If you are reading this blog, go back and read the title. If you continue to read this blog, my apologies to you!<\/p>\n
January 31, 2023, I said to myself, \u201cFebruary is going to be the hardest month of the year.\u201d February 6, I began teaching a four-week, \u201cEntrepreneurial Leadership\u201d class at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. The class takes place over the same time my cohort meets on Monday, thus adding to my insane schedule for February. Here\u2019s a little snapshot:<\/p>\n
1.\tMondays, teach class and miss my cohort. In the afternoon listen to the recording of the class, write a summary to Jason by answering every question that was asked in the recording. Send to Jason by Wednesday.
\n2.\tTuesday and Wednesday grade posts from my class. Friday and Saturday grade papers from my class, while responding to my cohort\u2019s blogs.
\n3.\tTuesday or Wednesday attempt to read the weekly book for DLGP. Thursday, post my so-called blog…more like a blob!
\n4.\tAnswer emails and texts from students throughout the week
\n5.\tMarch 1st- completely drained and ready to move forward<\/p>\n
All of this while preparing to train 2 businesses on 2 separate days on how to prepare their staff to work through grief and trauma and preparing to preach one Sunday at my church. Being interviewed for a leadership podcast, meeting with my counselors to talk through a 12-week trauma healing group for our community, meet with one of our female counselors to begin an \u201cAnxiety to Peace Therapy Group.\u201d Finally, studying to teach the Book of \u201cLamentations\u201d to leaders in my community. Not to mention my own job as an Executive Director, being a husband, and father, and all that it entails. I was glad Jason asked me to ask my cohort to pray for me. <\/p>\n
Today is March 2nd and I am glad I had such an exhausting month. It helped me to think fast. So many times I said, \u201cHurry up and focus hard to grade this paper, so I can…(start the next task). Even Kahneman said, \u201cAs you become skilled in a task, it\u2019s demand for energy diminishes.\u201d [1]. I would not say, I became skilled in one month but personally, I can see how my insane schedule helped to stretch me and that was good…even though I would not want to do it again and I also realize my DLGP colleagues are just as busy (productive) as I am. \u201cStudies of the brain have shown that the pattern of activity associated with an action changes as skill increases.\u201d [2]. This emotionally and physically draining month proved to me that the more I read, the more I stayed in engaged with studying or grading papers, the more I could do it! Weird but true! This month my emotions and body felt like a muscle being stretched and ironically it feels good. This muscle stretching reminds me of when Poole wrote, \u201cTemplating furnishes leaders with the muscle memory to make them resourceful, because they are able to problem solve better under pressure.\u201d [3]. This leads me to the Kahneman\u2019s book.<\/p>\n
Kahneman begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as \u201clazy\u201d: We don\u2019t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. As I read Kahneman, I thought, \u201cDid any of my biases go into grading papers, answering questions in class, or responding to a student\u2019s email? How aware was my intuitive nature? [4].<\/p>\n
System 1 is a fast thinker. We use it to rapidly recall facts we know well, like the capital of South Africa. We also use it to intuitively process information we need quickly, like discerning emotions from facial expressions. System 1 requires little effort and can make quick decisions.
\nSystem 2 is a slow thinker. This is the conscious decision-maker. It uses logic to tackle complex computations that are too difficult or unfamiliar for System 1, like math problems. We also use it to intentionally control our behavior, like saying nice things about this blog when you really want to roll your eyes and wonder how this guy got into this program!
\n\tThis is an efficient and effective way for our minds to operate because we have limited mental energy. To preserve it, we use System 1 by default and only switch to System 2 when required. As I write this blob(g), it is evident my mental, emotional, and physical energy is gone and needs to be energized as System 2 takes over. February has really allowed me to see what Friedman said, \u201cLeadership is essentially an emotional process rather than a cognitive phenomenon.\u201d [5]. Through navigating this emotional month, I really believe I saw and felt the importance of being a well-differentiated leader. I had to navigate so many relationships and honestly, I believe I did well…this time.
\n[1] Daniel Kahneman. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013. 35.
\n[2] ibid., 35.
\n[3] Poole, Eve. Leadersmithing. Bloomsbury, Bloomsbury Business, 2017. 12.
\n[4] Kahneman.
\n[5] Friedman, Edwin. A Failure of Nerve. New York: Church Publishing, 2017. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you are reading this blog, go back and read the title. If you continue to read this blog, my apologies to you! January 31, 2023, I said to myself, \u201cFebruary is going to be the hardest month of the year.\u201d February 6, I began teaching a four-week, \u201cEntrepreneurial Leadership\u201d class at Fresno Pacific Biblical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2665],"class_list":["post-31510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02-kahneman","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31511,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31510\/revisions\/31511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}