What Works for Autism Can Work For You – Ignite San Francisco

In May I gave a presentation at Ignite to a packed theatre on the tools I use to help parents of children with special needs around the world. But there was a catch: the presentation was limited to 5 minutes and 20 autoforwarding slides.

The talk was on the simple tools that account for improved performance. What I’ve found from my years working with children with disability is that the tools that can help kids are simple, and applicable to everyone.

Enjoy!

Pick Your Music Carefully: Your Performance Depends On It

Over the last 6 months of daily training I’ve changed a lot of little daily habits. This month I made one new change that surpasses all of my other experiments. The new addition? Music.

Play Music that Triggers a Performance Mindset  (Photo: Fe Llya)

Simple things like arriving to my ballet class 15 minutes early to mentally prepare have made a huge difference in my ability to perform at a high level. Now that I have seen the impact of small changes, I’ve begun looking elsewhere for practices that will expedite efficiency in other aspects of my life. Here are a few that I’ve experimented with:

Earlier this month, by happenstance, I played one song on repeat for my 10 minutes drive to the dance studio, and as I walk from my car. The result was immediate. By hearing the same, energizing song over and over I arrived at ballet ready to perform. I had one of my best ballet classes ever. After this singular experience, I questioned what made it so impactful. Here’s the song that I originally used to trigger my performance:

Throughout my experimentations, I have been giving a lot of thought to mindset: the most useful mindset for parents with kids with special needs, an athlete about the start performing, or the CEO of a company in the midst of a heated meeting. Today I’ll be detailing how I’ve begun using music to effectively trigger a performance-ready mindset.

Your Mindset Matters

A few words about mindset: it matters! When I am entering ballet or my office, if I’m in any way distracted or distraught it can take me minutes to acclimatize to the new environment. In professional dance those minutes can mean the difference between being warm and lose, and getting injured. In business that can mean the difference between closing a sale, and going bankrupt. I have discussed the mindset necessary to perform well but I’ll spend a moment specifically on the idea of presence.

Attached to the Outcome? Doomed to Fail. Try These Shortcuts!

Anytime someone is completely fixated on a specific outcome, they are doomed to fail. I recently found this to be true when a broken toe severely limited my ability to turn in ballet, but we see examples across the board – from special needs to athletic performance to business successes. When someone is fixated on things going a certain way they are much more likely to go in the opposite direction. This post picks up where we left off last week: on some solutions for being attached to the outcome.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein

Fail Better

Though we use the word failure, what we mean is more complicated. We have a stigma around failure. We believe that failure is bad, never mind how many times a child falls down before he learns to walk. Actually, failure is a fundamental part of learning. We are built to try and fail many times for each success. This didn’t help on the day I was determined to ride a “broken” motorcycle but embracing the concept of failure as part of any growth is the simplest pathway to overcome the limiting belief that failure is bad.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. –Samuel Beckett

Think Different

The most common situation I see is someone wanting a specific outcome, and thus getting committed to that outcome regardless of the path necessary to get there. One of my favorite shortcuts entails circumventing the attachment by reorienting the outcome. If I still want to train my ballet turns while recovering from a broken toe, I can strengthen my non-dominate side and visualize turns on my dominant side. Trying to force myself to turn on my broken/dominate foot doesn’t work. What happens if we come up with several more variations? Greater flexibility.

5 New Routes Challenge

I have a challenge which I call the “5 New Routes” challenge. When I drive I usually have a systematic route that I take to my destination. To add some variety I visualize 4 other entirely new routes to the same destination. These might be routes that I will never actually drive (like from San Francisco to Mexico on my way to visit family in LA). The point isn’t the routes themselves, but to expand the current realm of possible options. When I began this exercise years ago I would map out routes on paper. These days, I just visualize the trajectories beforehand. Build the skill of flexible thinking before circumstances demand it.

Attached to the Outcome Means You’re Going to Fail

I’ve failed a lot in the last year. I have failed to:

As I’ve reviewed these and many other example it is interesting to see that there is one primary cause behind all failures: the outcome. When we are fixated on a predetermined outcome we’re likely to fail. As always, I’m going to use my current physical study (ballet) as exemplar of this concept, but this principle applies far and wide beyond the relatively narrow scope of motor learning.

First though, I’ll introduce my current nemesis, the pirouette:

Attached to an Outcome? Doomed to Fail.

In my daily ballet class there is a one student exemplifies fixation on an outcome. Every time she goes for a pirouette, she attempts a triple. There are many people in my class who can do triple pirouettes with ease, but this woman can’t. She can barely complete a double. And she is so fixated on getting a triple that she has stopped improving. You don’t need to understand the pirouettes for this process to sound familiar. We have all wanted an outcome different than our current reality so much that we tried to deny the current state of things. I see this denial among special needs parents, with athletes, and in companies who want a different reality. And I certainly recognize it in myself. It is understandable, and I’m excited to say that there are new opportunities available.
If there is one pivotal difference that I see between children who overcome their setbacks, athletes who make quick progress in fitness, or companies that tackle their challenges, it is mindset. Mindset is so rudimentary that most everyone’s reaction is “of course!” but when I coach or mentor, this is the single area where I see the greatest (and easiest!) lasting difference.

When Practice Makes You Worse

I was on the dance floor, having repeated the steps half a hundred times. The beautiful woman opposite me was still smiling, but it wasn’t just my imagination: the corners of her mouth had started to turn up into a sneer. The teacher to my side, said “No, like this!” and demonstrated one more time. It was a simple dance movement, a Swing dance step that thousands of people know by heart. I tried, and failed – again. I just couldn’t get it.

I went to bathroom to splash some water on my face. I had come out to try a new type of dance as a fun experiment, and here I was stressed out and making zero progress.

Robin-dance
As I stood facing the mirror, I thought for a moment about practice. I imagined all the times I had failed to learn to flip. And those times attempting the gymnastics giants when I had fallen on my head. The frustration of doing tango poorly in Argentina or of feeling out of place practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In that moment, something gelled and I realized that most of what we know about practice is wrong.

