Use our Personal Fulfillment Assessment to assess your Life's Meaning and Belonging.
READ EACH OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS AND THEN CHOSE THE NUMBER THAT MOST ACCURATELY DESCRIBES YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT.
SELDOM SOMETIMES OFTEN
1. I am satisfied with the way my life has a sense of purpose to it.
1 2 3 4 5
2. I have reasons to be enthusiastic about life and my place in it.
1 2 3 4 5
3. I study to learn better ways of achieving the good things I should be doing.
1 2 3 4 5
4. My life is free of trivial activities and shallow relationships.
1 2 3 4 5
5. I plan my activities with positive attitudes and high expectations.
1 2 3 4 5
6. My life follows my master plan for living wisely and wed.
1 2 3 4 5
7. My work seems a mission I should successfully complete.
1 2 3 4 5
8. I work at meaningful avocations in order to help other people.
1 2 3 4 5
9. I have satisfying relationships with both men and women.
1 2 3 4 5
10. I act on the fact that I have the freedom to mature spiritually.
1 2 3 4 5
Add your score and enter it here. MEANING ______
CONTINUE WITH THE STATEMENTS BELOW.
SELDOM SOMETIMES OFTEN
1. I experience a sense of awe about life.
1 2 3 4 5
2. I feel compassion for people in trouble.
1 2 3 4 5
3. The women and men with whom I work contribute to my life.
1 2 3 4 5
4. When my family, company or community has trouble I help out.
1 2 3 4 5
5. After a long trip I enjoy returning to familiar surroundings.
1 2 3 4 5
6. I participate in sports and entertainments appropriate to my age and shape.
1 2 3 4 5
7. I spend time with friends and relatives I love.
1 2 3 4 5
8. I vote and/or work for political candidates I trust.
1 2 3 4 5
9. I expect people to be ethical and honest when I deal with them.
1 2 3 4 5
10. I try to make the world a better place in which to live.
1 2 3 4 5
Add your score and enter it here. BELONGING_______
To plot your score, mark the MEANING score at the corresponding height on the vertical scale and the BELONGING score at the corresponding distance from the left on the horizontal scale. Then, extend both lines into the square to the point where they cross. Mark that spot for it will reveal the level of your satisfaction compared to the men and women who have used this scale in past Fulfillment Seminars. A score of 30 points vertically and horizontally registers average satisfaction. A score of 10 is low satisfaction and 50 is high satisfaction.
SATISFACTION SCALE
M 50 (high)
E
A
N 30 (medium)
I
N
G 10(low) 30(medium) 50(high)
B E L O N G I N G
Visit fulfillmentforum.com for more information about our free psychology self help ebooks, psychology courses and life style seminars about making you life count, relationships, marriage, spiritual freedom, world class leadership, career growth, parenting, influencing others - free ebooks and articles.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
THE LOVE PYRAMID - Mini Course
We must insist on this right here -- up front. As St. Paul and many other brilliant scholars of the human condition told us, a satisfying life must combine faith, hope and love -- with the greatest element of all being love.
Certainly we have found nothing that even remotely takes the place of love in our lives and our relationships with each other, our children, their children and their children's kids. With love, virtually everything falls into place. Without love, nothing fits well into the mosaic of a meaningful life.
Also, after everything else you can say about humans -- after discussing the personality patterns, life-themes, values, attitudes and expectations we write about, we agree with psychological great -- Carl Rogers and with John the Beloved Disciple. There are only two kinds of people in the world. The two are not black and white, rich and poor or even male and female, as much as we appreciate that last arrangement that seems especially created for our benefit.
There are only persons who are capable of loving others and persons who do not love anyone except those who in one way or another contribute something of value to themselves.
A vital factor we must discuss in the beginning is that while the love and sexual intimacy a couple shares is vital to satisfaction, the physical attractions of our youthful years are never enough to carry a man and woman through a life-time. In our FULFILLMENT course, a companion program to this, we have written extensively about existential frustration and alienation that occurs when men and women fail to find a consistent sense of purpose in their lives. We cannot even find happiness by seeking it -- happiness is a fleeting by-product of living a consistently meaningful life. Like sleep during a restless night, the harder we pursue happiness, the faster it flees from us. When we spend our years seeking happiness through pleasure, possessions, prestige and power -- lacking a sense of purpose in our activities and permanence in our relationships, life remains secular and pointless and becomes conflicted with confusion and discouragement. And that is simply too much to expect the sexual relationship of a man and woman to overcome. Humans need more -- we believe that each person requires the crucial support that comes from living a complete life -- that occurs through:
Worshipping devoutly, relating warmly, serving faithfully, learning wisely, persevering bravely and playing enthusiastically.
Unless we develop mature attitudes and high expectations, no marriage can succeed. Most young couples who divorce and put their children under great stress simply abandon their marriages much too soon. There is a great deal to be said for toughing it out through the learning curve, for becoming better partners rather than shopping around for some wonderful and perfect lover who will cater to your every whim. You shall have to become a spiritually maturing person to whom your partner can relate in love and friendship, without becoming your stooge. Hang on until both lovers become more maturity along life's journey. Actually, in marriage as in most of life, much satisfaction comes from showing up when needed, just being there on time for the people who love you.
A loving couple that matures in faith, hope and love, through grace within the physical, psychological and philosophical aspects of life, will love far more deeply than they did during the simplistic and usually naive sexual urges of youth.
THE LOVE PYRAMID
To be at its best, love must mature up through the motivational pyramid shown here. To stop in one of the lower tiers is to limit the joy a person can enjoy in a lasting relationship.
Becoming *** PHILOSOPHICAL *** Purpose/Permanence
Doing *** PSYCHOLOGICAL *** Power/Prestige
Having *** PHYSICAL *** Pleasure/Pain
PHYSICAL LOVE -- (Pleasure/Pain) Love that is limited to the physical aspects of a relationship is focused largely on arousal, passion and tension release. It makes little difference who the partner is. Any compliant body can be used, for the person is secondary to the pleasure being received by the user. Such physical passion can be shifted from one sexual supplier to another with little or no regret or concern, from one seduction to the next, as Joe Namath boasted when he slept with a thousand women in his first few years of playing professional football. Such a person can go from one prostitute to another, from one singles bar to the next, from a tryst with one lover to a new one. One night stands, sexual fantasies, pornographic movies and books and wily seductions occur within the physical aspects of love. When one person is used for another's pleasure, even if both agree in advance, it is little more than mutual masturbation. If the other person is abused or damaged in the relationship, he or she can be discarded and replaced with no more regret than for a piece of malfunctioning machinery. Many adolescents, in the first wild rush of sexuality, relate to one another at this primitive level. Unfortunately, many adults fail to mature beyond it. They continue romancing, marrying, divorcing and romancing again in a madcap search for a perfect partner, chasing the wild excitement of youth in a stage that needs a lot more stability in order to be satisfying.
Only this morning as this chapter is being written, we attended the funeral of a friend who made a great deal of money through his knowledge and energy. Donald Knopf was as hard a worker as we've ever known, not only for himself but for the poor and needy of the community. He gave an enormous amount of time and money to helping people with problems. Nevertheless, as his friends and relatives filled the front pews, we've never seen such a complex mix of brothers and sisters, half sisters and brothers, cousins, in-laws and former wives in our lives. At the age of fifty-five Don was still falling in and out of love like a teen-ager, still drifting from one woman to the next, giving her several children before falling out of love and seeking a better partner. He never did think in terms of becoming a better husband and father rather than wanting a perfect lover who would let him feel the sexual excitement of youth again. He never matured into the second and third tier of a loving relationship and if he enjoyed a long succession of sexual partners, his dozen children from several families have had a difficult time growing up without a father.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LOVE -- (Power/Prestige) In this aspect of a relationship, physical arousal, pleasure and satiation occurs as in the physical but the affection doesn't stop there. This is a deeper relationship that binds lovers together as they mature through the more complex needs and activities of adult love. The lovers not only desire one another for what each offers, but both have a deeper investment in the other's health and happiness. They trust each other with their egos, because loving another person makes you vulnerable as well as calling up protective feelings. This is the level at which many good marriages and love affairs function, especially in the more mellow middle years and while the lovers do care deeply about each other, they may still have difficult times. After all, while you and your lover love each other, differences of opinion and a variety of needs remain. Few couples never quarrel just because they love one another. Jard knew two young people who lived together as lovers without making the final commitment of marriage. Mildred was a graduate student in psychology and Henry an executive in a huge corporation. She said, when she was being offered a teaching and research job in a distant university:
I love Harry, I really do, but he cannot leave town with me. Changing companies now would cost him a vice-presidency at 3 M and I cannot ask for that. But then, I cannot see that my research and teaching about childhood learning is any less importance to society than selling glue and sandpaper. If I insisted he come to Columbus, he's soon resent me and If I turned down my offer there to stay here with him, I'd soon feel I'd given up too much after having worked so hard for my doctorate. I have to be true to my own vision of a fulfilling life.
