My Cultural Takeaways after 3 Years in the US

Note: While this is primarily a blog about positivity, I will occasionally write about other topics that I feel passionate about (Leadership, Cultures, Tech, Education, etc.).

People often ask me for my take on the US. "What do you think of America?", "How does it compare to the other places you have lived in?". It's been now ±3 years since I moved here and as someone who is passionate about cultures and diversity, I think a lot about the similarities and differences of the environments I'm in.

The other day I finished re-reading one of my favorite books called "The Culture Code" by Clotaire Rapaille. It's a thought-provoking book about cultures and how they function. Many of my own takeaways about the American culture which I'd like to share with you have been influenced by his writing. To say it very clearly: I love living here in the US and I'm fascinated by all of its cultural differences and particularities. So by no means is this post meant to criticize or badmouth the culture of this great country. I invite you to discuss this topic with me and I ask you to not take offense in the generalizations that I'm making.  

America — A culture stuck in adolescence

When people ask me to how the US differs from Europe, I can't think of a better explanation than to describe the US as an adolescent and Europe as an adult. The adolescent culture is characterized by certain traits that I find recurring in the US: overstating the "now", disregarding authority, a fascination with extremes and a constant need for exploration. 

All of us go through adolescence at some point in our lives – a time of rebellion and detachment. If you look at most cultures of the Old World, especially in Western Europe, at some point they acted out their rebellion by killing their kings (f. ex. the French beheaded King Louis XVI and the English killed King Charles I). They fought authority and liberated themselves from it which always constituted a fundamental act of identity building. The US, however, never had to kill its king to become who it is today. As a result, this rebellion period never ended. In fact, it was continuously fed and fostered by more rebels joining as immigrants (if leaving behind your home country is no act of rebellion, I don't know what rebellion is). 

Adolescent misdemeanor on the political stage

The adolescent behavior of challenging authority is fairly visible in the recent, political history of this country. Just like adolescents, the US often feels it knows more than its elders. You would rarely see the US consult France, Germany or England over foreign policy, would you? Rather than learning from others, the US prefers to go ahead by itself (f. ex. the Iraq war without the authorization of the UN) and make its own mistakes as opposed to learn form the mistakes that others did.

As a teen, encouraged by all the things I was not allowed to do, I had a juvenile desire to break the rules – play with fire if you want. The recent revelations coming from Wikileaks or Edward Snowden have shown that the US has been behaving exactly like that. The NSA affair feels like a modern version of going through your older brother's personal items or reading your sister's diary. 

Modern Day Adolescence

To little surprise, the US is generally good at exporting the trademarks of adolescence: Fast Food, blue jeans, Nike shoes, Disney, loud and violent movies among many other things. It's a culture that never wants to grow up but remain eternally adolescent. Automobiles and Electronic Equipment are referred to as "toys" and as an elder you would still refer to your date as your "girlfriend". 

Also, the US has never really produced a world-renowned composer of classic music (after all, it's mostly adults who listen to classic music) but when you think of the music of teenagers – Rock, Pop or Hip-Hop – you can find it all around the globe. You go to Philadelphia and the most famous statue in the entire city is not a philosopher, scientist, marshal or any other historical figure, but it's the fictional movie character Rocky Balboa played by action star Sylvester Stallone. This reminds me too much of teenagers putting up celebrity posters in their rooms.

What we do is a reflection of what we are

It has always been a fascination to me how many Americans describe things as "the best" and "most amazing thing ever... EVER!!!". But in the end this is just a reflection of its cultural identity. If it's not the best, it's simply not worth pursuing. It's all about the extremes. 

This extreme behavior is also visible among adults in the US. Take Tom Cruise for example. A few years ago he was invited to the Oprah Winfrey Show and started jumping around on her couch shouting how much he loves Katie Holmes – just like a teenager in love. Take Bill Clinton, the perfectly adolescent president who cheats on his wife with his intern, in office, and then lies under oath – what drama! And you thought rebellious immigrants wouldn't adopt this behavior? Think again. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's former governor, has a tank and invites you to go "crush things" with him. But no one personified the eternal adolescent better than Michael Jackson... a grown-up who continued to sleep in the same bed with children – simply refusing the reality of his age.

