COVID-19 Era Digital Distraction & Short-Term Pragmatism

▼The Social Dilemma & Loss of Awareness in the West▼

How To Not Become A Loser II (Recommended) ⬆ Images Hyperlinked

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS | 2020 EDITION | VOLUME 86

People don't become losers by trying to succeed and failing miserably.

 

People become losers by making self-inflicted missed opportunities their way of life.

 

Leaders and nations too.

 

Except, the national security implications for a superpower like the U.S. and rich democracies currently wallowing in political madness is irreversible.

 

Everything you're about to read here is directly related to the costly missed opportunities and consequences of being on the losing end of a raging Grey Zone (or, if you like, Gray Zone) Cyber & Asymmetrical Hybrid Warfare, the most relevant dimension being Information Warfare.

 

The latter is probably most responsible for the instability and mass stupidity behind everything from the 2021 Trump Insurrection, to Brexit, and beyond.

 

It is not a domain for conspiracy theorists and scatterbrain folks, but for expert researchers, as well as the educable. That is why I have put the hyperlinked image at the bottom of this page, knowing that the average scatterbrain wouldn't make it that far. 

 

COVID-19 sounded the loudest alarm, but nothing changed. Because it is a mental health problem, with most households addictively stuck on the same one or two TV channels or apps feeding them their favorite sensationalized narrative (packaged as “news”) of their nation's many dysfunctions.

We are talking about the ability to creatively variegate one's media and feeds at no cost leveraging the amazing choices available via the Internet with addicts' web-enabled (mobile) devices, so as to pull in critical, life-changing and life-saving international perspectives that ultimately bolster decision-making at both the macro and micro level.

 

Instead, it's one giant 'high functioning' mental health escapade summed up as follows:

 

COVID, COVID, COVID.

Trump, Trump, Trump.

Boris, Boris, Boris.

Food, toilet, food.

All day. All week.

The U.S. and Britain in particular, have become scatterbrain nations run and led by scatterbrain journalism, business, HR, political and inept leadership caught up in the same social media and tech addiction plus TV and celebrity spectatorship as teens, — with disastrous national security implications for a China-dominated future.

 

My response to one client I screened this hit Four Corners documentary for when she wondered aloud “How come they don't show this on American TV?” was:

 

They don't have to. And it's not in their business interest to. It's your personal responsibility to internationally and intentionally variegate your news and media consumption with high quality programming. Or, simply: read #iTHiNKLabs Weekly.

 

And here, I'll say, as an American, that to pay for cable TV — which I personally haven't needed for 2 decades, yet remain more informed than influential journalists — while racking up expensive smartphones and exorbitant service bills, ignorant or insular as ever, is the height of the selfsame stupidity currently making the United States and many Western nations less competitive.

 

As for the Unpopular Strategic Reasons Why China's Economy Is Set To Overtake The U.S. By 2028, COVID-19 mismanagement or not, costly loser habits are rampant, and the numbers, for those of us studying the data, are sobering. 

 

Everything is “Breaking News”. The more hyper-sensational and senseless, the better, for ratings greed and craze. Local, sensationalized news, Trump-infested or not, is branded “World News”.

 

Meanwhile, the average young adult, smartphone, TV, food or drug addicted single parent is rarely capable of a coherent conversation. Indeed if you haven't observed this phenomena yet live in these societies, there's a good chance you, and/or loved ones are caught in it.

 

Critically, for parents and guardians whose kids have behavioral problems, if you meticulously study this article — hyperlinked images, hypertexts and all — you will understand your contribution to their (poor) emotional health, and how to rectify undesirable traits and steer them, yourself, and potentially your country away from the wrong path. If not stupidity. (Click or tap below)

 

We live in a time when parents caught up in a Trump cult unawares now insist on converting their smarter kids into the selfsame critical thinking losers they have become.

 

Unable to make sense of how their digital distraction strengthens the hand of a China that seemingly keeps winning in a new world order, even a Chinese dissent's words goes right over their heads. Take for instance, the legendary artist: Ai Weiwei, who wrote:

 

“COVID-19 has jolted the US into semi-awareness of the crisis it faces. The disease has become a political issue for its two major political parties to tussle over, but the real crisis is that the western system itself has been challenged. The US model appears to others as a bureaucratic jumble of competing interests that lacks long-term vision and historical aspiration, that omits ideals, that runs on short-term pragmatism, and that in the end is hostage to corporate capital.” 

