Consider an amoeba placed under a microscope. We can adjust the focus to bring a particular plane into sharpness, and in so doing other planes become obscured. The full ‘truth’ of the specimen cannot be seen all at once, but can be approached only in the aggregate of various planes of focus. So it is for the self. To investigate the nature of the self, we might pose these three very different questions, at three particular planes of focus:<ul><li>Who are you?</li><li>Who are you, really?</li><li>Who are you, really, really?</li></ul>

The Microscope On The Amoeba

There are many successful people who fear they are missing the meal. They’ve taken their personhood to a winning place, and yet so often they feel empty, disappointed, anxious, confused, alienated. They’ve done it all right, they’ve made money and raised healthy kids and kept in decent shape all the while. And now the kids are gone and doing it for themselves, the money is great but it turns out it’s no destination, and the body is slowly dying. Is this all there is? Has something been missed this whole time? And so, again, we might ask ourselves: who are we really, really?

Missing The Main Course

This is not a religion or an organizing cosmological story, it is a spiritual enquiry.An enquiry into who or what we are most essentially, if far less obviously - outside the frame that reifies the idea of the self as an individual unit, instead recasting it as a natural manifestation of the timeless substrate from which it arises.

A Spiritual Inquiry

Psychotherapy, for all its enormous use and beauty, is not a spiritual practiceIn seeking to understand the situation in which humans so strangely find ourselves, many of us respond with an emphatic assertion of selfhood: 'Why, I am going on here!'

Psychotherapy Isn't Holistic

Psychedelics, of course, have come in vogue again, but there are a variety of practices meant to bring contact with the non-dualistic space that cannot be named – various traditions of meditation being the most well known. Each practice has its own serious-minded devotees and faddish enthusiasts: <a href="https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-breathe-your-way-to-better-health-and-transcendence">breathing</a> techniques, yoga, chanting, extreme exercise, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/why-forests-and-rivers-are-the-most-potent-health-tonic-around">immersion</a> in the natural world, certain <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/lovemaking-for-longevity-a-recipe-from-tokyos-imperial-archives">sex</a> practices. These are all methods that might lead practitioners into undifferentiated experience, where subject and object are one.

Sex, Drugs And Mindfulness

The question that stays in the background.

Therapy is a valuable tool for self-understanding. But spiritual practices can unlock a more expansive view of the self

Stashed ideas

The question therapy doesn’t answer: who are we really, really? | Psyche Ideas

By force of habit, most executives tune down their imagination when strategizing. This is counterproductive, and there is an alternative: Design fiction. A design technique that immerses executives and employees deeply in various possible futures, it uses artifacts such as short movies, fictitious newspaper articles and imaginary commercials to generate transformation roadmaps. Rooted in the future but helping to act in the present, design fiction results in concrete actions taken to adjust companies’ visions, strategies, and activities to create a better future.

No Place For Imagination

Trying to predict what the future will look like is doomed to fail. Yet this is what most executives do when they strategize. They — we — do this because we have been trained and educated to use trends and statistics to predict what is likely to happen and prepare accordingly. As a result, companies <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/06/3-things-youre-getting-wrong-about-organizational-change">struggle to react to changes</a> in their environments when they should be <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amr.2019.0289">shaping them proactively</a>. This is an issue for executives around the globe whose strategizing, anchored in the past, misses out on important opportunities to envision, and design, possible futures.

Visualizing The Future

Unlike many <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/07/how-to-do-strategic-planning-like-a-futurist">strategic foresight tools</a>, design fiction does not attempt to identify what is more likely to happen. Nor does it limit strategy conversations to the C-suite; in fact a core component is the participation of a wide range of stakeholders. Consequently, the teams that we’ve seen deploy design fiction are able to formulate and shape desirable futures that other tools do not enable people to see.

Design Fiction

The first step of putting design fiction into practice involves crafting scenarios of possible futures. For example, in a project with a major car insurance company, we analyzed information from urban mobility trends, autopilot flight modes, Luc Besson’s notorious movie The Fifth Element, and interviews with early electric car adopters to develop scenarios of possible futures. These atypical data sources help spotlight less obvious aspects that would otherwise remain unnoticed in the strategizing process.

