Consider Humanism

 If you are looking around for a philosophy or religion that works better than your current worldview, consider Humanism. 

I am obviously biased, but I do think Humanism is a better way of going through life than all the other alternatives. 

1) It's adaptable. We don't have a dogma. Either things are true or they aren't. If we find out something we believed isn't true, we accept reality. This allows us to more effectively and quickly adapt to the situations we find ourselves in. It also makes it easier to adapt to change.

2) It's reality based. I can't overstate how helpful this is in problem solving.

3) It's compassionate and loving. Humanism is first and foremost about loving life and loving humanity. And that means love in all it's varied dimensions from altruism to passion. Love is simply a wonderful lens through which to experience life.

4) It's about being responsible. We have the ability and therefore we have the responsibility to fix our problems. We can make the world a better place for us all to live in and we have a moral obligation to work towards that.

5) It provides meaning and purpose in an otherwise impersonal universe.  We choose to love. We choose to be responsible. We choose to be reality based and we choose to adapt. These choices, impact everything. Loving people provides motivation and purpose. Responsibility provides impetus and motivation. 

I live my life in a state of general contentedness and happiness. I always wake up feeling motivated. Does any of it matter in the grand scheme of things? Nope. But it matters to me in the here and now and that is actually enough.

Simply put, Humanism works for me, and for the many other Humanists who are making a mark on the world and who have, throughout history, changed the world.  Many of the most influential thinkers in history, were humanists or humanistic in their approach.

So .... if you are thinking about your religious or philosophic options, consider Humanism. 

I have online courses, may of them free that will give you an introduction: https://humanistlearning.com/category/lifeskills/philosophy/

And there are lots of books on the subject: https://humanistlearning.com/category/shop/humanism101/

A New Year - a New You

 Consider Humanism!

Whatever it is you don’t like that is going on in your professional or personal life – you can change it. Things don’t have to be the way they are. We can change things and make the world a better place for everyone to live if we take responsibility to do it and approach our problems using a combination of love, compassion science and reason. 

The first course I created was a course on how to live ethically and effectively as a Humanist. It is called Living Made Simpler.  https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/ This 6 hour video course will teach you all about how a Humanist goes about living a happy and fulfilling life.

If you are learning about Humanism, or even if you have been considering yourself a Humanist for a while, people have really benefited from this program.  See some of the reviews below: 

“I am finding it is giving me a greater grounding in my decision making, along with explaining my reasoning to others. … I read the bible and went through all the other major religions looking of answers as a kid, but did not realize what I was looking for was ethics, not theology, to answer my questions of why we should do things.  I did come close though, I came across Confucius, and better yet, I found Mencius who was more coherent in explaining Confucius’s ideas. But, they too lacked a structured reasoning checklist as your “Be Compassionate, Be Responsible, Be Honest”, which I now filter daily issues with. Thanks for the guidance, every much appreciated.” – Jakers

“Thank you for a most interesting course that gave me plenty to consider and a chance to rethink/confirm my own beliefs” – J. McNally, Sarasota

“Thank you for your provocative and enjoyable presentation of this basic introductory course on Humanism. Your slides and lectures were excellent and your interactive style fostered provocative class participation. I highly recommend this course. I always thought of myself as a Humanist and insights from this course gave me a lot to think about.” – G. Deutsch, Sarasota FL

“Living Simpler was definitely an interesting review of fundamental aspects of life that can benefit much from the humanist worldview,  such as ethics,  critical thinking and personal responsibility.   Weekly themes of the course were well selected and clearly presented.  I really enjoyed going through the course.” – P. Franko, Brazil

If you have been struggling in any area of your life, stepping back to think through HOW you think about your problems can be very beneficial.  So go ahead and register today.  https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/

Changing Yourself

How to utilize behavioral psychology techniques to help overcome resistance to change in yourself and in other with Jennifer Hancock.

This video is part of the Why is Change so Hard? program offered at Humanist Learning Systems. https://humanistlearning.com/change1/

This course is approved through HRCI (E-Learning Business credit) and through SHRM (Self Paced E-Learning). You can select a HRCI, SHRM and/or a general certificate.

