Categories
Thought

Where is home?

A new friend recently asked how I define home. “Is home the place you were born? Where most of your people are? Where you can name most of the trees? Or birds? Or bugs? Or snakes? Or bears?”, they asked.

For me, home is wherever and whenever my heart sings for joy. It’s wherever and whenever I find connection, recognise beauty, and celebrate the mundane.

Home is love, peace, and joy so intertwined it’s hard to differentiate one from the other. It is the laughter of friends, the tears of loved ones, and the hugs that follow.

Home is wherever my dance with life is understood. It is whenever I’m in a state of flow, whenever I have an authentic conversation, whenever I stay true to giving and receiving love – regardless of where these happen.

Most times, home is just me. Being.

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Thought

Curiosity Unconference: nominate an awesome person

I’m co-hosting the Curiosity Unconference; an invite-only gathering for curious, conscious, and awesome people. Some of these people are artists, entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, technologists, thinkers, and a lot of things in between. It will be a safe space to discuss a range of themes – all led by participants – learn from the abundance we all carry within, and compound trust and wisdom. It’s a place to disconnect from your devices and immerse yourself in sharing and learning alongside others. The conversations are guided by the Chatham House rule.

We are hosting this gathering in multiple cities throughout 2023. The next Curiosity Unconference holds in a city near you in Zanzibar, Tanzania on March 24, 2023 in London and Ibadan in May and June 2023.

Why am I doing this?
I have seen beautiful things happen when positive energies align. I want to help create spaces where the most interesting people in my networks can connect as humans, learn from one another and compound trust and wisdom. Mo and I will like for the people we meet to experience that beauty and connect with other interesting people they may not have met.

Who should we invite? You can nominate them here: https://curiosity.africa/unconference or in the form below.

Thank you!

Categories
Thought

Questions for conscious humans

My dear friend,

Welcome to WOW – Questions for conscious humans and leaders. This page contains a series of reflective questions and prompts that I love to ask myself over and again. However, this time around, I thought other conscious humans could benefit from answering these questions – individually and as a community – as we collectively embark on our journeys to be more human, and live out our truest best selves. 

I recommend you have a notepad handy so you can answer them for yourself, or you can get the digital version of the deck. You can respond to each of the questions with only one sentence and not more than five sentences. My hope is that through these questions and the answers you find, you’ll be confident to explore the worlds within and outside you.

Each time you visit this page, you’ll be welcome with five questions. That set of five questions changes every 30 minutes. [Update: it now shows more than 5. But you can choose to answer only 5 at a time]. This was done to intentionally give you the space and freedom to explore each of those questions in quiet. You don’t have to answer all – if you aren’t comfortable. Though, I will recommend noting the questions that make you uncomfortable; they may contain windows to worlds unknown.

You are greatly loved,
Damola


Update: You asked, and we listened. You can now interact with the conscious questions through the following means:

1. Go through each question for free using the slide above.
2. Subscribe to OneToday.xyz to receive a text message containing one question to reflect on every weekday. You can cancel anytime.
3. Buy the limited edition premium cards containing 70 questions.
4. Buy the digital version of the conscious questions deck here or here.
That’s it, available in various formats. Just choose the one you want.

This mini-project has been made possible because of my exposure to several people who have challenged my thinking over the years - some of those questions are mine, others are from several other people whose perspective I have benefited from, including but not limited to my dad, Morgan Housel, Chude Jideonwo, James Clear, Adenike Adewuni, Jim Dethmer, Derek Sivers, Sam Oluwalana, Ryan Holiday and Sam Altman, among others. I'm grateful.
Categories
Innovation Thought

Trip to the Sun

NASA sent my name to the Sun on August 12, 2018, as part of the Parker Solar Probe – the first mission to touch the Sun. The mission is setting the record of the closest approach to the sun by an artificial object. It will take about seven years.

The Parker Solar Probe is a historic exploration; one that will leave us asking more questions than getting answers. These questions will provide another impetus for new disciplines and industries. As described by the team, the mission will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.

The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will travel directly into the Sun’s atmosphere about 4 million miles from the star’s surface. The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles. The mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can spread out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds.