Millie and Harry flew back and forth for a year or so but eventually drifted apart and met and married other lovers. Perhaps it was just as well they found someone else, for their careers meant more to them when they separated than the relationship.
PHILOSOPHICAL LOVE -- (Purpose/Permanence) This third aspect of love includes the passion from the physical and the sense of belonging from the psychological as it continues to include crucial spiritual elements of a lasting love relationship. The lovers have matured beyond the limitations of psychological games that cause pain to become tender and compassionate. They live with a lasting sense of purpose and permanence in the affair for they know they belong together for life. The lovers support each other against all attackers; see the relationship as being spiritual and having mystical overtones. There is neither a desire to find a substitute sexual partner nor a determination to play a dominance game through which the lover is manipulated and used. Such a love affair has taken on a lovely patina of faith, hope and love as well as grace, a glow that is shared in mutual satisfaction. The development of love at this level takes time, although for many it comes long before the later stages of one's life. The whirling of two eccentric personalities around different centers of gravity sooner or later abraid a loving fit although for some time it may include considerable smoke and flying sparks!
To best focus your love in the philosophical aspects of life, mature as a person and behave as a loving soul:
BECOME WARM AND ACCEPTING OF YOUR LOVER -- Perceive the other as a viable and independent personality rather than as a second rate appendage to yourself.
BECOME ENCOURAGING AND SUPPORTIVE OF KEY CHOICES -- Help your lover become more and more knowledgeable and wise about life's opportunities.
BECOME TOLERANT OF LIFE'S INEVITABLE GROWTH FRICTION -- No two persons ever mature at the same rate - one will grow, causing tension and only later will the other catch up.
It's common for psychologists and counselors to recommend we accept the people we love for what they are. However, that isn't good enough for by accepting them as they already are, we may be condemning them to mediocrity. We must accept the persons we help for what they have the potential to become. Don't nag, of course, but help others mature consistently through the channels of fulfillment. Your spouse, your children and your friends and relatives deserve this of you.
Always accept the fact that you can control only one half of a relationship, your half, while your lover controls his or her half. Trying to control another adult's half is a quick step to a relationship disaster for no individual worthy of love and respect will let a neurotic control freak dominate themselves, their children and their choices.
Remember;
The only way two lovers can agree all the time is when one them stops thinking.
The only way to keep an accepting lover is to become an accepting lover.
The fact that we disagree and occasionally quarrel doesn't mean we are not in love.
Two people in the very elastic harness of marriage seldom mature at the same rate and that spells trouble in many relationships. A woman who's been a secretary for twenty years and comes home one evening to announce she's been accepted in a law school program is rocking her family's boat. So is the middle manager who informs his kids, attending an exclusive and expensive private school, that he's taking a year off work to write a novel, that they'll have to attend a public school and stop buying designer clothes.
Growth friction can be compared to movement between the earth's great tectonic plates. The silent, hidden movement can be so slow as to remain invisible for a long time although stresses keep building. Finally, the pressures become greater than the resistance and the landscape lurches into motion as an earthquake. Sometimes windows are broken and crockery smashed. Some long-standing buildings cannot take the strain and they collapse. Just as many marriages do when the relationship cannot stand the changes occurring in them because the lovers mature at different speeds and in different directions.
PROJECT ONE -- LOVE LEVEL IDENTIFICATION
To discover the level of your love for another person, physical, psychological or philosophical, in the pleasure/pain, power/prestige or purpose/permanence aspects of existence, complete this project.
FIRST -- Relax comfortably in a chair or on a bed.
Visualize in your mind the image of the person you now love or most recently loved in an adult relationship. Think of the reasons you loved this person, recall his or her good points in the physical, psychological and philosophical aspects of life. Fix the image of that lover firmly in your mind.
SECOND -- Accept the fact or a terrible tragedy.
Through an automobile accident or an unexpected illness, your lover dies suddenly. He or she is gone - there's no doubt about it. You are left alone. Accept your loss, mourn it deeply, feel frustration and anger but in time you realize you must continue living. There is your job to do and children to love, friends to support -- so you start adapting despite the deep loss.
THIRD -- Receive a great gift from God.
Through the remarkable science of cloning, God offers you a perfect double of that dear, lost lover. The clone is perfect in every detail. He or she looks talks and thinks like the lover, makes love the same way and supports you in the same manner. He or she wants your support also.
There is only one catch in your miracle. You and your newly restored lover didn't share the mutual experiences and relationships you had in the past. Both the good and the bad are missing from the relationship you and your original lover shared. You are starting at square one now.
NOW -- To identify the level at which your current love is operating, transfer your love to the newly cloned lover. Tell how you shall do that.
If you can readily transfer your love to the new lover, your love is operating at the pleasure/pain or physical level.
If your love can be transferred with some new experiences and a growing relationship, it is functioning at the power/prestige or psychological level.
If your love cannot be transferred without an entire galaxy of mutually satisfying experiences, your love is currently at the purpose/permanence or the philosophical level.
Certainly we have found nothing that even remotely takes the place of love in our lives and our relationships with each other, our children, their children and their children's kids. With love, virtually everything falls into place. Without love, nothing fits well into the mosaic of a meaningful life.
Also, after everything else you can say about humans -- after discussing the personality patterns, life-themes, values, attitudes and expectations we write about, we agree with psychological great -- Carl Rogers and with John the Beloved Disciple. There are only two kinds of people in the world. The two are not black and white, rich and poor or even male and female, as much as we appreciate that last arrangement that seems especially created for our benefit.
There are only persons who are capable of loving others and persons who do not love anyone except those who in one way or another contribute something of value to themselves.
A vital factor we must discuss in the beginning is that while the love and sexual intimacy a couple shares is vital to satisfaction, the physical attractions of our youthful years are never enough to carry a man and woman through a life-time. In our FULFILLMENT course, a companion program to this, we have written extensively about existential frustration and alienation that occurs when men and women fail to find a consistent sense of purpose in their lives. We cannot even find happiness by seeking it -- happiness is a fleeting by-product of living a consistently meaningful life. Like sleep during a restless night, the harder we pursue happiness, the faster it flees from us. When we spend our years seeking happiness through pleasure, possessions, prestige and power -- lacking a sense of purpose in our activities and permanence in our relationships, life remains secular and pointless and becomes conflicted with confusion and discouragement. And that is simply too much to expect the sexual relationship of a man and woman to overcome. Humans need more -- we believe that each person requires the crucial support that comes from living a complete life -- that occurs through:
Worshipping devoutly, relating warmly, serving faithfully, learning wisely, persevering bravely and playing enthusiastically.
Unless we develop mature attitudes and high expectations, no marriage can succeed. Most young couples who divorce and put their children under great stress simply abandon their marriages much too soon. There is a great deal to be said for toughing it out through the learning curve, for becoming better partners rather than shopping around for some wonderful and perfect lover who will cater to your every whim. You shall have to become a spiritually maturing person to whom your partner can relate in love and friendship, without becoming your stooge. Hang on until both lovers become more maturity along life's journey. Actually, in marriage as in most of life, much satisfaction comes from showing up when needed, just being there on time for the people who love you.
A loving couple that matures in faith, hope and love, through grace within the physical, psychological and philosophical aspects of life, will love far more deeply than they did during the simplistic and usually naive sexual urges of youth.
THE LOVE PYRAMID
To be at its best, love must mature up through the motivational pyramid shown here. To stop in one of the lower tiers is to limit the joy a person can enjoy in a lasting relationship.
Becoming *** PHILOSOPHICAL *** Purpose/Permanence
Doing *** PSYCHOLOGICAL *** Power/Prestige
Having *** PHYSICAL *** Pleasure/Pain
PHYSICAL LOVE -- (Pleasure/Pain) Love that is limited to the physical aspects of a relationship is focused largely on arousal, passion and tension release. It makes little difference who the partner is. Any compliant body can be used, for the person is secondary to the pleasure being received by the user. Such physical passion can be shifted from one sexual supplier to another with little or no regret or concern, from one seduction to the next, as Joe Namath boasted when he slept with a thousand women in his first few years of playing professional football. Such a person can go from one prostitute to another, from one singles bar to the next, from a tryst with one lover to a new one. One night stands, sexual fantasies, pornographic movies and books and wily seductions occur within the physical aspects of love. When one person is used for another's pleasure, even if both agree in advance, it is little more than mutual masturbation. If the other person is abused or damaged in the relationship, he or she can be discarded and replaced with no more regret than for a piece of malfunctioning machinery. Many adolescents, in the first wild rush of sexuality, relate to one another at this primitive level. Unfortunately, many adults fail to mature beyond it. They continue romancing, marrying, divorcing and romancing again in a madcap search for a perfect partner, chasing the wild excitement of youth in a stage that needs a lot more stability in order to be satisfying.
