Convincing Ourselves

::SPOILERS::: I just finished watching the first and only season of the German/Austrian Netflix Orignal 'Freud'. A reimaging of the early life of Sigmund Freud, before he became famous for his work in psychoanalysis. The show starts off as an autobiography. It shows a young Freud who has just encountered hypnosis and is trying to convince his peer of its powers. The show gives the impression that Freud was a big believer in hypnosis early on and among his peers was the only one who believed that neurosis was due to 'thoughts and beliefs' rather than physiology. This is not entirely accurate, but the show does a good job of portraying him as a genius waiting to be discovered. The show quickly turns into a crime thriller with Freud coming into contact with a group of Hungarian rebels. These Hungarian rebels at first glance seem like trickers playing around with the feelings of people and letting them talk to their dead loved ones through Fleur, the medium. Howeve...

The skepticism to the phenomenon of hypnosis is quite prevalent and for good reason. Hypnosis has the same reputation that perhaps politicians do. Ridiculed by the public imagination and my media in general, you can't deny there are those who have good intentions, but then again there are those who tend to over-promise. There is, of course, significant literature on the uses of hypnosis in therapy and it is, in fact, a common tool. In fact, it is essentially a recognize mind-body therapy and has the same recognition in medical circles that meditation or yoga has. To put it in the bluntest terms, it is considered viable integrative medicine. Apart from my own personal experience, one can go through academic journals and case reports of hypnotherapy patients. Apart from the usual reduction in anxiety or depression, there are numerous cases of people who have been able to quit smoking, give up drinking, resolve irritable bowel syndrome, skin problems and in one case even s...

Below is an abstract of the paper I wrote for " Telling the story of business: story-driven research in entrepreneurship, business, and marketing",  held at the University of South Wales in January 2020.  ================================================================= A Narrative Inquiry into the role of psychological factors in helping a Pakistani Family Business owner-manager, navigate turbulent market conditions   By Umair Usman, Usman Carpet House, Lahore, Pakistan Abstract This is an ethnographic narrative inquiry to identify the psychological factors that helped my father, a Pakistan family business owner-manager, through the great recession of 2006/2007. The study is retrospective in nature where I discuss my time, as a part of the family business during this period we experienced. I recall what I observed, and experienced, were psychological and mental factors that were inherent in my father and supported him through this...

Is there such a thing as too little food? Well, there is surely is. Eating too little, going on a crash diet or leaving out a food group for no obvious reason are all examples of a haphazard, rash approach to managing health and weight. The main reason why we tend to go for these crash diets are  1. Impatience. 2. We want to look good rather than be healthy. The above two points usually manifests themselves in a ‘deadline’ usually around a wedding, a holiday or some other social event. As important as it might be for our egos to look for other people, the reality is that that we only look as good as we feel, and nothing good comes quick. One of the most extreme ways in which such black and white thinking becomes reality is anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is, of course, something I myself have struggled with. I have had loved ones who have struggled with Bulimia. Anorexia is essentially a killer, as it has the highest mortality rate of any mental heal...

Success and greatness are never assured, but there are lessons always to be learned from failure. In the business world, there are plenty of failures to learn from. Often we see individuals, business people and companies believe in a particular future, objective, strategy or product, often pouring in inhumane amounts of time and an obnoxious amount of money. This belief and singularity of focus is one the most important factors in the success of any endeavor, however many don’t make it till the end. The reason is that they give up too early. A great example can be that of the MP3 player. Many companies had tried and pretty much given up such as ‘The listen up player’ or the MPMan. Early versions of an MP3 player that never took off until Apple came along. Of course, by the time Apple came along, the internet was faster and MP3 was widely accepted. Apple also came along with a store, however, any number of companies, such as Sony (which had its own back catalog) were much bett...

This is a follow up to my article on goals: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-do-you-really-want-umair-usman/ When starting a business, a workout regiment, or any project for that matter, when starting with a blank sheet. No idea of how to move forward. We try things, we fail, we stumble, we fall and even with advice or a coach, we tend not to be able to attain what we set out to attain. A big reason for not being able to achieve our goals is because we lack a strategic plan. Now whats a strategic plan? A strategic plan is simply a break down of a list of goals over a period of time. All you need to do is to answer three questions to really set out a strategic plan -Where are you? -Where do you wanna go? -How do you get there? Example 1: BUSINESS Say you are starting a coffee trading business, how will you answer these? -Where are you? Define your objectives, mission, assets, strengths, weaknesses etc. All are necessary to understand know to figure out what can...

We are continuously bombarded by images of perfect people all around us. The perfect Supermodel ,Gigi Hadid, who never seems to get fat no matter what she eats. The perfect business person, Jeff Bezos, who seems to be able to grow his net worth almost effortlessly. Then there are the social media personalities. Influencers who give the apparence of recording their everyday lives, yet they seem to be always travelling, always eating great food and always looking great. At at the same time, our brains seem to focus on ‘perfection’. We have a friend who seems to never study but always get the best marks in school. We all have a friend who enjoys to eat but always remains skinny. We all have a couple of friend who’s life seems perfect. Yet the reality is that perfection simply doesnt exist. There is no one who has the perfect life. There is no one who has not been through depression, axniety, or even failure of some sort. This is something we know intutively, yet chose to...

To change and improve, it is necessary to identify the problem. If a problem is left unidentified or unacknowledged, there is little one can do about improving a situation. There maybe a lingering feeling of 'incompleteness' or 'urgency' but no direction to work on and no plan to implement. Clarity: Clarity of purpose by identifying a problem is therefore necessary. This is not something that is workable only for helping one improve oneself, or in any therapeutic setting, it is, in fact, the very essence of life itself. Identifying issues is necessary to improve everything from problems with ones exercise regimen or one's beliefs, to asserting quality governance in an organization to cutting costs in a company. Without clarity of the problem and issues at hand, one may simply take a haphazard effort of correcting whatever 'seems' to be the issue. More often than not this may make one attempt what is already being done, or what is easy, rather than wha...

I have written about failure before but it is not something discussed so often these days. Literature and gurus are out there to preach the path to success and how it is inevitable, when in reality the fact of the matter is that every now and then failure will come looking for you. Successful people are not those that never fail, they are the ones who keep going despite failing. When one fails, it is hard to get an objective look at the situation however one of the best ways that I have found of being able to convince myself that failure is only a part of life is by looking at other successful people are recognizing how many failure they have been through themselves. Keep in mind who failed Steve Jobs : The greatest example in modern times may very well be Steve Jobs. The once upon a time young heartthrob of silicon valley who was thrown out of his company. More than a decade later he came back and implemented the biggest corporate turnaround in history. His story, if anyone has...