What can you learn from your time perspective?

Your own time perspective may not be on your radar at the moment. Until I read The Time Paradox by John Boyd and Philip Zimbardo it wasn’t on mine either. 

Why should you give a shit about your time perspective? 

Time, more than anything else, is what we as a collective crave. It is the one thing everyone is running out of and the one thing no one can buy more of. 

However It’s important to understand that time is different for us all. 

It can work for you or against you depending on how you leverage it. 

“Einstein himself is reported to have said: When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.”― Philip G. Zimbardo

Having a basic understanding of your time perspective and the way it impacts every decision you make will help you to be the best version of yourself.

This will impact how you feel in the present moment and we found it really helpful in understanding our relationships with others. 

What are the different time perspectives?

As you read the below, think how each perspective relates to you and other people in your life. 

There are six main time perspectives:

1. Past positive-oriented

1. People with this perspective often reminisce about “the good old days.” They keep souvenirs from past experiences, collect photos and trinkets. Often their closest relationships are with friends they’ve known since back in the day.

2. Past negative-oriented

1. People focus on the negative in the past. They live a life of pessimism as a result of previous negative events. When you call them out on their “glass half empty and full of shitty water anyway” attitude they will tell you they aren’t pessimistic, they are a realist, they have seen it all go to shit before so why wouldn’t it this time. They regret what could have been.
2. “While no one can change events that occurred in the past, everyone can change attitudes and beliefs about them.”― Philip G. Zimbardo

3. Present hedonistic-oriented

1. Living in the moment they chain-smoke 60 cigarettes on a night out now and bosh drugs every weekend as if they have fast approaching best before dates. Their goals are short term drivers focused on where the next bit of debauchery is coming from. Commonly these people have addictive personalities and pursue the above to mask some of their own pain. 

4.  Present fatalistic-oriented 

1. These people feel that their fate is predetermined. They feel this was the hand they were dealt and there is nothing they can do to fix it. Think of the constant moaner in the job they hate that doesn’t take action as they feel there’s no point, there is nothing they can do to change (Insert limiting belief or excuse). These people have often suffered hardships earlier on in their life that has moulded them into this perspective.

5. Future-oriented

1. These people are always thinking ahead. They have been investing for retirement since they were 14. Often they become workaholics or become obsessed with health and fitness to aid their longevity. They have a juicy carrot dangled in front of their face and often make sacrifices in the present looking forward to the day the carrot finally swings into their reach. Often these people are the most likely to succeed, extremes of this can lead to people being unhappy in the present. Read our blog on Leveraging Gratitude for more insight on this.

6. Transcendental-future-oriented 

1. Often this is synonymous with religious people. They believe that life after death is more important than the life they are living. What they do now is for future promises in the afterlife. For example, the Vikings were happy to die in battle honourably due to what they believed awaited them in Valhalla (fuck fighting a Viking for that very reason). 

How can you use time perspectives to your advantage?

The above highlights the extremes of each perspective.

In reality, all of us have a real blend of the above even the most optimistic person will have their moments where they are present-fatalistic, they may be able to talk themselves out of it pretty quickly but sure enough, they will have that perspective some of the time. 

Hopefully, you can see how you (and others in your life) have a blend of the above and the exaggerated versions above highlights how extremes in any area could be damaging to you. 

Having a blend of the above and being able to call on the right time perspectives in any given moment will allow you to fully enjoy everything. You will be able to reminisce on the good old days while enjoying a glass or two of wine at the moment but with the foresight to not drink 10 being kind to your tomorrow self.

Having an understanding of your perspective of time will also help you make better decisions with your relationships and come from a place of empathy.

For example, if you are high on the future-oriented scale and you come across a carefree present hedonistic-oriented person you may be able to balance each other out nicely or you could come into trouble when you don’t see eye to eye on the future and your shared bank account gets pillaged when your other half buys the whole bar a shot of the finest tequila.  

With the right balance, we can let go of the unhelpful past and reframe negatives to be positive building blocks that make you the person you are today. 

We can learn to live in the present moment grateful for what has been and is yet to come. 

We can plan for the future but not to the detriment of the present and those that share today with us. 

