Tag: Vision

Hallucination

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

The printing press changed the world. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid 1400’s, it made it possible for books and other written works to be reproduced with ease, putting information and knowledge in the hands of many who had never seen it before. Before that, if you wanted to reproduce a piece of writing it needed to be done by hand. But once invented, it flooded the world and people received fresh insight as the knowledge market shifted, changing the power dynamic across society. Not everyone was educated and able to read but it may have been one the most influential inventions ever.

The internet can be traced back to it, being like an electronic printing press, making information accessible to anyone who has the internet and a device to consume it. Not everyone can do that yet, but it is more than ever before.

Putting the unhelpful parts of the internet aside, now we have access to the greatest wisdom, insight and knowledge of everything that the human race has ever learned within moments of beginning a search for it. People living in the 1400’s could not have imagined having access to even a tiny portion of the information we do.

So, access to knowledge is not an issue then. Why aren’t we all geniuses, living the 4 hour work week, mastering all our habits and living as highly effective people?

It comes down to this: Implementation trumps information. You can have all the information in the world (and we do), but if you don’t do anything with it then it’s a complete waste of time.

Or as Walter Isaacson said, “Vision without execution is hallucination”.

We might have plans or ideas about what we want to do with life or about who we want to become and the difference we want to make, but it’s the actions that we put into place that take those hallucinations and make them into something real.

Tunnel Vision

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

Do you remember the last time you were really hungry? Not just peckish, but actually ‘missed out on lunch, breakfast was small and now dinner is late’ type of hunger. It is painful, but probably the hardest thing is that the only thing that you can think about in that moment is food. You can smell it, taste it and imagine how it would feel just being close to a meal that is ready to eat. Sure, you try to distract yourself and think about something else, but when the image of the perfect hamburger pops up in your mind then it’s all over. It’s food and nothing else that has your attention.

If you have experienced that, or something like it, then you are not alone. It is the psychological phenomenon of scarcity. There was a study that was done on the impact on people when they live on a starvation diet. Over time they grew so weak and thin, as you would imagine, but the impact on the mind was what caught researchers by surprise. They discovered that all the participants could talk about was food. They memorised recipes, compared food prices and shared about their favourite meals. So they decided to distract them with a movie but all they could focus on was the meals that the characters in the movie were eating. They were so consumed by what they didn’t have, their lack, that they couldn’t focus on anything else. They couldn’t see the big picture.

Not having enough of what you need can become the only thing that matters to you.

That is why the work of Opportunity International is so powerful. Providing a small loan to mothers who can start a business and create an income overcomes the scarcity problem, allowing people to shift their focus to other important things and make wise decisions.