Procrastination – is it your brain playing games

Energy, Fear, Human Brain, procrastination, Productivity

Your brain occupies about 2% of body mass but uses upto 25% of the energy. Nothing new here. These facts are more or less known for a very long time. What was new to me when I was reading Steven Kotler’s book The Art of Impossible was the fact that the brain tries to conserve energy, so it tries to do tasks which require less energy and creates a resistance to anything new, novel, unknown etc.

I have been a big procrastinator all my life. And till now I used to feel the biggest reason for me to be like this was that I was scared, I had a fear – of just about anything. I have tried a lot of things to get out of this habit of procrastination and over the years have improved tremendously. One of the best things that I learnt was identifying the task which can have the most impact on my day and then finishing that one task, before moving to anything else.

When you have a team and you also have to coordinate with peers, you may not be able to close all things that you plan in advance.However for that I use my electronic calendar and shift the dates to follow-up with my colleagues and they remain on my calendar till completely closed. So in that sense I have become more action oriented, but there are still a huge amount of areas where I can be many times better, except for my procrastination.

Dan Sullivan has different take on procrastination, and he and Dean Jackson have a podcast called the “joyofprocrastination”. where they talk extensively about how procrastination is actually your friend. I have used some of their concepts also in my journey to improve my productivity.

However after I read the above facts in Steven’s book, it kind of made an “aha” situation for me. My brain resists my doing something new or unknown because it will have to spend more energy. Since the new or novel thing could also hurt me, it will have to do even more work to protect me.The more work it has to do, the more energy it will need to spend. Since the brain is also a pattern recognition system, it tries to keep predicting how things could shape up and therefore predicts the amount of energy it may end up spending. So it suggests avoiding the task altogether as an easy way out to conserve energy.

So now I know, I won’t blame myself for my procrastination habit. I will blame it on my brain for playing games with me. You could also check out and see if this logic holds good for you as well.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Autotelic – Have you read about it before?

Flow, Focus, Human Brain, Thinking

This is a new word I read about recently. It came about in the book The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler. Today was the third time I read this word. The first two times also I read it in this book itself, but didn’t quite get it.

For those of you who read my blogs regularly, first of all thanks for doing so, you would have noticed that I like to see the nuances between words, the way they are used by different authors.

This word was however unique. Its kind of tongue twisting, but its a little scientific in nature so can be excused.

So coming back to the book where I read this word. This word has been used in context to getting into a “flow” state where the activity is its own reward. As Steven says – “the thing we are doing is so pleasurable and meaningful, that we will go to great lengths to do it……”

I have written earlier how just before I start to write I have a big lock on what I will write today. And then I put my hands to the keyboard on my tablet or computer and then just start typing. Soon I get into the flow and create something. Sometimes there are portions of topics, which may have been written by me earlier also but generally most of the content written everyday is fresh.

The key is that 1) when I start writing – I kind of forget about what’s happening outside, 2) after finishing my post I feel a deep sense of achievement. Now I am not an author – at least not yet. But writing helps me recover from the stresses of the day and feel rejuvenated.

So this word kind of resonated with me. I went and searched out for it on the internet. As per the “meriam-webster” “autotelic,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autotelic. Accessed 7/31/2021. dictionary it is an adjective – meaning having a purpose in and not apart form itself. with its first known use in 1900. Which means its not a very old word even though it has its oringins in the Greek language.

As per Steven, Autotelic is one of the six core psychological characteristics and if all six show up, we call the experience “flow”. In the flow state time just passes, without you thinking about it. While I don’t always reach flow state as the author talks about while writing, it does help me concentrate to what I am doing at the moment without thinking about the past or future , without getting judgemental about what I am writing, and helps me put thoughts in a matter of minutes.

Let me know in which situations you get into a flow state.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Generating “Trust” with the client – simple steps

B2B, Fear, Habits, Sales, Trust

When you are entering a new account as a sales person, “Trust” is by far the most difficult thing for you to get. If the customer has already been using your company’s product or service, then there’s some amount of trust that gets bestowed on you.

Especially if your company has done a good job or the sales person before you has done a good job, then the customer is more favourable to talk with you. However the customer still has to trust “YOU”

On the other hand if the account is new to your company and you as the sales person are also involved in creating the account then it becomes all the more important that you gain trust with the prospect fast. One of the biggest things which hampers a sale is TRUST. Price, quality of the product / service etc. are all issues which come into [play after the person trusts you.

Some of the simplest things I have observed for building trust are simple old fashioned things

  1. Keep your word – if you say you will do something by a given day or time – DO IT
  2. Arrive before the scheduled time always – No one likes to be kept waiting and that too for a sales person – there will be times where things can go wrong inspite of all your planning – in that case inform the customer well in advance
  3. Communicate every step of the way – even if you don’t have a solution ready for the problem – which will happen many times in your career – keep the customer informed that you have a problem and you are working to solve – the customer is also answerable to someone else and if he doesn’t have information he will get more frustrated. The customer may get angry with you for a little while but after he/she vents their anger, they will still be friends. Most of the time the people get scared of the customer and try to hide. This kind of Fear will only create problems in your long term relationships.
  4. Don’t consider your customer as an adversary – Till you get the order, everyone is very nice to the customer. The challenge starts when they become a Customer. The customer has certain expectations and your delivery folks have their own challenges and any objection by the customer becomes a “me versus you” situation. You have to make your team understand , that in B2B situations especially, the customer has more at stake than you because of her reputation at the organisation is at stake. If you can look at it as a joint effort then it solves the problem.

None of these steps have any technology related issues, they don’t need any hi-tech software or equipment etc. These are just human habits and behaviours which you need to cultivate and slowly you will observe people will automatically gravitate towards you and start trusting you.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Lucky or hardworking/smart work

charity, Gratitude, Karma

There’s always a lot of discussion which takes place whether a person is lucky because of which she is successful . While I would love to say that luck has no role to play, its pure work then there would be nothing more wrong in my view.

Being born at this time in the world when the world is a much safer place than 1000 years ago, its luck. As Warren Buffet says, being born in America versus some third world country was pure luck and more than half the battle won for him in his journey towards becoming the richest man in the world.

While tricks of the trade or skills are absolutely important – if you haven’t studied medicine you can’t get to become a successful surgeon. But as Napoleon used to say he would want to have a general in his army who was lucky. So a surgeon who is lucky could definitely be more successful in his surgeries, compared to another.

Or a surgeon who was born and practises in the United States of America could be much more prosperous than one in India – being born in the USA could be the one element – assuming the skill is constant.

Is luck a constant factor – again I don’t know. But having said that , my belief is that with your Karma you can change your luck and that is why I write so much about God / Karma / Charity / Gratitude. While I try to decipher the science behind it – like how gratitude improves your mood and therefore helps you think better and therefore you can do better – I am not sure if there’s a clear answer.

To cut the size of this post without sounding too philosophical, I do believe that luck does play a role – I would say at least 51% while you could attribute the remaining to hard work, smart work etc.

Let me know your views in the comments section below.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!