Day: May 12, 2023

The numbers conceal the suffering of the victims of addiction and the anguish of their loved ones. 100,000 people died of a drug overdose last year in the US, and countless more in the rest of the world. The WHO estimates that drug addiction affects 38 million people worldwide, and alcoholism 380 million. Cocaine is a $130 billion industry in Europe alone, and has flooded the cities. A US congressional committee put the annual cost of opioid addiction at $1.5 trillion. In some cities, cocaine is quicker to order than a pizza. Police chiefs admit the war on drugs has been lost, but we still persist in thinking that if somehow we could cut off the supply of drugs we could get rid of the problem. Did we learn nothing from prohibition? Guidance for taking wise decision-making in critical situations in our life.

What if there was another way, rooted in learning, that could reduce the need to consume illicit drugs? How we can take wise decision-making in a critical time in our life, using wisdom?. We rarely talk about prevention. Imagine if there was a simple solution, rooted in learning about ourselves, which could help prevent this tragedy. Imagine the suffering that could be avoided and the money that could be saved – in policing, prisons, healthcare, etc. In this blog I explore a different approach – using our wisdom to explore what makes the human mind prone to addiction in the first place despite knowing of its dangers; and if that clarity of understanding can help us prevent it, and address the problem at its root. Whether it is drugs, alcohol, gambling, or internet addiction – the internal drivers are the same. https://blogs.humanwisdom.me/.
There are three common hidden drivers in our thinking that make our minds prone to addiction. They are not right or wrong, but just need to be explored and understood so they do not operate from behind the curtain of our awareness, shaping our behavior in ways that harm us.
The first of these is our conditioning or our various influences. If I am part of a group or culture where taking drugs is normal, I begin to do that too, often just to fit in. Or, if I am at a party and a group of people are taking drugs and seem to be having a great time, I want to join in the fun. I may have read some accounts of people who took drugs and said they had a great time, and I feel I want to experience that thrill too. The reason conditioning is so powerful in shaping our behavior is that we are usually not aware we are being conditioned by our environment, and think the idea of taking drugs, for example, is originally ours. If one is not aware of them, our conditioning influences can be powerful and overwhelm any thought which may whisper that it’s a bad idea to take drugs.
The second driver, and perhaps the most powerful of the three, is our need to escape from our emotional pain. I use that term broadly to refer to any disturbance in our thinking for which there is no easy solution – it includes the ache of feeling less than others; suffering a loss of a job or loved one; the misery of failure; the pain of unrealized desires; a feeling of not being loved and feeling lonely; or the ache of our inner emptiness and boredom. The force behind our need to escape our inner pain is powerful and any thought that says it may not be a good idea to hit the bottle is brushed aside. Much of our sorrow is of our own creation, but that is a subject for another blog.
The third driver is our mind’s need for stimulation and pleasure, as a balm for the emptiness we feel inside. Sometimes we are not aware of that feeling of emptiness because we keep ourselves so busy from morning to night. The modern age offers endless stimulation through the internet, which can also become a habit that is difficult to break. The nature of pleasure is such that when it ends it leaves a void that needs to be filled by yet more pleasure – the same amount won’t do. The one glass of wine a day soon becomes a bottle a day, and before we know it we have developed an alcohol addiction. We boast about our drinking and the fun we had, not pausing to understand that alcohol is a known toxin and linked to so many diseases. We never examine that inner emptiness that drives our need for pleasure and ‘fun’. There is nothing wrong with pleasure, by the way, it is an important part of being human. Wise decision-making is crucial for navigating life’s challenges and achieving success in various aspects of our lives. Having understood all this, what is the next step? How can we understand our conditioning, deal with our emotional pain without escaping from it, and understand pleasure so it has its rightful place in our life? I wish just reading this blog was enough to prevent the scourge of addiction but these drivers in us are powerful and need to be understood as they operate in us. We need to go on a journey of learning about ourselves in a gentle way, with a mind that is open to learning, and not judge ourselves as good or bad, right or wrong. That time we have to take wise decision-making. That is why we created the HumanWisdom app, to give each person the tools to understand themselves deeply, access their own innate wisdom, use that wisdom to meet life’s challenges with serenity and transform their own life. With this wisdom much of our sorrow can be avoided and more easily dealt with, reducing the need to escape through addiction. The app explores all the subjects dealt with in this article in depth. To find out more download the HumanWisdom app or visit humanwisdom.me and explore how it can help you live your best life.

Dear Harry and William,
Like all siblings who fall out, you must both be hurting and your father perhaps even more so, to see his sons unhappy and not on talking terms. This letter is for you, but also for people everywhere whose relationships sour and end up in conflict. Your suffering is not unique – the same patterns are repeated everywhere.
How can wisdom, which comes from a deeper self-understanding, help you to heal your relationship, and perhaps even more importantly, stop relationships breaking down in the first place? How can wisdom help to rebuilding trust in relationships?

