My first lightning talk this module was titled "Seize the 'vuja de'". 'Deja vu' is about experiencing something new as if it were a familiar experience. 'Vuja de' is its inverse. And to seize the 'vuja de' gets at intentionally approaching something familiar in a brand new way. The example I used as something familiar was the emotional management of fear/anxiety/doubt. And the techniques for grappling with these familiar demons were ideas pulled from a chapter of a recently published book entitled "Originals: How Non-conformists Move the World," written by an organizational psychologist named Adam Grant. Since I gave this lightning talk during week five, which is in the middle of final projects and precedes final assessments, I wanted to talk about coping mechanisms that can enhance, rather than derail, performance under pressure.
I decided on this topic after stumbling upon Grant's TED talk on the habits of original thinkers. Programming involves higher-order cognitive functions and a creative process that likens the experience for original thinkers. Grant outlined the emotional journey invovled in the creative process as such:
- This is awesome
- This tricky
- This is crap
- I am crap
- This might be okay
- This is awesome"
One thing that stands out with original thinkers is inspite of experiencing self doubt (as expressed in step 4 above), they fear more the failure to try, experiment or continue forth in the creation process. And so they say "no" to self doubt; and "yes" to idea doubt. The latter conveys an action bias where the act of pursuit is invigorating and satisfying for original thinkers.
Another technique challenges the binary fixation imposed on individuals regarding pessimism and optimism. Top performers choose to be strategically pessimistic or strategically optimistic. When an individual is committed to an upcoming scenario, such as a final assessment, it is productive to leverage doubt to work out worst-case situations. When in individual is not as committed to an upcoming scenario, such as overcoming the fear of public speaking, it is productive to find a hook to the scenario that ignites excitement.
These two major techniques get at the idea of deep acting, which is about changing from the inside out. They are ways to experience desired emotions so that they translate into more effective and productive external behaviors. Deep acting is also a more sustainable strategy than merely putting on a front (i.e., shallow acting). Shallow acting is about feigning appearances that do not positively influence internal emotional responses to situations. If done continuously over time, it contributes to burn out and exhaustion. Deep acting is a more holistic strategy.
The emotional arc of almost every Turing student's creative process during their time here is not too drastically different from those of iconic inventors and so-called original thinkers throughout history. Through the TED talk, I learned that Thomas Edison produced some rather interesting products. The same man who produced the first commercially viable light bulb was the same man who produced a rather creepy, phonographic doll.