Why Leadership needs Empathy

In my past four and a half years I have been very lucky to have had a wide range of managers. If I count the number of managers and their managers (with whom I also interacted), I count about 7 different people. That's 7 different management styles that I was fortunate to witness and to deal with! 

And while I know that four and a half years are maybe just 10% of the years that I will be spending at work throughout my entire life, I already look back on some lessons that have strongly influenced my understanding of leadership and the way how I interact with others (at work and beyond). Let me start with a story.

Before I joined Google in Dublin back in 2009, I had already absolved about 5 different internships, most of which took place in German work environments. I say German, because I perceived those environments to be very structured, hierarchical and traditional – some of the characteristics "Germany" is known for. But when I then had my very first career development conversation with my manager, maybe one month into my employment, he said something that made my jaw drop: "Omid, I want you to get to such a level in the next 18 months that at least three other teams come and make you an offer – from inside or outside of Google ". Wait, what? Ok, he wanted me to grow and perform... but he wanted other teams to make me offers? And potentially see me leave? "Why would he want that?!" I thought. 

What looked contradictory to me, turned out to be a very empathy-driven approach to leadership. My manager truly cared about me as a person more than he did about me as an employee. Something I saw in him and in some of the managers I had afterwards was that they really put people first. They understood that employment was more than a job and that it was part of my self-fulfillment process. They understood that they could only get me to perform at my best and thus have me help the team achieve its goals if they helped me achieve my personal mid-to-long-term objectives. They didn't care about policies or what they were "supposed to do", they cared about me.

At Google, this type of leadership is facilitated by something called PDP (Personal Development Plan) which you compose with your managers and as part of which you define personal goals such as "I want to work on more projects with the Marketing team" or "I want to develop my analytical skills by participating in Courses X,Y and Z". But it's one thing to have a manager who does that as part of his job duties and it's another thing to have a manager who makes you understand that he puts your personal goals first. 

With that approach, he completely gained my trust. Knowing that my manager truly cared about me and my personal interests made me even say things like: "I don't know what is best .. I trust you to make the best decision for me". I felt I had a supporter and advocate who often knew better what was good for me than I knew myself. Of course he would do his best to help me achieve those goals within the big scheme of things (i.e. the team's goals as well as the team's realm of possibilities), but he was not scared to see me leave.

These managers that I had were not short-sighted and just focused on goals, but they understood that helping me realize myself would only reflect positively on them in the long-run. Up until this day I walk through my organization and talk about them as my biggest mentors and supporters. I unintentionally contribute to that aura of theirs that helps them get things done in the organization. 

The common wisdom is that a manager would not want you to leave. I mean, why would he want to invest in you, teach you, have you grow and then see you leave? Actually, that's something I see a lot with the companies I work with in Latin America. Employee fluctuation is one of the biggest business risks a company faces. Very often, the business owners are very afraid to invest in their people or to promote them. They are afraid because they would have to pay them extra money and potentially see them leave because with a promotion, those employees could negotiate better offers from other companies. Changing their mindset turned out to be extremely difficult for me. One powerful story that I often shared with them was: 

CFO asks CEO: "What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?" 

CEO: 'What happens if we don't, and they stay?"

Coming back to my own experiences, I came to understand the importance of putting the personal interests of the employee first. You cannot stop someone from leaving. In the end, they will all leave ... so why not i) help them achieve their personal objectives and simultaneously ii) make them give 110% while they work for you because they feel they are on the right path of self realization? 

This by the way reminds me of a really interesting business practice that Zappos has! Zappos hires new employees, it puts them through an intensive four-week training program, immersing them in the company's culture, strategy, and processes. Then, about one week in, Zappos makes what it calls "The Offer," telling newbies, "If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you have worked, plus a $3,000 bonus."... talk about sifting chaff from the wheat. 

This is how I came to experience how an empathy-driven approach to leadership could differentiate a good manager from a great manager. I saw how truly caring about someone as a person could unlock an infinite amount of trust and authenticity. It could tear down walls of fear and bridge oceans of uncertainty. Seeing how my manager wanted the best for me was my biggest motivation to exceed his expectations day after day after day. 

Is there a Limit to Happiness?