Our mind assumes that others are responsible for the hurt we feel, but if we look carefully, our pain comes from how our mind reacts to situations, because another person may react very differently and not be hurt in the same way. Join me as we go on a journey to understand why our mind automatically reacts in the way that it does, and how that deeper understanding can bring illumination, freedom, compassion, and peace.https://blogs.humanwisdom.me/
All of us are conditioned by our many experiences and influences which are stored in our memory and become the ‘me’, including our old traumas. We are not aware we are conditioned and yet become attached to our conditioning. All our opinions, beliefs and narratives of how we see the world come from this pool of conditioning, which is ever-changing as we gather new experiences. We assume we are right, and those who see things differently are wrong. We try to convince others of our point of view and if they do not agree, we can withdraw or get upset. Conflict follows.
Unknown to us, our minds compare all the time – it’s an essential function and how we make sense of the world. But it can also cause envy and feelings of being less than others, and we can blame the hurt we feel on how others are behaving, even if they had no intention of hurting us. We do not see that our hurt is caused by the hidden process of comparison in our own thinking. It does not help that others may compare us to our siblings and this reinforces our narrative.
We all have emotional needs we expect others to meet and when these needs are not met we can get hurt and blame them for how we feel. This may be for love, or recognition, or to feel important, or to be listened to and understood. The closer our relationship the greater our expectations of others. We are not aware that these expectations come from our own thinking process and always regard them as reasonable. These needs are not wrong, but we are usually not aware of them. It is not easy to accept that our feeling of being hurt comes from our own unmet expectations.
We rarely communicate with wisdom. We often do not listen deeply enough to what is not being said, or pause before speaking to ask how it is going to be received. When we are criticised, our hurt and anger can make us lash out, saying things we may not mean and without a regard to the consequences.
When any relationship breaks down we blame each other and are able to cite situations where the other person behaved badly. We recruit others to agree with us, to justify our narrative of what happened. We have an urge to be right and believe we have been wronged. If we zoom out of the situation and look at the entire timeline of the relationship, we can see it is just a series of reactions in a domino fashion. Each person picks the episodes in the timeline that justify their narrative, overlooking their own role in the breakdown of the relationship. This is not unique to you. We all do it. wisdom tech how we are all rebuilding trust in relationships.
One more factor that plays out in the background is our inherent self-interest. It is wired into the way our mind functions. We are usually not aware of it and don’t want to admit it because we don’t want to feel we are selfish. If we look carefully though, it plays a role in most of the decisions we make, including in our relationships.
How can we apply this deeper understanding of ourselves to have healthy relationships, prevent problems, and heal the cracks that appear? how do we rebuilding trust in relationships?
Begin gently. Let your anger go for starters. Realize you are brothers, and deep down are the same human being. Your anger harms you and the people you love, and no one in the family can be happy as a result.
There is a simple 3-step process we can all follow. The first step is to be aware of what we are feeling, for example, we may be feeling hurt, or envious. The second step is to take ownership of how we are feeling and accept that the feeling comes from within us, without blaming ourselves or others. This is not easy. The last step is to ask a simple question – What is going on in our mind to make us feel this way? Doing the work of looking and learning about ourselves translates what we may have read, for example in this article, into a living reality in ourselves. This is like switching a light on in our own mind, and with this understanding, we can see that deep down we are all the same human beings – others also act from their conditioning, self-interest, and feeling of being hurt – as we do. Their mind is also comparing and they are not aware of it. They have expectations they are not aware of which they expect others to meet – just as we do. This understanding brings compassion because we see others are not aware of what is going on in the deeper layers of their own thinking, and that leads to compassion. With compassion, we can forgive ourselves and others, and this can heal the most intractable problems in rebuilding trust in relationships. This wisdom can prevent these problems from occurring in the first place. This leads to peace.
May you both find the courage to pursue this peace for yourselves. It will ease so much suffering all around, especially for your father, whom you both love in your own way. To find out more download the HumanWisdom app or visit humanwisdom.me and explore how it can help you live your best life.

Imagine a simple solution, based on learning, that could help people manage their own mental health, have happier relationships, and improve productivity at the same time. how to boost productivity and well-being at work.
In a recent survey, the US Surgeon General estimated that 76% of employees had at least one symptom of a mental health problem. 81% said they would be looking for workplaces that support mental health in the future. In a separate survey, a 2022 Gallup poll found that only 21% of employees were ‘engaged’ at work, 44% reported high levels of stress, and this was costing the global economy $7.8 trillion/year. They also found companies with high levels of engagement were 22% more productive. They defined engagement as employees who were keen to go to work. Your organization is probably no exception. The relationship between well-being, engagement, and productivity is clear.

