Life happens whether you pay attention or not.

People will talk about you, some will say nice things, some will complain.

Conversations will happen that you could be a part of, that you could bring value to.

Someone out there wants to hear from you. Someone out there wants to make a connection.

This will happen online and offline, with friends and strangers.

You can choose not to pay attention, but all this will continue regardless, and all you will be is alone and suffering.

Isn’t it better to listen?  Just for a little while?

What’s the best that could happen?

Last week, I and a few others in my group gave a presentation to the NYC office of Waggener Edstrom about digital storytelling, social media and findability. One of the points I made sure to focus on was the gradual decline in ‘us vs. them’ thinking. The same isolating fear-based separation that leads to war, depression, loneliness, and a lot of the suffering that goes on in the world is alive and well in business.

Historically, it was very easy for business folks to think of their customers as ‘them’. “how do we get them to buy our product,” people would say, and the answer would often be tactical guesswork, and not lead to particularly effective results.  By beginning the strategy by specifically excluding ourselves and everyone we know, we find that we don’t really leave ourselves with anything to base our strategy on.

In the time when you could safely assume that a significant portion of the country was tuned in to a single piece of entertainment (The Tonight Show, etc), putting a message, any message in front of people would get some return. The talk-to-everyone-to-reach-a-few days are gone, and good riddance.  They’ve been replaced by endless permutations of clusters of people passionate about an endless combination of things, each making their passions known and eagerly anticipating the opportunity to connect, share, get and give value.

The true power, the true awakening, the most effective conversations, marketing, communications, PR, interactions come when we realize and recognize the simple fact that there is no ‘them’. It’s never been more apparent in the history of the world that across geographic, cultural, language, economic and all other barriers, what we all seek under all of our pretense, suffering and assumptions is connection, support and compassion.

Those that realize that we’re all in this together and keep that fact in mind when looking at ways to connect with those around them, to truly listen and engage with people, to provide value, and to empower people will exist happily for a long time.

In spiritual life this connection to the world is essential to feeling at peace.  Different religions suggest different methods of achieving this, from giving to charity, to loving thy neighbor as thyself, to what the Dalai Lama calls Wise Selfishness.  If you’ve ever been depressed, you may remember a distinct feeling of ‘not feeling like part of the world’, isolation, distance from people who care about you.  You may also find your focus turned exclusively inward, unable to include others in your day-to-day life in conversations about anything other than how awful you feel. This is a horribly lonely place to be, and does not result in any kind of engagement with you being at all inviting. It may be valuable to compare this state of mind with business practices of a company you work at or are interested in.

In the same way that feeling like part of the world leads to our personal successes, it is such with business as well.  Even in the distant past, some of the most successful campaigns on behalf of business happened when the company was able to focus outward.  Avon and Tupperware built their empires with this mindset.  Being inclusive and thinking of all individuals as people who could potentially rally around a common cause connected to making their lives better is the only way to succeed.

In other words, there is no ‘them’.  There is only ‘us’. That’s the secret.

When we talk about values we enjoy when it comes to people, things that often come up are kindness, approachability, warmth, humor, a connection and openness to others and the world around them (often described as ‘lighting up a room’), and a willingness to include those around them in whatever is going on. These are pretty globally attractive characteristics, and those who display them are frequently well-loved and respected wherever they go.

In business, however, I feel as though there is a disconnect from embracing these same values. Kindness becomes weakness. There is a fear that making your business approachable will somehow lead to being taken advantage of by customers (or worse yet, ignored). People are afraid that being open to others will lead to competitors stealing their ideas, or that somehow the company will be ‘exposed’ as less than it claims, and that will lead to something drastic.

These insecurities are quite human and understandable, when we’ve been taught in business (and in our personal lives) that we must portray an image of a secure, independent and successful entity who is not reliant on anyone at all times, or risk losing social status.

What we’re coming to understand is that ‘projecting an image’ is a sure way for people to want to keep their distance. I’m sure everyone reading this knows at least someone who may be a good person underneath, but could commonly be described as someone who ‘tries too hard’ or is ‘always on’. When you think about your reaction to that person, it’s probably something approaching pity, rather than an honest inclination to connect, engage and have a valuable exchange with that person. I’m sure everyone can think of companies (and in fact entire industry trends) that are trapped in fear.

The interesting thing about the world we live in is that those entities are brought into stark relief, as more and more places are embracing a new value of openness, and finding that success follows shortly thereafter. More importantly (I think), the public nature of these interactions allows for people to share in those successes. As follower counts grow for companies that embrace openness like JetBlue, Zappos, Starbucks, they are finding that their goals are being cheered on by the public. People actually want these companies to make money. This would be so far removed from reality even ten years ago as to be absurd.