One of the most fascinating economic theories I learned during my undergrad degree was the theory of 'negative marginal returns'. The example we used in class was that if you are hungry and you eat a banana, you will feel saturation. But once you eat your 10th consecutive banana, that saturation might turn into stomach ache. So there is a point at which each additional unit will not cause a positive return (saturation) but a negative return (stomach pain). 

As I have been thinking and theorizing about the topic of happiness over the past months and years, I have always wondered if there is such a negative marginal return on happiness as well. If you are unhappy and something good happens to you, you then – ideally – feel happier. But what if so many (too many?) good things happen to you that with each additional positive experience you make, your happiness doesn't increase, but decreases? Is there such thing as a maximum point of happiness that should ideally not be exceeded because it might lead to unhappiness? Surprisingly, these recent thoughts reminded me of a post I once made on Facebook.

I was complimented today for being happy. That made me even happier. Now I’m in a vicious circle of happiness.

Back then, I called it a "vicious cycle of happiness". While this was all meant as a joke, the word vicious does indeed have a negative connotation. This only reminded me again of the possibility that there is a maximum point of happiness that should not be surpassed. You might now wonder how the heck someone could be too happy? Well, allow me to share one of my own stories which has made me reflect and look into this topic. 

I have always considered myself very fortunate for this life that I'm living. I have had a lot of great opportunities and a lot of good things happened to me along the way (*knockonwood*). At the same time, I have often asked myself the simple question "Why me?". I hear about other people's suffering, pain, loss and dilemmas and I wonder how some live lives of joy while others have to go through difficult times. 

It was a few months ago when I was in New York to run the marathon. It was the weekend before the race and all my college friends were in town to do a little reunion weekend. They flew in from the farthest places just for us to be together. We joked, we dined, we partied, we chatted, ... it was the perfect weekend and I was incredibly happy to be spending time with them. The weekend had come to an end and I was sitting in the subway heading home after a stroll through the city by myself when this daunting feeling of  took over. I felt that things were just too good to be true. Not that I wouldn't believe the goodness, but that I would start to feel bad for it. Out of a sudden, I felt guilt, not happiness, for all the good things in my life. That was the first time I realized that there might be a limit to happiness. I don't know if there is any science to it or if I'm just an outlier here, but it was an important realization that I made that day. 

While this feeling has come up quite a few times ever since, I have learned how to cope with it. Every time this feeling of guilt comes up, I try to convert it into a feeling of responsibility. I have come to believe that people with opportunities, people who are capable of experiencing deep and profound joy, people who have the means to achieve great things, that these people also have the responsibility – if not even obligation – to fully maximize these opportunities and to contribute to the world they are part of. There are so many people out there that suffer from depression and so many others who are poverty-stricken or subject to other afflications. If you are one of the lucky ones who is employed, has access to education, a roof on top of your head and a somewhat unworried life (yes, everyone has his/her struggles, but let's put our #firstworldproblems aside), then you, too, have the responsibility to make this world a better place for those who are not that lucky. 

Coming back to the initial idea of this post, I wonder if there is any scientific evidence for such a negative return on happiness. In my case it was a sense of guilt. Others might experience a different range of emotions as a result of excessive joy and happiness. I look forward to learning and sharing more about this topic with you.  

Build an Aura that Radiates Positivity

Student life wasn't always easy for me. Our university was located in a very small town of only ±10,000 inhabitants and even the university itself was quite small with only ±220 students each year. As a result, I ended up living in this microcosm that was filled with the joys and suffers of being a 20-ish-years-young student: exam pressure, grades, parties, classes, heartbreaks, trying to find summer internships, comparing yourself with others, etc. 

I remember how I would drive to class from my apartment and stop at a bakery to get breakfast each morning. It was a daily routine that I did without thinking too much: park the car, walk in, get your breakfast, leave for class. This routine then once changed through a simple comment that one of the sales ladies made: "A smile would look good on you". At first I didn't understand, but upon asking, she told me that I would always come in lost in thought and with a busy mind. It was a just a comment, but it made me very reflective. From that day on, I entered and left that bakery with a big smile on my face and I could clearly see how delighted she was that I had taken to heart what she had told me. 

