Emotions

Is it a threat or a challenge to you?

Joerg Kuehn · Feb 22, 2022 · Leave a Comment

2 1 1024x599 - Is it a threat or a challenge to you?

‘‘The test you will take today is designed to help us identify people who are exceptionally weak in their problem-solving reasoning abilities. Your performance on this test will not be scored like most normal tests, but rather will be classified as either above or below a predetermined cut-off score. If you score below that cut-off, this suggests that you are exceptionally weak —in other words, well below average in your problem-solving reasoning abilities. Thus, this test and the scoring method used are designed only to separate those who are especially weak from everyone else.”

This is how Dr. Chalabajev and her team introduced the test to participants of group 1 in their study about how people deal with performance anxiety. Group 2 was introduced differently, with the underlined words replaced as follows: weak by strong and below by above. The intention was to trigger fear in group 1 making participants feeling under threat, by being at risk of getting classified as “especially weak”, whereas help group 2 to identify the test as a challenge where they could potentially be identified as “especially strong” problem solvers with not much else to lose. In scientific terms group 1 was targeted to become “goal-avoidant” and group 2 “goal-approaching.”

The study results* are in my point of view mind boggling:

There is a crack in everything – for a reason!

Joerg Kuehn · Oct 27, 2021 · Leave a Comment

oct1 1024x768 - There is a crack in everything - for a reason!

I recently came across the wonderful story of an old woman who was living by herself many many years ago. Every morning, she went to the river to get fresh water. She took a long pole, hung an old bucket from the left side and another bucket from the right side. Always the same buckets on the same sides of the pole.

The walk down the dirt path from her house wasn’t very long. At the river, she would take the pole with the buckets off her shoulders and carefully dip each bucket in the river, filling it with cold, fresh water. Then, just as carefully, she would place each bucket back on the pole, lift the pole up onto her shoulders, and slowly make her way back.

As she walked home, the right-hand bucket held the water perfectly, whereas the left-hand bucket, had a small crack in the bottom leaking out a persistent drip. By the time the woman reached home, the bucket would be half empty, which happened day after day, week after week, year after year.

Nothing changed… until one day, just as they arrived at the river, the left-hand bucket sighed. This surprised the woman. She had never heard a bucket sigh before.

Then the bucket spoke. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”

Could this trick help us through the tough winter ahead?

Joerg Kuehn · Oct 28, 2020 · Leave a Comment

It was a lovely evening on 25th May 2005 in Istanbul. One hour before the Champions League Final between AC Milan and Liverpool FC, coach Rafa Benitez, began to share the line-up for the Liverpool team.

After hearing the seventh name, Didi Hamann realised that he was not in the squad for the probably most important game of his career. Later in his bestselling book, The Didi-Man – My Love Affair with Liverpool, he would describe that moment as follows: “My stomach churned. I did not hear anymore after that. I was on the bench. It hit me like a hammer blow.”

Hamann continues: “I have to thank my previous coach, Gerard Houllier, for how I was able to deal with it. Gerard used to say: ’If you are not selected for the game, you have 2 minutes to get over your disappointment. Then you get your head up, as if you were going to play and prepare yourself!’”

The game starts with Hamann on the bench. And what a game it was. AC Milan totally outclassed Liverpool and seemed to be able to score at their leisure. Not even one minute was played when it was 1-0 for the Italians. Playing like they were “from a different star,” they added another 2 goals to make it 3—0 when the half time whistle blew.

Everyone thought, “That’s it. Game over.

The answers are inside – not outside!

Joerg Kuehn · Sep 30, 2020 · Leave a Comment

It was the 3^rd of September 2003 when Medical Manager CEO Michael Singer received a panic call from his division’s attorney. The FBI was raiding his R&D facility, along with several other locations across WebMD, a publicly listed company in the field of health information services. The FBI confiscated 1.2 million email messages, 1,500 boxes of files with more than 3 million pages of documents, and 830,000 computer files.

A few weeks later the reason for the FBI-inquiry became clear. It turned out an employee, who was internally investigated for taking dealer kickbacks, had informed the authorities about his dealings, alleging the company board was fully aware of these illegal affairs. He was hoping to cut a deal for himself.

Despite Michael Singer’s career as the CEO of a division with more than 2,500 employees, he lived a quiet, spiritual life in “the woods” where he moved in his early twenties to learn “how to quiet the voice in his head.” All his life, he had been practicing “how to surrender” and create “inner peace.” This federal investigation offered a massive challenge to his inner peace. If things turned out badly, he might end up in prison.

Emotions

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