Business Buddhism

“The best you is you with more self-discipline”
BEING THE BEST YOU

When it comes to making ourselves more disciplined, every trick is allowed:
– Writing down goals
– Setting (artificial) deadlines
– Creating rewards
– Creating penalties
– Telling friends
– Setting up or joining a team
– Making a routine sacred

Jonathan Haidt (http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/) describes our brain as made up of a rider on top of an elephant.

The elephant represents our instinctive brain – developed over millions of years and common with much of the animal kingdom – it allows us to catch a frisbee mid-air, while holding a Budweiser in the other hand, yelling “Wazzzzzupp” and meanwhile breathing and conducting all other essential functions. The elephant is awesome: People are Awesome

The rider represents the more recently developed capabilities of the brain, giving us humans complex language skills, allowing us to form abstract thoughts and be self-aware. While our abilities far exceed those of animals, our mental capacity for analytical processing is still quite impotent. It’s easy to imagine a science fiction world where our ability to solve math problems and play chess is magnitudes better than our struggling to compute 7 x 14 brains now. The rider is a pretty clever dude, but only a little speck on the awesomely mighty elephant.

When we sit in front of a piece of candy, the elephant has long-established reasons to “go for it”. Evolutionary speaking, taking in calories has long been our friend. Being fat is only a recent problem. The rider can recognize the problems with the candy eating. In a straight up match of strength with the elephant though, the rider doesn’t stand a chance. Only with clever trickery and distraction can the rider steer the elephant away/to something else.

Conclusions:
1. The elephant and the rider are both you.
2. Don’t ever think you can get rid of the elephant or beat it.
3. Where instincts are your best guide, let ‘em rip.
4. In matters where instincts guide you poorly, have the rider steer the elephant lovingly and playfully with every trick in the book.