Other Circle Applications
Your Ideas
How might you use the circle as a way to visualize aspects of your life?
Politics
Why are…
Vegans and Carnivores more alike than other people?
Conservatives and Liberals on Twitter more alike than other people?
I hate to ask - Blue Devil and Tar Heel Basketball Fans more alike than other people?
The same thing will activate their brains in many of the same areas - except one.
Look at fingers, imagine your pinky is the love finger and the pointer is the hate finger. The two middle fingers are intensity and focus. A trump supporter sees Trump and it activates Love-Intensity-Focus. A Trump opponent activates Intesity-Focus-Hate. Trump is what Scott Adams has termed an “Energy Monster.” Love him or hate him, he holds your attention and increases intensity. Biden is not an energy monster. His supporters like him and his opponents dislike him. He does not excite anyone.
When we think about politics, sports, religion, it is a good practice to try and see your blind spots, or at least know that you have them. The stronger you feel about something - the bigger the blind spots will be.
You attend a Phillies game wearing a Red Sox shirt. A person picks a fight with you. You do not want to fight this person because they are stupid and not good at risk-reward ratios. They are risking bodily injury, jail, banned from the ballpark for loyalty to their faux tribe.
In the book - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Hardcover – by Jonathan Haidt (Author) - he went into detail about how we are naturally a little bit divided - Our backgrounds and experiences make us see and react to the world in different ways. Two graphs from Chapter 12 in the book are insightful.
Liberals care.
Liberals are heavily focused on taking care of other people, fighting oppression, and fairness. They want to make everything good, have fair outcomes. Their blind spot is freeloaders - ignoring and potentially creating - ignore the role of personal agency.
Conservatives Balance
Conservatives are balancing more factors in decision-making. They care about people, fighting oppression and Fairness - but about equally care about loyalty, authority, and traditions. They focus on creating fair systems, not fixing outcomes. Their blind spot is assuming that current systems are good systems and fair to all. Assume that personal agency is all that is needed to succeed.
Quitting Smoking
I am one of the few non-smokers to read Allan Carr’s book The Easy Way to Quit Smoking. I did so to understand the technique he uses to help people quit an addiction that they might have had for 20 or 40 years.
The book relentlessly, repeatedly, and systematically
Moves smokers “Over the top” - Builds up reasons to hate smoking and reasons to love a future life without smoking.
Changes their tribe - Helps people change their identity to ex-smoker or even non-smoker.
Demonizes enemies - Tabacco companies look out for themselves and their customers (distribution and sales) not the end-users. Demonizing big Tabacco and decades of lies is not a challenge. But why support the income of these bastards by buying more?
Addresses habit addiction cues - The book provides ways to think and act to overcome the desires for “just one cigarette” and kick the habit forever.
The more thought a smoker gives to smoking, the easier it will be to quit. Lighting a cigarette is to be out focused and outsmarted - trading away money, future health, and not stinking - for a short reprieve to the next nicotine craving.
Energy Evaluation - Identify Satisfiers and Dis-satisfiers
There are things in life that increase positive energy and things in life that suck the good energy out of us.
I had a friend who had energy dynamics of Winni the Pooh’s friend Eeyore - Woah is me. Everything is bad. As Eeyore droned: “The end of the road, nothing to do, and no hope of things getting better, sounds like Saturday night at my house.” I liked this guy, who was fighting depression issues. I tried, but I could not help them, they did not want help. I had to reduce my exposure to their negative energy.
Hating something makes us look at other aspects of the situation in a negative way.
People quit jobs because of dissatisfiers. They might love what they do, the overall company, and 90% of their co-workers. It does not matter. Dissatisfiers (unfair pay, bad boss, or TPS reports) can be like a rock in your shoe, and your boss will not let you take off the shoe. It makes the situation intolerable. Sucks up your time, focus and ruins your energy. If you used the LH Circle to evaluate the pluses and minuses of a job, you may find a way to get the rock out without taking off the shoe.
Resentment kills marriages. There can be a lot of good, and a few negatives poison the relationship - drag feelings from love to hate. Hard to come back from that.
Priorities - Time Evaluation and Conflicts
The distraction economy is trying to hijack our time and thoughts. If you print out two circles, on circle one you can put your priorities - things you love, hate, like and dislike. On the second circle put on the activities that you do each week by the amount of time. Study the mismatches. Our actions are our truth. What we do is what we love, or at least like, to do.
A person might Dislike Facebook even though they spend three hours every night on it. Each night’s browsing and commenting leaves them feeling unhappy and drained. Studies show the more time on Facebook the unhappier people become.
If a person spends more time watching Netflix than doing X, Y or Z, Netflix might be a higher priority than spouse (common), kids (not good), or even their dog (way too far).
My friend Bob quit drinking for a decade. He was not an alcoholic. He was a business owner. Bob added up the costs and the price was too high. After a night out, he would be less productive the next day. Worse - he would take out employees of his business and they would be useless the next day. Taking six employees out might cost him 30 hours of employee productivity the next day. Being the boss, he paid the bar bills. I can go to a local bar, watch a game, and have a few PBRs, I am out 2 hours and $12. When he took out his team and the all-in cost might be $1,200. Sobering.