To ground yourself in the present moment we recommend spending a day using time in a different way. Try out event-based time for a day. Think when you are on holiday, you don’t check your watch as much, your actions are based on events. The sun goes down, you head back from the beach, your belly rumbles… you eat.

This is part of the reason why you come back from a holiday feeling refreshed. You don’t spend your days as a slave to your calendar and what your wrist tells you. 

What’s the current time perspective? How do your current time perspectives affect you and your relationships?

Lessons from Obstacle is the Way

‘Perception is reality’, ‘The impossible journey is the one you never begin’ and ‘Good is the enemy of great’ . Have you heard any of these before?

Well, I actually think these can all be fundamentals of success and happiness if applied correctly and I will be using our book of the month The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday to do this.

In the book, Ryan Holiday brings ancient wisdom and Stoic philosophy to life by applying Stoic principles to figures in history and their own attitudes and actions at the time. He shows obstacles didn’t deter these people, how instead they made them stronger and allowed them to thrive. What stands in the way becomes the way.

It’s astounding how relevant the stoic teachings still are today and when I read the book I certainly felt connected to those that lived in ancient times.

In the book, we are shown how we can transform roadblocks into success and shift our perspective.

I have personally recommended the book to many friends and colleagues and integrated its principles into my sales training to great effect. A recent employee of mine reported that it had quite literally changed her life.

I’ll stop kissing Holiday’s ass and carry on with the blog…

Perception

Perception is reality. Your perception is your reality, everyone views the world through their own lens, whether you are a glass half full or half empty kind of person or if you saw a black and blue or white and gold in the dress everyone went nuts about.

‘For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ – Shakespeare

Human beings have the fantastic ability to choose their perception of anything. When Thomas Edison’s research facility was burning down and he watched his life’s work literally disappear before his eyes he was famously quoted saying to his shell shocked son ‘“Go get your mother and all her friends. They'll never see a fire like this again.”

When you encounter an obstacle what is your perception of it? Do you start catastrophising or do you see it as an opportunity to learn and grow or increase your gains going where most are too afraid to venture?

We must first take a step back from our obstacle and view it objectively. Usually, our first reactions to adversity, in general, are not the best. Anger, despair, tears and some broken inanimate objects. While these are perfectly natural reactions kicked up from our monkey brains, they aren’t particularly helpful for us or our loved ones. 

These reactions also don’t typically help solve our problems.

If we are self-aware, we can plan for obstacles, keeping the stoic teachings front of mind we can use a malleable perspective to see an obstacle’s hidden advantages.

Ask yourself ‘What can I do to turn this obstacle into an advantage?’, ‘What will I learn from this?’ For example, that customer complaint could, instead of a course of anxiety, be an opportunity to show your integrity and excellent service to your client.

Action

The impossible journey is the one you never begin.

Once you have the correct perspective you must take action to overcome your obstacle and this action must be persistent.

We must be disciplined in our actions to derive the change we desire. Take Edison for example, he went through 6,000 different types of material before he discovered the correct filament for the incandescent lightbulb.

He had to fail 5,999 times, learn from it, pick himself up and go again before he finally realised great success.

If you focus on each moment and in doing the best job you can in the moment that will feed into the overall process and eventually your goals. A mountain may seem insurmountable if considered as one giant obstacle but if broken down into smaller more focused steps it becomes much more achievable.

Will

So, good is the enemy of great. 

This is a phrase that resonates with me a lot working in teams and leading people.

You often need to set the standard for what great is and just like how water will take the path of least resistance, generally people will toe the line and produce ‘good’.

When you start listening to that voice within that’s telling you you’ve probably done enough for the day, that you have worked really hard (when you know you haven’t really), that your ankle all of a sudden now hurts so it’s probably time to give it a rest you may just be letting your inner bitch win while you settle for good.

We must have will, this is what channels our perception and action allowing us to focus on what is in our control, not worrying about what’s out of our control.

By keeping your vision and your personal mission front of mind you can steamroller through the obstacles in your way, safe in the knowledge that each one brings you one step closer to your vision. 

If you strive for greatness in the moment the process will take care of the rest.

The obstacle is the way. 

What can you learn from Man's search for Meaning?