Here are some of the ways that my practice was actually making me worse:

Cultivate Presence

The last 5 months have a been a whirl-wind. Since January 1, 2014 I’ve founded a corporation, attempted to launch a 500+ person workshop in the Bay Area, failed to publish a book, begun ballet and achieved triple pirouettes, spoken at Stanford University, UCSF, and Ignite SF, and more.

Today I’m going to look at something I’ve been exploring as a part of all of these projects, and probably the single biggest factor that keeps me sane. I have been cultivating presence. First, though, let’s look at this presentation which I gave to a group of professional runners.

So much of our day-to-day is spent in a state of judgement. As an example, just one time bend down and touch your toes. About 98% of the population has self-judgements about not being flexible enough. When I ask almost anyone to bend down and touch their toes, they immediately begin to judge themselves for not being flexible enough.

Every one of the runners I was working with in the video noticed differences after doing the second series of exercises. Why? Simple: they were much more present during the exercise. They were curious about what they were doing. Without former knowledge of the activity they didn’t have as many pre-held judgements. I gave the instructions slowly and carefully. And I gave very different instructions the second time. I had participants notice themselves and pay attention to their environment. We did a lot of variations. But most of all I didn’t put the runners in a situation that triggered all of those self-judgements they had about their flexibility. I had them put their hands on your knees and round and arch. This isn’t a series of movements that most people have ever trained, and it certainly isn’t one that most people have judgements around.

Being present is a seemingly simple concept with vast implications. People who practice being present have more (to quote Martin Seligman) self-reported well-being. Athletes who take presence to an extreme in flow states are exponentially more effective. I write better.

What Worked?

In the movement sequence above, here are some of the aspects I employed to help people notice a difference:

Why do these elements impact the runners’ flexibility? Simple. They are some of the simple building blocks that allow for increased presence. By slowing down the nervous system, reducing fear and stress, and allowing time for learning, change happens much more quickly. But what are specific ways that we can use being present in our daily lives?

I “Should Have” – What I Learned In 6 Days Not Working on a Caribbean Beach

We all have “should haves.”  Any time we want something we repeatedly tell ourselves ways that we “should have” done better. I am recently home from 6 days in the Caribbean and I “should have” practiced more ballet.  In this post I’m going to explore some of the intentional and unintentional positive consequences of taking time off, and how unrelated skills can transfer to a primary focus.

The view from my patio

The Value of Rest

Less than a day home and I am reflecting on how I might have used my time abroad better. However, I’m also examining how what I did will supplement my training. Like most who work hard in their domain I am not great at taking time off. While the idea of relaxing with a mojito on a white sandy beach might sound like fun, I spent much of my first day in Mexico fretting that I wasn’t practicing ballet or building my business. I found several different ways around this dilemma, which I’ll detail.

Why It Is Hard to Turn Off

Before going into the reasons, though, let’s look at some of why it is hard to take time off. I’ll start with a fitness metaphor. I believe (and scientific studies confirm) that training different parts of the body on different days is valuable, and that even a rest day is useful every week or so. Why then was it hardy to let go of work on the beach? I believe rest is useful in fitness, but why not then in another? As soon as I let go of my self-blame over not working I was able to ask that question without judgement and realized I derive some satisfaction from the feeling of productivity, even if that internal worry concern is just the circling of a treadmill. What this meant is that I while I can intellectually rationalize the value of rest, when it comes to resting on the beach I didn’t actually believe that. A short series of questions enabled me to apply what I believe about variation and rest days in exercise to resting on the Caribbean. Here are a couple of specific stratifies for enforcing rest:

Becoming a Ballet Dancer – How I Study Ballet 7 Days A Week

I have been taking ballet class every single day for more than three months. This is an accomplishment the lack of which I often hear people bemoan in their exercise routines: they want to do more, but don’t. I’ve been there, too – wanting more exercise than I actually do. How, then, have I managed this seemingly heroic feat of fitness proficiency?

I also record regular videos of my practice at GiveIt100.com
I also record regular videos of my practice at GiveIt100.com

My answer is simple: I haven’t. It hasn’t felt like a challenge. It is no longer an insurmountable task for me to try to accomplishing a regular fitness schedule. It has not been a challenge. I see this also in my personal training clients – going to the gym and working out daily strikes many people as an impossible feat, but when they are actually exercising regularly it feels easy. What changed?

Pleasure in Movement

The biggest difference I see between people who exercise regularly and those who don’t is the pleasure in movement. This by itself won’t make the exercise habit, but the lack of pleasure will probably break it. If you haven’t found a form of movement or exercise that you enjoy, yet keep looking. I went through a dozen martial arts before find some that I wanted to study. I also have some thoughts on community, that shape the kinds of training I do.

Start small

Using the TinyHabits.com model, I made one small change at a time. Since I was already somewhat familiar with ballet, this meant taking one ballet class. When I found that I liked that, I scheduled one more. I had planned to just take one a week for three months. I quickly moved to 2 a week, 5 a week and now take between 7 and 9 classes each week. It is hard to believe at first, but when we start with (and celebrate) small changes, they quickly grow bigger and then can go exponential.

Begin With Yes

The next biggest thing is that I never ask myself “would I like to go to ballet.” Sometime if I’m injured or ill or out of town for work, I am not able to make a class. But when I’m home I never “Would I like to go” because sometimes the answer to that question is “No, I do not want to take ballet today. I do not want to get out of bed!” Instead, the tacit assumption I hold is “I’m going to ballet.” Or even: “I am going to ballet.” Starting from this standpoint it is much easier to actually get to class.

The Last Three Movements

I recently listened to an interview of Josh Waitzkin by Tim Ferriss. Josh Waitzkin is the subject of the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer and the author of The Art of Learning, an elegant account of the journey from novice to peak performer. The podcast is action-packed, but here is one specific take-away that I have started applying, and that anyone can use.

