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I am having a strange experience. It is pleasant. Bubbling. Stimulating. Lovely.
I am not the first one, not even the only one to teach what I teach. I am not alone. This knowledge of the human condition and what works and what doesn’t is holographic.
I am competitive. Maybe it’s my soul correction (34). I like to be the best, the first, the only one. And totally counter to that: I like to know that I could have partners and we could soar together.
I found a ‘soulmate’ who teaches a lot of what I teach to a narrow segment of people: who can see that in life you get what you negotiate for successfully. Jim Camp.
In life you get what you negotiate for successfully
But, of course, unless you already know that, you won’t read that book.
And even people who bought and maybe read that book, even they don’t know that the skill to negotiate applies to all areas of life. So who bought that book are in Business Negotiating, or in business Management.
Not you. Even my students whose standard of living depends on sales don’t get that you get in life what you negotiate for successfully.
Sales is negotiation. And we are all in sales.
You are selling yourself. You are selling your time, skills, your work. Good times? Unless you sell it no one knows that you can provide it.
Instead of selling, you expect people to know and appreciate you. Appreciate what? Do they see what to appreciate? They don’t…
People, just like you, are in their own bubble, worrying about what they worry about, and it is not you and the value you sell. They can’t see it. So for them to buy, you need to sell. And know how to sell.
And you don’t.
And even if you know how to sell, there are tons of things in your way… all the same things that are in the way of your happiness, money, health, love… tons.
So, finally after a long time I am reading this book, and I am blown away by what I am learning… the way I can now connect the dots. Add what’s been missing to have a coherent whole… instead of pieces that work. Pieces to teach.
You see, if you are in sales or in negotiation, you have a focused case. In sales what keeps you from being fulfilled, from being effective, productive everywhere else shows up ten, maybe even hundredfold.
What I realized yesterday is this: the main reason your wantiness, and your neediness are a major source of ineffectiveness is this: you are wanty and you needy of things you have absolutely no power over.
You can’t cause them. You can’t even have much influence on getting them or not. They are completely out of your control.
They are all results… and you have no control on results, only on what you do.
Two things about that:
- 1. you only have control over what you do, i.e. your actions. Your attitude or behavior. And what you say. Inside your head and outside of your head. In writing as well…
- 2. Even if you are doing the right thing, for the right length of time, with the right attitude, even then, if your attention, if your eyes are hung on the result you want, only 10% of your energies go towards the action while 90% is on the result you want or need.
And that makes you ineffective.
And if you are needy of the result you may never do the right thing the right way for the right amount of time, with the right attitude. So that 10% effectiveness is the maximum any needy person can have.
And for some reason the human condition is such that people are needy. They may call it want, but it is essentially treated as a need. Necessary for life.
It has always puzzled me why all the measures, including health, truth value, productivity top off at 10%. Meaning: even the ‘best’ tops out at 10%.
I go, not often enough, to giants of other disciplines. My go-to guy in health is Joel Wallach. Why? His health number is 30%… three times higher than almost anyone else’s on the planet.
He says, for example, that obesity, or overeating, that result of that obsessive behavior where you just want to eat something something, even though you are still full…
He says it is pica. Horses munch on fencing to satisfy pica… Pica is a nutritional deficiency symptom. Mostly what’s missing is some micro nutrients, like minerals. Maybe vitamins.
Joel Wallach’s health number may be so high because he uses his own remedy… the for me totally intolerable horrible tasting mineral concoction.
Obesity is caused by neediness. Neediness is either physical or emotional. You are trying to fill in a void with something outside of you…
With something that cannot fill that void. Because nothing outside of you can fill that void… it is YOUR JOB to fill that void yourself. This is what I teach.
And the second thing I teach, not very often, is that if you only eat what is compatible with your body, then you won’t have nutritional deficiencies.
Here is an example how that works: sugar, sweet stuff, even fruits deplete your Copper reserves. You get wrinkled, your hair gets gray, your blood vessels become rigid…
Wheat uses up your Vitamin E reserves…
Inconsistency causes you to need Lithium to even out your insides.
These are three gross examples… every kind of activity and food causes imbalance and the imbalance causes illness, weakness, stupidity, incoherence, dehydration of the cells, rigidity, etc.
But if you look at all those problems, all those inefficiencies are caused by the human neediness… the need for results, the need that hijacks people’s energies. So instead of people acting, behaving, thinking in harmony with life, with their body, with the circumstances, they consider themselves above it all, and pursue directly their wants and needs that are not really needs.
- You don’t need to be right… it is to your detriment.
- You don’t need to look good… it’s OK to look the way you look.
- And you don’t need to dominate… you don’t need to win… you don’t need anything beyond air, shelter, food, and to eliminate.
You also don’t need more. It’s not a need. You don’t need power over others. They are counter to what you really would enjoy.
In our last core group session I introduced my way to manage my own neediness…
That is what is special about the human species.
We can manage ourselves. We all can. Some of us do.
My method is to see the needy behavior as an alternate path… A choice.
I remember the first time I realized that I had a choice. That I could choose not my usual ‘I need to be smart!’. I saw an alternative path. A path of not worrying whether I am smart or not. Where peace, harmony, workability, participation, growth, productivity become more important.
I had never seen that alternative before. It was about 23 years ago.
And then came other alternate paths I could NOT CHOOSE condescension, vengefulness, superiority. I could, instead, choose compassion, understanding, appreciation, gratitude. Seeing people as persons.
The original ‘needs’ never disappeared and they probably won’t. I need to choose less and less often. And when the need shows up demanding, I say ‘I am not going there‘… And maybe chuckle.
What are those needy paths? Demanding to fix what was never wrong.
I was never really stupid. Never really inferior. Never really violated. And even if I was, forcing being smart, being condescending, vengeful, superior, distrustful, unkind to fix it doesn’t fix it, in fact it strengthens the sense of injustice, and my victimhood.
Victimhood… that I didn’t get what was due to me. That I was mistreated. All that kaka.
You can’t fully let it go, but you can manage it.
You can choose to not try to fix it 10-20-30-40-50-60 and in my case 70 years after the fact.
Whatever they did… is what they did. Not wrong, and probably not pleasant. Not what you expected. Yeah… so what?
You don’t have to give away everything that is worth having to ‘punish them’. Or to prove that they were wrong.
Now, I am almost sure you are asking ‘Is it worth the effort?‘ or alternatively think ‘It is not worth the effort‘.
The effort to learn to manage your neediness.
What becomes possible if you learn to manage your neediness?
You will be able to keep your attention on what you are doing, what you are reading, what you are listening to.
On what you promised you’d do. Maybe even on the other person, god forbid. And become good, and successful at what you do.
Have energy to do more if you want, or have fun if you have done enough. Enjoy life. Be where you are… fully. Not in your head.
Would that be worth it?
I’ll teach that in the Face The Tiger workshop.
The date isn’t set yet, because I don’t have enough participants yet, and someone from China, or Singapore may show up.
But if the date isn’t suitable for you, I’ll either refund your money or in some way provide you with the personal guidance you need. I’ll find a way… I am good at it.
Because I am celebrating my 75th birthday in 10 days, I am giving you a coupon code that gets you a discount. If you buy before August 29 midnight EDT, use coupon code TIGGER for 50% off. If you buy between August 30 and September 4 midnight, use coupon code TIGGER2 for a 25% discount.
And if you miss both deadlines… the price is so low, you’ll still get more than what you pay for.
The workshop has a recorded part and a live workshop online, of course.
Learn to face the tiger and choose
thank you.
Happy almost 75th birthday, Sophie. ??