Note to self: Self-sabotage — Ouch! I can relate!. I have these, and I have suffered because of them. But I know leaders are not born, they are “mostly” made. And because we are on our on-the-job-training in leadership, and we must give ourselves grace and space. Grace to forgive the mistakes we will make and the space to grow because we learned from experience.

There are interesting sources about the origins of self-sabotage. There is the Mother Wound Idea that a child is biologically hard-wired to seek the mother’s approval to survive. Webster further states that this is approval seeking behavior may trigger unconscious bullying because of the deprivation consciousness that can be found in some women in patriarchal cultures.

Another interesting detail that contributes to self-sabotage is growing up in a broken family structure. Children who are victims of these circumstances have a natural propensity to attract needy, insecure, clinging, narcissistic takes that demand more than their share of attention, love, and security .

Self-sabotage can also be called automatic negative thoughts (ANT). ANTs are thoughts that are negative and random about oneself. Seth Czerepak said that “Universal opinions are often mistaken for universal principles.” And groupthink is similar because there are no longer avenues for critical thinking. The least resistance to the presented idea is adopted because it feels more comfortable rather than go through the rigors of a lively discussion or a debate. But groupthink is not beneficial at all if you need to be challenged. Even ancient Hebrew scripture does not agree with group think — consider Proverbs 27:17 — Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Together, self-sabotage and groupthink make for a deadly combination. When a leader with ANTs influence others who are also ANTS, then we have a disaster in the making. An example where self-sabotaging habits and groupthink caused one of the worst disasters in America.

The Dust Bowl Farming — The market-driven agricultural practices of U.S. farmers — plowing the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains and monoculture farming — led to one of the most disastrous ecological events in the nation’s history. Between 1930 and 1940, drought conditions and depleted farmland caused severe dust storms, some reaching 10,000 feet in the sky and called “Black Blizzards.” About 2.5 million people were displaced, and the catastrophe compounded the Great Depression, creating what some have called the country’s “most hard time.”

Some of the disastrous effects of groupthink and self-sabotaging habits from the leaders during this time:

1. Market Driven Agricultural Practices–groupthink and lack of planning — the leaders were driven to be greedy because of the market demands.
2. Plowing virgin top-soil — groupthink and lack of planning — leaders did not think things through.
3. Monoculture farming — groupthink, no vision of the future — same thing- leadership forced the practice.

A Leader’s Worst Enemy: Self-Sabotage & Groupthink was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are all affected by stress. Those of us who have experienced it know what impact it has on us. We see how it changes the way we think and act. We become needy and irritable, aggressive, and anxious when experiencing stress. Stress is part of life, but how we manage our response to stress will determine whether that stress will negatively affect our lives.

For the past few weeks, I have been hearing an increasing number of Code Gray announcements over our public address system. A code grey is an alert in the medical system that someone is at risk of hurting themselves or others. In a hospital, that could mean an irate patient, a frustrated family member, and a few security guards standing by.

However, healthcare workers are subjected to a variety of psychosocial pressures, such as working night shifts, long hours, patient care demands, medical disputes, workplace violence, and emotional distress because of poor interactions with patients and coworkers, as well as poor promotion prospects. Constant exposure to these psychological dangers has a negative impact on the health of healthcare personnel.

Our healthcare workers are crucial to performing health systems and the achievement of national and global health goals because they safeguard and improve people’s health. Healthcare workers must be in good health in order to respond effectively to the healthcare demands of communities.

Many write about how we can help people in crisis: how to recognize the signs, how to get through tough conversations, and how to say “no” when we’re overwhelmed. But in the past years, we’ve also had to deal with an unexpected flood of “low-stress, high-reward” situations.

The ideal would be the “low-stress, high-reward” ones where all parties benefit from giving and taking.

Whereas “high-stress, low-reward” situations are those in which they ask for something (a favor, money) that you can’t provide and feel bad about refusing.

We’re hanging onto the threads of society. We’re making it work by cultivating tolerance, love, and understanding. It’s sad because it has become less about living and more about just getting by.

Be kind and loving to each other. Forgive each other the same as God forgave you through Christ. (Paul of Tarsus, teacher and entrepreneur -5 A.D. — 65 A.D.)

Be kind was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In March 2020, CMS lifted restrictions that allowed patients and providers better access to telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Xavier Becerra, HHS Secretary said he supports the expansion of telehealth after the pandemic ends. This would include:

1. to make permanent the expansions of telehealth.

2. to not allow the worsening inequities in healthcare by using telehealth to decrease the disparities.

3. to increase people’s awareness of the capabilities of visual and audio telehealth, it’s important that they take advantage of these new options.

Read the rest of the report here.

HHS supports permanent telehealth provisions after the pandemic was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My DISC result is SCDI.