What personal development/certifications should HR professionals (new managers) take advantage of?

I offer online certificate programs that are useful to HR professionals.  In addition to my certificate – the online programs are approved for CE for HRCI and SHRM and some for the CA and FL Bar for CLE.

The first is a ~10 hour certificate program in Humanistic Conflict Management

https://humanistlearning.com/conflict-management-discount-bundle/

The hardest part of management is dealing with the interpersonal problems that arise. This program will teach you how to effectively, ethically and compassionately deal with conflict while still being professional.

Upon completion you will receive a certificate in Humanistic Conflict Management and may refer to yourself as a humanistic conflict management professional

The next is an 8 hour Certificate Program in Applied Humanistic Leadership

https://humanistlearning.com/certificate-in-applied-humanistic-leadership/

Learn how to be a more authentic and effective leader who is both powerfully ethical and armed with the technical skills required to master whatever challenges you face with grace and dignity.

Finally – I have a 16 hour program for Certified Humanistic Leadership Professionals

https://humanistlearning.com/certified-humanistic-leadership-professional/

Upon completion you will receive a certificate stating you are a certified Humanistic Leadership Professional.

Hope this helps.

Practicing Humanistic Leadership when the people around you - are not.

I recently did a talk for 7,000 people online on Humanistic Leadership.  One person asked me in the chat: I want to ask that if one person is following and practicing these all things but other colleagues are not then in that case what can we do? 

A leader is someone people - follow.  To be a leader - means - you have to be courageous.  It means - choosing to do the right thing - even when the right thing is hard. And encouraging others to do the right thing too.

Being a leader - doesn't mean - being a boss. Ordering people around - is what managers do. Leaders - inspire and encourage people to follow them.

The question of - whether you can practice humanistic leadership if others around you don't - is - yes - and you absolutely should choose to be ethical - even if and especially if - the people around you - aren't being ethical!

This is a choice you make because of who you want to be. It's the choice to courageously be authentic to yourself and to your values and to encourage others to do the same. 

You don't need anyone else's permission to be humanistic in your approach to life and work and leadership.  You just choose to be that way. 

What will happen depends when you do this - will vary. I can't guarantee success. Unethical people - if they are your bosses - probably won't respond well. It happens. But ... if the bosses are ethical - they will see you - and acknowledge you for being the ethical person you have chosen to be.

I've had both happen. I've only really lost one job and it's because I stood up to my boss and told him that he must never say racist things in front of me ever again.  I've also stood up to bullies and have the chairman of the board call me to thank me and let me know I had their full support before they fired the problem person.

To me - while I prefer to have the good things happen by being good. The benefit of being a good person and making a point to be a good person - even in difficult situations - is that I know - I've done my best. My sense of dignity has remained firmed. 

If you want to be more humanistic - no one can stop you. Just - be a good person. Live your values. Be compassionate, honest and responsible with everyone you meet. Your reputation will benefit from this choice and - while the unethical people around you won't like it - most people you meet - will be thrilled and your social status will benefit as a result - because - the number of unethical people - is actually - small when compared to the silent majority who are sick of the unethical people but don't have the courage to do anything about it.

Want to lead - truly lead - approach everything you do and every person you meet - humanistically.

Learn more:

I have a variety of online programs where I teach not only Humanism but how to apply Humanism to your daily life and decision making. Check out my course offerings here - https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

Coming to terms with your inability to control your fate

You can’t control everything in your life and trying to will only make things worse.

Not being in control is stressful. Not knowing how things are going to turn out is scary. It would be nice if we could be assured of everything going our way. But that’s unrealistic.

The universe does not conspire to help you out. It doesn’t conspire to hurt you either. It’s not sentient so it doesn’t really think.

Other people do though. And they may or may not be trying to help you and a few of them may actually try to harm you for their own gain. That’s life. That’s what we all have to deal with. And some of us come into this life with a better hand and more privilege than others.

I’m not going to get into the subject of privilege here. What I want to talk about is how we best make do given the difficulties we have and the fact that we are going to have to work to get anything we want because – again, the universe isn’t going to magically provide for us.

