Looking around, it is clear that individually and collectively we are experiencing a yearning for a more meaningful, purposeful life. Rick Warren’s book A Purpose Driven Life sold over 30 million copies worldwide since 2007, with the driving question of the book: What on earth am I here for? Eckart Tolle’s book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose has sold an estimated 5 million copies.

I too want to live a life that makes a difference, and for me, on a planetary level. However coming to this place has not been easy, not what I expected, and not obvious. For years I wrestled with the question of how that difference was to be made. What is the right way? What am I meant to be doing? What can I do to make a bigger difference? These questions poured through me without filling me for what felt like ages. Frustrating it was, disappointing at times, doubt filling, and disconcerting. Where was the clarity? The surety of knowing that this was my path? That this was how I was to make a difference?

The answers came in hard-to-interpret glimpses, but never was there this Aha! moment where the doorway to a brilliant future of meaningful living bathed in ease and joy beckoned.

In the film The Secret Neil Donald Walsh says something like, there is no great blackboard in the sky on which your purpose is written. In other words, it’s up to you to define it, and to live it.

But even knowing that did not erase the yearning—the inner ache to know what it was that I was meant to do with my time so that I would feel like I was making a difference.

I know a number of people who are so afflicted by that yearning that their time is spent in an exhausting search for the magical meaningful doorway. Leaping from one job to another, one cause to another, one big idea to another, one country to another, one relationship to another…until they sit down, spent, frustrated, disappointed. Until they muster up the energy to have another go, thinking that this time, yes this time will be different.

So if I could share my years-of-difference-yearning learning with you it would be this: making a difference in the world is primarily a function of what you be and not what you do. We are all on a life journey with one central purpose: to consistently upgrade our way of being, to elevate our consciousness, to become a living expression of our highest sense of self. The rest, including the purposeful doing that your heart longs for will follow, will flow from that very activity.

If I could put it another way: become what you need to be in order to do what it is you wish to do.

When you focus on how you show up in each moment, when you intentionally shift yourself to a higher state of self, becoming more conscious, more aware, more connected, more grateful, more giving, more empowering, more loving, more open, more accepting…instantaneously, in that very moment of breath, you are making a difference in this world. A difference greater than your eyes and ears will ever tell you.

The magic starts from here. Once you begin to live your new way of being—this way that makes a difference simply because you chose to shift your self— opportunities for even greater, purposeful service will emerge; opportunities which allow you to merge your being and doing into a seamless oneness. You will have become the kind of person that opportunities seek out—and those opportunities will be in perfect alignment with your deepest beliefs around who you are.

So if you want to know more about your way of being in this world—where you are at with it, sorta speak—simply take a good look at what you are attracting and not attracting into your life, both outer and inner forms, from people and situations to thoughts and emotions. These things are not separate, they are all beautifully perfectly an expression of your Being.

And choosing how you show up in each moment is the biggest difference you can possibly make.

In light,

Leon

How Do I Make a Difference?

A big thank you to Dick West from the Institute of Cultural Affairs, Taiwan for these insightful questions on making a difference:

A:            What defines me?
- Who am I?
- How do I see myself?
- How do I define myself?
- How do I want to be seen?

B:            How do I be?
- How would I describe my level of consciousness?
- What brings meaning to my life and fills me with confidence and joy?
- What does the universe need from me?
- What does the world need from me?
- What does my community need?

C:            What can I do?
- What do I want to do?
- What should I do?
- What could I do?
- What limitations do I have on what I do?
- What can I do about my limitations?

Last week I had the chance to give my talk called ‘The Art of Tribal Leadership’ to an iMBA class here in Taipei. The group was as diverse as it gets, with students from all over the world (at least 12 different countries). We had a great time—they were a highly intelligent, inquisitive bunch. What really struck me however was how deeply interested they were in understanding the 7 emerging leadership arts that I’m going to share with you. Some they’d certainly heard of, but only fleetingly; others, no idea at all.

You may recall in the last issue of Unusual Leading I wrote how enabling people to self define images of leadership is one answer to the question of how to get everyone to say Yes! to leadership. There is a critical second component to the equation however—the question of which arts (or disciplines) those images and competencies are emerging from.

If you think about it, progressive leadership competencies don’t just magically appear—they have to be introduced and taught. We have little if any experience with them in our current educational system, and therefore, like all arts, they must be learned and practiced.