Only this morning as this chapter is being written, we attended the funeral of a friend who made a great deal of money through his knowledge and energy. Donald Knopf was as hard a worker as we've ever known, not only for himself but for the poor and needy of the community. He gave an enormous amount of time and money to helping people with problems. Nevertheless, as his friends and relatives filled the front pews, we've never seen such a complex mix of brothers and sisters, half sisters and brothers, cousins, in-laws and former wives in our lives. At the age of fifty-five Don was still falling in and out of love like a teen-ager, still drifting from one woman to the next, giving her several children before falling out of love and seeking a better partner. He never did think in terms of becoming a better husband and father rather than wanting a perfect lover who would let him feel the sexual excitement of youth again. He never matured into the second and third tier of a loving relationship and if he enjoyed a long succession of sexual partners, his dozen children from several families have had a difficult time growing up without a father.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LOVE -- (Power/Prestige) In this aspect of a relationship, physical arousal, pleasure and satiation occurs as in the physical but the affection doesn't stop there. This is a deeper relationship that binds lovers together as they mature through the more complex needs and activities of adult love. The lovers not only desire one another for what each offers, but both have a deeper investment in the other's health and happiness. They trust each other with their egos, because loving another person makes you vulnerable as well as calling up protective feelings. This is the level at which many good marriages and love affairs function, especially in the more mellow middle years and while the lovers do care deeply about each other, they may still have difficult times. After all, while you and your lover love each other, differences of opinion and a variety of needs remain. Few couples never quarrel just because they love one another. Jard knew two young people who lived together as lovers without making the final commitment of marriage. Mildred was a graduate student in psychology and Henry an executive in a huge corporation. She said, when she was being offered a teaching and research job in a distant university:
I love Harry, I really do, but he cannot leave town with me. Changing companies now would cost him a vice-presidency at 3 M and I cannot ask for that. But then, I cannot see that my research and teaching about childhood learning is any less importance to society than selling glue and sandpaper. If I insisted he come to Columbus, he's soon resent me and If I turned down my offer there to stay here with him, I'd soon feel I'd given up too much after having worked so hard for my doctorate. I have to be true to my own vision of a fulfilling life.
Millie and Harry flew back and forth for a year or so but eventually drifted apart and met and married other lovers. Perhaps it was just as well they found someone else, for their careers meant more to them when they separated than the relationship.
PHILOSOPHICAL LOVE -- (Purpose/Permanence) This third aspect of love includes the passion from the physical and the sense of belonging from the psychological as it continues to include crucial spiritual elements of a lasting love relationship. The lovers have matured beyond the limitations of psychological games that cause pain to become tender and compassionate. They live with a lasting sense of purpose and permanence in the affair for they know they belong together for life. The lovers support each other against all attackers; see the relationship as being spiritual and having mystical overtones. There is neither a desire to find a substitute sexual partner nor a determination to play a dominance game through which the lover is manipulated and used. Such a love affair has taken on a lovely patina of faith, hope and love as well as grace, a glow that is shared in mutual satisfaction. The development of love at this level takes time, although for many it comes long before the later stages of one's life. The whirling of two eccentric personalities around different centers of gravity sooner or later abraid a loving fit although for some time it may include considerable smoke and flying sparks!
To best focus your love in the philosophical aspects of life, mature as a person and behave as a loving soul:
BECOME WARM AND ACCEPTING OF YOUR LOVER -- Perceive the other as a viable and independent personality rather than as a second rate appendage to yourself.
BECOME ENCOURAGING AND SUPPORTIVE OF KEY CHOICES -- Help your lover become more and more knowledgeable and wise about life's opportunities.
BECOME TOLERANT OF LIFE'S INEVITABLE GROWTH FRICTION -- No two persons ever mature at the same rate - one will grow, causing tension and only later will the other catch up.
It's common for psychologists and counselors to recommend we accept the people we love for what they are. However, that isn't good enough for by accepting them as they already are, we may be condemning them to mediocrity. We must accept the persons we help for what they have the potential to become. Don't nag, of course, but help others mature consistently through the channels of fulfillment. Your spouse, your children and your friends and relatives deserve this of you.
Always accept the fact that you can control only one half of a relationship, your half, while your lover controls his or her half. Trying to control another adult's half is a quick step to a relationship disaster for no individual worthy of love and respect will let a neurotic control freak dominate themselves, their children and their choices.
Remember;
The only way two lovers can agree all the time is when one them stops thinking.
The only way to keep an accepting lover is to become an accepting lover.
The fact that we disagree and occasionally quarrel doesn't mean we are not in love.
Two people in the very elastic harness of marriage seldom mature at the same rate and that spells trouble in many relationships. A woman who's been a secretary for twenty years and comes home one evening to announce she's been accepted in a law school program is rocking her family's boat. So is the middle manager who informs his kids, attending an exclusive and expensive private school, that he's taking a year off work to write a novel, that they'll have to attend a public school and stop buying designer clothes.
Growth friction can be compared to movement between the earth's great tectonic plates. The silent, hidden movement can be so slow as to remain invisible for a long time although stresses keep building. Finally, the pressures become greater than the resistance and the landscape lurches into motion as an earthquake. Sometimes windows are broken and crockery smashed. Some long-standing buildings cannot take the strain and they collapse. Just as many marriages do when the relationship cannot stand the changes occurring in them because the lovers mature at different speeds and in different directions.
PROJECT ONE -- LOVE LEVEL IDENTIFICATION
To discover the level of your love for another person, physical, psychological or philosophical, in the pleasure/pain, power/prestige or purpose/permanence aspects of existence, complete this project.
FIRST -- Relax comfortably in a chair or on a bed.
Visualize in your mind the image of the person you now love or most recently loved in an adult relationship. Think of the reasons you loved this person, recall his or her good points in the physical, psychological and philosophical aspects of life. Fix the image of that lover firmly in your mind.
SECOND -- Accept the fact or a terrible tragedy.
Through an automobile accident or an unexpected illness, your lover dies suddenly. He or she is gone - there's no doubt about it. You are left alone. Accept your loss, mourn it deeply, feel frustration and anger but in time you realize you must continue living. There is your job to do and children to love, friends to support -- so you start adapting despite the deep loss.
THIRD -- Receive a great gift from God.
Through the remarkable science of cloning, God offers you a perfect double of that dear, lost lover. The clone is perfect in every detail. He or she looks talks and thinks like the lover, makes love the same way and supports you in the same manner. He or she wants your support also.
There is only one catch in your miracle. You and your newly restored lover didn't share the mutual experiences and relationships you had in the past. Both the good and the bad are missing from the relationship you and your original lover shared. You are starting at square one now.
NOW -- To identify the level at which your current love is operating, transfer your love to the newly cloned lover. Tell how you shall do that.
If you can readily transfer your love to the new lover, your love is operating at the pleasure/pain or physical level.
If your love can be transferred with some new experiences and a growing relationship, it is functioning at the power/prestige or psychological level.
If your love cannot be transferred without an entire galaxy of mutually satisfying experiences, your love is currently at the purpose/permanence or the philosophical level.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A PRINCIPLE OF SOUND RELATIONSHIPS
The sound Basic Principle of Life we want others to learn from us is this --
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO COOPERATE WITH ME.
BAD THINGS DON’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO COOPERATE WITH ME.
GOOD THINGS DON’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T COOPERATE.
The Basic Principle is effective in normal relationships because people prefer:
PLEASURE TO PAIN IN THE PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PRESTIGE TO DEVALUATION IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PURPOSE TO MEANINGLESSNESS IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE.
Obviously, the world has fallen on difficult times because change has become incessant and we have accepted secular philosophies that go against the grain of human spirituality. And of course, any attempt to keep the cultural traditions of our uneducated, pre-industrial ancestors as Truth Incarnate is self-destructive. Nevertheless, that is precisely what many persons try to do. The passage of time and the flood of new persons being born and growing up changes everything until we are like the befuddled King of Siam in the musical play THE KING AND I. He sings:
When I was a boy, what was what.
Now I am a man, things have changed a lot.
Some things nearly so, some things nearly not.
