Habit of Thought

The King of Innovative Thinkers is Dead, Long Live the King

I confess I have only a couple of Steve Jobs' products, two different types of iPods. Yet his innovative thinking and all the products that resulted from that thinking are part of stuff in my everyday life that I can no longer do without.

Jobs drove the ultimate usability concepts into his products so any regular human can use them. He set the course that freed computing power from being the sole domain of immense mainframes in locked rooms accessible by only a few anointed caretakers.

Innovation is not just ideas, it's ideas made real. It takes outsized drive, personality, and just plain guts to override naysayers, move past small thinkers, and tell the world that THIS is what it needs.

Jobs has thrown such a large shadow for years that it's difficult to name any other person driving such breakthrough innovation in today's world making a difference at the same scale he did.

Perhaps someone else's light will have a chance to shine now. I sure hope so. It scares me to think that we won't see another of his intelligence, reach, and creativity for quite some time.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. I like to think of you now comparing notes with Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, George Eastman, John Jacob Bausch, Chester Carlson, and other visionaries on whose shoulders you stood and and shook the world as they did.

My condolences to Steve's wife, children, and company. May the love of family and friends bring you comfort and your memories of Steve bring you peace.

F.E.A.R.

Seth Godin's book, Linchpin, does a great job of explaining that fear comes from the fear conditioning stored in the most primitive part of the brain, the amygdala. He calls it the lizard brain. It's job is to keep us safe.

Fear has its uses. The problem is that few of us face saber-toothed tigers, sharks, poisonous snakes, or murderous people on a regular basis. Our physical responses to fear are overkill when it comes to what scares us in this day and age.

In fact, much of our fear comes from its kissing cousin, worry. As defined in Wikipedia, "Worry is thoughts and images of a negative nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid anticipated potential threats."

"Anticipated" is the key word. We worry about what hasn't actually happened and may not happen. The fear of failure falls into this category.

We freeze, our brain turns to mush, heart rate and breathing accelerate, and our body gives us only two choices: fight or flight. In today's world, we actually have more choices than that.

The next time you feel fear or begin to worry, here are a few behaviors to replace them with:

• Learn an alternate definition of fear: False Evidence Appearing Real. Human imagination is a powerful thing, and sometimes it needs to be reined in a bit. For some, determining what the worst that can happen is and then preparing for it works well. For others, research and information is the key to reducing or eliminating fear. Talking over fears with a trusted person can bring a different point of view. Finding someone who has already done it and learning what they did also works.


• Turn the worry (negative energy) into a goal (positive energy). If you are worried about losing your job, set a goal about being prepared to search for the next one (start a blog, get involved in professional organizations or chambers of commerce, etc.). If you are worried about money, focus on the options to earn some.


• If you are feeling fear as part of a goal already in progress, write down affirmations on 3x5 cards and post them on your bathroom mirror, your kitchen table, and your nightstand to read and say out loud each time you see them.

What are you afraid of?