally trapped because they stayed in their houses when the storm hit land. Although most would “trust” weather forecasts, they could not “verify” it would be that bad until it was too late. That is often the issue. Timing delays our ability to “verify”.

“Trust but verify” became famous, according to Wikipedia, when Ronald Reagan used it during nuclear disarmament talks with the Soviet Union. Ironically, at least according to Wikipedia, it s a Russian Proverb. This saying has become relevant in my life, can be related to actions with hurricane Ian, and may benefit your life.

At least for me, it seems the universe can talk to me. This time it was about the Russian proverb, “Trust but verify”. Of course, it became relevant because I also read Malcolm Gladwell’s provocative 2019 book, “Talking to Strangers“.

Talking to Strangers

Transparency, Understanding

Gladwell’s book was very enlightening (I recommend the book and summary). With research, “Talking to Strangers”, in Gladwell’s trademark neutral method, documents how we are good at understanding others when they act as expected, but bad at discerning the truth when they do not act as we think they should. He even suggests it could be because of the “Friends” effect. In the sitcom “Friends”, the actor’s emotions, expressions, and actions are all consistent and support what they will do.

In “Friends”, if they are smiling, they are happy. If they are trying to cheat or trick someone, they act suspiciously. In real life, that is not always the case. Only sometimes are we transparent such that our actions match our intentions. Gladwell explains the “Friend’s” effect to Jimmy Kimmel for about 2 minutes in the interview below. He also summarizes so much more. I strongly encourage you to listen to this 8-minute interview and read his book.

To demonstrate this conundrum, Gladwell documents other experiences in the book. One story discusses how Penn State’s University President, Graham B. Spanier, was fired for endangering children when Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of child abuse. He contrasts this to parents who were in the room when Larry Nassar abused their kids, and yet they were not thought to be negligent. Life is ambiguous…

Default to Truth

Gladwell suggests and suspects this happens because people will automatically default to the truth, or believe what is best when people act as expected. In other words, we default to “Trust”. It is hard not to, and it takes extreme risk and difficulty to go against the tide when others trust. The second part of the proverb, “Verify”, is what we should do, but it is complicated by timing and effort.

This is a proverb because we want colleagues and supervisors to think the best of us, or to Trust us. Think how horrible it would be if people automatically assumed the worst in each situation. In other words, we should “Trust”. If we didn’t trust, Gladwell seems to justifiably suggest without implicit trust, the world would be a less desirable place for us all.

Verification takes extra effort, and those steps may also cause us to discover things we do not want to know. This happened during the pandemic when people stole funds, as highlighted in this NYTimes Daily Podcast, Why Was Pandemic Fraud So Easy?

During the pandemic, an enormous amount of money — about $5 trillion in total — was spent to help support the newly unemployed and to prop up the U.S. economy while it was forced into suspension. But the funds came with few strings and minimal oversight. The result: one of the largest frauds in American history, with billions of dollars stolen by thousands of people. Guest: David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, focused on nonprofits.

Summary of 9/27/2022 NYTimes Daily Podcast

It got Personal…

Recently, I did not adequately “Verify”. The “Friends” effect impacted me. I didn’t adequately verify people because I could not imagine why a group I was working with would not be telling the truth. Unfortunately, my “default to truth” and failure to adequately “verify” has slowed and damaged progress on plans I had to Practice Paneugenesis on a much bigger level.

Though this attempt to “Optimize the process” did not work, I am finding a better way to reach my idealized outcome so we can generate comprehensive improvements by being nudged to create pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefit.

We want to provide people with a GPS for life that will nudge them to efficiently use resources to lead a fulfilling, regenerative life that will also create regenerative communities. This BeWell’r Web will work like a forest’s mycelium in the roots of plants and trees, enabling plants to be healthier through efficiently using the forest’s resources.

This function of nature through the root network in a forest was dubbed to be the “Wood Wide Web” by “Nature”(August 1997). The “Wood Wide Web” is a communication network that shares information through its fungi with all in the forest about how to best use its resources so the forest can thrive. The video below shares the vision for our BeWell’r Web that will help create healthier people and thriving communities:

What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

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

Salutogenic Bacteria

Most times we hear about pathogenic or disease-causing bacteria. There are however many wonderful Salutogenic or health-causing bacteria. It is another example of our amazing body. I learned about his amazing process when reading the advice column, “Ask the Doctors”, by Eve Glazier, M.D., and Elizabeth Ko, M.D. In their 8/23 column. They informed us:

..nitric oxide…is produced by cells throughout the body and plays a crucial role in promoting blood flow….nitric oxide helps keep blood vessels relaxed and pliable. This lowers the pressure that circulating blood exerts on the walls of the veins, arteries and capillaries.

