pdf chap 8 leadership

BREAKINGHEADS

The Secrets of Economic Management & Leadership in Orbit

Peter A. Hubbard

Produced by Adventure Art & Design Computer Art & Design by Danielle Kunowski and Heidi Atlanta den Ronden

Wordsworth Ink Publishing - Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Washington, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis

1 The Secrets of Economic Management and Leadership in Orbit2 It’s What You Do That Gets You Into Orbit3 The Effective Management of Stress in Orbit4 Take One in Orbit5 The Secrets of Learning in Orbit6 The Secret of Personality in Orbit7 Chaos Theory in Orbit8 Take Two in Orbit9 The Secrets of Attitude in Orbit10 The Secrets of Communication in Orbit11 Take Three in Orbit12 The Secrets of Group Dynamics in Orbit13 The Secrets of Motivation in Orbit14 The First Pregnant Pause in Orbit15 The Secrets of Profit in Orbit16 The Secrets of Strategy in Orbit17 The Second Pregnant Pause in Orbit18 Take Four in Orbit19 The Secret of the Swimming Pool in Orbit20 The Third Pregnant Pause in Orbit21 The Secret of “I” in Orbit22 The Secret of “P” in Orbit23 The Secrets of Fighting City Hall in Orbit24 The Secrets of Animal Cunning in Orbit25 The Secrets of Space in Orbit26 The Fourth Pregnant Pause in Orbit27 Force Multiplication in Orbit28 Your Abilities in Orbit29 Politicians, Priests, and Lawyers in Orbit30 Yes and No in Orbit31 The Common Mind in Orbit32 Little Acts of Kindness in Orbit33 The Personality Grid in Orbit34 The Final Pregnant Pause in Orbit35 Winning with Orbit36 The Flight of the Bumble Bee into Orbit37 The Orbit Story

Contents

Author’s NoteThe preceding work was first published as “Chapter 8” of “The Orbit Economic Management and Performance System Operator’s Manual”.

The Principles in Orbit

The Orbit System has been developed around a series of non-negotiable, research proven psychologically based performance Principles :

• HOT – Honest, Open, Transparent – all processes, activities, transactions, relationships, communications, processes, and concepts are discussed and delivered in a HOT environment, at all times, without exception.

• All Data and Information is fully distributed, to every possible outlet within the organizational system, and this data is available to everyone, and not filtered or limited by technology or policy.

• The Operational imperative comes before the Financial imperative.

• All Performance metrics are Transactional based, and negotiated and owned by the People responsible for the transaction.

• A Knowledge Management & Information System will provide the communication pathways to encourage the free ranging contribution to experiential learning by everyone involved in the process.

• The Operational Environment will be managed using a Balanced Score Card concept, where every report considers the four attributes of Financial Outcomes, Systems and Processes, People, and Client impacts.

• All Activity will be recorded at the lowest level of the Organization, using a single entry, single page, single process, single system input.

People Objectives:• Reduce stress, duplication, “busy” work, and

promote conscious longitudinal thinking, efficiency, ,and creative contribution to the Organization and its Profit potential;

System Objectives:• Support the People Systems with real operational

imperatives, which maximize Profit potential and minimize waste potential.

Orbit System Summary :• Illustrate, illuminate, and support the creative

contribution of every Person by creating an environment where people can make mistakes and succeed, working towards the outcome of “doing it once, well”.

As this behavioral stance became more and more identified as the corner stone of the Orbit Process, and its subsequent rapid and wide spread success, it seemed appropriate to publish “Chapter 8” as a stand-a-lone book, largely because Industry’s other than Health began showing great interest in adopting the Orbit System, modified and supported for their operational specifics.

Consequently, the Orbit Economic Management and Performance System has now been tailored for the Local Government, Transportation, Education, Utilities, Waste Management, Diagnostic and Pathology markets.

Several Countries are presently considering its use as the foundation for their national service provision processes, in a range of dynamic implementations.

If you would like a copy of the original “Orbit Economic Management and Performance System Operator’s Manual”, email your details and postal address to the Author at :

[email protected]

The nominal cover charge of $386.95 (US) will be waived if the Book is for personal of professional use.

The Principles in Orbit

1 The Secrets of Economic Management and Leadership in Orbit

Economic Management and Leadership are the two most critical aspects of performance in any organization, especially one dedicated to delivering Service.

Leadership is essentially easy — it’s simply taking people where they don’t know they can go.

Economic Management is a little harder — you have to understand the full range of dynamics that affect your inputs and your outputs, and the metrics by which you have to Measure, Manage, Change, and Profit.

The Orbit System is a gigantic leap into the future for most CEO’s. COO’s, CFO’s, Administrators, Corporate Officers, Financial Managers, and IT/IS Specialists.

Research shows clearly that the Health Industry is one of the most poorly served in terms of organizational management. Orbit reverses this situation, by providing the most comprehensive, and arguably the most integrated process available anywhere in the world.

The real business that responsible Management should be involved in is

the supply of Information Streams and Knowledge Management Processes to everyone involved in any Process that

has a desired Outcome.

so that they can make Quality Decisions that have maximum acceptability by the System

Value of a Decision = Quality X Acceptance

To understand the power you have at your fingertips, you only have to understand the Ten Tenants of successful Leadership, as they apply to Change Management — and the implementation of Orbit.

The Ten Commandments of Leadership in Orbit

1. To maximize your Leadership ability, you must change — and if you really change, everyone will follow your Lead.

2. True Leadership requires great love, of yourself and of all others.

3. In losing respect for others, you lose a measure of self-respect, and diminish your Leadership ability.

4. No one can, or wants to, develop your Leadership ability for you.

5. You can replenish your Leadership ability by doing new and different things, and by avoiding repetitious habits.

6. You can always quit and run away, but you can never run away from yourself.

7. The process of quitting quickly diminishes your Leadership ability.

8. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Just by deciding to do something (be a Leader) you empower your intellect, and your Leadership ability swells and builds like an infectious disease.

9. Your true Leadership ability comes from within, and is directly proportional to the purity of your soul, and the honesty of your intent. It is fuelled by positive, right actions, and is destroyed by negative, wrong actions.

10. Demonstrating Leadership, on every possible occasion, reduces Stress, and prolongs Life! Yours, and all those who depend on you.

And always remember that Leadership is taking People where they don’t know they can go.

Developing your true Leadership ability is like awakening a sleeping giant, or surviving a one

The Secrets of Economic Management and Leadership in Orbit 1

thousand-bomber raid on your mind. It is a “shocking” experience, because it tends to set your imagination and your intuitive abilities on fire, which Motivates you to great heights. There is simply nothing you can’t do if you develop your Leadership ability to its fullest potential.

Nothing.

So what is your real Leadership ability?

It is your personal (individual, private, your own, secret, and special) power (force, control, influence, authority, direction, and mastery), and it is the sum total of all your experience, of all your learning, and of all your abilities. It is available to all, but accepted by few. It is something that can and does make a real difference, to you and to everyone who comes in with you.

It’s what makes the difference between being rich (affluent, wealthy, prosperous, and comfortable), having true prosperity (fame, prestige, status, and happiness), and being ultimately successful (efficient, prosperous, triumphant, victorious, distinguished, outstanding, and a star). Not to mention the long, rich Life you will live as a consequence.

Leadership is a philosophy, an attitude, and a way of approaching the way you do things. It encompasses everything that is transacted in any environment, and demands that an Honest, Open, and Transparent process be at the very heart of every profit exchange.

As someone much wiser than us said, “If you positively perform for your People, Your people will profitably perform for you”.

Management provides the Information and the Knowledge base

“If you can change the information streams into the mind, and directly contribute to

knowledge acquisition, you can dramatically impact on attitude formation and behaviour.

Replace one thought with another, one pattern with another.

And you can effectively change the outcome without interfering with the form!”

forces Transparency in Transactions forces honesty

forces value statements and adherence to Values and Behaviours

If you are Leader, you are always looking for the good things in People, never their faults. You are always on the lookout for improvement and a way to do things better. You are comfortable being “you”, and helping others to be themselves.

Becoming a Leader is easier than you think.

All you have to do is understand what it is that is working against you, and discover how to deal with it.

You need to appreciate how simple, yet complex, being human can be!

What follows are all the secrets we have learnt over the last 30 years, working for some of the biggest and best performing Organizations in the world.

Welcome to Orbit, all that remains is for you to take advantage of what is clearly a huge opportunity to maximize your potential, and that of your Service. And perhaps, even make a Profit!

The Secrets of Economic Management and Leadership in Orbit 1

2 It’s What You Do That Gets You Into Orbit

From the time you are born, only one thing about you is true. And that is, sometime, somewhere, you will die.

If you view these two events — being born, and dying — as the start and finish of something great — your Life, and Your contribution to the planet as a human being — you begin to understand what it means when someone says, “A person is defined and judged by their actions, what they do, not who they are, or pretend to be”.

What you do between the start and finish of your Life utterly defines you.

If you look at the back of your Birth certificate, you will not find any story about who you are to be, what you might do, what mountains you might climb, what rivers you might fall into on the way. Likewise, your Death Certificate lists absolutely nothing about who you were, what you achieved, your successes or failures, your hopes or desires.

Both documents only list the absolute rational facts concerning your given names, those of your parents, and details concerning authoritative witness.

The only “story” that will exist about you will be in the collective memories of those that knew you, and the various books, documents, photos, pictures, data bites and bytes, and records that you passed through on your way.

There is one other literal truth about you — when you are born, you come into the world with a limited, finite, unknown quantity of “Life” energy, which starts to be expended from the very second you take your first BREATH.

Many, many things from that moment on, will contribute to robbing you of your rightful natural Lifespan. Things like eating badly, smoking, drugs, bad environment, lack of will power, poor Life choices,

accidents either physical or mental, and the greatest Life shortener and killer of all, self induced Stress.

At this point, it’s enough for us to realize that Stress affects us all, shortening our natural Lifespan, and killing us before our Time. We will look at Stress in all its evil in the next chapter. What we need to do first is to discover what causes Stress, so we can get your Life back in balance.

Essentially, Stress is caused by the real difference between your perceptions (what you believe is happening, and act out) and your reality (what is really going on). Initially, this might be a difficult concept to understand, but the simple way to approach Stress is that if your heart rate is elevated, your skin flushed or hot, your muscles in tension, and your mind is tense, tight, confused, disturbed, angry, upset, or just plain befuddled, then the chances are you are suffering from the normal Life shortening effects of self induced Stress.

And Stress is both insidious and accumulative.

Insidious because it creeps up on you when you least expect it, robs you of your ability to think and act, and accumulative because it does a little bit of damage every time, that over your Life, effectively reduces your potential. The physiological damage Stress generates is irreversible. The psychological damage Stress inculcates can be both reduced and repaired. Better still, with the correct use of your mental faculties you can actually reduce your predisposition for self-inducing Stress, and dramatically enhance both the quality and quantity of your Life.

If you think of your Life energy as the available power in a giant battery, then it’s easy to see that as the power is used, the energy in the battery runs down, until eventually it is dead. You can speed up the power draining process by using the battery for something it is not designed for; short circuiting the terminals; using too many things hooked up to it; or just by simple abuse.

It’s What You Do That Gets You Into Orbit 2

The same is true of your Life energy. Make your body do something it’s not designed for, like ingesting smoke, drugs, fatty foods, or foreign objects, and you use disproportionate quantities of Life energy trying to get your system back into balance. Having a severe mental attack, by hating someone or something, yelling, losing control, becoming furious, behaving in an emotionally forcefully manner, all contribute to sucking out your Life energy at a faster than normal rate. A virtual “short circuit” of your mental and energy generating processes. By trying to do too many things at once, making mistakes and not learning from them, and dissipating your efforts through lack of control, you contribute to a disproportionate use of your personal resources — just like sucking the energy out of the battery.

And by just not taking reasonable, balanced proper care of yourself, you allow your Life energy to slip away forever, like sand running out of a sock.

Where does Leadership come in?

If you are at WAR with someone, or something (government, neighborhood, any hate object), then you are focusing your mental and physical resources on a very destructive emotional process, one that leads to massive quantities of self-induced Stress, and one that sucks up your Life energy faster than a speeding bullet!

WAR is HATE, WAR is PASSION, WAR is DREAD, WAR is FEAR, WAR is LOSS, WAR is never won, it is merely resolved, usually by force, with so called winners and losers, and there are always more losers than winners.

History tells us though, that as Time marches inexorably on, the difference between the winners and the losers diminishes, making it very hard to explain rationally, in retrospect, exactly what all the fuss was about.

One side loses 157,546 People, killed in the conflict. The other side only loses 10,231 People, and they are celebrated as the conquering heroes!

Who really lost?

Humanity, and the families of the thousands of People killed on both sides.

Who won?

Nobody. Some dirt may or may not have been advanced on, some ideal momentarily shown to be brighter than a shooting star (shooting stars are dying rapidly as they produce their sometimes spectacular effect) and someone’s pride may or may not have been satisfied.

It has been said, “Nothing of any great import or lasting value has ever been resolved by the use of force — not even victory”.

Now, you may point to the Great Wars of any century, and justify them on the basis that a great Evil was defeated by the powers of virtue and good. That may be true. But it is also true that at some point well before the War started, it could have been avoided.

All it would have taken is a few strong Personalities to stand up and lead their People into Peace — because of their utter conviction that they, themselves, were at Peace with themselves, and that they wanted that State for everyone else likely to be enjoined in any disastrous, soul destroying, WAR.

In even simpler terms, someone’s EGO and GREED got in the way of Leadership.

Those of you who get this far, and are outraged by this concept, should go no further, for you are not at Peace with yourself, and therefore can never be a Leader! In all probability, your EGO is such that it often gets in the way of your achievements, self-limiting how far you go, and how high you reach.

You will be centered on “you”, and will likely have trouble reaching down into your personal truth to be objective about your real role in the Universe.


You will not believe that Leadership is possible, or perhaps even worthwhile, and you will funnel all your negative energy into making your destructive view of your world come true.

When you HATE, emote negative PASSION, DREAD an outcome, FEAR something or someone, you are setting yourself up for a bitter emotional bargaining process that costs much more than it ever returns. It sucks our your Life energy, fuels your negative inner posture, and then increases the rate at which you consume you Life energy, effectively shortening your natural Life expectancy by years! A mean, nasty, vicious cyclic pattern that has only one outcome — you die faster, earlier, and in a manner probably not of your choosing.

And the chances are that you will die unhappy, bitter, and unfulfilled.

It also helps to accelerate the destruction of those around you.

And yet, over half the world today is at WAR with the other half, using bigotry, persecution, starvation, denial, politics, religion, bullets and bread as weapons of mass destruction, more efficiently than any atomic bomb.

You cannot open a newspaper, or tune in the TV News without seeing violent bloodshed, startling poverty, or raw emotion in the context of someone being killed, some country flattened or sunk by a disaster, or news yet again of a human tragedy of such proportions that seemingly no one can cope with it.

The rhetoric is always powerful and justified by the other side’s actions (or assumptions of their actions), and the iron fist is always delivered by the young and the fit.

Why do we do this? How does any intelligent person like you tolerate this destructive, negative, type of Behavior?

Because most of us really don’t understand the consequences of WAR in individual, personal,

terms. We put it far away from ourselves, as if the very remoteness of the disaster protects us from its consequences.

But WAR is not waged by countries, or things. WAR is waged by People. People like you and I. All over the world, for all sorts of reasons. And if it truly is a People thing, then starting with you, you can stop it, make a real difference, simply by starting with yourself.

Check you EGO in at the door.

Be a Leader with you.

Then be a Leader with everyone around you.

And then use the force multiplication of a group of dedicated Leaders to spread Peace like a virus, to every domain you can reach.

We are a huge collective society of different races, cultures, beliefs, religions, Behaviors, attitudes and habits, and yet we are one.

One Person, just like you.

Can you really make a difference? Can you be a Leader in your Time?

What the Mind can conceive, you can do!

As a wise man once said, “It’s all in your mind”, and fortunately, it is just that. All in your mind. So let’s take a quick look at Stress, and your part in it, and take the first tentative steps towards Leadership — at least with yourself, as a very good start.


3 The Effective Management of Stress in Orbit

Stress is a killer. If you want to enjoy a long, healthy, productive Life, you simply have to learn how to kill off Stress stone motherless dead as fast as you possibly can. Hard words for a Leader, but necessary. And if you haven’t got what it takes to kill it, then at the very least, you have to discover how to manage it, so that you are in control of your Life, and not have Stress in control of you.

Stress is caused either by the physical and emotional reaction to a trauma, such as when you injure yourself, or it is self-induced as a direct result of your perceptions being completely out of sync with your reality. In truth, in most People, this is the major cause of Stress, and Stress induced illnesses, of which there are many.

And they are all silent and professional killers!

High blood pressure, cardiovascular failure, organ failure, reduced mental capacity, stroke, rapid ageing, and numerous other diseases to many to mention wait in the wings of Life ready to pounce at the first quiver of tension.

Let’s look at Stress from a clinical point of view, and discover how to rein in this killing machine, and make it your slave. In truth, your first big step to Leadership, and it’s easier than you think.

The Study of Stress is primarily focused on the Physiology and the Psychology of the Human organism, and its interaction with external and internalized stimulus. Theses are big words, but with a very simple heart. They mean that we look at how the body and the mind interact in the environment, and the effect each has on the other in the process of living.

Your body, and how you affect your environment; and the environment, and how it interacts with you and your body.

Now, every body has many, many constituent parts, but in the interests of keeping you interested, we’re going to look at you as having a homogenous “physical” part, and a “mind” part. Let’s break this down further into simple pictures.

Physiology (the “physical” bit) is the study of the biomechanics (the way things work) of physical activity, caused by chemically derived stimulus (these chemicals are produced in your body as a function of your normal activity, and make your muscles work, your heart beat, your blood flow, and lubricate your mind). In simple terms, we look at your frame (skeleton), your cardiovascular system, and what holds it all together (the many constituent parts mention above), such as your cartilages, ligaments, tendons, and muscles — this is Physiology in its rawest sense.

The “mechanics” of being a Human being.

Your body — the “physical bit” — is stimulated by interpreted input from your five senses — sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste. Or your body is stimulated into action by a direct command from your “Mind”. Either way your mind becomes heavily involved in this process, and we label the study of this type of activity “Psychology”.

Psychology is simply the understanding of Neuromechanics, or the ability of the “Mind” to perceive and interpret the information received from the five senses, and cause an action as a result of this stimulus — or generate activity of its own accord inline with your attitudes and beliefs (both of which determine your actions).

The study of Psychology looks at the Central Nervous System, the Parasympathetic Nervous System, and the Conscious, Unconscious, and Subconscious way your “Mind” works — for you, or against you.The Conscious “Mind” perceives language, words, and symbols. The Unconscious “Mind” interprets and generates your perception of pictures and abstract images. The Subconscious “Mind” is where

The Effective Management of Stress in Orbit 3

your imagination resides — ideas are generated, and where your power of visualization comes from.

You “see” the word “boat” (conscious); you turn this word into a picture of what the boat might look like to you (unconscious); then you imagine what you might do on or with this boat (subconscious).

The real business that responsible Management should be involved in is

the supply of Information Streams and Knowledge Management Processes to everyone involved in any Process that

has a desired Outcome.

so that they can make Quality Decisions that have maximum acceptability by the System

Value of a Decision = Quality X Acceptance

Interestingly, the Mind does not distinguish between “real” and “imagined” information, and this is where self-induced Stress really starts to build and hit home.

Because your Mind is unable to distinguish between a “real” situation, and an “imagined” situation, the reaction it creates in your body is the same. This is a critical issue, and one that needs to be examined in greater detail.

In other words, your Mind drives your mental and bodily responses based on either a real or imagined situation, and doesn’t mind at all that it is reacting to something you have created, imagined, or misinterpreted, or just plain got wrong!

Simply, Stress is a primitive response to a perceived threat of attack. This primate reaction is built into us at the very level of our genes, and while with training and awareness we can modify its effect on us, we can never ignore it, or pretend that it does not exist.

Our “hardwiring” simply does not allow it.

As an example of how we train ourselves to “manage” the threat of attack, think about Fireman or Soldiers

training to hurl themselves right into the very heart of danger time and time again, to achieve their task. They are overcoming their natural instincts to flee, by moderating their response to the initial “fear” caused by the obvious danger they face. Training can overcome fear, and overcoming fear reduces you exposure to the killer Stress.

The Stress is still very real (or even imagined to be real), but your response to the Stress is moderated by your physiological and psychological training.

When you become Stressed, adrenalin is produced in huge quantities and surges through your body, creating the instant potential for fast and violent activity. Your blood pressure rises, as your cardiovascular system closes down the peripheral blood vessels to minimize potential blood loss from injury. Your heart rate increases, as your body readies itself to fight or flight. Your neck hairs bristle, and blood flow is diverted from internal organs to your muscles. This means that precious blood, usually circulating to your brain (where your three Minds do their work), flood to your lower body, providing extra fuel for your muscles to use as you physically and mentally prepare to run away from the perceived danger (real or imagine). When this happens, your mental abilities are diminished, your powers of deduction and reason become degraded, and your intellect takes a huge hit right in the IQ basket.

In Psychological terms, this is known as the “Fight or Flight” Syndrome, and is a primary motivational response derived from the survival instinct. In this “heightened state” the ability to perform tasks is degraded, mental facilities are limited, perspective changes, Behavior changes, and individual potential is significantly reduced toward the instinctive end of the performance scale.

Worst of all, your Life energy is being sucked out of you faster than you can blink. In a sense, Stress increases the rate at which you are dying!

Now, it is likely that you have been Stressed before, and not recognized any of the symptoms mentioned


here. But if you were to be clinically monitored during even a moderate Stress attack, all of these reactions would be present to some extent.

If you want some statistics on the killer Stress, consider this — in the United Kingdom, Stress and Mental Disorders cost 30 million working days every year, and more than 5 billion pounds (3% of GDP).In the USA, compensation Claims based on Stress Disorders have increased from 5% in 1984 to 25% of all Claims in the last eight years, and cost $US200 billion annually! Even in a relatively small Country like the Netherlands, every 4 minutes of every working day one Person is diagnosed as having a Stress derived Psychological Disorder.

Since 1984, Stress related Claims in Australia are up 395%, and now represent over 10% of all Disability Claims. Excess Stress is linked to Heart Disease, Strokes, Hypertension, Ulcers, Bowel Disease, Musculoskeletal Problems, Anxiety, Depression, Neuroses, and Drug and Alcohol Abuse. And every one of these conditions will kill you before your Time!

Medical specialists often point to the fact that they believe over 90% of all diseases and conditions in the Human body result from some form of Stress-induced activity. So while you may die from a heart attack, kidney failure, cancer, renal failure, or other complication, the precursor to the finality of the outcome was that you were Stressed in the first place, creating the cycle of destruction that takes your Life before your rightful time.

You need to understand Stress, and you need to discover how to mediate its effect on you and those around you. You need to train your Mind in Stress recognition, prevention, and management.

You need to remember to “BREATHE”, and the acronyms, “SMILE”, “HOT”, and “RACE”.

BREATHE — possibly the simplest, fastest, most reliable way to start the attack on Stress is to BREATHE. Pretend your lungs are full of stale, bad

air. BREATHE in deeply, right down to your boots, hold it for a count of ten, then expel it, pause, then do it again. Just this one simple exercise will cut your Stress condition by half! When you force BREATHE, you are pushing good, clean oxygen through your body, enriching your blood, and clearing a small part of your mind, usually enough to use objectively in starting to reverse the Stress process. You are also engaging in a conscious physical process that, just for a few seconds, breaks the Stress cycle. Just like hitting the big red “Stop” button on a speeding train.

SMILE — Stress Managed Instantly = Life Extension

If every time you feel Stressed, you SMILE, you’ll soon find that getting on top of it is easier than falling of a bike. Break the cycle, SMILE. Relax, BREATHE in and out, put your hand on your chest and feel the air rushing in and out of your ribcage. Picture it going around in a circle, in and out, in and out.

Lower your emotional temperature, and let your MIND free up to engage your intellect in solving the issue that has Stressed you out.

HOT - Honest Open & Transparent

This is a process thing, and an EGO thing. If, in every transaction, professional and personal, you insist on a HOT environment, where everyone commits to being Honest, Open, and Transparent, there will be very little Stress. This is sometimes hard to do, but as the primary Leader, it is your responsibility to manage the agenda, by setting the example. In simple terms, if you want to live out your full natural Lifetime, stay away from People and Process where you do not have, or you cannot create, a HOT environment!

RACE - Recognize Act Control Express

This is the elemental secret to managing Stress. First, you recognize the symptoms of Stress — tension, shouting, incoherence, warm flushes, elevated heart rate, temperature, tightness in the head or chest, difficulty Breathing. You may even find that it is hard


to think and act in a rational manner. You feel tight, wound up like a spring, agitated, ill at ease. Sometimes baffled, confused, unhappy, sad, emotionally drained. Well, just stop it instantly and immediately! Act!

By Acting on your recognition, doing something positive to break the cycle, snap the pattern, you seize Peace out of the jaws of confusion and Stress. Some People find it helpful to clap or make a physical gesture to trigger their anti-Stress response. Others simply SMILE, indicating that they are in control. Find what suits you best, and practice using it until you are so comfortable you could be standing in a room with hundreds of People, and not feel embarrassed to Act!

Taking Control needs little explanation, except to say that when you are in Control, you cannot be Stressed. Aroused, yes, but Stressed, no. Control is everything in beating Stress down where it belongs. It is when you lack Control that you are at your most exposed as far as self-induced Stress is concerned. In fact, it’s the “out of control” feeling that generates most Stress for most People.

Now, Expressing yourself is not as easy as it sounds. Many of us are naturally shy, and the idea of physically or verbally expressing ourselves in company is an uncomfortable one — one that may well lead to self-induced Stress!

But research has found that if, when you detect Stress in yourself, you make a “large” physical motion, such as an expressive shoulder slump, fist shake, foot stamp, or general body relax, you start to mitigate the effects of self-induced Stress.

The very act of physical purging is a Stress breaker, so long as you don’t take it to extremes. The purpose is to tense and then relax your big muscles to help you generate a picture of you being “calmer” than you were, not a reason to strike out and create hurt in someone else.

Now, there are a group of words that describe the passage of Stress, and in understanding the relationship

they have to each other, you will be preparing yourself to better manage Stressful situations.“Arousal” is that heightened state of awareness that we use to generate chemical elements in our system to promote superior performance.

“Characteristic Tension” is that state of arousal where we are in control, performing at our best or better, every molecule of our being tingling with anticipation and energy. This is the state in which elite performance takes place, that elusive “Zone” you have heard People talk about.

Both arousal and characteristic tension are “good” Stress states — we are getting the benefit of the adrenaline and noradrenalin, we are “pumped”, physically and mentally, we are at our peak. The moment you lose control of these states, you go straight into Stress, with all the negative impact of an atomic bomb going off in your system.

Some Stress is good. Stress under control is good. It’s only when you lose control, or perceive that you have lost control, or cannot be in control, that the killing effects of Stress can start to eat away at your system.

This is why using a big-muscle physical release is sometimes so effective in breaking the Stress cycle.Try it for yourself the next time you are Stressed — see if it works for you.

Above all, remember the four Stress Busters — BREATHE, SMILE, HOT, and RACE!

4 Take One in Orbit

Learning to beat Stress is easy. It’s like anything else that you really want to do — all you need to find is a simple way to “program” yourself to deal with it.Try these four simple steps the next time you believe you might be starting to get Stressed about anything.

1. Observe your current State — become “Aware” and make the realization a positive acknowledgement — “I am getting Stressed” — if

Take One in Orbit 4

necessary, say it out loud. Imagine a two-meter circle around you into which no one and no force can penetrate, and visualize this space as your very own, under your control, and only your control. If necessary, physically move yourself away from other People or things so that you can create this “good, calming” space around you.

2. Shake your shoulders, flex your legs, move the big muscles in your body — shoulders, hips, thighs, chest, and BREATH deeply, slowly, and calmly. Flush the Stress out with the force of your lungs and upper body movement. Get your mental facilities back on line, and create a “mental” space that matches the “physical” space you have already created. SMILE and physically RELAX all of your body.

3. Observe your new State — notice how you are now not quite as Stressed as you were just minutes ago. Gain confidence from this change, and recognize that you, and you alone, have created this difference. Inwardly, repeat Step #2 but this time subtly, with small movements that should almost be imperceptible. Move your Mind rather than your body, and start to project your confidence out of your personal space. Imagine you’re a football player, pushing at a padded training device, and force your energy outside.

4. Manage the situation that caused you to get Stressed in the first place, and never look back.

There are numerous variations of this Stress busting technique, if you recognize that you are prone to getting Stressed, develop your own version and practice it until you can do it automatically — the quality and the longevity of your Life depend on it!

5 The Secrets of Learning in Orbit

A very important cause of self-induced Stress is the complex way we learn something. Everybody is different, has a different learning style, pace, tempo, drive, and ability to absorb new things. But we all go through exactly the same mental process getting to the point where we actually “know” something — that is, it becomes part of our belief structure (from which we form our attitudes, our pictures and “mind” models, and then create our actions).

There are four distinct phases we go through when Learning, and the only thing that changes is the time we spend in each phase.

The first phase is what we call “Unconscious Incompetence”, and that’s where we don’t know what we don’t know. This phase is sometimes a real struggle, and can cause great Stress in some People as they wrestle with the new concept they are being exposed to. We all have trouble accepting Change, and this is the very first step in any Change management process. Moving into an area about which we know nothing, and exposing ourselves to the risk of ridicule and confusion.

Then we have “Conscious Incompetence”, where we know what we don’t know, can accept it with perhaps some reservations, but we start to open our minds up to new information or ideas. This can be extremely Stressful because what we have held (and felt comfortable with) as “knowledge” is openly challenged by the “new” knowledge we are starting to assimilate internally.

That takes us straight to “Conscious Competence”, where we have a little new knowledge, and we are able to make it work for us to some extent. But it’s an effort, and we can get quite Stressed because things just don’t seem to work out the way they should. Frustration results, and sometimes the learning process can be completely derailed because we lose faith, hope or simply lack the will power to continue in the face of what seems to be insurmountable obstacles.

The Secrets of Learning in Orbit 5

If we do make it through this most difficult phase, we get to the pinnacle of learning, “Unconscious Competence”, where we just seem to do things automatically, and they all fit into place beautifully. Sometimes this state is called “The Zone”, and it is where your best performances occur. It’s also where your autonomic responses “do” most of their work for you, and where intensive training and learning combine to produce enhanced capabilities.

Athletes experiencing this state often describe things like “I felt six inches taller”, or “I felt like I could run all day”, or “the basket looked twice as large”. It’s a wonderful state to achieve, almost Stress free, but you can really get Stressed getting there.

To make matters just a little more complicated, as we pass through these four phases of learning, we are affected directly by the way we learn something — the type of learner we are.

The “Doer”, who tends to be directorial in terms of personal style, can learn only by trail and error. They hardly ever process any information, and they don’t naturally like to use visual or tactile cues. They have to feel as they are in control, and that the learning process is going along at their rate. This can be enormously Stressful for anyone around them at the time, particularly if they are also trying to learn!

In direct contrast, the “Visual” learner has to literally “see” the information being presented. Visual cues trigger all the right responses, and they learn very fast. So fast, in fact, that other types of learners feel threatened by their pace! To make it even more threatening, Visual learners rely heavily on their intuition, and sometimes have difficulty in explaining how they “know” something.

The “Thinker” type of learner likes facts and information, detail and data, and lots of reason. They build a system to provide a hard-core rationale that becomes almost an unshakable truth for them. Visual learners are sent almost mad by this type of process, and become highly agitated (Stressed) if they are subjected to this experience. The “Doer” types look

down on the “Thinkers”, perceiving them as pedantic, literal, detail focused and likely to embarrass them with facts and figures. The Thinker learner sees this irrational and emotional Behavior and dislikes it intently!

The “Kinesthetic” learner has to “feel” the information. They require tactile cues to promote sound learning, combined with visualization — the ability to imagine what is going on in specific terms. They tend to be slow and considerate, and always mindful of what the other type of learners need to be successful. “Doers” find this style boring and almost incomprehensible, and can get really Stressed if put through this type of process. “Thinkers” believe that these types of learners know nothing.

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Personality Interaction Grid©

The Doer The VisualLearner

The Thinker The KinaestheticLearner

Now, no matter what the style, human beings are experiential learners, and it is by learning that you grow and prosper. That is, we have to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, for any “real” learning to take place. You’ve heard the old adage “use it or lose it”, and it is particularly true for those who would like to live out their natural Lifespan in relative good health. So if you are prepared to recognize that Stress can kill you prematurely, then you have to learn how to reduce Stress, or manage Stress, so that its influence on you is always under your control.

