Tim maia nobody can live forever free download

What this means is that the converse is also true. Those only doing as they are told, always forced to follow the rules, are the ones who suffer the most. Our feelings of control, stress, and our ability to perform at our best are all directly tied to how safe we feel in our organizations. Feeling unsafe around those we expect to feel safe—those in our tribes work is the modern version of the tribe —fundamentally violates the laws of nature and how we were designed to live.

The Whitehall Studies are not new, and their findings have been confirmed over and over. Yet even with the preponderance of data we still do nothing. Even when we know that feeling insecure at work hurts our performance and our health, sometimes even killing us, we stay in jobs we hate.

For some reason, we are able to convince ourselves that unknown dangers outside are more perilous than the dangers inside. And so we adapt and put up with uncomfortable work environments that do not make us feel good or inspire our best work. We have all, at some time, rationalized our position or our place and continued doing exactly what we were doing.

Human resources consultancy Mercer LLC reported that between fourth quarter and first quarter , one in three employees seriously considered leaving their jobs, up 23 percent from five years prior. The problem was that less than 1.

This is one of the issues with a bad working environment. One, it says that an uncomfortably high number of people would rather be working somewhere else, and two, that they see no other option to improve how they feel about their jobs beyond quitting.

There is an alternative route, however. It requires that we stay. We will still need to change the way we do things when we show up at work. It will require us to turn some of our focus away from ourselves to give more attention to those to the left of us and those to the right of us.

Like the Spartans, we will have to learn that our strength will come not from the sharpness of our spears but from our willingness to offer others the protection of our shields. Some say a weak job market or bad economy is the reason to stick it out, in which case leaders of companies should want to treat their people better during hard times to prevent a mass exodus as soon as things improve.

And in a good economy, leaders of companies should also want to treat their people well so that their people will stop at nothing to help the company manage when the hard times return which, inevitably, they will. The best companies almost always make it through hard times because the people rally to make sure they do.

In other words, from a strictly business standpoint, treating people well in any economy is more cost effective than not. Children are better off having a parent who works into the night in a job they love than a parent who works shorter hours but comes home unhappy. This is the influence our jobs have on our families. Working late does not negatively affect our children, but rather, how we feel at work does. Parents may feel guilty, and their children may miss them, but late nights at the office or frequent business trips are not likely the problem.

So what is the price we pay for not demanding that our leaders concern themselves with our well-being? We are not, as we think, putting up with miserable so that we may provide for our children. By putting up with miserable, we may be doing them harm.

There is only one way we can solve this problem. By building and maintaining Circles of Safety where we work. Pointing fingers is not the solution, pulling together and doing something is. And the good news is, there are powerful forces that can help us. If we can learn to harness these seemingly supernatural forces, we can put right what is so wrong.

This is no soapbox rambling. It is just biology. It was about the worst place anyone would want to live. It was incredibly dangerous. There were no supermarkets of any sort; the residents were left to forage or hunt for any food they could find.

Survival, under these conditions, was something people really had to think about. Every moment of every day, there could always be something out there that could do them harm. There were no classrooms, and there were no hospitals. As things stood, there were no jobs to be had. And for good reason, there were no companies. This is not some post-apocalyptic Mad Max scenario. The time is fifty thousand years ago and modern man, Homo sapiens, is taking his first steps out in the world.

This is where we come from. Our ancestors were born dirt poor. Any opportunities came from their will and hard work to create them. And create them they did. Our species was built to manage in conditions of great danger and insufficient resources. Life in Paleolithic times was not like the aftermath of a hurricane. Our ancestors were not the stereotypical cavemen we like to imagine. They looked like we do today and were just as smart and capable as we are today.

Other than that, they were just like you and me. Nearly everything about humans is designed to help us survive and perpetuate the species through tough times—very tough times.

Our physiology and our need to cooperate both exist with our survival in mind. We are at our best when we face danger together. Unfortunately, there are too many leaders of companies who believe, in the face of external challenges, that the best way to motivate their people is by creating a sense of internal urgency or pressure. Based on our biology and anthropology, however, nothing could be further from the truth. When we feel like we belong to the group and trust the people with whom we work, we naturally cooperate to face outside challenges and threats.

