Book 222 - A Year of Magical Learning (Part 3/5)

Reflection Title: Let Your Elephant Be an Elephant - The Art of Effort Without Effort!

Book – The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathon Haidt (Part 3 / 5)

Book Description: The Happiness Hypothesis is a book about ten Great Ideas. Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations—to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing. Award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows how a deeper understanding of the world's philosophical wisdom and its enduring maxims—like "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"—can enrich and transform our lives.

Reflection:

The more I try, the worse I do. It never fails.

Let’s take a fun tour of mind as my elephant and rider duke it out during a tennis match to prove this statement.

Stage 1 - “Just RELAX”: Every time I’m playing a tennis match, I begin the contest by telling myself to “Relax, and just have fun!” I say it over and over again following each point in the first few games as a reminder. I remind myself, “There is nowhere you’d rather be than playing tennis right now, enjoying being on the court, having fun, challenging yourself, being out in the sun, and expressing your values!”

The goal in doing this is to gently give my rider a not-so-subtle hint that it would be totally okay for him to take the next few hours of work off and let our Elephant just do its thing. I let my rider know that there will be plenty of work that we can focus on after the match, but for now, let’s let that elephant run wild, be free, and do the things that it instinctually knows how to do. Who cares about the outcome and let’s just see what this Elephant can do if you give it a hall pass for a few hours while we are all on the court together.

Stage 2 – “Are you going to do something or not”: My rider always listens at the beginning of the match, and it usually works up until the point when I’m pushed in some way. Whether it be by the score, a tight situation, the sun in my eyes, shadows on the court playing games with depth perception, wind affecting the ball trajectory, an opponent calling some tight lines…you name it. Inevitably, at some point in middle of the first set my original gameplan to give my rider the night off, relax, just have fun will get thrown out the window. It is in this time that I find my rider’s tune starting to change. He is telling me, “Dude…Are you going to do something here? You can’t relax right now, it is time to FOCUS! Lock in! Get your head into the match, fight, try harder, run faster, swing harder…be better!”

Sadly, most of the time I end up listening! I flip the switch and let the rider take back control of the elephant and try to force things to happen. We might have a little success at first, but eventually all hell breaks loose. Before I know it, my Elephant is confused and my rider is pissed because we are playing like crap and we all know we can do better than this. Now I’m stressed, I’m pressing, I’m worried about the score, the situation, and I’m feeling the pressure. My elephant is making all kinds of errors that should be easy shots that I know we can hit in our sleep. My rider takes harder control of the reigns to correct. My Elephant makes more errors.

Stage 3 – “This Sucks!”: I look up somewhere in the middle of the match and I think to myself, “This sucks…I don’t want to be out here right now and I’m not having fun! I’m hot, sweaty, tired, pissed, frustrated, angry, disappointed, confused, playing like crap, etc.” I think to myself, “Something’s got to change!”

Stage 4 – Reminder Why We Are Here: I remind my Elephant and Rider again why we are here today again. This isn’t about winning, being perfect, or anything like that. This is about expressing our values. I repeat…“JUST HAVE FUN! I tell my rider to go sit this one out and let’s let our elephant have some fun!” Eventually, I settle back in, let the Elephant play and I find myself back in a groove. We’re cruising along, not thinking about anything but the next point, and having a blast.

Stage 4 – “Way to Go Team, We’re Back in a Groove”: Once my rider realizes we are back in a groove, for some reason he feels the need to hop back into the conversation and share with us all to just keep doing what we’re doing. The elephant and I both think, “why did he just say that?”. The rider responds, “I’m just encouraging you all to stay the course…well done!” My Elephant and I are confused. How do we “stay the course, exactly?” When we make a few mistakes, the rider chimes in again and says, “Guys, don’t worry about what I said, stop thinking and get back to doing what we were doing!” A few more mistakes and now he is threatening to take back control. A few points later we are all a mess again and the cycle starts anew.

Stage 5 - The Conclusion: At this point in the match, it is a coin flip who will finish it out, the elephant or the rider. Obviously, I wish it is always my elephant, but sadly, a lot of the time it is the rider. Not surprisingly, the conclusion is the absolute most critical time in the match to let your elephant be your elephant if you can because your opponent is going through the exact same thing on the other side of the net. Whoever can successfully tune out their rider will be more relaxed, loose, and will 90% of the time win the match.

Here’s the most important thing to remember always, the rider cares about the outcome, the elephant doesn’t. Every heard the saying, “He who cares the least wins?”. Well, our elephants could give a shit about the outcome. They are only there to do what they do best, have fun, and feel free to be themselves in all their marvelous beauty.

This is the art of effort without effort. When my elephant is in control of my meaningful work performance, I’m never happier, having more fun, or producing better results. When my rider is in control, I’m a mess.

Don’t misunderstand me, each has an important place in our lives! Practice time can be a team effort led by the rider, but game time always needs to be a 1 elephant show!

Question: Who is in control when you are creating your art, the elephant or the rider?

---

Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? - An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathon Haidt