Take for example what came up when I asked the group of iMBAers leadership self-definition question #1:

What are the skills, attributes, attitudes, behaviors, or habits of leadership that you admire and aspire to?

The images they tossed out ran the gamut: motivating, inspirational, decisive, focused, respected, good communicator, charismatic, courageous, visionary, dedicated, responsible, and so on. With the exception of one—spiritual—it was a solid collection of images commonly held to reflect the pinnacle of great leadership.

The fact that this global group of young people was able to toss out these so easily is evidence of two things: first, these are powerful images that hold great attraction across a range of cultures and backgrounds. Second, these are highly socialized images, taught to us from a young age, precisely because they are so powerful. Indeed, many of these images arise from historical images of leader as hero, captain, military, statesman, celebrity, business titan, revolutionary, politician.

The issue with developing leadership competencies drawn from this stable of images is that for many they appear out of reach, unattainable, unrealistic, idealistic, or most importantly not in alignment with how they see themselves or want themselves to be. The result? People take themselves out of the leadership game.

But that’s not what we are going for here. We want people to lead…in all kinds of ways!

If you are truly serious about enabling the people in your organization to say Yes! to leadership you need to actively introduce new ways to lead—forward thinking, expansive competencies and skills that lie beyond the norm, the tried, the visible, the conditioned.

So here we go, let’s take a look at 7 emerging leadership arts. Even though I will not go into it here, remember that each of these arts has a definable skill set which can be learned, thus enabling people to lead in completely different ways.

• Self Organization: the art of pattern emergence recognition
• Self Directed Learning: the art of self initiative
• Coaching: the art of enabling and energizing potential
• Appreciative Intelligence: the art of seeing inherent possibilities
• Dialogue: the art of thinking together
• Community Building: the art of building authentic participation
• Facilitation:  the art of creating group synergy

Let’s take facilitation as an example. Facilitation is a completely different way of working with a group or team than as manager or “boss”. In facilitation the leader, as facilitator, becomes the guide on a journey with the group. Good facilitation creates a space that values the voice of each individual, the collective wisdom of the group, cooperation, choice, and consensus. Hierarchy falls away.

Or self-organization (see Open Space Technology)? This is the epitome of what it means to lead by getting out of the way so that what wants to emerge can emerge. But getting out of the way is not leaving or quitting—it is a fully engaged position. A leader in the midst of self-organization has a role that might best be described as a space holder. It is non-leading leading.

What? That doesn’t make any sense! If you’re getting out of the way you’re not leading. Leaders take charge, make decisions, inspire people forward, delegate responsibilities…

Absolutely yes, they do that too. But knowing when to get out of the way—letting go of the impulse to control—and allowing things to unfold in an unpredictable and uncertain manner is a huge evolutionary leap in leadership competency.

When I told the iMBA students that it is possible to lead by getting out of the way you should have seen their faces. It simply had never occurred to them before.

And that’s my point.

The images of leadership that arise from these 7 arts are evolutionary. They are the future possibilities that we are just beginning to explore and understand.  We can begin by introducing them to our leadership teams and committing to full support as they learn. You will see…people will get excited about leading again.

—-

As always, would love to hear your thoughts!

In light and learning,

Leon

Edited excerpt from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel H. Pink 2009

http://www.alternet.org/story/146457/

A little past noon, only a third of CEO Jeff Gunther’s employees have shown up for work.  But Gunther — entrepreneur, manager, capitalist — is neither worried nor annoyed.  Maybe that’s because he didn’t roll into the office himself until about an hour ago.  Or maybe that’s because he knows his crew isn’t shirking.  They’re working — just on their own terms.

Gunther has turned (his) company, which creates computer software and hardware to help hospitals integrate their information systems, into a ROWE — a results-only work environment.  In a ROWE workplace, people don’t have schedules.  They show up when they want.  They don’t have to be in the office at a certain time — or any time, for that matter.  They just have to get their work done.

This appealed to Gunther, who’s in his early thirties.  “Management isn’t about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices,” he told me.  “It’s about creating conditions for people to do their best work.” As (his company) expanded, and as Gunther began exploring new office space, he announced, that for the first 90 days of the new year (2008), the entire 22-person operation would become a ROWE (experiment).