Josh talks about Billy Kidd, former Olympic Gold Medal downhill skier. Billy Kidd once asked Josh: “What are the three most important movements in any ski run?” Josh explains that the most important are the last three movements because they shape the muscle memory that the skier remembers as he makes his way back up the mountain.

The last moments of any physical activity are so easy to do sloppily. Many times at the end of a ski run I have found myself finishing with shoddy, ill-considered movements. And yet that poor performance at the end does have a lasting impact. If the last movements are sloppy, we continue to practice sloppily. However, if we execute with fineness, we are much more likely to maintain that same pattern thereafter.

I remember as a cross-country runner in high school running races with no chance of being overtaken or overtaking the next runner. It was tempting to stumble across the finish line, to not give the last 100 yards my all. Over time I learned that the internal reward for finishing at my very best shaped  my whole experience of the race. I found myself wanting someone to compete against, or short of that creating an imaginary runner to struggle against. By creating additional pressure at the end of the race I encouraged myself to try up until the very end and came away feeling better about the whole experience.

As I put together Josh’s account and my experience running I remember a cognitive bias know as the Peak-End Rule. It turns out we do not evaluate past experiences based on anything sensible like an average of an overall experience. Instead, as a heuristic, we remember a combination of the peak experience and the very last moments. Take, for example, an experimental subject who is subjected to painfully cold ice water for 5 minutes. If the ice water is kept at an extremely uncomfortable temperature for exactly 5 minutes, the subject will report the experience as more negative than if they experience the same water for 5 minutes plus 1 additional minute at only a slightly less agonizingly uncomfortable temperature. That is to say, someone who experiences 6 minutes of discomfort, where the last moment is slightly improved will report a better overall experience than someone who just experiences 5 minutes of discomfort! This is a wild bias but explains Joss’s theory of physical performance – that the last three movements matter a great deal.

In recent months I have been practicing ballet every day. Ballet classes are designed to end with the most dynamic movements – my favorite. But now more than ever I will strive to make those last three movements my most precise of all.

The Attitude That Works to Learn Anything

The Attitude that Works is how I describe an attitude I bring to my coaching with special needs children, and try to apply everywhere, in any learning environment. The attitude consists of three parts:

For background, I’ve been developing an attitude that works for years. When I talked a guy down from jumping off a bridge in college, this is what I was using. This philosophy is what makes me effective in coaching children, and also throughout my physical studies. I am by no means perfect – far from it – but formulating guiding principals has been extremely useful as a reminder of what creates an effective environment for learning.

Love

When I began working with children with autism I discovered that they often lack the social standards that we take for granted. I found that the only way to work with these special children was through being completely compassionate to their experience, even if I didn’t know what that experience was. These children rely on their sense of those around them – their intuitive feel for the attitudes held by others – instead of just the social niceties. It turns out that we all sense the attitudes held by those around us, whether we recognize them or not, and that these attitudes profoundly shape how we behave. When we are compassionate or loving with someone else we are much more inviting to that person, and more likely to foster a connection. The rule holds true for ourselves, as well: when we are compassionate with ourselves our brains are literally more available to process new information and form novel connections.

Finding Flow – How I Quadrupled My Writing Output In A Day

In line with my goal to write more regularly this month I have been making a red X on my calendar for every day that I write at least 500 words. Last week I made a strange and wonderful discovery that more than quadrupled my writing output. I usually struggle to put pen to paper (or keys to keyboard), but last week, in between bouts of hands-on coaching with a little boy, I found myself completely immersed in my writing, coming away with as many of 4000 words in an hour, when I normally average about 500. What’s more, the content is clear, concise and insightful. (I’ll be posting it everyday on the Move Autism blog for those interested.)

I draw a  red X when I write at least 500 words that day. Hat tip to Nathan Barry for the idea!

It just so happened that as I was working so prodigiously I was also spending a lot of time commuting, which meant time to catch up on podcasts. Somewhere during the week I listened through an interview of Steve Kotler on the James Altucher Show.

Steve Kotler is among the word’s foremost experts on Flow, having himself recovered from lime disease through enter flow states while surfing. For background, flow is a term in psychology that describes a heightened state of performance, accompanied by energy and complete immersion. As I understand it (and please comment if I have anything incorrect!) flow is characterized by the release of seven different neurochemicals, of which dopamine is just one. Simultaneous, and perhaps because of this release, the brain exhibits alpha-theta waves and is termed to be in a “flow state.”

In the podcast interview and in his book The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance Kotler explores the fascinating domain of optimized performance, which is what I experienced in my own humble way during my more-than-quadrupled daily writing output.

I’ll delve more into the background and science of flow another time. For now, I’m more interested in making these big idea applicable to all of our daily lives.

First off, these are some of the aspects that I find appealing about the various physical activities I study (including gymnastics, handstands, riding motorcycles, jiujitsu, muay thai, ballet, tango, and others):

I am currently training ballet, which fulfills all of these characteristics.

Stakes

While there is nothing that I do daily in my practice of ballet that is physically life-threatening, I have intense self-judgement around many different aspects of the dance form. One of the reasons I continue to training is to go through the process of overcoming those fears. (I also simply love to dance!)

Challenging

The scope of the art form, especially when I am dancing alongside dancers from the world-renowned San Francisco Ballet, is not easy to ignore. I have a lot of experience in training dance, but did not begin my training until 19 years old and haven’t practiced regularly over the last decade. I am dancing alongside people who have trained every day of their lives for over 30 years and are among the 0.01% best in the world.

 Performance Can Always Be Improved

Ballet can always be done better. It can more easily measured by what can be improved, than by an objective scale.

These three aspects are essential elements to entering a flow state. Challenge, increasing complexity, and high stakes are essential to triggering the release of neuro-chemical cocktail and entering “flow”.