People, nations, and leaders fail by failing overtime, to grasp the critical role of optimum self-management. What I call: Advanced Personal Leadership skills. The critical foundation of which is the ability and determination to protect one's headspace, think clearly, and regulate oneself or lead effectively, particularly in times of crises, so as to consistently make the best strategic decisions and moves. Like the Chinese, if you will.

 

As MIT's Technology Review observed: “Humanity is stuck in short-term thinking...We’ve collectively failed to escape the present moment and tackle long-term risks.” 

 

Except, from the point of view of global strategists and thinkers, and as I argue below, this is more specifically currently, a Western problem, — with people in leadership positions, and most ironically in the liberal West, voters unfettered by authoritarianism or tyranny most afflicted. And examples are legion. (Click or tap below for essay)

That is why to understand how good leaders, responsible, and self-aware individuals avert crises, costly risk, and/or mitigate them, it pays to understand what Eric Hoffer meant by: “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” As well as have a good idea what what good leadership is.

 

You will be told these are uncertain times. But what few clarify is: These are uncertain times only to the conventional leader and aloof smartphone or digital junk addict who too often, chooses to give their attention to junk at the expense of being aware of priority issues on concern.

 

Or, as Malcolm Muggeridge put it, such is the type that has “educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction.” (Click or tap for insight)

Virtually inattentive to the threats and crises of tomorrow and always in a rush, leaders and business people focused on short-term pragmatism, as well as people, including journalists, and recruiters have been seeking solutions in all the wrong places. From the Ivy League grad to TV personalities. Rushing through everything, from communication to hiring.

 

Don't look for 'good leaders' on TV, corporate boardrooms, or among social media influencers either.

 

There's a reason China has made the most out of the pandemic, and why my own Chinese best friend, unprompted but frustrated with Western HR dysfunction recently lamented: “World is changing, it's really not easy to find good HR has the eye to identify talent.”

 

The person in question was referring to people like me. Their larger point being that the West keeps hiring the likes (thankfully on his way out) characters like Donald Trump. And then they wonder how come China seems to keep eating their lunch.

It doesn't matter whether one is talking about Sweden or other similarly aloof European neighbors.

 

Policy-wise, Britain is probably worse managed and led.

 

And living there after leaving China, I watched always-on digital junkies who are simultaneously avid COVID-19 news spectators who don't wear masks; who cough and sneeze into the open, party, and send their kids to university without any forethought whatsoever, then whinge about it when it became obvious — via TV and criticism of the government — that it was never a goodness idea to begin with.

 

All things a quiet, well-balanced self-aware mind would naturally compel you to seriously reconsider, given the pandemic. My personal alerts and attempts to advise having fallen on deaf ears.

 

Western COVID-19 response thus far, offers a cautionary tale about the importance of grounding our assumptions regarding good leadership in reality, before even venturing to discuss how good leaders actually avert crises. For, not every decorated or popular leader is a good leader. That's why how Africa fought COVID-19, and Taiwan's well-publicized success story aside — other great (Asian) success stories have all been largely overlooked, in an insular West.

Indeed, looking on from Asia Pacific, I never understood the obsession with Dr. Fauci, nor the point of Trump Coronavirus briefings. And now that I'm in the EU, I watch loud, smartphone or social media-addicted minds casually go about their business and leisure, as if there's no pandemic.

 

Leaderless, and lacking self-awareness and perspective, like zombies (and #COVIDIOTS), these, include personal friends I've lost to tech addiction, live completely dissociated from the pandemic reality the East and even Africans determined to beat the Coronavirus, appear well aware of.

 

They watch the news but can't intellectually metabolize the fact that there's a pandemic, requiring them to mask up and stay put, rather than turn the issue into a debate about rights and privileges.

 

That's why at first, I agreed with the Telegraph headline: The West should not bow before the Chinese regime that made the world ill. Until their Twitter survey “Do you think Covid-19 was man-made?” prompted a must-read response (click or tap below for tweet) from me:

Meanwhile 234,000 COVID-19 deaths and the unresolved 2020 U.S. election later, Issac Bailey, writing for CNN rightly argues: It should never have been this close. A quick backstory:

 

Writing from strict China lockdown in January 2020 and self-imposed house arrest going back to 2017, I published my 4-Part China Coronavirus Prevention Guide, which was quickly copied by various websites, saving thousands of lives. That was on my old portfolio/blog platform.

 

By February 2020, long before Joe Biden had a clear face mask policy differentiating him from Donald Trump, I'd published: America's Deadly Face Mask Ignorance, along with a slew of detailed COVID-19 business, public health security, crisis planning and risk management guides the bulk of which can be accessed via my (3-part) 9 Most USEFUL Coronavirus Resources, which leads readers (or my clients) to even more life-saving guides covering the gamut, including my favorite: Keys To Valor in a Pandemic: COVID-19 Mental Health Edition.