When we do not have a sense of belonging, however, then we are forced to invest time and energy to protect ourselves from each other. And in so doing, we inadvertently make ourselves more vulnerable to the outside threats and challenges. Plus, with our attention facing inward, we will also miss outside opportunities. When we feel safe among the people with whom we work, the more likely we are to survive and thrive.

In the Beginning. Part of our advantage is thanks to the neocortex—our complex, problem-solving brain. It also gives us the ability for sophisticated communication. But another critical reason we survived was thanks to our remarkable ability to cooperate. We are a highly social species whose survival and ability to prosper depend on the help of others.

Our ability to work together, to help and protect each other, worked so well, in fact, that our populations did more than survive, they thrived. Elephants survived also, but the life of an elephant today is largely the same as it was millions of years ago. But not us. Our lives are completely different than they were fifty thousand years ago. Though our species was molded to suit our environment, we were so good at working together and solving problems that we found ways to mold our environments to suit us.

The better we did, the better we got at changing our conditions to suit our needs instead of being changed to suit the conditions. The problem is, our basic genetic coding remains the same. We are an old-fashioned bunch living in a modern, resource-rich world.

This has its obvious advantages but, like everything, comes at a cost. The men went out and hunted together and the whole community worked together to raise the young, care for the sick and the elderly and look out for each other.

There was conflict, of course, just like there is conflict in any group. But when push came to shove, they put all their differences aside and worked together. Just as we may have serious issues with one of our siblings, if someone else threatens them, we will rise up to defend them. We always protect our own. This is one of the reasons that treason is punishable in the same way as murder.

Given its importance to our ability to survive, we humans take this trust thing really seriously. Our success proves it. Cooperation and mutual aid work better than competition and rugged individualism. Why add another degree of difficulty by fighting against each other when we were already forced to struggle against the hardships of nature, limited resources or other outside threats?

This cooperative village life existed from the Amazonian rain forests to the open plains of Africa. In other words, it was not the physical environment that determined our best chance for survival and success—it was the very biology of our species, the design of the human being itself. The manner in which we evolved—to help each other—worked regardless of where we came from or the unique hardships we may have encountered.

Every single human on the planet, regardless of culture, is naturally inclined to cooperate. We are social animals, and being social was as important to us thousands of years ago as it is today.

It was a significant way we built and maintained trust and the way we got to know each other. Equally as important are conferences, company picnics and the time we spend around the watercooler. The more familiar we are with each other, the stronger our bonds. Social interaction is also important for the leaders of an organization.

Roaming the halls of the office and engaging with people beyond meetings really matters. Perhaps the closest example of a modern system that mimics our ancestral kinship societies is the college dorm.

Though students may have their own rooms which are usually shared , doors are often left open as students socialize between the rooms. The hallway becomes the center of social life and rooms are for homework and sleeping and sometimes not even that. The bonds of friendship that form in those dorms are vital. Our success as a species was not luck—it was earned.

We worked hard to get to where we are today and we did it together. We are, at a deeply ingrained and biological level, social machines. And when we work to help each other, our bodies reward us for our effort so that we will continue to do it. Our Chemical Dependency trial and error of evolution, almost every detail about our physiology is there for a reason. Our taste buds tell our digestive systems which enzymes to release to best deal with the food that is on its way down, just like our sense of smell helps us detect if food is spoiled or not.

Similarly our eyebrows were designed to help channel sweat away from our eyes when we were running toward prey—or running away to avoid becoming prey. Everything about our bodies was designed with one goal—to help us survive.

This includes the feelings of happiness. Just as any parent, teacher or manager knows, if they offer the promise of bounty, like candy, gold stars or performance bonuses—or the threat of punishment—they can get the behavior they want. They know we will focus our attention on tasks that produce the results that earn us rewards. We know that we earn our bonuses only when we get the results they want. And for the most part, it works. It works really well, in fact. Mother Nature figured out a lot earlier than our bosses, however, to use an incentive system to condition us to do certain things to achieve desired results.

In the case of our biology, our bodies employ a system of positive and negative feelings—happiness, pride, joy or anxiety, for example—to promote behaviors that will enhance our ability to get things done and to cooperate. Whereas our bosses might reward us with an end-of-year bonus, our bodies reward us for working to keep ourselves and those around us alive and looked after with chemicals that make us feel good.

