Memo. How To Become A Leader! Part 22. Designing The Future

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

From the author: As a leadership coach, several years ago I came to the conviction that it is possible in any manager to reveal his hidden potential as a leader, and after many years of successful work, I decided to draw up a Memo "How to Become a Leader".

Today we will talk about our possibilities of designing our future.

(Continued. Read previous chapters)

How to Become a Leader! Part 22. Designing the future

"The future already exists, and therefore it is not surprising that it can be seen now."

(N. A. Kozyrev, Soviet scientist, astrophysicist at the Pulkovo Observatory)

So let's talk about our ability to design our future. As always, a little theory.

Cheat Sheet How to Become a Leader Part 22 Designing the Future

When the sign of time changes, the basic equations of physics do not change, therefore, time is reversible. In quantum mechanics, there is the principle of weak causality, which allows you to obtain information from the future in the case when this information concerns only the random component of the future event. Conclusions from the conducted experiments, as well as in the astronomical observations of N. A. Kozyrev - the future is "visible" only in that part of it, which cannot be influenced by either the observer or nature. In other words, the registration of future states of physical systems is possible only if these states cannot be changed.

At the time of the great Austrian scientist physicist L. Boltzmann, it was known that there is a close connection between probability and irreversibility. It follows from this that the difference between the past and the future and, therefore, irreversibility, can be included in the description of the system only if the system behaves in a sufficiently random way. Indeed, what is the arrow of time in the deterministic description of the development of society? If the future is somehow contained in the present, which also contains the past, then what does the arrow of time mean? The arrow of time is a manifestation of the fact that the future is not given. The poet Paul Valery wrote: "Time is a construction."

It should be emphasized that significant fluctuations (deviations from the norm) are observed in them near the bifurcation points (critical state of the system). Such systems seem to "hesitate" before choosing one of several paths of evolution, and the famous law of large numbers, if understood as usual, ceases to operate. A small fluctuation can serve as the beginning of development in a completely new direction, which can dramatically change the entire behavior of the client's life as a system.

I. Prigogine is a Belgian physicist, chemist of Russian origin, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in the field of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, is the founder of the largest scientific school of researchers in the field of physical chemistry and statistical mechanics, known as the Brussels School. One of the main achievements of I. Prigogine was that the existence of nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems was shown, which, under certain conditions, absorbing matter and energy from the surrounding space, can make a qualitative leap towards complication. Moreover, such a jump cannot be predicted based on the classical laws of statistics. Such systems were later named after him. I. Prigogine pays special attention to the consideration of the problem of time, the origin of the arrow of time, the nature of irreversibility. The essence of the scientific revolution taking place today is that modern science of the complex refutes determinism and insists that creativity manifests itself at any level of natural organization. Nature contains instability as an essential element - as a rule, there is not a single bifurcation, but whole cascades of bifurcations, as a result of which new macrostructures arise, so we cannot predict what will happen. In other words, the future is open. The world is in the making, in which we ourselves are participants. Thus, science acquires a new human dimension.

In complex physical systems, there are always chances and uncertainties. Paying attention to this circumstance, the scientist M. Vorotkov argues that time organizes uncertainties, controls them. At the same time, he interprets the influence of time as a manifestation of creativity in our world. With such an interpretation, the rigid determinism of the events of the world is excluded, because through the active properties of time it becomes possible to change the course of processes. This conclusion is in agreement with N. Kozyrev's idea of the absence of a rigid predetermination of the future. In N. Kozyrev's works, time appears as an independent phenomenon of nature, which through its physical properties actively affects the events of the world. We can say that time, according to Kozyrev, is, as it were, a special kind of substance that exists along with matter and physical fields. Kozyrev's conclusion: "The future already exists, and therefore it is not surprising that it can be observed now."

In general, the situation around the problem of time remains today to a large extent the same as it was several centuries ago. It is well illustrated by the words attributed to Blessed Augustine:

"Until I think about time, I know that there is time, but as soon as I think about it, I cease to understand what time is."

Telling truthfully about the past, people extract from their memory not the events themselves - they have passed, but the words prompted by their images: past events, touching our feelings, imprinted in the soul, as if their traces. My childhood, for example, is no longer there, it is in the past, which no longer exists, but when I think about it and talk about it, I see its image in the present, for it is still alive in my memory. Do they predict the future for a similar reason? In the images that already exist, do they anticipate something that does not exist yet? Precisely, however, I know that we usually preliminarily think about our future actions, and this preliminary thinking takes place in the present, but the action itself, premeditated, is not yet: it is in the future. When we approach it and begin to carry out the previously thought out, then only the action arises, for then it is no longer in the future, but in the present. I know that I measure time, but I cannot measure the future, for it does not exist yet; I cannot measure the present because there is no duration in it, I cannot measure the past because it is no longer there. What am I measuring? Time that passes but has not yet passed? The impression of someone passing by remains in our psyche, and I measure it, now existing, and not something that has passed and left it.

