Tag: why

Changing the questions

Posted on by philipdodson

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Today I met Amanda, at a very posh coworking space, We Work, and it happened through the power of Twitter, well partly.

So sitting last week a notification popped up from Twitter saying ‘Amanda C Watts, is now following you’. I have to be honest, I don’t always look at these notifications, as I am training myself not to be a magpie and look at the next shiny new thing

Anyway, I replied with ‘thanks for following, can I ask why do you do what you do? replying in 140 characters might be a challenge’.

The response from Amanda was ‘help people build their dreams. I am on a mission to help 1 million people leave a legacy so I can leave mine’.

She asked me the same, my response ‘I am on a mission to create an alternative world based on putting people first and values. A world for the many not just a few’.

Today we met for the first time. I had a great conversation, realised that we had common values, had other things in common and agreed to connect further, and who knows what will come from it.

So the point of this, had I just followed back or replied with ‘thanks for following, what do you do?’. She might have replied ‘I’m a coach’ and when Amanda asked me, I might have replied ‘I run a coworking space’.

The meeting probably wouldn’t have happened.

If you want a different outcome, ask a different question.

The meaning of life, well my view anyway

Posted on by philipdodson

Philip Dodson blog

We often look to others for answers, or for them to do something for us, that we fear doing for ourselves.

The fact is, often instinctively, we deep down know the answers in life, as who else knows us better than us?

Why then, do we often wait a lifetime to do or try something new, or to change a thing that we know the answer too?

The reason we wait is, we are programmed to wait by our environment, very often from the moment we are born – the word ‘don’t’ gets engraved on our soul. Inside us is the limbic brain, the chimp brain, the one that is wired to avoid risk, to avoid being made to look foolish and to avoid danger.

However, now we live in a safe world relatively, yet this avoidance of danger continues. This is largely due to our environmental influences of parents, schools, bosses, governments and so on.

How do we break this?

We find out ‘why’ we do what we do, and if you can’t answer that, then you are probably doing the wrong thing.

We then learn the courage to change what we do until we find a meaningful and inspiring ‘why’.

We learn to become vulnerable and step into the ring, not worrying about what the critics say.

Finally, we realise that life is about creating.

So the meaning of life is, wait for it, drum role….make sure you tell others that you heard it here first…

To be constantly making our own new creations, whatever form that may take, and sharing them with an audience that you choose, whoever that may be. Otherwise it is a life of servitude to others for an ever more soulless reward of stuff we don’t need.

I’m off now to create and not serve.