So, how can we work with companies rooted in fear to open them up to the opportunities? I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I would imagine it begins by showing them the effectiveness of a more human approach, and talking out their fears with them. As with anything in life, the antidote to fear is love and compassion. To those change agents among us, are you approaching your clients this way, to address, alleviate and walk them through their fears? If not, it might be an interesting exercise.

In any exchange and especially in storytelling, there are two ‘islands’: the listener and the subject.  A great experience will put the focus in between them, creating a bridge by which the listener can cross to connect with the subject.

One of the examples I’m most proud of is the Thrillercast series I worked on with Joe V. for Sony last year. I don’t think we knew it at the time, but this became the perfect example of the bridge concept in action.

Identify the goal: Capture the long-standing affect that Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” and associated videos had on the world, through interviews with people who were a part and those who were influenced.

Define the lanes: Identify the areas where “Thriller” had a major influence – Music, Songwriting, Production, Choreography, Dance, Video, Radio.

Define the pillars: Identify the events or items common to each of the lanes that we want to make sure are touched upon throughout the stories.  In this case, the songs themselves became great pillars.

Place your pillars: Figure out how to arrange the stories so that the overall story arc is tight and compelling.  Whether it’s grouping episodes together by topic, walking the listener through chronologically, or some other organizational system, the grouping of the content will ensure that the listener is taken on a smooth journey.

Find your storytellers for each lane: Cast people who are passionate about telling their story and whose stories can serve as a bridge between the listener and Michael.  We new almost immediately whether someone had something to say or would just be going through the motions, and that informed whether we pursued them or not.

Capture bridge stories: When interviewing, keep the tone anecdotal rather than empirical. Anyone can sit there and list the various awards received and the number of copies sold.  Those are things about the subject, and do not belong on the bridge.  Remember, all those achievements happened because of the bridge elements.  We encouraged people talk about their experience with “Thriller” from within their area, the influence it had on them, and how it changed affected the landscape as a whole.

So, when telling a story (be it a bedtime story, a podcast, a twitter stream,  a presentation, a mix CD, anything), ask yourself: Does this experience build a bridge?  If not, you’re not done.

Subtitle: : My unproductive fight against numbness and depression, healthcare, meditation, and what I’m doing now.

President Obama’s speech tonight provided me the opportunity to write something I’ve been wanting to share for a bit. His guiding principle, that the cycle of increased-costs-to-decreased-value that the insurance companies have been subjecting the American people to needs to end. Insurance companies, like any other for-profit enterprise, are entitled to work toward as big of a profit as they can legitimately create for themselves, but not at the cost of the health of the entities they claim to be a resource for.

Beyond proposing putting restrictions on some of the processes insurance companies are able to use, the President suggested an alternative opportunity for insurance companies to make themselves available to patients: open the world of options to a wider audience than currently exists (e.g.currently uninsured people) and let customers make the choice where to invest their attention and dollars. By redefining the parameters to create a bigger world to play in, the overinflated balloon of suffering caused by the limitations of the day-to-day process can be deflated and replaced with a more workable and productive model, that ideally will find an equilibrium between stress points and air flow.

What does all of this have to do with me (and maybe you too)? Read on!

As some of you may or may not know, I’ve struggled on and off with chronic depression for most of my adult life. I have lived my last 15 years in a state of aversion, using any number of distractions (food, the internet, unhealthy relationships) in order to try to get out of my head, or not have my thoughts rule me.

I’ve never known what people meant when they said ’stop thinking so much’. What other option is there? How does one interact with the world if not through one’s brain? I’ve been working in therapy for awhile now, trying to think my way out of this situation, which I’d defined as a sense of ‘coasting without connecting’, leading up to ‘not feeling like part of the world’. I thought I could figure out some way to stay in my head (which is the only place to be) but just nice-and-easy integrate my emotions back into my life.

All this came to a head last week when, in a “be careful what you wish for” epic fail moment, all the distractions I’d relied upon to not have to deal with myself suddenly stopped being effective in keeping me out of my brain, and I spiraled into a debilitating depression.

I stayed off of the internet, TV held no interest, I stopped eating altogether. I was desperately in search of an answer, something, ANYTHING that could be done to help me to figure out how to understand and escape my all-too-familiar situation. I didn’t know where the release valve on my suffering was, but I was at the end of my rope and willing to search anywhere for an escape hatch. Somehow in the midst of all this, the concept of meditation entered my brain.