Credit: JHUAPL

The spacecraft, for instance, will go close enough to the Sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly through the birthplace of the highest-energy solar particles. It will face more heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. For the technical minded, Parker Solar Probe, named after the 92-year-old University of Chicago professor emeritus, Eugene Parker, will use seven Venus flybys over nearly seven years to gradually shrink its orbit around the Sun, coming as close as 3.83 million miles (and 6.16 million kilometers) to the Sun, well within the orbit of Mercury and about seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before.

You can get more details about this on the mission’s website managed by The Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory or at NASA. This fact sheet is a good place to start.

One of the reports from the exploration has shown us the origin of the solar wind. Solar wind comes from the Sun and blows like ‘hurricane’s scream’. The findings show that “solar wind and the sun’s magnetic field both originate from cool holes in the corona, where temperatures are 1.1 million °C (2 million °F)”. So far, the Parker Solar Probe has made its seventh successful swing around the sun, and recently completed its fourth Venus flyby.

It has been an interesting year, so far.

While I am on the planet of my birth, Earth, I am optimistic about the discoveries this – and other ongoing journeys to space – will lead us, and what it means for the future of humanity.

Categories
Thought

Celebrating difference is just the first step

I have become increasingly confident that one of the ways we can promote innovation and truly experience the abundance around us is by making it easier for difference in people and systems to be acknowledged. There should be no need to be scared of being misunderstood, and being radically different. There should be no need to pursue conforming to what society calls ‘normal’.

This conviction was reignited a few weeks ago, as I moderated the weeklong fellowship for selected finalists of The Nigeria Prize for Difference and Diversity. Over the course of their fellowship, we discussed touchy topics, as they interacted with some of the best minds in Nigeria working across the various strata of society [1].

Endowed with a million Naira by Chude, the prize finds and supports young people across Nigeria who are creating safe spaces for and giving voice to people who are different in seven key areas: gender, sexuality, faith and spirituality, mental and emotional health, art, special needs, and human rights.

As a member of the central working committee, I was amazed by the stories of several applicants and those of the finalists. I was in awe at the work they are doing, and in a few cases, upset at the experiences and sacrifices they’ve made, and the prices they paid because of non-conformity and difference. In a world often optimized for conformity, progress is hinged on accepting and celebrating the diversity and difference around us.

I learnt about the work Adelola Edema is doing as an autism educator, the persistence of Angel Nduka-Nwosu whose platform, As Equals Africa is a growing feminist community on the African continent. I listened as Ani Kayode Somtochukwu shared what they have been through as a queer liberation activist, and as Chisom Ogbummuo made it her responsibility to create space, to hold space, and be a space for conversations worth holding. I smiled when I told Daniel Orubo how the stories he wrote at Zikoko have allowed others to appreciate the diversity in how love is experienced by others.

I met with Elizabeth Talatu Williams, Ezeigwe Juliet Chioma, Mike Daemon, and Sada Malumfashi whose works across development activism, gender equality advocacy, human rights advocacy, and journalism respectively have led to the safety of many in underserved and often ‘obscure’ communities. I noticed the quests of Michael Nwah Ernest and Toluse Dove Francis to make emotional and mental wellness accessible to all, and Oluwatobiloba Ajayi’s approach to ensuring children living with cerebral palsy get more options for independence and learning. I learnt from the story of Solomon Ayodele who founded Boys Quarters Africa to give boys a chance at grooming that opens more doors for them in the future; and the courage of Vincent Desmond and Zainab Adakole who are creating safe spaces for sexual minorities in different parts of Nigeria.

I know how it feels to be different, to be tagged solely on what you don’t share with others, especially in communities that dread what they don’t understand. And this made me appreciate the work these beautiful humans do.

The work they do is one of love. The least we should do is celebrate the difference in the world and make it easy for others to bring their full selves forward. There is so much beauty hidden in people; we only see it when we are ready to accept and appreciate individuals for who they are and celebrate that diversity genuinely.