You need to understand a simple concept.

Your “Perception” is the process of creating a “mind map” of what you think and believe is either


happening or should be happening (to you). Your “Reality” — what you think you are experiencing — is your perception, as far as you are concerned.

The true “Reality” is what is actually happening to you or around you, as observed by any objective third party. What they see and feel, what they believe they (and therefore you) are experiencing, becomes the shared reality. Keep this concept in mind as you discover what Stress is really all about, and how to manage it to your advantage.

It is the difference between your perception and the actual reality that generates most Stress in Human beings.

Imagine for a minute that you are sitting on the deck of a beautiful yacht, sipping your favorite drink. The sun is dipping softly below the distant horizon, causing the far hills to flare with gold and pink hues, and the overwhelming feeling is one of peace and tranquillity.

The sound of lapping waves is lulling you into a relaxed, carefree state, and the contrasts between the cool lip of your drink, and the warmth of the setting sun heightens your awareness of the intensely peaceful feeling building inside you.

Your mobile phone goes off.

Unconsciously, you reach to answer it, and you get an earful from a co-worker back home (or a friend).You hang up, put the phone down, and reach for your drink again.

But something’s changed, you no longer feel the peace and tranquillity. You suddenly feel anxious and fazed, as your mind boils with the content of the phone call.

Now, physically, the boat is the same, the sunset is the same, your favorite drink is the same. But your perception stimulating your Mind is not, and the images it is now generating completely dominate

your ability to recapture the magic and tranquillity of the moment just past. You have been “dumped” on by an emotional wave.

This is an example of how your perceptions change your reality. In a sense, your mind filters and shapes how you will present yourself to the outside world.

The reality is that you are perhaps hundreds, perhaps even thousands of miles away from the activity of the caller or the event, yet your Mind is internalizing all the pain and heartache transmitted to you by the “phone call from Hell”.

The only thing that has changed is that you now know about something that you did not know five minutes ago!

To fully comprehend this point, you must understand that your “Mind” does not differentiate between “Real” and “Imagined” experiences — you can and do create the synaptic responses that drive your Physiological reactions to external stimulus, based solely on what your thinking and feeling at the time.

It is the Images you have formed in your Mind that are now driving you — not the words heard on the phone, or the actuality of the event they described to you. It is your newly formed perception driving your psychology and your physiology based on your feelings and mind maps of the consequences of the phone call.

This unique, powerful ability we all have to change our “Reality” is what drives our bodies to react autonomically in an attempt to protect us from any “new” perceived threat! We are reacting to self-induced Stress, and we are killing ourselves faster than we need to.

Through any learning experience, you will experience points where you become Stressed — you don’t understand something, you just don’t get it, the link doesn’t seem to be there, the information is in conflict with what you already believe, and you get


exasperated, suddenly doubting the wisdom of even trying to sort the mess out.

Remember to BREATHE.Remember SMILE (Stress Managed Instantly = Life Extension).

If you just SMILE at the problem, you are taking the first step in an incredibly powerful process.

Use RACE (RACE - Recognize Act Control Express) to dominate your negative thoughts and emotions. Be positive about what you don’t know or understand — look at it as the next step in the process, rather than a knowledge blockage.

Mind blocks are massive quantities of emotion, nothing more, nothing less. All you have to do to unblock your Mind is cool down — relax — BREATHE — put yourself into a calming space mentally.

Put the image of a massive concrete dam wall in your mind, and imagine the smallest of cracks suddenly appearing. As the stream of water spurts out, the crack gets bigger, little bit by little bit, until it really fractures into a big crack, and a really fast turbulent flow, then suddenly a massive crack and the dam wall is split!

This is you solving your problem — a little crack of light that with time and patience will become a floodlight and the portal to your new understanding. All it takes is stickability, and calm, consistent effort from a position of Peace. What wears the dam wall down is that the stream of water just never stops!To better understand this powerful phenomenon, we need to look beyond the expected — far beyond the “comfort zone” of most People — deep into Personality and Chaos! The story of our “hard-wiring” and the amazing external forces that wreck havoc with our Lives.

Here we will find more secrets for managing Stress in all its guises.

6 The Secret of Personality in Orbit

Over the past two thousand years, the concept of Personality Theory has evolved from the study of the natural signs available at the time, to the more introspective study of human performance as we practice it today.

The ancient Philosophers believed that the alignment of the heavens influenced Behavior, and allocated the 12 “Star Signs” into four groupings — Earth, Fire, Air and Water. This concept endured for almost a thousand years.

Hippocrates believed that Personality was shaped by blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, and created “The Concept of the Four Temperaments” — Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, and Melancholy. This was the first recorded dive into the physical realm of the human system, and in one form or another, survived until the early twentieth century.

Dr. Carl Jung, in what was the most sophisticated and scientific work up until that time (1923) postulated and described four Personality Types — the Sensor, Intuitor, Thinker, and Feeler. This was the real start to the development of modern Personality Theory, which has since had many different contributors, but all now fundamentally agree on The Four Dominant Personality Types — The Director, Socializer, Thinker, and Relator.

Modern Theory also allows that any Individual will have as many as three of the four Personality Types in their makeup, all to varying degrees of dominance.

However, research has clearly demonstrated that any Person, when put under pressure, and becomes Stressed, will instinctively exhibit primarily the characteristics of their Prime Personality Type, and this will tend to dominate the attitudes and Behavior of the Person concerned under Stress. Even with the most sophisticated training, under Stress the Prime Personality Type emerges like a dark shadow from under a tree in bright sunlight!

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This is neither bad nor good, it is simply a Behavioral fact that we have to learn to manage, on the road to Leadership.

Let’s examine each of the four Personality types, and see if you can ascribe any of your Behavior patterns and indicate your Personality Prime. When you can feel comfortable with understanding what drives your Behavior, you can start to understand the differences in People and reduce your potential to be Stressed.

The Director Personality Style is described as High Involvement, Rational Behavior. This means that their energy levels are high, they involve themselves in their processes, they are confident and poised, and they are very rational, or logical to deal with. If we were to describe them in some detail, we would see that the Director Personality is self-contained, and direct, they exhibit firmness in relationships, they are orientated towards productivity, are concerned with the bottom line, and they need exact, precise information delivered in a very structured manner.

They hate emotive, colorful, noisy People who are vague, loosely presented, and unstructured in their thinking and Behavior (Socializers).

As a rule, the Director accepts challenges readily, takes authority, in fact they assume it and wear it like a well-worn coat! They also go head first into solving problems, and nothing is every too hard or impossible for them to achieve. Directors tend to work by themselves, they assume a cool and independent air, and they absolutely shape their environment and demand a maximum of freedom to do their own thing.

The negative side of the Director Personality, the side that generates Stress in others, is their tendency towards stubbornness, impatience, toughness, and a low to marginal tolerance for the feelings and attitudes of others. They also have bad listening habits, sometimes described as “listening with their feet”, and are naturally competitive with everyone!

The Director Personality can be a very Stressful person to be around!

If you were to imagine a grid with four quadrants, the Director style would be located in the top right hand corner — High Involvement, very Rational Behavior.

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Director

Sometimes, Leadership with a “Director” personality style can be hard work, but if you follow these simple Communication hints, you will soon find that the “Directors” in your Life will love you, respect you, and be a Leader with you. And in the process, do everything in their power to help you achieve what ever it is you most want.

Like Economic Management.

“Directors” are quintessentially Ego focused, and very much in control of their environment, so to get through to them with any sort of Communication the very first thing you have to do is make sure that in the Communication, the thinking, presentation, and attitude is compatible with the importance of the action you want them to take. “Directors” are very pragmatic, determined, and self-involved, so you must also make sure that the Communication takes into account the risk of wrong choice (or action) and eliminates that risk.

Your Communication also needs to provide enough food for thought, and every point you make must be logical and cogent, and demonstrate


that the specifics, benefits or reasons-why are both real and important. “Directors” hate “fluff”, and have difficulty accepting anything that is not well reasoned and justified.

They will be a Leader, but on their terms, so you have to let them have the perception of control. In a sense, this is Rule One of Leadership. In any conversation where you are attempting to achieve a deliberate outcome, park your Ego at the door. Let everyone else involved have control, so that their predisposition towards being Stressed is minimized. Use “HOT” to your advantage. Directors love transparency, because it gives them an enormous sense of control over processes and People. If everyone can “see” exactly what is going on and why, they relax.

Realize that what you want to achieve is vastly more important than anything you might want to say. You have only achieved your outcome when the Person with whom you are communicating can demonstrate, by way of positive feedback, that they can take the required action (on your behalf).

Leadership is much harder than maintaining the rage. But Leadership achieves your objective faster, better, and with less effort and Life energy than any other method you might come up with. In a Peaceful process, everyone is free to contribute their best efforts, without fear of failure or compromise.

Remember this when conversing with the “Director” personality style.

The Socializer Personality is also highly involved, but extremely emotional, and they sit on the opposite side of the grid to the “Director”.

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Socializer

Where the “Director” likes facts and figures, the “Socializer” likes the broad idea, with lots of “fizz”. They have high directness, and are very open to ideas. They behave in an animated, lively and intuitive manner, and are often impetuous and excitable. Where the “Director” listens with their feet, the “Socializer” only hears the bright and bubbly bits of the conversation, their minds moving along at a million miles an hour.

Typically, the “Socializer” is not concerned about the bottom line, they hate detail of any kind. They often keep a fast pace, acting and deciding spontaneously. They are the classic ideas person, and have very little concern for facts, figures or detail. They are the type of person who only reads the Instruction Manual when everything else has failed!

Because of their bubbly personality, Socializers can and do influence those around them, and like the “Director” they shape their environment. They work quickly, always seek approval and recognition, and usually have a dynamic ability to think on their feet. They often will use sheer energy as a means to getting acceptance, and can tend to be a little impatient with slower types.

They are capable of generating massive levels of Stress in those around them, often because they are perceived as manipulative, they tend to generalize and exaggerate facts and figures — Behavior that is like a red rag to a bull to the “Director”.


Because they work largely on intuition rather than structure, it is sometimes very hard to trust their output, even though they clearly believe deeply in what they are doing.

Like the “Director”, the first thing you have to check in your Communication is that what you are sating or trying to get across is compatible with the importance of the action. They do not like to waste their time on dull things. You also have to eliminate the risk of wrong choice or action for them, because their minds are blitzing what they think you are communicating and creating a lot of dangerous static!

Your Communication with a “Socializer” must also provide enough stimulation of their imagination, fantasies, and daydreams, and engender the right feelings, while expressing the right personality values.

Socializers believe that they are Open and Transparent (the OT of HOT), but often behave in such a way that Trust is quickly lost. This is because they sometimes move so fast, in so many directions, that lesser mortals can’t keep track! They are not deliberately trying to confuse or deceive you, they are simply reflecting their genetic programming! And because they believe detail only slows you down, they sometimes work in a manner that leaves a trail of disruption behind them.

Employ RACE immediately a Socializer upsets your applecart, and SMILE.

Salute their energy, their incredible get-up-and-go mentality, and support them with a process that picks up the details. Don’t have unreasonable expectations of what they can do, and try not to slow them down. As Stress Busters go, Socializers are powerful providers of both happiness and pain, so be a Leader fast, then relax!

The Thinker Personality is a completely different kettle of fish to the vibrant Socializer. In fact, Socializers send Thinkers mad! Their lack of detail, fast moving approach sends most Thinkers into shock, and

Stress. Thinkers reside at the exact opposite position of the grid to Socializers — with Low Involvement, and very Rational Behavior. Thinkers are the precise, detail conscious, pedantic ones amongst us, who need highly structured thinking and processes to feel comfortable.

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Thinker

They are often described as indirect and self-contained, concerned with analytical process, and are persistent and systematic. All the things that Socializers abhor. Thinkers are also seen as security conscious, with a high need to be right, and with an over reliance on data collection. They always ask about the specifics, and are often accused of being “data worshippers”.

Annoyingly and quite Stressfully to others, Thinkers tend toward perfection, by focusing on detail and the process of work. They become irritated by surprises and glitches, emphasizes compliance, and are only really happy when they working within systems or rigid infrastructures.

However, because of their innate ability to handle the minute, they are excellent at promoting quality in products and services, and they love organization and structure.

The Thinker personality tends to work slowly, precisely, and by themselves. They are very time disciplined, and they prefer an intellectual work environment to one that is lively, noisy, or


disorganized. They are often self-critical, skeptical, and they like to see things in writing. As a famous cartoon detective once said, “Just the facts, ma’m, just the facts!”

The way to handle a Thinker is to be relaxed, and have plenty of detail and time. The slower you go, the faster you will get your result. You must SMILE, be HOT, and be ready to RACE at a moments notice. Thinkers work “by the numbers”, and they literally can’t go to “2” until “1” is proven beyond any doubt.

To push a Thinker faster than they are willing to go is to invite disaster, and massive slabs of self-induced Stress. One thing to remember at all times — work to their satisfaction, not yours.

The Negative side of the Thinker personality is that they are often seen as aloof, prickly, and critical. Their actions and decision processes tend to be slow and extremely cautious. They can procrastinate, sometimes actively dislike People who are disorganized or illogical, and often actually don’t like contact. For all that, Thinkers are the ones who get things right, saving many of us from a fate worse than Stress! The inevitable Death of a Thousand Cuts, self-administered by our fantastic ability to cope with those devilish things called details!

To Communicate with the Thinker, you need to be aware of three critical elements — Does the Communication provide the energy that the Thinker personality will not provide? Does your Communication make one point, and one point only, inescapably clear? And does the Communication demonstrate or prove its one point irresistibly, and irrefutably? Get this bit right, and the Stress goes right out the door, as the Thinker produces the most detailed and factually correct solution to any problem you care to engage them with.

The Relator, who “lives” on the opposite side of the grid to the Thinker, has totally opposed and different needs, and exhibits a completely different set of Behaviors, as by now you probably would expect.

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Relator

The Relator personality is the “glue” that binds most groups together. They are the quintessential “People” person, more concerned about how People feel than anything else. They tend to be open and indirect, relatively unassertive, and warm and reliable. If the Director is hard and pedantic, the Relator is soft and empathetic. If the Socializer is bubbly and overpowering, the Relator is quiet and reflective. And if the Thinker is prosecuting the detail with ruthless precision, then the Relator is maddeningly uncommitted, excluding a warm and fuzzy feeling to all involved.

They seek security, take action and make decisions slowly, are without doubt the most People orientated of the four Personality types, and have natural counselling skills, principally because they are great listeners. They hear with “big” ears, and accurately reflect back to the speaker with warmth, empathy, and a genuineness not naturally found in Directors and Thinkers.

Relators have a down side, and as a Leader you have to be aware of it. They have a strong desire to avoid risky or unknown situations. In fact, they are naturally the most risk-adverse of the four types. And they always, always, consider the feelings of others before taking action or making a decision. This tends to drive the Director style mad!


They also tend to build strong networks of mutually supportive People, and if anything, this is their strong suit. They are excellent net-workers. While saying this, they actively dislike interpersonal conflict so much that they sometimes say what they think others might like to hear at the expense of the facts. They are not lying as such, but rather providing comfort at the expense of potential conflict.

Because of this Behavioral trait, they are often seen as compliant and soft, and as unassertive, and overly sensitive.

Leadership with a Relator is easy, in a sense it is the natural “state” they unconsciously seek. They are, by their very nature, Leaders. The issue is to manage them in such a way that while they are busy Leadership, the environment doesn’t come apart through lack of reality and focus.

SMILE works well, HOT is difficult, and the RACE is on all the time!

To effectively Communicate with the Relator, you must first make sure that the Communication provides the energy that the personality will not provide. The Communication must also convey inescapably one personality, and one personality only. The Communication must also work in, or on, the right sense, in the right way.

It’s not hard to see where the potential for conflict comes from, when you consider the radical differences in the four personality types, and their very different needs. You must also remember that you have at least three of these “types” in your Personality. Under Stress, your “prime” — your dominant Personality type — emerges like melted water from an ice block in the sun — and your actions and reactions will very much be in line with what has been described.

The real secret to managing Stress generated by Personality types or Communication difficulties, is to recognize what is going on at the time, and to help the other person manage their Communication process. Leadership is all about creating an environment

where People can relate and Communicate, make mistakes and succeed.

Check out the following elements to discover which Personality components will dominate your Behavior. Remember, you can expect to recognize at least three sets of characteristics, although it is not necessary to have every characteristic in every quadrant. You are looking for a trend, what feels right, not necessarily a tick in every box.

Are you competitive Do you act fast Do you take risks Are you aggressive Do you have strong opinions Do you have a take-charge attitude Do you tend to use power Do you take the social initiative Do you make statements This is the Director Style, “High Involvement, Rational” quadrant.

Are you undisciplined about time Do you use opinionsDo you use informal dress and or speech Do you have dramatic opinions and actions Are you permissive, and have fluid attitudes Are you an emotional decision maker Do you seem easy to get to know Are you emotionally expressive, and subjective Are you easy going with yourself and others This is the Socializer Style, “High Involvement, Emotional” quadrant.

Are you disciplined about time Do you like facts Do you dress formally and use formal speechDo you have strict, disciplined attitudesAre you a rational decision maker Do you seem difficult to get to know Are you rationally self-disciplined, and objective Are you demanding of yourself and others This is the Thinker Style, “Low Involvement, Rational” quadrant.


Are you cooperative Take deliberate actions Do you avoid risk Do you avoid conflict Are you quiet Do you have moderate opinions Do you have a go-along attitude Do you tend to avoid the use of power Do you let others take the social initiative Do you ask questions This is the Relator Style, “Low Involvement, Emotional” quadrant.

Quite often, when you are Stressed, it’s simply because you are internally conflicted — one or more of your Personality styles are clashing. Just recognizing this can make your Life a whole lot simpler, and higher in quality. Understand that you will have conflicting emotions and thoughts, and that these inner conflicts are perfectly normal. You should also realize that you will intuitively react to others based on which aspects of your Personality mix are the most active at any given time, and which ones intuitively react to what the other Person is projecting at you.

The second secret to Leadership is recognizing the potential for Stress in the different way we act and react, and learning to accommodate those differences.

Human experience is gained experientially, and to the best of our ability, we have yet to find any map or plan for how the Human Race is supposed to develop!

If this seems a little chaotic, you’re right. No one has ever said being Human is easy!

Just remember to BREATHE, SMILE, be HOT, and always RACE!

7 Chaos Theory in Orbit

The second critical area we must consider is how Chaos Theory directly applies to Self Induced Stress.

A major cause of Stress in the Human being is the intuitive instinct that we have for Order is constantly being challenged by our perverse impulse to pursue Chaos.

We naturally want to be in balance, relaxed, satisfied, and at Peace. Yet at the same time another part of us wants to explore, challenge the system, break outside the envelope, and taste and experience new things. We mentioned earlier that Human beings are experiential learners, and that without learning, we don’t grow or reach our potential. As the primary sentient race on the planet, it is our obligation to advance and evolve in line with our drives and instincts. Our genetic programming.

Straight into Chaos!

Both Order and Chaos are necessary. Both are manifestations of our need to survive.

Without Order, nothing exists. Without Chaos, nothing grows.

It is this continual, almost effervescent struggle within us all that produces the greatest amount of self-induced Stress we suffer as individuals.

The instinct for Order is an expression of our devout desire for a whole range of constant states: safety (which permits nurture), stability (which permits education), predictability (which permits one thing to be built on another), and equations of cause and effect simple enough to be relied upon.

This is a critical issue — because so much of what we do is instinctive, in line with our genetic programming and hard-wired Personality styles, if our unconscious mind is not feeling comfortable, we become Stressed — the precursor to the Flight or Fight Syndrome.

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But without resistance to Change, growth itself would be impossible. Resistance to Change creates safe, stable predictable environments in which Change can accumulate productively!

The instinct for Order is therefore an aggressive one! It actively opposes any alteration of circumstances, any variation of perspective, or any hostility of environment or intention.

This Instinct for Order subconsciously fights to create and defend the condition (State) it seeks — balance and harmony in the individual — what we call in psychological terms “Homeostasis.”

Primarily, this is why it is so hard to get People to accept change, alterations of circumstance, or paradigm shifts in attitude and Behavior. You are pushing them to the edges, and in some cases, completely out side of, their emotional “comfort zones”. And this is a very Stress inducing activity for most People.

To moderate this Stress, and to make any change program successful, there are six elemental “attitudinal and perceptual beliefs” you need to achieve within the person or group involved when creating any change State.

1. You must generate a specific belief in the necessity for change, and this belief must be based on real, factual activities or achievements, not perceptual ones.

2. You must achieve ownership of the process by everyone involved, expressed in their language, and at their level of understanding, and from their perspective.

3. You must set up and achieve genuine multidirectional real-time Communication between all parties involved in the change process, and all those likely to be impacted on, or by, the process.

4. You must assure that the authority and the responsibility is vested in the person or group involved in the change process.

5. There must be perceivable benefits for all concerned, again, expressed in their language, and at their level of understanding, and from their point of view.

6. The change strategy you employ must deliver on the promise!

Above all, during every step of any change program you are involve in, you must encourage everyone concerned or likely to be impacted on by the change process, to remain HOT at all times; be ready to RACE at the first sign of Stress; and never forget to SMILE! And above all, BREATHE.

Safety –which permits nurture

Stability –which permits education

Predictability –which permits one thingto be built on another.

Equations of Cause andEffect simple enough tobe Relied Upon

The Instinct for Order The Instinct for Chaos

Self-Determination –freedom from restriction

Individual Liberty –freedom from requirement

Nonconformity –which in fact derivesfrom a strong emotionaldesire to have totalfreedom from Equationsof Cause and Effect

Copyright © Will 2 Win 2001

Conversely, the move towards Chaos is a manifestation of Humankind’s instinctive knowledge that the best way to survive any danger is to run away from it!

This most basic instinct focuses on the resources of individual imagination and cunning, rather than on the potentialities of concerted action.

Its most common overt expression involves an insistence on achieving three powerful states: self-determination (which is expressed as freedom from restriction), individual liberty (which is freedom from

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requirement), and nonconformity (which is freedom from cause and effect). In a sense, we want to be freed from all the norms of a balanced society, any time we choose, to have our own way, irrespective of the consequences or the cost.

However, such insistence is primarily a rationalization of the desire to flee — to survive by escaping from the rigidity of acceptable Behavior. The “Fight or Flight” syndrome in all its vainglory.

Therefore the impulse towards Chaos is also aggressive. The very act of escape breaks down systems of order. It contradicts safety, avoids stability, and defies cause and effect.

Like the instinct for order, it also fights to create and defend the condition it seeks!

Order verses Chaos is a continuing conflict that broils around and inside each and every one of us almost every waking minute. Our individual Personality style greatly influences our reaction to this struggle, and in the interests of living a long, full, and Stress free Life, we have to learn the signs and symptoms of this internal conflict, and manage it.

Just as it is okay for People to make mistakes and learn from them, it is okay to feel discomfort when faced with something new — or the potential for change.

Just as there are “natural” Laws that govern how things work, there are “emotional” Laws that govern how we work. These Laws are as immutable as the one that says “the Sun will rise in the East”, and you need to understand that the first and best step in dealing with them is to relax, de-Stress, and open your Mind up to new things.

And remember BREATHE. HOT. RACE. SMILE.

8 Take Two in Orbit

In any Human relationship there are four critical elements that must be present for the relationship to flourish and grow.

The first is Trust, as without Trust, there can be no relationship. Trust is the very heart of everything that is worthwhile to a Human Being, and with it literally anything can be done or made to happen. Trust is the one ingredient that you always start off with, but can soon lose, and is perhaps the greatest driver for a HOT process. Keep the Trust, and you keep the process. Keep the process, and your change Strategy will work for all concerned.

Without Trust, don’t even bother to start. And if you lose Trust, you can almost never get it back.

When you have Trust, you only need three other elements — we call them Permissions — to succeed in any managed Change process or relational development.

Permission to Speak, Permission to Listen, and Permission to Fail.

Permission to Speak is giving everyone the right to say anything they want, at any time, about anything. Nothing is sacrosanct, forbidden, hidden, closed, or withheld. Honest, Open, and Transparent processes rely utterly on anyone being able to contribute at any time, with anything they believe is important. Give this Permission, and Trust will flourish like a tropical garden in a downpour!

Permission to Listen is permission to participate and contribute, to engage and resolve, to argue and challenge, and must be a fundamental “right” in any relational frame. True Ownership comes from having this Permission, and without Ownership, all processes ultimately fail.

Permission to Fail almost speaks for itself, except that this is the single most important element you can

Take Two in Orbit 8

ever introduce as a Manager or Leader to any process or Group or Team. Creating an environment where People can try and fail, then try again and succeed is the greatest gift you can give anyone. Experiential learning is what People do when they are growing, flourishing, prospering, and succeeding.

When you work this way, you reduce Stress to such low levels as to almost be imperceptible. There will always be a little Stress around the edges of any process, mainly due to the Learning Phases and Styles involved.

But don’t ever let a little Chaos stand in the way of success — employ the greatest asset you will ever have access to — your knowledge and understanding of the four critical elements that are essential for Leadership.

9 The Secrets of Attitude in Orbit

Attitude is a crucial component of Behavior and your ability to handle Stress. Unfortunately, attitude is also all about presumptions and perceptions, the underfelt of your belief structure. This is a fascinating area for discussing performance, tension, Stress management, and Leadership, and this is how it all works.

Your attitudes are formed from your beliefs, which are a combination of facts and fictions that you pick up as you go about living your Life. Because your Mind doesn’t differentiate between what’s real and unreal, true or false, your Mind is free to link, filter, add, subtract, merge, purge, and manipulate information, impressions, data, and all other forms of input based on your inherent and learned selective filtering ability.

You develop this filtering ability within your experience and your comfort levels, just as you develop your mental models from your experiential learning and trial and error. There are four types of Learner style, and they sit in a different quadrant of the Performance Grid just like Personality Styles. But they can often be in conflict, generating Stress at many levels.

High Involvement

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The Doerlearns only by trial anderror. Hardly ever processany information, doesn’tuse visual or tactile cues.

The Visual Learnerhas to “see” theinformation. Visual cuestrigger the rightresponses, and theylearn fast.

The Thinkerlikes facts information,detail and reason. Theybuild a system to providehard core rationale.

The Kinaesthetic Learnerhas to “feel” theinformation. Tactile cluespromote sound learning,combined withvisualisation.

Now, consider what happened the last time you set out to learn something. Was the information provided to you in a way that matched your learning style? Did the Communication process take into account your Personality style? Did it take into account anyone else?

Probably not.

And yet we know from extensive research and observation that People only learn what they want to learn, and they only learn it when they want to learn it.

There is another conflict at work here, and that is the Stress caused by where we are in the Learning Cycle, and where we are emotionally, and attitudinally.

Look at the Activity model and see if you recognize where the Stress points are in the conflicts involved in learning. What we are seeing here is a representation of the energy levels and rational and emotional quotient required where the four Learning Activities take place.

The Secrets of Attitude in Orbit 9

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ExperienceExperimental learningfeedback, trial and error.Application of theory andsystems.

Self ImageSelf awareness,Application ofpsychological values goalsetting and self worth.

SkillsLearning processesFacts and FiguresProcess & SystemsTheory and repetition

Situational AwarenessObserver, strategy,intellectualise andrationalise the WWWW& WTW

Starting with Skills acquisition, which we regard as a Low Involvement, Rational process, you get the facts and data, the processes and the systems, the models and the maps. You are probably in the first stage of Learning, Unconscious Incompetence, where you don’t really know what you don’t know. It can be a real struggle, made all the more Stressful by any Attitude you may have formed about the subject matter, the delivery mechanism, the teacher, or the literal requirement. You need an open Mind, and it’s very hard to achieve this State. You need awareness that this is the toughest process involved with learning, and you need patience and control.

And you need Trust — in the Teaching system, and the Learning process.

When you move into the Experience quadrant, you are somewhere between Conscious Incompetence and Conscious Competence. Here you are the victim of trial and error, feedback, both good and bad, making mistakes and learning from the experience. It is still quintessentially a rational process, but the energy and emotional quotients are high because of the need for personal involvement. Director Personalities don’t like to make mistakes, or be the victim of one, and they get very Stressed by this. Relators, by their very nature, are risk adverse, so they find this quadrant extremely Stressful. Thinkers hate sloppy work, poor thinking, poor process, and ambiguity, so they get Stressed as well. Socializers are less Stressed, largely because they spend a lot of their energy “projecting”,

so confusion and experiential Learning are things they tend to do well. They just don’t “get” the detail, and are constantly amazed at how long other Learning Styles take to understand something..

As you head into the Self Image quadrant, you are moving towards Unconscious Competence, where the experience you have gained from your Learning process starts to seat home into your autonomic nervous system — you develop learned responses, muscle memory, and develop reflexive Behavior that reflects your new skill set. You can almost do things without thinking about them. Because Socializers wear their achievements on their arms, they can sometimes appear boastful or cocky while in this State. Directors appear focused and pedantic, sure and resolute. Thinkers are actually relaxed, but can seem distant and remote, inwards focused, and a little distracted at times. The Relator is always looking at both sides of any argument, so they can feel both comfortable and Stressed at the same time!

When we get to the Situational Awareness quadrant, things really start to buzz! This is where you pause to take stock, smell the roses, water the garden, mow the lawn, as it were. And it can be either the least Stressful, or most Stressful experience of the four activities! Here we vision, strategize, plan, and plot, and play the role of “observer”. Thinkers find this easy, Relators love this space, Directors see the need but want a “to do” lists produced, and Socializers are at their most dangerous, bubbling over with ideas and diversions. Recognizing this space for the critical area that it is, is half the battle in managing the Stress. Creating a “strategic framework” within which every one can work in their mown unique manner is the other half.

There are thousands of books on the subject of Strategic Planning, but we have found that the simplest approach is to consider initially seven questions, and their relationship to each other. They are:


• W1 Where are you now (with your process, your thinking, your activities)• W2 What is working for you• W3 What is not working for you• W4 What resources do you have• W5 Where do you want to be• T1 When do you want to be there, and• W6 What resources do you need to get there.

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Try this for yourself — pick something that is important to you, something you need to have a basic Strategy for, and see how you go. Once it starts to make sense, visiting the Objective Quadrant will not only be Stress free, it might become a real joy!

Just remember one thing — Strategy is all about knowing what to do when there is nothing apparent to do — you are thinking about the “what if” of things. If you drop down into the tactical area, get bogged down in the “how to”, get lost in the detail, you will not only get Stressed, your Strategic process will turn out to be a complete waste of time.

Tactics are evolved from a great Strategy — so get your Strategy right first.

The commonly accepted model of Attitude formation shows that your subjective knowledge (beliefs) about an Object determines your Attitude toward

it. Further, we tend to describe things as “Attitude objects” when we are commenting on our Attitude to that object. Interestingly, Attitudes are constructs of Behavior that must be observed to have any real value. You may well have an Attitude, but until someone observes your Attitude, it is unable to be described. Attitudes are yours, and yours alone, but they are the single most important aspect of your Behavior that affects everyone around you.

There are three critical components of Attitude formation, and they can be easily remembered by the mnemonic “K-F-A” — Kentucky Fried Ant (with apologies to a well known Chicken place).

“K” for knowledge, either true or false, that you believe about the Attitude object (the Cognitive component). Your beliefs directly fuel your Mind pictures, and mental Models, the very images that drive you to achieve things.

“F” for your feelings about the Attitude object (the Affective component). Feelings are emotional, and the stronger the emotional feelings you have, the more likely you are to “defend” your Attitude.

“A” for your intent for action about the Attitude object (the Conative component). Intent for action is directly linked to your “drives” — how hard, or how much, you actually want to do something.

The strength of your feelings towards the Attitude object is directly proportional to the strength of your Attitude, and you will derive much of your motivation to take action from how you manage your feelings. Needless to say, if you have built your Attitude on false knowledge, then you will probably enter a high Stress area of your own making.

Because this is so, it is crucial that any Attitude be “challenged” until you establish exactly what the facts really are. Research shows us that we reflect our perceptions of the world around us, and that our perceptions are our reality. Is it any wonder then that we become Stressed when faced with a situation


where our perceptions are challenged directly by the facts, and we are unable or unwilling to moderate our Behavior in line with the new information.

Attitude can be varied, by changing our beliefs, and to change our beliefs we usually need one of more of the variables in Attitude change to be present.

The first variable, as you would expect, is Personality traits. Understanding the conflict that is inherent in the different Personality styles, and moderating our assumptions and perceptions to foster a clinical, critical focus on the “fact stream” can greatly assist us in arriving at more balanced Attitudes. To be a Leader at this level, you must be HOT.

The different Personality Styles will instinctively and intuitively revert to their “Prime” Style under pressure, and you need to realize this when you are attempting to moderate any Attitude formation.