And now, after thousands of years, we are all completely and utterly chemical-dependent. Whether acting alone or in concert, in small doses or large, anytime we feel any sense of happiness or joy, odds are it is because one or more of these chemicals is coursing through our veins. They each serve a very real and practical purpose: our survival. The Paradox of Being Human as individuals and as members of groups at all times. I am one and I am one of many. This also creates some inherent conflicts of interest.

When we make decisions, we must weigh the benefits to us personally against the benefits to our tribe or collective. Working exclusively to advance ourselves may hurt the group, while working exclusively to advance the group may come at a cost to us as individuals.

This tension often weighs on our consciences when we make decisions. I appreciate the irony that we even debate, as individuals and as groups, which one is primary. The fact is, both are true. Even in our own biology, there exists this seeming conflict of interest. Of the four primary chemical incentives in our bodies, two evolved primarily to help us find food and get things done while the other two are there to help us socialize and cooperate.

The first two chemicals, endorphins and dopamine, work to get us where we need to go as individuals—to persevere, find food, build shelters, invent tools, drive forward and get things done. The other two, serotonin and oxytocin, are there to incentivize us to work together and develop feelings of trust and loyalty. They work to help strengthen our social bonds so that we are more likely to work together and to cooperate, so that we can ultimately survive and ensure our progeny will live on beyond us.

We buy too much because everything we see we want to eat now. Our ancestors of the Paleolithic era lived in times when resources were either scarce or hard to come by.

Imagine if every time we felt hungry, we had to go hunting for a few hours. Odds are our species would not have survived very well with a system like that. And so our bodies, in an effort to get us to repeat behaviors that are in our best interest, came up with a way to encourage us to go hunting and gathering on a regular basis instead of waiting until we were starving.

Two chemicals—endorphins and dopamine—are the reason that we are driven to hunt, gather and achieve. These are the chemicals of progress. Often released in response to stress or fear, they mask physical pain with pleasure. This is one of the reasons runners and other endurance athletes continue to push their bodies harder and harder. It is not simply because they have the discipline to do so; they do it because it actually feels good. They love and sometimes crave the amazing high they can achieve from a hard workout.

The biological reason for endorphins, however, has nothing to do with exercise. It has to do with survival. The caveman application of the chemical feel-good is far more practical. Because of endorphins, humans have a remarkable capacity for physical endurance. They were able to track an animal over great distances and then still have the stamina to make it home again.

If the trusty hunters gave up at any time simply because they were exhausted, then they, and those in their tribe, would not eat very often and would eventually die off. And so Mother Nature designed a clever incentive to encourage us to keep going—a little endorphin rush.

We can actually develop a craving for endorphins. Our ancestors probably wanted to go hunting and gathering not simply because they knew they had to, but because it often felt good to go. Again, the human body wants us to feel good when we go looking for food or when we are doing the hard work of building shelter so that we will more likely do it.

Thanks to cars and supermarkets, however, we live in a world with readily available and abundant resources. The body no longer rewards the search for food, at least not with endorphins. In this day and age, we basically get our endorphin hits from exercise or manual labor. With at least one notable exception. Stephen Colbert, political satirist and host of The Colbert Report, commented during an interview on the importance of laughter in tense times. Laughing actually releases endorphins.

We like laughing for the same reason runners like running—it feels good. It is the high we get, which continues after the laughing has ceased, that makes it hard to be, as Colbert says, afraid at the same time. During tense times, a little lightheartedness may go a long way to help relax those around us and reduce tensions so that we can focus on getting our jobs done. As President Ronald Reagan famously joked with the chief surgeon on March 30, , as he was wheeled into the operating room at George Washington University Hospital, after being shot by John Hinckley Jr.

We all know how good it feels to cross something off our to-do list. That feeling of progress or accomplishment is primarily because of dopamine. Long before agriculture or supermarkets, humans spent a good portion of their time in search of the next meal. So Mother Nature designed a clever way to help us stay focused on the task at hand. One way we get dopamine is from eating, which is one of the reasons we enjoy it.