The great philosopher Blessed Augustine writes:

"Therefore, they are inaccurately expressed about three times when they say: the past, the present and the future; but it would be more accurate to express it like this: the present of the past, the present of the future. Only in our soul there are three forms of perception corresponding to that, and not somewhere else (i.e., not in objective reality.) So, for the present past objects we have memory or recollection (memoria); for the present real objects we have a look, view, contemplation (intuitus), and for the present, future objects have we are hope, hope, hope (expectatio). Speaking in this way, I do not find it difficult to understand the trinity of time, it then becomes clear to me, and I recognize its trinity … Time, becoming the present from the future, comes out of this cache, and the present, becoming the past, goes into some kind of secret? Where did those who predicted it see the future, if it does not exist at all? You cannot see what does not exist. And those who talk about the past would not be telling about it truthfully if they did not see it with their mental gaze, and you cannot see what is not at all. Therefore, both the future and the past exist. Will they not tell me that these times, past and future, also exist; only one of them (the future), passing into the present, comes incomprehensibly for us from somewhere, and the other (past), passing from the present into its past, departs incomprehensibly for us somewhere, like the ebb and flow of the sea? Indeed, how could, for example, the prophets who predicted the future, see this future if it did not exist? For that which does not exist, and it is impossible to see … So, we must assume that both the past and the future tense also exist, although in an incomprehensible way for us."

Bl. Augustine raised the problem of transforming "psychological" time into "physical" time. Psychological is the flow of time that creates in the human soul subjectively perceived sensations of the past, present and future. Thanks to the psychic abilities of memory, contemplation and expectation, we can measure time. Time itself is divided into different categories: cosmic time, historical time, psychological time, etc. The past is cognized through memory, the present through experience, and the future is cognized through active imagination. Augustine, in fact, writes about the same properties (psychological functions) of the soul - memory, attention and expectation - with the help of which various modes of time are cognized: past, present, future. This is why it is necessary for a successful coach to have a psychological education.

In my practice, I work in the present, working through the past, the client's history. Without analyzing his history, the client is doomed to "drag" his past with him into the future, and everything will repeat itself. So, working with the client's past, we find pain points, traumas and already from the standpoint of the present day, a real client, already wise by experience, we change our attitude to the past traumatic event, we become aware of it and through healing we get freedom from that part of the past that hindered successful and a happy life for the client in the present. For example, when a client was 10 years old, his parents divorced and he received a serious psychological trauma, which seriously interferes with his relationship with girls. Unconsciously, there is a fear in him to divorce and leave his unborn child without a father. We work through this trauma and the client is freed from the trauma of the past and happily marries. Let's get back to it. So, today the client is 32 years old. When he was 10 years old, as a result of a divorce, he received an injury that tormented him to this day. For him, as a 10-year-old boy, he, as a 32-year-old man, is a person from the Future, which will happen in 22 years. That is, my client, at the age of 32, from his Present, which for him, as a 10-year-old is his Future, returns to his Past and changes his attitude towards the trauma situation. To be clear again, this is important. Not only the past influenced the future life of the client, but working with a specialist, the client from his Future changes his Past, his Future changed his Past. And now, having changed his Past from the Present Future, the client with the help of a specialist can safely design his New Future.

In the preface to "Principles of Mechanics" the famous scientist G. Hertz writes:

“Derivation of the future from the past is based on the construction of a special kind of internal images or symbols of external objects … in the external world some time later, or they will be obtained as a result of our own intervention … The images in question are our ideas about things. (see Chapter 19 Our Views).

Another famous German scientist, philosopher E. Casirer, as if continuing the thought of G. Hertz, writes:

"History is possessed only by the one who desires and acts, goes out into the future and determines it by his will … Clarity and confidence is required when the" I "is able to imagine the image of the future life and direct my deeds (actions) to it … The ability to foresee the future and know the past constitutes the essence of the human mind."

… At each session with a client, through the analysis of his history, we recover his true identity bit by bit. He clearly and confidently begins to realize himself, his real and genuine intentions and desires, goals and dreams. And that's when the creative and imaginative design of the future begins. It is always an unforgettable picture when I observe the delight of the client, when he successfully begins to design and build his future.

17 years have passed since I started working as a coach.

Impossible for others will soon become possible for you

Let's continue.

Damian of Sinai, leadership coach, expert psychoanalyst, Head of the Center for Strategic Coaching and Psychotherapy "Innovation Values"