While this was just a little event in my life, it made me realize one important thing about interacting with others. Namely, that every person has an aura. It's the distinctive atmosphere or quality that surrounds you as a person. This aura that we all have influences the way how others perceive us and how we make others feel. In fact, this aura is often a reflection of the thoughts you have on your mind. Think of your friends – I'm sure there is that one person who is 'always' smiling .. one that is 'always' happy .. or one that is 'always' the naysayer in the group. These impressions that you take aware are the impressions that their auras convey.

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” — Gautama Buddha

I think most people read this and could simply agree that this is true. But there is a big difference between agreeing with something and fully internalizing it. In this particular case, it's tremendously important to understand the impact you can have on others by the thoughts you have on your mind. The expressions "infectious smile" or "contagious energy" are quite powerful and real phenomenons. They express that your smile, your attitude, your thoughts can have a positive impact on others. 

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” — Gautama Buddha

For myself, I have come to realize the importance of radiating positivity. For the people around me, I aspire to be a source of inspiration and energy. This goal influences my thoughts and the way how I encounter people. In return, it influences their perception of me and the impact I can have on them. I think of my attitude, my smile, my actions, my words, my empathy and my interactions as my tools to make a positive impact on others. 

In his book "Search Inside Yourself", Meng considers meditation as the best way possible to achieve such state of mind. He promotes this specific idea which I think very much reflects the notion of having an aura that radiates such positivity.

"Imagine whenever you meet anybody, your habitual, instinctive first thought is, I wish for this person to be happy. Having such habits changes everything at work, because this sincere goodwill is picked up unconsciously by others." — Chade-Meng Tan

I encourage you to make an experiment that turned out to be very useful and insightful for me: the next time you approach someone – be it the unknown girl/boy at the club, your manager at work, the bored government employee at the DMV – put a big and lasting smile on your face and just see how the person reacts. It is tremendously hard for someone to ignore the smile you throw at them. With that smile, you set the tone for the entire conversation. In fact, you influence what that person does next and the choices they make. Secret tip: It works really well for me trying to get business class upgrades ;). 

Don't Compare Yourself with Others based on Age

"Age" as a topic has always been on my mind. Throughout my life, I have often been confronted with this topic as well as the reactions, conclusions and expectations it has triggered in other people as well as myself. 

For example, I have seen the reactions that people show when they ask for my age and then realize that I'm much younger than they would have guessed. This is partly because of my beard and partly because of the way I interact with them. In fact, I have gotten to a point where I let people guess my age because I find joy in surprising them whenever they overestimate it by 1, 2 or 3 years. Ever since, I have been fascinated by this topic and the way how age – a simple number – influences the way how we think about people and how we suddenly make certain assumptions or form expectations. 

Over time, I have come to realize that age is really just a number – a number that unfortunately can create more havoc than benefits once it's revealed. I have yet to meet a person who does not automatically and often unintentionally pigeon-hole someone once he/she learns about the other person's age. We often use the age of a person as a metric for comparison. Sadly enough, I often used to do that myself. I would sometimes feel envy when someone was young and successful or try to boost my ego when someone was older and less successful (clearly, "successful" was a subjective metric here). But this practice of comparing yourself to other people is rubbish and a complete waste of your time and energy.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter — not Mark Twain

Life is not a competition that you need to win nor should the path of other people influence the path you decide to go down. Don't do the mistake of looking at other people and telling yourself you are more or less successful than them because they are younger or older. Don't compare yourself with others based on a simple number that couldn't be any more meaningless. If you do want to take a metric of comparison, then take your values and ethics, but don't take age and especially not your own definition of success. 

On the other hand, don't limit someone's potential just by a number. Just because someone is young, it doesn't mean that the person is not smart, mature, or able to punch above his weight class. And just because someone is old, it doesn't mean the person is not capable of understanding or motivated enough. I would even want to encourage you to make it a principle not ask for someone's age. Unfortunately, this number and the automatic comparison it triggers in our head influences the way how we interact and perceive someone. If you can't turn off this mechanism, at least try not to ask for the age. It's an irrelevant number that can trap your thinking.