And so we try to repeat the behaviors that get us food. It is dopamine that makes us a goal-oriented species with a bias for progress. Back in the Paleolithic era, if someone saw a tree filled with fruit, for example, dopamine was released to incentivize them to stay focused on the task and go get the food. As they made progress toward that fruit tree, they would see it getting slightly bigger, an indication they were getting closer.

And with each sign of progress, they would get another little hit of dopamine to keep them on their way. And another, and another until they got a big hit when they finally reached their goal. Each milestone we pass is a metric, a way to see that the fruit tree is getting closer and closer. Like a marathon runner who passes each mile marker toward the finish line, our bodies reward us with dopamine so that we will keep going, working even harder to reach that huge pot of dopamine, that intense feeling of accomplishment at the end.

Obviously the bigger the goal, the more effort it requires, the more dopamine we get. This is why it feels really good to work hard to accomplish something difficult, while doing something quick and easy may only give us a little hit if anything at all. In other words, it feels good to put in a lot of effort to accomplish something.

There is no biological incentive to do nothing. Our Goals Must Be Tangible visually oriented animals. We seem to trust our eyes more than any of our other senses. Like seeing that fruit-filled tree in the distance, if we are able to physically see what we are setting out to accomplish or clearly imagine it, then we are indeed, thanks to the powers of dopamine, more likely to accomplish that goal.

This is the reason we like to be given a clear goal to achieve to receive a bonus instead of being given some amorphous instructions. Give us something specific to set our sights on, something we can measure our progress toward, and we are more likely to achieve it.

This is why people who balance their checkbooks or maintain a budget are more likely to save or not overspend. Saving is not a state of mind; it is a goal to be achieved. Respected by whom? The customers? The shareholders?

The employees? A good vision statement, in contrast, explains, in specific terms, what the world would look like if everything we did was wildly successful. Martin Luther King Jr. And if we find that vision inspiring and worthy of our time and energy, then we can more easily plan the steps we need to take to achieve that vision. Short or long term, the clearer we can see what we are setting out to achieve, the more likely we are to achieve it.

When the system works as designed, we stay well fed, get our work done and make progress. Dopamine can help us get through college, become a doctor or work tirelessly to realize an imagined vision of the future. But there is some fine print at the bottom of the bottle that is often missed. Dopamine is also highly, highly addictive. As helpful as it is, we can also form neural connections that do not help us survive—in fact, they may do the complete opposite.

The behaviors we reinforce can actually do us harm. Cocaine, nicotine, alcohol and gambling all release dopamine. And the feeling can be intoxicating.

The chemical effects notwithstanding, the addictions we have to these things and lots of other things that feel good are all basically dopamine addictions. The only variation is the behavior that is reinforced that gives us the next hit of dopamine. There is another thing to add to that list of things that can hijack our dopamine reward system: social media.

As it should. Some of us have formed neural connections that drive us to carry our phones in our hands at all times, often looking down and hitting refresh a few times, even though nothing has come in. Gimme dopamine!

It is said that if you wake up in the morning and the first thing you crave is a drink, you might be an alcoholic. If you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is check your phone to read e- mail or scan through your social media before you even get out of bed, you might be an addict.

Craving a hit of chemical feel good, we repeat the behaviors that we know can produce that hit. In the case of alcohol or gambling, we are aware of it. In the case of our love of our devices and social media, we are less aware of the addictive qualities. But I will save that discussion for later. It is because of dopamine that, in our modern day, we like shopping or collecting things—though there is no rational benefit to most of our hobbies, we enjoy them because they satisfy our prehistoric foraging desires.

We spend more time and money than is wise and sometimes sacrifice our relationships just so we can get another hit. Accomplishment may be fueled by dopamine.

But that feeling of fulfillment, those lasting feelings of happiness and loyalty, all require engagement with others. Though we may not reminisce about that goal we hit a decade ago, we will talk about the friends we made as we struggled to make it. The good news is we also have chemical incentives that reward us with positive feelings when we act in ways that would earn us the trust, love and loyalty of others.

All we have to do to get those feelings is give a little. Which is pretty handy, because, as we all know, we can get even more done together, working with people we trust, than we can alone.

