Ron Piper
I am a former English teacher and teacher trainer. Since 2018 I have been running my own coaching and training business - https://ronpipercoachingandtraining.com - working mainly in schools.
Location South West England
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Ron Piper made a comment
A timely reminder of the part that vulnerability plays in connecting with people. Resonances of Brene Brown's work here.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I regard every human interaction as a learning opportunity for all parties.
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Ron Piper made a comment
How I AM impacts how other people ARE
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Ron Piper made a comment
Low resilience or optimism tends to create a defeatist mindset. And when you anticipate defeat ... that is what you get.
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Ron Piper made a comment
The HERO way of thinking is a useful template to overlay colleagues' leadership journey. I think that thinking HEROically makes visible the difference that makes the difference between successful and less successful leaders.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I always hang on to the thought that we have choice how we feel. I can feel vengeful/punitive when a situation arises and let my reptile brain take over. Alternatively I can be curious about how to resolve a situation. And the questions: What would I prefer to do. And how would I prefer to be? No brainer!
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Ron Piper made a comment
When faced with a crisis or emergency, I deliberately slow down and aim to model reflective rather than knee jerk responses. More than this, I involve the team, again with the intention that we solve situations together.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I invest a lot of time in managing my state so that I can get to a place to manage my thoughts and emotions. Spending time catastrophizing, worrying etc. takes up too much personal energy that can be used more productively elsewhere.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think acceptance is an important element in creating a psychologically safe organization.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I have a tendency to listen with a view to problem solving. I am trying to re-wire myself so that I remain present.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think acceptance is the key antecedent to learning. It's necessary to accept a situation and to be empathic and curious to be able to find solutions.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think to fully understand a colleague is very challenging. I prefer to think that I have a 'sense' of somebody. And this sense is largely the outcome of noticing their language ('language is the dress of thought') and being curious about the beliefs and values that are shaping behaviour.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Understanding beliefs and values enables us to understand what makes us happy and conversely angry. I think most, if not all, emotional states are outcomes of values conflicts or affirmations. Being aware of purpose and not being able to/being able to is also a major factor in our emotional health and leadership capacity.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Being aware of purpose is all. Purpose is like a compass point: it sets a direction, impacts decisions and is key to well-being.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think this activity has encouraged me to share even more of myself with others and to be proud of who I am.
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Ron Piper made a comment
To begin with I found communicating with large groups quite stressful: I had to rehearse, almost to the point of defaulting to a script. But believing that I could communicate (several successful presentations helped) helped me to become more spontaneous. And when I was more spontaneous, I could be more authentic. And when I was more more authentic, I felt...
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Ron Piper made a comment
I value connection, learning, contribution, commitment and friendship
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Ron Piper made a comment
I can connect with people quite quickly which is majorly helpful given that I present to large groups and coach individuals. Yesterday, when presenting to about 50 people, I was able to engage people and to create a climate for participation.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think part of being an authentic leader is the ability to concede vulnerability. The people we lead have to know that we have compassion, kindness and understanding so that we can be trusted. But to be trusted we have to show that we are vulnerable - that we are human.
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Ron Piper made a comment
In the flow of speech a self-aware person might side step and reflect on what they've just said: 'oh, that's an interesting metaphor, I wonder what made me use that?' Equally, there might be a pause whilst the person pauses to reflect on what they've just said and then revise it in the light of what might be their purpose or core values. Pausing and reflecting...
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Ron Piper made a comment
Perhaps we have only a theoretical knowledge of ourselves? Perhaps we can't truly know we might function in a situation until we experience. I know how I would like to be but is different from how we might actually be.
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Ron Piper replied to Claudia Martins
Exactly my thinking. I like to think how I might/think/act in what might be a highly stressful/challenging situation but until it happens ...
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Ron Piper made a comment
I went for 'agree' because I'm not too sure how I might think/behave/function in extremely challenging situations. I can have a guess but there is an uncertainty factor.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Yes ... computers versus books. Is it a case of grazing rather than engaging? The longer we spend on a problem the more we learn; the more likely what we are aiming to learn will find its way into our long term memory. I think instant access technology is curiosity's nemesis.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I agree ... we live in a cat's cradle of self assumptions all of which shape our perception not only of the world but also what we can do in it.
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Perhaps fear can also encompass the consequences of giving our curiosity free reign. We live within moral parameters otherwise our lives might be "nasty, brutish and short". But what would happen if we were led by our morally un-tempered curiosity? This fear of anarchy might be a reflection of what happens, but to a lesser degree, in a social environment.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I can't help but think that the environment plays a key part in curiosity. In language rich homes (notably middle class homes) curiosity is modelled over the dinner table. I language poor homes, however, discourse is limited largely because of a paucity of vocabulary. You can't have it until you can name it! But what about those middle class professionals? I...
