These past couple of years have been difficult for us all, to say the least. [Insert your own pandemic-related miseries here as evidence.] If you’re like me, you’ve had to make a real effort to stay positive. And if we can’t always achieve the positive, then we can at least achieve a measure of sanity by doing the little things, and maybe a few big things, that keep us grounded. As a former trainer/consultant and author, I find that the act of creating and sharing something which has potential value for someone else provides meaning and a much-needed sense of purpose. Whether these creations are actually used and valued by anyone I can’t be sure. But I do know that the act of creating them puts me in touch with my muse or Source or whatever. And I felt much better as a result of making and releasing them.
Below are links to some items Worth Sharing that might have escaped your attention as you endured the last couple of years. Here you’ll find:
Practical tools and info you can immediately use.
Mental health tools and encouragement (including a few audio podcasts) that can help you acquire perspective and get through these tough times.
Some moral and ethical challenges.
Some links to the creations that I’d like to share as my legacy. (Almost all of these are absolutely free.)
A leaky faucet can be insidious thing. A barely noticeable drip, drip, drip easily falls below our awareness. Yet running hour after hour, day after day, it can siphon away a huge amount of water and lead to a massive surprise water bill. And worse, the water is pointlessly gone without ever being used!
Monthly payments can be like that dripping faucet. Seemingly insignificant expenses can easily fall below the radar as we automatically pay them and go about our busy lives. And when these expenses are for stuff we don't really use, well... that's just a stupid waste!
In this article I'm going to challenge you to think about one category of monthly expenses that can easily get out of control if you don't consciously manage it. I'm talking about streaming services. And like the water from that dripping faucet, the dollars spent on that unused (or underused) streaming service is gone forever, leaving you with nothing to show for having spent them! Consider this from Lifewire.com:
"The average person who uses streaming services subscribes to between five and seven services. You know the ones: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Discovery+, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Max, and others."
So let's say you are limiting yourself to five of these. The basic, ad-free versions of five of the services above could get you a monthly bill of around $65. Subscribe to all nine of the services listed and you'll be paying well over $100/month with fees. Add this to your cable bill (Why are you still buying cable!?! Can't you use an antenna?? That's a topic for another day...) and your internet bill and WOW -- that can add up to some very big bucks spent on content!
Seriously: Step back and ask yourself: Do you actually use every one of your streaming services every day? ... every week? Do your payments stop when you're not using a service? Have you really "dug deep" into the catalogs of any of your services to see what shows you're paying for, but not watching? If any of these questions make you uncomfortable, then you're ready for a more disciplined, strategic approach to your streaming.
A Four-Step Strategy for Taking Control of Your Media Streaming
Focus: Whether you're part of a project team or a family group, when individuals are happy, the entire group will likely be happy! But how can you become happier? In this archived podcast from 2009 I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life.
This podcast was originally produced in December of 2009. In the 12 years since its release, social media companies and their fine-tuned algorithms have mastered the art of manipulating our consciousness. They pull us in and lock us down into contentious tribes. The sites cherry-pick news, opinion, sensationalistic rants, memes & images that exactly match our unique biases and push our buttons. Then they serve them up in a customized stream to keep us angry, warring and, most importantly to their bottom line, glued to their sites.
If I were creating this podcast today, my highest-priority Action for producing happiness would be:
Ration your time (or remove yourself entirely!) from social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
These sites are powerfully toxic to our happiness. At the very least, they generate a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out) as we see our "friends'" self-servingly-edited timelines and perfect lives unfold via their curated posts. And, at their worst, the algorithms keep us angry and outraged and posting our own venom. And all this is antithetical to happiness!
So as you listen to this podcast (or read the transcript) consider the powerful negative roles these social media sites have come to play in our lives as omnipresent aggregators of everything that irritates and enrages us. Then ask yourself: "If I am pursuing peace of mind and happiness, why am I engaging these toxic social media dumps?"
--------------[End of October 2021 Update]--------------
(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the rest of the transcript. Enjoy!)
[Transcript of this audio was originally published on December 7, 2009. Some links referred to below may no longer be valid]
Transcript
In this post, we focus on the individual instead of the team. After all, teams are made up of individuals. And when individual team members are happy, there’s a good chance the entire team will be happy! But how can anyone become happier? To begin to answer this question, I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life. (And I hope you will share your suggestions in the Comments section at the end of this post.)
In the past year or two the Covid pandemic has prompted serious questions about our civic responsibilities and individual freedoms. Vaccination and mask mandates, business and school closures, travel restrictions and other attempts by public health officials to control the spread and reduce casualties from the disease have been met by fierce opposition from some folks while being welcomed by others. Many of those opposed to the mitigation measures feel that their individual freedoms are being trampled.