We humans are inclined to pack our beliefs in bundles - to cast them in concrete with handles on them, so we can pass then on unchanged and unchallenged to our children and their children. Just as our parents and our grandparents tried to do. We will, as the king continued to sing:
Fight to prove what we do not know is so! Tis a puzzlement!
This means, of course, that you must assume the responsibility for yourself and the people for whom you are responsible because huge societies never collapse overnight And yet, they seldom adapt in time to save themselves. Half a century ago Billy Graham was saying that America was in trouble, that without a spiritual renewal such as John Akers and Lee Atwater discussed years later, we were doomed to defeat as a society. He preached that only through a spiritual restoration with strong philosophical values could we mature enough to succeed. We did respond to Graham's call, from 4 or 5 percent who said they followed a spiritual life-style in 1940, to 35 or 40 percent who say they do now, and yet we are still in trouble because of the even swifter growth of Nihilism in our institutions and our human reluctance to adapt.
Fortunately, through years of study and counseling, we have identified a Basic Logotherapy Principle of satisfaction that will help keep you on the right track as you cope with widespread nihilism and narcissism. This principle isn't what a greedy society offers people, this is what you as an AUTHENTIC or a CONGRUENT promise to the people with whom you share life. It is this:
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO COOPERATE IN ORDER TO REDUCE ALIENATION AND TO ADVANCE OUR COLLECTIVE FULFILLMENT
The title of Jard's first major book - NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST - was fascinating to reporters, talk show hosts and newspaper editors. Some of them wanted to believe he was right but a significant number of people with closed-minded life-themes wanted to prove he was an idiot to think such obvious nonsense. Every intelligent person knows, some reporters implied, that nice guys finish last Leo Derocher, the baseball guru, even wrote a book to that effect John Kelly was the host of a killer talk show in a large Ohio city who did everything but put a dunce cap on Jard's head when he arrived before a studio audience of three hundred persons, while many thousands viewed out in the community. He even seated him on a stool before beginning his attack. Kelly then asked the studio audience to vote on the proposition that decent men and women can succeed. About half said Jard was correct, that nice people can do well, while the other half decided he was all wet, good persons don't have a chance in this lousy, rotten world. That was interesting since none of the audience had read the book; had no idea what he'd written, although they were willing enough to judge in advance. Kelly then turned to Jard and gloated over the negative vote, Now, Doc, How are you gonna handle the skeptics? He then sat down in the audience while the three cameras whirled up close, presumably to watch Jard sweat as the people grilled him.
Jard started out by agreeing with the host, admitting if you define a decent guy or gal as a wimp, a doormat, a marshmallow - such a person couldn't expect ranch in a nihilistic, pragmatic society. On the other hand, he said, I define nice guys and gals as persons like Joe Butterworth who apply life's Basic Principle through:
MANAGING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS CONSISTENTLY WISELY AND WELL,
SHARING LIFE'S GREATEST REWARDS WITH COOPERATIVE WOMEN AND MEN,
CREATING A COMMUNITY OF ACHIEVING PERSONS WHO BELONG TOGETHER.
Jard leaned back on the stool, folded his arms and waited quietly while the cameras frantically panned around for some kind of action. Kelly was so startled by the statement that he sat silently considering the answer for thirty seconds or more and that's an eternity of dead time on television, before coming slowly to his feet. He muttered right on camera - Well, I'll be damned - I never thought of it that way. He was hooked and rather than the six minutes Jard was supposed to have, he discussed NICE GUYS for thirty minutes and sold a lot of books in the community! When the audience voted again, only two persons out of three hundred still said that Jard was all wet. He went home and the next Sunday took our minister aside to repeat the story. He concluded, If you had my conversion rate, we'd be the largest congregation in the city!
This basic element of consistent satisfaction, dealing fairly in your relationships, sharing the benefits of cooperation and offering others a community where they can belong with people who support each other - will surely go a long ways toward making your life the best it can become. It is a practical expression of the faith, hope and love that is vital to consistent growth. There is another aspect to the basic principle. It is:
BAD THINGS DON'T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO COOPERATE IN OUR ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS
You must recognize the obvious - that accidents occur, recessions come, companies fail and much more in an imperfect world. The Tragic Quartet of suffering, rage, guilt and death is all too real. However, to the limit of your abilities, you promise to be consistently open-minded and accepting of other people in your relationships. You shall neither blame women and men for your own failures nor punish them for circumstances beyond their control. You will not hide when people require your help and will end all cruel psychological games designed to hurt someone who gets sucked into some hateful scheme. Because you serve society in an organization or as a free-lance as a committed person should, according to the by-product approach to satisfaction, you will apply faith, hope and love to guarantee meaning and belonging that wells up out of your accepting life-style. You become a mature person in your relationships and that gives you better opportunities to influence other persons toward a satisfying life.
There is one more factor to the Basic Principle.
GOOD THINGS DON'T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO COOPERATE IN GETTING GOOD THINGS DONE
Accepting and maturing men and women don't want to be cruel even though we all are frustrated at times and tempted to become aggressive or apathetic. However, we are finite persons with limited time and resources to invest in a satisfying life. Therefore, we have not only the right but the responsibility to use our powers where they will accomplish the greatest good for ourselves, the people we support and for humankind. Be patient; don't write people off too soon. Offer distressed or difficult men and women time to understand, despite possibly negative life-themes and low expectations that you mean well. Work with them and discover ways to convince others that you do indeed work, love and play according to sound Logotherapy principles. Be very patient as you try to lead people to consistent satisfaction.
Nevertheless, as finite persons, times do come when we cannot invest still more effort in the activities of some people without depriving someone else of something vital. Some of the people we try to help, have hidden agendas or vested interests that are destructive to those you support. When that happens you should move on however regretfully, to use your time and energy for someone who will respond to your support and generosity. Even the deeply accepting Jesus said something about not casting one's pearls before swine, but then, he may have been having a bad day. We were forced to abandon Andy the musician who hates himself and everyone else. We had taken him in after he was released from prison, put him in our upstairs apartment without charging him rent and fed him for several months. Despite doing our best, he grew consistently angry and aggressive in drunken fits, swearing at and threatening to harm Roberta, our daughter and an elderly aunt, until Jard drove him away at pistol point in order to protect the family. We'd done all we could for Andy and was not going to have him abuse us in order to meet his selfish, distorted needs. Our good efforts simply could not continue for a man who was threatening violence against us and someone we love. We all have to be tough at times.
The Basic Principle is effective in normal relationships because the vast majority of people prefer:
PLEASURE TO PAIN IN THE PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PRESTIGE TO DEVALUATION IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PURPOSE TO MEANINGLESSNESS IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE.
Apply this principle in your relationships - Good things happen to people who cooperate with me and discover why it is so successful a method for relating to others, for enhancing your growth and influencing others to a fulfilling life-style.
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO COOPERATE WITH ME.
BAD THINGS DON’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO COOPERATE WITH ME.
GOOD THINGS DON’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T COOPERATE.
The Basic Principle is effective in normal relationships because people prefer:
PLEASURE TO PAIN IN THE PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PRESTIGE TO DEVALUATION IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PURPOSE TO MEANINGLESSNESS IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE.
Obviously, the world has fallen on difficult times because change has become incessant and we have accepted secular philosophies that go against the grain of human spirituality. And of course, any attempt to keep the cultural traditions of our uneducated, pre-industrial ancestors as Truth Incarnate is self-destructive. Nevertheless, that is precisely what many persons try to do. The passage of time and the flood of new persons being born and growing up changes everything until we are like the befuddled King of Siam in the musical play THE KING AND I. He sings:
When I was a boy, what was what.
Now I am a man, things have changed a lot.
Some things nearly so, some things nearly not.
We humans are inclined to pack our beliefs in bundles - to cast them in concrete with handles on them, so we can pass then on unchanged and unchallenged to our children and their children. Just as our parents and our grandparents tried to do. We will, as the king continued to sing:
Fight to prove what we do not know is so! Tis a puzzlement!
This means, of course, that you must assume the responsibility for yourself and the people for whom you are responsible because huge societies never collapse overnight And yet, they seldom adapt in time to save themselves. Half a century ago Billy Graham was saying that America was in trouble, that without a spiritual renewal such as John Akers and Lee Atwater discussed years later, we were doomed to defeat as a society. He preached that only through a spiritual restoration with strong philosophical values could we mature enough to succeed. We did respond to Graham's call, from 4 or 5 percent who said they followed a spiritual life-style in 1940, to 35 or 40 percent who say they do now, and yet we are still in trouble because of the even swifter growth of Nihilism in our institutions and our human reluctance to adapt.