“This conversation about love—and with it acceptance and justice—matters.” Chude wrote while announcing the prize. “The consideration of love as the fundamental ethos of a society that wishes to thrive and ensure the greatest well-being for the greatest many, is as urgent as it has always been. If we all had to wait for people to understand us before they loved us, what kind of world would we have? Without people ready to suspend judgment and empathize with things they cannot understand and cannot prove, who would we be? We ask people to live honestly and live in their truths, and yet we tell them to shut up and stay hidden, because we dislike their truths.”

Not so many people died of so much love, but several are dying every day for the lack of it. Love is the acceptance and celebration of difference. Before inclusion and diversity became words to describe it, love was it. As Blessing Omakwu advised in her GoalKeepers speech, we really should let love be our bias.

Celebrating difference is the first step. Amplifying it as a catalyst for innovation is next. I’m excited about what change this will bring to the African continent over the next decade.

Slowly, but eventually.

Footnotes

[1]. We are thankful to the faculty members, some of which include Olumide Makanjuola, Kiki Mordi, Busola Dakolo, Fu’ad Lawal, Ayodeji Osowobi, Othuke Ominiabohs, Jude Udo Ilo, Gbenga Sesan, and Ayisha Osori. 
Other facilitators include Seun Onigbinde, Walter Ude, Aisha Yesufu, Edwin Okolo, with Shola Bamidele co-hosting this and working behind the scene to ensure a seamless experience for all.
Categories
Thought

I have a few questions too

A few questions worth thinking about.

What do I hold to be true but have never questioned the underlying assumptions about it?

What will not cease to be true in the next decade or century, and why do I think so?

What blind spot am I oblivious to based on my experiences and privileges?

What do a lot of people believe to be true, but you think is false and overrated?

What do I consider to be false or untrue now but can be right and true if in a different context?

How did I know what I know?

What can still be simplified but still seem irreducibly complex? And how do I know it can’t be further simplified?

What simple explanation am I ignoring because it doesn’t conform with my expectations?

What is not been said that I need to hear? What should be said that I am not saying? What is holding me back?

Is my perception of what’s in front of me true? How will I know when it’s no longer true?

What should I be logical about that I am ignoring because of the several data that confirms my previous beliefs?

What am I ignoring because of how abundant it is or how invested I am? The story of the two fishes wondering what water is in David Foster Wallace’s ‘This Is Water’ comes to mind.

What is the best result if the opposite of what I want happens?

PS: One of my favorite writers, Morgan Housel wrote some questions that prompted mine. You should check it out too.

Categories
Leadership Thought

It’s still a beautiful world

The happenings in my home country some days ago left me numb for several hours. Though it is difficult, I have learnt to find peace and beauty from a place of introspection. It’s in moments like these that I turn into my journal for things I want to remember.

I found one of those letters that reaffirmed what I want to remind myself and those I love; I don’t remember how long it’s been here, but I found peace reading it, over and again.

“I hope you find the kind of love that makes you a softer person. The kind of love that makes you want to be a better man or woman, the kind of love that believes in you and supports you, that stands by your side… I hope you find someone who shows you just how deeply you can feel, just how deeply you can love. I hope you find something real, because nothing is more beautiful than loving someone who loves you back. Nothing is more beautiful than loving someone who builds you a home in their heart.

I hope you find acceptance. The kind that rings through your bones, the kind that quiets the voice inside of you that tells you that you are not good enough, or that you are falling behind. I hope you forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made, for the past you keep alive inside of you. I hope you learn to let go — of the things you had to do in order to heal, or to grow, or to survive. You are doing your best. You are human. Please don’t ever forget that.

But most of all, I hope you find yourself out there. I hope you figure out your heart, I hope you figure out your mind. I hope you learn how to be kind to yourself, how to embrace the journey you are on. I hope you learn how to be proud of the person you are becoming, I hope you learn how to be proud of where you are — even if it isn’t exactly where you want to be. I hope you learn to fall in love with the process, with the messiness of life and the confusion of it all.

At the end of the day, I hope you find what you’re looking for out there. I hope your life inspires you.”

In the face of despair, it is easy to grow numb and weary. But you shouldn’t. You can nurture your spirit to shield you in time of distress.

“Whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life”, a favourite poem titled Desiderata admonishes, “keep peace in your soul.”

