Eat, Don’t Talk: Why You Did Not Win That Thanksgiving Argument

An excellent article (transcript, actually) on why arguing over politics in this day and age goes nowhere.  You are not changing minds, you are hardening positions.

" There was a time when political minds changed over coffee and grew cold during long conversations. In living rooms where neighbors lingered after dinner parties, on front porches where strangers became friends through the slow accumulation of shared evenings. These weren’t spaces designed for political persuasion. They were simply the ordinary architecture of human connection, where ideas shifted not through debate, but through the quiet witness of how other people live their lives. That world is vanishing. We conduct our most intimate conversations through screens now. Swipe our way through potential connections and mistake the performance of our digital selves for genuine relationship. The coffee shops have Wi-Fi passwords instead of lingering conversations. The front porches have been replaced by Ring doorbells. Even our protests happen as much online as in the streets."

https://whowhatwhy.org/podcast/eat-dont-talk-why-you-did-not-win-that-thanksgiving-argument/  

Why Feeling Understood Matters as Much as Physical Survival: Lessons from Stephen Covey

"Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival—to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated."
–Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

This quote comes from Stephen Covey's influential book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and it speaks to a fundamental human need that goes beyond basic physical requirements.

Covey is highlighting that after our physical needs for food, water, and shelter are met, our most pressing need is psychological - to feel truly seen and valued by others. This includes:

• Being understood: Having others grasp what we're really saying and feeling
• Being affirmed: Having our experiences and perspectives acknowledged as valid
• Being validated: Receiving confirmation that our thoughts and feelings matter
• Being appreciated: Having our contributions and presence recognized as valuable

This insight forms part of the foundation for Covey's fifth habit: "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood." He argues that empathic listening - truly trying to understand others before asking them to understand you - is one of the most powerful skills we can develop in our relationships.

The quote reflects psychological research on human motivation, particularly Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which places "belongingness and love needs" and "esteem needs" just after physiological and safety needs. It speaks to our deeply social nature and how meaningful connection is essential to our wellbeing.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Quotes for February 6

Good morning, everyone! Well, good morning for me—it might be the middle of the night for some of you.

Today is February 6, 2025. It’s been a crazy week at work, and I haven’t been getting much sleep, but I’m hoping that changes soon.

This morning, I came across a bunch of quotes on my Reedwise feed. Since I forgot to check it yesterday (blame the hectic week!), I now have two days’ worth of quotes to share. I should probably write something more thoughtful today, but honestly, the lack of sleep isn’t helping my creativity.

Hope you’re all doing well!

Quotes

"AI is also useful; ask ChatGPT how someone with an opposing viewpoint might receive your message."

— Stephanie Cornell & Daphne Moore, Fostering Collaboration Through Communications

"Let’s dispel the myth that negative self-talk is somehow more honest than positive self-talk. Positive self-talk is more realistic. Negative self-talk exaggerates the impact of what occurred."

— Devora Zack, Networking for People Who Hate Networking

"Digital Minimalism A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else."

— Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

"Social Dominance Theory (SDT) begins with the basic observation that all human societies tend to be structured as systems of group-based social hierarchies."

— Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto, Social Dominance

"Fungi produce around fifty megatons of spores each year—equivalent to the weight of five hundred thousand blue whales—making them the largest source of living particles in the air. Spores are found in clouds and influence the weather by triggering the formation of the water droplets that form rain and the ice crystals that form snow, sleet, and hail."

— Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life

"To be a good listener is to accept pauses and silences because filling them too soon, much less preemptively, prevents the speaker from communicating what they are perhaps struggling to say. It quashes elaboration and prevents real issues from coming to the surface."

— Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening

"Where there is energy and enthusiasm (which comes from believing in the action that is taken) ownership will be generated and this in turn will ensure that activities are sustainable. Ideas and innovations only take off when there is a high level of ownership which is transmitted through networks – in the same way that a virus spreads through a population. Enthusiasm is built from a belief that something is important, and will actually make a difference; energy and momentum channelled through relationships."

— Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley, Navigating Complexity in International Development

"The second thing you must consider is whether people base their decisions on emotion or logic. The true answer to that question is, in fact, both; it is just that the decision is always made for emotive reasons first."

— Phil M Jones, Exactly What to Say

January 11 - Some quotes and some journal articles of interest

Quotes

"The world is easier to navigate if you remember that people are governed by emotions, acting more often out of jealousy, pride, shame, desire, fear, or vanity than dispassionate logic. We act and react because we feel something. To discount this and listen superficially—or not at all—is to operate at a serious disadvantage." (Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening)

Most of your training should be below aerobic threshold. This approach lets you build aerobic volume while minimizing injury risk. (David Roche, When (And Why) to Train Below Aerobic Threshold | Trail Runner Magazine)

"Social revolutions are usually horrible times of great unrest and insecurity, but they are also historical watersheds that reset and potentially revitalize a nation." (Brian Walker, David Salt, Resilience Practice)

"This requires greater prioritization of behavioural and operational research, a discipline that gets scant coverage in academic circles but which encompasses systems analysis and modelling. It also requires greater value to be placed on synthesis as a tool in discovery because of its power to describe system-level behaviour. Often it is the simple solutions applied well that make the difference rather than new technologies." (nature.com, Take the Long View - Nature)

"Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty." (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection)

"Draw yourself up to your full height and look your audience straight in the eyes, and begin to talk as confidently as if every one of them owed you money. Imagine that they do. Imagine that they have assembled there to beg you for an extension of credit. The psychological effect on you will be beneficial." (Dale Carnegie, The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking)

Systems

"One starting point for identifying where to take action is to look at the chains of causalities and feedback loops to see where potential for action lies. Another is to explicitly locate alternative attractors within the system. These are likely to be points where there are counter-narratives to the dominant narratives – which appear to have some traction even on a very small scale. Participants will also need to look for where the strong energy seems to be in the system – narratives which excite or anger people and so on. The potential for change in a system often exists in the domains where there is a visible emotional response to issues." (Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley, Navigating Complexity in International Development) 

Journal Articles

Bridging the Gap Between Labour Unions and the Management Through Leadership Development Programs?

Merging Worklife Organizational Innovation and Educational Programs- Promoting Continuous Adaptations to the Global Economy

When Successful Action Research is not Legitimized as Scientific Contribution by the Central Sponsors: How can Morten Levin’s Three Pillars of Action Research Support the Arch of Research Collaboration between Large Public Organizations and Universities?

When Co-Generative Learning Met Co-Production and Co-Creation - On How Three Different Concepts Shaped “Samskaping”

Quotes and Photos for January 3rd, 2025

 Quotes

"[...] crags and pinnacles of naked rock, the dark cores of ancient volcanoes, a vast and silent emptiness smoldering with heat, color, and indecipherable significance, above which floated a small number of pure, clear, hard-edged clouds. For the first time, I felt I was getting close to the West of my deepest imaginings, the place where the tangible and the mythical became the same."

"Fascist regimes functioned like an epoxy: an amalgam of two very different agents, fascist dynamism and conservative order, bonded by shared enmity toward liberalism and the Left, and a shared willingness to stop at nothing to destroy their common enemies." (Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism)

"The framers of our Constitution arranged things so that political action would have to be filtered through institutions that require consultation and compromise, and would depend on a system of frequent elections, checks and balances, the autonomy of the civil service, civilian control of the military, the writing of laws and regulations, and their impartial enforcement. And all this would have to be done at three levels of government." (Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal)

"For months now, construction crews have been dynamiting, drilling, pumping, excavating and clear-cutting public land. In places like Guadalupe Canyon in far eastern Arizona, simply building roads to bring in construction equipment involved blasting mountainsides and sending the rubble down to clog drainages." (hcn.org, After Months of Border Wall Construction, a Look at the Damage Done)

"To really listen is to be moved physically, chemically, emotionally, and intellectually by another person’s narrative." (Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening)

January 2nd, 2025 - Quotes

Good morning—hello, Thursday, January 2, 2025. I hope this day turns out to be exactly what it is meant to be. Of course, that might sound like a strange statement because, in truth, every day is precisely the day it is meant to be. Still, I can imagine that for some people, certain days are so difficult that it’s hard to believe those days were ever "meant to be." Out of respect for anyone experiencing such a hard day, I’ll simply leave it at that.

