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In Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Lifes Purpose, Martha Beck, PhD, writes that anxiety always lies. When I asked her why, she highlighted one of the books central teachings: When you seek the truth beneath your anxious thoughts, you discover that many of them arent real. This newfound awareness is transformative. It dismantles anxietys prevailing narrative that in order to be safe, you must live in fear. So many people tell me: But, the world is in bad shape right now, Beck shares. I say: Yes, and doesn’t that require us to show up as our calmest, most committed, and competent selves? Anxiety does not do that, it just tells lies that say: Be in a defensive posture. Never think you’re safe. Don’t tell anyone the truth, she says. Scare someone and watch them behave. You’ll see that they’re not reacting to reality. As a bestselling author and Harvard trained sociologist, Beck is often described as the best known life coach in America. Her latest book is a comprehensive guide to liberate yourself from anxiety and rediscover your creativity. In our conversation, Beck discusses how to calm your nervous system, reignite your joy, and discover your purpose. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What do we get wrong about anxiety and how can we adopt a new perspective? Its this very materialist viewpoint that is dominant in the left hemisphere [of the brain]. It not only says that matter is all that we are. But, also that nothing else exists. When you see a person that way, you start to treat the body and mind like machines that are broken. That’s where the medical model goes. You cut something up and see what makes it tick. You have to kill it to do that. So, you never understand what makes it alive, but you can see how it fits together. We try to pin down the mechanisms and intervene with chemicals or new habit formingAll of it is an attempt to adjust, fix, or alter the machine. We don’t give credit to our anxiety for being sentient. It feels. It’s not mechanical. When you say to something that is a feeling, living, beingI’m going to cut you up, drug you into insensibility, and work against you in every way I can until youre gonethe very mechanism of life says: I’m going to ramp up my defenses. Im going to get more frightened. We attack everything about ourselves that we dont like. It just makes us more frightened. You explain that our brain interprets our thoughts about the past and future as if they are actually happening. How does this impact our mind and body and how can we decrease its potency? It means that we’re in a constant fight-or-flight stateActually fight, flight, fawn, faint, or freeze. It revs up a system that is meant to be an emergencies-only system. It’s like you have a little firefighter that comes running out, puts out fires, and then goes back to sleep. But, instead of letting them sleep, you’re constantly screaming: Fire, fire, fire! The fear response is running around inside your head going: Where’s the danger? But, since there is no local danger (there’s just a thought), it can’t find the thing to fight. So, it keeps running around in fear, which means that you are constantly secreting stress hormones. We know that when you continuously bathe the inside of your body with stress hormonesthat are only supposed to be little bursts of energy when you’re in dangerit leads to all kinds of degenerative illnesses, from cancer to heart disease to autoimmune diseases. The imagination of danger is the primary source of our stress. How can we approach these situations with a more generative response? The first step is always to notice what is happening around you, because this stress response is only meant to deal with physical danger that is present in your environment. When you look around the room and say: In this place right now, there is no bear or murderer. You take a deep breath and a long exhale, because that’s something almost every animal does when it has escaped danger. Then, you come back to the present and start noticing the objects around you, especially if you can appreciate them. The moment that I start to think about that, I start to become preoccupied with what’s around me. Since I’m safe, what fires up is curiosity, connection, and gratitude. Suddenly, I’m in a safe, wealthy environment, no matter where I am; Instead of a terrifying place filled with monsters and constant scarcity. Presence, presence, presence. Come back to where you are. Tell us about the relationship between anxiety and purpose. What do we get wrong about purpose that keeps us from discovering it? The relationship between anxiety and purpose in our culture is that anxiety becomes a very dominant force; something that we culturally believe is going to make us safer. We are going to hang on to whatever makes us feel safebut also whatever makes us feel anxiousbecause that is anxiety’s ultimate lie: Without fear, you won’t be safe. So, in order to feel safe, you have to feel afraid. You get in this tight anxiety spiral. If you’re going down a tight anxiety spiral, there’s no way you can move toward anything purposeful. The left hemisphere of the brain creates the anxiety spiral. If you move into the right hemisphere by doing things that are creative, sensory, and proprioceptive, then you turn toward activities that spark your creativity, curiosity, connection, and compassion. Suddenly, instead of running away from everything, you’re moving toward things. There’s aversion and attraction. You will not find your sense of purpose by avoiding things that frighten you. You will find it by moving toward things that give you joy and the experience of abundance. You share research from child psychologist Karyn Purvis that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain with regular practice and only 1020 if were learning through play. How does dedicated play accelerate mastery? We learn through play. Its the same for adults as it is for kids. It’s just that kids are given a bit more room to frolic. One study they did for different groups in the 1960s identified 2% of the adults they surveyed as creative geniuses. They gave the same test to 4- and 5-year-olds98% of them scored as creative geniuses. What is happening in the meantime? A big part of it is that we’re forced not to play. We’re forced to learn a way of learning that is rigid, boring, and monotonous. We can learn that ay, but there’s no fun to it. If there’s no fun to it, you can’t remember it. When were trying to solve a challenge, you explain that we tend to zoom in and