Creating Scenarios From Pop Culture

Design fiction has helped dozens of multinational companies to strategize differently. And while creating fictional futures may sound a little quirky, we know that it works. For example, a recent design-fiction project conducted with a major oil and gas company helped identify how to shape a future in which people living in remote areas were less socially isolated. The company decided to repurpose gas stations into places galvanizing community through services such as car sharing hubs, medical centers, delivery platforms, and ghost kitchens.

Inventing The Future

Using Fiction to Find Your Strategy

A recent survey had startling findings on the condition of remote work: Even relatively experienced remote employees shared the ways their work lives had gone downhill since the pandemic started. The reason is Online Meetings.The pandemic-era remote work has led to a meeting explosion, making our already excessively meeting-focused work culture worse—for longtime remote workers as well as those new to WFH. For many of us, the expansion of meeting time means that our working lives went from having a lot of meetings to having an utterly over-the-top number of meetings.

The Problem With Online Meetings

Many employees across the globe are subjected to back-to-back meetings, without a chance to get a glass of water or a bio break. They endure those extra-exhausting meetings, thanks to the widely documented effects of meeting with our faces only, instead of our whole selves. It’s not like we don’t have the tools to prevent it. Email, Google Docs, Slack, and Basecamp: These are the types of applications that make it easier for us to share ideas and information without being in the same room so that we can collaborate without necessarily working in the same place or even at the same time.

Meeting Horrors

In punctuated collaboration, we only get together (IRL or virtually) when it’s crucial to advancing our work—and we seize the chance to make significant progress on our solo work in between those meetings.In the best-case version of hybrid work, you might go back to the office one or two days a week—maybe even three, <a href="https://www.charterworks.com/beyond-collaboration-overload-rob-cross/">if your work is highly collaborative</a>. When you’re face-to-face in the office, your days are packed with meetings: team meetings, project huddles, all-hands or interdepartmental catch-ups, one-on-ones with bosses, and check-ins with direct reports or closest colleagues.

The New Way To Work: Punctuated Collaboration

Make your schedules as a team, so you’re in the office on the same days as the people you work with closely. If you work closely with people in other cities or countries, try to sync with their workdays, too—maybe the sales department on every continent can stick to the same Monday/Wednesday schedule—so that even your video calls can happen on your office days.

Punctuated Collaboration: Hybrid Work As Strategy

Yes, a 9-to-5 day of back-to-back meetings is really tiring, especially if it’s followed by after-work drinks with your colleagues. But now you’re only going to be exhausted by meetings two days a week, instead of five.The main idea here is to have two days a week where everyone participates in meetings, and three days a week where employees do solo work. The actual ratio depends on the kind of collaboration required.

Go Home Exhausted

The strategy of using office time as collaborative time works best if there is an organization-wide (or at least, department- or team-wide) commitment to keeping remote days meeting-free. If you aren’t in a position to set that policy for your employer or team, set it for yourself: Close off your appointment-booking windows, block off <a href="https://www.charterworks.com/four-thousand-weeks-oliver-burkeman/">big blocks of time</a> on all your at-home days (even if you need to leave some bookable times), and try to block off at least one entirely meeting-free day a week.

Those Three Meeting Free Days Instead Of Five

How can two or three days of in-person meetings substitute for five days a week of video calls? It works if we are really thoughtful and effective in how we run our meetings: sharing and sticking to agendas, inviting people only if their contribution is needed (and then ensuring they have a chance to make it), and treating the process of connecting and trust-building as a central part of meeting work. Run half-assed meetings, and you will find yourself booking the other half of the ass as another WFH video call.

Effective Meetings

The point of this whole approach is to get some actual head-down, focused, productive work time. So on the days you’ve cleared of meetings, put your head down! It may take some practice to make the most of a four- or five-hour block of uninterrupted time, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll find that you can get more done in five good hours of remote time than you would in nine or ten hours at the office.