It is still a beautiful world.

I first shared this on The Daily Vulnerable on October 23, 2020.

Categories
Thought

New Media & the Church: Church Should Embrace (And Not Fear) Media

“Many times activists, lawyers, volunteers, health care workers and others are actually out there, busy doing God’s work, while the church is busy fighting useless battles that have nothing to do with God.” — Chude Jideonwo, April 22 2019

The church in Nigeria is at a cross-point, dealing with its response, as always, to what matters to a new generation, breathed into and of by God (Philippians 2:13). New media technologies, emerging platforms & stories about faith, identity, equality, nation building and governance provide the church opportunities to transform lives, and to provide both spiritual and strategic leadership.

This is nothing new, despite the hysteria that change, for peoples un-moored from history, often brings. “The Christian Church throughout its history (has always taken on) different forms and adopted different strategies as it interacted with changing cultures and technologies,” the scholar of religion, Kenneth Bedell reminded us about a decade ago .

As humanity evolves and gets accustomed to new tools for engagement, it has become common for each generation to question the relevance of the God they serve or are being called to serve, against the background of the culture. The old question of how religion will answer the new questions a new people have, using tools, stories and media relevant to that generation, is ever alive and calling for attention. New technologies, platforms and stories provide the Church with opportunities to transform lives.

Is God here with us, with a better, more inspiring vision for our future than we could ever imagine? Or, is God behind, back there, in the past, endlessly trying to get us to return to how it used to be?
Does God use the tools of each generation to communicate with that generation, or does God stick to what God believes has worked, even if the method doesn’t appeal to a new audience? Is God with us, today, or is God apart from us, in God’s own sacred space, separate?

The problem of course is not God. It has never been. The whole point of God’s appearance on the earth as Jesus, was to make that point once for all:

  1. “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). Matthew 1:23
  2. “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

The problem has always been with God’s priests – the human mediators that God has to use to remind each generation of God’s unchanging, unending, unbending love.

“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities;” Hebrews 4:15

Can we gladly say the same of the priests in the church and religious institutions? Anytime the church fails in taking the opportunity to deeply connect, God doesn’t, and each time that God has found the traditions and institutions of the church to become obstacles to the move of God, God has found other vessels to make his change felt.

“Churches and religious communities and organizations can claim to speak for God, while at the same time actually being behind the movement of God that is continuing forward in the culture around them . . . without their participation.” — Rob Bell.
It happened with slavery in the United Kingdom. It happened with racism in the United States. It happened with faith versus works in Germany. It happened with women speaking in church across It happened with the democratizing effect of the Pentecostal movement in Africa. It will continue to happen.

Speaking of today’s church in the West, author and pastor Bob Roberts Jr is direct: “the church has been stripped of its power and influence in the West today, not because it has lost its wealth and position in society – it hasn’t – but because the church has lost its credibility. On the whole, we can hardly change ourselves, much less the world. We cannot consistently live the message we herald to the world, but never have we been more effective at religious marketing of products that help us appear as if we are living it.

As a result, the growing perception is that the church is religious but not spiritual. It has style but not substance.” Anyone who has been paying close attention to the church in Nigeria knows that the institution faces and has faced its own deep questions and reputation crises in the past decade. The ferocious debate over tithes was only the latest installment.
The drama played out fully on new media, of course, emphasizing its primacy as the tool that a new generation and a new sensibility is employing to interrogate the church. But new media is asking the same fundamental question (and tithing was just a symptom) that every generation has to answer: What kind of Priest are you? Here or there? Engaged or withdrawn? Real or illusory?

The famous Martin Luther King Jr’s letter from Birmingham Jail in August 1963, for instance, confronted the church with this same question. It’s hard to imagine it now, but it was true: the institutional church believed that the MLK fight was the wrong fight. They elected to maintain the status quo, to uphold tradition, to stay with what was familiar… in the name of God.

I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen. In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings.

Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?” Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love.