follow instructions; whereas you propose creating the conditions that are most likely to wake up the sleeping magician in your right hemisphere. The magician will then solve problems for you in ways that will leave your left hemisphere agape in disbelief. What are those conditions and how can we create them? Its always by going towards something that is kind to the self and creates comfort, joy, and a sense of gratitude. People used to come to me for coaching and I’d say: Let’s find your joy. But, they were so exhausted from living in a world of joylessness, that the first thing is usually rest; Giving yourself permission to rest is a massive step toward creating this life that you’re going to love. Its so scary for people. They haven’t yet touched the fertility of the creative state. Getting people to rest is the single most challenging thing that I do as a coach, because the culture does not provide for rest. Once you rest, then you start naturally getting curious about things. You start playing, solving problems, and making things happen. Steve Jobs was obsessed with making insanely great things out of machinery. People like that, whose creativity is fully loosened, they’re the ones who everybody thinks are doing something inaccessible and impossible. Its possible for all of us. You write: I know that the most important creative project youll undertakethe one you were born to completeis the shaping of your whole life. As you become more creative than our society deems prudent, youll make the choices that will lead to your own greatest happiness, and your best contribution to the world. What wisdom might you leave us with to begin realizing that vision? Sit down and imagine what you expect as a road going forward, which is probably some blend of what movies, culture, and living with your family has taught you. Think of it as having walls on each side. It may be wide or very narrow. But, see what’s there. What do you expect? Do you expect marriage, children, a jobwhatever it is, what is it? Now, imagine that the walls are suddenly gone. Youre in this broad field of nature and history. All these resources are available to you, if you wander off the pathways. Suddenly, people go fromI feel so trappedtoHoly crap, what am I going to do? This is too much opportunity. But, the biggest mistake that you can make is when people say: I’m going to take life as it comes. I’m not going to make anything up. No, you’re making it up. You’re making your expectations based on your experience. Make up something that makes you happy.
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E-Commerce
Nothing strikes fear in a leader’s heart more than an upcoming announcement. Yet big changes and announcements are the turning point for many organizations. Whether its layoffs, acquisitions, launches, or reorganizations, the pressure to get it right is real. Company performance, team morale, retention, and public image are all on the line. Unfortunately, most leaders rely on advisers and experts when it comes to how, when, and what to communicate. Well-meaning attorneys, publicists, or CFOs typically water down the message, and the company ends up with something that is factual but uninspiring. Oftentimes, that message is also ambiguous with no plan, next steps, or information on how. This isnt helpful for building morale, or to arm employees with the right information to move forward. To do so, leaders need to strike the right balance of information and inspiration. Heres how. Step 1: start with the information When change is underway, humans fill a void of information with any number of presumptions and speculation. As our head of culture reminds me often, People just want to know how it affects them. Shes right. Its critical for leaders to share as much information as possible, as soon as possible. Our agency navigated this recently. A longtime client, partner, and friend acquired our business. It was a great acquisition situation, and one we had worked on for years. Yet, we knew for most of our team it would come as a big surpriseand surprise can turn negative in our minds. This is probably bad. Im losing my job. This is going to be terrible. To prepare and help ensure that they understood how this would affect them, we created a list of questions we knew would be top of mind and tried our best to answer them in our initial announcement. We were also upfront about questions we knew we couldnt answer yet. Lastly, we told them when they could expect more information. Step 2: share ‘why’ with care to build confidence Everyone wants to work for an inspirational leader. In seasons of change, inspiration comes from understanding the why. It also comes from leaders who truly care and are able to share their decision-making process with vulnerability and understanding. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I always tried to explain what we were doing and why. We came back to the office sooner than some would have liked and later than others could understand. I knew we had to acknowledge that. Heres what I had said to our team: We know some are wondering why the office is still closed and it may feel too cautious to you. Others are still concerned with safety. Were trying to make the right decision for everyone and for our business. We also know we need to stay at maximum capacity right now because so many of our changemaker clients are in need of our support. So heres what were going to do. . . . Acknowledging that I understood how it might feel and that I took their concerns into account allowed me to build confidence and trust with the team. It also helped everyone understand why. Step 3: Tailor the message to your people In communications, we talk at length about tailoring the message to your audienceto your people. The same principle applies when youre communicating change to your employees. Those in creative industries often lean more into inspiration while those in technical fields typically need more information. I was speaking with a marketing director for a biotech company about our mutual experiences introducing employee ownership to our teams. Her experience with a company of scientists was very different from mine at a creative agency. I told her that we took our team to Disney World for our announcement, while she noted that her team would have considered that fluff and preferred a different approach. There is no right or wrong here. The key is knowing your people and what they need to navigate a transition successfully. Your employees response is also highly dependent on organizational culturewhich comes