In this essay I'd like to explore how a widely accepted business practice, that of balancing authority and responsibility, has clarified and inspired me to think differently about these issues. In particular, I'd like to suggest that these are not so much legal or constitutional questions as they are questions of morality.
Authority versus Responsibility: Why the Balance Matters
Focus: “One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think…. On a mechanical level, cognitive therapy works because it changes explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic, and the change is permanent. It gives you a set of cognitive skills for talking to yourself when you fail.” – Martin Seligman in Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind & Your Life.
(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the rest of the transcript. Enjoy!)
Transcript of this audio was originally published on February 24, 2009 [some links referred to below may no longer be valid]
Martin Seligman, former APA president and one of the founders of the research-based Science of Happiness tells us that individuals and teams can learn to be optimistic (and ultimately achieve greater success) by adopting an optimistic explanatory style. In his book Seligman provides examples from sports and business in which teams that have developed optimistic explanatory styles have shown a greater ability to "bounce back" from defeat and return to their winning ways more quickly than their pessimistic competitors. This is great news! But how, exactly, can you change (or control) your explanatory style? Well for starters, you need to understand its key dimensions and how these influence your self talk.
Focus: This audio podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, examples, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams discover the power of accepting the reality of a difficult situation in order to handle it effectively. Only when you accept it, see it clearly without denial and hand-wringing, can you take appropriate action to remedy it.
(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the transcript. Enjoy!)
Transcript of this audio originally published on April 19, 2009 [some links referred to below may no longer be valid]:
Imagine this situation: You are in your beautiful, newly remodeled kitchen wiping the counters clean after dinner. Out in the hallway you hear your big labrador retriever galloping toward you. In a flash, he bounds across the tile to the table, plunks his meaty front paws up on a chair and begins sniffing the dinner plates for leftovers. Stopping your clean-up chores, you whirl to see what he's getting into and bam!... his big nose knocks over a nearly full glass of dark, purple grape juice left untouched by one of the kids. The tough plastic tumbler bounces all over the place, spritzing the walls with purple droplets, while a big puddle of juice begins expanding across the tile. It's flowing straight toward your new beige living room carpet. Do you:
A. Deny that this is actually happening, telling yourself that you are a good, hard-working person who doesn't deserve this kind of misery?
B. Find your spouse and begin an angst-filled review of your family's history of owning this dog, bemoaning the fact that while the dog is lovable, he has always caused too many minor disasters?
C. Sit down with your wife and kids and imagine a future that has in it no potentially staining leftovers and no dog anywhere near the kitchen?
D. Run across the room, placing yourself and your counter-cleaning sponge squarely between the expanding puddle of purple and the new carpet, thus preventing the major stain?
Focus: This audio podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, examples, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams expand upon their inherent power of mindfulness — the practice of bringing your full awareness into the present moment.
(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the transcript. Enjoy!)
Transcript of this audio originally published on April 26, 2009 [some links referred to below may no longer be valid]:
Acknowledgement: The main inspiration for this post comes from various interviews and articles featuring Jon Kabat-Zinn, Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn started his career as a scientist at MIT and it is with this scientific perspective (along with his clinical research to support many of his positions) that he shares his thoughts on the power of mindfulness. He teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness. You can check out the links below for more about Jon and his work.]
In this post I hope to convince you of the power of mindfulness -- the practice of bringing your full awareness into the present moment. This is very different from that "kinda sorta" awareness that you have while you are attending a meeting, firing off a text message, and eating lunch all at the same time. And it is different from the awareness you experience within a conversation while you are trying to stifle clever or fearful or angry or resentful thoughts that are clamoring for your attention. And it is different from the awareness you experience when sitting alone at your desk, working to solve a problem while thoughts of past difficulties and future fears challenge your concentration. Instead, it is a cleaner, simpler kind of awareness. It is simply being fully present, with all your attention. It is, in the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, "paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, without judgment." This is mindfulness.
Focus: This audio podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, examples, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams push through fear and grow stronger.
(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the transcript. Enjoy!)