I’ve been trying to learn how to meditate off and on for years, but I never really “got it”. It always seemed rather silly to me, how somehow sitting quietly could possibly solve my very real problems, challenges and self-imposed restrictions keeping me from being happy. It didn’t seem like DOING anything, and therefore it held no weight beyond a novelty. But now, in the desperate quest to find answers outside myself, I asked my Twitter folks for meditation resources, and was directed Radical Aceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, which ended up being a life-altering discovery.

The book, written by Tara Brach, opened my eyes to the totally understandable habitual and very common folly of paying attention to the reptillian brain’s thought processes. Within these pages it is explained in plain language that the thoughts that I’d gotten completely caught up in are the automatic responses of our evolutionary fight-or-flight process. They are comprised entirely of judgments “this is good” “this is bad” “this is dangerous”. They are not rational, nor are they ‘intended’ to be. They are just the brain’s way of processing experience. The trouble happens when we begin to take these automatic responses at face value, when we begin to believe them.

I believed them. I got caught in them. I bought into the fundamental rational conclusion that one comes to when identifying with these thoughts: I’m not good enough. Something is wrong with me. I can never experience love or peace. I don’t deserve these things. And once I got caught in it, there was seemingly no escape.

It turns out, however, that you can’t think your way out of being caught up in thought. It seems simple when phrased like that, but as any of you who have been caught in depression know, when you’re in it there is no past where you felt better, there is no potential future where you can feel better, and it seems like the only way to get out is by some external source (said much better than I have here by Robert Burton in his The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621.) The rallying cry of the depressed is “Save Me” for a reason.

I decided, as a last resort (before looking into a pharmacological option) to commit myself to investing in meditation. This resulted in probably the most intense weekend (three day weekend, no less) of my life thusfar.

In my newfound “I’m going to give this a serious chance”, I discovered that Tara Brach has a free podcast where she expands upon her teachings from the Radical Acceptance book and leads her class in guided meditations (which are basically real-time audio or visual instruction guiding you through the process of becoming aware of your awareness and focusing on your core being rather than getting caught up in thoughts or emotions that are connected to automatic processes). Our consciousness is ‘prior’ to these processes. It’s closer to us.

I listened and learned and focused and tried it. And something finally clicked. This is the other option.

Finding myself sitting by the East River, eyes closed, listening to the sound of Tara’s soothing voice for hours at a time, I began to learn how to connect with my awareness, that which is more centrally ‘me’ than the thoughts, the emotions, the dread. Through these three days of intense change, I’ve gotten closer to becoming in sync with my core being than I’ve ever been, and learned that the way out is actually within us. I finally felt like I’d identified where the release valve was.

It was not easy. It did not come quickly. I’m lucky enough to have a Mom who went through something similar, and found similar release in the practice, and was able to offer invaluable information, advice and support.

Since then, I’ve been meditating for 20 minutes every morning. I’m beginning to feel the effects. I am able to get out of my head more quickly than before. I pay more attention to the world around me. I smile at people on the street, and get smiles back. I’m learning to ask questions when I’m unclear about something, rather than making assumptions that add to my stress level of a particular task at hand. Obviously I’m very new to this process and am still getting the hang of it.

What’s the point? Beyond my full and unreserved support for this practice (especially for my fellow geek friends who have similar challenges getting out of their own way), the point is, I’m learning to deflate the balloon. My balloon had expanded to the breaking point. It hit the wall. The only way out was to let go, let the balloon deflate, let it go slack, find another way to get the goal of living done. Change doesn’t come when we’re comfortable, it’s only in a crisis that change is possible. I’m tempted to make a comparison to business and social media trends here, but you’re all smart enough to get there yourselves, yes?

I haven’t been on Twitter (or blogging) quite as much, I’m a little different in how I interact with the world now, I’m learning to spend more time in the cool glow of presence and connection to the world. I’m figuring out what really matters to me (turns out, as with most people, it’s ‘connection’). I’m working on me. I’m figuring out how to work with my balloon to find equilibrium. I am.

Am I going to give up all my worldly possessions and go live on a monastery somewhere? Probably not. I’ve never been particularly religious, though I’ve always believed that you get what you give (i.e. Karma). The meditation practice does not require any particular religious belief, only a belief in our own primal nature, before thought, before emotion, and a commitment to loving kindness to all beings. There are plenty of resources on the web that can describe all this stuff in far greater detail, and I encourage exploration.

I hope this post will inspire any reader who finds themselves in a similar situation to consider this path as an option, and hope to continue being mindful as much as I can for as long as I can.

Thank you for listening, hearing and loving.

P.S. I realize that I addressed a bunch of this stuff in my “You Matter” post. I was considering revising it to take into account this new perspective, but I think its more interesting to be left alone as a ‘before and after’ study.