Fortunately, through years of study and counseling, we have identified a Basic Logotherapy Principle of satisfaction that will help keep you on the right track as you cope with widespread nihilism and narcissism. This principle isn't what a greedy society offers people, this is what you as an AUTHENTIC or a CONGRUENT promise to the people with whom you share life. It is this:
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO COOPERATE IN ORDER TO REDUCE ALIENATION AND TO ADVANCE OUR COLLECTIVE FULFILLMENT
The title of Jard's first major book - NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST - was fascinating to reporters, talk show hosts and newspaper editors. Some of them wanted to believe he was right but a significant number of people with closed-minded life-themes wanted to prove he was an idiot to think such obvious nonsense. Every intelligent person knows, some reporters implied, that nice guys finish last Leo Derocher, the baseball guru, even wrote a book to that effect John Kelly was the host of a killer talk show in a large Ohio city who did everything but put a dunce cap on Jard's head when he arrived before a studio audience of three hundred persons, while many thousands viewed out in the community. He even seated him on a stool before beginning his attack. Kelly then asked the studio audience to vote on the proposition that decent men and women can succeed. About half said Jard was correct, that nice people can do well, while the other half decided he was all wet, good persons don't have a chance in this lousy, rotten world. That was interesting since none of the audience had read the book; had no idea what he'd written, although they were willing enough to judge in advance. Kelly then turned to Jard and gloated over the negative vote, Now, Doc, How are you gonna handle the skeptics? He then sat down in the audience while the three cameras whirled up close, presumably to watch Jard sweat as the people grilled him.
Jard started out by agreeing with the host, admitting if you define a decent guy or gal as a wimp, a doormat, a marshmallow - such a person couldn't expect ranch in a nihilistic, pragmatic society. On the other hand, he said, I define nice guys and gals as persons like Joe Butterworth who apply life's Basic Principle through:
MANAGING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS CONSISTENTLY WISELY AND WELL,
SHARING LIFE'S GREATEST REWARDS WITH COOPERATIVE WOMEN AND MEN,
CREATING A COMMUNITY OF ACHIEVING PERSONS WHO BELONG TOGETHER.
Jard leaned back on the stool, folded his arms and waited quietly while the cameras frantically panned around for some kind of action. Kelly was so startled by the statement that he sat silently considering the answer for thirty seconds or more and that's an eternity of dead time on television, before coming slowly to his feet. He muttered right on camera - Well, I'll be damned - I never thought of it that way. He was hooked and rather than the six minutes Jard was supposed to have, he discussed NICE GUYS for thirty minutes and sold a lot of books in the community! When the audience voted again, only two persons out of three hundred still said that Jard was all wet. He went home and the next Sunday took our minister aside to repeat the story. He concluded, If you had my conversion rate, we'd be the largest congregation in the city!
This basic element of consistent satisfaction, dealing fairly in your relationships, sharing the benefits of cooperation and offering others a community where they can belong with people who support each other - will surely go a long ways toward making your life the best it can become. It is a practical expression of the faith, hope and love that is vital to consistent growth. There is another aspect to the basic principle. It is:
BAD THINGS DON'T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO COOPERATE IN OUR ACTIVITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS
You must recognize the obvious - that accidents occur, recessions come, companies fail and much more in an imperfect world. The Tragic Quartet of suffering, rage, guilt and death is all too real. However, to the limit of your abilities, you promise to be consistently open-minded and accepting of other people in your relationships. You shall neither blame women and men for your own failures nor punish them for circumstances beyond their control. You will not hide when people require your help and will end all cruel psychological games designed to hurt someone who gets sucked into some hateful scheme. Because you serve society in an organization or as a free-lance as a committed person should, according to the by-product approach to satisfaction, you will apply faith, hope and love to guarantee meaning and belonging that wells up out of your accepting life-style. You become a mature person in your relationships and that gives you better opportunities to influence other persons toward a satisfying life.
There is one more factor to the Basic Principle.
GOOD THINGS DON'T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO COOPERATE IN GETTING GOOD THINGS DONE
Accepting and maturing men and women don't want to be cruel even though we all are frustrated at times and tempted to become aggressive or apathetic. However, we are finite persons with limited time and resources to invest in a satisfying life. Therefore, we have not only the right but the responsibility to use our powers where they will accomplish the greatest good for ourselves, the people we support and for humankind. Be patient; don't write people off too soon. Offer distressed or difficult men and women time to understand, despite possibly negative life-themes and low expectations that you mean well. Work with them and discover ways to convince others that you do indeed work, love and play according to sound Logotherapy principles. Be very patient as you try to lead people to consistent satisfaction.
Nevertheless, as finite persons, times do come when we cannot invest still more effort in the activities of some people without depriving someone else of something vital. Some of the people we try to help, have hidden agendas or vested interests that are destructive to those you support. When that happens you should move on however regretfully, to use your time and energy for someone who will respond to your support and generosity. Even the deeply accepting Jesus said something about not casting one's pearls before swine, but then, he may have been having a bad day. We were forced to abandon Andy the musician who hates himself and everyone else. We had taken him in after he was released from prison, put him in our upstairs apartment without charging him rent and fed him for several months. Despite doing our best, he grew consistently angry and aggressive in drunken fits, swearing at and threatening to harm Roberta, our daughter and an elderly aunt, until Jard drove him away at pistol point in order to protect the family. We'd done all we could for Andy and was not going to have him abuse us in order to meet his selfish, distorted needs. Our good efforts simply could not continue for a man who was threatening violence against us and someone we love. We all have to be tough at times.
The Basic Principle is effective in normal relationships because the vast majority of people prefer:
PLEASURE TO PAIN IN THE PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PRESTIGE TO DEVALUATION IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE,
PURPOSE TO MEANINGLESSNESS IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF LIFE.
Apply this principle in your relationships - Good things happen to people who cooperate with me and discover why it is so successful a method for relating to others, for enhancing your growth and influencing others to a fulfilling life-style.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Secrets of Lovers Relationships
The Loving Psychology of Life-Long Sexual Intimacy
* Do You want exciting intimacy?
* Do You want to save or improve your marriage or relationship?
* Do you want less conflict in your relationship?
* Do You want to have greater influence with your lover?
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Our Printable eBook Course shows you how to create a meaningful relationship that assures permanent love and consistent joyful sexuality with printable self-focus exercises and projects in every chapter.
The Course Includes:
* Your Keys to a Loving and Lasting Relationship.
* Benefit: learn the personal tools to revitalize and fulfill your
relationship.
* Consistent joyful sexuality in your relationship.
* Benefit: achieve sexual intimacy without guilt or game playing to increase your joy.
* Predict your Personality Pattern to influence and your partners.
* Benefit: learn specific communication techniques to better influence your partner.
* Learn to manage your conflicts through the Three Stage Conflict Avoidance and Control ASRAC PROCESS.
* Benefit: learning this alone could save your marriage or relationship.
* Create Couple's Contracts that really work for you and your partner.
* Benefit: negotiate about money, sex, discipline and everything else without conflict.
* Self-Focus Exercises in every Chapter.
* Benefit: achieve personal empowerment and understanding.
* Learn many interesting things about yourself and your partner with our Personality Pattern Predictor.
Men and women are mirror image souls who need one another for fulfillment - for intimacy caresses through the long nights of winter, for the yin and yang of masculine and feminine strengths, for perpetuating ourselves immortally through our children.
100% satisfaction is our goal: ordering, customer service and selection. If you are unhappy with your purchase for any reason, please contact us immediately. We promise to do everything we can to make things right and offer a 90 day money back guarantee or trade if you prefer.
Warmly,
Jard and Roberta DeVille
Monday, November 05, 2007
Nice Guys Finish First!
"NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST? How can anyone with the brain of a cock-roach make such a stupid statement?" So rang out the scorn of a killer talk show host when I was doing a book promotion at a major television station in Ohio. When I was on tour in Cleveland, John Clancy quoted Leo Durocher who said just the opposite -- “Nice guys finish last.” John also quoted from books that stressed the need to be a tough talking, no nonsense guy or gal who intimidated others and took what he or she wanted in his or her activities -- possibly following instructions given in a book called, "Succeeding In Business And Love With A Swift Kick To the Groin."
Who can believe this drivel? Everyone on earth knows that a nice guy or gal hasn’t a choice in this lousy, rotten world. You gotta be tough and mean to be successful. Everywhere! How many agree with me that this stuff is nonsense? Raise your hands.