Endorphins and dopamine work together to ensure our survival as it relates to food and shelter. They help us get things done so that we will be housed and fed. Without endorphins to give us the edge we need to keep going, we would not keep striving even when we were tired and exhausted. Together is better. The Selfless Chemicals achieving are only part of our story. It is the selfless chemicals that make us feel valued when we are in the company of those we trust, give us the feeling of belonging and inspire us to want to work for the good of the group.

It is the selfless chemicals that keep the Circle of Safety strong. Seeing the food, they both lunge at it. The faster, stronger of the two will be the one to eat that day. Acting completely out of instinct, it will consume the carcass and swim away with a full stomach and absolutely no care in the world about the other crocodile.

And though the other crocodile may swim away hungry, it will harbor no ill will toward its adversary. The animals have no positive feelings when cooperation is offered and thus no incentive to cooperate. They are, by design, cold-hearted loners. Nothing personal. All instinct. And, for a crocodile, it works. We, however, are not like crocodiles.

Though we may share the primitive, reptilian portion of our brain with them, our brain continued to grow beyond its reptile roots. We are anything but loners. The addition of the mammalian layer of our brain helped us to become highly functioning social animals.

And for good reason. Whether we like to admit it or not, we need each other. They are the backbone of the Circle of Safety.

There to encourage pro-social behavior, serotonin and oxytocin help us form bonds of trust and friendship so that we will look out for each other. It is because of these two chemicals that we have societies and cultures. And it is because of these chemicals that we pull together to accomplish much bigger things than if we were to face the world alone.

When we cooperate or look out for others, serotonin and oxytocin reward us with the feelings of security, fulfillment, belonging, trust and camaraderie. And when that happens, when we find ourselves inside a Circle of Safety, stress declines, fulfillment rises, our want to serve others increases and our willingness to trust others to watch our backs skyrockets.

When these social incentives are inhibited, however, we become more selfish and more aggressive. Leadership falters. Cooperation declines. Stress increases as do paranoia and mistrust. If we work in environments that make it harder to earn these incentives, then our desire to help our colleagues or the organization diminishes.

And, absent the presence of commitment, any desire our colleagues may have to help us also declines. A vicious cycle is set in motion. The less our colleagues and leaders look out for us, the less we look out for them.

The less we look out for them, the more selfish they become and, as a result, the more selfish we become. And when that happens, eventually everyone loses. Oxytocin and serotonin grease the social machine. And when they are missing, friction results. When the leaders of an organization create a culture that inhibits the release of these chemicals, it is tantamount to sabotage—sabotage of our careers and our happiness and sabotage of the success of the organization itself.

When the conditions are right, when a strong Circle of Safety is present and felt by all, we do what we do best.

We act in the manner for which we are designed. We pull together. The year was Serotonin is the feeling of pride. It is the feeling we get when we perceive that others like or respect us. It makes us feel strong and confident, like we can take on anything. And more than confidence boosting, it raises our status.

The respect Sally Field received from the community significantly impacted her career. An Oscar winner is able to make more money to appear in a film, will have more opportunities to pick and choose the films they would prefer to work on and will command greater clout.

As social animals, we more than want the approval of those in our tribe, we need it. It really matters. We all want to feel valuable for the effort we put forth for the good of others in the group or the group itself. We want to feel that we and the work we do are valued by others, especially those in our group. It is because of serotonin that a college graduate feels a sense of pride and feels their confidence and status rise as they walk across the stage to receive their diploma.

Technically, all a student needs to graduate is to pay their bills, fulfill their requirements and collect enough credits. At the moment that college graduate feels the serotonin course through their veins as they receive their diploma, their parents, sitting in the audience, also get bursts of serotonin and feel equally as proud. Serotonin is attempting to reinforce the bond between parent and child, teacher and student, coach and player, boss and employee, leader and follower.

And when others offer us that protection and support, because of serotonin, we feel a sense of accountability to them. Remember, these chemicals control our feelings. We want them to feel that the sacrifices they made for us were worth it. We want to make them proud. And if we are the ones giving the support, we feel an equal sense of responsibility. We want to do right by them so that they can accomplish all that they set out to do.