How can organizations boost the well-being of their employees in an effective way, and thus boost their own productivity? https://blogs.humanwisdom.me/
The first step is to realize the importance of well-being at work, and not regard it as an employee perk and a tick-box exercise. If the CEO participates in the program and signals its importance, the rest of the organization will take it seriously as well.
Wellness is a complex subject and deciding what to do about it can be confusing. Most wellness programs are reactive, after the event, and deal with the symptoms, rather than the root cause. People bring their problems from home to work, and vice versa, so we need to address the entire person and support them in all areas of their life. We need to support people to deal with stress (80%), anxiety (20-40%), depression (8.4% in the US), relationship conflict (50%), addiction (10-20%), obesity (42% in the US), low self-esteem, bereavement and so on. #well-being at work
If someone is unhappy they are more likely to be disgruntled, focus on the negative, collaborate less, complain more, and be less engaged because they are preoccupied with their own emotional distress. #well-being at work
Preventing a fire is so much easier (and cheaper) than dealing with the consequences. Similarly, preventing all these problems through proactive intervention is better than reacting after the event.
Though all these problems seem disparate they have one common root – most are an automatic reaction from our thinking to external events. To get rid of stress for example we can either change the event (which is often not possible), or change our reaction to it. To change our reaction, we need to take ownership of our thoughts and feelings, and be curious as to why our mind is reacting in the way it is. Why do others react differently and not get stressed by the same situation? This curiosity opens the door to learning about ourselves and how our minds work, which leads to wisdom. This wisdom illuminates our thinking, and in the light of this wisdom many problems can dissolve, or we can deal with the challenges we face with a calm mind.
With this clarity we can be mentally healthy, less stressed and anxious, have better relationships, be happier, avoid and overcome addiction, and live with a positive and more generous attitude, being grateful and celebrating what we have, rather than moaning about what we don’t. This can also help us develop our communication and leadership skills, be emotionally intelligent, more resilient, and live with courage and integrity. This approach is simple, but the impact can be profound.
The HumanWisdom app helps people feel better now with breathing exercises and meditations and then takes them deeper to understand the root cause of problems for lasting benefit. It has detailed modules on stress, anxiety, addiction, happiness, managing emotions, criticism, relationships, communication, leadership, making better decisions, and being happy at work. It supports users to go on a journey of learning about themselves, connecting with their own wisdom, and living their best life. It has features like an online journal, a forum, short videos, podcasts, guided questions, exercises to boost self-awareness, life stories, and audio meditations. People who are happier in themselves are naturally more engaged and productive and well-being at work.
The app is part of the HumanWisdom Project that aims to help each person live their best life and make the world a better place. In addition to the HumanWisdom app for adults, they are developing sections for children, teenagers, and for parents. To find out more visit humanwisdom.me or download the HumanWisdom app – it’s free to download and has plenty of free content.

What makes leaders fail? How many leadership qualities make a successful leader? Why do so many people with such good intentions fail to achieve their potential? Why do so many make decisions which even they would regard as poor? The recent events in British politics are one example, but this is the same all over the world, in government and in organizations. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) estimates that 50–70% of executives fail within 18 months.

What makes leaders fail? Why do so many people with such good intentions fail to achieve their potential? Why do so many make decisions which even they would regard as poor? The recent events in British politics are one example, but this is the same all over the world, in government and in organizations. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) estimates that 50–70% of executives fail within 18 months. https://blogs.humanwisdom.me/
Are you in a leadership position, or aspire to be? What do you think of the importance of wisdom to help you be a successful leader?
A lack of wisdom is one of the main reasons leaders and executives fail. This wisdom comes from self-knowledge and a deeper understanding of the many hidden drivers in our thinking that shape our thoughts and actions. This can be learned by everyone but is not taught anywhere.
‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom’ — Aristotle
Consider two examples.
Integrity is the most important quality of leadership.#leadership qualities
Having an intention to live with integrity is an important first step, but is not enough. Leaders work under pressure, making many decisions a day. When making a decision we think we are making an informed choice. Our hidden self-interest is always operating in the background though, and it pushes us to do things that are primarily in our own interest, and not in the interest of the country or organization or department we lead. We can justify any decision to ourselves — our mind is very resourceful in that regard. In doing so we may not consider all the consequences of our actions. We may think it does not matter to tell a small lie, or do someone a favour because they have done something for us in the past, or break a rule because it’s a minor infringement and no one will find out, or accept a favour because everyone is doing that, or make a decision that suits our agenda rather than what is best for the country or organization, and so on. We may fool ourselves into thinking that people will not see through our real motives. Leaders live under immense scrutiny and most things eventually come out. Once people think you lack integrity and cannot be trusted on the small decisions, they assume you cannot be trusted on the big decisions either. Leadership is by consent in most cases, and once you have lost that trust, your days as a leader are numbered. Self-interest is part of being human and labelling it as wrong blocks further exploration.
Understanding and being watchful of your self-interest operating in the background needs wisdom, and allows you to live with integrity.
Leaders are often forgiven for making mistakes — that is just human, but a perceived lack of integrity, even on small issues, results in a lack of trust, and once that vase has hit the floor, it’s not easy to put back together.
Our unconscious fears play a significant role in decision-making.
These fears operate in the background shaping our decisions: what will people think of me; will this affect my chance of being re-elected or getting promoted; if this decision does not work out how will that impact me; and so on. As a result, leaders often duck the difficult decisions that need to be made, or they make decisions that they know are not in the wider interest, but they are unable to overcome their fears and make the correct ones. They may not even be aware that their fear was behind the decision they made. Fear shapes decisions in other ways as well — a fear that others are plotting against them can make leaders suspicious of everyone and live with chronic anxiety, which distracts them from doing their job. All this stops them from making the right decisions that their role demands. Fear is part of being human and nothing to feel bad about. It cannot be dealt with using willpower alone, because we are often not aware of it. This is why it is so important for those in leadership positions to explore the nature of fear and become aware of how it operates in the background shaping their lives. As a result fear can have its rightful place, allowing you to make the right decisions your role demands.
‘The only real freedom is freedom from fear
Wisdom, which comes from self-knowledge, can help you develop your emotional intelligence, resilience, leadership and communication skills, and sense of empathy. It can help you live with much less stress and anxiety and make the right decisions.
Wisdom is perhaps the most important subject that is not taught anywhere, but one which you can learn yourself, by looking and learning about yourself.