“In the beginning, people didn’t take to it,” Gunther says.  The office filled up around 9 a.m. and emptied out in the early evening, just as before, but after a few weeks, most people found their groove.  Productivity rose.  Stress declined.  And although two employees left, by the end of the test period Gunther decided to go with ROWE permanently.

The team was accomplishing more under this new arrangement.  They were focused on the work itself rather than on whether someone would call them slackers for leaving at 3 p.m. to watch a daughter’s soccer game.  “For his people (all high level creative work), it’s all about the craftsmanship.  And they need a lot of autonomy.”

People still had specific goals they had to reach.  If they needed help, Gunther was there to assist.  But he decided against tying those goals to compensation.  “That creates a culture that says it’s all about money and not enough about the work.”  Money, he believes, is only a “threshold motivator.”  People must be paid well and be able to take care of their families, he says.  But once a company meets this baseline, dollars and cents don’t much affect performance and motivation.  Indeed, Gunther thinks that the freedom they have to do great work is more valuable, and harder to match, than a pay raise; employee’s spouses, partners and families are among a ROWE’s (strongest) advocates.

“For me, it’s a partnership between me and the employees.  They’re not resources. They’re partners.”  And partners need to direct their own lives.  “Management” is something that humans invented.  Management is a technology.  And like Motivation 2.0, it’s a technology that has grown creaky.  Its core, management hasn’t changed much in 100 years.  Its central ethic remains control; its chief tools remain (external) motivators.  That leaves it largely out of sync with the non-routine, right-brained abilities on which many of the world’s economies now depend.  But could its most glaring weakness run deeper?

Management presumes that to take action or move forward, we need a prod — that absent a reward or punishment, we’d remain happily and inertly in place.  It also presumes that once people do get moving, they need direction — that without a firm and reliable guide, they’d wander.

Are we wired to be passive and inert?  Or are we wired to be active and engaged?  I’m convinced it’s the latter.

Submerging part of our nature in the name of economic survival can be a sensible move.  My ancestors did it; so did yours.  And there are times, even now, when we have no other choice.  But today economic accomplishment depends not on keeping our nature submerged but on allowing it to surface.  It requires resisting the temptation to control people; and instead doing everything we can to reawaken their deep-seated sense of autonomy.

The fundamentally autonomous quality of human nature is central to self-determination theory (SDT) which cites autonomy as one of three basic human needs.  (The other two are the need for competence and the need for relatedness.)  And of the three, it’s the most important.  ”Autonomy, is different from independence.  It’s not the rugged, go-it-alone, rely-on-nobody individualism of the American cowboy.  It means acting with choice — which means we can be both autonomous and happily interdependent with others.

Autonomous motivation promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and, in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout and greater psychological well-being.  Researchers found greater job satisfaction among employees whose bosses offered “autonomous support.”  These bosses saw issues from the employee’s point of view, gave meaningful feedback and information, provided ample choice over what to do and how to do it and encouraged employees to take on new projects leading to higher performance on the job.  In a research study, businesses that offered autonomy grew at four times the rate of the control-oriented firms and had (only) one-third the employee turnover.

Consider the very notion of “empowerment.”  It presumes that the organization has the power and benevolently ladles some of it into the waiting bowls of grateful employees.  But that’s not autonomy, but rather a slightly more civilized form of control.

Take management’s embrace of “flex time.”  Flexibility simply widens the fences and occasionally opens the gates.  It, too, is little more than control in disguise.  Perhaps it’s time to toss the very word “management” onto the linguistic ash heap.”  This era doesn’t call for better management.  It calls for a renaissance of self-direction.

If you didn’t have a chance to read it, I suggested that people are saying No Thank You to leadership—consciously and unconsciously taking themselves out of the leadership game—because they do not wish to participate in the current paradigm, constructed on a set of conventional images and competencies: leader as goal setter, team builder, results getter, problem solver, project manager, etc. And that a whole new set of forward thinking and expansive images and core competencies will need to be introduced into the leadership paradigm to get people excited and to saying Yes! to leadership.

Assuming there is enough grounding here to continue moving this conversation forward, let’s go back to the Seth Godin quote that gave rise to all this:

“For the first time ever, everyone in the organization—not just the boss—is expected to lead.”

His is a bold ideal to be sure, but really, how the heck do you do that? In other words the big question I’d like to explore today is:

What would it take to have every person in your organization—from secretary to CEO—see him or herself as a leader? No exceptions.

