Personal growth: Defeating primal brain obstacles to success September 12, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Fear and Anxiety.Tags: fear, inspiration, life, negative thinking, philosophy, self-actualization, Seth Godin, writing
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Fear is one of the biggest success-path interrupters and yet, ironically, some people try use fear to “motivate” others within their sphere of influence.
Using fear as a “motivator” is probably an effective tactic to gain compliance, but it will generally not lead to success with whatever project is involved.
The onset of fear, that feeling that our stomach just filled with ice water, is familiar to us all and is caused in part by the amygdala, aka primal brain, primitive brain, lizard brain.
People using fear to “motivate” by triggering the amygdala response are actually shutting down creativity and innovation in the people they are trying to lead.
Seth Godin has an interesting take on what we can do to avoid being captives of fear.
Some of his ideas can be found in an interview on YouTube:
It’s part 5 of a series.
—Dennis Mellersh
Personal development: Making progress without breaking bones September 12, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.Tags: Eric Hoffer, inspiration, life, personal growth, philosophy, self-actualization, self-esteem, writing
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In our constant focus on reaching our personal growth potential, we can fall into the trap of self-abortion in the personal growth process.
This can have results totally at variance with our improvement goals.
Such as sometimes forgetting the maxim that our own growth should do no harm to the self-esteem and aspirations of others.
It can be a small thing, such the words and tone we use when explaining a principle to someone who is not yet beyond the beginner stage in self-improvement.
I believe it was Eric Hoffer who, commenting on an old European proverb, said:
“The tongue has no bones, but it can break bones.”
Words can be more hurtful than we may realize.
— Dennis Mellersh
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