Tag Archives: Control

Maintaining the Illusion of Control

Maintaining the Illusion of Control

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Unhappy: When you want things to be different than they are.
Happy: When you accept things as they are.

Sad: When you fixate on times when things turned out differently than you wanted.
Neutral: When you know you have little control over how things will turn out.
Anxious: When you fixate on times when things might turn out differently than you want.

Stressed: When you think you have control over how things will turn out.
Relaxed: When you know you don’t have control over how things will turn out.

Agitated: When you live in the future.
Calm: When you live in the present.
Sad: When you live in the past.

Angry: When you expect a just world, but it isn’t.
Neutral: When you expect that it could be a just world, but likely isn’t.
Happy: When you know it doesn’t matter if the world is just.

Angry: When others don’t meet your expectations.
Neutral: When you know your expectations are about you.
Happy: When you have no expectations.

Timid: When you think people will judge you negatively.
Neutral: When you think people may judge you negatively or positively.
Happy: When you know what people think about you is none of your business.

Distracted: When you live in the past or future.
Focused: When you live in the now.

Afraid of change: When you think all things are static.
Accepting change: When you know all things are dynamic.

Intimidated: When you think you don’t meet someone’s expectations.
Confident: When you know you did your best.

Uncomfortable: When you want things to be different than they are.
Comfortable: When you know the Universe doesn’t care what you think.

Image credit: Pexels

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Innovation Quotes of the Day – May 29, 2012


“If you get people to ‘freely’ talk about innovation, its importance, its impact and can ‘paint’ the future in broad brush strokes, they achieve a growing clarity and enthusiasm and that often missing critical component – a sense of shared identity.”

– Paul Hobcraft


“The United States leads the world in innovation because it has created the perfect storm of a risk tolerant citizenry, where failure is sometimes a badge of honor, and a government that invests in basic research, helps to commercialize it, and for the most part tends to go out of the way from a regulatory standpoint.”

– Braden Kelley


“Organizations love to run the aforementioned innovation processes through the middle of the enterprise which is designed to eliminate variation. Think about your metrics, hurdle rates and stage-gate systems and it becomes clear that these practices are designed to created stability through standards, policies and similar controls. Innovation moves from the outside of the bell curve, where risk and reward are reversed, and moves to middle over time.”

– Jeff DeGraff


What are some of your favorite innovation quotes?

Add one or more to the comments, listing the quote and who said it, and I’ll share the best of the submissions as future innovation quotes of the day!

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