Transcript of this audio, originally published on March 22, 2009:
Do one thing every day that scares you.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do... Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain... Do the thing and you will have the power.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I was 15 years old, I loved to sing. I sang mostly in the shower, really belting out the lyrics to rock and roll songs. The bigger the shower, the better the echo, and the louder I sang. One night after basketball practice, I was alone in the school's shower and really wailing. As I finished my shower and my song, I grabbed my towel and turned to leave and saw one of the seniors standing there smiling at me. I knew this guy. Everybody knew this guy. He was the lead guitar player in a popular local band. And he informed me that he really liked my voice and wanted to know if I'd consider singing with his band. Consider?! Well I jumped at the chance. Nervous, but enthusiastic, I attended a few rehearsals at his house and discovered that I really loved singing amplified and surrounded by all that rock & roll thunder. Eventually, during one of those rehearsals, it dawned on me. This was the real deal! Someday soon I'd have to do this in front of a crowd! If I stopped to think about this for long, my heart would start racing and I'd feel like running away and hiding. But I loved the music and I kept on rehearsing and pushed those thoughts out of my mind.
Inevitably, a couple of weeks passed and I found myself walking on stage in front of my first big crowd. I had sweaty, cold palms and I was terrified. My heart was in my throat and I could feel all the lyrics just leaving my brain entirely. And again, I felt like running and hiding! But, ready or not, the band started playing, people started dancing, and I somehow started singing on cue and the energy of it all just began to flow. For the next several years my singing skills grew, I learned to play bass guitar, the band played a wide variety of venues where we met all sorts of people, and I became completely comfortable in front of crowds. Whole new worlds were opened up to me... and I wasn't even out of high school!
As the years pass and I face even more frightening challenges, I realize that I've come to regard fear as a doorway. You can't really see everything that's on the other side, but if you ignore your sweaty palms, gather your courage and step through, you almost always enter another dimension in your life. A dimension in which you are stronger than you were in the one you left behind.
In my preceding article, Internet Archive: To Capture & Store & Share All Human Knowledge (Seriously!!), I introduced the Internet Archive as that incredibly ambious effort to make certain that humanity's digital heritage is captured and preserved. In the intervening weeks I have acquired my own free Internet Archive account and have uploaded bunches of my own publications that I want to make sure are preserved. So now, should Google (this website's current host) or YouTube or Vimeo decide that they no longer want to host these materials on the web, they will still be available for anyone to find and download, absolutely free, from Internet Archive.
A Complete List of My Internet Archive Publications
Specifically, I have uploaded 5 complete books in PDF form, as well as many individual essays, worksheets and other tools. In addition, you'll find complete videos and audios available to play or download. And it's all absolutely free! Click on the image of the Internet Archive document below to find a complete, categorized list of all this stuff. NOTE: Scroll down/left to the "Description" of this document in its Archive listing to find active links to individual items.
To browse through the entire collection of my (so far..) 86 Internet Archive items, a bit jumbled and not categorized, go to: https://archive.org/details/@michael_greer
Note that when you are at this collection you can scroll down to find a set of Filters and other menu items that will allow you to focus only on videos, only on text documents, etc. (See below.)
As you can see from this filtered list, I have thus far uploaded 48 text items (books, PDF articles, tools), 25 movies (videos), and a dozen audios. In addition, you can locate specific types of items based on tags, such as project management, team building, etc. by using these filters.
Just Looking for The PM Minimalist Stuff?
Below is a list (fully linked) of all my PM Minimalist materials that are available for free through the Intenet Archive. (For your convenience, I've pulled this out of the main "Complete List..." above.) I've included everything you need to teach yourself about (or create a two-day workshop on) Project Management Minimalism. So if you are just interested in the PM Minimalist stuff, see below!
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THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT MINIMALIST & SUPPORT MATERIALS
So that's it! If I should depart the planet tomorrow and Google or Vimeo or YouTube decides to ditch my labored-over publications, I am comforted to know that future scholars of project management, instructional design, team building, personal growth, etc. will be able to follow my digital audit trail at the Internet Archive and use some of my stuff as a springboard for their own creations. And if my grandkids (or my grandkids' grandkids!) are able to get something useful out of any of this material then that would be a real plus as well. Thank you, Internet Archive!
Just three of many powerful tools from the Internet Archive
The process of archiving real things is something we all understand. Whether it's great-grandma's collection of porcelain figurines, an ancient Greek statue or a first edition of a rare book, our archives are typically composed of things we can see and touch and smell and feel. And seeing each object, we also see shadows of the past.
But what of our digital history? How should we archive that which has existed in the form of invisible electronic patterns? Old jpeg images, audio files, HTML web pages, videos and all manner of stuff from our digital past may seem to be pervasive and durable, but they are actually fragile and subject to instant deletion at the whim of their keepers. These ephemeral traces of the passing of their creators could all eventually disappear, along with those who labored to build them.
Enter the Internet Archive
It is this digital disappearance that the folks at the Internet Archive are laboring mightily to prevent. Since May of 1996 they have been on a mission to capture and store all knowledge.