What do you think? Assuming that this is desirable, what would need to happen to bring this about in your organization…?

My answer is this: self-defined images of leadership. In other words, give each person the opportunity to define for him or herself what leadership means and support him or her to reach that.

It’s not a difficult process; a few questions get us there…

First question: What are the skills, attributes, attitudes, behaviors, or habits of leadership that you admire and aspire to?

Second question: If you could, would you like to be that kind of leader?

(Did you say yes?  I’ll bet you did!)

Clincher question: If I can fully support you in becoming that kind of leader, would you say yes to the journey of becoming that leader?

(Again, I’ll bet you said yes.)

The beauty of self-defining images is not only that you can ask every person in your organization these questions, but that it doesn’t matter what the images or qualities which come up are—each person in an organization will define leadership differently, depending on who they are, past experience, and what they aspire to. The point is, those questions led you to say yes to leadership, and saying yes to becoming that kind of leader (regardless of anyone else’s kind).

In my leadership coaching practice, this is what I do all the time. I help leaders self-define the kind of leader they now want to be, and I support them in finding ways to become and sustain that kind of leadership. The results are always a remarkable shift in energy, commitment, passion and dedication to the work and the organization.

Herein also lies the crux: if you do encourage someone to self define leadership in your organization, you must also fully commit to supporting his or her journey, regardless of whether it is in complete alignment with your images of leadership.

As a coach I am brought in to be that support zone often because the organization is unable to provide it internally; and usually it is reserved for those at the top who are trusted to self-define in general alignment with organizational ideals and vision. However an organization committed to self-defined leadership at all levels may end up with 1,001 visions of leadership excellence, each with a different set of core competencies. And that is daunting stuff.

If you suddenly have everyone leaping about saying Yes! to leadership, how do you manage that? How do you support all these people to define, attain, and sustain their ever-evolving self-definitions?

It is why organizations typically don’t take this path. Instead, 7, 10, or 13 core competencies for leadership are defined on behalf of all, and those who aspire to be leaders must commit to excellence in those areas. The rest of the folks…well obviously they aren’t the stuff of which leaders are made in this organization.

Allowing employees the opportunity to see themselves as leaders through the process of self-definition is a radical, radical notion. What if the images are not what we expect of leaders? What do we do with all that variability in definition? How do we evaluate?

These are all good questions, and with no easy answers (which I’ll explore in coming issues). But self-definition does provide one possible answer to the original question: What would it take to have every person in your organization see him or herself as a leader?

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or insights into this and other possible answers to the big question.

Leon

P.S.

There is another key component to the self-definition equation that does need exploring: for people (and organizations) to gain the most from the opportunity to self-define leadership—to increase the odds that people continue to say yes! to leadership over the long run—they need to be aware of and have access to the broadest spectrum of leadership images from which to self-define. Both conventional and emerging images.

This will be the focus next month…stay tuned!

I suspect I’m not alone in that.

A few weeks ago I was handed a copy of Seth Godin’s latest book Tribes. I’m a big Seth Godin fan. He is always on to something, and brings it forth in tasty bites that leave me puffed and stuffed with inspiration. Tribes is no exception.

In five easy quotes I’ll summarize the message I took away.

• For the first time ever, everyone in the organization–not just the boss– is expected to lead.
• Individuals have far more power than ever before in history.
• Leaders use passion and ideas to lead people. Managers use their authority. Leaders have followers. Managers have employees and direct reports.
• Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.
• Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.

Early in my career I saw myself as a leader in the organizations of which I was apart. Over the last number of years I have spent my time supporting leaders in organizations. But if I listen carefully to what Seth is saying, perhaps I wasn’t and perhaps I’m not.

What may be closer to the truth is that I work mostly with managers and administrators, and we’ve come to call those people leaders because we don’t have other models of leadership to look at. Or if we do, they are so outside of our immediate experience that we can’t relate and emulate.  So we see manager as leader, leader as manager. From the top to the bottom, each with his or her area of influence and control, manipulating resources to accomplish set goals and targets.

And it leads me to question the veracity of the images we hold around what it means to be a leader in an organization.

As a general rule I avoid writing that diminishes the work of another. However I need an example of the kind of thinking that prevails in leadership development that is playing a role in maintaining commonly held images of leadership, and I want to juxtapose this against the kind of thinking that Seth Godin represents that is liable to shake things up.