The second variable is credibility of the source of different opinions or information that counters our existing Attitudes. Again, the Personality Styles will play a very important role in this variable, as the Personality of the “credible different opinion” may potentially clash with that of the Person holding the specific Attitude. We have to be willing to believe the different information in the first place, and be open to different suggestions and dialogue. Again, the Leader has to be HOT, SMILE a lot, and be ready to help everyone RACE in their efforts to literally change their mindset without losing face (EGO) or feeling diminished in any way. Incidentally, we have long believed that the sign of good management is that you have an environment where People can make mistakes, survive them, learn from them, and get up off the floor and be successful. This is a very powerful force in changing Attitudes.

The third variable is Group membership, where the accepted “norms” of the Group help to modify individual Behavior, by encouraging conformity. Being a member of a Group or team can be both uplifting and extremely Stressful, particularly if some in the

group express Attitudes that we do not agree with.Groups also tend towards “median” thinking, and it can be hard to get a Group to think outside the square without external facilitation. In a sense, Groups or Teams are formed to “create” Attitudinal smoothing in the first place, so you need to be very aware of both the composition of the Group (Personality wise) and the quality of the information and data upon which they build their belief structure.

Co-incidentally, theses are the same three factors that must be addressed in minimizing self-induced Stress — Personality, credible sources of differing information, and Group membership. Remember that Stress can be caused by any situation, event or disease that creates within a person a physical or emotional reaction that changes the person’s observed Behavior, or affects their perceived ability to cope. Bad or conflicting Attitudes meet this criteria rather well!

You can’t tackle most Attitude formation head on. People internally and sometimes rather forcefully “own” their Attitudes without realizing it. And their ability to express their Attitudes or be shifted in their belief will be dependent on their prime Personality Style.

The Director will be quite rigid and positive that they are “right” — shifting their Attitudes can be like trying to dig a swimming pool with a toy spade. Use the information discussed earlier to work out a plan for how you would work with this Style to achieve the Attitudinal shift you need.

The Thinker will only consider what they believe to be facts and inarguable data, and then only if it is presented to them in the proper way — point one, point two, etc.

The Socializer will move all over the place, will be reflection a high emotional content, and needs to feel how the new Attitude might sit within their belief structure, and they will never be able to consider the detail without great Stress.


The Relator will bounce between both poles of any argument, and be very frustrating in the way they finally modify their Attitudes. It will always be a People focused process supported with strong Group or Team support.

With any Attitude problem, you need to be HOT first, SMILE second, and really RACE to get yourself realigned into a less Stressful manner.

10 The Secrets of Communication in Orbit

Every Communication is an opportunity to Motivate, and every opportunity to Motivate is an opportunity to Negotiate. Successful Negotiation depends on building a relational frame, or a “consensual bridge” between the People concerned, and this can only be achieved with excellent Communication.

Communication is essential for any action to take place. Without it, nothing can be achieved, measured, modified, or created. You cannot learn. You cannot grow. You cannot progress. In human terms, nothing, but nothing, is more important than excellence in Communication!

Communication is not just words. Communication is anything and everything about getting one idea from one mind, into another.

Why?

Man is the only species that does project his will outside his immediate environment. Mankind is the only sentient race that can produce creativity — the exact opposite of the obvious. Against instinct, against logic, against habit, human beings have the remarkable talent to create for themselves and others a multitude of “Mind maps” that literally take us into other worlds and other times.

We take our imagination and turn it into reality — and we take reality and overlay it with our imagination, and then we create new, different, outrageous, and

stimulating edifices that challenge our perceptions and iconic values.

Unfortunately, in this electronic age, we seem to have lost much of our need and ability to Communicate intelligently with one another, and this is a massive cause of self-induced Stress. As the very social fabric that nurtured us in our rush towards progress broke down, we developed the ability to fling words at each other across spaces so vast we have depreciated the need to gather as we once did.

Man is quintessentially a Social animal, but we have deliberately (or so it seems) created networks of virtual pseudo-relationships at the expense of Human physical contact.

We now fling emails at each other from the four corners of the world, with the expectation of immediate attention, and total comprehension. Never mind the state or circumstances of the person with whom we are attempting contact, we assume therefore it is.

If you trace our ability to Communicate through time, you see a fascinating progression from privileged Behavior to common access, back to privilege, back to common, and then a massive fragmentation around the time of the electronic age that has gone far beyond anyone’s prior expectation. But what we have created is contact and connectivity, not Communication. Let us explain.

Communication is a variety of Behaviours, processes, and technologies by which meaning is transmitted or derived from information. It is the reciprocal sharing of ideas and information between a sender and a receiver, and is the primary means through which most relationships are initiated and developed.

The quality of any relationship, and the absolute value of the exchange of ideas or information, is totally dependent on the quality of the Communication. And the quality can only be judged by Feedback demonstrating that the other Person can take the required action (of the Communication).

The Secrets of Communication in Orbit 10

So if you are in the habit of zapping the ether with fast and furious emails, your expectation should be zero to less than zero, because you are flying in the face of the second greatest of all human needs and Communication protocol — social interaction.

In 5,500 Organizations surveyed in the past five years, 96% believed that their lack of Communication skills cost them their performance, in both People and profit terms! This is as astonishing as it is frightening. Can’t People talk to each other? Isn’t Communication simple and easy? Maybe, but you wouldn’t know it by the way half the planet is constantly at war with the other half!

The challenge in any Communication process is to get ideas or information from one person’s head into another person’s head clearly, concisely, and specifically.

We have already discovered that the conscious “Mind” perceives language, words, and symbols, the unconscious “Mind” interprets and generates your perception of pictures and abstract images, and that your subconscious “Mind” is where your imagination resides — ideas are generated, and where your Powers of visualization come from.

Until recently, theories of Communication were the province of writers on Philosophy, Language, and Rhetoric. Aristotle taught that Rhetoric was a search for all the available means of persuasion, and that one had to examine the Speaker, the Message, and the Audience, in order to understand the effect of rhetoric, and how the effect was achieved. This concept endured until the last century, when serious work was undertaken to better understand the Communication process

In 1948, with the publication of “The Mathematical Theory of Communication” by Shannon, and “Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine” by Norbert Weiner, the foundations were laid for a widely accepted Communications Model.

Shannon, working with Warren Weaver (Bell Laboratories) created a six-element model that required:

1. An information source (usually a person)2. A Transmitter3. A Communication Channel4. A Noise Source5. A Receiver6. A Destination (usually another person

The original theory was modified a few years later to require:

1. A Source (the speaker)2. An Encoder (the vocal system)3. A Message (language & visual clues)4. A Channel (sound waves in air)5. A Decoder (the listener’s ears)6. A Receiver (the listener)

Now, while this might all seem to be a bit basic and simple, keep this progression in mind as we get further into the development of the Communications model.

Weaver also postulated that all Communication was concerned with three problems:

1. How accurately the symbols of Communication could be transmitted

2. How precisely the symbols carried the intended meaning

3. How effectively the received meaning affected conduct in the desired way.

Now you see where we are going, don’t you? Accuracy! Precise meaning! Effective and affecting conduct in the desired way!

Weiner introduced the concept of Feedback, which he described as “The verbal or visual cue that indicates whether the message has been received and correctly interpreted”.


So, link what Weaver postulated with Weiner’s concept of Feedback, and you will start to see where 99% of all “modern” day Communication goes wrong! There is no feedback mechanism, there is no way to objectively judge if the person you have Communicated with is capable of taking the required action (on your behalf)! Think about this point as you read on, and think about all the Stressful situations you may have inadvertently created by violating this critical rule of good Communication.

Weaver also used the term “homeostasis” to describe the ability to detect a deviation from a desired “State”, and a feedback mechanism by which the discrepancy is noted and fed back for the purpose of modifying Behavior. As you will remember, homeostasis is also the primary dynamic principle in Motivational theories.

And there you have it. In simple terms, we only really Communicate when we can prove, by way of Feedback, that our Communication has achieved its objective — the person with whom we are communicating can take the required action, and achieve our desired state.

This statement makes a mockery of faxes, voice mails and emails, sent off into cyberspace with absolutely no regard for the first principles of good Communication! And the Stress that this causes is becoming legendary.

If you are on the receiving end of this type of Behavior, don’t be Stressed. If you are Stressed, then BREATHE, SMILE, distance yourself from the garbage, and if necessary, turn it off, until you can calmly deal with it.

No matter what, don’t let it get you down by assuming that because you have been contacted in this way, you are obligated to answer. You’re not. The prime responsibility in any Communication is the “sender” — they are obliged to see that you can take the requisite action.

The Sender is responsible for the content, clarity, specificness, relevance, direction, appetite appeal, medium, message, and response. The Receiver is, in fact, not even obliged to be ready to receive or listen to any Communication!

There are some other very important considerations in the Communication model we use today, and they were developed as an extension to these first guiding principles of good Communication.

Social Scientists modified the Shannon – Weaver models to include:

• Greater emphasis on the nature of the next interaction;

• The response to the message;• The context within which the interaction occurs.

If you examine these elements one by one, you soon build a picture of Communication that is somewhat foreign to how we behave today!

Marshall McLuhan, the noted American Social Scientist, holds that the Communication Medium — The Channel — exerts so strong an influence on the Communication process that it virtually controls what is communicated. McLuhan demonstrated that with the advent of television, we changed the emphasis of much of our Communication processes. Today, the thirty-second sound byte has become the defacto Communication process for anyone trying to sway or influence us on almost any subject. Research also shows that a stunning 74% of the population believe in excess of 94% of everything they see on television. Unquestioned, unchallenged, just put it on the boob tube and the world will follow!

Recent experience with the Internet also demonstrates how easily People are swayed by what appears on the screen. In a recent study taken in Canada, 700 college students were asked to relate factual data on a chosen topic, only to find that the “facts” they had so carefully obtained electronically had been fabricated and then put there by their Teachers!


Noam Chomsky, another American radical Scientist, produced work on Language Matrix, and this work influenced Miller to experiment on responses to language and meaning. Miller was the first to recognize and demonstrate that there were intuitive conformal “rules” in any Communication structure, and that instinctively, if we do not sense these rules underlying the Communication, we become agitated and unlikely to receive the intended message. In other words, Stressed.

From this work, much has been learned about:• Persuasibility factors of Personality — (Go back to

the Personality Grid, and work out who would be the most persuasive of the Personality styles).

• The importance of the order of presentation of arguments — (Remember the structure the Thinker type has to go through to learn?)

• The role of selective perception — (The Socializer is an expert at selective perception. They even manage to color stuff that most of us never see or hear).

• Source Credibility — (Who will a Director or Thinker believe?).

• Pressures to conform to Group Norms — (Very important when considering Relators and their Behavior).

The further study of Language and Verbal Behavior has identified two phenomena:

When we speak, we do not transmit our thoughts to another, but rather we transmit sounds and visual clues, and

Meaning is not inherent in these sounds and clues, but is the product of the relationship between them, and the item referred to by the speaker.

There are three classifications for this work:

Semantics - The study of the relationship between signs and meaning

Syntactics - The rules governing the combination of signs without regard for their meaning, and

Pragmatics - The various uses and effects of signs by individuals.

Look at the following signs:

Interestingly none of these Signs or Symbols means anything until we choose to give them a meaning — and they mean absolutely nothing to anyone else until they learn and accept what they are supposed to mean! To underline this point, two years ago a study was completed where 4,000 elderly drivers were shown five internationally recognized traffic signs. On average, the drivers recognized only two of the five, even though they had been in use for over twenty years!

The second phenomenon is that any Concept, Idea, or Object, no matter how sophisticated or culture bound, can be expressed in any other Language. It may require fewer or more words, and more or less visual clues, but everything that can be expressed in one Language can ultimately be translated into in another. However, there is no guarantee that this translation will in any way resemble the intent of the original Communication, as can easily be demonstrated by trying to translate English into Russian!

This led to the identification of the three “V’s” of Communication:

VERBAL includes the spoken word;

VOCAL is the intensity and the tone of voice and other vocal qualities, and

VISUAL is any Behavior on the part of the sender that the listener sees (or imagines if the Communication is other than visual).

Albert Mehrabian (UCLA) has demonstrated that in general terms, the Listener attends first to VISUAL cues, and that VISUAL cues make up 55% of the Communication; VOCAL cues come next, making up 38% of the Communication; and VERBAL cues make up only 7%, and are “heard” last!


VISUAL make up 55%

VOCAL make up 38%, and

VERBAL makes up 7%.

Now, back to those wonderful electronic messages we send each other — is it any wonder that we have become such poor Communicators, and cause so much Stress in the Communication process? 93% of the Communication is missing or assumed!

You can prove this for yourself — just imagine a phone call that you have received, from a person you have never met. You chat away, and somehow, you form some sort of image of what this person looks like.

Then you meet them, and shock! Horror! Gasp! They are nothing like what you imagined. Understand that the tonality of any Communication makes up nearly 40%, and then read some emails. Did they have a rough, hard, direct style? Did they make you feel good reading them? Were you agitated or annoyed by the perceived “tone of voice”? Did you get Stressed by the email process? Do you?

How do you feel when you ring an organization, and play “push the buttons” for ten minutes or so, and never reach a human voice? Does this Stress you out?

There are many reasons for this, not the least of which are the very elements at the heart of good Communication.

As Speakers/Senders, we may not be as effective as we could be in packaging (encoding) the message. In other words, we might garble what we are trying to say, or wrap it in an emotional package that disguises our meaning.

Because the visual cues we project have such a significant influence, we may unknowingly sabotage the most carefully orchestrated presentation. The classic example is the salesperson that wears an

outrageous shirt, and never understands why no one can take him seriously!

The Message may be presented amongst multiple distractions, or the Listener’s mind may be wandering. There is a story about an advertising campaign that illustrates this point, and it goes like this…

Once upon a time, there was a young lady who worked in a bank. She left home late, missed her bus, got ripped by her boss, spilt coffee on her new skirt, and suffered through the rest of the day only to miss her bus home. When she finally managed to sit down many hours later, in time to just miss the closing credits of her favorite TV program, on comes an ad. It’s for Holidays in the Sun, and bright, young, beautiful People run around the screen skimpily dressed, enticing the watcher to fork out hundreds of dollars. Our heroine throws her coffee cup at the TV set (luckily missing it), and goes off to bed, crying, deeply disturbed and Stressed.

How many times have you tried to Communicate with someone and found their mind wandering? Or been frustrated by someone who just doesn’t seem to be receptive to you at a particular time? If anything, current research shows that this aspect of Communication is almost universally ignored in the “Click and Go” age, yet it is perhaps the single most important aspect of trying to Communicate!

The Decoding Process (unwrapping the package) may be faulty, and misinterpretation often leads to misunderstanding and an increase in Stress (tension). Remember, signs and symbols, and for that matter, language, only means to us what we expect it to mean. It is very easy to create a Stressful situation by assuming that the other person understands what it is your are trying to Communicate to them. That’s another reason feedback is so important as a part of the Communication process. Ask a simple question, “Do the pictures or symbols used mean the same thing to the Receiver and they do to the Sender?”


The synthesis of all this learning gives us the vital ingredients to lower the potential for Stress in any Communication process:

Understand the Receiver and where they may be Attitudinally — what is their ability to be receptive, and what are the “rules” for communicating with them (Personality Style).

Understand the potential hazards of the Decoding Process — never assume that what you say is what the other person understands.

Understand the potential warping influence of the Communication Medium — and this is really important as you will discover later in this chapter.

Understand that 55% of the Communication will be non-verbal — this is very important if your are attempting to Communicate electronically. All the more reason to have Trust at the heart of your Communication, and build a “consensual bridge” or relationship with the Receiver.

Understand that what you say may not be what you think — try very hard to be literal (if you are a Socializer or Relators) and empathetic (for the Directors and Thinkers).

Be aware that as the Sender, our Visual cues may far outweigh our Verbal cues — as they say in the movies, “dress for the part”. Be consistent, make sure that your emotional style matches the gravity or tonality of the Communication, and that the medium you use to Communicate through is the best one for the task.

If you are using electronic processes such as FAX, voice mail, or email, be aware that the Receiver will intuitively and instinctively judge the “value” and “worth” of the Communication by their ability to understand what is being said. So be very careful that you address your Receiver in a manner that their Personality Style can easily cope with, or expect then to get Stressed by your Communication from the outset.

All the responsibility lies with the Sender — not the Receiver. If you want to send successfully, you have to get the Receiver to participate willingly, freely, and from their perspective.

While the Classic Communication Model showed six Elements, modern theory allows that the Medium is a singular consideration (of enormous importance, as postulated by McLuhan) and that each different type of medium generates its own Rules for specific Communication. (Knowing what you now know, think about how you might go about using any of the following mediums — video, answering machine, phone, FAX, email, voice mail, or letter. What would you do differently? How would you go about managing the feedback element so critical to good Communication?)

We believe that Communication (per se) has five distinct processes, and we now delineate between Objective Communication and Action-orientated Communication, and we require the principle of Feedback to be present, and recognize that it is possible to get Static (Interference) at every juncture of the Communication.

The Communications “Loop” is considered“dynamic”, and its success is evaluated

only by the quality of the feedback

This contemporary Communication Model is therefore integrated and continuous, the Communication “loop” is considered “dynamic”, and its success is evaluated only by the quality of the Feedback.

By accepting this Principle, you are acknowledging that what you want done (Result) is more important


than what you want to say. Look closely at this statement again. What you want to say is of secondary consideration compared to what it is you want to achieve.

This is a critical issue, and you need to really understand it if you and the People you are Communicating with are not to become Stressed by your Communication processes.

Before you launch a new Communication, pause for a second to consider some simple hints to reduce the potential for generating Stress:

Who are you addressing?What is their attitude? (KFA — Knowledge, Feelings, and Intent for ActionWhat is it you want them to doWhat is the best Medium?How will you evaluate their feedback?How can you make the Communication simple, literal, specific, and desirable?

In our practice, we use a seven point reminder before we launch any Communication, to make sure that we give ourselves the very best opportunity to be successful, and minimize the Stress that we might accidentally generate in others.

1. Who are you talking to?2. Where are we in their minds?3. What do we want them to do?4. What is the best way to Communicate

with them?5. How can we test for feedback?6. What is the support for our

Communication?7. Are we being Honest, Open and

Transparent?

We find this works well for us, you may care to try it for yourself.

One of the Great Secrets of Communication is Appetite Appeal. The more appealing you make the Communication, the more desirable it seems to the Receiver, the greater your chance for Success. Every

Communication is an opportunity to Motivate. And every opportunity to Motivate is an opportunity to Negotiate. Building the “consensual bridge” by way of developing a firm, positive dynamic Relationship is the easiest, simplest, and most sure-fire way to enable great Communication.

Another Great Secret is in understanding the Personality of the person your are addressing. If you understand the Personality, you can use the “ROE” for Communicating with that Person.

Remember —

The Director Personality is Rational - High Involvement1. In the Communication, is the thinking,

presentation, and attitude compatible with the importance of the action?

2. Does it somehow take into account the risk of wrong choice (or action)?

3. Does it provide enough food for thought?4. Are the points made in the Communication

logical and cogent? 5. Are the specifics, benefits or reasons-why real

and important?

The Socializer Personality is Emotional - High Involvement1. Is the Communication compatible with the

importance of the action? 2. Does it somehow take into account the risk of

wrong choice (or action)?3. Does it provide enough stimulation of the

imagination, fantasies, and daydreams? 4. Does the Communication engender the right

feelings?5. Does it express the right personality values?6. Does it play on the right sense (of the five senses)

in the right way?


The Thinker Personality is Logical - Low Involvement1. Does the Communication provide the energy

that the personality will not provide? 2. Does it make one point inescapably clear?3. Does the Communication demonstrate or

prove its one point irresistibly, and irrefutably?

The Relator Personality is Emotional - Low Involvement1. Does the Communication provide the energy

that the personality will not provide?2. Does the Communication convey inescapably

one personality?3. Does the Communication work in, or on, the

right sense, in the right way?

The third Great Secret is in understanding the “C — Three” dictate, or “C3” as it is sometimes called. This Communication-driven model has been conceived around the understanding of Group Dynamics, and has three distinct aspects (hence the “3”).

The Command (C1) hypothesis stipulates that:• “In any Organization there is a visible hierarchical

structure to which the individual can easily relate”.• “It is the prime responsibility of every member of

this hierarchical structure to either lead, follow, or get out of the way”.

• “This structure will be such that, in the event of any uncertainty, command can pass from one level of the Organization to the next with a minimum loss of control”.

The Control (C2) imperative states that:• “At every level of an Organization, there shall

be sufficient structure to maximize efficiency, prevent chaos, disorder, and disharmony in work, while promoting the orderly and concise flow of information and smooth change of command from one level to another”.

The biggest single task for most Organizations in the current economic environment is to financially equate this imperative (C2) to a workable and successful structure. We have found that very few

actually do, and it creates massive Stress in the workplace as a result.

The Communication (C3) dictate demands:• “An accurate, clear, simple, and understandable

exchange of information (ideas) at every structural level, irrespective of the capability or circumstances of the sender or the receiver”.

• “A successful Communication (exchange of ideas) is said to have taken place only when the receiver can demonstrate that they can implement the required work to complete the object of the Communication”.

This common sense approach is all too often missing within Organizations, and is the biggest single cause of Group, and therefore Organizational disharmony — not to mention Stress! If you are to be a Leader, you need to understand the consequences of these dictates, and how to implement them within any Group or Team that you form or use.

Communication excellence demands “An accurate, clear, simple, and understandable exchange of information (Ideas) at every Structural level, irrespective of the capability or circumstances of the Sender or Receiver”.

And is predicated on everyone in the Organization (or conversation) believing, “That what it is that needs to be achieved (Action) is more important than what it is anyone thinks they have to say”. Can you say this about your organization? Can you say this about yourself?

The fourth Great Secret is in understanding that any Symbol or Label you might use in your Communication can have as many different meanings as there are People involved in the Communication. People only understand what they already know, and a huge precursor to Stress is the tangle of misconceptions that evolve in any Communication process where Sender and Receiver are out of sync!

The simple way to test what is really understood is Feedback!


The Fifth Secret is to remember the mnemonic “Six, Five, Four” — the magic Words for fast-tracking good Communication.Six Words - “Sorry, I don’t know about that.”Five Words - “Please, can you help me.”Four Words - “What do you think?”By parking your Ego at the door, you free yourself up to genuinely empower the People with whom you are Communicating, involving them in any conversation and engaging them in your desired outcome.

There is one other Great Secret to performance Communication, and that is to get your Communication Style right.

Order (last)Tell (infrequently)Show (often)Motivate (always)

Every opportunity to Communicate is an opportunity to Motivate, and every opportunity to Motivate is an opportunity to Negotiate!

There are twelve “Rules” for excellence in Communication, particularly as they relate to any form of Facilitation or Negotiation, and Leadership behavior — and they work. Try them for yourself.

1. Know which battles you must win (Strategy)

2. Love to win, don’t hate to lose

3. Be relentless, not malicious

4. Depersonalize the contest

5. Understand how the other side can win

6. Present open, not closed, ideas

7. Bring a basket of choices, with something to reject

8. Understand the “No” process

9. Prepare the concessions you can make in advance

10. Know where the control must be seen to be

11. Always let the other party make the decision

12. Always test for Feedback, and accept that the quality of the Feedback equals the quality of the Communication!

Communication is the heart and soul of any Organization or relationship, and you should work at it as hard as you work at anything else that is important to you in your Life. If you genuinely want to be a Leader, you must understand the critical importance of excellent Communication.

Above all, remember to BREATHE, be HOT, SMILE, and be ready to RACE at the first sign of Stress in any Communication process.

And always Communicate with “big ears”!

11 Take Three in Orbit

The use of “Stories” has long been seen as a viable method of Communicating with People holding different views. Stories can engage People beyond their EGO needs, and beyond their present focus. They also allow you to get your point across in a non-threatening manner, because while your audience might relate to the theme and the message, more than likely they will not relate to any negative aspects of your tale.

Stories are also an effective method of Communicating Organizational or Company Histories, and form a critical part of Organizational Learning.

Unfortunately, in the “Click and Go” era, telling Stories has become a bit of a lost art. It’s also sometimes very hard to get People together long enough to be able to tell a decent Story!

Take Three in Orbit 11

Yet every Person has a wealth of Stories just waiting to be told!

Stories also serve another purpose — they force you to organize your thoughts in such a way that your Communication is invariably simpler, more “human”, more appealing, and your message all that much more the stronger for the easy way it is delivered.In other words, Stories wrap information or data in “appetite appeal”.

Every Story should have a start, a middle, and an end, and you need to understand the one simple, clear message that you are trying to Communicate.Make it simple, literal, and appealing, and you will find that the power of the Story will work for you as a Leader.

Additionally, providing analogous or metaphorical Stories allows you to tackle very tough subjects in a way that might otherwise be difficult. Issues that might spark instant reaction can be approached “softly”, allowing the participants’ time to absorb the message, and not feel threatened by it.

One other thing.

People “hear” Stories differently to the way they “hear” formal Communications such as letters, notes, memos, emails, and such. The “picture” side of the Mind is engaged in listening to a Story, involving all three levels of the Mind — unconscious, subconscious, and conscious.

In a sense you are getting the information in via the “back door”, rather than confronting the Listener “in their face”.

Leadership is all about finding ways to help People reach their true potential, to learn and prosper, to live full and rich Lives. And to Profit.

Try a Story or two the next time you have to make a point, and see what a difference it makes to the way you Communicate.

12 The Secrets of Group Dynamics in Orbit

It is almost impossible in this day and age for anyone to achieve anything without becoming involved in a Team or Group, and the Stress that is usually generated by the Behavior that develops because of the Group Dynamic.

For this reason, you as the Leader need to understand how Groups work, and in the context of what follows, look at the word “Organization” as being any collective vested interest of any size that is trying to achieve a specific objective by the use of People and Systems, working in Teams or Groups of more than two People.

In any Organization, achieving the “bottom-line” (or vested interest objective) is the motive force, financial control (or budget) is the accelerator, and teams of People (Groups) are the wheels on which the Organization runs. And because Organizations don’t do things, People do, it stands to reason that an Organization’s success very much depends on how well its People do the things they do. An understanding of the Psychology of Group Dynamics then becomes the critical essence of successful Team Building.

Group dynamics is the term was first used by Lewin (around 1943) to refer to the psychological and social forces arising from the interaction of People in Groups like families, committees, athletic teams and work-place organizations, based on his observations made at a Navy Shipyard during the Second World War.

He observed that the cultural imperatives inherent in any stable Group often changed when the mix of Personalities was different, or if the Group was allowed to form its own “sub-culture” sometimes in direct contrast with that of the Organization which was providing them with their infrastructure.

Significant subsequent work has been done by Brown, Cartwright, Dimock, Luft, and Shaw, leading

The Secrets of Group Dynamics in Orbit 12

to a positive understanding of Group phenomena to the point where we can now actively use Group Dynamics to modify or regulate individual Behavior, and magnify potential performance. We can also predict with a high degree of confidence the actual output of most Groups, and their possible cultural stratification.

The basic property of any Group is its level of cohesiveness, or the degree to which members are attracted to it. When cohesiveness is high, members are motivated to participate in the Group’s activities and to help the Group attain its goals and objectives, by either melding their own personal objectives into the Group’s activities, or sublimating their personal agendas in favor of that of the Group.

Highly cohesive Groups give their members a sense of security and identity and a feeling of personal worth (self-esteem). Over time, Groups develop social norms for the Behavior, attitudes, and values of their members. Groups exert social pressures by rewarding conformity to these norms, and rejecting deviance from the norms.

The greater the cohesion, the greater is the pressure applied to its members by the Group to conform. However, the uniformity resulting from these pressures has both desirable and detrimental effects.

It can facilitate social interaction and the attainment of Group goals, but at the same time may foster a Group mentality that limits creativity, Communication, and Attitude formation.

Well established Groups have an internal structure that provides stability for interaction among members, who tend to enact particular roles, perform specific functions, Communicate more often with certain other members, and to form subgroups and cliques.

Most Groups have a status structure, or pecking order. In simple terms, some members have more prestige than others and exert more influence on the Life of the Group. These differences are almost

totally related to the Personality Type and mix of the members of the Group. If you remember, it is most likely that the Director Style will tend to dominate, with the Socializer exerting strong influence on the social structure. The Relator Style will be the natural “Leader”, always seeing all sides of any argument, while the Thinkers amongst us will be a little withdrawn, almost unapproachable, and uncomfortable with any rampant dynamics exhibited by the Group.

The productivity of problem-solving Groups is often impaired by this structure, since it tends to inhibit contributions by low-status members. It can be hard for Thinkers and Realtors to get a word in at the appropriate time, while often the Directors and Socializers will be offended with the literal, detail orientated, seeming slow manner many of the decision processes may emulate. It all comes down to our ability to Communicate with the other Team or Group members, and their ability and willingness to Communicate with us.

A Group is a social infrastructure that entirely depends on its ability to Communicate (and therefore relate), in order to achieve its specific objective, and all the attitudes and Behaviors that may be observed of the Group, will stem from their success of otherwise of how they Communicate with one and other, and create their relationships.

A Group totally depends on the relational frame that is formed within the Group, and the consensual bridges that allow direct. specific, and literal Communication between members of the Group.

Look at the Communication Rules we discussed earlier, and imagine how each Personality Style is likely to impact on any Team or Group that you are a part of.

We discussed that the Director Personality is Rational - High Involvement, and “lives” in the top right hand quadrant of the Grid:

1. In the Communication, is the thinking, presentation, and attitude compatible with the importance of the action?



3. Does it provide enough food for thought4. Are the points made in the Communication

logical and cogent?5. Are the specifics, benefits or reasons-why real

and important?

The Socializer Personality is Emotional - High Involvement, and “lives” opposite the Director, in the right hand side of the grid.

1. Is the Communication compatible with the importance of the action?


3. Does it provide enough stimulation of the imagination, fantasies, and daydreams?

4. Does the Communication engender the right feelings?

5. Does it express the right personality values?6. Does it play on the right sense (of the five senses)

in the right way?

The Thinker Personality is Logical - Low Involvement, and sits in the bottom left hand quadrant:

1. Does the Communication provide the energy that the personality will not provide?

2. Does it make one point inescapably clear?3. Does the Communication demonstrate or

prove its one point irresistibly, and irrefutably?

The Relator Personality is Emotional - Low Involvement, and sits opposite the Thinker in the right hand side of the grid:


2. Does the Communication convey inescapably one personality?

3. Does the Communication work in, or on, the right sense, in the right way?

Each Personality “lives” constantly in a different Emotional State, depending on the level of their

involvement, and how Rational or Emotional they are. Emotions are the signals by which we let other People know how we are feeling about something, and what our intentions might well be. Subliminally, it is how a particular Personality Style reacts to these signals that often influences Group Behavior.

One of the other difficulties is that Directors and Socializers tend to be highly individualistic in both motivation, and intent. They both like to change and control their environment, and they both like to be seen as the point of focus for any attention. This can create difficulty for Group Leaders, particularly if they are selected for their popularity and not their skill set.

They can sometimes slip into “performing” for the Group, rather than “acting” for it.

Acts of leadership are those that strengthen the Group and contribute to effective Group performance. Although they may be performed by any member of the Group, they are often restricted to the one person who is designated as the official leader (or assumes the role through strength of character). This designation can be subtle and covert, in the case where there is an “officially” appointed Leader, who is not the actual “Leader” that the Group responds to. This happens often when the Leader is a Thinker or Relator, as the Directors and Socializers will constantly try to make their point, either subtly or forcibly, depending on the perceived circumstances.

A democratic leader encourages participation in decision-making, fosters Group cohesiveness, and facilitates social interaction. On the other hand, autocratically led Groups are often efficient, but this type of leadership style tends to breed hostility or apathy among the members, reducing the overall Group performance. It is not unusual for autocratic-led Groups to fragment into smaller sub-Groups, often hotbeds of constantly fermenting discontent, and extraordinary high Stress levels.

For any Group to work, at any level, you must have an Honest, Open and Transparent process. Every individual must believe that they have the same


access, opportunities, respect, relationship, and possibilities as every other member. Even when skill-specific roles are being enacted, the individual must believe that their contribution is valued, and at least equal to any other contribution by any other member, even though it might be different.

There are six critical elements that differentiate successful Groups, and they are exactly the same elements that you must have at the core of any successful Change Management Process.

1. There must be a specific belief in the objectives of the Group.

2. There must be ownership of the process by every member of the Group.

3. There must be multidirectional real-time Communication between all the members of the Group.

4. There must be vested authority and responsibility in the members of the Group.

5. There must be perceivable benefits for all concerned, and

6. The Group’s strategy must deliver on the promise.

There is one additional and important element in Group performance — and that is the activities of the Group must be recognized and rewarded by the host Organization, in a manner that allows the individual Group members to see the real impact of their contribution on the Organization’s success or progress. If this “relational” frame between the Organization and the Group is not built and supported, ultimately, any Team or Group will fail in its endeavors.