Steadiness — 33%

Conscientious — 27%

Dominance — 26 %

Influence — 14%

I am tenacious and determined to follow a course of action to achieve objectives. I am a clear thinker. I have an inner need to be objective and analytical. I like to pursue a definite course of action, I respond to logic rather than emotion. I am likely to be particularly good at handling challenging technical assignments.

I am not surprised but I was not expecting the spread. It is true that I am a thinker and not a feeler if we are to use the Briggs-Myers test I am an INTP (“All About the INTP Personality Type”, n.d.)

I agree with the following characteristics:

• Give support and guidance to others.
• Make others feel at ease.
• Appreciate consistency and predictability.
• Accommodate others rather than risk conflict.
• Collaborate peacefully with a group.

I also agree that I am more challenged in Dominance and Influence. I struggle with this because I feel that it does run counter to what I value. I do not want to come out as overbearing nor wanting to push my agenda. I do view it negatively which is not supposed to be. This just means that have to approach my non-dominance and non-influence as a technical challenge and should approach it analytically. They are, after all, positives in leadership if they are practiced in moderation.

I’ve had experiences in the past where I felt that I did give in to my being “nice” (Kashyap, 2019) side when dealing with office personnel conflicts. I just wanted to avoid conflict. But there are instances when dominance and influence are important tools in conflict resolution.

If I need to convince my team to understand where I need them to be to support our organization, then my influence has to be front and center. I have to show and tell them what I want on my team.

01/15/2021

SCDI was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I am always happiest when I am helping others” such a wonderful statement. Your statement draws me to what Tchiki Davis (2020) said about Happiness Seekers. She identifies three types — Energy, Connection, and Goal. You may well have found at least one or all three.

Originally posted 12/24/2020

Reference

What Is Happiness, Anyway?. (2020). Retrieved 24 December 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/click-here-happiness/202009/what-is-happiness-anyway

Seek Happiness was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I tried Cal Newport's digital detox (Digital Minimalism) I realized, no one really missed me when I… was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Japanese call it “arukisumaho” or the “moving smartphone” and it has caused so much trauma for the people of the Rising Sun that the City of Yamato called for a ban.

Similarly, in America, there is a steady rise in “smartphone zombies” (A person in possession of a smartphone who appears lifeless, apathetic, or completely unresponsive to their surroundings) that Los Angeles made it illegal to be a smartphone zombie. Well, you become a smartphone zombie when you are distracted while walking.

In 2008, more than 1,000 people were injured seriously enough to seek medical attention at the emergency room as a result of texting and walking — double the year previous (which was double the year previous as well). Read here.

Here are the interesting smartphone practices from Japan.

Originally published at https://www.alvintanicala.com on August 20, 2020.

Are you turning into a “smartphone zombie”? — ALViN was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To ride on a wild animal capable of eating you whole takes a lot of trusts. These mammals are called killer whales because they are capable of killing and they are wired by nature to do so.

Amazing still is the ability of the human species to be able to rewire these killers’ instincts and to command them to do tricks and enter the world of edutainment.

To reduce these “monsters” to cute and lovable creatures takes enormous skill. The intelligence of man is truly marvelous but it is scary. How far can we trust?

Originally published at https://www.alvintanicala.com on July 2, 2008.

Sea World Adventure — Taming the great Orca — ALViN was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I just read “The Chair Rocks — A Manifesto Against Aging by Ashton Applewhite.

Let’s talk Ageism.

Ageism is a type of discrimination that occurs on the basis of a person’s age. It is the last form of prejudice that is sanctioned by society.

Ageism is a social and economic construct that aims to sustain inequalities between groups by excluding them based on how they look.

The truths about aging harden into a set of beliefs. Unless we challenge them, we will never be able to truly age well. The truths about ourselves harden into a set of beliefs over a lifetime. If we challenge these beliefs, we can reverse the downward spiral of ageism.

#mindfulness #ageism #makelifemeaningful

What is Ageism? was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There was a study that found counterstereotype training did not reduce implicit bias (Burns et al., 2017). This, of course, does not mean that it does not work. One of the results that came out of the study was that other participants were made aware of their own biases and motivated to self-regulate.

I do agree that exposure is important. I would like to use photography’s definition of exposure for our sharing.

In photography, exposure is the amount of light that reaches your camera sensor or film. It is a crucial part of how bright or dark your pictures appear (Cox, 2019).

The amount of “light” we allow to into our “sensor” will be important in capturing the beauty of inclusion.

Thank you for your insight!

Reference

Burns, M., Monteith, M., & Parker, L. (2017). Training away bias: The differential effects of counterstereotype training and self-regulation on stereotype activation and application. Journal Of Experimental Social Psychology, 73, 97–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.06.003 (Links to an external site.)

Cox, S. (2019). What Is Exposure? (A Beginner’s Guide). Photography Life. Retrieved 9 January 2021, from https://photographylife.com/what-is-exposure.

Counterstereotype was originally published in Analog Life Virtualization on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.