Genus: from the Latin—-“origin; beginning.”
Genus is the Latin root word of all English words associated with the origin, beginning and the source of things. Examining and connecting to the linguistic origins of things, the “source” of things, is called etymology. Being clear about the origins of things, including with the language worlds we all live inside of, is a direct access to our creative power.
Genus is the origin of terms that reflect what is original, or sourceful, or at the beginning.
Words Like:
· Genesis
· Gene
· Genetic
· Generative
· Generous
Ever notice that “generative” and “generous” come from the same root word?
Genus. Origin, beginning, or source.
Think: A human being can be many things; there are many ways of being human. Let’s look at a particular state of being called, “being generative,” a way of being that is characterized….by taking initiative, causing things to happen, creating, imagining what doesn’t yet exist, standing for something, inventing things, discovering things that hadn’t been seen, or said. In causing, creating, initiating, discovering new things, relationships, ideas, we thereby become directly related to life bigger than our immediate circumstances, or history, or race, or gender, or style, or whatever we already know.
Let’s ask a question. What if all human beings were naturally generative and thereby allowed themselves to be creative, or original, or authentic, or difference-making —-might they then naturally also become or be, generous? In other words, is being generative a powerful access to, a cousin to, connected to, being generous?
Scenario I: Let’s take a test case and look at generosity when you are not being generous:
Imagine you’re entering a village, a town, or a campsite and needing water. You are thirsty, parched, dry; you approach me. I have 1 sole bottle of water. You want some; but I say, without thinking, “Not so fast, buster, this is mine and I want it and there ain’t enough of it for the 2 of us.”
See, all I have is this one lousy bottle of water. It looks to me as limited and scarce; it must, therefore, be guarded, defended and held back.
What if something doesn’t have to automatically occur as scarce? What if how it occurs to me, what is possible, has something to do with how I construe it, construct it, or see it, as a matter of the very language that I use?
Consider: If I can’t generate water itself, I can’t get access to the water that fills that bottle—-then my ability to be generous with it is very, very pinched. Constrained. Suppressed.
When something occurs like this, very limited, rare, unlikely, it is inside a model of reality called, “scarcity.” The name of this model is called zero-sum.
Zero-sum means that if someone wins, someone else must necessarily lose, thereby the sum is zero. There’s no actual net gain, growth, or expansion of anything in that model of reality, that view of the world, that mindset, called zero-sum. That pie is inherently fixed and limited and it’s always a fight for who gets what. Inside that model, zero-sum, it’s difficult to imagine what one might create that doesn’t exist already, that’s beyond that 1 bottle of water, beyond the scarcity. One is fighting so hard to get hold of, and to hold onto, that scarce piece of what already does exist, that one does not stop to think, reflect on and create anything new.
Consider: If human beings truly are not capable of generating new possibilities, new initiatives, new actions, new thoughts, new imaginings, new expressions, as if people really are incapable of creating anything newly….and if all I can then do is hold on to, guard and defend what I have, then I’m stuck, then we human beings are stuck. If I can’t be creative….generative….in action….taking initiative….I may have no real shot ever at being generous because I’m not generative.
Thankfully, that is not the case. Human beings can be, and are, creative, generative, generous.
Consider the zero-sum, scarcity mindset is transparent to us human beings, and therefore invisible to most of us most of the time. “Zero-sum” is the condition in which we operate, the default condition of survival itself that we’ve inherited from our past. All of us. Inside that condition, that mindset, that view of reality, it’s almost impossible to be truly powerful, or creative, or make a difference. Rather than see the zero-sum view directly as what it is….a mindset….we see it indirectly, reflected as, and in, our circumstances. When I say and see life and my circumstances as limited, scarce and I don’t see any access to sufficiency, let alone abundance….it’s then that the circumstances, not me, are calling the shots.
We then become used to, “certain” of this scarcity, which certainty then invites and insists on more of it.
This article suggests: maybe not….maybe we have something (or everything) to say regarding our circumstances—-and that “saying” starts first with examining our mindsets.