If you remember, the model of Attitude formation shows that your subjective knowledge (beliefs) about an Object determines your Attitude toward it. And we pointed out that because this is so, it is crucial that any Attitude be “challenged” until you established exactly what the facts really are. We saw that the variables in Attitude change are Personality traits, credibility of the source of different opinions or information countering existing Attitudes, and Group membership.

There is no doubt that Group membership can form and shape individual compliance, and moderate Behavior. However, this tends to be a double-edged sword, because unless the Group get it right, the individual can be left handing in an Attitudinal abyss, completely unsure of their moral direction. Not only is this State Stressful, it can be deadly!

The Gaia Principle of the Universal Linking Theory suggests that “Every individual person’s Behavior impacts on, and in turn, is impacted on by, every other person’s Behavior”. In simplistic terms, this means that any Group that is formed, or will be created, will only ever be as successful as the least committed member of that Group.

This Principle can be applied in two distinctly different ways.

#1 - The Organization sets individually determined objectives for each Group, taking the composition of the Group into account, or

#2 - The least capable Group is used as the standard setter, creating a synergistic drive for excellence within the other Groups.

The size of a Group also has important consequences for its successful functioning. Larger Groups have more resources and can accomplish more than smaller ones. But as size increases, a smaller proportion of the Group’s members take part in Group discussion and decision-making. Interaction becomes more impersonal, satisfaction declines, Group cohesiveness is reduced, and the Group tends to become divided into factions. Stress is the inevitable result of these processes.

The optimal number of members depends upon the Group’s objectives, but for most problem-solving Groups and committees extensive research has shown that it is generally regarded as being either five or seven. This is an important discovery if you are involved in a Board or Community Groups, who tend to have large numbers.


Organizations tend to force-evolve Groups-within-Groups, all with their own created (or assumed) set of norms. The greater the number of individually identified Groups, the greater is the degree of Organizational control required. The further a Group gets from the focus of the Corporate Culture, the more deviant the norms of the Group can become.

Because Groups are able to exert disproportionate pressure on the individual to conform to the Group’s assumed norms, it is possible for a Group to covertly subvert the Organization’s goals. This Group “shut-out” can be subliminal, unconscious, and virtually undetectable at some levels of an Organization. This effect can be minimized by the inculcation of the Corporate Culture at every level of the Organization, and by the provision of clear Organizational objectives expressed in human-dynamic terms rather than in financial (or numerical) ones.

An American Airline became famous (and profitable!) by boiling down their multi-volume Operations Manual into a single thought — “Make our Customers happy, no matter what” — and posting it on every employee’s desk.

In essence, you take the Organizational objective and marry it with the individual self-interest of every Group member — in such a way that their self-image (ego) provides the fuel for your achievement — success — but expressed in the terms of the individual.

There are nine critical elements in Team Building (or the management of Groups) that we have been able to identify after years of research and study, and they can be described in relative order of importance.

1. The designation (or appointment) of an Organizational disciple as the Group leader. This is critical, as the Organization’s objectives must be reflected in the Leadership of any Team or Group for it to be able to succeed.

2. Specific, attainable, quantifiable and accountable objectives for each Group. These Group objectives must be developed with (and within) the Group, and accepted unilaterally.

3. Each individual within each Group must understand and accept their role, and its contribution to the overall objective of the Group.

4. Positive review of the Group objectives and progress, at planned, regular intervals, from the Group’s perspective.

5. This review must also relate the Group’s progress to the Organization’s progress.

6. Consistency and clarity in Communication of the Organization’s Principles with each Group.

7. A rigid feedback protocol, with two-way responsibility between the Organization and the Group.

8. A strong, positive, understandable Corporate culture, which can be absorbed and reflected by every individual within the Organization (and therefore within any Group).

9. Organization recognition of the Group’s contribution, and Communication of this recognition to other Groups

Teams that you form as “working parties” to run down the various issues that will come out of any Strategic process must implement and reflect these nine critical aspects of Team (or Group) Building.

The sure test for a successful Organization is the degree of perceived Culture exhibited by the weakest member of the weakest Group.The management of Groups (teams) is simplified by the application of the well-recognized and tested concept of C3 — Command, Control, and Communication.


If you recall - The Command (C1) hypothesis stipulates that:• “In any Organization there is a visible hierarchical

structure to which the individual can easily relate”.• “It is the Prime Responsibility of every member of


• “This structure will be such that, in the event of any uncertainty, command can pass from one level of the Organization to the next with a minimum loss of control”.

This Communication derived Command (C1) dictate serves five purposes:

1. It provides an anchoring point for the individual, a frame of reference for discipline and authority.

2. It leaves no doubt as to the expected role of management.

3. It gives an individual a clear picture of their potential career-path within the Organization.

4. It provides a literal frame of reference for the position of the various Groups and Teams within the Organization in respect to one another.

5. It provides for the logical, calm progression of management through the Organization.





And the crux of the issue — a successful Communication (exchange of ideas) is said to have taken place only when the receiver can demonstrate (via Feedback) that they can implement the required work to complete the object of Communication.

Successful Communication evolves within an Organization when each individual understands that what it is that needs to be achieved (action) is more important than what it is they want to say.

The contemporary Communication Model is integrated and continuous, and the Communication “Loop” is considered “Dynamic”, and its success is evaluated only by the Quality of the Feedback. This is a critical issue with Groups — if you do not have the proper Feedback mechanisms in place, the Group will quickly lose its “place” in the overall scheme of things, leading to great Stress both within and without of the Group.

In the proper administration of Self Managed Teams (a special type of Group structure) there are a number of critical aspects you need to be aware of to minimize Stress, but maximize performance.

Firstly, SMT’s invariable fail unless they are truly Self-Managed!

Secondly, SMT’s must have access to every resource they perceive they need within and without of the Organization.

Thirdly, in the management of SMT’s, your control must be seen to be Motivational, not Organizational.

Fourthly, the reporting system you establish must be a genuine, bi-directional highway of information, and ideas exchange.And last but not least, the recommendations and solutions offered by SMT’s must be objectively evaluated against previously agreed criteria, and you must be seen to be implementing this aspect of your Social contract.


In simplistic terms, your Organization will function optimally when your Groups are Communicating optimally. A true test of this “State” is a critical examination of the Communication practices exercised by the Groups.

It is this understanding of the Psychology of Group Dynamics which when applied at the lowest Group level, will promote the modification of the Group’s Behavior to best deliver your Organizational objectives.

If the lowest common denominator is functioning at peak performance, then every other Group will match the expectation created by their example.

It is up to the Leader to decide how you will use the power of Group Dynamics, but understand that it is a significant tool in the process of Leadership!

13 The Secrets of Motivation in Orbit

One of the most Stressful elements in most People’s lives is Motivation, or lack of it. That and the fact that may People confuse motion for Motivation, effort with achievement, and activity with Strategy.

Organizations are constructed of People, not balance sheets. However, if the balance sheet doesn’t, then neither do the People. And because it is the People and their actions that make or break the balance sheet, you need to understand what motivates your People to do the things they do. Or Motivates you to do the things you do.

Research shows clearly that Motivation is the cause of actions (Behavior), and in any Organization, is the primary support for maximizing Organization performance, profit, and success. It stands to reason then that to succeed you need the greatest quantum of controlled Motivation available to you in any restructuring, Organizational change, Team building, Peacemaking, Group or focused performance program.

People are Motivated to work in an Organization because they believe that the Organization is (or will be) successful, and that their Behavior will be seen as reflecting the positive attributes of the Organization.

The four primary attributes are: • A purpose beyond profit• A positive product or service differentiator• A dynamic working environment, and• Strong, focused management.

Simply put, People want to get into the Organization, not out.

While this might seem overly simple, examine the Organization you currently work within. Does it have these positive attributes? Is the general environment Stressful? Do you have HOT processes? Good multi-directional Communication, well balanced Teams or Groups, and are you rewarded with positive, self-worth enhancing feedback?

Are you Motivated each and every day to burst out of bed, get yourself ready, and rush off to work?

The primary work on Motivation, in the fields of Applied and Cognitive Psychology commenced in the early 1930’s, with major discoveries applied only in the last 25 years. The results of this work are now routinely accepted in the general areas of sports and industrial psychology, where Performance enhancement is crucial. Slowly, every so slowly, Organizational Psychology is catching up, the biggest barrier being Management’s inability to understand the true importance of People in any system, and the need to Motivate them beyond any Profit objective.

For an Athlete to win a Gold Medal, they have to deliver an Elite Performance on demand - on time, and in place. They are able to train for this Performance, peaking and resting as necessary, getting ready for the “big” event. It is accepted that they will give their all, strive beyond pain and performance barriers in their quest to be the best of the best. This is what we believe “getting the Gold” is all about.

The Secrets of Motivation in Orbit 13

In Organizational terms, to be the best of the best, you pretty much have to perform near the top of your ability every single day, and on that special occasion, pull out excellence on demand! You can’t rely on “peaking”, you’ll surely get fired if you’re caught “resting” too often, and it’s extremely Stressful trying to anticipate when the “big effort” might need to be pulled out of your hat.

This brief look at Motivation is designed to help you discover the real “horse-power” that exists in everyone, and how to “balance” your Performance attributes so that you are capable of presenting the best of your skills and abilities in a way that achieves excellence without the Life shortening Stress attacking you.

First, the bad news. There is no one accepted scientific theory of Motivation. Instead, several Behavioral Theories exist that can be described as “Motivational”.

Motivation is the hypothesized cause of Behavior.

Motivation is the determinant of Behavior’s arousal, vigor, direction, and persistence.

Motivation is often considered an answer to the question of why an action is performed.

Is has been observed that every action, whether physical or cerebral, is the result of some degree of motivation, either positive or negative.

The four internalized “States” that explain actions are described as:

Needs – Drives – Motives – and Desires.

High Involvement

Rat

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Em

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Low Involvement


Needs & DrivesPULL

Motivates & DesiresPUSH

In common sense terms, Motives and Desires (Emotional) provide the “Push” for an action, Needs and Drives (Incentives) provide the “Pull”.

Every action requires a balance of both “Push” and “Pull” motives, for the action to be completed successfully. If this balance is not achieved, you quickly move into Stress, and the action will fail.

Marslow created the description of “The Hierarchy of Prepotency” in human Motivations. He observed that “man is a wanting animal”, and that one desire is no sooner satisfied than another takes its place.

He also noted sense and order in the succession of Motives, suggesting that there is a predetermined importance of certain Motives that must be satisfied.

There are five generally accepted Need categories (Maslow):

1. Physiological2. Safety3. Love or Belongingness4. Esteem or Status5. Self-actualization.

Clearly, there is a preponderance of “Emotional” forces at work in these five need categories


As we have already discussed, there are four accepted Personality Types, each with their own Emotional quotient.

The Director, who is described as High Involvement, Rational Behavior.

The Socializer, described as High Involvement, Emotional Behavior.

The Thinker, Low Involvement, Rational Behavior.And the Relator, who is seen as Low Involvement, Emotional Behavior.

High Involvement

Rat

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Low Involvement


Director Socialiser

Thinker Relator

Darwin (1872) concluded that Emotions help animals as well as People in the struggle for survival by Communicating information to others. The expression of Anger signals the likelihood of attack; The expression of Fear, the likelihood of retreat.

Freud said that unconscious Emotions could be identified on the basis of a Person’s Behavior. If someone constantly frowns, grinds their teeth, or has dreams in which People are killed, they are most likely Angry, in spite of any verbalization to the contrary.

American philosopher William James believed that the perception of a situation led to Behavior (e.g.: running away) that created physiological changes, and that a Person’s recognition of these internal changes was the actual feeling of Emotion.

Notwithstanding all of this work, it is clear that when we are Stressed, we exhibit all the signs and symptoms of extreme Emotion, and that we often radiate this Emotion as a means of attempting to reduce the perception of loss of control, or force a change in our environment to achieve this reduction.

It is now universally agreed that Emotion is a complex State, and is a condition that affects the entire Organism and influences how successfully it interacts with its environment.

Although Emotion represents a change in a Person’s inner-State (inner-stance) it is also a change in Behavior. Most importantly, this change in Behavior is designed to have an effect on the People or the events around the Person that is broadcasting the Emotion.

Emotion can and does shape the environment, it influences Attitudes, and it can directly change the Behavior of others!

The names given to our Primary Emotions are:

AngerFearJoy

SorrowAcceptance

Disgustand Surprise.

Secondary Emotions are complicated because they are a mix of Primary Emotions, and the names given are often the same as those used to describe Personality orientated Behavior, for example:

Anger + Disgust = SarcasticAcceptance + Joy = Sociable

Simply put, Emotions are the biopsychological reactions of an individual to important events in his or her Life. These reactions involve special kinds of


feelings, widespread physiological changes, impulses to action, and overt Behavior.

If you play the “Memory” game, you soon come to realize how much Emotions “peg” our memories and feelings to specific events and memories over time. In fact, we now believe that your Emotions play a significant part in how well you remember events over time.

Emotions are the signals by which we let other People know how we are feeling about something, and what our intentions might well be. It is important to realize that Emotional reaction is always present in any Motivational situational, either negative or positive, and in any Behavior that we may be exhibiting at any given time.

It is also important to understand that it is the Emotional projections that are the most observable of our Behavior. If you relate this back to the three “V’s” discussed earlier, Visual cues make up 55% of any Communication, and Vocal 38%. It is reasonable to assume that if your are Emoting strongly, you will color any Communication you may be involved in.

The different Personality Styles are going to react very differently to this projection of Emotion — The Director with disdain and possibly embarrassment, the Socializer with almost a mirror of the level of intensity of the Emotion, the Relator with empathy, and the Thinker with distrust.

An important component of Behavior is Attitude, which we have discussed previously. We describe Attitude as a Person’s prevailing tendency to respond favorably or unfavorably to an Object, Person or Group, Institution, or Event (Attitude Object). Attitudes are hypothetical constructs, and because they cannot be directly observed, they must be inferred from an individual’s responses (positive or negative) toward the “Attitude Object” — and this response is always wrapped in an Emotional blanket to some extent.

Social Psychologists distinguish between three components of this response:

The Cognitive component — which is one’s knowledge about the Attitude Object, whether that knowledge is accurate or not.

The Affective component — which is one’s feelings toward an Attitude Object, and

And the Conative component — which is the Action, or the intent of Action, one will take toward the Attitude Object.

Cognitive Psychologists have created a model of Attitude Formation that shows a Person’s Subjective Knowledge (beliefs) about any Object determines their Attitude toward it. That’s why you must challenge any Attitude that doesn’t sit comfortably until you can establish exactly what the underlying Belief really is!

As we have discussed previously, the variables in Attitude change are:

1. Personality traits;

2. Credibility of the Source of different opinions or information countering existing Attitudes; and

3. Group Membership

The formal approach to understanding Motivation distinguishes between primary, survival, or viscerogenic sources, and the secondary, social, or psychogenic sources (of Motives).

Primary motivations such as hunger, thirst, and avoidance of bodily injury must be satisfied for the organism to survive.

Secondary motivations such as affiliation, sex, aggression, and achievement are important, but need not be satisfied for survival.

It is generally understood that you “autonomically” satisfy your Primary Motivations instinctively, to the best of your ability. However, you have to “work” consciously to satisfy many of your Secondary Motives.


The Primary Dynamic Principle in Motivational Theories is that deviation from a desired “State” leads to corrective measures — in this case Behavior — to regain the original “State” (equilibrium). Emotion plays a large part in this correction, by allowing us to express our inner feelings in such a way that we can reduce any self-induced Stress. Emotion also allows us to broadcast to others exactly how we are feeling about any deviations from our “balance” State.

As an example of the Primary Dynamic Principle, if a person feels balanced at a room temperature of 24 degrees, when it falls to a significant level, the person will be Motivated to take action to correct the situation, and return the environment back to a comfortable level. They may not specifically understand or acknowledge the literal measurement (24 degrees), but they will always relay a level of “comfort” or “acceptance” in justifying their action — what “Motivated” them to act. They may even “act out” their discomfort emotionally as a means of justifying their “corrective” Behavior. This is an example of Psychological Motivation.

Psychological Motivation is more subtle. You can’t always predict how People will react to circumstances or events. Because we are driven to make our “picture” of reality come true, understanding individual Motivation is more complex.

The most ubiquitous assumption in the Psychological Theories of Motivation is the Optimal State of No Stimulation. Since needs or drives are sources of stimulation, the desired “State” becomes their absence. As an example, a high-achiever type salesperson is often found doing very little — as least from the perceptual point of view of the observer. Underneath, however, a veritable cauldron of mental activity is going on, as strategy, scheme, tactics, and volition all merge into a high-order level of cognitive application.

Freud believed the goal of the psychic apparatus to be the reduction of stimulation to its lowest possible level. Invariably, People do not like to be stirred up unnecessarily — or over stimulated, and our “elite”

salesperson is a classic example of this type of Behavior. If you examine the Personality Types closely, you will quickly see which are more comfortable in a stable, low energy environment, and which like the cut and thrust of pressure and change.

Lewin & Hull believe the presence of tension, and the presence of drive, are “States” the organism acts to eliminate. This is why so many elite performers are so often difficult to manage. They are often in their “zone”, and they resent being “pulled” out of it by casual or divergent Communication or stimulation.

Research clearly shows that these types of responses can be trained in (or out), simply by extending the physical and metaphysical comfort zone of the individual.

Festinger proposes that inconsistencies between two cognitions, or between cognitions and Behavior, produce a “State” of dissonance that is reduced by bringing about consistency. Cognitive dissonance has become a study all to itself, as we try to figure out why People perform perfectly irrational acts while exhibiting all the signs of conscious, cognitive Behavior.

A dysfunctional culture is the outcome of this State — and the cause of great Stress in any Group or Organization. In fact, it is believed that this aspect of performance may well be one of the greatest precursors of Stress imaginable. This “Dissonance State” drives changes in Behavior, changes in Belief, and selective exposure to new information, and the formation of opinions (Attitudes) congruent with the desired “State”. The trouble is, this “State” is often formed on perception based on erroneous information or beliefs, leading to performance degradation and massive Stress in the organism.

As an example of this theory, Festinger hypothesized that the greater the difficulty a person experiences in making a decision, the greater the tendency to rationalize or justify that decision at a later time.


Look at this statement closely — what we are saying is that the degree of difficulty (Emotional expenditure) generates the need to post-rationalize the action even when it is proven to be incorrect, and understood to be incorrect by the participant! In other words, the participant feels a strong need to get an Emotional reward for his Emotional effort — in this case, the opportunity to rationalize his mistake.

Heider & Newcomb suggest that individuals often attempt to achieve “States” of balance between their own attitudes and those of other persons with regard to common issues. The Socializer and Relator Personalities are known for this attribute, sometimes to their detriment. The whole process of Negotiation can often be seen as a means of achieving consensus, accommodation, or compromise. Notice that each of these “States” is a different degree of balance, and this can be very Stressful for Thinkers and Directors, who take a more “literal” view of their world.

Various so-called “Master Motives” have been postulated:

Adler believes striving for superiority is paramount. This has been expressed many different ways over the last twenty years, but none more powerfully that the statement, “People always aspire upwards!” They do, and so do you.

Brown believes most human actions stem from learned fear and its reduction.

White proposes competence as a major Motivational determinant.

deCharms suggests that man’s primary Motivation is to be effective — to be an originator rather than a pawn.

Hubbard has shown that perceived harmony leading to a balanced inner-stance (“State”) is a significant motivational force. He also demonstrated the relationship between conscious external environmental stimulus and unconscious, autonomic Behavior.

If you model a theory on man as a rational decision maker, then you can safely assume that Behavior

will depend on that course of action for which the subjective expected utility (SEU) is highest. This theory is cognitive as it involves expectancy as a construct, along with the assumption that alternatives and their consequences are considered in the decision-making process. It should also be noted that the SEU is a complex series of relationships between many different types of Motives, and that this area is one of the most researched in current work. The whole “commission payment” structure of remuneration is based on SEU — which is why primarily it does not always work with different Personality Styles!

Atkinson proposed the inclusion of Motives to account for individual differences in the value of certain consequences.

Heider, Kelly, & Weiner have firmly established a theory based on the common sense notion that how People feel and what they do depend on the causes they attribute to the consequences.

It is accepted that Motivation can be categorized by its intention and intensity — for example, Achievement Motivation is the tendency to strive to excel when a person knows that Performance will be evaluated in relation to a Standard (Metric). That Standard may be an Ideal, the Performance of others, or an internalized past Performance by the individual. This is what all elite performers are always doing — consciously, or unconsciously. Higher, faster, further!

In elite performance terms, there is an immutable “Law” of activity — if it can be measured, then it can be improved. The corollary also applies to any Management Process — if it can’t (or isn’t) measured, then it can’t be successfully changed or improved.

When Achievement Motivation is too strong, it can produce over-excitement that actively interferes with efficient Performance. We’ve all seen over stimulated People running around creating Chaos, in an effort to move things along too quickly for most to be able to participate at their best.


The synthesis of all this work on Motivation can be expressed in simple terms, and it is important to the Leader to understand the critical role Motivation plays in the management of Stress. There is a strongly held belief by Consistency Theorists who stress the human need to keep beliefs mutually consistent and in harmony with feelings and actions. In even simpler terms, don’t say one thing, and do another!

And don’t allow any System to act one way, while expressing a different belief, or you will see Stress levels that defy gravity, shortening every Life it comes in contact with.

There are a number of interesting observations one can make based on all this work:

1. People do things for their reasons, not yours.

2. People are unlikely to be motivated by your needs and desires.

3. In any Organization (or Group or Team) Strategy, there must be a balance and recognition of the “Push” and the “Pull” motives. If the “Pull” motives detract or overwhelm the “Push” motives, the action will fail.

4. People learn only what they want to learn.

5. People learn only when they want to learn.

6. People naturally resist change.

7. People naturally regress to their prior “State” or Comfort Zone.

8. People will always move towards the least line of resistance.

9. People will always attempt to find their balance within a Group.

10. The attitudes and Motivation of the Group can and will affect the individual.

11. If the group is tightly focused, then the individual will be drawn towards the common Attitude.

The majority of motivators are Mental stimulants (Emotional) not practical achievements (Rational). In recent Research work it was found that there are generally fourteen accepted “profit” Motivations People believe are realistic achievable, with monetary reward listed at the eighth spot.

People talk about other People, rarely about the financial realities or operational activities that drive any Organization (or might Motivate you).

People within an Organization (Team of Group) cannot treat People outside the Organization (Team or Group) any better than they are treated. This is particularly true of Sales People and their treatment of Customers or Clients.

Any negative Attitude People have will be transmitted to everyone else.

A balance between “push” and “pull” motives will maximize motivational stimulus.

Maximum Motivation will be obtained when it specifically affects the individual directly, and is expressed in their terms.

Every individual is a “Star” in their own minds, and they dislike being compared with others not of their choosing!

Because Motivation is the cause of actions (Behaviour), to succeed you need the greatest quantum of controlled Motivation available to you in any restructuring or profit orientated Organizational change program.

You need to be able to apply this Motivation at the individual level.

You must involve your People in any Change process, so that they can come to grips with it from their perspective, and relate their individual Motivations to the outcome.


To achieve this, you need to create an environment where the objective of your Organizational needs and desires become the “State” to which all your People naturally direct themselves.

As we pointed out earlier, empirically it has been clearly demonstrated that the natural tendency of People is to seek the minimum disturbance, and where possible, to actively resist Change. For this reason, in Organizational (Team or Group) terms, the redundancy, transfer, sacking or demotion of a single person can have a catastrophic and disproportionate effect on the whole Organization’s (Teams or Groups) confidence and Motivation. Such action must be framed in such a way that the People who are not touched perceive it to be critical, and therefore necessary, for the Group’s survival. This perception delivers the process into the domain of a Primary Need.

Any form of Organizational (Team or Group) restructuring needs to be positioned as a positive, innovative, creative and rewarding experience for all concerned. The feeling should be one of euphoria, the restructuring the result of the superior performance of the People (and therefore of the Organization).

In the psychology of the Organization, it should be seen as the taking advantage of an opportunity that will ultimately provide strong “Pull” motives, at the individual level. This “Pull” motive should be orientated towards an increase in the SEC (Subjective Expected Utility).

Again, in very simplistic terms, the “What’s in it for me?” syndrome.

Any reallocation of financial resources from one area to another within the Organization (Team or Group) needs to be perceived as a strengthening of specific areas, for strategic reasons, made possible by the satisfactory or superior performance of those areas from where the resources must come. The whole “bottom-line” drive must always be shown in the light of providing the maximum financial capability for the greatest area of performance (or Strategic need).

When the “bottom-line” starts to drive the Organization, People tend to lose contact with their Motivations. When Organizations live on their financial nerves, the People exhibit significant signs of stress, because the Organization’s financial problem always seems to be beyond the individuals’ ability to fix.

There is also often a significant misunderstanding and increase in Stress caused by the Attitude that some People “create” revenue, while others “spend it” within any Organization.

Any linking mechanism in this dichotomous achievement is the implementation Strategy you adopt.

You need to demonstrate to everyone three crucial aspects of a Strategic process:

1. You must create an objective evaluation process that relates the Individual Performance to the Organization’s (or Team or Groups) Performance. This evaluation must be related to both Primary and Secondary drives (motives) for both the individual and the Organization.

2. You must demonstrate the potential incremental growth in both the individual and Organization’s Primary and Secondary sources as a result of the deterministic action you take.

3. You must involve your People in the Change process, so that they can come to grips with it from their perspective, and relate their individual motivations to the outcome.

You must also empower your People with the Three Permissions — Permission to Listen, Permission to Speak, and Permission to Fail.

When these practical Motivational concepts are applied to any Organization change process you will find that it is possible to modify “Attitudes”, and get a successful objective orientated focus driven by your People’s self-interest. Remember, People only really do well what they want to do well for


themselves, and are Motivated by things that reach them, not necessarily you or the Organization (Team or Group).

Every Communication is an opportunity to Motivate — take advantage of this adage, and us it as the catch-cry of your performance, by reducing if not eliminating the killer Stress from your Motivational processes!

Over the past thirty years, this somewhat epigenetic and deterministic view of Motivation has lead us to the creation of the “P” Principle.

“If you perform for People, and help them reach their potential, then People will powerfully and positively perform for you.”

As a Leader, this is both a critical and illuminating statement.

Above all, BREATHE, remain HOT, be ready to RACE, and don’t forget to SMILE!

14 The First Pregnant Pause in Orbit

If you’ve got this far, you are probably starting to think about how Leadership might fit into your Life, and is related to things like Stress, Communication, Group Dynamics, Chaos, and Motivation. You have more than likely made the link between Stress and death, but you have probably been a little bewildered with the switching between the “personal” you, and the “organizational” you.

This is to be expected.

You are going through a learning process (and you know what that is now) and you are trying to link what we are saying here with your own Mental models, beliefs and Attitudes.

The simple truth is that unless you are suffering from a medical condition that brings with it physical and or emotional Stress, the only way you can become

Stressed is if you “self-induce” it. You actually have to do all the work to become Stressed, and many People find this a difficult concept to grasp.

Self-induced Stress is the real killer. Self-induced Stress is the result of all the discontinuities, divergences, dichotomies, and discomforts that we have described so far. But it is Self-induced, and this in itself is worthy of further discussion.

In confronting the four “D’s” (discontinuities, divergences, dichotomies, and discomforts) it is critical that you understand, and believe, that these are the principle causes of Stress in the Human body. It is when your instinctive or trained-Behavior becomes at odds with the environment that you induce the most Stress. When your actions are out of sync with your expectations. When you believe one thing, yet another is true.

If you don’t “self-induce”, then you can’t get Stressed. But most People find it almost impossible to not “self-induce” — it seems to be in their genetic code! But if you can develop the habit of mentally standing back from the action, long enough to mentally and physically prepare yourself for the required mental or physical activity, then you will find suddenly that you are not getting as Stressed as you once were, and that your ability to solve problems, help other People, and provide insightful commentary to those around you with increase dramatically.

Here’s a simple process to try the next time you sense that you might be stepping into a potentially Stressful situation.

First, take a few deep BREATHS, and deliberately calm yourself. Mentally review the situation, looking for the four “D’s”. Introduce HOT into the process immediately, and watch for Attitudes developed from flawed belief systems. Put yourself into the mental mode of a facilitator, negotiator, moderator, or Leader.

The First Pregnant Pause in Orbit 14

Don’t immediately take sides. Don’t assume anything. Distance yourself from any Stressful Behavior or over-boiled Emotional discussion. Calm everything down.

Managing Stress is, in our opinion, the second most important task anyone can take on, right after developing excellent Communication skills. It is a lack of consistency and in most cases, a lack of Honesty, Openness, and Transparency, in either the process, Relationship, activity, or event, which leads to Stress.

Emotional discontinuity is also a great generator of Stress, in the way strong Emotions can directly affect other People. But you still have to do the work of self-inducing the Stress for it to affect you.

Being aware of this is the best defense — as a Leader you must apply yourself to lowering the “Emotional” temperature around any event of action to that clear heads can prevail.

When you come across a situation where the Emotions have got out of control, stop it. Now. And be a Leader.

15 The Secrets of Profit in Orbit

Making a Profit can be one of the most Stressful activities you will ever be involved in.

Research tells us that there are at least fourteen different metrics that are used by the average person to measure their “Profit”. They range from monetary, experience, exposure, challenge, emotional, stimulus, vision, and potential reward to market, organizational, self-worth, achievement, potential and realistic value. Monetary reward has been identified as the eighth most important, and Self-worth as the first. People express this Self-worth value in terms of their peers and management recognizing them for their contribution to achieving the Organizational goals. In the case of an individual, it is an expression of their recognition by their peers that places them within the context of their environment positively.

Profit is critical to most Organizations, because if they don’t make one, then the doors don’t stay open very long. Individuals also believe Profit is important, but always express it in personal terms, as you, a potential Leader, would expect.

The very latest understanding of Profit is that, when used at the Organizational and Individual level you take the Organizational Objective and marry it with the individual self-interest of every Person. This is done in such a way that their self-image (ego) provides the fuel for Organizational Success (Profit generation).

By “Profit” we mean not only the financial considerations of the Organization, but also the enhancement of the performance and potential of every person involved. If you are attempting a managed Change Process of any type, you must involve your People in the change process, so that they can come to grips with it from their perspective, and relate their individual motivations to the outcome.

You may remember that we said earlier that there are six critical elements that you must fulfill in any change Strategy:

1. You must generate specific belief in the necessity for change;

2. You must generate ownership of the process by everyone involved;

3. You must have multidirectional real-time Communication;

4. You must have vested authority and responsibility;

5. There must be perceivable benefits (profit) for all concerned, and

6. The change strategy must deliver on the promise.

The Secrets of Profit in Orbit 15

Now, it is easy to argue that Motivation is getting mixed up here with Profit, and in a sense that would be correct. Research shows clearly that if the Profit goals are understood and accepted, then the Motivational goals tend to align themselves with the Profit expectation. This is not a value statement, but rather a process one.

The first Management Consultant — Niccolo Machiavelli — put it into exacting words — “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

Arthur Wyatt, the founder Wyatt & Co., said, “People and Culture — the Human Systems of a Company — are what make or break any Change Initiative”.

Current Research tells us that the most frequently mentioned barriers to Change are employee resistance, and dysfunctional Corporate Culture. Dysfunctional Culture is one whose shared values and Behavior are at odds with its long-term health. In the majority of cases, this dysfunctionality is related to the Profit motives of the Organization, or at least to the perception of what they are or how they may be expressed. The Profit drivers get out of sync with the Performance drivers, remembering that People are Motivated by Emotional values, not Rational ones.

The Psychology of Financial Control is all about understanding just what Profit is to you and others whom you hope to Motivate, or be a Leader with.

Research shows that many People see financial control as complex systems and reports that create fear, and that financial control can be compared to rocket science, subatomic physics, and quantum mechanics! The perception is that the individual can have absolutely no impact on any financial process at any level of activity.

Maintaining financial control shouldn’t have to be so difficult!

Making specific Profit can be as easy as understanding the relationship between Profit and Motivation, Communication and Group Dynamics, the four imperatives of any Organization success.

People are motivated to work in an Organization, because the Organization is (or will be) successful, and that their Behaviour will be seen as reflecting the positive attributes of this Organization. Sometimes it’s called the “Friday evening Bar Chat”, where you proudly tell your friends all about the Organization you work for, and bask in the reflected glory. However, it’s interesting to note that People rarely talk about Profit, but rather the Organization itself, in terms of the Organization being different and unique or having achieved some level of visibility due to overt Performance.