The work I’m referring to focuses on thirteen core competencies of remarkable leadership. Here are the first seven:

• Remarkable leaders learn continually.
• Remarkable leaders champion change.
• Remarkable leaders communicate powerfully.
• Remarkable leaders build relationships.
• Remarkable leaders develop others.
• Remarkable leaders focus on customers.
• Remarkable leaders set goals and support goal achievement.

So what do you think? Remarkable stuff?

I’m not feeling it, I have to say. How can a book claim to develop remarkable leaders when its content is so…unremarkable? These core competencies do not make a leader remarkable, they make a leader competent. Remarkable leaders set goals? No kidding.

The question it leads me to is this: Does the perpetuation of these images work to inhibit the emergence of truly remarkable leadership (leadership that inspires a tribe of followers who follow not because they have to, but because they desire to share in the ideas, the change, the journey)?

What “core competencies” would it take to develop those kinds of leaders throughout an organization? And what effect would it have on the organization? (Revolutionary, I suspect.)

Let me provide more context. For a while I’ve been hearing comments from organizational heads that sound like this:

• “Our people are not highly motivated to be leaders.”
• “Our people don’t see themselves as leaders.”
• “When they have a choice to lead, they don’t want it.”
• “We’d like our leaders to become much more proactive.”

Something is going on here. People seem to be saying No Thank You to leadership. Why on earth? Leadership is one of the most human of human activities, and is an intrinsic part of all organizational life? Why would people turn away from it?

Perhaps for the same reason I did.

I am beginning to believe that leadership is scarce not only for the reason Seth states (at top), but also because people no longer desire to participate in the current paradigm.

Is it possible that people are consciously and unconsciously taking themselves out of the leadership game, waiting for a new paradigm to arise? A paradigm they can get excited about, that they want to participate in!

If Seth is right, if a desirable goal is to have everyone in an organization see themselves as leaders, what would that take?

What will not work is to go at it the way it’s so often done: rehashing the ideals and images of conventional leadership, which organizations are awash in. I’m hearing people increasingly saying No Thank You to being that kind of leader.

I’m going to suggest it begins with a whole new set of forward thinking images and core competencies. These will flow from emerging and not yet broadly understood arenas such as self organization, participation, community building, dialoguing, appreciative inquiry, emergence, coaching, to name a few.

Tribes is a call to re-imagine leadership; leadership founded on ideas and passion, while inspiring and enabling willing followers to take self-directed action to change the status quo. It is only a small part of the emerging picture, but it just may well get a ground-swelling of people to say Yes Thank You! to leadership.

—-

Personal note: What you may have noticed as you read this article is that the ideas I present are rough. My thought process is still very much at work on this, still polishing the proverbial lump of coal, but there is a diamond in here somewhere.

Please leave your comments. I’d love for this conversation to continue.

以下是保證讓你每天能置身於憂慮與混亂之中的最低門檻：

1.        深信且活得就像你的安全感、保障和歡樂是依賴於他人，並強迫你無法控制的外在去改變

2.        試圖改變他們

針對那些喜歡複雜化的人，在此介紹能讓你更深入應用的七大習慣，保證每天都能享受得到過量的腎上腺素。容我充當你的戲劇導演，還是要不免俗地大喊「燈光！攝影機！再來一次！！！」

#1. 善用負面思考的能量：每個人偶爾都會強調負面。我如果沒錢付帳單怎麼辦？我沒了房子怎麼辦？我病了怎麼辦？我如果孤老終身怎麼辦？我如果一輩子擺脫不了跟他/她的關係怎麼辦？現在身為你的戲劇教練，我想鼓勵你將這「秘笈」練得爐火純青，就是隨時都將你的心力集中在可能出現的、最負面的結果上！當你遵循了這條紀律，你大可以放心，因為你不管處於何種情境底下都能發現讓你恐慌的事物，且恐懼將再也不會將你遺棄！