Their response was to a reader that heard brushing your tongue can be harmful. The doctors explained the research (some of which you can see here). They found that brushing your tongue and using antiseptic mouthwash can damage the tongue’s microbiome and inhibit its ability to regulate blood pressure. Yes, the tongue also has a microbiome. It’s amazing, they now even know the mechanisms of how plant strong nutrition, specifically green leafy vegetables, helps us:

…The nutrient that the tongue bacteria convert is called dietary nitrate. It’s found primarily in green leafy vegetables such as spinach, lettuce and bok choy, and in root vegetables such as carrots and beets.

Of course, these helpful benefits course through our body, and plant strong nutrition helps them work better. You may remember, (see Stress can Improve Your Health) Kelly McGonigal explains in her upside of stress book and TED talk (below), stress hormones actually help heal the heart.

Evidence supports that we can generate comprehensive benefits by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless interactions by eating plant strong. From these interactions everyone and everything benefits as we help our bodies be health causing machines (see also Healthier’s By-Product is Comprehensive Improvements. Please share how you help your body be a health causing machine so everyone and everything benefits. Make it a Great Week.

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

Going in Circles is Better?

We often think that going in circles means we are not making progress, however, although it is not perfect, going in circles around roundabouts is a better solution. Like the idea of a circular economy, these circles provide personal and planetary benefits: How roundabouts improve traffic safety and lower carbon emissions

Although roundabouts only mean less pollution, less gas burned, and less accidents – the more good about roundabouts is that they enable faster transportation as they completely eliminate the need for traffic lights. Here is the story about roundabouts in Carmel, Indiana:

While my goal is to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive reciprocal selfish selfless synergistic interactions – roundabouts seem like a move in the right direction. What do you think? Please share your thoughts

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

Multiple Green$ Benefits

More green is usually good.

  • Greens in the form of vegetables are good for our health
  • Green behavior is regenerative or at least better and can help everyone and everything
  • Green in form of money can be good and helpful

This post is about how all 3 of these benefits will accrue from this simple action.

Many of us eat greens as spinach, lettuce, kale, mustard greens etc. While these greens are good for us, taste good and are delicious, they do not stay fresh long. Composting old greens is better because in time they turn into useful soil, but it still wastes money.

A Better Idea

We found a more useful solution. When our greens start to go bad, we put them into the blender and then freeze them. As frozen small pieces of greens, they are easy to add to a smoothy.

My bag of chopped greens and a scooper to add to a smoothie

We keep freezing old greens simple. When ours greens start to go bad we put the old greens in the blender with a little bit of water, if necessary, and mix. After the leaves are chopped, we place those leaves in a bag and put them in the freezer. I also put a scooper in that bag so I can easily scoop out a helping for my smoothie.

I really like doing this in the summer because I find Smoothies to be great summer snacks They are refreshing, cool and also provide a healthy serving of vegetables. If you are interested in more techniques, this page, How to Freeze Spinach, shares more options.

Multiple Benefits

This simple technique provides multiple benefits:

  • We eat more greens by including them in our now tastier and more filling smoothies
  • Environmental benefits are less trips to the store and less food waste
  • We save money by not having to buy greens or other ingredients for smoothies

Overall, chopping and freezing greens is a great, all good way to generate comprehensive improvements. Freezing older greens creates a net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic benefits from which everyone and everything benefits.

Please share how you generate comprehensive improvements so everyone and everything can benefit.

Be Well’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

Its the Environment Stu*?#!

“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.”

Albert Einstein

For a great discussion on simplicity I recommend Steven Dubner & Angela Duckworth’s “No Stupid Questions“, podcast episode #104, “How Simple Is Too Simple?“

Creating an Environment to Get Desired Outcomes

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.

Be Well’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

Insight Powered by Nature

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???

These connected roots meant that these plants were cooperating to be stronger. It was not survival of the fittest – it was survival of the most cooperative. This brought home many of the lessons I have posted about nature. Including Tree to Nuts to People – ALL Connected SuperCooperators, Strategic Alliances are Powerful, Mimic Mother Nature to Create a New Political Party, Deserts to Garden – Helping Nature Generate All Good, Standing on Natures Shoulders, What goes down, must go up?, Trees & Forests Can Help Us!?, More Trees, More Benefits, and many more.