The first step is to accept that reality. You don’t have control over everything in your life. You don’t’ have control over other people. You only have control of yourself and your choices. And your choices have an impact. In fact, your choices impact your future ability to make choices.

Each choice has a consequence. Those consequences can be good, bad or indifferent. While you can’t guarantee whether any given choice will result in a good outcome, you can change the odds to your favor and the cumulative effect of changing the odds slightly to your favor over the course of your life is astonishing.

Take for instance the choice to drive drunk or not.  Driving drunk doesn’t guarantee you will get in an accident. Driving sober doesn’t guarantee you will get to where you are going alive. All that choice does is change the odds – to your favor or against you.

You make hundreds of decisions every day. What to eat, who to have sex with, whether to have sex, etc. The cumulative impact of all those choices, either in your favor or against you – impacts the quality of your life. The more you choose to do things that improve your odds, the more likely good things will happen to you.

You don’t have a lot of control over what happens to you. But you do have some control. If you want to be successful, it would be stupid to leave your fate totally to chance.  Smart people make choices to improve their odds and they do this consistently throughout their lives.

If you want to learn more about how to exercise more control over your life and to improve your chances of success, however you define that, consider taking Planning for Personal Success – a Humanist Approach online course. Both of these will help you with your personal development.

Bad Thoughts Can’t Make You Sick! Or can they?

I’ve written about the positive thinking movement before. Your thoughts don’t have magical powers. You can’t just wish for wealth and thinking bad thoughts won’t bring bad things to you. That’s just a bunch of wooey - hooey.

 Aeon Magazine makes an excellent case for abandoning the woo related ideas that bad thoughts can make you sick – see: https://aeon.co/opinions/bad-thoughts-can-t-make-you-sick-that-s-just-magical-thinking

First, there is no good evidence that good thoughts or bad thoughts influence our health. There are problems with the research and with self reporting. Confounding of health and happiness is harmful to those who aren’t healthy and/or happy as it blames them for their physical problems and treats happiness as if it is a choice!  In short, it’s a form of victim blaming that does nothing to help people overcome their illnesses or become happier.

This isn’t to say that your brain doesn’t influence your health. Your brain is part of your body and your health effects the brain and the brain effects your health. Depression is a physical illness, not something people “choose.” And yes, having depression does cause certain sorts of negative thoughts to occur. But that doesn’t imply causation. In fact figuring out where causation lies is extremely difficult. There really isn’t a brain body divide. It’s all just body.

This doesn’t mean that your thoughts don’t matter. They do. They have a tremendous impact on your ability to function, make rational decisions and more. It’s just that you might not have as much control of them as you would like and it’s possible your physical illness is causing your negative thoughts and not the other way round.

Critical Thinking in Decision Making

Do you know the elements of good decision making?

Good leaders make good decisions. If a leader is charismatic and can get people to do what they want, that’s good. Getting them to do what is needed to get good results? That’s great!

It isn’t enough to know how to motivate people if what you are motivating them to do is counterproductive and stupid. All you will have done is wasted people’s time, energy and money fixing a problem that either doesn’t exist or not fixing a problem that does.  As my father always said, that’s not too B R I T E!

A good leader makes sure that what they are asking people to do will yield the desired results and not waste anyone’s time with pointless busywork.

Here are the elements of good decision making.

1) Understanding the problem that needs to be solved. The amount of time wasted on what I like to call proxy problems is astonishing. I’ve seen leaders just spin everyone’s wheels on problems that aren’t really problems. In order to make sure you don’t waste time solving problems that aren’t really important or critical to your success, you HAVE to think critically and ask the question – WHY AM I WORKING ON THIS?

2) Knowing what will actually work to solve your actual problem. Assuming you know the problem you want to solve AND that the problem is a real problem that’s actually worth solving, you now need a solution that will actually work to solve it. Again ... critical thinking will help here. Consider all your options and use critical thinking to evaluate those options to choose the one that is most likely to help you succeed. Fail to do this step, usually means failure.