This helps explain why it feels different to cross a finish line alone, without spectators, compared to when a crowd cheers as we break the tape. In both cases, the accomplishment is the same, the time is the same, even the effort is the same. The only difference is that in one case, there are others there to witness and cheer for us.

One of the things that kept me going was knowing that my friends and family had come out to support me. They spent their valuable time and energy to brave the traffic and crowds simply to get a quick glimpse of me as I ran past. We even planned when and where I would be because it made them proud to see me out there doing something hard. And it inspired me to keep pushing myself, simply knowing they were there.

Because of serotonin, I was now running for them too. And it helped. If all I wanted to accomplish was to run I ran on the day my family came out to support me. The day the organizers offered me a crowd to cheer me on. Better still, I got to wear a medal, a symbol of the accomplishment, which made me feel proud when I wore it around my neck.

Serotonin feels good. The more we give of ourselves to see others succeed, the greater our value to the group and the more respect they offer us. The more respect and recognition we receive, the higher our status in the group and the more incentive we have to continue to give to the group. Whether we are a boss, coach or parent, serotonin is working to encourage us to serve those for whom we are directly responsible.

And if we are the employee, player or the one being looked after, the serotonin encourages us to work hard to make them proud. And being the alpha—the strong, supportive one of the group, the one willing to sacrifice time and energy so that others may gain—is a prerequisite for leadership. It is the feeling we get when we do something nice for someone or someone does something nice for us. It is responsible for all the warm and fuzzies.

But oxytocin is not there just to make us feel good. It is vital to our survival instincts. Without oxytocin there would be no empathy. It is because of oxytocin that we feel human connections and like being in the company of people we like. Oxytocin makes us social. As a species that can accomplish more in groups than as individuals, we need to have the instinct to know whom to trust. In a group, no one person has to maintain a constant state of vigilance to make sure they are safe.

If we are among people we trust and who trust us, that responsibility can now be shared among the entire group. In other words, we can fall asleep at night confident that someone else will watch for danger. Oxytocin is the chemical that helps direct how vulnerable we can afford to make ourselves. Unlike dopamine, which is about instant gratification, oxytocin is long-lasting. The more time we spend with someone, the more we are willing to make ourselves vulnerable around them.

As we learn to trust them and earn their trust in return, the more oxytocin flows. In time, as if by magic, we will realize that we have developed a deep bond with this person.

The madness and excitement and spontaneity of the dopamine hit is replaced by a more relaxed, more stable, more long-term oxytocin- driven relationship. But the trust we need to feel that our colleagues would watch our backs and help us grow, to really feel like we belong, takes time and energy.

Personally or professionally, all the same rules of relationship building apply. Inside a Circle of Safety, we feel like we belong. As much as we want to stand out and consider ourselves individuals, at our core, we are herd animals that are biologically designed to find comfort when we feel like we belong to a group. While the music on Nobody Lives Forever is certainly psychedelic, its potency lies more in the myriad trippy details of its smooth melodicism rather then in the broad strokes of an echo-swathed freakout.

Even in comparison to the sweet flavors of tropicalia, Maia's vibe packs a surprisingly velvety punch. That said, it also remains as the album title points out a type of soul music, albeit one of a rather peculiar variety. Avoiding the gospel-derived intensity that underlies so much American soul, Maia's restrained funk and bright arrangements more closely recall the pop-soul of the mid-sixties, with tracks like Lets Have a Ball Tonight bringing to mind the early work of Sly and the Family Stone or- at its funkiest- Curtis Mayfield, both of whom threw together horns, fuzz-guitar, and a backbeat into similarly stylish arrangements.

Yet these comparisons don't do justice to Maia's enormous voice, the power and character of which utterly dominate the proceedings. On tracks like Nobody Can Live Forever, he moves effortlessly from a mystical soul-brother rap to a full-bodied belt, delivering the chorus with a force and confidence that recalls mid-period Elvis at his best. And Elvis might really be the best descriptive touchstone here- not because of any specific musical similarity between the two men, but because of the sense of grandeur that adheres to the singer in both cases.

Tim Maia had a voice like a ship- majestic, self-assured, and inarguable there , a singular presence. Hospitalized, he died a few days later. In , he was paid tribute in a show by several MPB artists. In , he was subject of another tribute, also released on CD.

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