from day-to-day interactions and operations. Consistent, candid, clear information builds trust. Once youve established that, you can lean into more and more inspirational messaging. Without trust, deeply inspirational messaging can seem manipulative and inauthentic. Step 4: Dont be afraid to showcase vulnerability While you should never make a company announcement about you, a dose of honesty can go a long way. Shortly after our acquisition, I was speaking privately with our team and they wanted to know how I felt. I could hear leadership experts in my mind: Instill confidence. But we all know nothing is 100% wonderful or perfect. So instead I told them, Im 95% sure this is a great decision. And I laughed as I said, The other 5% is just because you can never know. I watched as they smiled and knew they really believed me, because it was true. Were all looking for truth and can smell talking points from a mile away. Step 5: know when to mix Information and inspiration Great leaders inform and inspire, but exceptional leaders know just how to mix the two. I remember a leader of a billion-dollar global organization who stood in front of her large team. This year we are going to double revenue, she said. Her team cheered. They were highly engaged in the global good their work provided for others, and they respected their leader. She fed into the enthusiasm and continued her pep talk. As the meeting time wrapped up, everyone anxiously awaited for details, but got none. She ended with, Alright, lets do this! No plan or next steps, no information, no how. She lost credibility that day in a big way. Instead of the start of a new level of growth, it became the end of trust and ultimately her role in the organization. Exceptional leaders know that people need both the why and the howthe inspiration and the informationand mix both to meet the needs of their teams. These are the leaders that we love to follow, and work hard for.
Category:
E-Commerce
If optimizing your social media privacy settings feels important but overwhelming, a company called Block Party may be able to help. Founder and CEO Tracy Chou has long been known for advocating for diversity in the tech industry. And like many diversity advocates, and women and people of color in technology, she’s experienced plenty of harassment online, along with outright stalking. She founded Block Party after realizing that tech platforms themselves didn’t make it particularly easy to optimize settings for privacy and security. The initial Block Party product focused on the platform then called Twitter, helping users easily filter out spam, harassment, and other unwanted content, while easily blocking other users based on their on-site behavior. [Image: Block Party] “It completely changed my experience on Twitter,” Chou says. “I felt like I could just use the platform and not feel like there might be an unpleasant surprise every time I checked my mentions.” But while Block Party is still highlighted as a “success story” on X’s developer site, Chou says her company was forced to put that version of the product on hold after the social network imposed new API restrictions after Elon Musk took ownership. The company then pivoted to a new approach, developing a browser extension compatible with Chrome, Firefox, and Edge that lets users automatically update their account settings across 11 platforms, including X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Venmo, and Strava. [Image: Block Party] Similar to virus scanning software, Block Party can automatically go through settings on the various platforms, presenting users with a checklist of potential risk factors and offering the opportunity to change them. That could mean activating two-factor authentication on particular platforms, removing location information from LinkedIn profiles, or making Venmo transactions and Strava run maps more private. “As a user, you don’t have to go dig through a million menus and find the right setting to go change,” Chou says. The tool can also help users scrub their social profiles of old material and connections that can impact privacy, including untagging photos, deleting old posts, and bulk unfriending long-forgotten acquaintances on Facebook. Chou says in the current political climate she’s seen interest from current and former federal employees concerned about doxxing, as well as people who plan to make political statements and want to reduce the risk their family members will be found through their social media and targeted for harassment. But, she says, Block Party is designed to be useful to people with a wide variety of threat models and concerns, letting them reap the benefits of using big online platforms while mitigating some of the privacy risks. Chou and her colleagues regularly look at guides to social media privacy, including those published in the popular press and those targeting people with particular needs, like members of the military, to ensure they’re automations can help people with common issues. “We also are scanning through all the settings ourselves, just to stay on top of all the changes and anything happening,” she says. Since the Block Party browser extension essentially automates navigating and clicking through configuration settings, it can develop issues as platforms adjust their own menus. But, Chou says, the company can usually quickly fix any bugs as they pop upsometimes within a single dayand the tool is designed to be robust enough to gracefully work around malfunctions. [Image: Block Party] Using a browser extension also means Block Party doesn’t require API support from any of the platforms and that it doesn’t need to store user credentials like passwords, since it relies on users logging in as they ordinarily would through their browsers. The service doesn’t store user data unnecessarily and doesn’t access accounts without permission, Chou says. For individual users, Block Party subscriptions start at $25 per year after a seven-day free trial. But the company has also begun offering enterprise plansthat include integration with single sign-on platforms and reporting on use within an organization, as employers try to keep workers protected from harassment and potential phishing attacks and internet users in general become increasingly cognizant of security concerns involving social media. “It’s not just the data that’s getting trafficked from marketing brokers,” Chou says. “It’s also just the stuff that we’re putting online ourselves.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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