3) Plan for problems. Knowing what is going to cause you problems before you start a project is a good way to not fail.  Hoping for the best isn’t a strategy. Considering what all could go wrong and having a plan for how to avoid or deal with those things happening is a strategy. All this step takes is a little bit of time thinking! I know it’s hard, do it anyway.

4) Be open to being wrong. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we make mistakes. We analyze. We consider, we plan and then, things still don’t work out because there was something we didn’t know we needed to know before we started. When this happens to a good leader, they regroup, reconsider and adjust their plans accordingly. Usually all that’s required is a slight tweak. Don’t force your team to trudge on when it’s obvious what you are doing isn’t working. Nothing kills respect for a manager like sending a team on a pointless death march.

If these 4 critical thinking skills are new to you, consider taking my personal development program – Planning for Personal Success. While the course is for personal development, it does cover how to make good decisions so you give yourself the best change at success.

Resisting Change

In order to grow, we must change. It just would be nice if it weren’t so hard. The good news is that the more you practice changing, the easier it becomes.

Gone are the days of having one job for your entire life. Most of us will change jobs several times. Some of us may have to learn new skills to get new jobs in new fields.

When I first entered the workforce, my mother gave me some very good advice. She said your few couple of months on a job are learning months. You aren’t really going to produce anything for a while. You have to learn what needs to be done, what’s already being done and how things get done. A lot of this on the job learning is done by trial and error.

On top of the actual work, you also have to learn to navigate the culture of the organization you are now working for and how to deal with all the new quirky personalities. To be productive you have to not step on toes and understand who really makes decisions in an office.

If you are a leader or a manager, you have a doubly hard task. You have to learn all of this so you can please your new boss AND figure out how to get work out of the people you are tasked with managing without having them all quit on you out of frustration that you are an idiot who clearly has no respect for how things have always been done!

Change is hard. It’s hard for you and it’s hard for the people you are tasked with changing.  It doesn’t matter if the change will make things easier for everyone, your staff will resist it. They can’t help it. It’s what we humans do when confronted with change. We stick our heads in the sand and hope the impulse and annoying person with crazy new ideas doesn’t last long.

The mistake managers make is that they ask for change and then judge the results by whether or not staff changed. That’s so not how change management works. Instead of blaming staff for failing to change, why not consider the idea that you, as the manager are at fault.

Change is a process that takes place over time. The larger the group you are trying to change and the more ways that group interacts with other groups, the harder it will be to change. It’s like trying to turn a cruise ship.  You can’t just cut the engines and turn left. You have to plan out in advance where you want to go, where to apply pressure and start the process and keep on the process and keep on it reapplying pressure where the group needs it until – change occurs.

If you want to learn more about the behavioral science of change, both in individuals and in groups, take the Why is Change so Hard ecourse (this is a certified 1 hour online program for continuing education credits (for HR, ASTD, and coaches).

Lacking Motivation?

Do you have things to do but can’t bring yourself to do them? Your problem may not be motivation.

We all struggle with things we have to do and don’t want to. We procrastinate.  And then we chide ourselves for not being motivated. But what if the problem isn’t motivation? What if the problem is understanding.

I am a big fan of critical thinking and one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when diagnosing a “motivation” problem is why. Why don’t I want to do this?  Why do I need to do this? Do I need to do this?

By asking yourself why – you will either figure out - if I don’t do this something bad will happen. Or if I don’t do it, nothing bad will happen.  I find that reminding myself about the cost of failure is an excellent motivator.

Sometimes, by asking yourself why you realize, nothing bad will happen if you don’t do whatever it is. And if nothing bad will happen, perhaps you can get away with not doing it at all!  There is NOTHING like taking an unnecessary task off your plate to make you feel better.

But what happens when you figure out – yeah – you still need to do it but you still aren’t motivated and fear of failure isn’t enough to get you moving. Well, you can then ask yourself another important question.  How can I do this differently? How can I get this done in a way that isn’t a drudge? Can I outsource this task? Can I get it done a different way?

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I do know that asking them is the first step to solving the problem.

Critical thinking, it’s a practical everyday life skill. Learn how to do this better and to find more motivation in your life with the online course – Planning for Personal Success: A Humanist Approach.