There can be no deep disappointment where there is no deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists. — Martin Luther King Jr

The church becomes the very best version of its self when it follows the traditions of Paul (that great defier of the old and aggressive enabler of the new) and of the man whose name it bears, Jesus. When we are closer to the today than to the yesterday, to the move of God in his people today, to being the answers to the questions God’s people ask today. To being closer to people than power, to being vessels of courage and compassion, to being found sooner on the streets than in the hallowed chambers of aloofness. To actually be like Jesus.

Over our history, we have had those like this: St. Francis of Assissi, and there was the original Martin Luther, and there was Dorothy Day, and there was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and there was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the glorious revolutionary William Wilberforce, whose Church of England parents were so frightened by his non-conformist religious thinking at the age of 12, they withdrew him from school. But they couldn’t stop the move of God in the man.

In his later years, he returned to his evangelical leanings and gained the impetus that drove his dogged fight against slavery’s ills. When God has enabled change in the world, the church has often withdrawn in fear and panic, and tribalism. We cannot forget that when the rapid spread of television decades ago was influencing how people interacted with information, a sect within the church – at a point – regarded this as the devil’s black box, preaching against the possession and viewing of television. Others embraced the change as a tool to reach more people with the gospel.

God is always in the business of helping humans do better; meeting people where they are, all through history, leveraging on the issues, stories and technologies relevant to their generation. God has always been pulling humanity forward and calling us to a place of greater wholeness, well-being and peace. “What we see in these passages is God meeting people, tribes, and cultures right where they are and drawing and inviting and calling them forward, into greater and greater shalom and respect and rights and peace and dignity and equality.

It’s as if human history were progressing along a trajectory, an arc, a continuum; and sacred history is the capturing and recording of those moments when people became aware that they were being called and drawn and pulled forward by the divine force and power and energy that gives life to everything.” — Rob Bell If the Church does not re-align with the work God is doing via media and technology, to bring the Kingdom of God unto an earth weighed down and reined in by culture, power, resistance, tradition, fear and unbelief – God will still move humanity forward without waiting for the approval of or participation from the Church.

“We will have to repent in this generation”, Martin Luther King Jr. writes in that famous letter. “Not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.”

“For all that has been lost in the church today, there is hope,” Bob Roberts helpfully adds, “there has never been a greater opportunity to see the transformation of people, society and the world, but it will mean a radical redefinition of following Christ and impacting the world.”

New media, just like old media, presents us the same opportunity – to make this impact, and to mediate this always-needed transformation. Church, your move.

The report was first published in 2019 and co-written with Chude Jideonwo. See full report here

Categories
Thought

Our fears don’t tell the whole story

Chude Jideonwo and I reflected on the happenings around the world and decided to publish this piece in July 2019 – this was before neither the Coronavirus nor George Floyd happened. I’m syndicating it here because it reminds me that while it is easy to think that things are getting worse, we are still living in one of the best moments humanity has experienced.
_____

Do humanity’s best days lie ahead or behind us? It’s the eternal question in the post-Enlightenment world. We were forged and evolved in fear; that’s how we survived the jungle. Thus it is reasonable to see the world as one in which hope is an endangered species.

This feeling is valid. But valid does not mean true. In his book, Factfulness, Swedish professor Hans Rosling described the pervasive cognitive bias that can lead to a feeling of doom: “We must recognise … when we get negative news, and [remember] that information about bad events is much more likely to reach us. When things are getting better we often don’t hear about them. This gives us a systematically too-negative impression of the world around us, which is very stressful.”

Although there is a lot of bad news, Rosling reminds us that there is just as much good. But the positive developments are hard to notice because good news, often, isn’t news enough for the media — it doesn’t sell — and gradual improvements are not dramatic enough to be news.

The resulting focus on pain and despair distorts reality, not just because the news may be false or exaggerated, but because it can lock you in an echo chamber, and feeds you with self-reinforcing messages: the world is dangerous; no one is safe; we are doomed. These are feelings that have been amplified in a world led by the likes of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsanaro, and, probably soon, Boris Johnson.

But these feelings are not benign. Not only can they have a major effect on an individual’s self-esteem, but negative perceptions of the world can also affect how we interact with it.

