Good April Fool’s Day, all. ‘Twas supposed to have been sunny, but ’tis rainin’ here.

I watched this video a week ago or so. I haven’t perceived my daily routines and actions the same since.

That was real nice, thanks for sharing it.

So wise and funny. Thanks for the post.

Gary S Hart did you read Christopher Hitchens last article for Vanity Fair, in which he lays waste to Neitzsche’s That which does not kills us makes us stronger? Brilliantly written, as was most everything he wrote. I would side with you however and say: That which we fear and don’t confront, surely has the potential to destroy our dreams. More fuel for the be vulnerable theory.

Giselle Minoli Not at all. I am really glad you like it. I believe social media with its unflinching demand for transparency is helping create more and more authentic voices and this is great for everyone, from writers to content providers and businesses.

Giselle Minoli Love your thinking. Proof of Jack C Crawford’s ability to act as a catalyst for meaningful connections.

It is all inspiration. My thinking cap got sold at a rummage sale.

Jack C Crawford Inspired! As always. 🙂

Good afternoon everyone. I remember Hitchen’s last article, your post and another interesting, exploratory conversation led by you. We had an evocative conversation about that which doesn’t kill you… The question I’ve been asking myself is where should we draw the boundaries of confidence and self-deprecation? Like Brené, I like strategies and compartments, although the squishy stuff is fascinating to me.

Very nice post David Amerland, and we need more. More reminders about being people. Last year I wrote “McSelling & McMarketing” slamming thoughtless automated marketing and in the words of the great Jack C Crawford, “coin operated selling.” Another post was title “Do You Really Give a Sh*t About Your Customers?” Speaking of the angel himself; hey Jack.

Gary S Hart Thank you and wow! This is such an interesting question you pose and itself raises many more, like why would we be less or more confident being ourselves? I would suggest we act the same way we would if we met in your living room with your mum present. A slow opening up of who we are. Speaking and listening in equal measure. A willingness to consider that our point of view may not be as entirely right as we may think it is. These are all elements which are remixed each time in each situation (and there is still a strong possibility we will somehow get it wrong). Social media is new in its present format. We are still learning its tropes and this is what makes it exciting. Questioning it, the way you did, is what makes it real and helps everyone of us take one more step towards the right direction.

Regarding the talk, I used to seek certainty. While I haven’t given up on the pragmatism of common sense, my journey is now mysterious. By choice, I seek uncertainty. As it turns out, it is tremendously easy to seek. All is already uncertain, so I have decided not to think about what the certain thing might conceivably be.

That’s part of the “thought” behind my rummage sale reference above. At some point, my loved ones may suffer unduly from my loss of cognition. I feel badly about that. One of my grandmothers became senile before her passing. She had the grumpy and rude type of Alzheimer’s. I loved her.

So, my point is that thought serves us all best when it has an inspired vision; when it produces a benefit for others in our World. As Giselle tells us so very well, putting creative, considered and meaningful thoughts into written form serves the highest calling.

Thank u David. How’s life today in the UK?

Oh my…apologies…I told you I had a very small brain…YOU Gary S Hart! Changing it above!

I enjoyed David’s blog post too. I find that my professional life and personal life flourish when I can be as authentic as possible.

In my job I do have to speak with the voice of the brand often, and the social media side of things allows me to bring a little bit of myself to the role from time.

I’d say vulnerability for me is a precious commodity I hope to never run out of. It’s an important condition required to write and sing songs, something i like to do in my spare time.

Gary Stockton Thank you so much for chiming in and apologies everyone for disappearing for a few hours. It’s my husband’s birthday (tomorrow) and I took him to dinner tonight and shut off the computer…in favor of face-to-face time with someone I love.

I am really interested in Jack C Crawford’s comments about certainty/uncertainty. I am convinced that one of the benefits of getting older is that we leave behind all of the ruthlessly programmed social constraints, which serve to keep us in line culturally, but which can very often keep us very far away fro our “authentic” selves. Perhaps things like Alzheimer’s strip us of these constraints and the reason that we are so uncomfortable is that there is a rawness, an authenticity, a guilelessness about that behavior that we can all identify within our selves but which we repress, suppress and hide.

I don’t think anyone can create anything of value when they are “constrained,” only when they are authentic. We criticize Steve Jobs for being absolutely without mannered constraint, but what if that is the exact reason he was able to create? Why is it that so many creative people seem to suffer from psychological “problems?”