There are four primary attributes of a successful Organization:

1. A purpose beyond Profit

2. A positive product or service differentiator

3. A dynamic working environment, and

4. Strong, focused management.

A purpose beyond Profit is essential for any Organization, Team or Group, as victory is always hollow if it is one-dimensional. Stories about people who have achieved great heights, only to discover that their achievement lacks substance are legendary. In this day and age, the “new” speak is about Triple Bottom Line, where Organizations are judged not just on profit, but also on social and environmental metrics.Without a positive product or service differentiator an Organization has only price to market, and there will always be a competitor who either can sell at a lower price, or has a better capacity to sustain suicidal pricing strategies. Jack Welsh (the retired CEO of GE) put it aptly when he said, “If I can’t compete with a competitive edge, I don’t compete”.


Dynamic work environments are few and far between, but easy to spot. That’s the Organization that everyone else is chasing, trying to emulate, or living in fear of. Nothing is more Motivational or successful than an environment where you can make mistakes, fail, learn, and prosper. Where fear of failure doesn’t exist, and the only overt focus is the development of the People. As People develop, so too does the Organization.

There is also a dearth of strong, focused, management in most Organizations. This is evidenced by the rapid rate at which they come and go, leaving nothing but a trail of financial and Emotional destruction behind them.

But where these attributes are present, the outcome is there for all to see.

Simply put, People want to get into the Organization, not out. Now, this is all very heavy stuff, as making a Profit can sometimes be. We need a lighter, more personable, People orientated approach.

Before any Organization can get rich — or maximize its Profit potential — first, you must get rich. Rich in spirit, rich in endeavor, rich in potential, and rich in performance.

You owe it to yourself to Be All You Can Be, because only in that way can you ever hope to achieve all that you most want in Life for yourself, your Organization, or those around you whom you love and cherish.

You can never become a Leader sitting on the sidelines of Life.

Life is not a rehearsal — what you don’t do now, you probably will never do. You can’t replay your intent like shooting a movie, what is done is done, and done forever.

Once you get “you” right, then it’s relatively easy to get everyone else right — to force multiply yourself to achieve the bigger Profit picture for you or your Organization.

Don’t be scared of Profit. If you don’t Profit from your learning experiences and your mistakes, you might as well not have them in the first place.

There is no “fast-fix” or “magic bullet” to achieving a Profit — if there were, everyone would be rich, prosperous, happy, famous and extremely self-motivated, and genuine Leaders.

Profit is many things to different People — money, fame, fortune, wealth, health, happiness, self-worth, self-image, ego, participation, vision, recognition, and acclaim. To most Organizations, Profit is the magic “bottom line” performance, usually expressed in financial terms. It’s what they boast about to the Stock market and their shareholders.

Organizations that are not making the Profit they desire or deserve are dangerous, Stressful, unsatisfying, niggardly places to work, and demoralizing in spirit. If this negative and destructive attitude is not changed, it ultimately causes People to focus on all the wrong things.

Excellence in Performance (and therefore excellence in Profit delivery) is obtained by excellence in thought and action, and you simply cannot achieve excellence by driving the numbers and crunching the People.

You see, Organizations don’t do things, People do! And smart Organizations are rapidly starting to realize that real Profit is the result of managing three synergistic relationships — and you can’t have one without the other two.

Every Organization needs to generate Profit — if it doesn’t, either it shouldn’t be in business, or it soon won’t be.

But two other things must happen in concert with the delivery of this Profit potential — or the Profit generation cannot be sustained, and will ultimately fail. The Organization must develop as a Performance focused culture, and the People who produce the Profit must develop as People.


The better the People are developed, and the closer this development is to their own self-image, the better the Organization is developed, and the better will be the Profit generation.

Profit comes down to People, People, and People.

It is often said that the only difference between a Military Person and a Civilian is Training — so always think of Profit in terms of developing the People involved in the process, so that through training and nurturing their growth and enlightenment fuel the Profit generation process from the inside.

Chase the bottom line by all means — be frugal, cost conscious, money wise and tight — but don’t ever lose sight of the fact that you will make your Profit (or generate one for your Organization) only when you are focused on the real reason why you (and the People around you) do things. Remember also that making Profit once at the expense of a sustainable People-orientated process is no Profit at all.

The majority of things that Motivate you are mental stimulants (Emotional), not practical achievements (Rational). People talk about other People, they rarely talk about the financial realities that drive the Organization, or are likely to Motivate you. You talk about your success before you talk about other People’s, or the Organization’s.

When the Organization is successful, you bask in the reflected glory of this performance — as one of the key contributors to it. And this “success” talk is rarely about Profit performance — how much money the Organization made — it’s usually about achievement performance, the things that have gone right, worked out, made you or others look good.

Things you feel really good about!

When the “bottom-line” starts to drive an Organization, the People tend to lose contact with their real Motivations. Why would anyone work themselves to death so that a faceless Organization can make a few dollars?

When Organizations live on their financial nerves, the People exhibit significant signs of Stress, because the Organization’s financial problem always seems to be beyond any one individual’s desire or ability to fix.

If we were to examine all the ways of shortening your Life by self-inducing Stress that we have discussed so far, trying to make a false Profit would be at the head of the list. You need to link the Communication process with your understanding of Motivation to put Profit in perspective.

The Communication Dictate (C3) demands “An accurate, clear, simple, and understandable exchange of information (ideas) at every structural level, irrespective of the capability or circumstances of the sender or receiver”.

The Communication Dictate is predicated on everyone in the Organization believing, “That what it is that needs to be achieved (action) is more important than what it is anyone thinks they have to say”.

From a Group Dynamic perspective, in any Organization, achieving the “bottom line” is the motive force, financial control is the accelerator, and teams of People (Groups) are the wheels on which the Organization runs.

The Gaia Principle of the Universal Linking Theory suggests that “Every individual person’s Behavior impacts on, and in turn, is impacted on by, every other person’s Behavior”.

It is universally agreed that Emotion is a complex State, and is a condition that affects the entire Organism and influences how successfully it interacts with its environment. Although Emotion represents a change in a Person’s inner-State (inner-stance) it is also a change in Behavior. Emotion can and does shape the environment it influences attitudes, and can change the Behavior of others!

Motivation is the determinant of Behavior’s arousal, vigor, direction, and persistence. Motivation is often considered an answer to the question of why an


action is performed. Is has been observed that every action, whether physical or cerebral, is the result of some degree of motivation, either positive or negative. The majority of motivators are mental stimulants, not practical achievements. People talk about other People, rarely about the financial realities that drive the Organization.

In simple terms, when the “bottom-line” starts to drive the Organization, People tend to lose contact with their Motivations.

Profit may well be the bottom-line, but to most of the People involved “Profit” will mean an experience, challenge, emotional stimulus, and vision reward, and will always be expressed from the point of view of “self-worth”.

Your Strategy has to become the linking mechanism between your Organizational objectives, and the enhanced “self-worth” prerequisites of the People with whom you are striving to make a “Profit”.

In a sense, you have to under promise, and over deliver.

Because Companies don’t do things, People do, and every Person sees things from a different perspective, what is essentially the same, is in fact, very different. If we understand how People think and how they differ, we can soon establish how to Motivate them to make the Profit you desire.

The Psychology of Financial Control comes down to understanding Personalities and learning how to Communicate with them, and how each Personality is likely to “see” Profit.

Remember, under Stress, it is the Prime Personality Type that will tend to dominate the attitudes and Behavior of the individual. And making a Profit can be extremely Stressful as processes go.

The Director is seen as High Involvement, Rational Behavior, and “lives” in the top left hand quadrant of the grid.

The Socializer is seen as High Involvement, Emotional Behavior, and sits opposite the Director.

The Thinker is seen as Low Involvement, Rational Behavior, and sits in the bottom left hand quadrant.

And the Relator, who is Low Involvement, Emotional Behavior, sits opposite the Thinker Style.

Now, by understanding the Behavior of each Personality Type, we can establish how to maximize a Communication with them, and maximize their “Profit” potential.

High Involvement

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Low Involvement


Director Socialiser

Thinker Relator

If you remember, the Director Personality is:• Self-contained, and direct• Exhibits firmness in relationships• Is orientated towards productivity• Is concerned with The Bottom Line• They accept challenges• Take authority• Go head first into solving problems• Work by themselves• Come on cool & independent• They shape their environment• And they demand maximum freedom

The negative side of The Director Personality is that they are stubborn, impatience, are tough, have low tolerance for feelings and attitudes, have bad listening habits, and are naturally competitive at any level of Performance. To get the Director to make your


Bottom Line, they have to win, the numbers have to be exact, and covert financial support must be in the background.

The “rules” for talking to a Director were:

1. In the Communication, are the thinking, presentation, and attitude compatible with the importance of the action?


3. Does it provide enough food for thought?

4. Are the points made in the Communication logical and cogent?

5. Are the specifics, benefits or reasons-why real and important?

In simple terms, to get a Director Personality to take notice of your Profit Objective, you need to show them how important what you want done is — to them.

The Socializer Personality is a very different kettle of fish. They tend to:• Have a high tendency towards directness, and are

open• They are animated, lively and intuitive• They are impetuous and excitable, and they are• Not concerned about the bottom line at all.• They keep a fast pace• Act and decides spontaneously• Are the classic “ideas person”• Has little concern for facts, figures or detail• Can motivate and influence others, and they• Shape their environment

The Socialiser works quickly, constantly seeks approval and recognition, and they have a dynamic ability to think on their feet, and will use sheer energy as a means to getting acceptance.

The Negative Side of the Socializer Personality is that they can be seen as manipulative, they tend

to generalizes or exaggerates facts and figures, and they are not interested in detail, work intuitively, and take risks. To make the Bottom Line the Socializer must be implicitly engaged with detail support. They simply can never do it themselves, and are literally incapable of “seeing” all the detail that goes into a solid “Bottom Line” performance.”

Remember the Communication rules for the Socializer:





5. Does it express the right personality values?

6. Does it play on the right sense (of the five senses) in the right way?

To get the bubbly Socialiser to deliver on your Profit requirements you simply must engage them emotionally in the process, and show them how they will feel with the success of the process.

The Thinker Personality, because they reflect the “Low Involvement, Rational” quadrant, tend to be:• Indirect and self-contained• Concerned with analytical process• They are persistent and systematic• They are security conscious • Have a high need to be right• An over reliance on data collection• Ask about specifics• They tend toward perfection• Focuses on detail and the process of work• Becomes irritated by surprises and glitches• Emphasizes compliance and working within systems


• Promote quality in products and services• And they like organization and structure.

The Thinker works slowly, precisely by themselves, and is time disciplined. They prefer an intellectual work environment, and tend to be self-critical, skeptical, and they like to see things in writing.

The Negative Side of the Thinker Personality is that they can be seen as aloof, prickly, and critical, their actions and decisions tend to be slow and extremely cautious, and they can procrastinate. They also actively dislike People who are disorganized or illogical (as Socializers and Relators tend to be) and they do not like contact.

To get the Bottom Line, Thinkers must have specific, precise, logical and measurable objectives, spelled out in great detail, with supportive evidence.

Remember their Communication requirements:


2. Does it make one point inescapably clear?

3. Does the Communication demonstrate or prove its one point irresistibly, and irrefutably?

The Relator Personality sits on the opposite side to the Thinker, and has a completely unique set of Behaviors:• They are open and indirect• Relatively unassertive• Warm and reliable• They seek security• They take action and makes decisions slowly• They are the most People orientated of the four

Personality Styles• They has natural counselling skills and • Are good active listeners.

The Relator has a strong desire to avoid risky or unknown situations, and they always consider the feelings of others before taking action or making

a decision. Because of this trait, they tend to build strong networks of mutually supportive People, at many levels of any Organization.

The Negative Side of the Relator Personality is that they actively dislike interpersonal conflict so much that they sometimes say what they think others might like to hear. This is not a distortion of the facts as it were, but rather an overt concern for the other party to the degree that they will avoid any possibility of conflict or harm. Because of this, Relators are sometimes perceived as compliant and soft, and seen as unassertive, and overly sensitive.

To get the Relator to make the Bottom Line, they must understand and accept how the Profit process will impact on the People, and internally accept the consequences.

The Communication Rules for the Relator are:




There is another critical issue in the process of making a Profit — and that is Empowerment. Getting other People to make a Profit for you is all about Empowerment, and anyone can do it, especially a Leader.

Empowerment is a process — simple, fast, intuitive, and welcomed by everyone involved in making it happen. Companies that empower their staff do magic things — make more money, have more fun, and generally prosper. People who empower other People live rich lives, achieve great things, create great empires, and are looked up to as positive role models. Empowerment is as simple as giving control to the other Person unequivocally, and then supporting them as they do their best.


It’s often said that “Money makes Money”. Well, Companies and Organizations don’t do things, People do, as we’ve mentioned many times before. So if you really want to make a Profit, you’ve got to discover how to get your People to make it for you — because they come to realize that what it is they most want to do, is to produce for you.!Getting a Profit really comes down to excellence in Communication and Motivation, just like building a relationship. If you ask a hundred People what their view of Profit is, you are likely to hear any of the following observations:

• The Financial function is often seen as complex and confusing;

• It often cuts the legs out from under good People;

• It is time consuming, and often leads to criticism;• Financial reports are seen as daunting detail and of

little relevance to the writer.

In short, responsible Financial Control can generate fear of the System, instead of respect! The Leader, always interested in how People think and feel, recognizes this, and designs any Profit process in such a way that the Stress is minimized, and the performance is maximized.

And that’s a Profitable solution for everyone concerned!

16 The Secrets of Strategy in Orbit

Strategy is the art of creating a “Roadmap” of where you want to go, in either (or both) Personal or Organizational terms.

To be a Leader, you need a Personal Strategy. You need to map out all the things you need to do to acquire the skills you require to be a Leader.

To work in any Organization, you need both a Personal Strategy, and an Organizational Strategy. If you don’t know where you are going, how on Earth are you ever going to get there?

A Personal Strategy is no more or less than a series of statements about what you think you most want to do, and all the elements associated with making those pictures come true, in the context of a timeframe.

As we said previously, Time is not the enemy, it is the focusing mechanism for your planned actions.

If you are thinking in Organizational terms, we have agreed that for the Organization to be successful, you must first become successful. So you need to know (warts and all) what you really think the situation is — from your unique perspective.

You need to be able to assess your Strategic needs to achieve the Profit potential you desire — and this potential can be any of the multitude of different definitions of Profit that has meaning for you.

Creating a Strategy is your chance to discover exactly how you feel, and what you believe to be important about how things work, how they should work, and what you think should be done to progress either yourself or the Organization to your specific and direct benefit.

Either way, for a Strategy to work, you need to understand the relationships within which you are presently working, and wish to work within, in the future. This is sometimes referred to as a “Gap Analysis”, and is essentially simple.

Imagine three circles, where you are in the centre, your immediate environment is in the next ring, and the outside world is represented by the third ring.

So, starting with you (the inner ring), consider these seven questions:

1. Where are you now?

2. What is working for you?

3. What is not working for you?

The Secrets of Strategy in Orbit 16

4. What resources do you have (or you can get access to)?

5. Where do you want to be?

6. When in Time do you want to be there?

7. What resources will you need to get there?

Simple, isn’t it? The “Gap” of course is what you determine lies between the WWWW portion and the WTW. When we get People to complete this exercise we find that most don’t usually take account of themselves and their resources very often, and are usually surprised at how much they have going for them. The important thing is for you to describe your Picture in your words, and understand the gap between where you are now, and where you want to be.

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When you are comfortable with this, try the next step — asking these same seven questions but this time with you as the centre of your immediate environment (the second circle) — this can by your Family, Home, Social, Professional or Organization environment. It might be the immediate Team of Group with whom you work closely.








Now, how different were your answers? Were they a long way apart? Where did the famous four “D’s” crop up? (Remember the discontinuities, divergences, dichotomies, and discomforts?)

Before you venture further, have a really good look at the Gap between your expectation for yourself, and your expectation for your immediate environment. Is this a recipe for Stress? Does it need a Leader? Is there some amount of work to be done to bring the two Gaps closer together? Might your Strategy be to close these gaps before you set your sights on something grander?

When you’re completely happy with your observations and analysis, complete the next step — asking these same seven questions but this time with you as the centre of your larger environment (the outer circle), the outside world in which you, your Team, Group, Organization, or structure plays. In this case, you might be describing the whole Organization, a larger structure than your Team or Group, or just the outside world from your perspective.









And now you have yet another Gap, and possibility another set of the dreaded “D’s” to work through. But when you stop and look at this exercise in hindsight, you will quickly be able to identify where your greatest threats are likely to come from, and hence your greatest potential for the killer Stress!

We have found that the simple application of the WWWW + WTW process to be a foolproof way of involving every type of Personality Style in a Strategic process — from the charming Person who answers the phones, all the way up to the People who think they already know all the answers (without making the phone call!).

Interestingly, every Person who uses this process comes away thinking about all the things that they need to “make better” in order to fix the areas that they believe are not working. The process also seems to unlock a lot of the negative Attitudes about what can, and what they perceive can’t, be done within themselves or their Organization.

Attitudes are the result of three things — the information upon which the Attitude has been formed (whether or not it is true or false); your feelings towards the object; and your intent for action. A close, almost introspective examination of your role within your environment or Organization tends to “loosen up” such Attitudes, the first vital step in any managed Change Program. And of you don’t change, and then everything stays the same.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always got”.

The key element of any Strategic Plan is a clearly defined and stated Objective (or series of linked Objectives). It is imperative that any Objective be literal and singular in definition and intent, because People change slowly, and can only focus on one thing at a time when under Stress. If you do nothing else beyond this point, you at least have the basis for a future Strategic Plan, one that will enable you to march a long way down the road towards the Profit objective you have set — that of being a Leader.

Getting your Strategic plan up and running can also be a simple process.

If you remember, to create any successful managed Change Process, you need to achieve four simple things — you need to establish exactly what it is you really want to achieve (Literal Objective), and by when (Timeframe); what everyone’s Attitude is (current Mindset and belief structure); and what Motivates them to do the things they do well. Then you need to link these four things together using Self-interest and Self-worth, so that every Person fuels your success with their Ego.

Because everyone has different needs when they are in the Learning mode, we have developed a Model that we call the “Barrier Process” to assist you in visualizing what your Strategy might look like.

The Barrier Process has eight levels of activity, starting with what we have called the “Hypothetical Construct”. A Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do, so it seemed appropriate that our Strategic Model should start with the hypothetical statement that we would use as our Strategic Objective, or Vision Statement, or Mission Statement.

We have defined it as follows:

Hypothetical Construct — this is your agreed and verbalized Prime Objective, and may be expressed as a Mission Statement, Vision Statement, or Strategic Objective. It must have a time frame, and a metrics element, and it must be achievement orientated and focused on a position in the future where you currently are not.

The essence of involving metrics is that unless something can be measured, it cannot be changed, modified, or improved, and if we have learned anything over the years it is that a Strategy needs to be flexible, and constantly reviewed


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An example might be, “Within two years, I will have developed my skills so that I can will be regarded as an excellent Leader in my environment.”

Now, in any real Strategy or Strategic process, there will be barriers to your progress. Some will appear to be functional (systems, processes, and such like) and others will be purely Emotional. In truth, even the practical barriers will become Emotional, as you develop the ability to manage your Attitudes and Behaviours, and to master the processes and systems that you will need to force multiply your ability as a Leader. We define Barriers as the reasons, perceived and actual, that will prevent you from achieving your Objective. We look at seven areas (you can add to these if necessary, but this is the minimum to be scrutinized).Relationships - internally, externally.Beliefs and attitudes - internally, externally, and levels of TRUST.Processes - internally, externally, dependencies, and alignments.Systems - internally, externally, dependencies, and alignments.Communication - internally, externally, bi-directional genuine exchange of ideas with acknowledged feedback mechanisms.Organization - internally, externally, what are the structural issues.Environment - internally, externally.

Now, every Communication is an opportunity to Motivate, and the success of every transaction will be your ability to develop Relationships, Communicate, and Motivate.

The next element in the Barrier Process is therefore the Attention Getting Mechanisms — To make any significant Change, you have to get the attention of your Target Audience — internally, and externally. You must have credibility, Trust, deliverability, and sustainability. The AGM’s also need to be expressed in the language and frame of reference of your intended audience — they must see the ATM’s as important and relevant to them, not necessarily you. How will you firstly get, and then hold, the attention of your Target Audience?

Then there are the Trade Items — Every Relationship, internally or externally, is built on the exchange of perceived value — either Rational, or Emotional. What TI”s are you going to bring to the table, in the form of ideas, knowledge, values, expressions, vision, Motivation and Communication? What will you “trade” your TI’s for? What does your Target Audience expect? What don’t they expect? What would be of great benefit to them?

The next two levels are self-explanatory:

Information Management - Information is data, about things, People, events, relationships, opportunities, and transactions. How are you going to manage your Information in this new environment? What values will you ascribe to it? How will it be processed? Accessed? Updated?

Knowledge Management - Knowledge comes from doing something with information — experiential learning, interpretation, analysis, and applied tactics. Knowledge is the wealth and future of any Organization. How will you collect it? Store it? Value it? Access It? Update it? At what point will you share it, and towards what end? Is KM you potential for creating a significant competitive advantage?


Any Strategic process is involved quintessentially in the hearts and Minds of People, and People orientated processes, so we need to break our normal systems and pattern thinking models and venture far into the meld of “Mind over Matter”! And what matters next are Insights — Understanding where the Vested Power is, and what the Literal Truth is about your process, what Insights can you generate that will fuel your motivation, direction, and determination to succeed? How will you express these values to your Target Audience? How will you measure you progress against these Insights?

And last, but not least, we have The Three Critical Icons — An Icon is a picture or representation of something that we interpret and assign values to — and here we deal with the big three — the Rational, Emotional, and Transitional values that you will ascribe to your desired Process. What are they? How will you measure them? What do they mean?

When you can complete this picture, you will have an incredibly powerful Strategy. Leadership will be easy, and influencing all those around you will appear to be so easy you may find it hard to remember what used to Stress you!

Now, back to the Organizational viewpoint for a minute.

From an Organizational perspective, how well an individual is regarded by their peers, and subsequently rewarded within an Organization, depends entirely on his/her perceived and/or demonstrated Behavior within the Organization. It is mostly other People who make these critical value judgments, and very few People in any Organization Trust the value judgment of others, even when — and particularly — they are in a position of authority.

Mostly the value judgment is based on some form of numerical achievement level — profit achieved, units per hour, hours worked, etc. It is often perceived that Organizations have a tendency to “stack the figures”, casting great doubt on the credibility of numerical targets. Organizations that strive overtly for bottom-line performance do so at the expense

of the Emotional satisfaction of their People — and often at the expense of their jobs.

Consequently, People are rarely Motivated by numerical targets. For this reason, we developed a patented cognitive system of value measurement (CBVI) where each Person is encouraged to rate themselves, from their perspective (but with an eye on how they believe others might see them to be).

In effect, this produces a “Truth” table, which enables you to honestly track your real value to the Organization, outside the normal but severely limiting numerical tendency of trying to measure achievement by counting things. Better still, it is a “Self” evaluation, not one done as part of a review or other formal process. It is a critical adjunct to any Strategic process, in that it allows you to see where you really are within your immediate environment, and then within the larger environment of the Organization or the outside world.

The four elements that make up the Value Index (VI) Model are: • Potential• Performance• Profit• Behavior

Using the VI Model, you judge your Value, not the “system”.

Potential is the experience you brought to the Organization at the time of your initial hiring, plus the anticipated promise of your future performance.

Performance is the level of contribution you are actually making to the Organization.

Profit is how well you really are doing within the Organization, but expressed over fourteen metrics, and not just financial.

Behavior is how you go about the daily task of contributing your performance to the Organization.


We define Behavior as those physical habits, activities, properties and Emotions displayed by a Person, as observed by another Person. The key word here is “observed”. Behavior that is not observed within the Organization is irrelevant to the Organization (but not necessarily irrelevant to the Person).

There are several immutable rules concerning Behavior:

1. It is your observed Behavior (as perceived by others) that causes the greatest problems within an Organization — problems that lead to Stress.

2. Behavior can easily be changed. To change Behavior, you must change belief structures and consequently Attitudes.

3. To want to change Behavior, first you must believe in the need to change.

4. Only you can generate belief (in anything).

5. You can only believe (and will only believe) in things that suit your purpose.

6. The strength of your commitment to anything is derived from the strength of your belief in it.

When you use the VI Model:

• You can quickly see where there is potential for improvement.

• You are making the judgment, not someone else.• You will be making the determination to make any

Change, you will not be forced to do it.• You will measure the degree of change, and • You will assess the value of the change.

Use a scale of 6 or less, 7, 8, 9, and 10 for how you would rate yourself using the VI Model, and discover for yourself exactly where you are now, personally, within your immediate environment, and then within the greater environment of either your Organization, or the outside world.

Potential

At your primary interview for your job, how would you rate, from <6 to 10, where 10 represents a maximum (or excellence), your...

Experience Potential Keenness for the position Feeling for the Organization Feeling for the interviewer Belief in yourself Belief in your ability Vision for the future Ability to fit in Ability to become a “Star” Ability to be a long-term employee The interviewer’s impression of you Performance

Today, how would you rate, from <6 to 10, where 10 represents a maximum (or excellence) your... Experience Potential Keenness for the position Feeling for the Organization Belief in yourself Belief in your ability Vision for the future How well do you fit in How much of a “Star” have you become Are you a long-term employee Do you contribute to the Organizational culture Do you reflect the Organizational culture How proud are you of the Organization How keen are you to buy shares ProfitToday, how would you rate from <6 to 10 where 10 represents a maximum (or excellence) your …

Monetary reward Experience reward Exposure reward Challenge reward


Emotional reward Stimulus reward Vision reward Potential reward Market value Organizational value Self-worth value Achievement value Potential value Realistic value Behavior

Today, how would you rate from <6 to 10 where 10 represents a maximum (or excellence) your …

Willingness to help your peers Willingness to help your peers at the expense of your profit Support for management Support for Organizational goals Support for Organizational culture Loyalty to the Organization Verbal support for the Organization Verbal support for your peers Contribution to the Organization beyond job description Willingness to sacrifice self for your peers Willingness to sacrifice self for the Organization Willingness to sacrifice self for your subordinates Trust in the Organization Trust in your peers

Value Index Indicator (Vi)

Today, how would you rate, from <6 to 10 where 10 represents a maximum positive feeling your propensity to...

Hire yourself for your current job Hire your peers for their current job (by individual) Peer # 1 (no names) Peer # 2 Peer # 3

Peer # 4 Peer # 5 Hire your subordinates for their current jobs(by individual)

Sub # 1 Sub # 2 Sub # 3 Sub # 4 Sub # 5 Purchase the Organization (assume capacity) Keep the management intact Keep all your peers Keep all your subordinates Keep the same culture Keep the same Organizational objectives To apply what you have discovered from the Collative Behavioural Value Index, simply mark any element that scores a “7” or less. These are areas that need your urgent consideration, in formulating your Strategy. Not to mention the fact that these elements are most probably the areas of greatest Stress to you!

By now it should have become obvious that developing a Strategy for anything requires you to really get down and dirty with things like Relationships, Performance, Communication, Group Dynamics, Profit, Motivation and Personality Styles.

When we considered the many facets of Motivation, we discovered that to understand how to Motivate someone, you first have to understand how to Motivate yourself. And because you are already highly Motivated, it does not mean that those around you are.


For a Person to be truly successful, they must achieve their goals as judged by themselves. To be truly successful, a Person must achieve the “Goal beyond the Goal”.

While your vision of your ultimate destination is what fuels your effort, it is the journey that you will take to get there that will be the most satisfying.

The goal you must have beyond your goal, is one based on the satisfaction and majesty of this journey — otherwise you will get where you are going, and find a hollow victory!

There is nothing more soul destroying than standing on the pinnacle of success, and finding yourself alone and empty. Just ask any elite athlete who has worked for years to win Gold, does it, then finds that they are at a loss as to what to do with themselves next. What they lacked was a Strategy that included winning the Gold as a mere step in their Life journey to becoming a Leader. People are who and what they see themselves to be. The sum total of their will, and what they do. To change the possibilities for a Person, you must change the way they see themselves and their prospects.

Like Leadership, you must hold up the mirror and show them all that they could be. Then you must help them to plan a Strategy to get there.

The real business of Leadership is Personality driven, not Profit or achievement driven. It is your strength of Personality, and the strength of your convictions that will make you successful against all odds. You respond to what excites you, not necessarily to what others may get excited about. You understand now how important a Strategy will be in shaping your World into the Peaceful environment you want it to be.

For the Organization (Team or Group) within which you work to become successful, you must either become the focusing Personality (the Leader), or learn how to:

• Teach others how to achieve their “Goal beyond the Goal”

• Create a non-threatening but positively competitive environment

• Guide them to their success for their reasons, not yours.

• Be a Leader with everyone, and infect everyone with the need to in turn be a Leader with everyone they come in contact with.

To achieve this task, you must:• Help them to see themselves as successful

contributors to the Peacemaking process• Help them to judge their success by their

standards.• Help them to recognize their strengths.• Show them how to Motivate those around them.

By example, show them how to be winners, and Leaders.

You can do this, all you have to do is choose to do so. The secrets of “Elite” Leadership are simple to discover - talk is soothing, action is invigorating, Leader-ship is inspiring, so your Challenge is:• To Lead so that others might follow.• To Motivate so that others might be inspired.• To promote ownership, so that others might

succeed for their reasons, in their Time.• Understand that you having the solution is never

the answer — giving Ownership of the solution is always the answer.

Make mistakes — remember Einstein believed he was right only 3% of the Time — and that the sheer quality of the 3% more than made up for the other 97%! Are you better than Einstein?

Attitudes are formed in respect to an Attitude object, and very much based on what you believe. Always check that you have the facts, and not a bunch of assumptions. How you feel towards the Attitude object is vital — because feelings always dictate how a Personality will act.


Your intent for Action is crucial, and is almost totally influenced by your “Attitude”. So when you find it hard to do something, relate to another Person, or get enthusiastic about rising to the occasion, remember that you are the Leader, you have your Strategy, so implement it.

Remember HOT, BREATHE, SMILE and that the difference between today and tomorrow is only what you make it to be.

Use your energy — the bright light always draws the Moth — as the bright performer always draws the willing support.

Provide your effort and energy selflessly, so that others are invigorated by your presence, and in awe of your performance.

A “you-before-me” Attitude fills the tank of Life, and because it feels so good, everyone will pass it on to all they meet.

And remember always that CONFIDENCE IS CONTAGIOUS!

Support roles can make or break a star performance. By taking the People in those roles for granted, you effectively depower your total potential, by standing alone in a crowded marketplace.

By embracing them, supporting them, and using them as force multipliers, your ability to be a Leader is enhanced considerably.

In effect, they contribute their energy and skills to your effort, allowing you to maximize your ability and reach as a Leader.

To maintain this synergistic relationship, you must always show them how they have contributed to your success, and reward them emotionally for it. The more vital a part of your effort they see themselves to be, the greater will be their support of you.

There has never been a successful Leader in any generation who got there by magic. Magic does play a part, but in the preparation of your mind, and the positioning of your inner-stance. Magic can fuel your self-worth, self-image, and your ego, but it must always be seen for what it is — a powerful, addictive drug, with a long downside. Magic and luck always surround the “Elite” performer — because the harder you work, the finer your skills, the more magic and luck you seem to generate!

Strategy is essential for developing all the skills and habits that lead to generating more than your fair share of Magic, and if you have your Strategic Roadmap out and ready, then you will truly be able to be a Leader wherever you go.

And remember, Strategy is knowing what to do when there seems to be nothing to do — and there is always the opportunity to be a Leader with someone, somewhere, sometime.

17 The Second Pregnant Pause in Orbit

Attitude

Performance


The Twelve Critical Elements of Performance

VisionKnowledge

SkillsAbilities

Awareness

Belief &Confidence

Behaviour

Trust

Motivation

Environment

Communication Training

Leadership

This Model illustrates the relationship between the “Head” and “Heart” elements of Performance, and how they all rely on the bedrock of Behavior — Leadership. If you are to be a Leader, then you will have to understand this Model, and

The Second Pregnant Pause in Orbit 17

be able to work your way around it as you create processes that are intended to promote Change and be a Leader.

Leadership is the foundation upon which any process that involves People must be built. True Leadership is the critical ingredient in developing your skills as a Leader, because as you move forward to Be a Leader, you will have to lead from the front! In essence, it will be how you develop your True Leadership capabilities and capacities that will determine how good a Leader you will become.

True Leadership is all about managing Change. In a way, it’s the only real hallmark of Performance — how well any Change Management process is actually implemented. How well People reflect ownership and commitment, and how much energy they put into realizing the Strategic Objectives you have set.