Last year, a study published in the journal Science by Harvard professor David Levari and colleagues examined this problem. “In a series of experiments, we show that people often respond to decreases in the prevalence of a stimulus by expanding their concept of it. When blue dots became rare, participants began to see purple dots as blue; when threatening faces became rare, participants began to see neutral faces as threatening; and when unethical requests became rare, participants began to see innocuous requests as unethical,” the study found.

In other words, human brains are wired in such a way that even if the frequency of bad news were to decrease, we would start to expand our definition of bad news and keep finding more of it. One way to deal with this bias is to know it exists and to consciously seek out information that challenges our biases.

So, if you are feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, remember this: humanity has made considerable improvements in the several dimensions of human well-being. If you were alive even less than 200 years ago, there is a 90% chance that you were illiterate. The likelihood of getting killed in a war is slimmer than it used to be some decades ago. Access to education and learning is at an all-time high and we are living longer, healthier and wealthier lives than at any other point in history. 

That doesn’t make irrelevant the news that loneliness and depression are on the rise, and that the wealthier and safer the place you live, the more likely you may be to commit suicide. We just need to replace a story of doom, with a truer story of progress.

One of the lessons we have learnt from our work of equipping young Africans with happiness and resilience skills is this: our fears are boring. These fears, heightened by clouds of doom, distort our acceptance of the opportunities around us. 

These fears are the same fears that have been around since people gained cognition: Will I be happy? Will I find love? Will I be healthy?

But we know that what is really exciting about us are the things that lie at the other spectrum of emotion: creativity, collaboration, trust, faith and, as the Harvard Grant Study reminds us, love and mutually rewarding relationships. (The study has tracked 268 men since 1938, during the Great Depression. It is continuing and has expanded to include women and the men’s children.)

Nations have risen out of destruction and poverty, people have overcome heartbreak and trauma, communities have grown through lack and scarcity, and people around the world have linked up to make things better for people they do not know.

We know that the world, and our lives, can get better because we have the example all around us every day.

There is no need to deny all the things that remain wrong in our world, and the work that yet remains ahead. But we must never forget that despair is not the complete story. Reality is more nuanced than that single story, and the reality — our reality today, and the reality of human progress, based on all the data we have from history — is that our world has in its belly an abundance of the good and the beautiful.

A version of this piece appeared on Mail & Guardian on July 5, 2019.

Categories
Thought

The Daily Vulnerable

As some of you are aware, I’ve been involved in managing The Daily Vulnerable since it was first launched by Chude in February 2018. It was one of the first set of products at Joy, Inc.

It has now grown into a community (over email and blog) of people sharing their vulnerabilities and other things that make us human daily. Yes. Daily!

Every day, we hear people talk about successes, fearlessness, victories, glory. But how about the things we never talk about – our fears, insecurities, doubts, mistakes, flaws. Or the people who slash us everyday with selfishness, thoughtlessness, and a lack of consciousness. We talk about them on The Daily Vulnerable every day – so you know you are perfectly, rightly, human, and you learn how to go beyond these daily foibles and be your best possible self, every single day.

We’ve had people who are considered as famous, and those who don’t consider themselves famous. We’ve read from experts and those just starting out. From individuals with material wealth and others whose wealth isn’t material. Because, regardless of where you are in the spectrum and filters society creates, we all feel these things.

Vulnerability is a gift. It is, as one of my favorite vulnerability researchers –  Brené Brown – once noted, the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it is the birthplace of joy, and creativity, and belonging, and of love. Without vulnerability, it is difficult to form deeper relationships with others.

Some of the best conversations I’ve had are with people who, regardless of what others (read this as pundits, magazines, society) say about them, have the courage to be imperfect and the strength to be vulnerable and the wisdom of long term perspective.

You can read The Daily Vulnerable blog, and let me know what you think. Yes, you can also share on The Daily Vulnerable. Let’s discuss over email or over the phone (email is damola at joyinc dot xyz).

Categories
Thought

Suspending GDP?

I’ve been having some thoughts lately about how the economy, as we measure it, is being affected by the global pandemic.

Will this be the perfect time to do away with GDP for good, and start using a more comprehensive approach for measuring growth and progress?

For those who remember, the modern concept of the GDP was a recent innovation in human history. Recent, in this context, is the year 1934, when the US Congress decided it was the best option after the World War and Great Depression.