That was somewhat premature since no one in the audience had any idea what I was teaching in my book and seminar, but they voted as Kelly asked them to. Many had preconceived notions and about two hundred people in the studio agreed with John. He then asked, how many agree with -- he didn’t actually say it -- this dunce on the stool, but his non-verbal communication made his meaning quite clear. John was all geared up to take me apart for writing something he didn’t understand. He pointed to the overwhelming number of hands in the air and said; Take it from there, Professor! Let’s see how you handle this rejection of your entire concept. He sat down in the audience, as all three cameras zoomed in close -- to watch me sweat, I suppose. Then, because I knew what my program was all about and he didn’t -- I countered by agreeing with the host. I said;
And that, I said to the group, is my definition of a nice guy or gal, of a decent, emotionally honest parent, teacher, manager, pastor, military officer or what have you! Persons who follow my three rules I’ve just given you are the really nice and successful people of this world.
I folded my arms and sat back on the stool -- waiting, for I had said all I intended to in defense of nice guys and gals. So, I waited and waited -- for John to recover from his confusion. I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head as first one camera and then another zoomed in on me and then on to John and panned the audience before coming back to me and John -- for almost a minute. And that is an eternity of dead time on television. The camera operators were getting frantic when John finally stood shook his head to clear his thoughts and muttered right on the air;
Well, I’ll be damned! I never thought of nice guys that way.
John had the people vote again and this time all but two men of the three hundred or so in the audience voted that nice guys and gals did indeed have a greater chance at success if they followed my view of sound relationships. The viewers immediately saw the wisdom in my approach and I trust that you also shall understand it that way! The next Sunday, after I’d returned home to Minneapolis, I drew my pastor aside, told him this tale and joked;
If you had my percentage of conversions, we’d have the largest congregation in the country!
MAKING YOUR LIFE COUNT
This report is about people and about succeeding or failing in life, since some degree of success and failure are the only real options that are open to us. It is written with the knowledge that neither power nor pleasure exists in a vacuum. Virtually everything good we do in life requires the cooperation of people in different ways. And every person whose help you need in order to succeed has his or her own agenda that is important to him. .
Fortunately, every reasonably intelligent and well adjusted person can learn how to predict the attitudes and to shape activities of the men and women you must influence regularly in order to make your life successful. It also shows you how to influence their choices in ways they approve by using sound methods of personal effectiveness. You can do these things by learning and using powerful techniques developed by some very good psychiatrists and psychologists. These methods are unknown to most people, although professional therapists, consultants and social workers have been using them for decades with much success.
Most people struggle through life the best way they can, succeeding once in a while, but more often failing because they never learned how to consistently make good things happen when and where they are needed. They simply blunder along -- accepting whatever the luck of the draw offers them daily, never really taking charge of their relationships in a mutually rewarding manner that keeps people cooperating with them.
Many persons try to succeed by using the values, attitudes, expectations, choices and skills they chanced to learn in childhood. Unfortunately, in this age of relentless change, when power and authority are shared by more and more people, to depend on what you picked up at random as a youngster is a poor way to shape your life into a successful affair. In our conventional behavioral patterns many mistakes have been handed down from generation to generation. At home you were probably socialized not to ask embarrassing questions of your elders. At school you were expected to memorize the correct answers. And if you are like many people, you are still waiting for someone to ask the right questions so you can show what a good student you were. Unfortunately for your welfare, no one is ever going to ask them, since most of the answers you learned in school are no longer appropriate. Yet -- millions of men and women who would never imagine crossing the country by covered wagon instead of jet aircraft, who would never take some medicine man's snake-oil cure, try to succeed in life by using methods that were outdated a century ago. And then they can’t understand why they aren't among the better achievers of society.
And yet, not one of the changes sweeping over us like Pacific waves crashing onto a reef, has such critical implications when making one’s life count for something satisfying as the attitudes that people now hold toward power and control.
The Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney mystique (Tell the jerks what to do!) doesn't motivate competent persons any more. If it ever did! For example, since many disasters were caused by fighting the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. During our shameful wars against poor, dark-skinned Third World nations such as Vietnam, Libya, Panama, Granada, Hati, El Salvador, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and others, many perceptive women and men have lost faith in our institutions. After the 9-11 attack on the Trade Towers, an F B I agent was questioning a Minneapolis man about the loyalty of a Muslim neighbor. He asked Anthony; does he ever criticize the American government?
Tony was flabbergasted for a moment before he blurted out -- Everyone I know criticizes Washington -- including myself and probably you! We see the Congress and state Legislatures consistently selling out to the highest bidder, business executives such as Enron and World Crossing stealing fortunes and disposing of the faithful employees who do great work at the drop of a point on Wall Street, the criminal justice system with politically ambitious district attorneys often convicting and executing always poor, mostly minority men who couldn’t possibly have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. The very flexible morality of primitive politicians, greedy business executives, fundamental preachers, powerful governmental officials and existentially enraged citizens who feel the execution of any minority man whether guilty or not is a good day’s work -- is a weak reed upon which to lean for wisdom and a satisfying life.
Not long ago a middle-aged local realtor told me of an experience he had with his youthful secretary. Dan said that Dianne was a hardworking, high-spirited employee who was competent and loyal enough to become his administrative assistant. He said, she reminded him of the flippant young secretary in the former T V series THE PRACTICE. But he began to notice, to his middle age displeasure, that she was dressing more and more casually, as if she were going to a picnic rather than to a business operation. So, he called her into his office and tactfully asked her to dress according to his code -- the long accepted business code set by such giants as I B M, General Motors and Honeywell. The young woman sat silently as he spoke, but when he finished, she stood up and said quite pointedly;
Who needs this formality in an informal business such as this?
The power that parents exerted over their families, teachers over their classes, and pastors over their parishes, has gone the same way it has with employers. It has passed into the hands of people who refuse to be coerced, so much so that for years I have not met anyone in authority who didn't admit that he has less power than his predecessors did a few decades earlier. For example, for generations, Marine Corps drill instructors were required by their macho commanders to drive their recruits brutally, shrugging it off when a few boots died of drowning or heat prostration, saying you cannot hope to make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Today, that abuse of power will quickly get a DI hauled before a court martial and condemned to a long stay in a military prison.
Because of this distrust of authority and growing spirit of independence and self-reliance, any attempt to use intimidation is usually more harmful than helpful, regardless of popular recommendations to win success through brute strength, to apply raw force. To succeed consistently with and through people, you must master sound personal methods for winning cooperation and commitment. I know of no other place to learn them quickly except here, for I have developed them from different approaches to cooperative relationships over the past forty years. Perhaps you could spend several years in a graduate program in psychology. But even then you would likely find that most university departments stress simplistic behavior control concepts that reflect their behavioral philosophy while failing to adequately deal with an existential or a life-style approach to success. Skinnerian Behaviorism proceeds on the assumption that all we need be concerned with is minute acts of behavior -- that human values, attitudes, expectations and relationships are immaterial to controlling others. I’m a firm believer in the use of rewards but my greatest complaint against behavioral technology is the assumption that the strong and competent persons we must cooperate with will sell out for peanuts -- for a few toys or a pat or two on the back. Face up to it, every strong person brings to each relationship his or her own needs and assumptions. No employee, student, spouse, in-law or voter is a blank page upon which we can write what we wish without resistance, counter proposals and outright rebellion when we behave as power freaks.
By selecting carefully from all across the field, I have learned many practical methods that will help you understand the importance of personality patterns, to avoid conflicts consistently and win the cooperation of many people so they respond to you in a positive manner. In addition to my work in academic and clinical psychology, I have also got down in the mud and blood of real life as lived by most women and men. In addition to teaching in two very good liberal arts colleges, I served seven years as a church pastor within a denomination to whom ideological beliefs were very important. I was Vice President of Manufacturing for a farm tool company, Manager of Engineering Research, Methods and Training for a huge eight thousand employee UniRoyal chemical manufacturing complex spread across twenty-two thousand acres and director of a Learning and Learning Disabilities clinic in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Thus, I had many rich experiences in both line and staff work before becoming Professor of Leadership Psychology in the Executive Development Conference at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Of course, when you start using the methods taught in my books, you shall realize while many people have an increasing sense of independence, most will cooperate when you help them succeed along with you. People want sound leadership for their activities, successful problem solving and low conflict organizations. Unfortunately, although they yearn to be self-reliant and competent, many men and women continue to interact in the negative ways they learned in childhood and have seldom examined again. This is very close to one definition of neuroticism;
Neurotics are persons who compulsively hold self-defeating attitudes and use harmful activities that failed in the past with the assumption that this time they shall succeed even though they have not been improved.