Change Management is probably the most difficult of all the Performance attributes. It is the one area where nothing can be hidden, and mostly everything will be scrutinized and potentially challenged. “Change” per se, is a hot topic! Everyone talks about it, has an opinion on it, but in truth, probably understands very little about what “Change” is really about. True Leadership is being able to sift out the hysterical and add in the value to any Change Management process — so that People immediately see the benefit to them in their terms — of participating in, and adding their energy, to the process.

And introducing successful Leadership is the greatest Change process of all!

How to get your Objectives and priorities right is covered earlier in the discussion on Strategy. The process is simple — ask these key questions — WWWW and WTW — then evaluate the differences between your two “Objective Terminals” and plan in your resultant Strategy.

True Leadership requires strong Strategic skills — as every successful Change Management process is

determined by a clear, simple, literal set of Objectives. Objectives that Motivate others to give freely of their energy and commitment!

Remember, a Strategic Plan is a “roadmap” of your intentions to change your performance picture for the future. Your success will be totally dependent on how much you believe in your picture, and how emotionally strong you are, in the face of any obstacle.

In an Organizational context, Change Management can be “mapped” — as a series of stages, or processes:

1. Initiate the Process (Strategy — Picture of the future)

2. Understand the issues and processes involved (Barrier Process)

3. Evaluate the processes (Group Dynamics, Communication, etc.)

4. Review the assumptions and make decisions (True Leadership)

5. Implement the process (Leadership)

You should review at every step, and be prepared to be flexible as you implement your Strategy.

At the Individual level, it is important for the True Leader (Leader) to understand that the principles that apply to an Organization going through a Managed Change process are exactly the same as those the Individual should consider for any Personal Change Management process. If necessary, create your own map of potential Change activities.

There are eight immutable Laws regarding Change Management — the first is “The Power of One©”. This is a very simple concept in that the absolute success of any Change Management process can be accurately judged by the commitment, belief and input of the least involved Person in the process.


The second is “The Power of Sustainability©”. No Change Management process can survive and succeed if it cannot be sustained over Time. This is yet another test of True Leadership — shaping Time as the focusing mechanism, rather than the enemy!

True Leadership is understanding the difference between perception and reality, and being able to help others change their Attitude and beliefs. To make something come true for someone else, you have to put the context, information, possibilities, problems and opportunities in their terms. They have to have Ownership of the process — it has to be theirs — not yours — and the stronger their belief and Ownership, the greater will be your success.

The other six immutable Laws regarding Change Management:

3. Specific belief in the necessity for Change

4. Ownership of the process by everyone involved

5. Multidirectional real-time Communication

6. Vested authority and responsibility

7. Perceivable benefits for all concerned

8. The Change Strategy delivers on the promise

A successful Change Paradigm is totally consistent with the four elements of any successful Training Program:1. Motivation / Reasons — Cause or need for

Training (Action)

2. What to do (Strategy and Tactics)

3. How to do it (Processes and activities)

4. How well are you doing it (Review, Feedback, Relationships)

This is the essence of True Leadership — continual searching for improvement and added value, leading your People to fulfilment and reward. It is also the heart of any successful Change Management process and the essence of Leadership.

The Chaos Theory and True Leadership go hand-in-hand! Hard to imagine, but true. Every Process that involves Human Systems is subject to the laws of Chaos Theory. People Systems can be managed, Motivated, and measured, but they can never really be “controlled”. True Leadership is about Empowerment, and Ownership — and they are the only two assets the True Leader has that have any real power in modifying the effects of the Chaos Theory on any Process.

True Leadership is about creativity, the exact opposite of the obvious! True Leaders seek out ways and means to make things work better — easier — and deliver more reward to all those who participate. True Leadership is Motivational — invigorating — stimulating — and always innovative.

Take time to review the “balance” issues that may be present in your Change Management process. This is a critical factor in obtaining the two imperatives mentioned earlier — “The Power of One©” and “The Power of Sustainability©”. Ownership by every Individual, and a sustainable program are very difficult to achieve if there are serious balance issues for either yourself or your People. True Leadership is about balance, and finding the “node of reality” in out-of-balance situations that lead to great Stress. And the heart of good balance and reality is Trust.

“The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.”

(Henry Lewis Stimson (1867–1930).

and …


“At the bottom of the heart of every human being from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is

something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience

of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will

be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.

(Simone Weil 1909–43).

What you don’t believe in or don’t trust you can’t do. Trust is the tenth element of Individual Performance, and the first element of the “Truth” Table:

T – Trust R – Respect U – Understanding T – Truth H – Honesty

TRUST Is a two way street — I trust as much as I am trusted — I trust more AFTER I am TRUSTED — The more trusted I am the more I will trust — I like being seen as a trusted member of the organization.

There are three distinct levels of Trust and Performance expectation you must be aware of:

Self — How trusted you are as an individual


PersonalitygeneratedTrust andObservedPerformanceBehaviour


Organizationalgenerated Trustand RelatedPerformance –perceived assupport forYOU


Organizational — How trusted you perceive you are within your Team, Group, or Organization.


OrganizationalgeneratedTrust andRelatedPerformance –perceived assupport forYOU


Environmentalgenerated Trustand PerformanceExpectation for100% deliveryof all Tasks andComplianceRequirements

And Environmental — How trusted you are as a result of being associated with your Team, Group, or Organization.

The four “D’s” crop up here often, and a Gap Analysis of the different levels of perceived Trust from one Level to another is often quite revealing. Needless to say, any inconsistency between levels of Trust generates massive Stress in the individual, and needs to be addressed immediately in any thing you do.

If you always maintain a HOT process — Honest, Open, and Transparent, then you will always inspire Trust, just as you will if you always do as you say you will do.


Perhaps the finest attribute of True Leadership is the ability to act and behave in a totally consistent manner, reflecting the espoused values and Behaviors that you and your Organization thrive on. It is this consistency that People sense, and consequently, leads to great Trust in the Individual. Without the Trust of everyone involved in any Change Management process (or Peacemaking process), it will fail.

This is the single most difficult aspect of Trust in any Organization, and where True Leadership really comes into its own. The perception of how well an Organization supports its People in times of crisis is directly proportional to the perception of Trust levels within the Organization. True Leadership is about ensuring that the Individual is supported with the appropriate resources and systems to maximize their Individual Performance under any conditions — to the benefit of the Organization and the Individual!

For example, what is Client Expectation verses Reality? Clients always seem to want and expect 100%!

Yet we know that any People System can never sustain 100% performance without extraordinary resources and support — and this becomes a real test for True Leadership. How can you deliver 100%, knowing the cyclic nature of Performance? What can you negotiate with your Clients that will enable you to meet their best expectations, without killing your People? What are the real, sustainable deliverables? How can you earn the Trust of your People under these circumstances? Do you understand the Stress reducing nature of these questions, and the potential for Leadership?

Without Trust you have nothing. True Leadership is about Trust. Economic Management is about Trust.Generating it. Nurturing it. Mothering its development Organization-wide. The Barrier Process can help you to establish what are your current levels of Trust; where your Trust paradigms are; where your Trust deficiencies are.

Once you have the Trust issues in hand, it is time for the True Leader to look at the Motivation required

to achieve the individual buy-in to the Change Management process.

“Motivation — Let it be your constant method to look into the design of People’s actions, and see

what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom

the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.”

(Marcus Aurelius 121–180).

Motivation is not what comes at you from the outside. Motivation is what you generate internally from what comes at you from the outside. True Leadership comes from understanding this critical distinction, and acting accordingly. You can provide external Motivational elements to any process, but it is what the Individual “takes” into their own value and Behavior system that will ultimately determine their level of Motivation. And when Motivation is internalized it is sustainable.

Motivation is dependant on ten of the critical Elements of Performance:

VISIONKnowledge

SkillsAbilitiesTraining

Communication Environment Awareness

TrustLEADERSHIP

Motivation is critical for True Leadership. With the advent of the “click-and-go” era, there is so much information available about seemingly everything that it is very easy to confuse Motivation with Attitude (Attitude formed around subjective beliefs). True Leadership promotes this distinction — and allows the Individual (and Group) to clearly understand the real Motivation for the Change Management


process — and the benefits to all concerned — in their terms. It actively discourages Attitude formation around gossip, fiction and rumor, reducing self-induced Stress, and prolonging the quality of Life!

Back to Leadership for a minute —

“The real leader has no need to lead he is content to point the way.”

(Henry Miller 1891–1980).

And

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common:

it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of

their People in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership

(John Kenneth Galbraith 1908 - ).

True LEADERSHIP is about tomorrow — True LEADERS attract the PEOPLE to their VISION — a VISION that carries all BEYOND TODAY. This is the very essence of creating a Strategy — a “roadmap” of your future picture.

True Leadership is ensuring that every aspect of the Change Management Process is congruent with the Vision, Direction, Motivation, and Strategy. One voice, one set of words, one story, singular, consistent belief generated by sustainable, single-minded attention to detail and delivery. Wherever anyone goes, they get the same story, feeling, attitude, and belief in the process by everyone concerned. This is a hallmark of True Leadership in action!

Remember the Communication Dictate - (C1) “It is the prime responsibility of every member of any Team structure (or Management) to either lead, follow, or get out of the way”.

There are four LEADERSHIP Styles, and you can easily position them on the Personality Grid.

1. Directing: Provides specific instructions and closely supervises task accomplishment

2. Coaching: Continues to direct and closely supervise task accomplishment, but also explains decisions, solicits suggestions, and supports progress

3. Supporting: facilitates and supports subordinates efforts toward task accomplishment and shares responsibility for decision making with them

4. Delegating: Turns over responsibility for decision making and problem solving to subordinates

True Leadership is about managing these styles in your People, and balancing them in the Teams or Groups you form.

The Stanford Model of Learning suggests that there are four “stages” we go through when learning something new — Awareness, Knowledge, Understanding and Action. Think back to the Four Learning Styles, and the Four Stages of Learning, and relate them to this model.

You will start to see a remarkable synergistic relationship evolve!

Learning Model (Stanford University)

Action Awareness

Understanding Knowledge


There are also four distinct phases we go through when Learning - Unconscious Incompetence - Conscious Incompetence - Conscious Competence - and Unconscious Competence. Coincidentally, there are also four different ways we learn.

Four stages. Four phases. Four different types. Two “truisms” — People only learn what they want to learn; and they only learn it when they want to learn

This is the real test of True Leadership! This is also why Motivation is so important in any Change Management process as well as having the commitment and ownership of everyone involved. The Learning process also underlines why any Strategy must be singular and literal in intent. Remember, People do things for their reasons, not yours, and People are unlikely to be Motivated by your needs and desires.

People learn only what they want to learn, and People learn only when they want to learn.

One of the tools available to the True Leader — the Leader — is the concept of “Two Profits”. Earlier we said that to most People, the types of things that Motivate them are Emotional, and not Rational.

We also discovered that the different Personality Styles need different mixes of Rational and Emotional “cues” to be able to establish their belief systems, and build their Attitudes, and Trust paradigms

Delivering the “Two Profits” provides the perfect balance to enable every Personality no matter where they may be positioned on the Grid to “buy in” to your Change Management process.

And a fast track to Leadership.

The Concept of Two Profits

Rational Product

Logical Performance

Physical Delivery

Tangible Product Benefits

Tactile Proof of Performance

Clear Evidence of Completion

Emotional Product

Personality Performance

Empathetic Delivery

Intangible Product Benefits

Attitudinal Proof ofPerformance

Strong Feeling ofParticipation

The concept of the “Two Profits” comes from the dichotomous relationships observed on the Performance Interaction Grid, where we constantly see the potential for conflict and Stress. In simple terms, True Leadership is understanding that there must be an Emotional “product” to match every Logical, Rational, or Physical “product”. Satisfaction is an Emotional feeling — a physical product is a thing — or Attitude Object. How we think and feel about this object becomes our driving force — the stronger the feeling, the stronger the drive. This is what True Leadership promotes — a strong, positive Emotional connection to every rational Change Management Process.

True Leadership is also the art of understanding Group Dynamics, and reducing the inherent Stress that is present in any Team or Group situation.

The simple truth is that the moment you have more than one Person involved in any Process, you invoke the Laws of Group Dynamics!

Groups tend to magnify any flaw or weakness in any Strategy, and invariably create a measure of resistance to any Change process that they do not have real and total Ownership of. Another Test of True Leadership!

And as we have discovered, in any Organization, achieving the “bottom-line” is the Motive force, financial control is the accelerator, and Teams of People (Groups) are the wheels on which the Organization runs.


Because Organizations don’t do things, People do, it stands to reason that an Organization’s success very much depends on how well its People do the things they do.

The basic property of any Group is its level of cohesiveness, or the degree to which members are attracted to it. What attracts People to Groups?

True Leadership! People group themselves by their Attitudes and beliefs. They link their minds, ambitions, desires, hopes, and actions by sharing a common Vision of what they might achieve together. True Leadership provides this linking Vision by providing the Strategy by which the Group can achieve their desired outcome — your Objective. To make this “leap” the Group must have real Ownership of the Strategic Process. It must be theirs, and they must believe that it is theirs.

When cohesiveness is high, members are Motivated to participate in the Group’s activities and to help the Group attain its goals and objectives.

The management of Groups (Teams) is simplified by the application of the well-recognized and tested concept of (C3) - Command, Control, and Communication.

The Command (C1) hypothesis stipulates that:• “In any Organization there is a visible hierarchical

structure to which the individual can easily relate”.• “It is the prime responsibility of every member of






• “A successful Communication (exchange of ideas) is said to have taken place only when the receiver can demonstrate that they can implement the required work to complete the object of Communication (by Feedback)”.

The Successful implementation of the (C3) Communication dictates, is in itself the precursor to a successful Strategy — and proof of True Leadership. There is an interesting point that underlines these statements, and that is that the effectiveness of a decision is the quality of the decision multiplied by the acceptance of it.

Quality x Acceptance = Effectiveness of the Outcome

One last point on the concept of Change Management — it is easy to get lost in the detail of the process. That’s why you need Milestones (small, digestible steps with achievement markers) agreed at the outset to objectively measure your progress against. This is yet another reason why your Objectives must be singular and literal in intent. True Leadership is reflected by the smooth passage of Change within an Organization, and the demonstrated Ownership and commitment of the People involved.

Any Organizational development — Managed Change process — Personal development or Strategic Initiative — is made up of a series of processes — simple steps that involve research, People skills, and understanding of how People think about and react to Change. All bound inexorably together by True Leadership!

There is one other important skill you must develop as a True Leader on the path to Leadership. And that is to understand the relationships that drive your Belief Structure — and underpin your Attitude formation and consequent Behavior.


Belief Structure

OurVision Values

OurCulture

OurIntent

Behaviour

Knowledge

OurIdentity

When you create your Vision, you are combining your Knowledge and your Values. Vision is always about the Picture of your future that you most want to make true. It is the prime driver in Performance, and it is the first thing a True Leader develops.

Your Intent is based on your Knowledge and your Behavior, and if there is any inconsistency between these two elements, then you can expect to become Stressed.

Culture is a combination of your Values and your Behavior, and again, any inconsistency leads to great Stress.

Because Identity is a combination of Intent, Vision, and Culture, it is easy to see where the greatest component of Stress might come from.

Use this Model when you are first thinking about your Strategy for any Change Management process, and make sure that you have consistency and sustainability in every element.

Ban the dreaded “D’s” forever — and be a Leader!

18 Take Four in Orbit

Here comes another style Change, and it’s all because of the dreaded “ISM’S”!

Capitalism. Communism. Racism. Truism. Criticism. Cynicism. Fanaticism. Catholicism. Paganism.

Mysticism. Sexism. And so on, and on. While these words are not inherently evil themselves, what they do to your Mind is.

Each word has the power to dredge up in your Unconscious, Subconscious, and Conscious Mind all the knowledge your belief structure relies on, true of false. Your experience will have given you a healthy (or unhealthy) bias, and you will instantly form “Attitudes” based on what you recollect.

Your Attitudes will drive your Feelings and Emotions, and depending on the strength of what you feel, your ability to observe or inculcate new information will be limited to some extent.

Nothing has happened. No event has taken place. All that has occurred is that you have, in this case, read a particular “Word” — let’s say “Racism”, for example.Your mind suddenly fills with images and thoughts, feelings and Emotions, all centered on your selectively filtered previous experiential learning.

This is what Language is all about. Iconic values, symbols, and Mindsets and pictures which make up your memory store. We have learned a lot about Communication, and the principles involved in Leadership, Motivation, and Personality. We understand that each Person is going to learn things at their own rate, and for their own reasons. We also have seen how specific Personality Styles have “rules” which enable us to Communicate with them efficiently.

Use of Language is something as a Leader you must pay great attention to. Just using one wrong word to a Director can completely tilt a discussion away from your Objective, as they intuitively “flinch” from it. They may not even be aware of doing it, but subconsciously, the damage will be done, and instead of listening to you with a clear Mind, they will have their defenses up, actively looking for the next “ugly” word.

The problem with a Socializer is that the wrong word will send them off into an Emotional journey of mental fantasies, and their ears will be more closed than

Take Four in Orbit 18

open! The Thinker will immediately start an internal debate with themselves, and not hear anything more that you are saying. And the poor Relator will lose the thread of the conversation by trying to work out how to help you overcome your gaff.

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a word. It can be a concept or idea that you are trying to Communicate. A hint — before starting any Communication, do a reality check — find out where everyone’s Attitudes are, where they are Emotionally, and what they are most likely to be receptive to. Use stories to defuse any perception of wrongful intent, and always depersonalize the Communication and invite participation and Ownership in the Idea or Concept.

Find someone to “Own” the conversation, and let them set the pace for you.

See if you can find some clues to how to do this in what follows.

19 The Secret of the Swimming Pool in Orbit

Leadership is a bit like a swimming pool — it has definite limits, beyond which you can’t go. Only you can choose to swim in the deep end, or wallow in the shallows. Or just stand on the edge and watch everyone else have all the fun.

Consider this story…

Clint Eastwood, resplendent in his Airline Captain’s uniform, four gold stripes proudly worn on each arm, struts purposefully into the cockpit of the Boeing 707.

“Good morning Captain,” the Second Officer says, his neck held at a strange angle by the blunt barrel of a heavy automatic pistol. The terrorist smiles, his face a mass of scars and ugliness, and gestures for Clint to take his seat.

“Yes, good morning, my Captain,” he says mockingly, resting back on the edge of the dead Flight Engineer’s table. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, get us airborne as quickly as you can.” Clint squints manfully at the camera, settles into his seat, and then turns to his Co-pilot.

“Let’s get this rolling,” he says through clenched teeth, pushing the four throttles to the firewall. The big jet stutters, trembles, then slowly begins to move as the power of the flame spewing engines surges through the airframe.

In a matter of seconds, the jet is roaring down the runway at over 100 knots, nibbling at the air, getting ready to fly. For some reason, call it instinct if you will, the Co-pilot is alerted by Clint’s decided lack of airline procedure, and casually asks out of the corner of his mouth, “Have you ever flown an aircraft before, Captain?”

“Not a one,” Clint replies, jamming his feet on the brakes, screwing the huge whale of an aircraft off into the grass verge. As all Hell breaks out in the cockpit, terrorist fighting Clint, Clint fighting the aircraft, the Co-pilot fighting everybody, we are left with the certain feeling that it sometimes takes just a little more than putting on the uniform with the command stripes, to acquire the necessary skills we need in Life!

Luckily, all this happened in a movie, and, yes, the bad guys get shot to bits, the passengers are rescued, and Clint gets to carve another two or three notches on the handle of his 44 magnum pistol (the most powerful hand-gun in the world!).

Unfortunately, Life is not a movie, with endless rehearsals, and the chance to do things over again and again, until they are perfect. And you can’t just leave the bits you don’t like out, as discards on the cutting room floor. Everything you do affects your soul, and leaves a residue of experience. Every bit of experience contributes either a positive or a negative value to your Leadership ability, and your innate ability to be a Leader.

The Secret of the Swimming Pool in Orbit 19

Now experience, by itself, is like so much worthless baggage. You have to internalize the experience, and make it part of your truth, for you to get any real value out of anything you do.

What has all this got to do with Clint pretending to be a jet pilot? Or swimming pools?

Plenty.

Just as putting on the Captain’s uniform didn’t empower our hero to fly the plane, doing things for the sake of doing them will not empower you, unless you internalize the experience gained in the doing. Internalize (enclose, enfold, take in, make your own) the process, suck in and chew on the understanding, discard what you don’t want, then keep all the good bits. That’s how you develop your Leadership ability. Not by striving for or wearing the mantle of recognition, but by obtaining the skills and the experience to do the job. By trying and failing, making mistakes, learning, and then improving as you exercise your HOT process, you BREATH, SMILE, and get ready to RACE.

A swimming pool (a traditional one) has four sides, two of which are long, and two of which are short. A deep end and a shallow end, and sometimes a set of stairs allowing easy access. When the pool is empty, you have this huge hole in the ground, which always appears to be larger to the eye than it really is. If you should walk into the hole, an ominous creepy feeling pervades your mind, as the pool seems to dominate your spirit. The lower you go, the further into the pool, the more hollow your voice sounds, and the heavier the air feels.

All that changes when the pool is full. It’s soul-tugging emptiness is hidden, and the natural buoyancy of the water helps you to float on the surface. You actually have to work hard at getting down to the bottom, and staying there, without some compensating weights to hold you down.

The hole is the same dimension, it still is as large as it seemed, but now the very nature of the pool

has been altered by filling it with water — fulfilling its destiny, as it were. (Allowing it to be used for the purpose for which it was designed and built).

Empty, the pool looms as a discontented object, unfulfilled, lacking in purpose, and poses a danger to all.

Full, it sparkles with joy and fulfillment, encouraging participation, and revels in being used to its fullest extent.

Your soul suffers the same fate as the empty swimming pool whenever you deny it your truest endeavors. Take away its substance, deny it stimulation, reduce your experiential learning, and your soul takes on all the gloomy, despondent, pervading feeling of the huge empty hole in the ground.

But fill your soul with stimulation, new experiences, exquisite samples of your intellect and your skills, and it flourishes and provides an endless stream of energy to your internal batteries, fuelling your Leadership ability.

Just as it is the empty hole in the ground that must be filled before the true purpose of the pool can be realized, the emptiness within you must also be filled so that you can achieve your true purpose.

Leadership.

Once in the pool, you have several choices. You can play, or you can swim “laps”. You can swim between the short sides, or stream up and down between the long ones. You can splash around in the shallows, or power around in the deep end.

You can swim underwater, until you need to BREATHE again, or you can stay on the top.

Or you can just sit quietly off to one side, and watch the wind and the sun play with the water, in peace and tranquility.

The swimming pool is very much like Life. There are many, many choices, and just as many ways to benefit from them, or not, as the case may be. The


point is, it is your Life to determine what you will do with it, but determine something you must. And it is always your choices that determine what your Life will be.

If you choose to float on the surface of the pool, eventually you will have to either get out, or accept drowning. You have a limited amount of energy, which needs replenishing. Simply put, you can’t float forever. And if you try, you diminish your Life force progressively to the point beyond which it cannot sustain you any longer.

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you choose to cruise through Life, you rob yourself of the very essence you need to survive and prosper. Likewise, if you allow yourself to become Stressed, you sink into a cycle or pattern of negative Behavior that eventually kills you before your time.

But if you float for a predetermined period of time, allowing your mind and body to rest, you are taking advantage of one of the greatest benefits given to mankind.

The ability to actively choose to regulate the environment around you, to suit your purpose-designed activity. Deliberately, and skillfully.

This is the same process as deliberately reducing your exposure to self-induced Stress, by using all that you have discovered here to manage the environment as a Leader.

If you choose to swim long laps, you create the environment within which you can condition your physical state, and enhance your intellect. Controlled physical exertion causes the chemical factory in your body to release millions of naturally beneficial stimulants, helping your body to grow and achieve its potential.

Because your body (the walls of the pool that contain your emptiness) is actively benefiting, your intellect is freed up to spark and refurbish, enhancing your creativity and your ambition. Feel good, act good, look good, and you will be good, at Leadership.

By choosing the long sides, you are setting your sights on the big target, the one that requires the greatest effort, and promises the greatest reward. And you are using your body to enhance your Leadership ability, but not in a physical way. It is the synergy between the physical effort and your intellect that provides the stimulus for your Leadership ability.

And you can’t have one without the other.

If you splash around in the shallows, eventually you will become tired, and flop down, feeling heavy and discontented. The water is not able to support your weight, and you feel uncomfortable because you are neither in it nor on it. It’s like indecision and Stress- it robs you of your power, because too much of your energy is being consumed trying to make up for what you haven’t got control of.

If you choose to play in the deep end, then all of a sudden you can float (choice one), swim (choice two), dive to the bottom (choice three), do laps (choice four), or just play around with a combination of any of the possibilities (choice five). But you have to make a choice, or you will have to retreat, by getting out of the pool. If you don’t, you will eventually drown.

The upshot of this is that if you focus on your ability to become a Leader, but choose to muddle your way through, either the process or the attainment of your goals may well sink you — physically, or mentally. It isn’t good enough to just jump into the deep end, you need to know what you are going to do once you are there. You need a strategy, and from this strategy, you must develop some tactics.

Strategy is simply knowing what to do when there is apparently nothing to do. Tactics is doing something when there is something to do. So first, the plan — what is the goal you are going to achieve? Become a Leader. And then the action — how are you going to achieve it.

If you want all the Leadership ability that you are capable of generating, you have to develop it like any


other energy force - you need a container (your body and your intellect), you need a source (the learning and experiencing process), you need control (your wisdom and compassion), you need an outlet (an objective, or something and someone to focus your Leadership ability on), and you need other People (to act as force-multipliers).

Your Leadership ability will always be limited by something — the amount of energy available, the purity of your soul, the amount of experiential learning you have participated in, the state of your intellect, your ability to focus on your goals, and your willingness to actively choose and execute your strategies and tactics. Just like the pool can only ever hold a predetermined volume of sparkling water, so too your soul can only hold a predetermined quantity of purity.

The one single key to firstly achieving, obtaining, and then being able to use your Leadership ability is locked solidly in your ability to understand other People. You must understand yourself, which is axiomatic to your success. But you must also totally understand other People, so that you can empower them to help you to achieve your great role in Life.

Leadership.

By yourself, you are always limited by the extent to which you can influence your environment to achieve your objective. But with others actively helping you, you multiply your influence many times more than the sum total of the People involved in your effort. This is called “synergy”, and it is one of the most powerful forces available to the Leader.

To successfully encompass others in Leadership, you need to know certain things. You must learn what Motivates them. Where they are in the development of their own Leadership ability. What their goals in Life are. And how you can foster, and help them to achieve, their fullest potential.

Imagine that you have chosen the long sides of the

pool to swim between. Your strategy is to swim 10 kilometers. This means that you have chosen to go for the biggest goal in your Life, the one that will take the greatest effort, and provide the greatest reward.

You dive in the deep end, and you commence a series of laps. If you have good People at each end, who can continue lapping the pool for you in relay-style, while you occasionally pause to catch your BREATH, then you will quickly start to achieve your goal. Without the good People at each end, you are limited by your personal energy, and your influence is restricted to what you can achieve by yourself. If you don’t make the 10 kilometers, you fail. You do not achieve your strategy. When you falter, and start to sink, your achievement is colored by what you have limited yourself by, and the limitations of your tactics. Your failure bruises your soul, depletes your Leadership ability, and quenches your thirst for taking giant strides.

But you learn, what worked, and what didn’t. You adjust your tempo for the next try, and you change your tactics accordingly.

Never striving for your goal is far worse than trying and failing to attain it. When you choose to do something, you are making a commitment to yourself to execute a Strategy to the fullest of your ability, win, lose or draw. If you believe that you cannot achieve it by yourself, then you are honor-bound to involve as many others as you need to see you through, because you must always be true to yourself, and you must always give yourself the best chance of success.

The greatest salesman in the world is only as successful as the number of People who consent to buy from him. Likewise, you will only achieve your goals if you learn how to involve the skills and abilities of other People in what you choose to do, should it be beyond the limits of a normal man or woman.

Back to the pool. To get good People to stand at each end, swim laps for you on demand, and help you to achieve your goal, is an arduous task. But is


both a bold and achievable strategy, if you follow through with an equally well-executed set of tactics, and your personal goal is worthwhile.

You have to identify the People who can swim, and establish their individual capacity. You have to involve them in your goal. You have to Motivate them to swim for you. And you then have to reward them for their effort, so that they may choose to help you in the future.

You can only do this if you truly are aware of what each person is seeking for themselves, and clearly demonstrate how by helping you, they will in turn, be helping themselves.

And any short-changing on your behalf will diminish their capacity to succeed for you, so in cheating them, you ultimately cheat yourself. Nothing sours quicker the taste of victory than the image of a cheat.

This is true of Leadership. When you cut corners, take the easy way out, short change someone, hold something back by not giving your all, you effectively poison your intellect. The scars on your soul are testimony to this, and the single most damning limitation you can place on the development of your Leadership ability is to attempt to lie or cheat your way to success.

It can never happen. The purity of your soul determines the amount of energy available to be used by you, in anything you do. And your soul has a God-given ability to determine what you will be capable of. You cannot lie to it. You cannot cheat it. You cannot fool it.

Remember HOT?

Just as if you attempted to swim between the short sides to achieve your great distance, you effectively are making your task all that much the harder, because you suddenly have three or four times as many turns to make, robbing you of the vital energy needed to complete the swim.

You will wear yourself out doing the least important thing in the process of achieving your goals — changing direction.

People learn what they want to learn, when they want to learn it. People do things best, when they do things they want to do, when they want to do them. In other words, when there is a heavily internalized desire to learn or do something for “self”, it will become the most powerful motivating force in the person with whom you are establishing a relationship.

If it is not already obvious in their bearing, character, or outward stance, then this is what you need to stimulate in everyone you need to swim for you.

You need them to swim for you, but for their reasons. They must understand that they are helping you to achieve your goal, but that they are doing it so that they will achieve some of their goals. And you must become the perfect mirror — only showing them pure, positive, good images, which will enable them to achieve for you (and therefore achieve for themselves) what it is you want of them, in the most efficient manner possible.

Efficiency is a bitter word. It can be charming, but it usually dredges up images of tough black-suited People cracking whips and carrying large stopwatches. But it is a very necessary concept, because like swimming between the short sides, inefficiency is an energy draining, mind numbing, soul-destroying activity that drags you down. Inefficiency is the blackest of all the attitudinal cancers, infecting and corroding all around it. It catches on like wildfire, moving from person to person faster than a speeding bullet.

Simply put, efficiency (competency, effectiveness, practicality, and sensibility) is doing something once, well, and with the minimum of fuss and expended energy. When you are in this mode, all around you adopt the same mindset. It’s like a cooling wind on a hot day, which suddenly brings relief — you feel better, you feel energized, and you feel more powerful just for being exposed to it.


When you execute your goals in an efficient manner, you are paying the greatest compliment possible to those People you have chosen to help you achieve your goal. Because by conserving your energy, and minimizing the trauma, you are conserving their energy, and maximizing their respect for you and your goals.

No one likes to think that they are wasting their time or energy, because both are precious commodities.

If you stop and think about all the People you regard as role models, or People whom you look up to, it will become apparent that part of their attraction is their calmness, their organized manner, their considerate nature, and their engaging personalities. And their ability to be a Leader.

For you to be a role model to those around you whom you need to influence and motivate, you also need these qualities.

There is one other quality you should seek in others — because you believe in it yourself — and that is the definite mantle of excellence.

The People you choose to swim for you must be the very best there are, under the circumstances. Just as a chain is weakened by a faulty link, so is overall performance degraded by a poor effort or intent. The quality of what you achieve will always only be as good as the lowest common denominator is capable of executing.

It is of little value to you or your People to achieve the goal, but lose your desire in the process. The attainment of your objective should be the point at which you realize your maximum flux of Leadership ability, not suffer the draining experience of a negative victory.

There are many different sizes and shapes of swimming pool, and all have to be approached cautiously, one at a time, for their lessons in learning in how to become a Leader. And while your ambition to swim 10 kilometers in each may remain the same, with as

great an intensity as your original goal, the manner in which you do it will have to change dramatically, depending on the physical qualities of each pool.

This point may seem terribly simple, and obvious. But it is usually the obvious that escapes most People. Some would approach an ornamental kidney-shaped pool, and instantly decide that it isn’t even worth the effort to try to swim 10 kilometers. Just the shape of the pool, the assumed degree of difficulty, and the lack of genuine desire is enough to stall them in their tracks, denying them the opportunity of ever achieving their goals.

The person who wants to become a Leader sees the kidney-shaped pool quite differently.