Wikipedia summarizes (my bold added): "The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of 'universal access to all knowledge.' It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. " - Wikepedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive
As you can imagine, it is a daunting task to store and categorize the HEAPS of digital stuff we humans create, whether profoundly significant or just plain goofy. And, to be honest, it can be difficult to access particular items within those heaps even after they have been carefully categorized and assembled.
To make your journey through the Archive a little less confusing, spokesperson Alexis Rossi has created a nicely organized videooverview that will get you started. It's embedded below. (NOTE: You should try to view this video on a tablet or computer screen, since the information-rich screens she demonstrates are difficult to see on a small phone screen.)
"... Today we have 20+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine and we work with 625+ library and other partners through our Archive-It program to identify important web pages. As our web archive grew, so did our commitment to providing digital versions of other published works. Today our archive contains:
475 billion web pages
28 million books and texts
14 million audio recordings (including 220,000 live concerts)
6 million videos (including 2 million Television News programs)
3.5 million images
580,000 software programs
Anyone with a free account can upload media to the Internet Archive. We work with thousands of partners globally to save copies of their work into special collections. "
Such a massive collection inspires all sorts of projects aimed at focusing on particular domains of knowledge. Internet Archive Projects page lists these current projects:
Have you ever searched for an old favorite website or a highly recommended web reference, only to discover that it had simply vanished?The Wayback Machine is designed to help you recover that lost resource! The Wayback Machine creators explain:
"The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can type in a URL, select a date range, and then begin surfing on an archived version of the Web. Imagine surfing circa 1999 and looking at all the Y2K hype, or revisiting an older version of your favorite Web site. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine can make all of this possible."
To be fair, The Wayback Machine is both an incredibly powerful tool and (as you might expect) complex to use. But again, our Internet Archive spokesperson Alexis Rossi provides a nice, focused video overview. It's embedded below. (NOTE: As with the previous video, you should try to view this video on a tablet or computer screen, since the information-rich screens are difficult to see on a small phone screen.)
YouTube Video: How to use the Wayback Machine
A Wayback Machine Case Study & Fun Fact: My 22-year-old website is NOT gone!
Since I launched it in 1999, I've made a lot of changes to my Project Management Resources website. In recent years I finally decided to archive it and move on to writing about whatever suits my fancy here at my WORTH SHARING site. As far as I knew, when I ditched my old website and stopped paying to have it hosted, it was gone! So imagine my complete surprise when, just for the fun of it, I did a search using The Wayback Machine and found that my original website had been archived with the sub-menus and many of the linked pages still intact! You can see for yourself here:
Honestly!! I thought my old abandoned website was gone forever. But the Wayback Machine found it at the Internet Archive! (Well, at least I know the beard's really gone.)
As you can see from my search experiment above, The Wayback Machine can be full of surprises. What surprises might it have in store for you? Go ahead, travel back in web-time and find out.
"Looking for a research paper but can’t find a copy in your library’s catalog or popular search engines? Give Internet Archive Scholar a try! We might have a PDF from a 'vanished' Open Access publisher in our web archive, an author’s pre-publication manuscript from their archived faculty webpage, or a digitized microfilm version of an older publication.... We hope Internet Archive Scholar will aid researchers and librarians looking for specific open access papers that may not be otherwise available to them."
If you're an academic scholar or researcher, you probably want to dig deeper to discover the marvels of this incredible academic treasure hunting tool. Below are a couple of link-filled pages to help you. (Warning: These can get a bit geeky! But if you're a serious scholar, you're already there, right?)
For the rest of us who are just looking for a quick overview of this amazing tool, check out Richard Byrne's YouTube video.(NOTE: As with the previous videos, you should view this video on a tablet or computer screen, since the information-rich screens are difficult to see on a small phone screen.)
YouTube Video: An Overview of Internet Archive Scholar by Richard Byrne
Now get an account and go explore!
I hope this quick overview of The Internet Archive and tools have inspired you to explore on your own. But before you get lost in a digital archeological expedition, you should probably set up a free account. If nothing else, you'll be glad to have somewhere to capture some of the nuggets you find on your journey of discovery. What's more, according to the Archive:
"Having an account allows you to:
Upload files to the site
Have collections for your uploads (50 items minimum required)
January 21, 2017 was transformative for me. It was on that day that I went from political hobbyist to political activist. On that day (the day after Donald Trump's inauguration) I joined an overwhelmingly female multitude of my fellow citizens who simply couldn't believe that Trump had become president. Representing my wife and daughter and granddaughters I attended the first Women's March in downtown Los Angeles, resolved to do everything I could to resist Trump's presidency. I went alone, not as part of any group. I had no idea what I was going to do to actualize my desire for resistance. I just knew I had to do something.
