Anyone out there?

Surprisingly, no one has responded to my first post. This isn't surprising, really, for like a tree that has fallen in an isolated forest, no one knows it is even out there. I wonder how long it will take for me to get my first response, if ever.

I am reading the book Seduction, by Robert Greene, who also has written books about power and war. I thought the Power book was great and have used his ideas in my daily life; the War one was okay, but nothing too great for someone who has studied military strategy for some time.

I am amazed at how so many organizations manage to function on daily basis and how they have done so in the past. It seems like incompetence can be rampant in an organization and the cause of it is never really addressed. Many people seem to be comfortable in this type of organization and don't seem to want to do much to get the organization into a better position. Are they doing this because they are afraid that they may risk their current standing? I suspect it is in the latter category.

I find myself somewhat disappointed about the way an organization seems to approach matters, lacking some of the organization skills to do as well as it could. I digress, though, for what I have to discuss here is how to do well in a variety of environments, especially those where the ability to accomplish change is not as good as one would like.

First. one must realize how much influence he can expect to have on an organization that is constrained largely by external forces that consistently push and prod it. It is also constrained somewhat by those people who have the reins of power over it. Stepping into an existing situation and seeing that your chance for influence is going to be small in the next six-months, you need to adopt at the outset the right expectations or you will become frustrated, and as much as you would like to think otherwise, it will soon affect your interactions with people.

All I can recommend that you do is find a few opportunities to excel and then keep your options open for future opportunities. I don't recommend leaving your place of work before at least a year is done because it may create the impression that you are a job hopper. That being written, doing it once in a blue moon after a series of successful jobs probably won't hurt you too much.

Is Pressure a Privilege?

Apparently Bill Jean King text messaged the Australian Open winner, Maria Sharapova, that "Pressure is a Privilege." It seems that this makes sense, that when you are on the top, there will always be a tremendous amount of pressure for you to continue to be on top. Would you rather be on the bottom? Well, isn't there pressure on the bottom as well if you want to succeed? I think pressure is a privilege and a necessity for people who want to do well. If you are satisfied with what you have then you won't feel pressure and things will stay the way they are.

So, you have to ask yourself how comfortable are you with what you have? If you aren't upgrading your skills or trying to get better at doing whatever you are doing, then you are happy with where you are and nothing is going to change, or so you think. The problem is, you aren't living in a closed system and that means there is always going to be pressure operating on you in way way or another. So, in order for you to maintain your level of happiness you need to constantly develop ways to better adapt to the pressure that is around you or as much as you can, have a system that puts more pressure on the outside world than it does on you. This, however, takes some energy and active participation on your part. Either way, you can't rest on your laurels too long for you may just become obsolete.