They size it up, measure it out, test the water with their toe, confirm the deeps and shallows, and sometimes, if they are highly committed to achieving their goals, shucks off their clothes, and goes for a test swim. The whole time, they are regarding the shape and nature of the pool as a challenge that must be met in the most efficient way. Not a barrier or obstacle, but a test of their will power, a challenge to their comfort zone.

And by internalizing this experience in working out the strategy they must employ to achieve his objective, they are firming up their resolve, giving Life to their vision, and empowering their intellect to assist in arriving at excellent conclusions. These positive attributes will shine from their eyes as they tell their People what it is they must do.

And because you believe so deeply in what must be done, so will everyone else, and with an intensity that exactly matches yours. In effect, the other People will become a mirror of your goal, the physical manifestation of your achievement. You have found the keys to their success, and in the process of unlocking their power, you will achieve your goal.

Every swimming pool in Life has to be swum, at one time or another. You cannot avoid your responsibilities, just as you cannot deny your destiny.


What you can do, is face your future with a pure soul, and engage those around you to force-multiply your talent. Learn to help People find their inner source of Leadership ability, and in the process, learn to use their skills to help you find yours.

And be a Leader!

20 The Third Pregnant Pause in Orbit

By now you will have noticed the distinct change in Style we alluded to in Take Four. Remember the four Learning Styles?

High Involvement

Rat

iona

l

Em

otio

nal

Low Involvement


The Doerlearns only by trial anderror. Hardly ever processany information, doesn’tuse visual or tactile cues.

The Visual Learnerhas to “see” theinformation. Visual cuestrigger the rightresponses, and theylearn fast.

The Thinkerlikes facts information,detail and reason. Theybuild a system to providehard core rationale.

The Kinaesthetic Learnerhas to “feel” theinformation. Tactile cluespromote sound learning,combined withvisualisation.

Well, what we are doing now is appealing to the different needs of each individual Reader who may be trying to inculcate the theories, observations, and concepts in this book into their own experiences and Mental models. By changing the writing style, we are appealing to a different side of your mind, and by changing the tempo, we are allowing everyone to take away the bits that are important to them.

Remember, People only learn what they want to learn, and when they want to learn it. We are simply trying to make it appetizing for you to want to learn about how to be a Leader now!

Stay with it, because there are more style and tempo changes to come, and they may suit you even better!

Just remember to BREATHE, be HOT, prepare to RACE, and SMILE.

21 The Secret of “I” in Orbit

There’s no one in the whole world more important than you. Instinctively, you may dismiss this notion, and if that is your reaction, then consider this.

Why should anyone allocate any values to you, if you are not prepared to allocate some to yourself? And why should someone else’s opinion be higher, or better, than the opinion you hold of yourself?

The answers to this conundrum lie within the confines of your own self-confidence and self-esteem, so if you are unable to immediately and without question accept that you are the key to your Universe, then be patient, and read on.

The development of your Leadership ability relies heavily on how you perceive yourself, not only in the isolation of self-examination, but in the competitive environment of the social structure within which we all live.

Everything has a beginning, middle, and an end. Everything in Life has a start, middle, and a finish. You are born, you live out your Life, and then you die.

Many of us believe that what you do with your Life between birth and death, the “middle”, is what “it” — Life — is all about. Many believe that you are the sum total of your actions.

In truth, it’s not just what you do that counts, it’s how well you try to do it!

It’s your performance and Attitude that gives you the buzz, not the achievement.

The journey, not the destination.

Even though you may stand on the ultimate level of success, flushed with the pride of recognition, it is not

The Third Pregnant Pause in Orbit 20

the instant of reward or acknowledgment that is the pay-off. Your true worth is the sum total of all your experiences, your wins and losses, your successes and failures, and long after the milling crowd has forgotten who you are, and what you did, you will still have the internalized values you acquired through your diligence and effort in getting to your goal.

Understanding is exactly the same — first you come to grips with the fact that you don’t know what it is you need to know (to understand), then you go about learning all the facts and things you need, and then, finally, you understand.

Remember the four stages of Learning — unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence.

But it’s the process of learning where everything good takes place, and you measure your achievement by what you do with this new understanding. We’ll say that again — “you measure your achievement by what you do with this new understanding” — not by what the understanding is.

Your Leadership ability grows as you do, like a slow burning fuse heading for a gigantic bomb.

You are reading this book, making value judgments as you go, absorbing some points, and selectively filtering out others. You don’t even necessarily have to think about it, you just do it. But you don’t consider the ability to “read” as any great feat, because you remember the fun and enjoyment you had (and still get) from the process of reading, not the fact that you can read.

Being able to read gives you limitless options in the possible execution of your reading skills. But if you don’t use them, then your ability (to read) is worthless.

No winner’s medal for learning to read, but plenty of gold medals for using your reading ability to advance your intellect, and learn new things. The same goes for stretching your comprehension, and enhancing your Attitude.

All of which will help you to develop your Leadership ability.

This is what getting new, pure understanding is all about.

If, at the end of the process, you perceive little or no worth for your new understanding, then the understanding you have gained is of little value. But you have achieved a great deal by going through the process of learning — what we call the “middle effort” — and that in itself is valuable, and shouldn’t be discounted out of hand. It is this “middle” from where you derive the most benefit, even if you do not achieve your original goal — of getting a new understanding, that you could do something with.

Sounds like double Dutch, doesn’t it?

But what it comes down to is as simple as this.

It’s what you do with your Life that counts, not what you may or may not collect on the way. Very few of us ever come to truly understand this, and it is perhaps the biggest single problem we all face in growing our Leadership ability to the limits, and not being Stressed out of existence.

Constantly you are faced with the public pressure and perception that you should perform or try to attain standards set by others. But as we have just discovered, the only values you need strive for are your own, and not someone else’s.

Because, throughout Life, there is only the one absolute apart from the fact that one-day you will die — and that is the literal truth. Everything else is a derivation, an interpretation, an extrapolation, a perception, or a figment of someone’s imagination.

And the literal truth about you, is that you are the only one who can be “you”.

No one else can, no matter how hard they may try. You are the only one with your fingerprints. The only one with your special mix of DNA, the sub-molecular biogenetic building blocks that make us each the unique, individual person that we are.

The Secret of “I” in Orbit 21

You determine who you will be. You determine what you will be. You determine how you will be perceived by others. You determine how you will be judged by others. You determine how you will be valued by others. You determine how fast or slow you will be — whatever it is you are to be.

And in the final analysis, you are the only one who can determine how successful you are at whatever it is that you have become, or will become in the future, or choose to do.

You will determine how much Leadership ability you develop, and how you use your Leadership ability. No one else can do it for you, even if they wanted to.

Now do you see why “you” are so important — to you?

A lot of every day, you are going to be doing things that are vitally important to you, and your development as a wholesome, integrated personality, but not necessarily as important or vital to those around you.

You have to get “you” right, before anyone else can follow. And that means you have to be a little selfish, examining everything from your perspective, to discover what new and beneficial kernels of wisdom and understanding are there for the taking. It’s this constant need to internalize the exterior process that sometimes gets you into trouble with the People around you, even though what you are doing is right, and vital to you. You provide them with the mechanism to self-induce Stress by the way you are dealing with you.

They don’t understand what you are doing. They don’t understand why, and they don’t understand how important it is to you. And because they are not as aware of the process as you are, they attempt to pollute your mind and your value system with heaps of scorn and selfish criticism, which, if you’re weak in any area, will work itself into your psyche and become destructive, lessening your Leadership ability, and causing you to self-induce Stress.

It is a natural predatory tendency of the human animal to attack someone weaker than themselves, not just to prove how clever or strong they are, but also to remind you that they know you’re weak, and can have you on their terms at any time.

And it is an established fact (but not necessarily a literal truth) that the polluted garbage we take into our psyches from other People is the most damaging of all, right next to the polluted garbage we invent for ourselves!

The simple solution? Develop your own value system, decide on your own self-worth, and confidently radiate your newly professed self-image. And be prepared to upset a few People with your positive stance, because just as the predators like to suborn the weak with their power, they are equally uncomfortable with any display of confidence by you. Let no one person ever put you down for their reasons, and never accept a reflected value less than that which you set for yourself.

After all, you are the only person who can be you, so why should you?

Your Leadership ability depends on you, remember.

There are always only two choices, with lots of potentially confusing alternatives. There’s “YES”, there’s “NO”, and then there’s all the other stuff between a “YES” and a “NO”. You can choose to decide “YES” or “NO”, (one choice) or you can wallow around in the grey areas of Life, bouncing from pillar to post, lost in confusion, rationalization, and indecision. (The other, second choice).

A lot of every precious day is spent in this most damning area of grey. Sometimes you even enjoy it, failing to understand that every second spent in indecision is taking precious Lifetime from you, with absolutely no return!

If you do nothing else with this book on Leadership, take this to heart — do not wallow between “YES” and “NO”.


If you cannot make a “YES”, then make a “NO”, and start the understanding process to find out and learn what you need to make the “YES”. It’s that simple. All you have to do is decide to do something, and everything will fall into place.

There’s the tried and tested One-Five-Ten rule, origin unknown, that you can fall back on if nothing else comes to mind. It will help you overcome indecision and that most dreaded state, inertia — and the attendant Stress that goes with it.

One means that if you do just something that’s 1% positive in the general direction you think the solution to the problem might lay, then something will happen that will head you towards the answer. The idea here is that just by doing something, rather than nothing, you get your creative juices flowing, and open up the fertile world of limitless possibilities.

The value Five is a little bit more focused — you’re looking for a 5% input of energy, streamed towards the probable solution, and experience tells us that you can expect a high probability of success in solving the problem in a relative short time span.

By now you’ve guessed that the Ten value demands a whole 10% of focused energy, directed exclusively at resolving the issues. There is little doubt that 10% of your best effort can solve practically any problem, given that some of us cruise along in Life at never more than an estimated 3% of our capacity at any given time!

Every person is an Island, standing alone in a sea of choices, and humankind is the only animal on Earth that has the power to choose and project their self-image for all to see. Let a dog loose in a paddock, and you’ll get a lot of holes. Let you loose in a paddock, and you’ll get everything from a Shopping Centre to a Space Port, with all the drama in between.

Now, everyone knows this, yet very few ever make the most important choice of all — to do something with their Lives. It’s almost as if developing your Leadership ability is too hard. The very fact that you

are learning to become a Leader suggests that you are not someone blighted with this deadly, mind-numbing short-sightedness.

You want to empower your intellect, and develop your Leadership ability to its fullest capacity.

The simple problem seems to be that it takes some energy to make a difference, and it is all too easy to sit back and watch Life go by in glorious color, with stereophonic sound, on a high-definition television set, with some anonymous talking-head doing all the work for you, than it is to participate.

But as you know only too well, you get back out of Life what you put into it.

Not a penny more, not a penny less.

Humankind (yes, you) is the only animal on Earth that has the ability to create, to dream, to speculate, to be creative, to think laterally, and to combine all the natural elements into purpose-designed artifacts. You don’t see a lot of cows living in high-rise apartments, or driving expensive cars to chrome and glass towering city buildings, and while a dog was the first animal into Space, it was a Man who put him there.

If it is okay to accept that we are the predominant culture on the surface of the earth, and that it is our destiny to evolve from our humble beginnings into a futuristic society, then why is it not so okay to stand on your own two feet, and be counted for the values you hold dear to your own heart? And develop your Leadership ability as God meant you to do?

Man is the quintessential thinker, dreamer, creator, designer, builder, constructor, motivator, and doer. In fact, throughout all history, in every field of human endeavor, with but one exception, nothing has ever been achieved in this world until a man or a woman has had the vision or idea to do something!

Things do not happen by themselves. You make them happen, or they simply do not take place. If


you cannot make a “YES”, then make a “NO”, and get on with solving the problem that is preventing you from making a “YES.” The key issue is to get on with making something happen, and not sitting back in a blue fugue waiting for a miracle!

Science would have us believe that miracles don’t really happen, and even if Science is wrong, it is better to do something under your control than be under the control of others. Your Leadership ability is personal. It is yours, and yours alone. You can share the benefits, but you cannot share the power. Only what you do with it.

What the mind can conceive, man can do. I’m sure someone has told you this before. And it’s true. Once something has been thought about, it’s just a matter of time and resources before it’s done, whatever it is.

Look at just one simple, yet humanly enduring example.

In the fourteenth century, just over six hundred years ago, a very clever man dreamed up the concept of manned flight, sitting on a cold, cobblestone floor. From his lofty perch near the top of a buttressed tower, which was usually pressed into service to repel nasty aggressors with bows and arrows, he watched an eagle soar overhead, cutting the sun into shadow and light. It so inspired him he dreamed of being up there, floating on the warm afternoon breeze, peering down at the rich green meadow below. He framed a wild, bizarre idea in his capricious mind, thought about it for a whole day, then sketched it out with a handmade quill, onto a piece of tanned animal hide.

It took another three hundred years for mankind to develop the technology that enabled yet another clever man to actually build this “flying device”, and get it to work. He drew up his idea with the handmade prototype of the fountain pen, using a distilled black substance that would later become known as “Indian Ink”, in free-flowing broad strokes that gracefully covered five sheets of quality French parchment paper.

The drawings were of a simple hot-air balloon, made out of stitched hand-worked animal skins, amazingly similar to the hide the original drawings had been made on three hundred years before.

Those primitive sketches showed a languorous envelope being filled by the heat from a peat fire, stoked by a terrified blacksmith. The contraption that eventually flew, carrying its creator up some hundreds of feet into the cold mountain air, changing for all time how we would move about our planet, looked like a colorful child’s toy that had been made too large!

Just a scant two hundred years later, men have walked on the Moon, sent satellites far out into space to explore the Universe, and routinely use small electronic devices that hold more information and distilled wisdom in one tiny microchip, than existed in the whole of the known world at the time our would-be flier defied all the odds to rise so gracefully above his peers.

What is the secret to all this?

You are!

The Island of “I”, the home of your Leadership ability.

Because everything ever achieved by mankind started with a single person, just like you. And that’s why it is so important that you get you right. If you accept that the only person you have any real control over is you, then it is up to you to get you in the finest working order possible.

You cannot hope to influence anyone else unless you are in your strongest, purest, most powerful mental condition. And that state of activity starts, and centers on, your self-image.

Bad self-image, weak external perception.

Pure self-image (notice the word “pure”, not “perfect”), strong external perception.


You will never be perfect, at least not on the outside, and certainly not perceived as such by someone else. Perfection is something to strive for, knowing that the tiny bit you fall short is no more or less the difference between being Human and being God.

Stop and think about this for a minute.

Companies don’t do things, People do.

Motor cars don’t go Sunday driving along the beach road, People do.

Apartment blocks and fine houses don’t give character to a neighborhood, the People who design them, decorate them, live in them, and see them for what they really are, do.

The most sophisticated and expensive electronic device is useless, and serves no purpose, unless it is doing the bidding of a person.

The most incredibly efficient shopping plaza with all its attendant regalia of brightly lit malls, colorful shop fronts, enticing signs, and demanding merchandise is dormant and mute, useless in the early morning light, unless, to the melodious clank and clatter of waking commerce, you bring it to Life with your presence.

You may not see yourself as the master of your Universe, but you should, and you are, every time you choose to exert your influence, and use your Leadership ability. Because you were born, (and it is your birthright to be a complete, unique, experiential human being, capable of magnificent thoughts and actions), you at least owe it to yourself to reach your potential, or die trying.

The only limitations placed on you are those you place on yourself — or worse, allow others to place on you. It’s very much like the pressure that drives you to take actions you feel uncomfortable about.

You perceive that the pressure is being applied by someone (or some situation) in such a way that you have no alternative but to respond, and do something.

The truth is, the pressure may be being applied, but it is your acceptance of the pressure that creates the problem for you, not the other person, or the situation, that seems to be applying the pressure.

This is yet another description of how you self-induce Stress.

If you choose not to respond to the pressure, it will diminish! It may not completely go away, but it will lessen in its intensity.

Let’s look at it piece by piece.

If the pressure being applied is from another person, by refusing to let yourself be affected by the pressure, you lessen that person’s ability to influence you. By standing firm, self-contained and in control, you empower your intellect, your reflexes, and free up the total sum of all that you have learned and experienced in Life, expressly for the purpose of dealing with the problem.

You bring the mighty force of your Leadership ability to bear on the problem.

If the pressure is being applied by your perception of a physical occurrence — a car crash, a fire, a threat of some kind, or a situation that seems out of your control, by accepting the pressure unchallenged you fuel your “fight or flight” reflex, depriving you of your fullest abilities to think, observe, plan, and act.

You are, in fact, achieving the exact opposite of what you need — you are depowering your intellect, and robbing yourself of your Leadership ability, by accepting the Life shortening effects of Stress.

Now it is extremely hard to agree with this if you are the one being threatened by the speeding train, as it roars down on you, bound hand and foot to the rails!

But ask yourself this one question. What was it that you did in the first place to get yourself into such a dire situation? Without a single doubt, somewhere


way back at the start, or soon after, you accepted someone else’s pressure, or the assumed or perceived pressure from an untenable situation.

It’s exactly the same as the office without a door, with a big sign posted to its frame — “As you can clearly see for yourself, this door is always open, unless you perceive it to be shut!”

Every worthwhile door in Life is always open, should you choose to see it that way. On the other hand, if you perceive it to be shut, why, then, it is, as surely as if it had massive steel bars running across it from top to bottom.

It’s how you view the things in Life that determines how and when they can affect you. Smile, and the whole world smiles with you. (Where have you heard that before?)

It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you were born, how rich or poor your parents were, how much schooling you got, or what you think you should or shouldn’t be capable of, you will never really know what an incredible Life you can have unless you try. Be all the Leader you can be!

And that means that you must be aware, you must seek, you must question, you must try different things, you must read and strive for new understanding, and then you must take risks, in trying to implement what you have learnt.

And you can never willingly accept pressure from another person, of from a situation. You must be in control, and able to use your full facilities, to bring the awesome weight of your experience, wisdom, and understanding to the problem.

The full might of your Leadership ability!

Making mistakes is a very human attribute, because no one person is perfect.

You have never met someone who is, and you never will. You have met many who say they are, act like

they are, and even believe they are. But we bet you saw right through them, and perhaps even brought their delusion to their attention.

Even if you didn’t get your lights punched out, then it’s a fair guess that they are not a friend of yours at this time.

You see, the concept of perfection is a spiritual one, and is truly not obtainable in the physical sense. When was the last time you saw or heard of a perfect motor car? Or a toaster? Or a lawn-mower? Or even a perfect computer?

Perfection, by definition, “completion; making perfect; full development; faultlessness;” is not an achievable thing as far as human beings are concerned, and that goes for anything we do in this Universe.

Those of you who are deeply religious will recognize this statement in the context of the teachings of your Church, Guru, Master, Rabbi, Deacon or Spiritual Leader. The Bible, Koran, Mayan Scrolls, Dead Sea Scrolls, I’Ching, and every other Guide Book you read spells this concept out in exquisite detail, so we won’t belabor the point here. It is sufficient for you to understand this secret — don’t kill yourself trying for perfection, unless you are striving for spiritual wholeness.

One vital tip. Always give “permission” to those around you to make mistakes, because if you don’t, you will be denying them their right to experiment and be human. Just because you seek perfection within yourself, is no reason to seek it in others.

Just as it is your right to seek your answers as you choose, so it is everyone else’s right to seek or not seek their answers, as they choose.

And make their own mistakes, if that’s what it takes for them to achieve their understanding, in their own time.

And develop their Leadership ability for their benefit, in their own unique way, by remembering the Island of “I”.


22 The Secret of “P” in Orbit

This might feel like you’re about to chew on a dictionary, but hang in there, the “P” words are where your Leadership ability really comes from. There are a number of “P’s”, and each and every one is critical in your pursuit of learning how to become a Leader. Let’s look at them one by one (The Thinkers amongst us will love this approach!)

The vertical “P”.

No one likes to be dominated by another person, chastised for poor performance, or taken for granted by their peers. Just as you can never win an argument, because it is an emotional event, and not rational, you can never hope to impress someone who counts in your Life with external values. You may well make an impression, and it might even be a good one, but the gloss will soon wear off as the discussion or relationship develops, because what you say and do will be at odds with how you look. (You will see the four “D’s” at work faster than you can blink).

How you feel is another matter.

“Clothes maketh the Man” is an old saying, and a false one. Clothes maketh the outside of the Man, giving you a certain appearance, which may generate a certain bearing in your external stance. What happens is that the process of getting, then putting on, a new dress or exquisitely cut new suit pumps you up emotionally, charges your ego with false power symbols, and allows you to strut your stuff for all to see.

But an emotional fix is a purely horizontal experience, and as the dress or suit quickly becomes worn with age, as does their ability to pump you up. A horizontal experience is one that is flat, only able to generate a short-term boost, which often is just a repeat of the same old thing, but perhaps in a different form.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a short term emotional ego fix, so long as you recognize it for what it is, and don’t become seduced by it. Anything that’s external, sucked in emotionally, or built on a false, short term premise, is potentially misleading, and harmful. Not to mention Stressful!

Why? Because it’s all too easy to accept an abnormal situation as reality, and get drunk on the temporary thrill and power surge of external reinforcement. Trouble is, the hangover from an ego drunk destroys your self-image, depreciates your self-worth, and robs you of your rightful Leadership ability. And Stresses you out into the bargain.

You can’t fool the real you, no matter how hard you might try.

An internalized, or vertical experience, one that is taken inside to your very soul, lives on forever, and can provide endless stimulation and joy. Holding a newborn baby for the first time, discovering you are in love, recognizing the intrinsic value of true craftsmanship, are all examples of this most necessary type of experience.

The thrill and buzz that surges from doing new things, with new energy, can light up the dullest Life!

Just as mankind is the only animal given the ability to choose, so is mankind the only species given the ability to differentiate between a horizontal and a vertical experience.

You have often heard People lust after all that is “new”, or different. Who can resist the seductive smell that wafts delicately out of the interior of a new car? Or the super bullet-proof feeling of putting on a new, expensive dress or suit for the first time?

But no matter how new something may be, no matter how seductive its call, until you internalize the smell, the look, the touch, the feel, the warmth or the chill, and hear the crackle of the starch and the rip of the zipper, you will only enjoy your new

The Secret of “P” in Orbit 22

experience but once, over and over again. (That’s the danger of the horizontal.)

The majesty of a vertical experience is that it stays with you forever, adding to your total fund of experiences and knowledge. And every time you add to the experience, it gets all the more powerful, to the point where you can actually generate the feelings and the smells and the crackles in your own mind, without actually seeing the new object!

True personal power comes from within, not from without, and is a manifestation of the purity of your soul, not a measure of your intellect or physical strength. One of the greatest scientists of our time lives in a shrunken, dyslexic body, and Communicates with a stick clenched between dribbling teeth. But one look into his eyes, one quick snapshot of his soul, and the awesome power within him attacks you like a laser beam. True beauty comes from inside!

True power comes from recognizing who a person is, not what they are, or might become. The simple cause of the modern disease of “opting out” is People’s inability to cope with who they really are. They have strived so long, worked so hard, learned so much, yet inside they are hollow, empty, unfulfilled, and hurting. Simply because they concentrated on the horizontal experiences, gobbling them up like PAC-MAN, only to find that the feeling of achievement passed with the night, leaving precious little residue.

Look what happens to some Olympians when they fail to take a Gold medal — the ordinary ones (lost in the grey void of the horizontal experience) fall down as losers, but the extraordinary ones shine with the glow of victory, because they recognize that the process of getting to the Olympics is the true achievement, the Gold medal only a short-lasting form of external measurement.

Of course they wanted to win Gold, and of course they are disappointed at not achieving their ambition. But because the “win” was but one small part of the process, and not the inglorious end, they are able to

refocus themselves and not squander the emotional and physical achievement that has been derived through years of sacrifice and hard training.

Sometimes it takes more than just a few years to become an overnight success!

Every elite athlete knows that practice doesn’t make perfect, as most People would have you believe. Perfect practice makes perfect. The trouble with Life is that all too often we are waylaid or misled by something someone says they know, or professes to know, better than we do. Or even worse, something we read and only partially understand, but try to operate on anyway. Remember the model of Attitude formation? Attitudes can just as easily be built on false information as reality.

We all too often run off fully charged only to discover that the path of our well-meaning effort leads to a dead end. Well, now’s the perfect time to take control of your Life, and do away with all the misconceptions and half-truths that creep around us like so much choking pollution. Now is the time to recognize the frighteningly short value in the horizontal experience.

Now is the time to learn about the power within you, just waiting to be tapped, a power all to do with towering vertical experiences. The simple, but awesome power of the mighty “P” words, and their role in your development as a Leader.

The “P” that stings.

Most People are scared about pain, but we all know that no pain, no gain. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. You get nothing for nothing. You only get out of Life what you put into it, and the more you put in, the greater the return. So if it hurts sometimes when you are trying hard to do or learn something, that’s good. But don’t feel good about the pain, feel good about the gain! Remember, it’s the process that you learn the most from, not the achievement.


Pain can also be a sign that you are using the wrong parts of your intellect or body to attempt the task with. If you are feeling decidedly uncomfortable mentally, then it’s a good bet that you are trying to wade through confusion or deceit. Remember the four “D’s”. Pain is usually a physical signal that you are close to maxing out, reaching for a new level of physical capability and performance. And like anything physical, it can easily be controlled by discipline and training, and a positive mental attitude towards the task at hand. This is called “process”. Remember, you only do well the things in Life you want to do, so when you choose to do something, go for it.

It is this focus on energy and achievement that enables you to motivate yourself towards your goal, so always take the time to experience and enjoy the process of getting there. Many seconds make a minute, and sixty minutes make an hour. Take one second, or one minute away, and you have everything else but an hour.

And it is precisely because time passes by this point but once, that you should savor every split second, taste every minute, and revel in every hour you are given until the day you die. If you don’t, you’ll pass on feeling cheated of something you were vaguely aware of, but never quite able to put your finger on.

A full and invigorating dynamic Life!

And the fullest use of your greatest asset — your Leadership ability.

The perfect “P” within.

Everyone you meet lusts after a place called Paradise, but very few of us can specifically describe this mystical place. It seems to vary from person to person, like a fast moving cloud. Yet they are all very positive that they seek it, and believe it to be better that where they are now. Paradise means “A garden of Eden; Heaven; A State of supreme bliss”, so it is easy to guess what they really mean when they say they seek it.

They are looking for a way out of their present predicament — whatever that may be at the time, and they are always searching for something that they believe is being denied to them, but should be rightfully theirs.

Many Religions and their Sages would have us believe that we have to die in a State of Grace to go to Paradise, where God or some other Sentient Being is patiently waiting for the pleasure of our company.

Others would have us believe that you earn your ticks in the “Book of Life” as you go, and your entry to Paradise is dependant on having accumulated enough to pass through the Pearly Gates when you time has come.

This may or may not be true — this is up to you to determine — but what is true is that from the time of your birth, you have Paradise within you at all times. It’s always there, just waiting for you to visit.

Paradise is “A garden of Eden; Heaven; A State of supreme bliss”.

There’s a marvellous old poem that is said to have made the rounds about five thousand years ago, in the Middle East where Babylon is thought to have been sited. It goes something like this, with no apology for the imperfect and somewhat liberal translation of the original Gortighern Script.

“The rim of the wheel,it is made of steel,And the spokesthat joins itare of solid oak.But I know, as you do,That the mightybrass hubIs all but useless,Unless the holein the middleis not broke.”


The mystics and scholars of ancient times had a very simplistic philosophy. They studied and viewed the known Universe in minute detail, then promptly cast everything into one of but two acceptable baskets of knowledge.

The first basket held the plausible, or that which was able to be explained to the satisfaction of the many, without causing the sudden death by stoning of the scholar doing the explaining. The second held everything implausible, or that which could not be easily explained using the signs and symbols of the physical Universe, and consequently demanded the label of “magic”, “possessed by demons”, or “spiritual”.

Suffice to say that naked fear abounded in the presence the second basket, which from time to time was filled to the brim with wonder and unexplored mystery, drawing scholars to it like a flame draws moths.

It is said that the scholars that visited this second basket became very creative in the way they went about unravelling the seemingly implausible secrets of the Universe, taking care to have a sufficiency of proof before letting anyone else view their work. This tended to slow the natural process of discovery down somewhat, and might explain why the Middle Ages took so long to pass!

But by paying careful attention to the detail of their torrid existence, the scholars were able to slowly advance the knowledge of mankind, developing a wisdom far greater than the one we seem to have so casually adopted in this modern age of super-computers and spaceships.

Unlike now, nothing was taken for granted, and it was always assumed that everything in Life had a purpose, if only it could be divined. And that it was mankind’s responsibility to discover these universal secrets.

Their starting point on every voyage of discovery was that that which stood before them was no more than a temporary barrier between knowledge and mystery, put there by God to encourage them to greater wisdom, gained in the solving of the riddle.

They viewed the final uncovering, the reveal, and the peeling back of the secrets of Life like attacking so many layers of an onionskin. They patiently peeled each layer, one layer at a time, savoring the revelations and incredible discoveries they made on their specific journeys. The final result they presented to the world, but the knowledge and the experience they collected on the way they kept to themselves, fuelling their intellect, and swelling their Leadership ability.

They discovered, for instance, that no matter how large a wheel, no matter how magnificent the construction, and no matter how noble the ultimate purpose, it’s what was in the middle of the massive wheel that gives it its Life.

A hole full of nothing!

Now, imagine for a minute, trying to explain that to a Saturday morning crowd at the market, five thousand years ago!

Until an axle was placed in the hole, the massive wheel could never fulfill its destiny. It could be used for many other things, what at best only added up to a rationalization of its function, but never for its primary role until the little hole in the middle was filled with the right stuff!

What’s in the middle of us all? What fills your core, your central “hole” through which the axle of Life passes second by second?

Paradise is. “A garden of Eden. Heaven. A State of Bliss.” Peace. Perspective. Perception. Potential. Personality.

And a thousand other powerful “P” words, all just waiting to be visited. And you can prove it to the most virulent skeptic. But first, you have to learn (if you don’t already know) how to get into your very own paradise any time you choose.

This is not a book about Meditation, it’s a book about Leadership. But if you want to discover the majesty and beauty of your own Garden of Eden, your own


personal State of Bliss, your very own Heaven on Earth, then get on with learning how to become a Leader. Believe it when it’s said that Paradise is within us all, available now, just for the visiting, and it’s the place where all your real Leadership ability comes from, so get acquainted real soon.

Think about yourself as a scholar of old, possessing many secrets, but able to only share a few, lest you confuse your audience, or get stones for your troubles. Peel back the onionskin, one layer at a time, and savor the revelation of discovery as you learn all that is good about yourself.

Look inwards, not out, and start to appreciate the quiet, reflective moments that occur from time to time, and taste them for their worth. They are a path to your Paradise, just waiting to be used. And Paradise is the battery that enables your Leadership ability to flourish, and grow.

When you centre your focus, you gain a peace and tranquillity that is all empowering, and most often defies description. Your whole being seems to float in a sea of calm, and your awareness is heightened to the point where you find yourself solving amazingly difficult problems with alarming ease. You gain a new perspective about your role and place in the Universe, and you allow your mind and your body to heal and draw closer to each other, integrating your personality.

What do you find when you peel back the final layer of the onion? What is the vital core of a tennis ball? Which part of a water tank is the most valuable?

Within the onion, nothing.

The inside of a tennis ball is composed of air, or empty space.

And that space of nothingness which is contained by the walls of the tank is what the tank exists for!

The “hole” in the middle of us all, through which we

pass on our journey of Life.

Anyone who would, through scorn or ridicule, attempt to prevent you from discovering this secret about yourself, deserves your best smile, and tolerance. Naked fear still abounds around that second basket, the one filled with the unpalatable. And a deep distrust of the unknown still drives an ungodly proportion of the world along the path of ignoble ignorance. This is perhaps why we need so desperately a new cadre of Leaders.

The bewildering “P”.

Our lives are full of paradox — contradictions abound, inconsistency is the norm, and it’s almost incongruous to expect anything better. But there’s power in paradox, if you take the time to understand it. A paradox is no more than a person, a thing, or a statement that apparently conflicts with your preconceived notions of what is reasonable, correct, or possible. What is palatable. The key words — apparently conflicts with your preconceptions — say it all.

By understanding that your confusion stems from brain lock - that dreaded self-inflicted state of inertia, where you deprive yourself of your power at the time you most need it — you give yourself the best fighting chance to resolve the conflict of perception verses apparent fact. It’s a strange observation, but it appears that facts change little in their Lifetime, but our perceptions alter constantly. It seems to depend on our awareness, our mood, our state of fitness, our mental alertness, and on the level of our genuine desire to understand, rather than just take the things around us for granted.

