What stops us?

While chatting with a very interesting, dynamic entrepreneur and scientist, the subject of fear was discussed.

While initially the idea that death was our greatest fear, I remembered that studies reveal our greatest fear, or at least what is held at the forefront of our cares and concerns, is public speaking.

It seems to me that public speaking is indicative of our fear of others, not of death. Thinking and chatting on it in more depth, we realised that it is fear of what others think that mostly constrains or limits our behaviours.

This got me thinking about the LGGO ("Let's get great outcomes") meetings, and why I have found them so effective -- it's because in a supportive, focused group environment we can be more ourselves, more spontaneous than in general public.

In other words, being in a supportive group gives us permission to be creative, spontaneous, original, without quite the same fear as doing so in public.

On the surface this would seem to suggest we're weak, or submissive to the will of others, but I think any complex social system, or society, relies on all 'parts' (people) acceding to the collective will. Otherwise you'd have complete anarchy, with little or no structure.  Not much fun in that. All social systems (groups, communities, societies) are self-organising and reliant on rules, laws, social ettiquette, peer-group pressure etc., to 'self-organise'.

No, the issue becomes how to step beyond what is 'polite company' into that risky but fun space of originality, creativity, humour, fun and achievement, without being outcast, locked-up or worse. That, in my mind is why 'kindred spirits' can be such a powerful accelerant.

Are 'kindred spirited' groups necessary? ... no, but entirely going our own way does require a certain arrogance that carries with it costs. Giordano Bruno, Newton, Galileo, Einstein among many others were all known to be 'arrogant', in that they were variously argumentative or saw no need to explain themselves1.

They were great inventors or philosophers, but their achievements were often at great personal cost, particularly for Galileo, and Bruno. Bruno was burned alive at the stake in 1600 for heresy, while Galileo was placed under house-arrest for the remainder of his years following his trial before the inquisition.

I wonder what would have happened had Bruno had his own LGGO group.

• 1. "as youths ... (Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Hans Christian Anderson, Niels Bohr, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Humphrey Davy, Albert Einstein) all had one characteristic in common; each was an individualist, saw no need to explain himself and was thus listed among the odd men out. — Ronald W Clark, Edison. The Man Who Made The Future