Personal MasteryPersonal Mastery

A Sam Swaminathan

Presentation

Owed to My Parents, My Family, Gandhi, Mandela, Covey, and

many others

Personal Mastery - Our AimPersonal Mastery - Our Aim

• Comprehending Human Thinking

• Developing Inner Courage

• Understanding and Overcoming Fear

• Building Trust and Faith

• Embracing Forgiveness

• Building a Personal Mastery Plan

Our Aim TodayOur Aim Today

• Comprehending Human Thinking

• Feeling Vs Thinking

• Exploration Vs Judgment

• Imagination Vs Memory

• Small Changes & Big Changes

• Your Personal Mastery Plan

Our Aim TomorrowOur Aim Tomorrow

• The Anatomy of Character

• Courage, Confidence, and Commitment

• Dealing with Fear

• The Illogic of Impatience

• Your Personal Mastery Plan

Our Aim on WednesdayOur Aim on Wednesday

• Building Trust and Faith

• Embracing Forgiveness

• The Power of Passion

• Your Personal Mastery Plan

Personal MasteryPersonal MasterySession ISession I

Our Aim TodayOur Aim Today

• Comprehending Human Thinking

• Feeling Vs Thinking

• Exploration Vs Judgment

• Imagination Vs Memory

• Small Changes & Big Changes

• Your Personal Mastery Plan

The Two MindsThe Two Minds• No matter how rational we think we are, we

humans are essentially emotional beings. We make our final decisions intuitively. [This feels right].

• The emotional mind is much older than the rational one. That’s the way our minds have evolved. The emotional mind is also quicker than the rational mind. It is our radar for danger.

FIGHT – FLIGHT - FREEZE

• What we are born with is what worked best for the last 50,000 generations, not the last 500, certainly not the last 5. We too often confront postmodern dilemmas with an emotional repertoire tailored to the urgencies of the Pleistocene.

- Dan Goleman

Our EmotionsOur Emotions

• With anger blood flows to the hands, making it easier to grasp a weapon.

• With fear blood goes to the large skeletal muscles [legs], making it easier to flee, and making the face blanch as blood is shunted away from it.

Our EmotionsOur Emotions

• Happiness brings an increased activity in a part of the brain that inhibits negative feelings and an increase in available energy.

• Love and sexual satisfaction entail parasympathetic arousal – the physiological opposite of ‘fight-or-flight’ mobilization shared by fear and anger.

Our EmotionsOur Emotions

• The lifting of eyebrows in surprise allows the taking in of a larger visual sweep.

• The expression of disgust – the upper lip curled to the side as the nose wrinkles slightly – suggests a primordial attempt to close the nostrils against a noxious odor or to spit out a poisonous food.

Our EmotionsOur Emotions

• Sadness brings a drop in energy and enthusiasm for life’s activities, and slows the body’s metabolism. This introspective withdrawal creates the opportunity to mourn a loss, grasp its consequences, and plan new beginnings.

Our EmotionsOur Emotions

How we thinkHow we think

• We first feel about something.Only then do we think about it.

• The only thinking that follows the feeling is to support the feeling we already have about the issue.

• The feeling is largely based upon our experiences – our paradigms - our mental maps. We are the sum of our learning and experiences.

How we thinkHow we think

• The human mind is a patterning system.

• The patterns emerge from our experiences.

• How do we ensure that our experiences are rich enough?

- Edward de Bono

The Gift of ExplorationThe Gift of Exploration• Why is it difficult for us to

explore our thoughts?

• Our social systems have made us this way. We need to think about our thinking.

• Think of home, school, work, [don’t ask questions, just listen, do as I say, …].

The Gift of ExplorationThe Gift of Exploration• We need to explore before we take a

stance [Exploration Vs Judgment, Inquiry Vs Advocacy].

• Explore first to develop alternatives.

• Apply judgment to the alternatives. When we fail to do this, we suffer ‘Leaps of Abstraction’.

• Our imagery may be faulty. We need sincere exploration.

The Gift of ExplorationThe Gift of Exploration• There is a whale of a difference

between ‘The Answer’ and ‘An Answer’. How do I know my answer is the only right one? Worse, how do I know that there isn’t a better way of arriving at the answer?

• Exploration allows us to find a number of alternative methods [and sometimes answers] and then choose from them.

Examine your thinkingExamine your thinking

You are the director of the ATP Tennis championships in town. There are 139 players taking part in the singles knockout tournament. How many matches will have to be played?

The Joy of ExplorationThe Joy of ExplorationExplore Your Experiences

• Think of an event that changed a belief you had held for a long time. How did it shape your life?

• When we fail to explore our experiences, they imprison us.

The Joy of ExplorationThe Joy of Exploration

• Everything is created twice – first in our imagination, and then in our reality.

• The creation in our imagination is crafted by our experiences and our paradigms.

- Stephen Covey

Imagination & MemoryImagination & Memory

• Just think for a moment – which is more powerful – your imagination or your memory?

• Memory is limiting. Imagination is limitless.

Dare to Dream and Do

Small Changes & Big ChangesSmall Changes & Big Changes

Small changes can be brought about by working on our behaviors. Big changes require that we examine our paradigms.

– Stephen Covey

Why ChangeWhy Change

It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but those that are most responsive to change.

– Charles Darwin

The Feeling BrainThe Feeling Brain

The feeling brain is more powerful than the thinking brain. It has greater influence on our decisions than our thinking brains. We must therefore learn to cultivate our feeling brain.

The Two BrainsThe Two Brains

• Thinking Brain – Intelligence Quotient

• Feeling Brain – Emotional Quotient

Our IQ is pre-determined. But we can develop our EQ.

Your Personal Mastery PlanYour Personal Mastery Plan

• Learn to learn from others.

• Read about the lives of great people.

• Embrace a few mentors.

• My mentors don’t have to be older than me. Our children are often our best mentors!

• What kind of people do you spend your time with?