If you can’t be First, try to be Third

I came across a very interesting story the other day in a TED talk by Arthur Brooks on the topic of Earned Success. There has been a study that analyzed the facial expressions, emotions and reactions of people who came in 1st, 2nd and 3rd during sport competitions. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but the Gold medal winners were found to be the happiest. Surprisingly though, the Bronze medal winners were found to be more happy than the Silver medal winners… wait, what? Yes! Turned out that people ending up on the 3rd rank made people happier than being on the 2nd. 

What seems to be an paradoxical phenomenon is actually just the result of how our brains work. The person who came in 2nd will be comparing himself to the person on the 1st rank and feel disappointment for missing out on being first. He will probably have thoughts along the lines of “If only I had trained a bit more” or “I wish I didn’t go that fast into the curve”. He will automatically compare himself to the person above him instead of fully appreciating the fact that he came in 2nd. The 3rd person however knows that he barely made it onto that podium. He will look at all the other athletes who tried to end up in the group of the best three and feel lucky that he can be among them. Instead of comparing himself with the 1st and 2nd above him, he will most likely compare himself with the people beneath him and feel good about his achievement. 

Needless to say that this generalization doesn’t apply to all athletes, competitions or sports, but if you think about it, it’s fairly plausible and, again, proven through a study. As humans, we tend to compare ourselves with people who are better, who have achieved more, who are younger. We tend to look up and feel bad about ourselves as opposed to look down and appreciate what we have. If you have internet to access and read my blog right now, you already belong to those 2B people who do have internet as opposed to the other 5B who don’t. Most likely, you live in an industrialized country, have a well-paid job, health insurance, university education, a roof on top of your head, and access to water — “simple" (in our eyes) conditions that position you among the top 5% in the world. Yet too often we compare ourselves with people who have even more among that group of 5% as opposed to appreciating that we have more than the other 95%. I wish we all were more aware and appreciative of the incredible opportunities we have in our lives and took those opportunities to not move from Top 5% to Top 1%, but helped those other 95% make a respectful and modest living. 

The Power of World Culture Storytelling via Photo Sharing

Captured in Antigua, Guatemala. 

I have always been a "media guy" producing movies as a hobby during my teenage years or taking a friend’s camera to shoot some nice pics at university events. But I never considered myself as someone who was particularly talented… it always felt like a hobby that I was good at and that I enjoyed – not more and not less. 

It was about two years ago when I was introduced to Instagram as a photo sharing platform during a trip to Istanbul. At that point, I had already been a passionate phone camera adicionado, but I lacked the tools to edit and the channel to share my pictures. While I never followed the #selfie-craze, my first pictures using my Google Nexus phone were quite underwhelming to say it frankly. 

Fascinated by the ease of use of the app and inspired by the many talented photographers that I started to follow, I felt incentivized to not only use the platform more but also to improve my skills. I would meticulously examine the pictures that showed up on my feed and try to understand what made those pictures so beautiful and interesting. Sometimes it was the light, other times it was the angle or the motive that was captured. Just by observing other photographer’s work, I was able to absorb techniques and develop ideas.

As time passed, I received an increasing amount of compliments for the snapshots I was taking. After the initial phase of encouragement, I also started to receive more questions about how it would be possible to take those shots just using my phone. Up until this day, my phone (and the software I have downloaded on it) has been the only piece of equipment I have. In fact, I changed to an iPhone last year because of the superior camera quality (I still think that iOS sucks and that it’s a matter of time until Android-powered phones will surpass the iPhone in terms of picture quality). 

While I managed to improve my photography skills over the past years, my followership on Instagram as a platform was quite negligible. It wasn’t until September 2013 when my picture of the Munich underground station was featured in a weekly round-up of the best pictures on the Instagram blog. For an amateur like me this was a pure thrill! A much bigger event then happened in February of 2014 when my account was featured on Instagram’s Suggested User List. Within just a week my followership grew from 1k to over 13k and beyond that ever since. It wasn’t until I received a licensing deal from a publishing company though that gave me the confidence to consider myself a semi-professional photographer (I probably won’t drop the “semi” until I can make a proper living off this). 