Slight Variations

Kotler also discusses the amount of challenge required within a given activity. It is not effective to demand a many-fold improvement over what is currently possible. As I’ve discussed before, had I tried to do a gymnastics giant on my first try I would have landed, literally, on my head. For those of us who are over-achievers, it might actually be best to try for less rapid growth because the most successful range of challenge is about 4% increase on what is already possible. If I can do handstands for example, then perhaps a next step might be to do a handstand on a horizontal bar just a foot off the floor?

Given my current levels of ballet dancing, it is pointless to aim to keep up with a dancer from the San Francisco Ballet. Instead, I am identifying my own areas of improvement and working on those.

Application Everywhere

The elements I’ve discussed so far also fit align with how I coach children with special needs. The little boy I was working with last week had periods of stillness amidst very rapid and somewhat uncontrolled running around the room. While I did not try to forcibly change his behavior, I did encourage him towards stillness and more focused attention. Expecting him to adhere to our own capacities for attention just aren’t realistic. Instead, the question I asked myself was: “What are his next steps for learning to concentrate?”.

During my work with children I often enter a state of intense focus, where I am not substantially aware of what’s going on around me. Many of my software developer friends speak of entering this level of concentration when solving an exciting problem. This concentration isn’t necessarily anything more than what we all feel when reading a really good book. (But as an aside, that concentrated attention focused on a child almost always results in the child increasingly interested in me and our activities. If you want someone to pay attention, given them your concentrated attention and see what happens.)

Last week, when I came out of those periods of intense focus with the little boy, I drove to a local coffee shop and settled down at my computer. When I looked at the clock again I found that I had written many thousands of words, completely lost track of time, and had little memory for anything other than my writing. I don’t know for sure that this state of enhanced performance is the same as that experienced by TRX bikers flying down mountains, but it was a different kind of attention that I have ever experienced before while writing.

I’ll be continuing to pay close attention to my behavioral patterns around physical and creative practice in the near future. My goal is to regularly duplicate last week’s performance!

Do you have experiences of flow to share? Share your stories in the comments!

Speaking at Ignite San Francisco (And How to Create an Effective Talk)

I recently gave a talk at Ignite San Francisco. The presentation was well received and fun to deliver. Below are my slides from the talk. In this post I’ll break down my process for becoming one of the speakers (hint: just ask!) and how I built my talk.

If you don’t know Ignite, take a look at some of these. I learned about Ignite from my friend Karen Cheng, who had given talk previously. I asked for an introduction to the organizers and asked Karen’s advice on how to get chosen for a position among the speakers.

Ask For Help

Which brings me to the first things I learned from this experience: Ask for help! Even if you don’t need it, but especially if you can use it – ask people you respect for their thoughts and opinions. When possible, ask from a place of excitement rather than desperation. I’ve been on both sides and know that asking from desperation or being asked from a desperate person are both no fun. Karen gave me two pieces of advice. The first was an introduction to the organizers. The second, which I would never have thought to do myself, was submit three talk requests to be considered. I don’t know which of these made a bigger difference, but together they worked.

Introductions Matter

This idea is tossed around a lot but my experience of speaking at Ignite reinforced the idea. Having a friend on the inside, of course, means I’ll be more likely considered for a speaking position. This isn’t biased and unfair treatment, it just makes sense that the organizers are busy, have limited time, and are more likely to choose someone who is, by affiliation, not crazy, than someone they don’t know.

Scratching For An Idea

I take the word “scratching” from Twyla Tharp, who discusses scratching as a part of the creation process in The Creative Habit. My scratching looked like this:

How to Learn From Entrepreneurial Manic Depression (And How To Avoid It)

I chose the header of this blog for a very specific reason. The up and down arrows are a reminder to me that learning anything has ups and downs. Last week I wanted to punch things and felt like sleeping all day to avoid reality, but had to get out of bed, answer emails, issue refunds, and make sure I wasn’t sued. Within the course of 3 days, the project that I have put 80 hour weeks into for the last 4 months folded, I and two friends lost $60,000 in business, and I was threatened with a lawsuit over the publication of an e-book. Rough and cause for a step-back.

So, what do you do when life knocks you down? For a start, watch this video…

A couple of things I’ve learned already from last week’s dip:

Build the Habit of Self-Care

I cannot emphasize self-care too much. For the last four months I’ve exercised 6 days each week. I always eat (at least) 3 meals every day. These two components made getting through the more difficult moments last week possible. I build habits that reinforce taking care of myself because they feel good on a day-to-day basis, but I am really, really grateful for them when the going gets rough. Last week there was never a doubt when I would exercise or what I would eat for breakfast. Similarly, I find mediation (or my preference: gratitude training) works best though daily practice.

Beginning Ballet

I vividly remember the first time I stepped foot into a ballet studio. I was 18, a freshman in college, and so excited to have discovered a new world of dance. I was wearing tight corduroy pants that day and coming in off of my psychology 101 class. Curious, excited and not at all knowing what to expect I stepped into the ballet studio.

Now, I wonder how I ever went back after that first day. Shamefaced and humiliated to find that I was the only guy in a class full of beautiful women, doing movement that I had not known previous was possible for the human body to do. And I was trying to “dance” in corduroy, where my teacher and all of the students in the class were wearing tights.

And yet, I did go back. Something about that first class and my early exposure caught my imagination. The pointe shoes, the elongated legs, the fluidity of the students taking their arms in elegant circles. The students’ limbs seemed almost to reach beyond the boundaries of the room.

Pointe shoes (Photo: Kryziz Bonny)

I continued taking class all of the rest of that year and in fits and starts through the rest of college. Rarely did I step away from the barre, as ballet offered at Reed College was just a twice-weekly barre class – no practice working off the barre, no center work, and no leaps. And yet even that little bit was enough to instill in me an appreciation of ballet that has lasted more than ten years, and that will, I don’t doubt, last the rest of my life.