A woman who marries a succession of brutal and abusive men -- each time believing that she will succeed in winning their love and support, has a serious flaw in her emotional apparatus. So does a merchant who stiffs his or her customers and then plans on developing a successful store on repeat business. To help people feel good about cooperating with you, as a means of succeeding with a growing number of people, you must make the revolutionary effort to use the superb methods I have drawn together for your use.
Actually, there are only two basic psychological attitudes and expectations you can hold as you relate to the people from whom you want to win cooperation.
FIRST -- You can struggle against learning new ways of relating, persuading and leading others, never discovering how to shape life the way you want it to become.
SECOND -- You can accept the methods that change has brought to our society and its organizations, adapting to people with skill and wisdom and mastering new ways of reaching your goals through cooperation.
If you remain defensive, the best you can do is circle the wagons and fight a rearguard action against those who refuse to cooperate even if you avoid ulcers and your heart doesn’t split like a rotten melon. Then, circumstances and more adaptable persons will control your life. When you need to win the personal commitment of a suspicious stranger, a surly worker or rebellious adolescent, you shall have to do the best you can with whatever crumbs they toss to you. You shall struggle consistently. That route is already overcrowded with those who have no concept of what is happening in their lives - who have no idea of how to win interpersonal commitment beyond bullying those whose cooperation they need to succeed and attacking those who would make life satisfying if treated wisely and well. At least you will not be lonely in that circle of futility for most of the persons you know shall still be going around and around for the next forty years or so. But you shall not be living the rewarding, stimulating live which competent and successful women and women can enjoy once they learn how to focus their powers wisely along lines of excellence.
You will find, as you apply the concepts and procedures I teach, that they can become a normal part of your relationships with other people, an aspect of life they may not understand clearly but which they approve wholeheartedly. They will realize that you have become a more understanding, more rewarding person with who to live, work, and play, a real winner in the true sense of the word, and they will give you a depth of commitment you will probably find astonishing. I am personally thrilled that my oldest son, now with grown kids of his own, has used the concepts that appear in NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST as well in my other books like THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP and WINNING REPEAT SALES to become one of the finest automotive service managers in America. That is a documented fact, since his group recently tied for first place nationally in service satisfaction for the Saturn Division of General Motors.
WISDOM FROM THE FULFILLMENT FORUM
From The Book, NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST
JARD DeVILLE http://www.fulfillmentforum.com
Permission to use if attributed to author with his website address.
O K, I admit it, I made up that title but you get the picture. Clancy had done everything except put a dunce-cap on my head as he seated me on a stool before the cameras and, despite his complete ignorance of what I had written, proceeded to ridicule my leadership seminar for managers, pastors, teachers and other professionals. He held a copy of this book up for the audience of some three hundred people -- with tens of thousands more watching television from their homes, and asked;
Who can believe this drivel? Everyone on earth knows that a nice guy or gal hasn’t a choice in this lousy, rotten world. You gotta be tough and mean to be successful. Everywhere! How many agree with me that this stuff is nonsense? Raise your hands.
That was somewhat premature since no one in the audience had any idea what I was teaching in my book and seminar, but they voted as Kelly asked them to. Many had preconceived notions and about two hundred people in the studio agreed with John. He then asked, how many agree with -- he didn’t actually say it -- this dunce on the stool, but his non-verbal communication made his meaning quite clear. John was all geared up to take me apart for writing something he didn’t understand. He pointed to the overwhelming number of hands in the air and said; Take it from there, Professor! Let’s see how you handle this rejection of your entire concept. He sat down in the audience, as all three cameras zoomed in close -- to watch me sweat, I suppose. Then, because I knew what my program was all about and he didn’t -- I countered by agreeing with the host. I said;
If you consider a nice guy or gal a doormat, a wimp, a marshmallow -- I agree with you completely. Such a person doesn’t have a chance to succeed in a tough, competitive world in which many other persons are striving for the same things we want for ourselves. The tough-minded guys and gals will run over the wimps in a very short time. I however don’t think of the doormats of the world as truly nice guys and gals. I see nice persons as competent and intelligent men and women who understand the nature of influence, cooperation and persuasion power -- as those people who;
MANAGE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND SKILL --
SHARE THE REWARDS OF ACHIEVEMENT WITH THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HELP THEM SUCCEED --
CREATE COMMUNITIES OF COOPERATIVE ACHIEVERS IN WHICH EVERY PERSON IS A RESPECTED MEMBER --
And that, I said to the group, is my definition of a nice guy or gal, of a decent, emotionally honest parent, teacher, manager, pastor, military officer or what have you! Persons who follow my three rules I’ve just given you are the really nice and successful people of this world.
I folded my arms and sat back on the stool -- waiting, for I had said all I intended to in defense of nice guys and gals. So, I waited and waited -- for John to recover from his confusion. I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head as first one camera and then another zoomed in on me and then on to John and panned the audience before coming back to me and John -- for almost a minute. And that is an eternity of dead time on television. The camera operators were getting frantic when John finally stood shook his head to clear his thoughts and muttered right on the air;
Well, I’ll be damned! I never thought of nice guys that way.
Most people don’t but we then had a great time on his show. I had convinced him that my approach is by far the best way to succeeding throughout life, rather than by clawing and screaming, trying to defeat everyone else, destroying the relationships that create friendship and love, clogging your arteries and corroding the plumbing that keeps you alive -- with bile and acids boiling through your vascular and digestive systems to eat away your health and life.
John had the people vote again and this time all but two men of the three hundred or so in the audience voted that nice guys and gals did indeed have a greater chance at success if they followed my view of sound relationships. The viewers immediately saw the wisdom in my approach and I trust that you also shall understand it that way! The next Sunday, after I’d returned home to Minneapolis, I drew my pastor aside, told him this tale and joked;
If you had my percentage of conversions, we’d have the largest congregation in the country!
MAKING YOUR LIFE COUNT
This report is about people and about succeeding or failing in life, since some degree of success and failure are the only real options that are open to us. It is written with the knowledge that neither power nor pleasure exists in a vacuum. Virtually everything good we do in life requires the cooperation of people in different ways. And every person whose help you need in order to succeed has his or her own agenda that is important to him. .
Therefore, you will have to over-power, out-skill, deceive, or persuade others before society will consistently allow you to share in the marbles, money, passionate lovers, prestige or promotions you want. Only in this way can you make your life count for something worthwhile.
Fortunately, every reasonably intelligent and well adjusted person can learn how to predict the attitudes and to shape activities of the men and women you must influence regularly in order to make your life successful. It also shows you how to influence their choices in ways they approve by using sound methods of personal effectiveness. You can do these things by learning and using powerful techniques developed by some very good psychiatrists and psychologists. These methods are unknown to most people, although professional therapists, consultants and social workers have been using them for decades with much success.
Most people struggle through life the best way they can, succeeding once in a while, but more often failing because they never learned how to consistently make good things happen when and where they are needed. They simply blunder along -- accepting whatever the luck of the draw offers them daily, never really taking charge of their relationships in a mutually rewarding manner that keeps people cooperating with them.
Many persons try to succeed by using the values, attitudes, expectations, choices and skills they chanced to learn in childhood. Unfortunately, in this age of relentless change, when power and authority are shared by more and more people, to depend on what you picked up at random as a youngster is a poor way to shape your life into a successful affair. In our conventional behavioral patterns many mistakes have been handed down from generation to generation. At home you were probably socialized not to ask embarrassing questions of your elders. At school you were expected to memorize the correct answers. And if you are like many people, you are still waiting for someone to ask the right questions so you can show what a good student you were. Unfortunately for your welfare, no one is ever going to ask them, since most of the answers you learned in school are no longer appropriate. Yet -- millions of men and women who would never imagine crossing the country by covered wagon instead of jet aircraft, who would never take some medicine man's snake-oil cure, try to succeed in life by using methods that were outdated a century ago. And then they can’t understand why they aren't among the better achievers of society.
Today, men and women are coping with complex events that are affecting their lives in many crucial ways. Medicine, personal behavior, education, entertainment, sexual customs, politics, engineering and business methods are all changing more rapidly than at any time in history. We no sooner get comfortable than life rolls over once again, forcing us to learn an entirely new set of attitudes, activities and relationships!
And yet, not one of the changes sweeping over us like Pacific waves crashing onto a reef, has such critical implications when making one’s life count for something satisfying as the attitudes that people now hold toward power and control.
The Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney mystique (Tell the jerks what to do!) doesn't motivate competent persons any more. If it ever did! For example, since many disasters were caused by fighting the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. During our shameful wars against poor, dark-skinned Third World nations such as Vietnam, Libya, Panama, Granada, Hati, El Salvador, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq and others, many perceptive women and men have lost faith in our institutions. After the 9-11 attack on the Trade Towers, an F B I agent was questioning a Minneapolis man about the loyalty of a Muslim neighbor. He asked Anthony; does he ever criticize the American government?
