One of the books that has greatly impacted the way I think about teaching is Peak, by Chip Conley. Having had a chance to talk with Chip about his book has assured me that he practices what he preaches…and it has convinced me he is up to something big! Yesterday I took a page out of Chip’s book and asked my students about their unrecognized needs. Unrecognized needs are at the top of Chip’s Customer Pyramid and he defines them as “…what a customer would love that they hadn’t even thought of. It’s beyond expectations or desires. It’s when, as a customer, you are shocked by the level of mind reading that the company can do to understand what you truly wanted, even if you didn’t consciously know you wanted it.”. My customers, if you will, are my students. So I asked my students, “What needs did you have fulfilled that before this class you didn’t even know you had? “ This is what they said…
I don’t really have an opinion about Marshal Mathers (aka. the rapper M&M) one way or the other, but the other day I heard an interview with him and he said something profound. Apparently he had a serious battle with drug addiction and rather than dealing with it he hid it from everyone around him. He said that he didn’t want to admit he had a drug problem because that was showing weakness. Then, after he nearly lost his life to drugs, he understood a different reality…and this is where the profound statement came in: “When you admit your weakness it takes away their power.” Try it. See if it works for you. It did for me.
I don’t really have an opinion about Marshal Mathers (aka. the rapper M&M) one way or the other, but the other day I heard an interview with him and he said something profound. Apparently he had a serious battle with drug addiction and rather than dealing with it he hid it from everyone around him. He said that he didn’t want to admit he had a drug problem because that was showing weakness. Then, after he nearly lost his life to drugs, he understood a different reality…and this is where the profound statement came in: “When you admit your weakness it takes away their power.” Try it. See if it works for you. It did for me.
“When the mind is denied the emotional sting of losing, it never figures out how to win.” This is one of my favorite quotes from Jonah Lehrer’s, How We Decide. This doesn’t mean we should go out to lose but it does mean that when we give it our best and it doesn’t work out we can still benefit from the situation. If you read How We Decide you will see our biology is set up to learn from losing. If we use it right, losing now will help us avoid losing when it really counts.