Autism is a Dynamic System

Autism is not simple. It is not just a genetic disorder, an eating disorder or brain damage. Autism is a whole host of different factors and I love working with children with autism for exactly this reason.

logo autisum3

Most children, even with severe disabilities, prefer to spend time with other human beings. They like to interact. They enjoy being looked at. They enjoy being touched. Children with autism (often) don’t!

With children with autism there is often trouble with eating or digestion. There are movement difficulties. Autism has so many different factors to learn about, to discover and – best of all – each one is radically different between children!

I can see one child who’s very highly functioning – maybe Asperger’s – and they will not eat pasta. Another child – a little boy I work with, Zach, is amazing at taking a pen and flipping it and flipping it three times in the air and catching it and catching it on the same side each and every single time. I could train that for years and I might be able to get as good as he is.

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People on the autism spectrum have such amazing and specific quirks! They have unique preferences that it is a new puzzle each time. Every timeI see a child, even somebody I know, I get to learn about a new child.  I have to start with them exactly where they are and I can’t assume. If I come and I assume that the child I’m working with today is going to be like the child that I worked with last week, there’s no moving forward. It’s such a fun reset, such a neat and intriguing and useful way to start. I get to practice my own internal, mental, emotional and physical flexibility because one child might not want to come into my door and one child might want to leap on me and, right, have a piggyback ride. Because there are so many contributing factors I could see this situation as difficult, but actually it is a lot like the rest of our lives!  Our family and friends aren’t always feeling the same way. We do assume that they are how they usually are. We can usually get away with our assumptions. But how much more kind, more respectful not as assume we know where someone is. I practice with kids with autism.

Autism is a dynamic system. To engage with a child with autism I’m required to bring more of myself to table, be the best that I can possibly be. But instead of viewing this as a difficult, I view it as a learning experience and fun.

Just Start

I have so many projects that are just a hair’s breath away from flourishing. Mine always seem like pretty big ones – master the cello, learn mandarin, publish a book.

We all have projects that, if completed, could change our income, career or life. Maybe yours seem small: ask that man out on a date, spending five extra minutes joining your autistic child, getting up a few minutes earlier to make a good breakfast. Whatever they are, what prevents you from reaching those goals?

For me, the answer is simple. Just start.

When I move towards those goals, just take a small step, I make significant progress. When I don’t, it is for the simple reason that I haven’t started.

Whatever that project or habit or goal you’ve been wanting to start is, start it! Take the first step – today, this moment. You won’t look back a month from now and regret that you began, even if you discontinue later. Take that first step (at every opportunity) and see where it takes you.

Do Less, Move Better & Learn More

When you hear “movement” what you think of? Probably something kinesthetic, something related to the human body in motion. This is a great beginning – and a limiting definition. Movement is related to everything. Digestion is the movement of food through our body. Speech is the movement and articulation of air pressure through our vocal cords. The perception of speech is the movement of our neurons for the purposes of interpreting that air pressure. The human body breaks down and reconstructs the entire skeletal system over the course of every seven years. Neat, huh? Movement really is everywhere and everything we do.

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Robin on a German Wheel cerca 2005

This is relevant because it is an entry into the conversation of learning. Whether we’re talking about learning to ride a bike, drive a car, interact socially, eat food, or behave in a way that society deems normal, improving movement improves learning and improves life.

If I am standing up my brain has to process the floor, the air around me, and whatever it is that I can smell and see and hear. If I’m wearing shoes my brain has to make sense of the shoes on my feet, the shirt I’m wearing on my arms, on my chest, on my back, on my belly. Not to mention that I am standing! If I am lying on my back on the floor I/my brain can take more time and attention to process the feel of my back on the floor, my bottom, my legs, feet and head. Our brains are constantly organizing and making sense out of all of these inputs–that is a lot of work!

Try This Exercise

Play some music that you don’t ordinarily listen to. Play louder than you usually listen to music. Begin to jump up and down out of time to this music. Simultaneously, your right thigh with your left hand. Blink your eyes open and closed very quickly. And now finally add in reciting aloud your 13 times tables.  Hard to do, right? In juxtaposition lie on your back on a comfortable floor in a quiet room and see if you can, easily and gently, count your 13 times table. It easier to do? To do something that is challenging or to learn something that is new it is much easier to decrease the demand we place on the brain. In other words, when you are trying to learn something new, try less hard and you’ll get better results.

Closing the Creative Gap

Learning anything worth learning is tough. And especially for those of us who want to not just learn a skill but excel, there are a lot of ups and downs. It seems that the more exciting a venture is, the more I’m liable to turn manic-depressive. This is actually the reason I created the header of the Learning Curve Experiments blog- to remind myself that learning is full of ups and downs, victories and setbacks, along the way.

So when I saw this video recreation of Ira Glass’ talk on “Closing the Gap” it struck a cord. It is hard to fathom Ira Glass as other than the calm and loving voice we know him to be. (Even if you don’t know his name, you’ve heard his voice.) But apparently even Iran Glass was once a beginner.

THE GAP by Ira Glass from frohlocke on Vimeo.

Ira gave a talk at Reed College in 2010 during which he insisted that when he started out in radio he sucked. Ira Glass not good on the radio? Inconceivable! But in watching this video I’m reminded that in any endeavor we can only start from where we are and move forward from there. The more we try, the more our skills catch up to our taste.

So here’s to taking steps forward! And maybe – just maybe – celebrating some of the pit-falls along the way.

The Art of Selling – Don’t Always Be Closing and Other Counter-Intuitive Tips

What is Sales?

When you think of sales what comes to mind? For me it is the combination. My grandfather going door-to-door selling vacuums in California’s Central Valley in the mid-1950s. I think very highly of my grandfather and he did well by his family. But I don’t think of knocking on doors in the 100 degree Summer Fresno heat as my ideal way to earn a living.

The second image that comes to mind when I hear the word “sales” is a guy in a shiny but none-too-high-quality suit selling sheet metal roofing. Why sheet metal roofing – no idea. But in my mind this salesman is extremely pushy, aggressive and doesn’t give a damn if I even have a house that needs a roof. He is going to persuade me to get his roofing, no matter what.