Tony was flabbergasted for a moment before he blurted out -- Everyone I know criticizes Washington -- including myself and probably you! We see the Congress and state Legislatures consistently selling out to the highest bidder, business executives such as Enron and World Crossing stealing fortunes and disposing of the faithful employees who do great work at the drop of a point on Wall Street, the criminal justice system with politically ambitious district attorneys often convicting and executing always poor, mostly minority men who couldn’t possibly have committed the crimes for which they were convicted. The very flexible morality of primitive politicians, greedy business executives, fundamental preachers, powerful governmental officials and existentially enraged citizens who feel the execution of any minority man whether guilty or not is a good day’s work -- is a weak reed upon which to lean for wisdom and a satisfying life.
Not long ago a middle-aged local realtor told me of an experience he had with his youthful secretary. Dan said that Dianne was a hardworking, high-spirited employee who was competent and loyal enough to become his administrative assistant. He said, she reminded him of the flippant young secretary in the former T V series THE PRACTICE. But he began to notice, to his middle age displeasure, that she was dressing more and more casually, as if she were going to a picnic rather than to a business operation. So, he called her into his office and tactfully asked her to dress according to his code -- the long accepted business code set by such giants as I B M, General Motors and Honeywell. The young woman sat silently as he spoke, but when he finished, she stood up and said quite pointedly;
Who needs this formality in an informal business such as this?
Then she walked out of his office, returned to her desk, and continued to work harder and smarter for his small company than any assistant he had ever employed. As he related the story, Dan sighed deeply and said there was little he could do about her impertinence, unless, of course, he wanted to cut off his nose to spite his face. He could protect his ego against an outspoken girl -- could fire her and really teach her a lesson, forcing her to take unemployment pay, a month or two of subsidized vacation, and get a job with a company that would not be so stuffy about the way she dressed. But, he would be the real loser. He would spend a month trying to find a suitable replacement, another three or four months trying to help the newcomer learn the job, and another six months blaming himself for letting his ego cost him a year's efficiency in his office. He kept his mouth shut and retained a great assistant -- for he lacked the power to force her to comply with his requirements. Indeed life does go on and we must adapt, must cope with reality in order to succeed, even if doing so makes us suspect that the world is going to hell in a handcart, because humans hate change inordinately and yearn to freeze life as it was when we were first learning to mange it; even when doing so costs us a bundle. Many people do just that because personal prestige is more important to themselves than performance or profits, but it quickly leads to dysfunctional families, schools, companies, churches and communities.
The power that parents exerted over their families, teachers over their classes, and pastors over their parishes, has gone the same way it has with employers. It has passed into the hands of people who refuse to be coerced, so much so that for years I have not met anyone in authority who didn't admit that he has less power than his predecessors did a few decades earlier. For example, for generations, Marine Corps drill instructors were required by their macho commanders to drive their recruits brutally, shrugging it off when a few boots died of drowning or heat prostration, saying you cannot hope to make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Today, that abuse of power will quickly get a DI hauled before a court martial and condemned to a long stay in a military prison.
Because of this distrust of authority and growing spirit of independence and self-reliance, any attempt to use intimidation is usually more harmful than helpful, regardless of popular recommendations to win success through brute strength, to apply raw force. To succeed consistently with and through people, you must master sound personal methods for winning cooperation and commitment. I know of no other place to learn them quickly except here, for I have developed them from different approaches to cooperative relationships over the past forty years. Perhaps you could spend several years in a graduate program in psychology. But even then you would likely find that most university departments stress simplistic behavior control concepts that reflect their behavioral philosophy while failing to adequately deal with an existential or a life-style approach to success. Skinnerian Behaviorism proceeds on the assumption that all we need be concerned with is minute acts of behavior -- that human values, attitudes, expectations and relationships are immaterial to controlling others. I’m a firm believer in the use of rewards but my greatest complaint against behavioral technology is the assumption that the strong and competent persons we must cooperate with will sell out for peanuts -- for a few toys or a pat or two on the back. Face up to it, every strong person brings to each relationship his or her own needs and assumptions. No employee, student, spouse, in-law or voter is a blank page upon which we can write what we wish without resistance, counter proposals and outright rebellion when we behave as power freaks.
By selecting carefully from all across the field, I have learned many practical methods that will help you understand the importance of personality patterns, to avoid conflicts consistently and win the cooperation of many people so they respond to you in a positive manner. In addition to my work in academic and clinical psychology, I have also got down in the mud and blood of real life as lived by most women and men. In addition to teaching in two very good liberal arts colleges, I served seven years as a church pastor within a denomination to whom ideological beliefs were very important. I was Vice President of Manufacturing for a farm tool company, Manager of Engineering Research, Methods and Training for a huge eight thousand employee UniRoyal chemical manufacturing complex spread across twenty-two thousand acres and director of a Learning and Learning Disabilities clinic in conjunction with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Thus, I had many rich experiences in both line and staff work before becoming Professor of Leadership Psychology in the Executive Development Conference at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Of course, when you start using the methods taught in my books, you shall realize while many people have an increasing sense of independence, most will cooperate when you help them succeed along with you. People want sound leadership for their activities, successful problem solving and low conflict organizations. Unfortunately, although they yearn to be self-reliant and competent, many men and women continue to interact in the negative ways they learned in childhood and have seldom examined again. This is very close to one definition of neuroticism;
Neurotics are persons who compulsively hold self-defeating attitudes and use harmful activities that failed in the past with the assumption that this time they shall succeed even though they have not been improved.
A woman who marries a succession of brutal and abusive men -- each time believing that she will succeed in winning their love and support, has a serious flaw in her emotional apparatus. So does a merchant who stiffs his or her customers and then plans on developing a successful store on repeat business. To help people feel good about cooperating with you, as a means of succeeding with a growing number of people, you must make the revolutionary effort to use the superb methods I have drawn together for your use.
Actually, there are only two basic psychological attitudes and expectations you can hold as you relate to the people from whom you want to win cooperation.
FIRST -- You can struggle against learning new ways of relating, persuading and leading others, never discovering how to shape life the way you want it to become.
SECOND -- You can accept the methods that change has brought to our society and its organizations, adapting to people with skill and wisdom and mastering new ways of reaching your goals through cooperation.
If you remain defensive, the best you can do is circle the wagons and fight a rearguard action against those who refuse to cooperate even if you avoid ulcers and your heart doesn’t split like a rotten melon. Then, circumstances and more adaptable persons will control your life. When you need to win the personal commitment of a suspicious stranger, a surly worker or rebellious adolescent, you shall have to do the best you can with whatever crumbs they toss to you. You shall struggle consistently. That route is already overcrowded with those who have no concept of what is happening in their lives - who have no idea of how to win interpersonal commitment beyond bullying those whose cooperation they need to succeed and attacking those who would make life satisfying if treated wisely and well. At least you will not be lonely in that circle of futility for most of the persons you know shall still be going around and around for the next forty years or so. But you shall not be living the rewarding, stimulating live which competent and successful women and women can enjoy once they learn how to focus their powers wisely along lines of excellence.
You will find, as you apply the concepts and procedures I teach, that they can become a normal part of your relationships with other people, an aspect of life they may not understand clearly but which they approve wholeheartedly. They will realize that you have become a more understanding, more rewarding person with who to live, work, and play, a real winner in the true sense of the word, and they will give you a depth of commitment you will probably find astonishing. I am personally thrilled that my oldest son, now with grown kids of his own, has used the concepts that appear in NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST as well in my other books like THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP and WINNING REPEAT SALES to become one of the finest automotive service managers in America. That is a documented fact, since his group recently tied for first place nationally in service satisfaction for the Saturn Division of General Motors.
There is no great mystery about this -- wise people like Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and others have been teaching for thousands of years, that you must not only treat men and women as you need to be managed, but as they need to be rewarded physically, psychologically and philosophically. Then no one shall be surprised that you are indeed a nice guy or gal who:
MANAGES INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND SKILL --
SHARES THE REWARDS OF ACHIEVEMENT WITH THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HELP YOU SUCCEED --
CREATES COMMUNITIES OF COOPERATIVE ACHIEVERS IN WHICH EVERY PERSON IS A RESPECTED MEMBER --
There really no other way to soar as if on eagles’ wings.
WISDOM FROM THE FULFILLMENT FORUM
From The Book, NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST
JARD DeVILLE http://www.fulfillmentforum.com
Permission to use if attributed to author with his website address.
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