Below are some quotes from my Readwise stream that stood out for me.

Quotes

"There are, in fact, only two ways to beat the Curse of Knowledge reliably. The first is not to learn anything. The second is to take your ideas and transform them." (Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Made to Stick)

"One in nine people around the world depends on the money sent by migrants." (dandc.eu, In Countries of Residence as Well as Origin, Policymakers Should Engage With Migrant Communities)

"The time is very urgent – we must slow down." (Bayo Akomolafe, The Times Are Urgent: Let’s Slow Down • Writings – Bayo Akomolafe)

"The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness." (Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow)

Happy 2025!

 Some quotes to start the year

Quotes

"Instead of falling all the way down to the bottom of his hierarchy, the awareness of his mortality actually heightened his own personal experience of transcendence. Noting a significant shift in values, Maslow observed: “The dominance hierarchy, the competitiveness and glory, certainly become foolish. There is certainly a shifting of values about what’s basic and what’s not basic, what’s important and what’s not important" (Scott Barry Kaufman PhD, Transcend)

"PUNCH LINE: Avoid burying the lead. Don’t start with something interesting but irrelevant in hopes of entertaining the audience. Instead, work to make the core message itself more interesting." (Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Made to Stick)

"Taiwan now accounts for roughly half of the global production capacity for all semiconductors and a much higher proportion—perhaps 90 percent—for the most advanced chips." (Andrew S. Erickson, The Taiwan Catastrophe)

"The researchers coded the videotapes to see what characteristics of the Chatters might be communicating their class differences. They found that richer Chatters were more disengaged during the conversation. They spent more time grooming themselves, doodling, and fiddling with pens, phones, or other objects. The poorer Chatters, in contrast, were more engaged. They looked directly at their conversation partner, and they nodded and laughed more. Higher status meant that the richer participants didn’t have anything “on the line” in the conversation. The poorer participants, in contrast, were working harder to be liked and accepted." (Keith Payne, The Broken Ladder)

Quotes for December 27, 2024

Nothing really to add today to these quotes I'm sure that we could painfully go through some process to find how they connect with one another and it would seem sharp and wise and the lake and I don't, or I shouldn't dismiss such fun work when it is being channeled. But right now that's not where my mind is.

*Update: I am being lazy. In adding labels/tags to this post I realized how much they have in common. To some degree. each quote weaves together insights into how we interact, make decisions, and share power, knowledge, and communication within societies. Together, they form a tapestry of ideas that challenge us to think about structures of democracy and how they lead to equity, collaboration, and resilience.

Quotes

"There can be no creative power without some acknowledgment of the other’s interests, just as there can be no healthy love if the self is wholly lost in concern for the other."
(Adam Kahane, Power and Love)

"According to the neoconservative position, because private firms are more subject to free market forces than are public firms and government agencies, one should expect less employment discrimination within the private sector than within the public sector. However, the empirical evidence offers no support whatsoever for this reasoning. As a matter of fact, whenever employment audits have been used to compare the discriminatory behavior of private versus public firms, private firms have been consistently found to display substantially higher rates of employment discrimination than public firms."
(Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto, Social Dominance)

"“if we (humanity) don’t find ways to become more comfortable with uncertainty, we have a big problem. Because it means that anyone who promises certainty will always have a following.”"
(Sonja Blignaut, Reconnecting With the Spirit of Exploration)