The final image that comes to mind when I think of sales is this video clip. I am among the most persistent people I have met, in my learning projects, in relationship, or with myself. But I don’t ever treat others or want to be treated like this. I view this hard-nosed desperate selling as pitiable.

And guess what? I am learning sales. If you know me at all you probably know that I love learning – be that gymnastics, dance, handstands, Spanish, questioning or autism. Right now I’m learning sales because being comfortable asking for a sale is going to be a part of the contributing factor to the success of my current big project.

Me being me, I am not going to do sales like any of the images that come to mind when I think of selling. I am learning to sell very differently.

Where’s Robin? Join me for weekly (free) movement lessons.

There are a lot of new and exciting changes in my life. Over the last 2 years I’ve gone out social dancing 6x nights a week, training gymnastics until 10 or 11pm some nights, and working early into the morning hours. It was a not uncommon occurrence for a flatmate to be getting up for breakfast and find me fixing myself a 5am pre-bedtime snack. Well, that’s changed…

I am currently organizing the biggest event I’ve ever put on. We are organizing a thousand person workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area for The Son-Rise Program®: Essentials workshop – a transformative three days workshop for parents and professionals with children with autism. There are some free upcoming talks, here.

Additionally, I’ve switched from dancing Blues/Fusion and Argentine Tango to ballet. I am currently taking ballet class at LINES ballet six times each week.

These changes make me harder to find than I was just a couple of months ago. I am used to seeing a lot of people regularly on dance floors around the Bay Area and won’t be, for the foreseeable future. So I’m instigating a new, weekly (free) event. I have been certified to practice the Anat Baniel Method, a modern variant of the Feldenkrais Method, and a gentle style of movement education that I’ve used to overcome some severe injuries. This is the same sort of thing I do with autistic kids. I’ve done a lot of movement in my life – from founding a dance company to trying a dozen martial arts in a week. I have studied with some amazing teachers. And I’ve never met someone with a more thorough applied understanding of human motor learning than Anat Baniel. I want to continue to learning with you…

Ask Questions with an Attitude That Works

I have spent most of the month of January refreshing my study of the Option Process Dialogue, a form of socratic questioning which I have found invaluable in my practice, personal life, and physical training.  If you haven’t heard me discuss questions before then by way of introduction, I suggest reading my post Ask More Loving Questions.

Ask Questions

In a world full of people willing to give advice, there is a scarcity of good questions asked without a directive intent. Thus the Option Process Dialogue, an incredible way of being present with another person and asking them questions. I completed a recent course alongside these five fabulous certified Option Process Mentors, each of whom have put in their 10,000 hours refining their practice and understanding of this process.

2013 1 25 Ask Questions

I have read Socrates’ thoughts on the purpose of questions and seen many fine examples of well-honed questions used to extract information, assist someone in hard times, or convince of a particular viewpoint. (For an amusing recent example of two world-class questioners take a look at this interview of Neal Strauss by Tim Ferriss.) While I don’t generally conduct playfully combative interviews, I recently practiced asking questions on a live stage…

Stretching for a Couples Dialogue

One scene from these last weeks stands out. I am in front of a room full of people, facing two friends – a couple. I am the “mentor,” responsible for asking these two questions and aiming for a non-directive, following attitude. Years ago, when I began my study of this dialogue process, it was a struggle to just be present with one person for 5 minutes at a time. Last January I acquired the requisite skills to maintain this presence for 50 or more minutes at a stretch, with few or no momentary lapses.

In the room with my friends this last week I stretched even further. I was asking both of them questions and switching back and forth between them based on my momentary decisions, best judgement, and trained instinct. The system for asking questions is straightforward. While there are many sub-components, it is loosely designed to help the “explorer” uncover beliefs, following an ABC for Adversity -> Belief -> Consequence model for understanding human behavior. We call it Stimulus -> Belief -> Response.

While I find the technique of questions equally fascinating, what actually makes ours unique and useful is the attitude with which we ask questions.

Play More

We all know theoretically that being playful is not only more fun, but can be useful. And yet we give ourselves so little freedom to explore and play with freedom and curiosity. I am often struck by the specific circumstances in which people do give themselves permission to play freely. My 10-month old nephew is prime example. As soon as people see him, they bend down, squeal, and join his games.

IMG_0416

In some situations I am extremely playful. The first time that I entered a gymnastics gym at 18 years old I was overwhelmed that such a place existed – and that I could be allowed in! I remember running the distance of the gym, between trampoline, high bar and tumble track, marveling that all of this equipment existed in the world and that I could play on it.

But what gives us freedom to play under certain circumstances and not in others? Why, with my nephew, do strangers on the street allow themselves to say hello when otherwise they would look away? How did my enthusiasm in gymnastics make it possible to do the impossible?

The Body In Pain

When someone is in pain their brain literally shuts down. fMRI show that there is much less neural activity when the body is in physical or emotional pain. Pain therefore literally leaves less room for learning. Thus, one function of play is to expand neural activity, increasing the likelihood for new connections to be formed within the brain. 

The Humor Shortcut

If I’m uncomfortable I cannot be playful. Fortunately, the reverse also hold true: when I am playful I automatically become comfortable. Lat week I made my first I attempt at stand-up comedy. I joked about getting beat up in middle school. On stage the events were so exaggerated that the results were funny (at least to me!). The experience of talking about experiences that were at the time very challenging required a degree of mental flexibility that I found freeing. Creating a humorous situation out of a controversial one is just another way of stretching the brain and creating new connections.

Limitless Options

If play allows for a flexible approach to the study of anything, seriousness limits the ways in which we can explore. When we are stubborn or stuck there are literally fewer options available.

Engagement

In addition to playfulness allowing for broader exploration, it creates the possibility for more active, enthusiastic engagement with the material presented. How come? Playfully presented material is more likely to be remembered. We remember experiences we enjoy.