 

That is proactive leadership borne out of awareness.

And if you're looking for that and other crisis mitigation solutions on TV, it may never come. Just like Coronavirus victims who looked up to the Trump Administration for life-saving leadership, but instead, ran out of time, and breath.

 

That's why the three feature videos (above, right below, and at the bottom) are critical.

 

If they are too slow or boring for you but your attitude is right, smile and celebrate. Because unlike the smug and ignorant, it means you have an opportunity to fix a major problem. The same root problem causing many in the West to wonder how come China is doing all the winning these days. “Why?!! That's not fair!!”

 

Answer: Clue above.

 

Too distracted. No awareness. No concept of self-management.

Driven by opinion rather than data, I have friends who only obsess about gluttony, celebrity or entertainment nonsense, smartphone notifications and social media junk.

 

Many of them have a fixed mindset, hate correction, bizarrely want to get a college degree, send their kids to college, cheat if necessary, and have no interest nor time in calm, logical reasoning.

 

We're talking about often sleep-deprived, bags under eyes people — like parents, like kids, and yes I have actually lived with such types — fumbling through life, aloof. And you'll spot them based on how they tend, or choose to deal with uncomfortable reality:

 

Hurriedly disappearing behind slammed doors — even not not angry — scrambling for their smartphones, always jumpy, clumsily walking into things or people with full speed (including while going from bedroom to kitchen in the smallest apartments); doomscrolling between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, WeChat/Weixin, etc. Withdrawing and avoiding uncomfortable conversations, and choosing to assume or binge-gossip with like-minded addicts, rather than engage and ask questions.

That is, for those ''lucky enough" to have anything resembling friends.

 

Oblivious that everything they doing is precisely what a 2-year study just confirmed is most injurious to their physical, mental, and emotional health.

 

The same people — Tristan Harris and others discuss above — directly or indirectly deciding the national security of their respective countries, and by extension, the decline of Western competitiveness.

 

The same people who thought Jair Bolsonaro was good for Brazil. And more relevantly, that Donald Trump was ever fit to run a superpower like the United States, never mind a second-term.

And all that, is the social dilemma the West continues to fail to address, to its detriment in the face of a rising, techno-totalitarian, belligerent, and militarily menacing CCP-run China. (Movie above but see bottom including links throughout  article to best understand the argument here.)

 

The masterkey to self-management and ultimately, peak competitiveness is: Clarity (of mind ) and Discipline. Without them, any success is fleeting.

 

Unless one is born super wealthy and well-connected, success, for most, is a game of musical chairs. Blink, and you miss an opportunity here, and there, on your way to inevitable irrelevance and elimination. And that is as true in private life as it is in the leadership and management of nations and businesses.

 

Discipline is taken for granted because average people don't understand that clarity is everything.

 

Maintaining your ability to always think clearly and calmly will save you the pain and consequences of many bad decisions, and set you up for success, rather than making you a lifetime loser.

 

Throughout my life, I've advised and coached tens of thousands of people from all walks of life. Yet as a black man, I can categorically say that Black people take the unenviable prize for suffering the consequences of ignored advice and self-inflicted missed opportunities.

 

Ten years ago, I advised someone with a toxic, uneducated and ungrateful wife that he brought from a village in a developing country to America. Given the constant problems this woman was creating for him, my advise was to divorce, separate, and focus on rebuilding his life and self-respect.

 

I told him that, knowing the children from his dysfunctional marriage — which effectively made his wife a U.S. citizen, who in turn brought her equally toxic and divisive mother to America — would be factored into a long-term strategy for his recovery. But critically, the first step to addressing his worsening instability which was also affecting his health and mental health, was to take action.

 

I further assured him that once he made the decision to take action, I'd guide him to make the next smart move, and the next one, and so on, with his kids' welfare at front and center. Simultaneously, for decades, I'd also been advising his mother, who unnecessarily lives in poverty.

 

They both kept dragging their feet, living a mediocre life, procrastinating, wasting time, content with minor fake improvements by the wife, whose growing purchasing power, was mistaken for progress, and success.

 

Then five years ago after witnessing further turmoil and instability during a U.S. trip, I reiterated my previously ignored advice. Yet he fumbled from one family crisis to another oblivious, as Jim Rohn explains, that great self-management is all about making measurable progress in reasonable time.