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.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Be Well’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

An All Good Simple Clean Up

38,973 Bar Of Soap Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images - iStock

In baseball, the 4th hitter in the line up is called the clean-up hitter. The clean-up hitter is often one of the best hitters on the team. Most coaches adhere to the idea that the first 3 hitters in the lineup will be those with high on-base percentage so the fourth hitter, can “clean up” those runners on base and score runs. The hope is doing this will mean the team will not waste any opportunities to score due to the higher probability of the clean-up hitter “hitting” them in.

Clean-ups are generally good things. It means we don’t leave a mess or leave waste. In nature, there is no waste. Natures functions such that all living things: animals, plants, human and Gaia (Earth) function in ways that make life more livable for everyone and everything. Nature is not survival of the fittest but of the most cooperative and adaptive (see Tree’s to Nuts to People – ALL Connected SuperCooperators, Strategic Alliances are Powerful, Survival of the Fittest Misleading and others).

With this in mind, we human beings, who are a part of nature, should do what we can to make life more livable for everyone and everything. At this stage of our development, we really need to be living regenerative lifestyles to repair the damage we have done (see Getting Better as We Fix What we Broke, Fixing Problems is Inefficient, Ineffective & Insufficient, More than a “Whack a Mole” Life and others).

Of course life is already busy, nobody needs more responsibilities so this is a simplifying suggestion that provides multiple benefits and is a time multiplier (see Be Fruitful and Multiply – Time That is…. As Einstein explained,

Here is the suggestion or recommendation, when we clean up, use bar soap. Yes there are body washes, shampoo, conditioners, and more, but they are all soap. With regard to the lasting impact of soap, it is generally considered negligible because it breaks down quickly. However “…although the impact of soap itself is supposedly next to nothing, the packaging can actually make a difference, according to Conservation.” Logically, bar soap has less packaging, is lighter to transport, easier to store and has less disposal issues since it does not come in a plastic bottle. See more here.

Overall, in a civil of society we should be clean, however these efforts should not harm or harm other forms of life. Using bar soap helps us be in line with nature, is simple, eliminates complexity, a key driver of quality improvement as espoused by Dr. W. Edward Deming, and therefore can improve our lives and that of everyone and everything else.

It is almost like being a clean-up hitter, using bar soap makes life better, enables us to save money and also helps us contribute toward making life more livable. In other words, using bar soap is a way to create all good, or is a way to practice paneugenesis because it generates comprehensive improvements from a net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interaction from which everyone and everything benefits. Please share your thoughts!

Be Well’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

Accelerating Forward Faster

COVID has changed us forever. Never did we believe a virus could change our society as dramatically as it has. COVID has caused us to quickly move even faster than we thought possible. Unfortunately, in some ways we could be accelerating forward faster.

Our justified fear of the spread of the virus and problems associated with COVID has overly emphasized prevention by crowding out the promotion and improvement of health BEYOND the absence of disease. We can be and do better. Improved well-being amplifies the power of prevention. Prevention has been wonderful, but as I noted earlier, Prevention Can’t Work and Problems are Irrelevant! or at least it is insufficient when health improvement is our objective. Positive health amplifies prevention so we can accelerate forward faster.

Health is the PRESENCE Of WELL-BEING, it is not the absence of problems. Think about it, you feel good and have joy when you do things that make you feel good and or do good. Avoidance can only lead to temporary relief, not well-being.

Well being is caused by interactively developing physically, mentally and socially through conscious actions. Prevention efforts keep us from doing things. The BEST WAY TO PREVENT PROBLEMS is to be as healthy as possible. Prevention is a by-product of improved well-being. Study after study shows those engaged in health causing behaviors and thoughts in multiple dimensions, which my studies have labeled as social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical, vocational and environmental, benefit with improved well-being and higher life satisfaction due to the cumulative effect of these multiple well-being enhancing actions. There is no magic bullet.

To be able to prevent bad things, we must be strong mentally, physically and socially resulting from the development of those assets. Prevention, if taken alone, encourages us to isolate and become stagnant. Only when we take action can we get healthier and stronger. If you are interested and have time, I detail this in this Creating Better presentation.