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I think being curious about another person's life position naturally leads to empathy. It's hard not to read about urban poverty, for example, without imagining (an adjunct of curiosity?) what it must be like to live in inadequate housing or to eat just once a day. It's this process that develops our capacity for empathy.
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Ron Piper made a comment
"Curiosity gets shut down as we enter new jobs". Perhaps we feel the need to appear expert? Asking questions, sadly, seems to equate with being dim. Why else wouldn't we ask them? Ego seems to be the enemy of curiosity.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think the connection between curiosity and motivation is interesting and thinking about how the two co-exist in an almost symbiotic relationship. I was drawn to this course by thinking about how curiosity is a driver in business development and how it's important to create a corporate climate where curiosity is stimulated.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think I've been vindicated by always asking my favourite question ... "What would happen if ...?"
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Ron Piper made a comment
Extrinsic rewards are nothing more than an external locus of control. They offer up no opportunity for autonomy, or indeed, relatedness two key drivers for motivation. How can I get curious about something if I'm being told to be through having the application of either a carrot or a stick? I have decide what part of my map of the world needs completing.
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Since early adolescence my decision making has been tempered by the question "What would happen if ... ?" I think that is what rescued me from baling out of education having experienced some catastrophic failures at 16.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think Edward Deci's description of motivation being the fulfilment of three needs (competence, autonomy, relatedness) is something to be considered in relation to curiosity as well. Perhaps it's the case that our curiosity is blunted if these three needs are not met?
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Ron Piper made a comment
The link between curiosity and evolution is fascinating. Another part of Darwin's unfinished symphony?
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think curiosity and working "with" people go hand in hand. If you do "to" there is little opportunity to hear your employees. Dialogue is the vehicle for curiosity. The more dialogue the more curious we can be and the more we can find out to improve life, jobs and ourselves. Yes, be curious about yourself.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I recognise myself as a blue person - I like to consider, reflect and make measured decisions. At the same time, though, I enjoy being centre stage and, to continue the metaphor, take a leading role.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I am a former teacher and was blessed by having a daily opportunity to experience the curiosity of teenagers. Their way of seeing with 'fresh' eyes was a joy. I have taught Macbeth more times than I care to remember, but was always so grateful for the Y11 pupil who would say something like, "I wonder why Shakespeare thought it was important to write about...
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think we do a huge amount on auto-pilot and perhaps even more through social learning. Thinking fast, rather than slow, takes less energy and operating on heuristics makes life so much easier but certainly not either creative or innovative. The regular routines of going to work nurture the development of auto-pilot thinking. Perhaps we should make conscious...
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Ron Piper made a comment
I a curious about how some leaders can get people to walk on water and to follow them without question whilst others prompt disdain and, in some instances, outright dislike.
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Ron Piper made a comment
What makes you curious?
I am fascinated by people and look upon each human interaction as an opportunity to refine the way in which I view the world. I think of myself as a work in progress, but progress can only be made through interaction. So, the more I interact, the better my understanding of the world becomes. I'm curious about how others come to an... -
Ron Piper made a comment
If fish are mammals, then they’re warm-blooded. However, fish aren’t, in fact, warm-blooded, so it follows that they’re not mammals.
Irrelevant premise. Bad argument
P1 Fish are cold blooded
C Therefore they are not mammals
Irrelevant premise. Bad argument
It seems like we should park on another street. Last time we parked on this street we got towed. We... -
Ron Piper made a comment
Argument 1 If you want an iPhone, you’ll have to get a job. But you don’t want an iPhone, you probably don’t want a job either.
I have never wanted an iPhone
I have always had a job
One day I might consider buying an iPhone -
Ron Piper made a comment
If the president behaves as he thinks a leader should, he will gain the support of voters.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I am a former English teacher, senior school leader and teacher trainer. I am currently running my own coaching and training business and operating in primary and secondary schools throughout the UK. I have long held that critical thinking is a vital skill which is even more important as we sink daily into a quagmire of soundbites, disinformation and wilful...
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Ron Piper made a comment
The thought that you might be your own worst enemy rings true here. Thought and behaviour seem to be inextricably entwined here: thoughts prompt behaviours and the outcomes of the behaviours prompt more thoughts ... and so on. I will be taking away the idea that our thinking is a cat's cradle where even more thoughts, and even more behaviours, some...
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Ron Piper made a comment
The longer Chris is isolated the less practised he becomes in social situations which will lead to further awkwardness that might be interpreted as anti-social. It's in adolescence that we learn social skills and nuances of communication. It's as if Chris is retarding his social development with his anxiety.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Staying in his room seems to be a main go-to strategy for avoiding people and situations. It's interesting that his behaviour leads to his friends giving up on him. Chris' behaviour is compounding his anxiety and raising the social stakes ... albeit in his head.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think the therapist's explanation has the potential to offer some comfort. Knowing why you feel as you do is always helpful. Added to this is the therapist's huge empathy and understanding of the patient's difficulties. Knowing that somebody external to you has heard you is, again, comforting.