"Therefore, the behavior of complex adaptive systems is determined by both their internal structure and contextual relations. Change can be induced from the outside, but these contextual influences do not result in uniform, predictable output; as these external perturbations are ambivalent, they can be both disturbing and the source of further development. They are modified and rearranged in line with the system's internal state and structure. The resulting behavior can be explained neither by the external influences on the system nor by its internal states alone, but through the interaction of both. So having trust in self-organization is about paying attention for emerging patterns and responding to them."
(Bob Williams, Richard Hummelbrunner, Systems Concepts in Action)

"Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and to remember it. It also makes it harder to coordinate our activities with others, who may interpret the abstraction in very different ways. Concreteness helps us avoid these problems. This is perhaps the most important lesson that Aesop can teach us."
(Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Made to Stick)

"Far better than being first, Tellis and Golder concluded, is being what some have called a “fast second”: an agile imitator."
(Annie Murphy Paul, The Extended Mind)

Quotes for December 22, 2024

Today's Quotes

Ben Ramalingam, Aid on the Edge of Chaos

"simplicity is repeatedly, consistently, and damagingly chosen over relevance and appropriateness." (Ben

Ramalingam, Aid on the Edge of Chaos)

Ben Ramalingam's quote highlights a critical flaw in decision-making, where the allure of simplicity often overrides the necessity for context-specific and nuanced solutions—especially relevant in addressing the complexity of global aid and development challenges.

Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

"The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made." (Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems)

Donella H. Meadows reminds us of the emergent nature of systems, where the whole transcends the sum of its parts. This perspective urges us to look beyond components to understand relationships and dynamics.

Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

"For so many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much—just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work—to make us feel that we are not okay." (Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance)

Tara Brach captures a universal human struggle—our vulnerability to feelings of inadequacy. Her insight encourages self-compassion and awareness of how external stimuli can shape our self-perception.

Robin Leichenko and Karen O'Brien, Environmental Change and Globalization

"recent economic research shows that "ceteris paribus, the more egalitarian a society, the better its growth record and growth potential" (Sanchez 2003," (Robin Leichenko and Karen O'Brien, Environmental Change and Globalization)

Robin Leichenko and Karen O'Brien provide a powerful argument for equity, reinforcing that societal structures fostering egalitarianism are not just moral imperatives but also drivers of sustainable economic growth.

Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Made to Stick

"This is the Curse of Knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind." (Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Made to Stick)

Chip and Dan Heath underline the "Curse of Knowledge," a cognitive bias that complicates communication. Recognizing this bias is essential for effective teaching, leadership, and collaboration.

Why Putting Down Your Phone Builds Trust

 The study "Smartphones undermine trust and cooperation" by N. P. Li and colleagues, published in the journal Social Networks, investigates how smartphone use during social interactions affects trust and cooperation. Through a series of experiments, the researchers found that individuals who used smartphones during face-to-face interactions were perceived as less trustworthy and were less likely to engage in cooperative behavior compared to those who did not use their phones. The findings suggest that smartphone use can negatively impact the quality of social interactions by reducing trust and willingness to cooperate. The authors recommend minimizing smartphone use during social engagements to foster better interpersonal relationships.

News Item: We’re Trusted More When We Put Down Our Phones

Academic journal article: Smartphone use decreases trustworthiness of strangers

Quote for the day - Dec 18, 2024

Not much to add today other than here are some quotes that I found interesting that showed up in my Readwise feed today.

"The core value of the working class is being part of a like-minded group—a family, a union, or a community, which engenders a strong sense of loyalty. The core value of the middle class is achievement by the individual."
–Alfred Lubrano, Limbo

"The division between the emotional brain and the rational brain runs deep in our culture and is clearly expressed in the cultural divide between religion and science that first emerged during the European Enlightenment. It is, in the words of Tony Leiserowitz at the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, “a long cultural mistake” to divide the two."
–George Marshall, Don't Even Think About It