Exponential growth

Another factor related to our difficulty, as Michael Lewis describes in The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, is from our problem understanding exponential growth which explains the rate a virus can spread. After all, isn’t it hard to believe a penny doubled every day for just 30 days would amount to over $5 million dollars? Even crazier, folding a typical piece of paper 50 times would end up being over 7 million miles long???? HUH?

Of course this is hard to believe, see the videos below that attempt to help us grasp the concept of exponential growth:

Exponential Growth:

Overall, we should be taking actions to enhance our well-being which will amplify our ability to prevent problems as a by-product of improved well-being. In other words, we can accelerate forward faster and experience better well-being with a side of prevention. This future will happen when we work to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions from which everyone and everything benefits. Please share how you make your life better do everyone and everything benefits!

Be Well’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

Is this Why Some Phrases Stick?

For the millions (well not yet) of you that follow me, you know I often use this blog as a scratchboard. I post these ideas hoping some of my unfinished thoughts will aid you in your thinking process. I recently realized that certain phrases seem to keep coming back to me and seem relevant. SInce I am a professor I a proposing a hypothesis about why they have stuck and I would appreciate your thoughts on accuracy of these thoughts. Can you do that by leaving a comment at the end?

One of the phrases that has stuck was in my thesis that I completed for my MS in Wellness Management at Ball State University. My thesis study focused on lifestyle behaviors. Throughout the paper I continued to emphasize that lifestyl behaviors were necessary, but alone they were insufficient. That phrase…

“…necessary but insufficient“

…has come back to me again and again. Most recently I heard it when I listened to Freakonomics episode #498. In the 1890s, the Best-Selling Car Was … Electric. In the episode they discuss how after a huge false start, electric cars are finally about to flourish. However in the episode, they emphasize that while moving to electric cars is necessary, it is insufficient to solve our climate crisis due to the many other damaging environmental factors from agriculture, cement and steel making and other processes.

An important aspect with this idea seems to be consistency. By that I mean that, it seems waht a person considers necessary actions are are also probably consistent with your values and therefore beneficial to your well-being. What are things you do that are necessary, but insufficient? Please share and also let us know how and if it helps.

The other phrase that keeps coming back that I used in my dissertation when I got my PhD from Arizona State and have also used in many articles is…

“… latent underlying constructs“

Latent means hidden or concealed. However it is not really hidden, it is just not prominent or noticeable right away. I have used this phrase to document the importance of health and or the environment. Health is something that enables all else, but is hidden or latent because without it, everything else is problematic. Of course when we don’t have health, it is prominent, but the lack of ill health is latent or hidden yet it is still necessary.

The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity

I also read a lot of James Lovelock and in all his books, especially in The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, he emphasizes the necessity but insufficiency or our current environmental actions. He suggests, “…We are like a revolting teenager, intelligent, with great potential, but far too greedy, and selfish for our own good” and that “…We must stop acting as if human welfare is all that matters”. He says this due to the interconnectedness of all living things, most especially the living Earth, or Gaia as he explains. As we all know, without a habitable earth, nothing else is possible. In this way, Earth is the “latent underlying construct” that is “necessary”.

In writing this I am just realizing these phrases are related. Latent underlying constructs are necessary, but insufficient. To me this means we must build on our good actions to enable continual and never ending improvement. In my teaching, I emphasize the ripple effect or the fact that it is not just what happens right away from that transaction, it is also about what happens down the line because that transaction that really matters. For instance, we can get car to go using fossil fuels, but the leftover CO2 from burning this fossil fuel is rushing climate change. This means the ripple of climate change, not the transaction of driving is most relevant.

This idea then brings us back to the start of this post about electric cars. Electric cars are necessary and can help, especially if we power them with clean renewable energy, but they are insufficient. They will not repair what we damaged, their use will just not add more, or as much damage. For these reasons and many more, my focus has been to attempt to generate comprehensive improvements by creating net-positive, pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits – which is the practice of paneugenesis.

As a professor, I write and publish articles in journals. These articles allow us to share our inferences, which means we use our expertise to share what we think the data for findings from a study or experiment mean. This also means inferences are not always accurate, they are initial understanding of phenomena.

Overall, this means my inference is that those phrases have stuck and keep coming back to me do so because they are relevant and important. What do you think? Do the reasons stated accurately explain why those phrases seem important and relevant and have therefore stuck with me and keep coming back?

Please share the thoughts and also actions you take to help even though we must all contribute because alone our actions may be necessary, but insufficient. Thank you – I look forward to reading your thoughts!

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