While I do care about how many followers I have, I find it far more important to know that people find inspiration in my pictures. Through my frequent travels over the past few years, I was also heavily exposed to different cultures, countries and people. My work trips to Latin America, my family-related trips back to Europe or my fun trips throughout the US – they always offered a great exposure to the "new and unknown”. I have therefore made it my self-imposed obligation to artistically showcase the beauty that I’m exposed to during my travels around the world. With each picture, I try to tell a story. In the words of a dear friend, my calling is to do world culture storytelling through photo sharing.

Bracing For Impact

In life, things don’t always turn out the way you want. You set yourself ambitious goals and really do your best to achieve them, but – let’s be honest and put that motivational talk aside – you won’t succeed every single time. You simply won’t. As a matter of fact, only 25% of investment-backed Start-ups succeed (Source: WSJ) while 90%-95% of Start-ups miss their initial projections (Source: HBS Research & Ideas).... and don't get me started on how many marriages end up divorced. 

Leaving the corporate world for a moment, you can find tons of personal examples that show that life doesn’t always go according to the plan that you have in your head. You applied to Business school? You might have received a straight rejection. You worked really hard on that promotion? You might have not gotten it. You really wanted to go to that wedding? Something more important messed up your plans.

These sort of things happened to me all the time in my life. For far too long, I allowed these situations to be a downer and to either pause my life or to throw it upside down as I wasn’t able to cope with that situation. Nowadays, I have found a recipe to deal with these situations and to turn them into a power boost for my life as opposed to let them drag me down. 

Instead of pondering over why "Y" happened or losing energy over how I could have avoided the occurrence of "Z", I activate my creative juices and try to come up with potential scenarios that would make "Y" or "Z" a much better outcome than I could have possibly asked for. Basically, I try to see the new situation under a different light – a perspective that truly allows me to see the benefits of the situation I am in. In classic "positive psychology”-jargon, you would say that I’m trying to see each challenge as an opportunity. How? I simply ask myself: “Come up with 3-5 situations that would show how this situation could actually be a gift and opportunity". So instead of letting that situation crash into my life, I brace myself for impact and find ways to see that situation as a power boost. 

A rejection from Business School could actually inspire you to pursue your entrepreneurial passion outside of school. The failed promotion might turn out to be a blessing since it gives you more time to figure out what you really want to do once you reached the next hierarchical level. And that wedding? The money from not attending it will come in super handy for one of your main projects outside of work. 

It sounds slightly silly, but even in the face of the worst situations, there are always ways to look at them positively and to let them boost you instead of pull you down. You just need to be very open minded and to creatively ask yourself how that seemingly negative situation could actually be the beginning of something better.

Recognizing The Judge In You

One of the goals I have in my life is to be the master of my thoughts: to be able to foster my positive thoughts and to contain my negative ones. As much as I like reading about how to think and act positively in life, it's also important to deal with negative thoughts to i) understand where they come from ii) see in what forms and shapes they can occur and most importantly, iii) learn how to master them. 

As I was trying to learn more about what constitutes negative thoughts, I came across an interesting chapter in Shirzad Chamine's book "Positive Intelligence" (see here my previous post about Positive Intelligence). Shirzad talks about how we have these Saboteur-profiles in us. He differentiates among 10 different Saboteurs like for example the Judge or the Hyper-achiever (you can see the list of 10 Saboteurs here and take a 5-minute assessment here).

The argument is that we all have at the very least the Saboteur called "The Judge", your mind's enemy number one. While most of us are completely unaware of this Saboteur in us, it is the strongest force in us against our well-being, happiness, and success. The power of the Judge lies in its ability to have us constantly find faults in three specific areas of our lives: 1) ourselves 2) others and 3) our circumstances. It's a mental force that is well hidden and often in disguise of being rational – if not even helpful. Therefore, discovering the Judge and its negative influence on us is tremendously important. In this post, I'd like to raise more awareness of its destructive powers and help you identify it. 

Judging Self

The voice that tells you that you are falling short of whatever ideals you have foreseen for yourself is the Judge talking to you. If you think you that you don't look good, it's the Judge whispering into your ears. If you have a good job but still think you are a failure, then it's the Judge making you down. That last time you felt you couldn't get that girl – guess what – it's the Judge at work. 