Economic activities in several countries across the world are affected, but more than these activities, we all are paying attention to social well-being. We are paying attention to the things that count, the things that make us human. We are paying attention to trust, to community, to well-being, and flourishing.

This is the best time to rethink our priorities, to bring to reality the things we’ve learnt from the BeyondGDP movements. Even if we don’t get to change it, at least, we can talk about and consider it.

Will we?

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Thought

Beyond the rays

Since he released his book, Principles, I have grown eager to read almost everything Ray Dalio produces.

There are some areas I don’t fully agree with him – to my own peril – and some other areas I do.

This, however, is spot on.

“The three big questions worth answering are 1) What is the value of human life relative to a unit of economic activity, 2) What is the value of necessities relative to luxuries and 3) Who will and should benefit from all the money that is being created?”

One of the beauty these times have given us is a clear way of filtering through the noise and focusing on signals that matter – our collective humanity, the place of social connection, of family and flourishing, using technologies to accelerate the functions we want, without being slaves to the technologies themselves.

It is sad that we needed a global pandemic to remind us of the importance of love. Now, that we have this reminder, we can hold on to the lessons we’ve learnt in improving this civilization, pruning away the less relevant norms, and influencing what practices, systems, and policies stay with us.

We can do, and be, better.

Categories
Thought

In the Dot

One of the first few things you experience on any flight is how little things seem to be from above. Flying has a therapeutic effect on me; it gives me a gift – a re-calibration of perspective. A reminder that several of the things being fought for are relatively small. And beyond materialism, what matters more is the essence of being.

That perspective is also richer for those who have seen the earth from space. The early landers on the moon talked about how small the earth is.

Thirty years ago (on February 14, 1990), this photo of the earth in the context of the expanse of space was taken by Voger 1. The earth – with billions of people with various dreams, aspirations, and our politics, culture, systems, infrastructure, and wealth – is that Pale Blue Dot.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.”

Carl Sagan’s words may not have made sense enough then. But today is another day to embrace that overview effect and see things for what it is – a pale blue dot – and recognise your place in this dot.

Categories
Strategy Thought

Decision audit

A few days ago, we did a decision review exercise within the company. The exercise was simple: we listed out all the decisions we took in the previous year, we reminded ourselves why each decision was taken and decided – based on the outcome – if it was a good decision, poor decision, or a neutral one.

This process got me thinking about why the same may be important in our individual lives. With what you know now, what was the quality of each of the decisions you made last year?

I have a different version of this, – more targeted at who I want to be; more in the sense of the character, learning and behavior I am imbibing, and how this influences the adventures I embark on.

Give yourself this gift too.

[Update – January 23]

After publishing this post, it occurred that I should make a clarification.

It is possible to make a good decision and still end up with a ‘bad’ outcome. Sometimes, several of the decisions create lasting outcomes are those that have positive second to third-order consequences, even if they seem bad at the interim. Those decisions are results of second-order thinking.

Don’t confuse the difference. Not all bad outcomes are bad. Some good, may seem bad, so they can be good.

Categories
Thought

On using willpower

Your willpower is finite. It is only available for a limited time.

The person you refer to as lazy may not be. What if they were assigned that responsibility after they have exhausted their willpower?

I think Garry Keller gets it right when he says you need two types of willpower to succeed. The willpower to do the right thing without distraction or disturbance. And the strength/willpower to support what you have done or avoid sabotaging it.

Implementing new behaviors will tax your will power – except you start from the point of least resistance, making it easier to take the first step to sustain that behavior.

The energy you put into filtering distractions, resisting (or fighting) temptation, suppressing emotions, restraining aggression, suppressing impulses, navigating an environment ridden in fear, or trying to impress others will take a toll on whatever is left of your will power.

Flow happens when we align our interest with the willpower available. Focus on what matters first when you still have your energies intact. And this is not new advice. Paul Graham has written about maker schedule and manager schedule. Cal Newport has encouraged deep work – carving out time to concentrate on the most important things without any distraction.

If you can, create a natural environment that filters away those things capable of draining your energy, so you can invest it in the things that matter.