Scenario II: Consider you come into the village, or campsite, or town and you’re thirsty/parched/dry….but this time I have access to the well, the source of water, not just a bottle of water itself. This time when you say, “Can I have some water?” I say, “Of course and as much as you need.”
In this model of sufficiency (or even abundance) your winning (having water) doesn’t require my losing. We both can win.
When we both have access to the source of the something, we both can be generous.
That allows for a “you or me” world to shift to a “you and me” world. The primary thing stopping that shift is our unexamined mind sets.
The common thinking is that for people who don’t have much, i.e., (scarcity), their circumstances must change (to sufficiency or even abundance) before they can alter their mindset. Inside a scarcity mind set, circumstances must always come first; the human beings must always come second.
I’m contesting that. I’m not saying circumstances can’t be painful, or tragic, or constraining, or unfair, or suppressive as all hell. They can be and not infrequently are. I am saying that your mindset gives your relationship to that circumstance and thereby has everything to do with what you say, see, think, and do, i.e., your mindset determines your openness to sufficiency or abundance and thereby, the actions you can take or can even imagine regarding getting past your circumstances.
Mindset, a working definition: “One’s beliefs, seen and unseen, that orient the way we handle situations — the way we sort out what is going on and what we should do.” (Psychology Today)
A clear example of this (and there are millions) is Nelson Mandela in prison. Prison wasn’t just prison for Nelson Mandela. It was his graduate school; going from an angry, defiant, committed young man—-to an un-angry, un-defiant, committed and wise leader.
He intentionally altered his mindset.
Consider that scarcity/zero-sum isn’t simply a matter of circumstance. It’s a matter of what you say, stand for and quite literally see as the world. Conversely, there are many, many, many people who have enormous money, or power, or stature who still think from, and are completely gripped by, a zero-sum scarcity mindset. These people rarely get present to or fully appreciate their accomplishments, or their abundance, or their sufficiency, or their good fortune, or the blessings of their lives, or their own (potential) generosity and what they have to offer others. They’re too busy fighting off this and that wolf at the door, threats to what they have, or want, even if they have millions of $$, awards, books, fame, etc.
A mindset affects people of all sorts regardless of circumstance and must be seen for what it is in order to get past it: a mindset is simply a thought pattern, an inner voice, that we see the world through.
─Part II─
Note: A paradigm is a model of the world, that we carry in our head. It is like a mindset regarding everything, the Whole World. This internal model permits certain things and disallows others. You could say it is a framework, or a lens through which we view everything. It is “made of” the assumptions, experiences, conclusions, habits, preferences, decisions, and strongly held beliefs we have decided, over time, about “What is the world? “and” Who am I in it?”
A paradigm or model of reality allows you to think certain thoughts and disallows you to think other thoughts. A mindset, or paradigm, or model of reality determines everything, a bit like an unforgiving task master. While a mindset gives you familiar reference points from which to understand and decide things, the pitfall of all mindsets is “confirmation bias,” the tendency to see and sort the world so as to selectively find evidence that supports and “validates” one’s own points of view.
Mindsets can and do thereby become fixed and stuck; however, they can be observed, interrupted and altered. A mindset, or paradigm, is always seeking to validate and justify itself and its point of view all the time.
For most of human history by far the dominant mindset has been survival—zero-sum scarcity. Win-lose, dog-eat-dog, life is tough, then we die; things are scarce. That mindset, belief structure, is thought and adhered to like the 11th commandment. It is unquestioned. It is taken as a “given,” a hard and fixed “truth.” It generates drama, tragedy, and valiant efforting and remains for the most part unexamined as a mindset and simply as a mindset. That is to say, a mindset is simply am internal conversation we live inside of.
Mindsets—-when they’re not seen as, identified as, mindsets—-become self-fulfilling prophesies which we propagate to future generations. Mindsets include, and adapt to, threats such that the mindset persists, survives, endures, and continues. They become discourses, (common topics of conversation) in the world that are taken for granted; and they are assumed (emphatically said) to be reality. A simple everyday example is the discourse called “standing in line.” Though no one ever says it, there are unsaid rules about standing in line, like: face straight ahead; be ever ready to get your next turn; don’t turn around and look at others; don’t sing; don’t greet people happily who are strangers, etc.