All the insecurities you have, the voices that tell you that you won't make it or that you are not good enough for someone or something – it's the destructive power of the Judge taking you down. Sounds familiar? Then you'd be surprised that anyone in this world has these voices. It's not just you who has them, it's literally anyone in this world. You can go into a group of highly successful CEOs and ask them to anonymously submit a secret they haven't shared with anyone yet due to fear of losing respect, authority and credibility. You will hear things like feeling inadequate, unworthy of love, fear of being rather lucky than competent, etc. Fact is that no matter how much money or success you will have in your life, you won't be able to turn off the Judge. Remember that one person who looks like he/she has it all? Yes, that person has the Judge wearing him down, too. The Judge will always be there, but the important question is how you are going to deal with him! 

The most important thing to know about the Judge is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You need to understand that his power is to push you into action through threats, fear, shame or guilt. The more you let the Judge do its damage, the more his words will become reality. 

Judging Others

Another way the Judge sabotages us is by judging the people around us. The next time you think that your manager is an idiot, your colleague is not skilled enough to do the job or your partner has a fear-based controlling behavior, then it's your Judge at work. 

I like to mention the partner's fear-based controlling behavior, because that behavior in itself is the work of one of the other Saboteurs, called "The Controller". If you think of relationships, they all start super happy and positive. People are in love and in complete "discovery mode". But turns out, the Saboteurs aren't hiding too far from these honeymoon feelings. Over time, certain Saboteur-driven behaviors in your partner will trigger your own Saboteurs. If your Partner is a control-freak, you might respond with your own Saboteur which could be "The Avoider" or "The Victim". It's important to note that one Saboteur can strengthen and enforce the Saboteur in the other person. Yes, relationships (both at work and at home) have ups and downs, but if you find yourself in an energy-consuming drag-out fight with your colleague, friend or partner, chances are that the Judge in you is busy judging the other person and vice versa – especially when you think you are 100% right and the whole situation is to blame on the other person. 

Judging Circumstances

This is the third way the Judge sabotages us. One of it's most widespread lies is the idea that "you will be happy when...". The on average unhappiest age of a male person is 45. Why do you think this is? The answer is fairly simply. In our 20s and 30s we are constantly being pushed to pursue ambitious goals. We compare ourselves with others and are in the constant pursuit of the goals we have set for ourselves. That promotion, that girl, that watch, that number on the bank account, what have you. We devote the energy and flexibility of our most valuable years to drive the highway with full-speed. Once we then reach our mid-forties, some sort of mid-life crisis will set in. We look back on all the goals we have achieved and realize that they didn't bring the happiness we had hoped they would. Yes, we drove through our 20s and 30s with full speed, but we start to wonder if we drove into the right direction. That elusive peace and never-ending happiness never came and we start to wonder what we did wrong all the time. Reality is that the path we went down was guided by the Judge and it's biggest lie: "You will be happy when...".

In fact, there are two lies at once. The first lie is that you can't be happy with your current situation and circumstances. That your current position, your current salary, your current set of achievements is not enough to make you happy. The second lie lies in the fact that it makes your goals a moving target. It places a "when" condition on your eventual happiness. The "when" gets a round of renegotiation every time you reach what you had in mind. I am the best example for this. I always thought that moving to the US would make me eternally happy. When I moved to San Francisco, I was indeed happy in the beginning, but then soon started to set myself more ambitious goals as a stronger sense of unhappiness grew on me. Moving to the US wasn't that final happiness goal anymore as other "I will be happy when..."-lies entered my life. 

Interestingly enough, these goals are set often as a result of comparing ourselves with others. You look at what other people have achieved and you start to have the same expectations for yourself. Just look at all the things in your own life that you thought would make you eternally happy. How often did that happiness last before the Judge in you renegotiated that "when"? Think of what you currently think will make you happy – your current "when". Would you be willing to reconsider this goal and the dependency you have established between your happiness and the achievement of that goal? Fact is that the great peace and happiness you are searching won't come once you achieve that goal, but is available to you in your life right now.