Why is it that Brene Brown and everyone else I know of are “afraid” of vulnerability? It is an emotional state that takes us straight into the unknown, without safety nets, without certainty, without any guarantee.

Sally gave me permission to take a short break from writing, before we start a movie, to jump back into another thought journey fabulously emceed by Giselle Minoli. BTW, Giselle, no apology needed; you brought in Gary Stockton!

Thank you linda colman. Balance between objectivity and subjectivity, and as Jack C Crawford brought up, certainty vs, uncertainty has always been a teeter totter for me.

Jack, Giselle delved into the questions I was thinking. My G+ time was running out and I did not want threadjack and run. What has been your inspiration to break the walls down? BTW, this is what my writing project is about. Siamak Manzarpour knows divergent thinking is my passion. We discussed the link he just shared a couple of months ago in another discussion after I posted that animation around an abridged talk by Ken Robinson. Take the time to watch and check some of his other talks.

Where vulnerabilities and fears come from is debatable. Late in life experiences can change a confident, borderline arrogant sales and marketing executive like I was into an introspective, more vulnerable, self-deprecating guy. My confidence is not gone, but as Sally says, I’m more approachable.

Hey Sia, our kids got the “daddy versions” of their favorite books. The laughed tears from my “Unhappy Hollisters” and the “Good News Bears” and very open education. There are still fears and concerns. Some people face their’s others deny and hide from them, but they are there.

I agree with Brené’s “numbing ourselves.” We all do things that make us feel better. Some people eat, others drink or do drugs. We have deep, wild conversations about a myriad of topics. We’re people, thought, and conversation junkies who come to G+ for a fix. Doing something to feel good has an anesthetic effect on the stuff that makes us feel bad. Dopamine for everyone!

We must have our HIRL get together.

Siamak Manzarpour I insist that you bring the Mignon to our first HIRL

Hello everyone

Siamak Manzarpour seriously, with all due respect, Vincent van Gogh made 900 paintings in his lifetime and only one sold. Few thought he had any talent at all and he is considered one of the greatest painters that ever lived. The same story is true of Monet and countless others. It was said of Frank Sinatra, in Hollywood, that he “couldn’t dance, but sings a little.” Most people, when it comes to the arts, do one of two things: destroy their children’s talent or push them into something they don’t want to do.

Only you could read into my words that I believe all children have talent. All I was saying is that parents should be careful not to determine their children’s future for them. Really, C’Ya…go back and read my words… You might have forgotten that I wasn’t born under a rock. I actually had parents too and my “opinion” comes from having been on Planet Earth for more than the time it takes to cook a three-minute egg. The world is filled with people who are not doing what they want to do with their lives. Were this not the case, perhaps we would not have so many people who are acting out their hostilities and unlived lives on other people. You cannot protect your children from everything. You can, however, encourage them to be authentic, whether it makes you comfortable or not. Perhaps Brene Brown’s talk didn’t “talk” to you? 🙂

Parents have been testing their children for athletic abilities (all those fathers wanting their sons to play professional sports) and intellectual and business abilities (all those Moms and Dads wanting their kids to grow up to be doctors and lawyers and business wunderkinds) for decades. It is perhaps far easier to “test” a kid’s math skills or verbal skills. Most parents do not push their kids into the arts because they think they’ll starve to death. But my post isn’t about that. It’s about Brene Brown’s road from vulnerability to authenticity to the true self. And what is the true authentic “self” for the child, might not be the same true authentic self for the parent and vice versa.

There is no where that I wrote I condone DNA testing of 3-4 year olds….C’Ya. You are reading into my words and it is mystifying how you’re doing that.

I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged me to pursue my passions, whatever they may be, and accept it when I didn’t gravitate toward the things they would like to see me excel at. Golf for example. When I was a kid, my Dad used to rent my brother and I out to caddy for his mates at Farnham golf club every weekend, even the rainy ones. Each weekend tournament involved 36 holes, 18 in the morning and 18 after lunch, and a hang around in the bar for the prize giving. I think this soured my love of the sport over time, and while I developed a classic golf swing, I didn’t have the passion for it. The one thing I cherish however, are the memories of the golf course. Knowing how little things change in England, I am confident those fairways look the same today.

When I was around 8, my parents got me a guitar and the rest was history. I was able to write a song for my father and present it to him on his 70th birthday, wrote about his days up in Bermondsey peddling antiques to get us to America. That made him proud, and today we can watch the golf when he comes around to visit. If I had children, I would do it much the same way.

