Posts Tagged ‘mid life crisis’

About the Midlife Crisis

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

bankersThe Amount of Trust you are able to give to an other is based on your experience with others. During his life a human develops a Trust-Pattern.

Every time when something goes wrong this pattern is evaluated and adjusted.

 When the pattern is highly predictable it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The prophesy controls the behavior of a person. This behavior is called the personality.

According to Interpersonal Theory there are two variabels that explain a person’s personality. These variables are called Communion (Connected vs Disconnected) and Agency (I vs the Other(s)). Psychopathologic Behavior occurs when a Human reacts according to only one variable. You are Paranoid (Extremely Dominant) when you always react out of High Agency. You want to Control everything and everybody.

Agency generates Correspondent behavior. A highly Dominant person is not able to create a fruitfull relationship with another Dominant person. They always end up in a Conflict. Low Agency (Friendliness) invites Friendliness. Friendly people always Avoid a Conflict.

Communion generates Reciprocal behavior. Disconnected, Low Communion, Humans, Love to be Dominated (High Agency) and Connected, High Communion, Adults love to Care for Humans with a Low Self-esteem (Low Agency).

bank clerkThe level of Communion and Agency changes with Age. A child starts its life with a high level of Communion. It is highly dependent on his parents.

In the phase of Puberty the Agentic variable rises. The child wants to explore the Self and disconnects the relationship with the Caretaker(s) and starts to Explore the outside world.

At the end of this phase Adulthood is reached. Later in life the level of Communion rises again and the level of Dominance lowers again. Old people become dependent on the help of others and are mostly more tolerant.

When we combine the waves of Communion and Agency in Life, we are able to define the Four Stages of the Human Life Cycle.

tellerbankThe first stage (Childhood) ends when the Down path of Communion crosses the Up path of Agency.

The second stage (Adulthood) ends when Agency is Up and the Communion is Down.

In the third stage (MidLife) the second crossing appears (Down Agency, Up Communion). Life ends in the same state it started (High Communion, Low Agency, Old Age).

Humans apply the concepts of Personality and Life-Cycle to Everything that is Acting (Organisms (Cat, Cow, ), Organizations,  and Forces (Sun, Wind))).

So Let’s apply these Concepts to the Financial Industry.

The Agency of the Financial Industry is High so they must have passed the state of Childhood, Puberty and Adulthood. The Communion of the Financial Industry is very Low. If we look at the Life Cycle Model we must conclude they are in or have entered the Stage MidLife.

What Happens when You Enter MidLife?

capitlistPictSome people experience a so called Mid-Life-Crisis.

Individuals experiencing a Mid-Life Crisis know that the Downfall is going to happen soon. They are unable to confront reality and Regress to the State of Puberty.

They start to gamble, abuse alcohol or drugs, buy unusual or expensive items, are depressive and pay special attention to their physical appearance. They want to be Young again.

Bankers are Gambling with Your money, aquire many unusual and expensive items (Cars, Clothing) and pay a lot of attention to their physical appearance (Buildings). They do Everything to Impress their Customers.

Why has the Financial System moved into a Midlife Crisis?

When you enter a Midlife Crisis you suddenly come aware of the fact that Life is very Boring. You are doing the same thing day after day. Normal Banking is boring. Its about moving money that is saved by people to people who need money. When Bankers found out Banking is really a simple process they started to invent exiting processes to become Young again.

bankerYou have to admit that gambling is very exiting when you discover a Way to Gamble and Never Lose called Financial DerivativesForex Academy has a whole course dedicated to that these days, for those curious, this is a godsend. The knowledge to make money from betting on financial markets is out there.

What to do with a person who is in a Midlife Crisis?

The only way to move out of a Midlife Crisis is to Accept Life As It Is. If you are bored in your work find something outside your work (a hobby) or look for another job.

What Has to be the Next Step?

Banks have to return to their Core Business. They have to Accept Savings and give Credit in a Predictable Way. This is the only way to give people and companies the feeling they are able to Trust a Bank. Life is really Simple.

LINKS

A Website about the MidLife Crisis

How to solve an Addiction to Gambling

About Financial Risk Management

How to Solve the Banking Crisis

About Ponzi Schemes in the Financial Industry

About Financial Bubbles

About the Games Played in the Financial Industry

Why the Financial Crisis is still not ended 

Why the Education Factory is Producing Products Nobody Wants to Buy Anymore

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

I have been involved with the Education System in many roles. I have been responsible for the education of children and adults and I have advised many companies and institutions (including the Dutch Ministry of Education) about education.I want to write a few blogs about this issue. This is the first one.

The first issue I want to write about is the System itself. I think the System is at the end of his life-cycle. It is dying.

The current System was created just after the war to handle many children (now called the baby-boomers). It’s focus was efficiency.

To be efficient the System was organized according to the paradigms that where part of the “Spirit of the Time” at that time. The main paradigm was the Factory.

The main product of the Factory is of course a product and the product has to be tested (exams).

There are many product-lines and they deliver products of high (University) and low quality.

The product-lines produce workers who are prepared to work in the product-lines of the next step, the real product-lines in the factories.

They deliver the norms for the previous step. At this moment the factories are using robots and we don’t need human robots anymore.

The current educational factories don’t know what product they have to deliver.

One serious problem is the Input. The Input has become more conscious every year. When I was at school we were accustomed to being programmed. We listened to the teacher and tried to do our utmost best.

This attitude changed of course when we got older and created big problems in the state of puberty. The state op puberty (resistance to power) now starts at a very early age. Females are much earlier in this state than males.

The big problem now is motivate children to learn something. They are easily bored and need an exiting environment to become motivated.

This environment is provided by commercial companies. They attract and manipulate young people with ease and provide them with goals in life that are very unrealistic. They also provide them with tools (games) that are much more exiting (and educational??) than what they are getting at school.

The last point is that we live in a highly materialistic society. This society provides simple goals that are related to making a lot of money. Many parents support their children in these goals and “making a lot of money” determines the major choices made in school.

At the end of the assembly-line the product looks around and is very dissapointed. There is no work available  or the speed in which they are able to reach their materialistic goals is much to slow. The effect is a mid-life-crisis at thirty.

If you read this blog you see that the Educational System has to compete with the Mass Communication Industry and this Industry is very wealthy and global.

The Educational System is local and poor and is not using the Marketing tricks of the Mass Communication Industry. It is certainly not able to follow the speed of innovation in this industry. The current Schooling System is completely out of tricks.

To solve their problems we have to restructure the System but this is not possible for the simple reason that Old Systems are resistant to change. The only thing we can do is to wait for is a total collapse.

What can we do to change the Factory Scholing System?

We have to Speed Up the process of dying.

How?

By creating exciting educational games!

LINKS

How to create Educational Games