At the time of writing (Part 1), this 50-something-year-old man, who clearly never studied the series you are reading right now despite having many opportunities to, has been locked out by his wife and spoiled teenage son. Effectively, homeless, and probably, illegally living with his 80-something-year-old mother in her government-subsidized senior citizens' complex that discourages precisely that.

 

Even worse, I canceled a long overdue international flight to which I agreed on a week's notice that would have been feature-packed with computer, legal, self-development and other aids for them both. And why?

 

I decided they are too 'messed up' — by choice — as Jim Rohn would put it, and stubbornly set up for repeated failure to make my trip worthwhile, which is exactly how most value-driven, time-conscious wealthy people think. And all this, because of their lack of clarity, discipline, preparedness, sense of urgency, plus mindset of denialism regarding their current predicament.

 

Show me a person fumbling from one bad lifestyle choice or decision to another, or a wealthy and great nations on the decline, and I'll show you a people and leadership that lack clarity and discipline.

 

Clarity is deliberate, strategic, clear-headed, focus, and execution. It is something you fight for once you appreciate its value. Plus we know, as already discussed, that, strategy execution is the ultimate IQ. Hence, why getting stoned is unpopular, but caught selling drugs in China could mean death.

 

The free world once drank and snorted its way to greatness.

Yet with better self-management, China, which culturally has no time for drugs, guns, mass shootings, and the indulgences and indiscipline of many wealthy Western nations today made the run for greatness. And by most accounts, they got there in a reasonably short time. However unethically.

 

Indeed, today, Mainland Chinese are labeling the United States and other developed or politically unstable countries criticizing China as “losers”. And with good reason.

 

Thanks to the Communist Party, China has remained focused, disciplined, and united in eating America's lunch, dinner, and breakfast “and doubling down on repression”.

 

Meanwhile, content with being outfoxed by Russia, China, North Korea and other adversaries, the 'United' States has, rather ironically, been steadfastly ideologically disunited. Feasting on the stupor of self-destructive tribalism, high-risk lifestyles that rob one of clarity, health, and mental health; with dangerous individualism that respects gun rights more than human rights, and reckless partisanship that shamelessly sides with foreign adversaries.

 

Hardly any wise person's model for great national self-management and self-regulation.

 

Furthermore, amidst opioid, drug epidemics and popular moves to legalize marijuana, much of the developed free world is having to contend with the discipline and consequential rise of China — whose success, many argue, is based on theft of trade secrets, unfair trade practices — and in the case of Africa and many emerging markets, debt trap diplomacy and opaque lending practices. All of which beg the question:

 

What robbed all the negotiators, diplomats, leaders and entrepreneurs who for decades enabled and empowered the Communist Party, of their clarity and discipline?

 

Live in China, and you'll notice, if marginally observant, that every Mainland Chinese you meet knows exactly what they want from you, and often, shamelessly or subtly, get straight to work on it. They are NOT the most casual people you'll ever meet.

 

Whether it is business — their favorite word — “cooperation” or learning English from you, or even marriage aspirations, they are culturally strategic, yet unlike the Russians, more disciplined. And that clarity of purpose and discipline guides their laser focus in influencing, outfoxing those who aren't purpose-driven, as well as the global success and envy they enjoy today. For those ready to enter the #GreyZone promised above, to connect the dots, this is your moment. 

Hence, why I said before that success is like a game of musical chairs. Blink, and you miss strategic opportunities here, and there, on your way to inevitable irrelevance and elimination. It's all the responsiveness, mental conditioning, and enduring peak performance dedication one brings.

 

Further, self-management, as seen through the lens of the #iTHiNKLabs Project for example, involves holistic self-regulation. You're steadily learning everything and critical things needed to stay in the game, ahead of the curve, along with steady drips of self-care, health and wellness tips.

 

It's the stuff of leadership and wisdom. And wisdom drives decision-making effectiveness. Which in turn, powers success. And ethically or not, in the case of the Mainland Chinese, such  commitment to clarity and purpose puts one in the best position to succeed while mitigating costly risks.

 

Those who shun it — whether based on mental weakness for which there's a cure — leave a long trail of indiscretion, failure, missed opportunities, regrets, health, mental health, substance abuse issues, and even suicide.

 

Whatever your country's political mess, or powerful corporate and market forces beyond your control, you can start big in a small way by asking: Who am I becoming right now? A loser or lifetime winner?

 

Proceed or finish below. I'm always happy to help. Or you may follow or engage me here.

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Advanced Personal Leadership Series X27 ⬆ More About The Social Dilemma

How To Mitigate Strategic Deception

The Leadership Series

PEACE

TT

F I N I S