The Compassionate Achiever

The Compassionate Achiever, How Helping Others Fuels Success, A 4-Step Program for Cultivating Compassion,  by Christopher L. Kukk, Ph.d, Harper One 2017

Right about now - mid-pandemic and on the day of some big vaccine announcements - is when many of us are thinking about how to help make things better.  No time, no energy, cranky bitch with limited funds though we might be, what is left to us now but to help each other?  And if we have been especially good over the years at helping ourselves move forward, maybe its time....

Well, it's an interesting combination Dr. Kukk has laid out for us here - high achievers and givers.  How many do we know?

The Compassionate Achiever offers us a 4-step program for getting there, developing and delivering a great approach to humanity, the crowd we find we ourselves in: - 

1. listen to learn

2, understand to know

3. connect to capabilities

4  act to solve

And finally, let's hear about the impact on the giver are well as the other humans touched by compassion.  Something magical or even holy happens when we're on the groove - here is the author's most persuasive recommendation:

All of your personal interactions are like small stones of compassion dropped into a pond, creating ripples that reach far beyond you... approach each with a compassionate mindset and take actions to reinforce your commitment.  start the day with a simple ten-minute meditation. Sign the Charter for Compassion so that your thoughts become the words you live by.  Volunteer at a food pantry or charitable organization...as you make compassionate actions a priority in your life, compassion will become a habit.  helping others at work, taking the time to listen, and remembering to say thank you will become effortless. 

Compassion is contagious...compassion spreads among neighbors, an idea Garrett Jones calls the 'imitation channel '-  if you have cooperative, patient, well-informed neighbors, that probably makes you a bit more cooperative, patient and well-informed.

And here's the best part - brain chemistry and evolution.  Dr, Kukk tells us that acts of compassion will not only help the receiver, they will make us feel good - happy, lighter, part of something healthier.  "When we think compassionately, we 'light up' the same regions of the brain as love, but empathetic thinking lights up regions associated with pain."    In fact he says that when we think from a compassionate mindset, we release the peptide hormone oxytocin which then activates the neurotransmitter dopamine (brain reward) and serotonin (anxiety reduction), which facilitates happiness and optimism.  

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers,  [email protected]