Focus On Your Flow Time

When you tap into the joy and power of working in the zone like that—well, don’t fill up the rest of the day with video calls just because there’s space. Put your five focused hours in, and then get up from your desk. Because you’ve now earned the real reward of remote work: making time <a href="https://www.charterworks.com/wellbeing-at-work-by-jim-clifton-and-jim-harter/">for your whole life</a>.

The Bottom Line

A scheduling strategy to beat back Zoom fatigue and get the most out of in-person work.

Cure Remote Meeting Overload With 'Punctuated Collaboration'

People are often distracted by many things but the main reason behind this is becuase they want to escape the unpleasant feeling of boredome, fatigue, or stress. Minimizing those emotions can make people stay engaged.
During meetinggs or presentations, strong visuals play an important role in promoting engagement, so people are more likely to pay attention to engaging photos, graphics, colors, etc., because they counterweigh potential negativity making boredom less likely to hold.

Keep People Stimulated

Study shows that joyful connections between people increases levels of the pleasure hormone which reduces anxiety and improves concentration, since people are tuning in from home aren&#39;t getting much social interactions, by complimenting the audience and directly addressing remote attendees will help make them feel included.
Other ways to make the audience feel included:
<ul>
<li>Quiz games</li>
<li>Question and Answer Portions</li>
<li>Take part in a poll</li>
</ul>

Make People Feel Included

Overly long presentations will make the audience frustrated, this is backed by research. Instead, why not strip down the information to its basics, and decide your time frame around that. 
If the presentation can&#39;t be shortened, incorporate breaks at regular intervals to ask questions or add a different media format.

Short and Shareable

Marketers have the new challenge of catering to both live and remote audiences at once. Due to the change in circumstances, companies are overhauling their strategies and bringing in new visuals and shareable aspects in their presentations to engage audiences across various work environments.
Those who get ahead of the curve are most likely to get the brand recognition and sales leads they desire.

Get Used to The Hybrid Experience

To make hybrid event presentations engaging, marketers must understand why people get distracted and how to best combat it. Here's how to improve engagement.

Hybrid-Event Presentations: How to Balance Engagement Across Remote and In-Person Audiences

As the pandemic required employees to work remotely, one of the most striking changes was increased worker's autonomy. Many people became used not to have a boss looking over their shoulder or watching their every move. A more autonomous environment meant employees could control where they sit or how they prioritise tasks. They could intersperse life activities with job activities. But, as the world returns to the offices, employees are expected to give up some of that control.

Remote work has given us more autonomy

Experts have known for some time that autonomy is good for us and our work. If we have control over our lives and environment, we have a greater sense of wellness. Psychologists view autonomy as a basic human need. Research found that those with more autonomy in their work or workplace culture were happier with their jobs. Another recent study found autonomy has a positive effect on efficiency and output at work.&nbsp;

The benefits of autonomy

A return to the office may involve negotiations between workers and employers, where workers may desire to make some permanent changes, including adopting a hybrid model.&nbsp; While a hybrid model may not work for all jobs and industries, it can allow employees to continue enjoying the autonomy of remote work, and giving it up on days when they're in the office. Autonomy can also be maintained at the micro-task level. For example, if workers have some control over their schedule, they can avoid back-to-back meetings or block out time for deep work.

Ways to maintain control

Remote work has given us all more autonomy over how we do our jobs. Can we retain some of it when we go back to the office?

How to cope with less autonomy in the office

The Tour de France is an annual multiple-stage race held primarily in France. It is made up of 21 stages over 23 days (two are rest days). In 1903, the Tour de France began as a rivalry between two French sports newspapers: Le Vélo and L’Auto. A L’Auto Journalist proposed the multi-stage race as a way to sell more copies. The six-stage event over 18 days was won by Frenchman Maurice Garin and is still the biggest cycling race.