Play Is Fun

Finally we have reached the simplest and most compelling reason of all: play is more fun. Simple as that. Who has a more enjoyable experience: the man who awkwardly averts his eyes or the woman who squats down to look my nephew in the eyes and make funny faces? I know which activity I enjoy more (and – of course – I have never awkwardly averted my eyes! Not ever…)

Where This Leaves Us

In the last few weeks I’ve been noticing where I am playful and where I’m not. By noticing trends I’ve begun to take the level of flexibility and enthusiasm I have in certain areas and transfer into others. Begin to notice where you are the most playful in your life. To begin, I suggest noticing where you are playful in your life, too.

What Is Joining? (An Easy Tool to Help Kids with Autism.)

First Things, First

I am thrilled to announce that Move Autism (that’s me) is sponsoring the first ever San Francisco Son-Rise Essentials Program®! For those who aren’t familiar with the term, I’ve talked about the program before and you can learn more here. This will be a three day course in San Francisco, April 25-27th with a follow-up “Next Steps” program July 25-27th! Learn more at http://www.sonrisesf.com.

Beginning what I’m sure will be a theme over the next several months, in this post I’ll discuss my experience with a single element of the Son-Rise Program®, called joining. Before I dive into a definition and my own personal experience, I’ll say a few words about the intersection between autism and learning. What I look to accomplish with children with autism is actually quite similar to what I look for with athletes or book authors – next steps. Autism is a complicated issue with diverse social, environmental, movement and other factors affecting each child. But what I do with individuals, regardless of diagnosis, is similar.

Step 1: Assess where and who they are, getting familiar with their habits and patterns.
Step 2: Form a common bond and connection.
Step 3: Invite them towards something new – be that backflips or more typical child-like behavior.

What Is Joining?

Joining is the term used by the Autism Treatment Center of America to describe a way of developing commonality with children (step two), long before inviting them into something new.

How to Give an Effective Speech

I have given a lot of talks in the last couple of years. I’ve used the same set of public speaking skills to give presentations ranging from autism to how to learn handstands and how not to stretch. I am currently attending a course on public speaking and group facilitation at the Option Institute in Sheffield, MA and decided to put down some of these tools in writing.

For starters, here is a 3-minute talk on my recent mastery of the Gymnastics Giant.

What’s Your Purpose

Most of the time when I give a short speech I have two goals:

The Content

For many introductory talks I am the content. Even when giving a talk on advanced topics what makes the content stick is my personal stories. The content is only relevant to the extent an audience can connect with the speaker. Throughout my life I get many of the same questions. Probably most people do. “What do you do for work?” And for me: “What did you do in the circus?!” A short presentation designed to share a story from my life is a chance to share the answers to a lot of those basic questions so that I can rapidly move relationships on to some more advanced topics and areas of play. I’m happy to talk about my dance company or a workshop I am putting on. And if I can get the basics out of the way in a group it saves us time for more juicy topics later.

The Ask

The ask is a bit more complicated and depends on the audience and the context of my talk. Almost always when I’m giving a talk, though, I have a clear purpose behind the situation, something that I’d like to get, teach or contribute. When I have a clear ask I usually save it for the end to give my audience something clear to remember when they think of my talk.

Recall is heavily weighted towards the combination of the beginning and end. Thus, I like to start out my talks with something pretty hard-hitting about myself (when that’s the topic of the talk) and end with a clear ask (when I have one). What comes in between established authority or context for my talk, tells the story.

Tiny Steps Towards Change

Tiny Habits.com is my all-time favorite habit building tool, created by B.J. Fogg, PhD of Stanford University.

BJ studies how to change habits. and over the course of his decades of research B.J. has come up with the Tiny Habits system. The idea is quite simple: smaller habits are easier to build and sustain than big habits. Habit building is a skill that can be improved. When people aim to change small habits they are much more likely to continue building the skill of habitual change and thus make bigger changes in their lives.

Tiny Steps

In the last year I have used Tiny Habits half a dozen times to encourage myself to do projects ranging from handstands to monitoring my finances. Tiny Habits is free, lasts for 5 days, and has allowed me to adopts several habits that I will use for the rest of my life. Even more exciting, though, are some of the aspects of building habits that I have gleaned from Tiny Habits and begun to apply elsewhere.

Make Smaller Circles

In The Art of Learning Josh Waitzkin has a chapter called “Making Smaller Circles.” These three simple words have profound implication on the learning process and on rapid skill growth.

Making smaller circles fits with my experience of learning in several different ways. First, I’ve been making a habit of examining the small steps necessary to make big changes. The smaller the steps the easier it is to create lasting change.

I also make a habit, personally and professionally, of asking questions. In my friends’ and clients’ answers I see another example of circling. Hundreds of times, while describing an obstacle, I have heard someone say “I feel like I’m just going in circles.” And in a way, they are. Last week a friend described his romantic difficulties and then complained that he was just circling around the same issues of a year ago. In fact, he was struggling with romance a year ago, too.

spiral
Enjoy Making Smaller Circles (Photo: Procsilas)

When I heard that comment though or when I am trying (and sometimes failing) to take small steps towards my goals, I prefer to think that we are all making smaller circles.

How To Learn Handstands

I’ve practiced handstands on and off for almost 10 years but it was only in making a study of the gymnastics giant that I was able to master my handstands. I did so by studying the component parts.

This post is about using small steps to learn handstands quickly and in stages. At the request of Karen X. Cheng I’ve broken down how to learn handstands into 10-second videos. To accompany the videos I’ve put together this post, detailing the progression.

Everyone tries to learn handstands by trying to do handstands. When we break the process down, it can be much easier and quicker.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein

Growth Hacking A Book Launch – “Autism Breakthrough” Case Study

Ever since reading Ryan Holiday‘s book Growth Hacker Marketing I have been applying what he calls the “growth hacker mindset” to business projects.

