Everyone's An Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs think eclectically - right now we need more of this type of entrepreneur thinking. While we discover new patterns* like the emergence of 1980s synthesizers, for how we schedule the day, a theory of human behavior comes to mind. Abraham Maslow is one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. His biggest contributions to humanistic psychology was the development of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Maslow proposed that everyone must satisfy lower level survival needs before meeting higher growth needs.
Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs model in 1940-50s. His approach was a Gestalt humanistic psychology. Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over 10s of 1000s of years. In order to account for those like Mother Teresa, who were both self-actualized but also had the desire to "identify with something greater than the individual self," Maslow set a higher motivational level above self-actualization. He named this motivational level "self-transcendence."
Maslow talks about these levels in terms of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the principle by which your furnace thermostat operates: When it gets too cold, it switches the heat on; When it gets too hot, it switches the heat off. In the same way, your body, when it lacks a certain substance, develops a hunger for it; When it gets enough of it, then the hunger stops. Maslow extends the homeostatic principle to needs, such as safety, belonging, and esteem, that we don’t ordinarily think of in these terms.
As you've read in other blogs, it seems like that as we've all hunkered down, WFH (work from home) life and social distancing, taking care of our homeostasis for basic needs - now humanity is branching out to fufill higher level needs of belonging to a tribe. To feel social, creative, and nurture needs beyond food-clothes-medicine. How we listen to music is changing in response to establishing homeostasis.
Couch Concerts are where musicians perform, sometimes live, over video that streams to fans. Whether this is on Youtube, Zoom, Facebook Live or another platform, it's a new innovation in response to city shut down ordinances.
The Roots jammed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon: At Home Edition, in late March, via live video. Broadway musicals are such a classic piece of entertainment history and now, Broadway actors have united on Zoom, all over the world. Just another sign that we won't be stopped from finding ways of overcoming imposed isolation for safety.
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Flint to the stone tool, to the lever, to the wheel
Human beings show incredible potential to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances.
Virtual performances are now coordinated better to produce new mediums for musicians to showcase their talents as Tao & The Get Down Stay Down's Phenom music video demonstrates. Multiple performers in a video grid sync their singing and dancing together in this video.
Entrepreneurs are known for being innovative and coming up with solutions for the Rubik's cubes of the world when creating business ideas, startups, & unique methods for how to make money. I think in a sense, the rest of the populace has had to nurture their own entrepreneurial spirit. Thinking outside the box doesn't come naturally to everyone, but in the times we're living in right now, it's become almost second nature.
We're going to get through this rough patch and with new insight. I wouldn't be surprised to see new inventions that solve new problems arrive.
Misfits, poets and renegades are often viewed with envy, enigma and confusion as this collection of sometime misanthropic folks color outside the lines of societal expectations. However, in an unprecedented time like now, those who think differently are ahead of the curve (as we attempt to flatten the curve). We've certainly created new routines for new situations in 2020.
As Jeff Goldblum famously said in Jurassic Park:
Michelangelo was said to believe that the job of every sculptor is to discover the statue inside the stone, then chisel around it, freeing the statue to form. In many ways, the new conditions we live under are the raw unchiseled stone we are shaping into lives today.
Virtual music shows, blogging, hiking, learning a musical instrument or craft.
In my own case, I decided to finish writing a detective novel I started in 2018 & didn't finish.
We live in a very anthill busy-work society, often missing little beautiful details like seeing our reflection on dew drops in the morning, resting on the tip of flower petals and blades of grass. From all counts, we constantly try to escape thinking, reflecting and considering the choices we've made in life. It's much easier to accept that:
"This is just who I am, I can't change anything."
"This is just my life, it is what it is."
But..perhaps now, we can start to wonder...
"What are some questions I have avoided asking myself?"
"What are projects I've put off for a while that I can do now?"
This can be anything from interior design, to new workout routines, bicycling paths yet to be taken (or new road bicycles to be purchased), learning a musical instrument, starting a blog, archery, gardening, photography, starting an online business, learning painting or drawing, reading books friends gave us that we didn't get around to reading [guilty!] and maybe...asking yourself:
"What are some choices I've made, interacting with others, or choosing life paths, that...I could have chose differently? What can I do better going forward?"
I encourage you, dear readers, friends, family, entrepreneurs and blog fans - perhaps use these moments of lots of downtime, to do some personal growth. Professional development.
We've got the homeostasis down (or once you do get it down...find a good remote job), so now may be a good time to look within. Once we polish that pearl, of our personalities, outlook, specific plans to improve all areas of our life can come to fruition easier, more naturally.
Many studies have found that when people are baited by money, the whole carrot on a stick approach, to improve performance - productivity actually goes down. But we produce bette results from being intrinsically motivated (instead of extrinsic) because the joy of discovery. Including:
- discovering what we are capable of
- solving a puzzle
- finding out the answer or solution to a question/problem
People doing intrinsically motivated actions will outperform money-motivated, or goal-motivated actions - every time. This is true in the workplace, it is true for all ages, adults and children. In a study designed to find out how to motivate kids to do drawings at school, one group of children was told to play with the markers in order to receive a certificate with a gold seal and ribbon on it. In two other conditions, children either received no reward, or they were given the reward as a surprise after they played with the markers, and were not told beforehand that they would receive any certificate.
Children who expected to receive the reward for playing with the markers were significantly less interested in playing with the markers afterwards, whereas interest in playing with the markers remained consistent for children in the other two groups (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973).
Perhaps now is a good time to intrinsically motivate ourselves beyond homeostasis. To do something for the sake of doing it - we grow, and develop skills, and observation powers seeing opportunities in the periphery that would have been invisible to us before. I am reminded of the meditation book, The Miracle of Mindfulness where Thich Nhat Hanh describes "Washing the dishes to wash the dishes" instead of doing a chore. The idea was that if you washed each dish like there were no other dishes, and fell in love with the act of doing something for the sake of doing it - your actions took on new, deeper meanings.
Don't let me get "too deep for the intro" to quote J.Cole just perhaps consider repurposing the time we are spending sheltering-in-place at home. Instead of 'waiting it out' shift your mindset to getting sh%& done. Leveling up. Becoming your best you. Little steps, one at a time, build something great over time - shalom!
*New Patterns is also a great song by Sea & Cake linked in the word New Patterns above