Tour de France

The Tour de France normally starts in July, but the 2021 Tour de France has been brought forward to accommodate the Tokyo Olympic Games. It started on June 26 as a result. The five key stages are:<ul><li>Wednesday 30 June – stage 5:&nbsp;Changé to Laval&nbsp;Espace Mayenne (27km, individual time trial)</li><li>Wednesday 7 July – stage 11:&nbsp;Sorgues to Malaucène (199km)</li><li>Sunday 11 July – stage 15:&nbsp;Céret to Andorre-La-Vieille (191km)</li><li>Wednesday 14 July – stage 17:&nbsp;Muret to Col du Portet (178km, summit finish)</li><li>Thursday 15 July – stage 18:&nbsp;Pau to Luz Ardiden (130km, summit finish)</li></ul>

Tour de France 2021

There are several classifications based on a range of criteria. <ul><li>The general classification (GC) ranks riders according to their overall time. The leader of the GC wears the yellow jersey. The rider with the fastest overall time at the end of the race is the Tour de France winner.</li><li>The mountains classification is based on points accumulated on the Tour's classified ascents. The leader of this classification wears the polka-dot jersey.</li><li>The points classification is for sprinters, and points are awarded for the top finishers on each stage and intermediate sprints.</li></ul>

Wearing the yellow jersey

The Tour de France is now in its 107th edition. The following riders have won the Tour de France five times: <ul><li>Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961 - 1964)</li><li>Eddy Merckx (1969 - 1972, 1974)</li><li>Bernard Hinault (1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985)</li><li>Miguel Indurain (1991 - 1995)</li></ul> Merckx is considered the greatest cyclist of all time. He won the 1969 combination classification, combativity award, points competitions and the Tour overall, and the King of the Mountains jersey in his first appearance. Jean Robic won the Tour in 1947 despite not earning the yellow jersey.

The most Tour de France wins

Our essential guide for lifelong fans and first-time watchers alike

Self Improvement

Tour de France 2021: everything you need to know

<ul><li>Your personal style should be reflective of your likes, creativity, and lifestyle.  </li><li>When you develop a personal style you are curating a unique image and wardrobe that helps you to express yourself and embody the person you want to be. </li><li>Your personal style is a unique combination of fashion categories (like classic, trendy, boho, etc) that encapsulates what you do, who you are, and what you like. </li><li>While your style may have influences from many fashion categories, you will have one dominant fashion category. </li></ul>

What Is Personal Style?

<ul><li>Find and define your style inspiration: Most likely it will be a mix of style influences from a few different people.</li><li>Start going through your closet and seeing what pieces work for your lifestyle, that also work for your style inspiration. </li><li>Start trying your own versions of these outfit ideas. </li><li>Find a signature piece; it helps tie your style together and helps define yourself to the world.</li><li>Pay attention to your hairstyle, your beauty look, nail color, and accessories as well. No matter which fashion category you fall into, those details will remain key to achieving true personal style.</li></ul>

How To Develop Your Personal Style

People underestimate the power of fashion.  And they usually do it because they’ve dug themselves into such a style rut that it’s easier to chalk it up to fashion being frivolous, or just not having the time. But defining your style and developing a uniquely you look is one of the most effective communication tools.  …

How to Define Your Personal Style

<ol>
<li>Reduce and eliminate expenses that will be left behind when you set our to travel, they will only get in your way.</li>
<li>Develop skills to work as a digital nomad. It doesn't necessarily have to be a blog but any skill that you can work remotely with is fine.</li>
<li>Decide on a destination. Do your due diligence and look into the place's safety, security, and quality of life.</li>
<li>Set goals, create a plan, and always have a backup plan.</li>
<li>Join a digital nomad community.</li>
</ol>

The Five Steps To Becoming a Digital Nomad

This mentality drove most of us into a state of compliance and complacency where we are then unable to remove ourselves from our obligations to our 9-5s.
Nomads interpret freedom as the ability to be able to see the world, having no boundaries and borders to abide by while being able to live and work from anywhere we choose to please.

The 'Get It Now and Pay For It Later' Mentality

Not many people know about making passive income but it's crucial to have this financial tool - this is the income we receive automatically every single month like clockwork.
Most of the destinations that are attractive to digital nomads are those places that offer an inexpensive lifestyle that has a low cost-of-living and overhead expenses.