In this blog post, we will discuss some of our key takeaways from Man’s Search for Meaning. 

Author of the book Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, Holocaust survivor and all round top bloke! He also founded logotherapy which we will touch on later.

Man’s Search for Meaning is a non-fiction book where Frankl recounts his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps. Frankl doesn’t necessarily recount a chronological story but instead uses examples to explain how the struggles of camp life impacted the mental state of those involved. It offers insight into how humans can survive the unthinkable and ultimately find meaning. 

This book first came on our radar when we read Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss and since then it has come up a bunch more times in various other media we’ve consumed. 

What are the key takeaways from the book?

Learn from history

Everyone probably knows some details of the harrowing experiences of the concentration camps but I think knowing more about the detailed events of camp life will make you realise the true scale of the horror. You’ll also find that most of the bullshit weighing you down on a daily basis will be put into perspective and you’ll automatically start reframing certain things as pretty minor. 

Finding a why

‘If you find a why, then you can bear any how.’ This quote alone is so profound, I’ll let that sit with you. 

Find your why and remember it next time you come across an obstacle. Let it be your mantra and hold onto it when reaching for perspective. 

‘A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts’ 

Next time you are in the trenches of disaster or setback, hopefully, if you’ve read some of Frankl’s work, you’ll be able to think back to your why and power through.

Humans have the choice and power unlike no other animals to choose our attitudes to life.

Frankl explains that everyday choice is at the epicentre of human experience. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

On a daily basis we are subject to much outside of our control but we can always control how we choose to think about those circumstances.

Frankl explains that the Nazis could take everything away from him but one thing they could never rob him of was his power to choose his response. (Check out the story behind Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s false imprisonment to see this applied in action.)

As Shakespeare said ‘There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ We all suffer obstacles, challenges and injustices but what is important is how we think and act on them. This book is proof that no matter what you may think, you do have a choice.

Finding meaning with logotherapy 

• Purposeful work
• Without work, people fall into a meaningless existence. Completing work and the associated short and long term goals to create tangible physical or intellectual outcomes results in deep satisfaction and a sense of value.
• Love
• Frankl himself used the love of his wife to see him through and keep his spirits high. He also observed many others used their connection with others to stay positive.
• Courage in the face of difficulty
• Admittedly, it’s much easier to harness meaning from the previous two. Having courage in the face of difficulty is perhaps a little harder. Suffering is in and of itself meaningless, its meaning comes from how we choose to think about it. Frankl observed how some people made choices to respond to their environment and others were simply victims of their environment. Ultimately the meaning Frankl took from the above guided him through. 

Reframing the suffering to derive meaning

“Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how can I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such suffering has spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering — to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

I think there’s a lot of power here in this short extract, this same methodology can be applied to many situations where abject despair seems like the only available response. 

In all walks of life, there are good and bad people

Frankl writes:

‘Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils.

From all this, we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two — the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of “pure race” — and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards.

Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths. Is it surprising that in those depths we again found only human qualities which in their very nature were a mixture of good and evil? The rift dividing good from evil, which goes through all human beings, reaches into the lowest depths and becomes apparent even on the bottom of the abyss which is laid open by the concentration camp.’

One to remember next time you go to judge a book by its cover. Be open-minded and I am sure your connection with other people will bring you joy.

Don’t be afraid to laugh

“Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”

He accounts how he helped others to benefit from his own tools of survival.

‘I practically trained a friend of mine who worked next to me on the building site to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation. He was a surgeon and had been an assistant on the staff of a large hospital. So I once tried to get him to smile by describing to him how he would be unable to lose the habits of camp life when he returned to his former work. On the building site (especially when the supervisor made his tour of inspection) the foreman encouraged us to work faster by shouting: “Action! Action!” I told my friend, “One day you will be back in the operating room, performing a big abdominal operation. Suddenly an orderly will rush in announcing the arrival of the senior surgeon by shouting, ‘Action! Action!’”’

Success and happiness

And we will leave you with the quote below. We’d love to hear your takeaways and what impact this book has had on you. Either comment below or hit up our Instagram, we’ve posted plenty of Frankl related goodness on there this month.

“Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”