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Ron Piper made a comment
it's tempting to cancel and indulge in some self-pity. But the better thing to do is to connect with the friends with a view to replenishing lost energy and personal resources.
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Ron Piper made a comment
For me the key word here is 'maintenance'. Understanding what keeps us thinking, feeling and behaving in the same way is vitally important.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Being able to acknowledge and confront feelings with a view to resolving them seems to be a differentiating mindset. How you think about an issue seems to be critical.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think Chris suffers from social anxiety. It seems that he lives in fear of being judged. Feelings of being 'not good enough' are pervasive.
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I wonder if anxiety disorder is in some way related to feelings of control? Perhaps anxiety crosses over to disorder when we feel that we have no control over a situation and our sense of agency is bankrupt.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think a degree of anxiety is a necessary part of life. I am trying to think of a anxiety-free world and wondering how much would actually get done!
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Ron Piper made a comment
Physical symptoms encompass a range of outward involuntary behaviours: nervousness, sweating etc. But I think, too, that inattention and an inability to focus need to be acknowledged.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Ailsa mentions a number of symptoms already touched upon. However, getting lost and the feeling of being disorientated struck me as being extremely sad. I think she wasn't just geographically lost, but more mentally lost having lost her compass.
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Ron Piper made a comment
There seems to be a pervasive belief that if you can't see, then it can't exist. I think the cartoon captures this mindset beautifully. It's odd how, culturally we differentiate so sharply between the physical and the mental. Is this the upshot of Cartesian thinking?
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Ron Piper made a comment
The concept of how we 'see' and make sense of the world is fascinating and explains much in terms of how our perceptions shape how we feel. The way I remember this is by using the TEAR acronym: Thought, Emotion, Action, Response. Everything, it seems, starts with what you think.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Our brain fills in gaps in accordance with our experience; context impacts perception and therefore meaning; we are defined by our interaction with the world rather than our observance of it.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think many of the above mentioned senses tick over in the background beyond conscious awareness. It's only their absence, perhaps, that alerts us to them.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Just being aware of the incoming data, I am asking questions about it: "The car that's just gone by, is it going more than 20mph? Will the dog owner clear up after his dog?" and so on. I suppose I am constantly searching causal links and imposing some sort of order. A meaning maker?
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I'm thinking that a mind doesn't necessarily have to be resident in another person. A mind - and I know this might fly in the face of the sentience perspective - might be something which my consciousness engages with.
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Ron Piper made a comment
The clarity of Mark's explanations is stunningly good. A huge thank you.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I can see how seeking and liking systems are so closely allied to the dopamine loop. The cue signal sets up an anticipation and the reading of the message is the reward. Yes, incoming notifications and the need to respond can be both satisfying and debilitating.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think the instinctual foraging impulse is now attuned to social acceptance, ego confirmation and the like. Our foraging is more socially focussed. I wonder, too, if the foraging is seeking out strategies that keep us psychologically safe. It seems our lower order needs are taken care of and we have evolved to keep ourselves safe in other ways.
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Ron Piper made a comment
It strikes me that much of life is automated. And what about responses to, say, political leaders? We rarely analyse what they say, but more often, rely on previously formed schema to guide our response. Kahnerman's "Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow" comes to mind here.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Emotions, it seems, are an integrated part of our evolutionary success. Without emotions we would be putting ourselves in continual peril - using evolutionary criteria.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Consciousness is an aspect of awareness and sentience. I think too, it involves responsiveness to incoming emotional, mental and sensory data. I think all the time an organism is registering responsiveness, there is consciousness.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think the idea of degrees of mindedness is true if, for, example, I compare my actions/agency to that of my cat who might rely more on reflexive rather than reflective thought.
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Ron Piper made a comment
A fascinating experience. But the absence of empathy made it quite an arid experience. My mind - I - would have connected had I been able to connect.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Mark is right to identify the language issue as being a flaw in the test. Just because something - a carpet? - cannot/does not communicate in a conventional sense doesn't mean that it fails to have subjective experiences. I wonder if anything that serves as a catalyst for subjective experience can have mind status? of an experience with. Can a mind only be a...
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Ron Piper made a comment
I appreciate the logic of studying manifestations of the mind if the mind is something subjective.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Free will? It seems that we live within a cat's cradle of stimuli which generates enabling and disabling emotions some of which we instinctually respond to whilst at other times we think through a response based upon our subjective experience of the world. If, though, instinct is at one of the spectrum and our subjective experience of the world at the other,...