#2. 忙到你頭昏眼花為止：忙到沒時間靜下心思和照顧你的身體是戲劇化之路的必備要件。現在誘惑滿街都是，健康食品店、紓壓中心、健身俱樂部、瑜伽教室、冥想課程等，當全世界都在伸展、揮汗如雨、輕聲歌唱和崇尚有機生活之時，要把持住自己不去加入是很需要勇氣的。要記住，就像我們父母曾告誡我們的，參加冥想會導致眼盲：看不到眼前讓你擔憂的一切！所以早上要黎明即起、在臉上潑冷水、提高你的咖啡因，趕快，賽車手，出發了！你的電子郵件全部都回完了嗎？誰需要一個肩膀靠一下？現在電視在演什麼？隨時讓雜亂填滿你的生活和心思，讓存在於破壞你遠離平靜的思維之間那些令人不安的「空檔」絕不會找上你！

#3. 享受「來者不拒」的好時光： 60，70年代，來者不拒的人（swinger）就是同時擁有多重的外遇關係，從一夫一妻制的單調中解放自己的人。你想要在彈指之間就在任何你想要的時刻上演一齣淋漓盡致的肥皂劇嗎？你只需要壓抑你自己的情緒，直到你再也承載不了，然後毫無顧忌地暴發出來，特別是在你最在乎的人身上。練習看看，試著100%的和善。讓自己盡量地對某人妥協到極限且越久越好，然後掀開鍋蓋，讓情緒爆發！還有什麼能像在一段和善與靜默之後的大爆發一樣的過癮呢！

#4. 讓內在小孩脫離父母管教地落單：當成人心中內在的小孩受驚時，某些真正令人咋舌的戲劇是有機會發生的，只有在我們壓抑我們的慈悲心、確認心和愛心的分界時才會。若我們能抗拒這樣的自助式胡鬧，我們的內在小孩將會降低因上演聳動戲碼去從別人身上達到目的的浩劫。若兩個或更多人同時讓內在小孩落單，天啊，熱鬧就上演了！當大人留下車子時，你應該能猜得出來是誰坐在駕駛座、狂按喇叭、油門踩到底、對著窗外叫囂？？現在看我的囉！

#5. 設立大目標、保持不切實際的期待：沒有什麼可以比想要伸手摘星、達不到那崇高的理想、再來覺得像是個超級大失敗這樣的習慣對你過生活更有幫助的了！跨超大一步然後跌個狗吃屎是維持健康的低自尊（所有好劇碼的基礎）的首要條件。向山頂前進，途中不要低頭看自己的腳步。一次走一步是那些自滿於蝸牛速度、落後在降服、溫和與平衡的泥濘道上的人才做的，和其他那些戲劇之王選擇承受皇室級的痛苦要去避開的那些差勁的、落後的經驗。

#6. 評斷你的判斷：每個人都會下判斷，但只有那些學會評斷自己判斷這門藝術的人能傑出地製造出誇大劇。你曾經處於羞愧中、責怪自己的害怕和不知所措、告訴你自己裹足不前非常不應該嗎？很好！就是這樣。現在，你採取下一步，評斷你的判斷！告訴你自己你不應該感到羞愧和自責。在自己身上堆一卡車的內疚，因為你被自我批判壓得直不起身，這不就又來了一次？！這將會讓你變成一個能量強大的「黑洞」- 只會吸乾周遭人的能量。

#7. 保持三責（3B）的生活態度…責備（Blame）, 責備（Blame）, 再責備（& Blame）!責備你自己剛剛已經說過了，不過還沒完呢。當然還要責備每個人。人生發展不如你的預期？責備、責備、再責備！先怪罪別人，先質問，之後再負責，如果有可能的話。適合的對象有爸爸、媽媽、朋友（如果你還有的話）、你的伴侶（如果他們還在你身邊的話）、大企業、小心眼，當然啦，還有上帝。自我負責會導致探索解決之道的困擾，這可是會將好的「戲劇」沖進下水道的！取而代之的，要大方地使用責備發送器，讓責備普及每個人，不須節制、不須審查、不須剪輯。責備、責備、再責備！

對戲劇化的肯定

• 每一天的任何時候我都因為每件事，不論真實或是想像中的，而倍感壓力。

• 每件事情都是要將可能發生的最遭的結果呈現在我面前。

• 生命與我為敵，我註定要失敗。

• 這，或更糟的，現在讓所有一切付出最高的代價

• 我不再需要花心力製造「戲劇」…它不費吹灰之力且自然就會發生，都與我有關。

• 我能想出什麼樣的災難，我都能製造得出來。

• 我有一切所需來達成所有我不想要的每件事，且我的世界如同煉獄。

節錄自Scott Kalechstein