Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Finding Why

The world of business is changing. There is a growing trend toward more honesty, more generosity, more just plain human behaviour. My mad friend (his words not mine) Joel D Canfield would like to lead the charge toward something totally different. Today, he's shifting his focus from his various businesses to a philosophy he thinks will change the world.

Joel says:

"Too many people spend life stuck, going through the motions; believing they know what to do and how to do it, but never really clear on why. Finding 'why' makes 'what' and 'how' become clear. I want to help folks who are stuck being what the world expected to find their why, to find meaning and joy in life, and show the world who they really are."

Visit his new website http://FindingWhy.com/

As expected, there's honesty, generosity, just plain human-ness. 10,000 words already written and hundreds of thousands to come. Free downloads. Room for conversation. A little insanity.

Joel's putting out the welcome mat right now.

8 comments:

Rocky said...

HMMMMM. Love the topic. Victor Frankle discussed this in his book Man's search for meaning. Frankl believed the "Why" is the all important ingredient. He asserted that if you have a strong enough "Why" you can overcome any how. Great topic for discussion. How does one go about finding their "Why"

Joel D Canfield said...

Rocky, thanks for asking. As I mention at my website http://FindingWhy.com/ it can be very difficult to do this for yourself. It's like reading the label from inside the bottle.

There's a free tool at my site called "The Secret to Finding Your One True Passion" on the "Free Stuff" page. While it's not a complete "finding why" course, it'll give you a good start, and shows you how I approach the challenge.

And of course, if you have questions, post here on Trevor's site, or over on mine. It's a subject I find fascinating and love chatting about it.

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Joel has a great site — full of business and personal wisdom from a bona fide heretic.

Viktor Frankl is my hero. My favorite all time quote: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." Eloquent and practical.

Joel D Canfield said...

Ah, thanks, John. Heresy loves "why".

Stunning bit of information changed my life 10 years ago: emotions come from thoughts, not the other way 'round. We feel what we think about, which means, we choose how we feel.

Frankl is an astonishing example of just that, and I suspect he doesn't consider himself a special case.

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Interesting point, Joel. I'm not sure "thought" is the best word for this, if we’re using the word the same way. Our feelings seem to follow from how we experience the world, which can happen without cogitation. But we do have an opportunity—under normal conditions—to “reframe" our experiences and choose how we think about them (though most people don't realize this) which can produce different feelings and reactions. But then there are times—in the case of trauma for instance—when we don't have a choice about our feelings. Our amygdala just gets hijacked.

But your basic point—that altering our thoughts can alter our feelings—is a transformational insight. Cognitive therapy is based on that premise. I first discovered that when I took the Est Training (which evolved into the Landmark Forum).

Joel D Canfield said...

Agreed on all, John. Perhaps "thoughts" is too generic or preloaded with interpretations.

If I can get people to even begin believing that they can get a handle on their emotions and motivation, I'll be happy.

JOHN O'LEARY said...

Yes! As I tell my clients, you may not have a choice about the situations you're confronted with every day at your job, but you usually have a choice about your experiences of them. A radical notion for some. Yet Epictetus was saying similar things two thousand years ago.

Professor Kamran said...

Let’s redefine Human Life Cycle in a Management Sciences Perspective (Let’s adjust it according to our wishes)
http://www.youtube.com/user/professorkamran/videos