How to Deal With the Judge

I hope you have not fallen into a despaired state of mind after all that Judge-talk.  Quite the opposite, I hope this article has helped you understand the negative streams of thought that accompany you (and anyone else in this world) on a daily basis. It's important to be able to recognize and label them. The next time you hear the Judge talking to you, just identify him accordingly and label him. You will see that this has a profound impact on the credibility it has. Instead of saying "I won't be able to finish this", just say that "my Judge tells me that I won't be able to finish this". Don't say "I know he won't get this right" but say "my Judge thinks he won't get this right". It's hard to deny that by applying this technique, the Judge's voice loses authenticity. Actually, I sometimes even feel challenged when I think about the Judge telling me that I couldn't do sometimes: "you think I can't do this? Now watch this!!!". Observe him and call him out – you'll be surprised by how often he is at work and what impact it has to recognize him as an uninvited intruder. 

How I Got The Name "The Positude"

Today I want to share the story of how I came up with the title of my blog "The Positude" and some stories related to that. It was in February of 2013 on a work trip to Guatemala where I had already decided to start this project but was struggling to find an adequate name for it. I knew it was all about having a positive attitude in life, so I wanted something related to that. A flash of inspiration then made me think of the word combination "Positude" composed of "positive" and "attitude" – the two words that I had previously chosen as the essence of what my blog should be about. I instantly emailed some of my closer friends and asked them to share their impressions. The first reactions were as follows: 

"I'm thinking that could be a site about having a good attitude and making the most out of life" — Anna

"I think of someone standing with a mean look but doing something positive for the world... like bad ass gangsters holding flowers and painting over graffiti" — Thais 

"I think about a positive attitude. Living your life always thinking and acting positive"  — Pry

While these were all very encouraging responses that showed me that I had chosen a good title for my project, my friend Serena responded with the perfect description that described the true essence of the blog: 

"The Positude is a positive attitude as much more than a day to day feeling but more of a lifestyle choice. Waking up and slapping a smile on your face regardless of life's pitfalls. Finding the good everywhere you can" — Serena

Once I had all that confirmation, I went ahead and bought the domain (needless to say that I had checked domain availability earlier). My intention at that point was less to start a blog, but more to write a proper book. Later, throughout 2013, I then soberingly realized that writing a book is actually not that easy and that I would be better off to start with a blog first as it allowed me to have a platform through which I could share my ideas and get some reactions and feedback. At that point, however, it was all about the book so it was important to me to also secure the rights for the title "The Positude". 

Back in San Francisco I started doing research online on how to actually secure the rights. I was propelled by the fact that there were less than 10k search results for that term and hopeful that I would be the first. I soon realized though that the word was already being licensed by some "RC Taylor Group" in Pennsylvania. Since their website was not among the Top 50 search results on Google, I was certainly surprised that they owned the term and tried to dig deeper. I learned that the word had been licensed back in 2008, specifically for media products like CDs.... I definitely felt some disappointment, but I was confident I could make it happen somehow. 

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!" — Audrey Hepburn

After some advanced searching skills (read: searching endlessly for over 20 minutes), I found the name and telephone number of the person who had licensed the term - Stuart Brooks. I was thinking about emailing him, but I concluded that I had nothing to lose by just calling him up out of the blue (I mean – hey – I was a Sales Rep once...). Fortunately, I was able to get in touch with Stuart right away and we ended up having a very long and good conversation (must have been around 40 minutes). I learned that they were a firm specialized on Leadership Development and that they had licensed the word Positude for one of their frameworks that they use in their trainings. While I had little hope to receive permission to use the term, I started sharing with Stuart what I wanted to do and why this project was so important to me. To my surprise, Stuart was very open to the idea and sent me this very kind message after our call. 

"...as I mentioned, I noticed a rare and infectious energy and passion in your voice.  Funny, this has been that kind of day. I’m grateful we talked, and I hope you’ll send me your early thinking about our good-faith agreement regarding your “borrowing” the Positude word" — Stuart Brooks

And this is how we agreed on using the name since the RC Taylor Group is the righteous license owner of the Positude! What I loved about this experience was that Stuart and I were able to build a trustful connection through a simple phone call without even knowing each other. I particularly appreciate the trust and understanding he has shown for my project and intentions. The other day I emailed Stuart and showed him the blog and we both agreed that a post about our story and the clarification of the term's ownership would do the job! Et voilà!