Many of the rules of any culture are unsaid/unseen/unspoken/unaccounted for….so, invisible….and as a consequence they exert enormous power.
I offer to you that by far the most powerful and unexamined mindset for us human beings is zero-sum scarcity.
So how does one get past zero-sum scarcity? First, one realizes it is a mindset, a way of looking at things, which we inherit and adopt by default. A mindset is something we look through like a lens; we don’t see it, we see through it, and as such, its very transparency makes it invisible. We can begin to identify it and gain access to it by examining what attitudes, assumptions, beliefs, emotions, and reactions underlie the way I personally act and think? If I am willing to engage and explore that question, that exploration over time, I become aware of, and clear about, my mindsets.
Mindsets determine how we see the world. If I see the world as possible, flexible, or amenable to my efforts and impact, as an opportunity, then I find myself responding creatively and effectively.
When I see the world as opportunity, and talk about it that way, I find myself being generative, creative, taking initiative. In being generative, I find myself not having to hold on to, protect, and defend what I already know or do. By learning to examine my own “mindsets,” I’m no longer limited to the zero-sum scarcity (fixed) mindset. I’ve gotten “bigger, badder, and better” than scarcity by identifying and moving past the limits of my unexamined mindsets. I do this by examining my own life and by working with others to see how they examine (or fail to) their own lives.
As one becomes more generative, not so coincidentally, one becomes more generous. I become more creative, spontaneous, and powerful rather than being a victim, waiting and hoping for the circumstances to get better by themselves. I find now I am willing to give, because I can create my life for myself. I start to discover new ways of looking at things. I can give more freely because I am not limited to, stuck with, my former beliefs.
When I find myself being more generative, creative, taking initiative, causing and seizing opportunities, then I can ALSO afford to be and discover myself as generous.
When I am free to invent, to engage with life and take initiatives—-I do.
When I leave myself free to engage life—-I do.
I become, thereby, both generative and generous.
Being Generous, like being generative, can be practiced. It does take your commitment and it does take learning from others and it takes your practice in interacting with others (to practice is to intentionally repeat actions.) Anyone can practice themselves into becoming more and more generous. It is the matter of practicing conversations that you and others speak so you and they can be more generous.
One can start with the assumption, usefully, that each of us can be, by default: a bit stingy, withholding, guarded, defending. I can notice and observe my own stinginess for what it is: an zero-sum scarcity mindset. Seeing this scarcity/stinginess simply as an automatic, default mindset allows me to start to invent and discover new mindsets and frameworks. As one identifies scarcity as simply a mindset and operates beyond it, one is less attached, less frightened, less constrained; it’s almost as if there’s nothing to lose. That opens the door to not only being generative but quite naturally, to being generous.
At VSA, we’re clear that for most of us folks who haven’t been truly generous, it’s time.
Genuine generosity is one of the most inspiring ways of living that there is in life. It is delicious, confronting, engaging, and difference-making.
One of the great invitations of life is to profoundly discover your own generosity.
If you are reading this article and have gotten to here, you’re definitely interested in generosity and being generative.
I invite you to:
Take them on.
Try them on.
Practice being more generative….initiating, creating, discovering, originating….and practice becoming more generous.
Give for no reason.
Give beyond comfort.
Give to what and who matters….including to you, yourself!
Give in a way that leaves a joyful respect for your legacy.
Being generous and being generative go hand-in-hand.
The ideas and much of the material that reflect on mindset, paradigm, leadership and culture in this blog draw upon the work of Werner Erhard, Michael Jensen, and Steve Zaffron. See Erhard, Jensen, and Zaffron, Course Materials for: ‘Being a Leader and the Effective Exercise of Leadership: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model’ (Last revised May 22, 2018). htpp://ssrn.com/abstract=1263835
Carol Dwek, Mind Set
“Humanity As A Competitive Advantage,” Tony Schwartz, NY Times, 9/8/15.
Highly recommended coaching resource: Landmarkworldwide.com
© Tony Smith