Passive Income

<ul>
<li>We become more open to people and learn lots of skills such as being more social, adapting to the environment, and ever nonverbal communication.</li>
<li>You will meet good people on the road. Distance and time cannot break the bonds you form.</li>
<li>There is no such thing as a mistake because every choice you make are always half chances just life everybody else's.</li>
</ul>

Lessons From Digital Nomads

Interested in becoming a digital nomad? Looking to live the wanderlust lifestyle and roam free around the world, living and working in some of the most exotic and alluring destinations on the planet? Here's are the steps you need to take.

How To Become A Digital Nomad And Travel The World

Feedback is essential when you learn a new skill. However, when people learn the skill of 'creating new habits,' they think making mistakes is a sign of being a failure and showing an utter lack of discipline.
In reality, this is not true. No one mastered anything on their first few attempts — it takes practice to get good at anything.

It takes practice to get good at anything

Overcome your mind's resistance to get started by saying, "I'm all in. I'm going to start today." Then get moving. If you're not good at this, commit to making a small habit change this instant.
Many people want to learn a language or start exercising, but then don't take action. It is because they haven't really committed to getting started.

Committing to actually starting

The skill to master is getting started. You don't have to exercise for half an hour; you only need to start.
Often, we're supposed to do a new habit, and we procrastinate, turn to distractions, and rationalize our resistance.

Focus on starting

Our minds are good at coming up with rationalizations, especially when we're procrastinating on something:
<ul>
<li>It's too hard.You don't need to suffer like this.</li>
<li>You deserve a break.You'll do it tomorrow.</li>
</ul>
The skill to master is to recognise this rationalization process in action. Be mindful of it. Once you become aware of it, come up with counterarguments for each rationalization.

Noticing rationalizations

People fail to realise how important developing the habit skill is. They have a specific idea of what their habit will be like, and when it doesn't go according to plan, they feel guilty and think they're a failure.
Overcome this with a flexible mindset. If you forget to do the habit, adjust by coming up with reminders. If you procrastinate on social media block it until 5 p.m.

Constant re-adjustment

The Four Hidden Habit Skills : zen habits

Eminem is known for controversies, chart-topping hits and being in the tabloids for a variety of reasons. Even people who hate rap music know the artist.
His iconic hit ‘Lose yourself’ has mindfulness lessons built into it, apart from being a celebrated motivational track for more than a decade, as acknowledged recently at the 2020 Academy Awards.

Mindfulness In A Rap Song

The lyrics of Eminem’s iconic track ‘Lose Yourself’ begin with paying attention to how one is feeling, without judging.
It is also imbibed in the lyrics to understand that inner turmoil exists silently inside, even though the outward physical composure appears normal. By embracing the inner turmoil we move to ‘full-catastrophe living’.

Mindfulness Lesson: Don’t Judge And Just Pay Attention

At any given moment, the inner voices of hope, anxiety, regret and expectations are always there. According to Eminem’s simple but profound lyrics in his song ‘Lose Yourself’, our past embarrassment and future worries are tangled up in our heads.
We are one tiny ego in a vast and abundant universe and don’t matter as much as we think we do.

Mindfulness Lesson: The Inner Voices Of Past And Future

Losing ‘yourself’ isn’t about getting lost, as the initial impression of someone listening to the Eminem song. It is about losing the mental voice that keeps telling us that we should do this or that, or we suck. Lose Yourself does not mean losing yourself, but means losing your self, that is your ego. 
Mindfulness is misunderstood as an escape from reality to somewhere else. The rap song is providing the biggest message about mindfulness, to be in the present moment fully.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Olivia Lambert
@oli_lam

The question therapy doesn’t answer: who are we really, really? | Psyche Ideas

Using Fiction to Find Your Strategy

Cure Remote Meeting Overload With 'Punctuated Collaboration'

Hybrid-Event Presentations: How to Balance Engagement Across Remote and In-Person Audiences

How to cope with less autonomy in the office

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Olivia Lambert@oli_lam

The question therapy doesn’t answer: who are we really, really? | Psyche Ideas

Using Fiction to Find Your Strategy

Cure Remote Meeting Overload With 'Punctuated Collaboration'

Hybrid-Event Presentations: How to Balance Engagement Across Remote and In-Person Audiences

How to cope with less autonomy in the office

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Olivia Lambert
@oli_lam