This post is about using a growth hacker’s creative and analytical mindset to radically change the launch and long-term success of the book Autism Breakthrough by my friend Raun Kaufman

autism-breakthrough

For background: Raun Kaufman is the son around whom the Son-Rise Program was created. The Son-Rise Program has since been run by thousands of families with children with autism around the world and helped kids recover from autism. Raun is the Director of Global Education at the Autism Treatment Center of America. For more information this fascinating study examines the efficacy of applying the Son-Rise Program with special needs children.  

What Is Growth Hacking?

I first encountered the term growth hacker in an essay by Andrew Chen:

Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder, one who looks at the traditional question of “How do I get customers for my product?” and answers with A/B tests, landing pages, viral factor, email deliverability, and Open Graph.

I was immediately struck by the similarities to what I have always done. Maybe its just that I’ve never had a big budget or that I was taught young not to spend money if I wasn’t sure of a return. Regardless, analytics and creative problem-solving have always been part of my work, whether for Move Autism or in any of my previous positions. I’ve always asked about processes with an eye to improving them.

An Introduction to Running Lean – Using the Scientific Method to Build A Better Business

I am a scientist by training. In college I spent my time in the psychology lab teaching rats to press levers and studying how humans learning new skills.  I never expected that I’d come to apply those same scientific principles to my own business development.

Me and my team at a recent Start-Up Weekend. (Photo: David)
My team at a recent Start-Up Weekend. (Photo: David)

Freelancing Failures

In my first year of freelancing I tried to appeal to everybody. I was a personal trainer, project manager, facilitator and efficiency expert. As a result of this broad-spectrum approach, I didn’t make significant differences for my clients and struggled to get by financially.

Flash forward four years: I’m just back from a two-week trip to Argentina during which I gave 40+ lessons to children with special needs, consulted with families, taught a seminar, and managed to reserve two day just for my practice of Argentine tango. I earned enough in this two weeks to pay for the trip and a month’s worth of expenses, and will spend the rest of the month dividing my time between practicing my Spanish, training in gymnastics, and applying Lean Start-Up methodologies to families affected by autism around the world.

Ask More Loving Questions

His hands were tied behind his back and he was standing on the outside of the bridge railing, preparing to jump. As I moved towards him, he shouted over to me: “One step further and I’ll jump!” He sounded hoarse and it was clear he had been crying. I stopped and stood, waiting.

This occurred six years ago, in the middle of the night, in Portland, Oregon. I had been biking along the river, taking a break from a college all-nighter when I came across this man.

I stopped, as instructed. And as I stood there I had an amazing experience. It was as if I was at the center of a deep, wide pool. His shout and threat were like a pebble hitting the surface and I was so deep down in the pool that they made no impact. Inside I felt quiet and still. “How are you feeling?” I asked him, calmly.

“Thinking is just the process of asking and answering questions.”
-Tony Robbins

Today I make a habit of asking this sort of question. These questions sometimes sound a bit odd but provide the person I’m with to examine themselves in a way not otherwise available to them. I can only ask such questions by intentionally falling into that calm attitude that I found so many years ago on the river in Portland. In that state of mind, anything – and I do mean anything – that someone says is okay. In that mindset I am completely accepting and totally nonjudgmental. This is a mindset that I trained on my own and then later at the Option Institute. In what follows I’m going to detail a number of different reasons we ask questions and discuss what makes loving questions unique.

In my experience there are four different types of questions, each with its own purpose.

Questions that Judge

 “Why did you do that!” (We often leave the “you idiot” left unsaid.)

The question “Why did I eat that pint of ice cream when I know I feel sick after eating ice cream?” is really a statement of self criticism. What I am actually saying is: “I’m dumb for having eaten ice cream. I should have known better!”

Questions to Learn

Imagine a reporter interested in your story. Reporters, and all of us, ask directive, inquiring questions to gain information.

Questions that Teach

Teachers ask their students subtle or even blatant leading questions like “Why do you believe that is the best answer to this math problem?” or “How would you go about solving it?”

Questions to Explore

“Why did you do that?”

That night on the bridge I used what I’ve come to think of as exploring questions. These are the rarest of questions in that they are non-directive and completely accepting. I have studied what is formally called “The Option Process(R) Dialogue” which teaches how to use these questions to help explorers come to their own conclusions. With the man on the bridge these are the sort of questions I asked. Guided by instinct and luck I asked the bridge jumper how he felt and then later why. I don’t know what would have happened if I had told him not to jump, or tried to teach him that he shouldn’t. I can speculate that things might not have gone so well.

For the record, I spent three hours with the man on the bridge. He ended up sitting and crying with me. The next morning he called his sister and I left him in her care.

Why Ask Loving Questions

Everyone has opinions and most people are willing to share them. What people don’t do, though, is set aside their personal biases and become completely present with another. Instead, meaning well, most people judge or try to fix. By providing the person questioned with the option to discover answers for themselves, we provide a safe space to step forward and, if we so choose, come to our own conclusions.

These are the four components of a loving question. These four make up what is termed the “attitude” by the Option Institute. I have called it the Attitude That Works.

Non-directive
This is what distinguishes these questions from all others. To ask these questions the questioner must completely let go of the belief that they know what’s best for another.

Present
To ask non-directive questions the questioner must be completely present with the person being questioned. Otherwise, it is not possible to follow where they lead.

Non-judgmental
Often loving questions are asked in the face of self-judgements. It is essential to not buy in and engage with those judgements.

Loving
Of all four this is the most important. Having compassion for another is fundamental to asking this sort of question.

I don’t always ask loving questions. Not even most of the time. But I have the capacity to sit across from someone considering suicide or crying over heartbreak or jumping for joy, follow exactly what they say, and then ask them what they are thinking, what they feel or why. I’m not unique and anyone can learn to do this. The more I ask such questions the better I get.  And as an added benefit: it feels great to be there for someone in this way.

So here’s my advice: next time you or someone you care for is in a slump, don’t try to fix them or solve the problem. Ask just one loving question. It can make a world of difference.