Are you in a leadership position, or aspire to be? What do you think of the importance of wisdom to help you be a successful leader?#leadership qualities
A lack of wisdom is one of the main reasons leaders and executives fail. This wisdom comes from self-knowledge and leadership qualities a deeper understanding of the many hidden drivers in our thinking that shape our thoughts and actions. This can be learned by everyone but is not taught anywhere.
‘Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom’ — Aristotle
Consider two examples.
Integrity is the most important quality of leadership.#leadership qualities
Having an intention to live with integrity is an important first step, but is not enough. Leaders work under pressure, making many decisions a day. When making a decision we think we are making an informed choice. Our hidden self-interest is always operating in the background though, and it pushes us to do things that are primarily in our own interest, and not in the interest of the country or organization or department we lead. We can justify any decision to ourselves — our mind is very resourceful in that regard. In doing so we may not consider all the consequences of our actions. We may think it does not matter to tell a small lie, or do someone a favour because they have done something for us in the past, or break a rule because it’s a minor infringement and no one will find out, or accept a favour because everyone is doing that, or make a decision that suits our agenda rather than what is best for the country or organization, and so on. We may fool ourselves into thinking that people will not see through our real motives. Leaders live under immense scrutiny and most things eventually come out. Once people think you lack integrity and cannot be trusted on the small decisions, they assume you cannot be trusted on the big decisions either. Leadership is by consent in most cases, and once you have lost that trust, your days as a leader are numbered. Self-interest is part of being human and labeling it as wrong blocks further exploration.
Understanding and being watchful of your self-interest operating in the background needs wisdom and allows you to live with integrity.
Leaders are often forgiven for making mistakes — that is just human, but a perceived lack of integrity, even on small issues, results in a lack of trust, and once that vase has hit the floor, it’s not easy to put it back together.
Our unconscious fears play a significant role in decision-making. Leadership qualities are important to become a good leader in every field of life. These fears operate in the background shaping our decisions: what will people think of me; will this affect my chance of being re-elected or getting promoted; if this decision does not work out how will that impact me; and so on. As a result, leaders often duck the difficult decisions that need to be made, or they make decisions that they know are not in the wider interest, but they are unable to overcome their fears and make the correct ones. They may not even be aware that their fear was behind the decision they made. Fear shapes decisions in other ways as well — a fear that others are plotting against them can make leaders suspicious of everyone and live with chronic anxiety, which distracts them from doing their job. All this stops them from making the right decisions that their role demands. Fear is part of being human and nothing to feel bad about. It cannot be dealt with using willpower alone, because we are often not aware of it. This is why it is so important for those in leadership qualities positions to explore the nature of fear and become aware of how it operates in the background shaping their lives. As a result fear can have its rightful place, allowing you to make the right decisions your role demands.
‘The only real freedom is freedom from fear
Wisdom, which comes from self-knowledge, can help you develop your emotional intelligence, resilience, leadership and communication skills, and sense of empathy. It can help you live with much less stress and anxiety and make the right decisions.
Wisdom is perhaps the most important subject that is not taught anywhere, but one which you can learn yourself, by looking and learning about yourself. #leadership qualities.

To find out more download the HumanWisdom app or visit humanwisdom.me and explore how it can help you live your best life.