Happy 2023 - Govern your mind!

Dear community of friends, business partners and CIO colleagues,

The point is: some messages do literally not exist in the media, in companies, in private conversations, in our minds. And yet they are true.

Positive developments are a blank space in our perception. We do not realize and celebrate our little successes and even big achievements. And when there are successes, we expect perfection. That is a gigantic problem. For our personal future and the progress in technology and society..

The human brain is constructed as a danger detector - as a big alarm bell. We perceive negative messages ten times more intensively than positive ones. We also BELIEVE the negative reports much more often - although they are much more often exaggerated or even wrong.

We very often see positive developments as trivializations.

That’s all evident and proven by science.

However it might lead us into the wrong path in our lives and keeps us away from opportunities and good luck. This can’t be in our interest – at least long-term.

What I have realized in the past years is that with the help of media politicians have planted seeds of fear and narrowed perception into all fields of our society. This accelerates the process of negative narratives and can’t be helpful for our common efforts to shape a thriving world in the future.  

If we want to change the story of the human race in the 21st century, we have to change the stories we tell ourselves and others. And I would suggest to have a look at the 99 good news from futurecrunch https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews2022/

Just some examples mentioned here:

·        Did you know that that wild life like tigers, giraffes, bisons, wolf packs and European bird populations bounce back significantly?

·        Child mortality has decreased globally to the lowest level ever.

·        India alone has lifted 415 million people out of poverty since 2005

There is a lot of good news about health, conservation of land, human rights etc. listed as well

But how can we overcome our instincts to focus on the threats?

1

I encourage you to embrace yourself into the good news and open your mind to positive affirmations for your personal life. But the foundation for all of that is to calm down your mind from the daily roller-coaster and decrease your stress-level in everydays living. Whatever works for you – meditation, a walk in the park, sports – it’s the foundation to bring you into the driver seat to govern your own mind. Otherwise somebody else will try to take over with marketing technics, bombardment of bad news or will increase your stress in any other way.

2

To quote Shakespeare with an important lesson and one of our biggest weapons:

·        If someone tries to make you little or just wants to get rid of an annoying task please say “no”

·        If you see others being hurt or pushed “under the bus” don’t just look away.

·        In case there are narcists dominating in business please leave their field of influence or fire them if you can.

3

All in all I want to encourage you to take leadership for your own life and thinking and as soon as you’ve mastered this part, get on and take responsibility wherever there is a task at hand. Getting more confident by first achievements you can be in service and shape a team, found a start-up, coach younger colleagues or advance in your career and lead bigger organizations.

Looking at the bright side of life, standing your ground and being in service are the things that fuel our well-being and lead to a happy and successful life.

And always remember not to take things too seriously and make a comedy out of a tragedy.

Just as a reminder Eric Idle - "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" closing “Monty Pythons Life of Brian”

Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse

When you're chewing on life's gristle

Don't grumble, give a whistle

And this'll help things turn out for the best

And

Always look on the bright side of life

https://youtu.be/SJUhlRoBL8M

I wish you and your dears a fulfilling and happy 2023,

Brigitte