May 06, 2021

It Really is All About YOU! - With guest Ayelet Baron

If nothing else the pandemic has given us time to think it has given us space to re-examine the world and the various structures under which we operate and ultimately make the decision of whether or not we want to continue to adhere to these structures or whether we'd like to create something better.

Ayelet Baron

Ayelet is a multiple award winning author of the F*ck the Bucket List Trilogy and Our Journey to Corporate Sanity, and a co-contributor Thinkers50, Dear CEO. She had a very successful traditional career as a global strategy and innovation leader at Cisco.

Ayelet is recognized by Forbes as one of the top 50 global female futurists and is one of the top 50 Future of Work leaders for Thinkers360. Her current work focuses on conscious leadership and creating whole systems and lives.

I met Ayelet back in the mid nineties and was immediately taken with her inquisitiveness and her willingness to engage in meaningful discussion around new ideas and different ways of thinking to create a better world. Even after so many years, she has remained true to these ideals.

Powerful Notions from F*ck the Bucket List for the Health Conscious

Below are some powerful ideas I drew from her most recent book, F*ck the Bucket List for the Health Conscious

Much of our lives and the stress and depression that we feel is because we’re being guided by the values of others values we’ve inherited and adopted to make sense of the world so rather than listening to ourselves and determine whether the values that guide us are ours, we look for heroes; we look for false prophets so they can provide the answers that are already deep inside us

Many of the structures which guide our existence are old and outdated. Anything that separates us from ourselves and from others is bad for us.

We were raised to believe that the structures which govern our existence - the financial structures, the education structures, the political structures are the ones that we need to adhere to. It’s almost a one size fits all mentality and mental model for success, and that’s why so many people suffer, because deep inside they realize that they can’t conform to these structures. They just don’t make sense to them and they can’t fit who they are with who they are expected to be.

We need to learn to say fuck it to things that don’t fit our needs or who we are.

Many of us believe that our thoughts have to be right. That we need to validate our opinions constantly. Anything else forces us to question who we are in relation to the society in which we live. Sometimes we need to step back and become an observer particularly when someone is challenging us to believe in their opinion rather than our own.

In some ways we are held captive by what we were taught. We were made to feel guilty and feel shame if our actions did not adhere to these teachings. So the question becomes what now?

Think of the analogy of a sandwich. When you make a sandwich you engage with all kinds of different and carefully thought out decisions. What kind of bread do you use? What kind of toppings you’re going to put on your sandwich; are you going to toast it ? What kind of meat are you going to put in your sandwich, or are you just going to use vegetables, or a combination of both? We do this subconsciously, making these micro decisions that lead us hopefully to the perfect sandwich. This is much the same process is making a decision to change how we think and how we approach new opportunities