June 1, 2010
Salt Lake City

Doen’s talk today focused on something simple and practical.  He started out by talking about an interview that Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Workweek, conducted with Josh Waitzkin, chess champion turned martial arts champion.  

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/05/26/the-multitasking-virus-and-the-end-of-learning-part-2/#more-359

Two key points from Doen’s introduction were –

1. Ferriss’ point in his book is that we don’t need to wait until we are old to retire and do fun things but rather we should do them now.

2. From both Doen’s own experience with chess and the martial arts and from what Waitzkin shares we should look at when we are loosing.  Look at the games we have lost, when we don’t know how to do something, when we get results we don’t want.

If you are not getting what you want, something isn’t working.  Understanding when things are not working gives the impetus to change.  The greatest gift for excellence is to admit what isn’t working and when you don’t know things. Culturally this may be somewhat easier  or women than for men because of our socialization.  When you admit that you don’t know or are not right you can start to learn.  See the negativity as a blessing and a chance to learn, be vulnerable.

Doen spoke about his own father being given a business opportunity but saying that he could not do it because he did not have a head for business.  If Doen’s father had instead acknowledge that he lacked the confidence he might have been able to move forward with this opportunity rather than accepting his limitations and staying in place.

When you find yourself saying I don’t need, I don’t care, I don’t have to….embrace the negative, examine this it keeps us stuck.

People like to thing others do things better because they are gifted.  But in reality we need to put in time and learn from our mistakes.  People always make mistakes.  When things don’t go how we want them too we tend to look to blame someone instead of saying we don’t know.  Doen discussed both the financial crisis and the BP oil spill.  Can you imagine what it would be like if the President acknowledged that he doesn’t know what to do?  No one is supposed to acknowledge this; instead we keep doing things that don’t work.  As children we are more vulnerable and more likely to admit what we don’t know. 

We should be practical rather than critical.  Acknowledge when we don’t know things and be vulnerable.  Accept that there are different ways of doing things and they are just different, not right and wrong.  We have different cultures, different life experiences, we are  different races, genders and ages.  Be a model of integrity, be righteous, not self-righteous, and let others learn by watching.