That’s about all I can post for today … gotta get some work done for my generous and patient employer. 🙂

via Christopher Lynn https://plus.google.com/106273142422645495807/posts/fUDhRXjePVg?hl=en

Good afternoon (and evening, morning, etc for those outside of the Americas).

Where is everybody?

This topic was getting fun. And I miss you guys.

Amendment: Strangely and interestingly most of the people that I known in my life who have ventured off in some direction that would appear to be fraught with financial peril, who have ventured off to find themselves have turned out just fine indeed. They are better bosses, better employees and quite solid people. The people on the other hand that have not done that when they might have wanted to, tend to be unfulfilled and have a more difficult time with the choices they’ve made in their lives.

Siamak Manzarpour quoted: I have just finished listening to the talk by Ms. Brown and have more or less scanned through all the comments here.

Here is my 2 cents worth of contribution on the subject;

Ms. Brown is in fact exploring one of the oldest matters of philosophical contemplation, psychological vulnerabilities .

Barring the analogy of taking fat from the butt and applying it to our cheeks ( is there a messianic inference here?) which I view as being more Gissel’s own own take than actuality, I suppose what she talks about can be reduced into a much simpler understanding as follows;

It is not the external impulses that make us vulnerable but rather how we “react” to them that creates vulnerabilities

Take a child who has been raised in a family who places great emphasis on social stigmas for example. A lazy father, a mother who drinks too much or a gay brother , a biker uncle ,…… may all be classified as social ills in this child’s brain as he/she grows into an adult.

On the one hand the child has been programmed to recognize these external impulses as red lines which should be avoided at all cost, but on the other no programming has been performed in the way of reacting to these external inputs when the child enters adulthood.

In short this child’s psychology has been constructed with vulnerabilities already built in as integral components of his or her psychological construct.

I also disagree with Ms. Brown in that we tend to numb ourselves, because we don’t, we simply avoid…we avoid crossing bridges by taking the long road to bypass our vulnerabilities…In short we waste our lives in avoidance .

In conclusion I can only add that vulnerabilities start at a very early age and by over parenting parents who are directly responsible for constructing long term vulnerabilities in their own children.

Yesterday 9:29 PM

Siamak Manzarpour quoted: I have just come back home after a day of dealing with work, aka my economic vulnerabilities 🙂

While idling in city’s nightmarish traffic it dawned on me that I actually recognized my fellow traffic dwellers.

You see if you happen to hit the rush hour at exactly the same time on a regular basis, chances are that you would get to recognize other drivers who do the same…Isn’t that something?

The lady who constantly talks to herself, the man with a funny mustache, the young woman who puts her make up on behind the wheel, even though she must be going home, the young man who must have spent four times the value of his car on his cool set of rims and tires.:-)

I didn’t know that until today…..I felt so vulnerable upon that realization < kidding >, but I suppose what I want to drive at is that the term vulnerabilities within the context of this discussion sounds more like a byproduct of affluence and economic realities.

Half way across the world in Afghanistan where people are truly vulnerable I doubt if this discussion would strike a cord with any one Afghani . I suppose because their conditioning is not conducive to personal reflection…food shelter and safety occupy 99.99% of the Afghan population I suppose.

Here is what I have taken out of this discussion and seeing that I do not leave public comments (unless they are purely sterile), I would like to state the following before my comments self destruct in the order that they appeared;

1-Adults with vulnerabilities can always see a shrink who would influence them to blame their parents for their vulnerabilities

This is the easy part.

2-If you bring children to this world you have a social responsibility to do your best to ensure they become productive members of the same society.

How you do that is your choice but I fail to see how letting them go off like butterflies and finding themselves is going to work for them or the society that they live in.

Children are born as children because of some pretty good reasons or nature would have produced them with fully developed brains and emotional content in one neat package. You would then not have to do anything. A perfect microwave meal with the trimmings right out of the freezer:-)

3-Ultimately parents are responsible for how their kids turn out in the venerability department.

If you are planning to have kids, talk to people who have raised kids before. You may find it ain’t your thing in which case you will have done the world a favor.

Thank you all for bearing with me.

4:38 PM

This is not a dress rehearsal. It is the only life any of us will ever get. If we don’t explore it and ourselves fully it will be over before we know it. That is called fear.

In fact, the bad guys will think I wrote them!

really true Giselle Minoli

I love that story Gary S Hart. My what one learns on G+. I also loved the movie Amadeus. A great one I thought.