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Ron Piper made a comment
this distinction between thought and feeling is powerful. Feelings it seems are the outliers for thinking. We feel, we think. Thinking is the process for deciding actions to avoid, or indeed promote, certain feelings. Is thinking, then, the process for keeping us safe? A mechanism to sustain our evolutionary journey?
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Ron Piper made a comment
it's difficult to ascribe a mind to a machine when the basis for its intelligence is different from our own. I think a mind is able to entertain an infinite number of responses whereas algorithmic intelligence is finite. Perhaps a mind is a mind because of its capacity for the infinite? I wonder, too, if our capacity for infinite responses is an outcome of our...
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Ron Piper made a comment
it's helpful to study the mind from the point-of-view of subjectivity, consciousness, intentionality and agency. Without this lens it would be difficult to remain disciplined in approach.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I'm starting from the idea that a mind can only be a mind if it is in a relationship with another. A single mind existing independently would be an impossibility. But I'm ready to re-think using different perspectives.
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Ron Piper made a comment
This glossary is helpful. It's effective to be using the same language.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Hello to all
I have had a life-long fascination for understanding the mind. Just how is it that something immaterial and ephemeral is generated from the corporeal and , put bluntly, the solid? It is rather like alchemy: base metal into gold. I know I won't have a definitive answer to what is a mind but I hope that my thinking will be taken in new directions. -
Ron Piper made a comment
I think it's hugely comforting to know that we have the capacity to grow our learning. Growth mindsets are about potential: we have the potential to be what we want. This is the antidote to thinking like an imposter.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Dweck has changed my life!
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Ron Piper made a comment
For a number of years now I have kept a professional development file where I store certificates, observations and performance management notes together with thank you notes and feedback on the courses I have delivered. The thank you notes and the feedback are what I value the most. And yes, they do go a long way to dissolving imposter feelings.
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I think that if you can every moment of self-doubt into a learning opportunity much can be achieved. I think, too, that you will much better about who you are. A learner or a hider. But, this said, it's hard to think differently and to abandon the learned behaviour of keeping safe. Learning must be about putting your ego in a box.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think social media encourages the portrayal of an idealised self. It stands to reason, therefore, that we compare ourselves to other in a social media environment we are not dealing with reality. Small wonder we feel inadequate.
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Ron Piper made a comment
This SWOT analysis for self is great. I enables the adoption of a rational voice. And a voice that is kind!
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think Michelle Obama's imposter syndrome is likely more deep rooted because of the racial dimension. Tenant might think he's not worthy but Michelle Obama grew up with a narrative that, very unjustly, militated against
her race. -
Ron Piper made a comment
I think presentations are high stakes. It's OK, perhaps, to fail in the privacy of your own home but to do publicly would be catastrophic. I think imposter thoughts are evolutionarily hard wired to keep us safe. I think I will have to develop an alternative narrative which involves the necessity of risk taking to learn.
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Ron Piper made a comment
The score was 67
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Ron Piper made a comment
My test score confirms my imposter syndrome experience. I am surprised, however, that the score falls in the 'significant' sector. Suffering more than I thought!
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I think I have spent most of my professional life over working in an effort to compensate for an imposter belief. I am wondering now how much more effective I could have been. This said, though, I know I've done a good job. It's just a shame I experienced all the doubts.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I have worked with a number of younger teachers who are reluctant to put themselves forward for senior positions thinking that, because of their age, they are unworthy. They would be pretend leaders! Is there a cultural perception of what a leader looks/sounds like? Do we measure ourselves against this perception? Do we think ourselves imposters if our beliefs...
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If you inhabit an imposter belief you are very unlikely to take chances or risks. And by not taking chances or risks you can't fail. This is what I meant by staying safe.
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@JulietaGreco Yep, totally agree.
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Ron Piper made a comment
Something of a cathartic experience: the course materials have held up a mirror in which I can view myself. I agree that imposter syndrome is a means of staying safe. This is how evolution works. It seems, though, that staying safe can create other threats to our well-being, notably anxiety and depression. We seem to be in a Catch 22.
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Ron Piper made a comment
I think it's interesting in families when a well meaning parent or relation will say to a child something like "Ah, you're the brains of the family" or "You'll go far in life" and so on. These seemingly throw away comments can have the effect of setting the bar or inadvertently defining a goal ... which must then be achieved.
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Ron Piper made a comment
It doesn't surprise me that these people felt fraudulent. I think that we all live with self-doubt. Some more than others. High achievers, though, are especially prone to self-doubt simply because they have 'further to fall' and more to lose. I think this explains why some people simply don't aspire. Why suffer the shame and humility? The anticipated feeling...
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Ron Piper made a comment
Yes, I think these three core factors have been woven into the warp and the weft of my life with varying degrees of intensity.