Luckily, I bumped into (literally!) a smart young couple who invited me to join their local Indivisible group. Within a few weeks I had a meaningful assignment on the team, began attending regular organizing meetings and was taking my first baby steps as a political activist. In the years to come I would attend advocacy meetings with politicians and elected officials, participate in more marches and demonstrations, help with get-out-the-vote campaigns, etc.
That's me, at the Women's March in Downtown LA, Jan. 21, 2017
As we would soon see in the 2018 midterm elections, many of those born-again-as-activist women who attended that first Women's March would run for office and win political positions. And a vast army of us would continue pushing an anti-Trump, pro-democracy progressive agenda at all levels of government -- local, state and national.
Soon, to my surprise, my noisy political rants on Facebook and Twitter dwindled down to almost nothing. They just weren't that much fun anymore. As my energy shifted to real, meaningful political action, my need to bluster and debate had all but disappeared. And better yet, I began to see a direct connection between my tangible work as a budding activist and actual, real-world political progress.
I know from personal experience as a political hobbyist that it can be addictive to follow the cable talking heads, dig into opinion pieces, quote the pundits and wax profound via memes and social media link-posting. I get it! I've been there and I know it can feel good to raise hell online -- especially if you are raising hell alongside a core group of like-minded ranters (a.k.a. an "echo chamber") who have targeted and do regular combat with opposing ranters from "the other side." But eventually you have to ask yourself: What is this accomplishing? Am I making a difference or just letting off steam? Or worse... Is this just about getting attention and proving how profound I am? And, finally, if I have the energy to do this stuff, then why not channel it into concrete action that has a chance of getting meaningful results?
Okay. So if political hobbyism is the problem, what's the solution?
The solution: Channel that rant energy into political activism!
You might be surprised how easy it is to become politically active! In fact, most of us who helped get nation-wide results in the 2020 election were able to work from home, on our own schedules (mostly part-time) with not much more coordination than occasional phone calls and Zoom meetings. The work itself usually consisted of simple stuff like phone banking, text banking, calls to voters to help them figure out how to get registered, etc. And yes, from time to time, we made calls to our local or national elected officials as part of one initiative or another. The bottom line: All of this was much more fun and rewarding than merely ranting on social media.
Action, in a democracy, means making phone calls to the office of your elected officials, hitting the streets (masked, these days, of course!) to take part in a political action or demonstration, joining a group of volunteers (in person or virtually) who are working for change or (Do you dare?) running for local office.
And then, there's Indivisible, the umbrella organization of grass roots teams that got me started on my road to political activism. According to this quick WikiPedia summary:
"Indivisible is a progressive movement in the United States initiated in 2016 as a reaction to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The movement began with the online publication of a handbook written by Congressional staffers with suggestions for peacefully but effectively resisting the move to the right..."
Not ready to join an activist group? Okay, then. If you prefer individual activism, a good way to start is to simply pay attention to what your elected representatives are preparing to vote on. You gotta track the bills that are scheduled to be voted on, then make some noise and let them know how you want them to vote! On the national level, GovTrack.us is a great tool for this.
Specifically, GovTrack.us tracks the United States Congress and helps Americans participate in their national legislature. From their website:
"We publish the status of federal legislation, information about your representative and senators in Congress including voting records, and original research on legislation. We’re one of the oldest government transparency websites in the world."
GovTrack databases and search tools can help you find out who your representatives are, how to contact them, their current and historical congressional activity as well as provide automatic updates on Congress. Then it's up to you to let them know what you want!
And if you already have an issue that is urgent for you and you’re burning to call your senator or congressperson immediately, use the links below to get their contact numbers and go get ’em!
Finally, you can always take the leap and Run for Somethingyourself!
Check out these encouraging words from the Run for Somethingwebsite:
"Throw everything you know about politics out the window. You’re qualified to run for local office – we’re here to help...Since launching in January 2017, Run for Something has recruited 70,000+ young people across all 50 states who want to run for local office... We provide a safety net for new and exciting progressive candidates — at all stages of their journey — to help them run efficient, grassroots & voter-contact driven campaigns and not feel alone in the process."
So just do it!
As you can see from the resources above, there are plenty of ways you can channel all that political energy of yours away from pointless political hobbyism and move it into meaningful, change-the-world political activism.As anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."
So... if you think the world sucks, why not stop complaining and do something to fix it?
Bonuses: Need a little pep talk to nudge you to action? Check out these articles & podcasts:
