Nathan's Insights

I was thinking the other day about happiness and what drives us.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them at least don’t hurt them.
Dalai Lama

It seems we are conditioned to think happiness comes from enriching ourselves, by enriching I mean with items, goods, stuff and the money that buys such things.

There is no doubt ‘things’ or ‘stuff’ can feel good especially in the moment. But does it make you really happy, does the HD TV make you happy in 6 months time?

We are programmed to ensure we survive so obviously having shelter and food trigger positive emotions but do we confusion this positive emotion for items we actually need to survive with things that aren’t necessary. And if we confuse the needs with the wants, do we place too must value on the wants because of this confusion?

I mentor 2 young people who are overcoming disadvantages in their life. Why does it feel so much better when they achieve their goals then when I achieve something? Pure evolution says I should only really be happy long term for myself and my immediate family.

We see people all the time doing significant selfless acts on behalf of others that they seek no outward reward for. I notice some people helping others that the person receiving the help doesn’t even know about. What drives people to do this? And why do the seem happy without the big bank account? Could it be there is another truth out there? Are we all connected to something else, were does that feeling and desire to help come from? Why I am happier for someone else’s success?

Perhaps there is a connection we all share that sometimes overrides pure self or asserts itself at different times in our lives. Survival obviously drives us but I don’t think it is the only thing out there, otherwise why to we have for the most part working communities? Yes there is tension but the vast majority don’t kill or try to injury others to their own advantage.

But perhaps the biggest question is how do we forget the real happiness of helping others and go back to the material self when we experience more form the former? I guess it’s the immediate survive vs common good / spiritual connections. The ‘want’ system is designed in Western society to overwhelm us in every interaction, maybe I should be amazed it’s ever overcome at all.

For now I’m just so happy for Donna’s and Malvina’s successes as they strive to become empowered young women. In a week were I’m struggling with internal politics caused by job losses it feels like a good week anyway because of them.

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the graduation ceremony of DOXA Cadets.

DOXA is an organisation that attempts to improve the life and opportunities of disadvantaged children and young people.

They have a number of programs including the Cadetship program that helps disadvantaged students attend and complete University studies. This is done with a workplace sponsor that includes a mentor.

I’ve had the privilege of being Malvina Sadiku’s mentor since 2011. Malvina has overcome a lot moving to another country, losing her father, learning a new language and to a large extent looking after her mother and younger brother.

Malvina will shortly be completing her degree after working two jobs, getting married and successfully gaining Australian citizenship.

Meeting young people like Malvina, Donna (another cadet I mentor), Marta (a cadet I supervise) and their fellow cadets I’m reminded of the enthusiasm of youth, the hard work they are willing to do. We just need to give people a chance, an opportunity. You can’t be cynical once you people this cadets.

People talk about our great country. If you want to make it rurally great we much give back, reward those who want to contribute. Let’s make this a ‘lucky’ country by creating environment for anyone, not just the privileged, to succeed.

Thank you DOXA and thank you Malvina, Donna and Marta.

How to support.

Yesterday was fascinating insight into changing ways to interact with clients and the way technology is changing the way services are delivered and what clients and the public expect.

In the morning I took part in a Discussion Panel at a Superannuation Conference. A 10 minute presentation for the three participates followed by questions from the floor. The audience was about 100 industry professionals with a few reporters present to help spread the topics to a wider group. Strangely enough one of those topics was about future challenges to the growing SMSF industry and I mentioned how clients are no longer willing to wait days or months for answers or actions.

In the afternoon I supported a Social Media Event on LinkedIn. It was run on a private group with 4000 industry professionals. In promoting the event we received 14 questions in advance, many of which would have taken weeks to answer if not more in our current delivery model. During the event I helped the Senior Executive answer several very difficult questions within minutes, lots of stress there considering its a permanent record!

So the day showed me the past and the possible future. Speaking and interacting directly with individuals you can really get to understand their concerns and visual clues let you know if they understand your answers and concerns.

The Social Media event allowed us to reach a bigger audience, it limits people asking the same questions again. It also puts a lot of pressure to have the answers ready which goes against my organisations risk avoidance / minimise risk approach. You can also miss some of the context in written questions. Written communication has its limits, it’s a reason lawyers exist after all!

The future appears to be more about pace, breaking down barriers (9-5 contact hours into 24 hours) and creating new ones (non verbal communication). A future in which people who can make quick and logical decisions will do better than those who take a more cautious approach – which will lead to more mistakes but also more efficiencies and services for most.

Am I ready for this? Are we ready? I suppose we will find out.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.