Notes from Course 1

I like collecting important points and sharing them with my classmates, it helps me greatly in absorbing the material (as well builds the community-feeling). So, sharing with you some pointers from Course1 (it can perhaps help you revise what you learned)-

1. You have personal gifts and strengths that can help you in life and also help other people. Identifying, amplifying, and deliberately building those strengths enables you to have a better personal life, professional life, and also enables you to more effectively serve others in our community. People sometimes make the mistake of focusing too much on their weaknesses. This can help, but deliberately building your strengths will get you much further in life and in your career.

2. Operating out of your strengths feels good, is personally fulfilling, and enables you to hit flow states (a mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one's sense of time).

As a result, you are much more effective and productive. Operating out of weaknesses is a drain. If you have to do work that you are not good at, then you wont be as effective.

3. Our collective – all of us together – Strengths

Altruism/motivation: Having a deep passion for helping people that drives all we do and creates a feeling of purpose and meaning.

Idealism: Having inspiring dreams and visions of just how unbelievably powerful and beneficial a project can be: imagining all of the good we might be able to create, all of the suffering we might be able to help heal.

Kindness: Being able to create a kind, cooperative, culture that is gentle and considerate with people's feelings.

Compassion: Being able to understand, connect with, and feel an urgency to resolve the needs, concerns, or problems of the people that we serve.

Relationship: Feeling a yearning for deep, meaningful connections with others, creating a community where people are able to be authentic and feel a sense of belongingness.

4. Goals v/s Systems

The basic argument here is that having a system is better than having a goal.

A system is a way of behaving that helps you move towards accomplishing something. A goal is usually and end state that happens after you have accomplished something. I think eating healthy is a good example. A goal might be to lose 10 pounds. In this case, you feel kind of bad about yourself until you hit that goal; and then, once you hit it, you kind of lose the purpose because the goal has been reached. If you relapse and gain wait again, then you fall back into feeling bad about yourself again. Contrast this with a system of eating healthy. A system might include things like: having a big glass of water prior to each meal; eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, and nuts; not eating after 9pm; and/or doing some level of intermittent fasting. You wouldnt integrate all of these new healthy eating behaviors at once. Instead, youd gradually introduce one and then another and then another over whatever period of time makes sense. The system enables you to continuously get healthier and healthier. You will eventually reach the goal, but itll be the byproduct of eating healthy.

Another example might be education. I dont really care all that much about grades for my kids. I mostly want them to learn and enjoy learning. We talk about what they learn, we draw things, they make their own educational videos, they explain things to me in their own words etc. I want them to have a system of learning and refining their perspective on things. If they have this system, then having good grades will be a natural result of enjoying learning.

Goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.

Goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term, but eventually a well-designed system will always win. Having a system is what matters. Committing to the process is what makes the difference.

6. Culture

Culture is the heart of how an organisation operates. A wise person once said: You teach what you know, but you reproduce who you are. We can have all of the best training content we want, but if our culture is not strong, then we will not be successful in growing a thriving, compassionate, community that will make a global impact.

Every organization has a culture whether by design or by default. When culture (including values and mission are not called out or made explicit, the organization defaults to an implicit or unstated culture. The unnamed culture is not always great for the end users or the community. An example of a common and implicit cultural rule or norm is that the person that makes the most money or the organization is the most important. People that work in this organization then, naturally, because it is the culture, start organizing themselves around ways to make more and more money. The ones at the top of the hierarchy are the ones that make the most money. An organisation such as 7cups cares less about money and more about compassion. We call out compassion and celebrate compassionate people because that is central to the work we do.