March 2020

27 Mar

Panic and Pandemonium in Paradise

by Jeremy Chance

Most people reading this email live in paradise.

At least, comparing you to the planetary presence of all humans, nothing much is amiss. You have running water, a bed to sleep in, friends who care, clothes to wear, food to eat.

At no time in the history of humanity have so many people been doing so well.

26 Mar

Less Pain More Gain – A Postural System that Delivers Consistent Results

by Jeremy Chance

I've been thinking about redesigning BodyChance's website, as it is getting old these days, like Chancer.

But how do you describe something that delivers so many different kinds of results?

Some examples just in the last week at BodyChance Pro:

25 Mar

Conventional Wisdom Is Another Name for Lazy Thinking

by Jeremy Chance

These days the big new thing is “Be Yourself”.

Dan Kennedy, the father of the modern direct-marketing, offers an historical experiment to track the birthing of “personality” in branding of today - pay a visit to your local library and ask for 10 years of back issues of your favourite magazine.

25 Mar

The Family Affair

by Jeremy Chance

My email yesterday was ill-advised.

Yes, I had my emotional adventure and got roasted good and proper. And I realized something important – we don't know. No-one does, and anyone who thinks they do is kidding themselves, including me.

23 Mar

A Letter to My Family

by Jeremy Chance

It’s not poetic or luvy duvy, at all.

My eldest sister started an email thread for siblings whose families are spread out over six cities on three different continents. While I am usually thoughtful in my public pronouncements, I thought I could just vent a little with family - then be beaten up by them as an exercise in finding out will happen.

21 Mar

When the Cure Overtakes the Disease

by Jeremy Chance

The children are happy.

At least those I see in the morning - as I run along the Meguro river - with their baseball hats and sturdy smiles.

School is out!

It's a holiday!

14 Mar

The Poisoning of Presence

by Jeremy Chance

Say you drive a car often.

Then one day your friend is in a car accident. It is terrible. You see them in the hospital; you hear their story. You worry about them.

Then something strange starts to happen.

It appears that there are more car accidents. You become super aware of bad drivers. You notice how easily an accident could happen.

Did the world just magically change?

12 Mar

What You See Is All There Is

by Jeremy Chance

"The main obstacle is that subjective confidence is determined by the coherence of the story one has constructed, not by the quality and amount of the information that supports it."

Daniel Kahneman, from "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

***

11 Mar

How Your Brain is Processing COVID-19 – Part II

by Jeremy Chance

Last week I wrote about the way marketers predict your behaviour using the RFM (Recency | Frequency | Monetary Value) Principle – which is based on the way your associative brain works.

What is the associative brain?

Your associative brain is everything that purrs along without you knowing it. Alexander called it your unconscious.

It comprises of an ancient brain – in development for 550 million years – together with the latest innovation from the mammals. Mammals introduced the six-layer neocortex, which now occupies up a whopping 76% of your human brain.

08 Mar

How Your Deep brain is Processing COVID-19 – Part I

by Jeremy Chance

BodyChance must be one of the few schools in Japan that have not cancelled its classes.

Of course, we have alcohol at our entrance, many students wear masks, our class size is small, and we are doing everything that makes practical, common sense.

However, I don't do fear. Not about COVID-19.

07 Mar