Are you conscious?
In Conscious Content I talk about consciousness, and I like Annaka Harris' definition of being able to experience something. Like you, right now, reading this.
You might be looking on the screen while sitting on a chair. Is the chair having an experience? No.
Are you having the experience of sitting on that chair? Your bum hitting the seat? Your back self supported or supported by its back? Your posture curving in to your laptop? Yes, that is consciousness. Having an aware experience.
POOOF!
We spend surprisingly lots of time talking about various aspects of the chair.
”Quicker, quicker, build that chair”
I’ve observed with caution how our discussions have shifted to talk about the “form” of things. Whether it is being an employee, being an entrepreneur. Running a podcast, writing a newsletter. Starting a membership program to build community. Building a chair.
As Annaka underlines, a behavior itself doesn’t signal the presence of consciousness. We can act and express ourselves without being in the actual experience. Yes, that’s what AI is doing, machine learning is learned action. It’s programmed behavior. I’m guilty as charged for running on “programmed behavior” all day long sometimes. Doing the “form”.
Is your glass half full?
When I think of content, I often think of “form” as a glass. Your blog is a glass, your newsletter is a glass, your podcast is a glass. Yup, even your LinkedIn feed is a glass. In the quickly paced attention economy, we fill the glass with generic content. We pour some quickly stirred minute made juice into all our glasses swiftly while spilling a bit on the side. Giving whoever drinks it some hydration while paying with a sugar rush that will make them crash. The impact of that serving is so low, we need to quickly stir up something more.
Our overreliance on “form”, on the glass, has made us less aware of our own experience, less expressive of our own experience. We diminish ourselves into something we “put into that thing”. Whether that is a job, a podcast or a new business model.
Instead of stirring something up, I’d like you to pour your soul into that glass. Pour the experience of being YOU into it, of observing the world from your perspective. Your take, your contribution. You are the very thing that brings life to the form, the reason we reached for the glass in the first place. You are that fresh water, that honey-milk, or soothing ginger tea. How you take on this form matters, it’s what makes it special. It’s the art, the expression of you and of your most important ideas.
So how can we add more consciousness into the work we do?
Connect with your experience: What am I experiencing right now? What is it like to be me right now?
Go deeper with your ideas: Formulate a unique point of view based on your precise experience, and connect that to what is going on in your field of work.
Be aware of how you would like anyone who drinks this cup of content to feel. Scared? Triggered? Reassured?
How does that look like in the real world?
A newsletter built as a creative practice and ideas repository talking to a specific group of people about specific topics they care about.
Showing up as a candidate at a job interview or a date with your next co-founder, comfortable in your narrative about who YOU are and what you’re point of view is.
A carefully planned podcast where we are aware of what parts of the story we’d like to highlight, to create the right experience and takeaways for our listener.
An event series designed to help people feel safe while asking vulnerable questions from people they just met.
A podcast where how we show up as hosts paves the way for how we’d like friendships to be, in a world of “shallow authenticity”.
Having a voice at the table, rather than just a seat in that corporate boardroom.
An interview practice where we dare to ask the deeper questions that goes beyond what is “normally asked”.
Read more about how we can shape the forms of your life to fit you in Conscious Voice.