Scientists have an adequate description of the phenomenon, in that they relate Paradox as that “which an observer, standing in the centre of his Universe, discovers to be two or more things that apparently conflict, resulting in the attitude that both cannot possibly be true at the same time.”

This enigmatic state occurs frequently in the


physical world, and can only be resolved by tedious observation, experimentation, and study. But when it occurs in your mind, it is a simple thing to deal with.

You just back off a pace, realize that your perception is at odds with the facts, and determine to resolve the issue. Establish what is what, accept the reasonable, and question the unreasonable. And never take anything at face value. This is Attitude modification at its very best.

The two baskets of knowledge still exist today, and their purpose is still the same. One allows easy acceptance of a deluge of known things, the other a passive, non-threatening way to deal with the unknown. A paradox is simply something that seems to cross or link some of the contents of the two baskets, and to be resolved, all you need do is discover which basket it comes from, which basket it belongs in, and what you have to do to put it safely away where it belongs. And be a Leader.

And if that seems paradoxical, spend some quiet time thinking about the consequences if you don’t!

The “T” and “D” of “P”.

Don’t be limited by what you think you know. It’s an easy trap for young players, and an often-used refuge from the pain of truth. You know that there’s no gain without some degree of pain, no matter how small. Real Leadership ability comes from real understanding, and real work, not from preconceptions or self-delusion, so take the time to really find out exactly what’s what with your world.

Just as you cannot see through someone else’s eyes, they cannot clearly see through yours. To see your world, you must use your eyes, and experience your learning and understanding, for yourself. Nothing worthwhile, other than well meaning advice, comes second hand.

It is easy to assume things, and even easier to ignore truth. But where is the possible gain? A saving of effort? Lifetime spent somewhere else? You cheat only yourself, and lower your self-worth. Just as you are the only one who can determine your truth for you, so are you the only one who can do your real work for you.

And ultimately, you are the one who benefits.

The only real pressure that exists, is that which you place on yourself, so take all the time you need to search out the truth in Life. In reality, that’s what you are here for. To discover your truth for your Life, empowering your soul to fulfill your destiny.

Pressure comes in many disguises, from demand and anxiety, all the way to frustration and exterior influence. But like a hosepipe with both a tap at one end, and a controllable outlet at the other, you always have two distinct ways to deal with perceived pressure and the attendant Stress.

You can shut it off at the source by refusing to accept it from another person or situation; or you can “tune” it to your advantage at the other end, by deciding how much, and in what form, you will accept the pressure you perceive is being placed on you.Either way, all it takes is a conscious effort not to let it dominate you, and you will suddenly be empowered to deal with it, in any form it may strike you. Reduce the Stress, and you increase your ability to deal with the situation.

The downside of accepting pressure from others to perform in certain ways, is that it is like a cancer, eating away at your confidence and your abilities. It is insidious, and it can be lethal. Stress kills!

Pressure, Stress, confusion, and frustration can kill you, maim your brain, and destroy your personality. But it need not be so.

Just imagine the hosepipe, and either shut off the tap, or tune the nozzle to the required amount. Manage the Stress, and be a Leader.


The inner “P”.

It may be hard to accept at face value, but there are no worthwhile prizes for meandering through Life other than those that you award yourself. You are the only person who can accurately assess how well you are performing at any given time, because you are the only one who has access to your soul. Everyone else is looking in from the outside, seeing only that which you choose to project as your physical manifestation of who and what you are at any given time.

To seek the rewards of others is a short-term fix to stitch up an ego problem, caused by a lack of wholeness. When you hold up the mirror of Life, what you see is what you get. But you can also see inside you, and you can see what your Life is really all about.

To flush with the warm feeling of externalized positive reinforcement is only of value when you internalize the praise or support you have been offered, taking it to a new dimension. You clutch the strong positive feeling of a sense of achievement to your heart, and you fuel your soul. This internalizing is what keeps you going from day to day, seeking your truths.

While graciously accepting the praise or confirmation of your achievement from others, always be aware that it is what you do with it that counts, not the praise itself. It’s the process we learn from, not the achievement. You are the one who must award the prizes for your endeavors, and you are the only one who can accurately and honestly value and judge your performance.

And as you will discover, to do this you have to know who you are, and what you are, and accept yourself from within for all that you are and can be.

However, having said that, be advised that as most of the world around you is not as aware as you are, true praise is the most constructive reinforcement you can ever offer someone else. Nothing boosts self-confidence and self-worth faster than an

ego charging honest compliment from someone respected. This is indeed a Peacemaking process that is extremely powerful.

The public “P”.

You need to stir the beast of Pride, generating positive energy within yourself, and face the reality of your existence, whatever that may be. To be proud of something, you have to believe in its intrinsic worth and value, otherwise you simply fool yourself. You have to openly commit to it, overtly declaring your feelings for all to see.

And that’s a very difficult and dangerous thing to do, because the moment you declare your intentions publicly, the razor sharp knife of prejudice comes out, heading for your back. (Or, if you work in some Organizations, you could get stabbed in the front!)

But if you use Pride as your stimulant in everything you do, then it will only be the really impossible situation that defeats you, and even then, only temporarily. You can be proud of your best effort, and your best attitude. You can be proud of your achievements, and of conquering process. You can also be proud of your inner stance, and the way it affects those around you. You can be proud of the way in which you strived to be a Leader.

“Pride commeth before a fall”. True, and certainly if you become lost in it, at the sacrifice of your true values. But if you use Pride as a means of setting self-standards, then you will never fail.

For how could you ever, knowingly, let yourself down?

It would be most unworthy of you, and it would rob you of your hard earned Leadership ability.

The powerful “P”.

You need to understand the incredible force of Patriotism, and stand tall amongst your peers, recognizing that you may well make them feel


decidedly uncomfortable with your naked display of pride and emotion. If you cannot feel proud about your Country, if you cannot shed a genuine tear at the playing of the national Anthem, and the raising of the Flag, then you should abandon you place, and go somewhere else, for you can never really feel proud about yourself.

Any measure of a lack of respect for something or someone, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, burdens you with a double measure of lack of self-respect. You intuitively know what is right, and your psyche punishes your soul when you are not true to yourself.

Man does not easily dwell on the fringe of Life, it is not his purpose, so recognize this, and start developing a feel for the strength and sense of belonging a nationalistic stance can generate within you.

Your Country is a great one, brought to Life with your intellect and physical presence.

Don’t ever deny it, and don’t ever turn your back on it.

You make its History, you create its Culture, and you determine its Future, if it is to have one.

Just as your Leadership ability allows you to achieve all the goals you have set for yourself, so will it contribute to the growth of your Nation.

This awesome responsibility comes with Citizenship and Nationality, from the day your are born, or arrive, and can never be denied.

The primary “P”.

This County is a boundless series of arid deserts, strolling mountains, furious seas, and a patchwork quilt of color and intrigue. But it takes you to bring it to Life, to add that extra dimension of color and activity that gives it its unique culture.

For millions of years, this Country has been evolving slowly and deliberately, nudged here and there by fleeting traumatic and sometimes cataclysmic events. The dinosaurs have come and gone, seas have conquered and receded, and mountains have erupted only to be worn smooth by the irresistible passage of time.

Compared to this gigantic, unstoppable evolutionary process, the transient nature of the minuscule Life span of a single human being is but a mote in God’s eye. But the years we are given us at Birth can be used to develop a harmony with our ever-pulsing environment, and use our earth-sense to generate internal power.

This is not a “save the environment” speech. This is a “savor the environment” plea, and be a Leader with it.

Feel the warmth of rich red earth running through your fingers. Smell the rain on a gum leaf. Absorb the rolling sound of thunder as you recharge your soul with the strident music from a naked flash of lightning. Take your shoes off, and let the moist mud and sand filter up between your toes as they talk to your feet.Watch the waking birds with your ears on a crisp winter morning, and imagine what it would be like to walk across a moonbeam flickering on a placid ocean.

Just the simple process of absorbing the magic and majesty of the world around you charges you batteries — your Paradise — and causes your Leadership ability to bloom and flower.

It is, after all, your world to enjoy for your four score years and ten. You owe it to yourself to seek and find your true relationship with your environment, that’s why humankind was given the gift of the five senses. Use them, and use them well, because in finding your balance within your environment, you are finding your balance within yourself. And like all things dynamic, if you don’t use your senses, they deteriorate in terms of sensitivity.


And your Leadership ability depends on stimulus, and renewable energy, so don’t let any of your senses go slack, lest you deprive yourself of valuable experience.

Earth symbols are very powerful in our lives, but all too few People ever see the incredible potential of summoning them. Yet they govern our very existence, influence our every mood, and color our every achievement. The primary “P” is one of the most powerful of all, yet, strangely, it is perhaps the least understood and used!

Our forefathers understood this far better than we do now, as the unstoppable march of technology seems to have desensitized us to our heritage. But like any Paradox, all it takes to reverse the trend is to recognize it, cast away the grey areas of indecision, and do something that brings music to your soul.

Earth music!

The inquisitive “P”.

There’s a lovely dichotomy in the endless debate between Art and Science — which is which, and what applies to each. Truth is, both apply and directly effect each other in the perpetual search for the answers to the mysteries of Life, and in many ways this parallel debate reflects the development of your personality.

If you choose to be a “pioneer”, always striving for understanding and enlightenment, breaking new ground, exploring the realm of possibilities, one day you will stand on the pinnacle of knowledge, and see it for what it is.

Your batteries (inner Paradise) will be constantly charged with vertical experiences that will stack up before you like a massive harbor bridge.

But no one person can ever hope to absorb everything available in the span of a single Lifetime. There’s simply too much knowledge to cope with.

But wisdom can come cheaply, and with a simple change of attitude, you will see first hand that you don’t need to know everything to have a rich and long Life, you only have to know yourself.

And the best knowledge comes from true discovery, true process, and true experience.

Wisdom (discipline, common or good sense, judgment, knowledge and philosophy) is simply the force you apply in the use of your Leadership ability, enabling you to achieve your dreams without causing harm to those around you.

You need to exclusively live in the world of positive energy, making things possible because you want them to be, not necessarily because they are. You need to be praiseworthy in your endeavors, which simply means that what you choose to do is always worthwhile in real terms, and excellent in execution. Now excellence can be a well-worn standard, and rarely achieved in spite of the brouhaha that surrounds its use in modern day language.

But excellent also means “heavenly” and “precious”, so take these meanings to heart, and ensure that everything you do, no matter how small, is executed “heavenly” because the action is “precious” to you.

Exquisite little touches of excellence delight, and light the path to Heaven. The Mystics of ancient years believed this, and over two thirds of the world has evolved with this simple philosophy as their principle guide.

The strongest nation on Earth is but a stage for the delicate skills of a Master, for who here can refuse an honest man, with honest skills, and honest endeavor? Who can rightly refuse a HOT process?

The secondary “P”.

Profound wisdom is not the exclusive domain of the well educated. Profound wisdom is your right, and the right of all who choose to seek it. Knowing one small simple fact and being able to intelligently


and excellently benefit from it provides the basis for profound wisdom. It is this “understanding” that sits comfortably within your core from where the Leadership ability within you can be generated. It is your wisdom which determines how much power you have at any one given time. It is also your wisdom which determines how you use your power.

For when you have real power, and choose to use it, the only time it will work for you is when you exercise profound wisdom!

If you don’t, then you may end up dominating someone, denigrating them in their own eyes, because of their lack of ability to cope with you. And as sure as night turns into day, your power will dissipate in the wind, leaving you unfulfilled and empty, angry and embarrassed, and afraid to face the mirror of Life.

You can cheat everyone and anything for a short while, but you can never cheat your soul or who you really are, not even for a second. And the only time you don’t have your power is when you know inside you that you don’t deserve it, because its negative use is, or would be, destructive.

And we’ve already discovered that you are a builder, a creator, a dreamer, a thinker, and a doer. All these attributes come to Life when underpinned with your profound wisdom, and the strength of your intellect, and your ability to be a Leader.

The bridging “P”.

If you take the attitude of a protector, always careful to see to the welfare and well being of your peers and those around you, then you will automatically limit your potential to hurt. It is impossible for you to hurt yourself if you are balanced and in harmony with all around you, just as it becomes impossible for you to hurt others.

Sensitivity is another human trait that is very much in danger of being swamped by all things electronic,

simply because being sensitive takes great patience, great empathy, great warmth, great Leadership ability, and a big heart. But by being sensitive to your environment, to those around you, and to your real needs, you attune your intellect and sharpen your awareness, allowing more of your internalized Peacemaking power to be used constructively.

Sensitivity is an attribute that is often frowned on by modern society, often mistaken for weakness or lack of power. In truth, the exact opposite it true. For you to be able to constantly allow your sensitivity to come to the fore, you must be self-confident, have a strong perspective of your role in Life, and a high self-image.

And heaps and heaps of Leadership ability.

Strange, isn’t it, how the very things that make us strong, that make us what we are, that give us our real power to motor along in Life with, sometimes appear to others as a weakness!

The tertiary “P”.

If you take the role of a provider, then you will never allow yourself to take advantage of someone who has yet to find the “Gate of Wisdom”. Rather, you will, at their request, help and guide them to find their own Paradise within themselves.

Remember People discover and learn what they want to learn, at their own rate, so offer support and guidance, don’t push. Let them develop their own timetable, and allocate those resources they feel are necessary for the process of discovery. Don’t judge them by their progress, but by their intent. And don’t be hasty to celebrate a breakthrough, lest it be but the tip of the proverbial iceberg of knowledge and wisdom.

And should you find such a person, give them a copy of this book, and encourage them to discover how they too, can become a Leader, using the power of the “P’s”. After all, doesn’t the word “Leader” start with a ..?


23 The Secrets of Fighting City Hall in Orbit

The very first thing we are taught by our parents is that you can’t (and shouldn’t) fight Authority. Maybe they are right, but then again, if you really want to be a Leader, then…

The real trick in Life is to discover for yourself what you think is true, what is literally true, and what is neither. (Here come those two baskets again!) But before you can ever hope to exercise your Leadership ability to achieve your balance, prosperity, and success, you must be able to discriminate between the three levels of truth.

Something that’s accepted as true is generally in the domain of the public lexicon. Enough People believe something, and, ergo, it becomes accepted into popular language as a “truism”. You’ve heard (and believed) many of them.

All blondes are dumb.Kids with red hair have freckles.

Father knows best.There’s gold in them thar hills.Every cloud has a silver lining.

If you think unhealthy thoughts, you go to Hell.If you’re left handed, you’re weird.

If you work hard, you’ll be rewarded.God helps those who help themselves.

And you can’t fight City Hall.

On the other hand, a literal truth is that which is absolute, exact, precise, and faithful, and if something is “literal”, then it is inarguably correct, no matter what you or anyone else may think.

As we will discuss, and consequently discover, your true Peacemaking ability comes from within. For your world to be whole, you first have to be whole. And it is the process of doing or learning from where you get your maximum benefit, not from your achievement.

These can safely be regarded as solid examples of a metaphysical — (heavenly, or spiritual) — literal truth.

But consider this.

The absolute freezing point of matter, where all molecular activity is thought to cease, is minus 273 degrees Celsius. This is a scientific literal truth called “absolute zero”, and is where “all parts of the system are at the lowest energy permitted ...”. The assumption is that if there is no energy, then there can be no biological growth or molecular movement. In simple terms, if you are frozen down to “absolute zero”, then you will be in a state of suspended animation.

You won’t get any older, you won’t grow any hair or fingernails, and you’ll be preserved for “ever” in the condition you were in at the time of your freezing.

The science of cryogenics was developed around this principle, and the process of freezing tissue and halting normal biogenetic Life is reasonably well understood, and used in medicine routinely throughout the world.

You have probably seen the chilling images of a body packed in ice to lower its temperature, to slow the metabolic rate, while a hovering surgeon, gloved and gowned, waits anxiously for the arrival of the heart, kidney or liver that is to be transplanted. An organ that arrives in its own mini-cooler, designed to preserve the condition of the organ as close as possible to that at the time of removal from the donor body.

But one glorious day just a few years ago, a group of world renowned scientists skilled in the black Art of quantum mechanics, and working in a completely different area to Medicine, got their equipment down to “absolute zero”, and discovered something quite amazing. New atomic particles popped up, moved in mysterious ways like UFO’s, and then disappeared for all time to a place that has yet to be adequately described. (Or located, for that matter.)

The Secrets of Fighting City Hall in Orbit 23

Bemused, and more than a little excited, they repeated the experiment, and watched in awe as these newly discovered atomic “bits” raced around in totally unpredictable, seemingly random patterns, only to suddenly disappear leaving no proof of their existence behind!

Now all this happened in a “space” the size of a thousand Angels — about how big the head of a pin is supposed to be. And suddenly, irreversibly, from that day to this, “absolute zero” is not such an absolute, or a literal truth, any more.

The principle of chilling down living tissue to slow its degeneration is still valid, and still in common use. But the literal truth — absolute zero — what the practice of freezing human tissue was originally predicated on, is no longer as absolute as it was once thought to be.

Conversely, the literal truths of inner power, self-wholeness, and benefit-from-process were discovered by scholars and philosophers thousands of years ago, and have yet to be shown to be anything but literally true, despite the most hardened skeptic’s attempts to do so over the centuries.

What is the point of all this?

Science continually pushes our knowledge of the physical world to and beyond new boundaries, constantly shattering what once in History were regarded as absolutes. In the blink of an eye, whole structures of knowledge and understanding come tumbling down, replaced with the “new” truth — challenging the next generation to push the boundaries even further.

This is the way of a dynamic world, dominated by physical reality, constantly in search of its tangible answers. The two baskets of knowledge, their secrets pursued relentlessly by eagle eyed scientists determined to prove that the meaning of Life is not always “42”.

But the metaphysical truths just keep on keeping on, always constant, always available, always there for the taking and understanding. The mystic world of the mind and the personality seem to hold more constants, more literal truths, than the physical world that encompasses them. The point of this analogy is better understood after consideration of this simple observation.

What you take for granted forever escapes you. What you casually take to be the truth, unless it’s accompanied by real understanding, is worthless, and subject to probable change.

All and any belief in the dynamic physical world is suspect, and most likely to evolve into something quite different to that which you currently assume, and expect.

And an assumed truth that you take from others or books is only of value to you if you internalize it, test it for your truth, then encompass it as part of your process, discarding its face value with all the components that do not suit your purpose, or prove to be true to your particular metrics.

Just as the other assumed truths mentioned earlier are of little if any consequence, so is the belief that you can’t (or shouldn’t) fight authority.

There is always someone in your Life that seems to have the psychological edge over you. The person seems to have an aura around them that you just can’t seem to penetrate. What they have is self-confidence. What they exude like an expensive perfume is focused determination, supported by some deeply hidden belief that they are in the superior position.

And they are, for as long as you allow them to be.

You can fight City Hall, because City Hall is a physical manifestation of a totally predictable structure. City Hall is also a metaphor for any system or Organization that has a rigidity of culture born about by hierarchal


imperatives predicated on their own survival at the expense of the very People who are required to support them.

City Hall is a building, an infrastructure, a system constructed in such a way that only certain types of personalities can work and survive there. City Hall recognizes this, and only hires those types, forever perpetuating the limitations and frustrations that make it seem such a barrier to any reasonable person.

And like anything physical, City Hall is dormant, dead, Lifeless, until its shadowy halls and cloistered cubicles ring to the strenuous, labored BREATHing of its human occupants. People just like you, but with a different view of their professional Life. A view that you must come to understand and respect, and a view that is very much pervaded by the looming unwieldy bulk of conformatism, and the power of “NO”.

To fight City Hall, which mostly represents all the authority symbols you come up against in a normal Life, you must first make a genuine attempt to understand its People, their attitudes and Behaviors, and the limitations that City Hall places on them in their daily lives. To use your Leadership ability to your advantage, you must first get to a position where you can use it to good effect.

And that means getting in front of the People who work for or represent City Hall, and developing a relationship with them that allows progressive Communication, or rapport. You must see the world through their eyes, from their perspective, and help them to help you. You must show them how to be a Leader — firstly with their systems and processes, then with you. They may or may not be at Peace within themselves.

But first you must understand where they are coming from.

When you work for City Hall, you get the power to say “NO”, but you don’t get the power to say “YES.”

The only “YES” that is allowed is one that evolves from the completion of the process, removing any form of decision making. When every box is filled in correctly, at each stage of the process, the “YES” simply means that the process may continue beyond that particular point to the next stage of the process. It is not a procession of approval, but rather a motion due to the termination of resistance.

All the elements of risk-taking are removed by the rigid implementation of “systems”, which cannot ever be defiled or defied. The People of City Hall are highly trained in these systems, and judged and promoted on how well they implement them, not on how well they solve your problem. There is the famous example of the CEO of a Service who earned his bonus by delivering the organizational budget, in spite of a wayward record in delivering the service!

City Hall sees the “system” as its means of protecting itself from error, or human mistakes. If the “system” is followed exactly, then only the “right” decisions can be made, no matter how wrong or inappropriate they may turn out to be in reality.

In City Hall, common sense and reality are not mutually compatible concepts, and its People are actively discouraged from thinking about them. The system is the system, and you either fit into it and comply, and are processed, or you don’t, and you are not.

The sheer size of the entrenched and vested interests that thrive in City Hall provides its unstoppable, unyielding momentum. As its People move up the narrow ladder of success, they are encouraged by their superiors to develop “empires”, for the size of a department in City Hall always determines its power and influence. The more People you have working for you, the greater is your perceived contribution to the success and perpetuation of City Hall.

However, the momentum of City Hall must never be mistaken for worthwhile activity or considered


performance. The sheer size of City Hall, in even its smallest manifestation, the Local Shire Council, dictates that the beast will laboriously roll along the road of Life as if powered by all the devils in Hell, which may not be too far from the truth.

Any and all performance that is above the median level set by City Hall is frowned upon, and will eventually be crushed, either overtly or covertly. If a person within City Hall is ever singled out, then their future is doomed, as the potential for embarrassment at either the performance level (a subordinate does their job better than their boss), or the political level (a subordinate appears smarter or more clever than their boss), is a catastrophically negative motivational force.

Anyone, or anything, that does not fit into the general perception of who or what a City Hall subject should be, is seen as a threat, isolated, and then removed. This, too, has a process, or rigid system, that guarantees a one-way ticket to oblivion.

The level of threat that you may represent is measured by either the potential for confusion, the application of pressure by the use of time, or the requirement to execute in a non-procedural way. In simple terms, if you try to get City Hall to do something that is not clear to them, or you appear to be applying pressure by the use of a deadline, or what you require does not fit a system or process that allows it to proceed, then you will fail.

City Hall is fatally and totally risk adverse.

The classic City Hall strategy to deal with a threat is to revert to “Original Process”. And the foundation of “Original Process” is decelerated time. The longer it takes, the greater the comfort level in City Hall. Conversely, the harder you push, the greater will be you difficulty in dealing with City Hall, and the longer it will take.

The degree of resistance City Hall applies to a threat is directly proportional to the height and weight of the paperwork needed to arrive at a conclusion favorable to you.

A problem that requires but the one sheet of process, generates the greatest degree of resistance, even though it may seem on the surface to present the easiest task. It is a genuine threat, and will be scrutinized far beyond its real risk.

Conversely, the problem that requires volumes and volumes of documentation receives very little, if any, resistance at all, because the weight of effort required to process the problem serves to justify, and therefore perpetuate, the very existence of City Hall. The more paper involved, the more automatic “YES” steps as each laborious part of the system is processed, the more comfortable City hall becomes with the outcome. By its very nature, City Hall likes to distribute responsibility, to as many participants as possible.

The belief is simple. The greater the process, the greater the detail, the more prolonged the agony, the more steps in the process, and the more People involved, the less chance there is that someone will make a fatal mistake. (Fatal to City Hall, that is.)

It is City Hall’s prime tenet that no criticism can ever be levelled by an outsider, if the system is followed to the letter of the Law, irrespective of the actual time it may take to do so. And because time to City Hall is simply a means of measuring the distance between pay-cheques, your time frame is of no real consequence or importance.

The longer it takes City Hall to process the system, the more likely it is that City Hall will win, even if you get the result you desire. (Because City Hall can never be seen to have made a mistake — how could they, every step of the system, every level of the process, was followed perfectly, to the absolute letter of the Law, producing the safest and only decision City Hall ever makes — the automatic one).

It is City Hall’s greatest wish that the “P” word, Personality, never appear in the hallowed halls that link its humorless burrows like occluded veins in a heart patient. Personalities stand out, take sides in an argument, are likely to attempt to change things,


and quite often do things that are viewed as either radical or dangerous. In a sea of calm and predictable weather, the emotional storm of an energetic, enthusiastic personality can wreck havoc on an unprecedented scale, and is to be avoided at all costs. City Hall is absolutely risk-adverse.

(Needless to say, if you are a personality, and possessed of strong measures of Leadership ability, you must disguise yourself at first contact, letting City Hall see only what is necessary for them to understand your seriousness and good intent).

The more invisible City Hall manages to become, the better it believes it serves the community, for the biggest Sin in City Hall is not doing something wrong, or even getting caught doing something wrong. It is allowing information of the wrongdoing to get out into the Public domain, a Sin for which the perpetrator will never be forgiven.

City Hall leaks like a sieve, and uses these leaks as a means of generating and welding Power out in the Public domain. By using these leaks for your personal gain, you are empowering the hidden faces within City Hall, and executing their program for them, like a Pavlovian dog. The risk you run is that you will degrade or pollute your Leadership ability by involving yourself with the sponge-like, intellect-dulling process that is quintessentially City Hall.

City Hall will never thank you or acknowledge you for using their leak. City Hall will always deny that a leak occurred, create a Review Committee, and prove that it did not happen, ultimately leading to the inescapable conclusion that you obtained the leaked information by illegal means!

Such Review Committees also leak like a sieve, allowing City Hall to freely publicize its good intentions, and prove conclusively that it did not leak in the first place. Against such a circuitous process, a simple honest man has very little real resistance, irrespective of his Leadership ability.

City Hall is at its most dangerous when it is prepared to argue its case openly, and in Public. The only time this happens is when it is impossible for the result to be in anyone’s favor except City Hall. This means that the conclusion is foregone, known to all, accepted as “truth” because it is inescapable, and empowered by the general lack of will to fight it. The “Deal” has been done, behind very solid closed doors.

City Hall’s greatest weapon is reasonableness.

City Hall’s greatest force is inertia.

City Hall’s biggest fear is that someone will eventually come up with a better system.

Consequently, City Hall is a place into which most of everything of value enters at one time or another, but precious little ever returns.

City Hall can easily be compared to a Black Hole.Black Holes defy normal gravity, absorbing all energy and light within their sphere of influence. Black Holes suck in on themselves, constantly devouring everything in their path in their unending quest to absorb the Universe. So far, it would seem to be an absolute “literal” truth that nothing is bigger, or more powerful, or less understood than a Black Hole floating around somewhere out in space.

Once something falls into a Black Hole, it is never seen again. At least, that is what the scholars of our Age tell us, based on their best guesses.

There are many theories that abound about Black Holes, but very little fact. In the whole of History to this date, less than twenty published Volumes exist on the subject, and all start with the words, “...it is postulated that...”

What this means is that they don’t really know.

There are also many theories that abound about City Hall, and incredible volumes of facts, but for all the good it does you, it may as well be about a Black


Hole. Because when it comes to dealing with City Hall, there are as many theories based on assumptions and warped opinion as there are Black Holes!

And as you already know, “...it is postulated that...there may be hundreds — perhaps even thousands, of Black Holes...”

But you can fight City Hall, and win. One way is to have the patience of Job, time to kill, be a person of Independent Means, and start your fight early, with no expectation of a settlement within any reasonable period of time.

The other is to understand and accept City Hall for what it truly is, and remove all and any sense of frustration in trying to deal with it. By analyzing City Hall’s attitudes and habits, it becomes apparent that for you to win, City Hall must perceive you as no real threat to its systems; able to allow it to follow its due process; and able to cope with its awesome time demands.

You must also be able to face its People in a way that allows them to survive within City Hall, without perceived threat. This means that you must never give them a problem or information in a form that forces them to say “NO” to defend themselves or the system, or creates the need for them to have to find the person who ultimately can say “YES”.

This is a degrading, humiliating exercise, for which you will get no thanks. On the contrary, you will attract the full force of City Hall’s wrath, as it intuitively fights to protect its own.

Everything must be presented in a way that allows the easy application of the automatic, process driven non-decisive “YES”, the one that keeps your application or problem flowing throughout the dusty corridors of assumed power. If your application or problem flows swiftly, it means that you are not a perceived or actual threat, and the speed of the process becomes an indication of the probability of a satisfactory conclusion being reached.

However, this does not always mean that you will succeed, just that your application or problem has got through the system, with a minimum of difficulty.

You need exquisite preparation, and exacting detail, and the ability to control your temperament. The realization that you will never succeed, no matter who or what you are, or how much Leadership ability you have developed, unless you can get City Hall to endorse your application or problem, should provide the greatest motivation for you to be in self-control.

The key issue at all times is that you never, never ask City Hall to do something that it cannot automatically do, either because of regulatory limitations, or process limitations. If you make this mistake, then the ensuing confusion will haunt your every move throughout the corridors like a deadly wraith. Always take the time to find the right section or department before you launch yourself at City Hall.

Where possible, use the City Hall reliance on systems to find out the who, what, when, where, how and why of it all, before you launch yourself into the fray. One kind word, one understanding smile to a lowly City Hall worker can bring you faster and greater rewards than an atom bomb’s worth of power.

And of course, the primary consideration must always be, if at all possible, never to do anything that leads you to get involved with City Hall in the first place!

If City Hall represents Authority, in all its many forms and vested interests, then you need to seriously consider what changes in your Lifestyle and your Behavior you must make to prevent City Hall from ever taking an interest in you. Generally speaking, the causal factors break out into two general types. (Here come those two baskets again!)

The first is obvious — through your efforts (or lack of effort) you break an accepted convention, and incur the wrath of The Powers That Be — City Council,


Government Body, Police, Service Authority, or some equally City Hall-like bureaucracy. These types of arguments will seldom go in your favor, because City Hall takes great pains to see that the minute detail involved in protecting its system is such that you either need huge, well-stuffed pockets, or a brother-in-law in the right place.

If you speed and get caught by a radar gun, even though your emotional quotient will get quite high, and your Stress will rise, you must come to grips with the fact that the radar operator, and the issuing officer, are not after you personally. They are executing the policies of the day, to the best of their abilities, based on the convention that the “majority rules”. No matter what your opposing attitude may be, there is simply no justification for you to have broken the convention of a mandated speed limit.

Council ordinances are the same. Whether they are correct, fair, reasonable, well-serving, or just plain stupid is immaterial. Because they exist, because they have been promulgated, they have the full force of City hall behind them, and woe betides the human being that flies in the face of their intent.

In essence, avoiding a clash with City Hall is the single most effective way of dealing with it. No one likes to be ignored, not even City Hall. And if it is ignored, and under-utilized, then it is quickly exposed for the self-serving fraud that it is. An empire survives and thrives on process and system, but if you remove the need for either, then the whole top-heavy structure will come tumbling down.

The second type of causal factor is more insidious. When City Hall comes-a-calling, watch out! Why would City Hall come to you? A prolific number of reasons, from inspecting a Public Facility, like gas, water, electricity, fences, boundaries, to compliance with regulations, census reports, Tax audits, and field work to assess the potential for threat from the unknown. Irrespective of the reason, if you trip up the person from City Hall, become entangled in a debate with them, or take a stance that clearly suggests that they should cease and desist, then you will create the

psychological phenomenon called “Fight or Flight”. You will Stress them out, and they, in turn, will Stress you out. This is where your attitude as a Leader will be sorely tested, but never more needed.

If City Hall runs, or is seen to retreat, you can expect the full majesty of its repugnant, immovable, and unyielding bureaucratic might to descend on your head, and not necessarily just in the area you offended. Worse, if City Hall decides to fight you there and then, outside the corridors of power, then you are in real trouble. Sit back, relax, and let the process begin, and try to keep your sense of humor at all costs, because the more emotion you show, the greater their perceived victory!

Like a bellowing tractor with a locked-up gear box, the only thing that will stop or slow City Hall is when it runs out of steam — vents its collective anger, and regroups to assess what it has to do to appear conciliatory (in the best interests of its public face).

And, as we saw before, City Hall is never more dangerous than when it appears to be reasonable. When the lull does come, then it’s time for some well-tested tactics.

You fight fire with fire, detail with detail, and summons with response. You must show them that you can master their process, meet their demands, and comply with their regulations. You must demonstrate that you can match them page for page, line for line, and meeting for meeting. You must always remove the perceived threat, or even the possibility of a threat. Unless you do this, why then, “You can’t fight City Hall!”

The moral to all this can be found in an intriguing story taken from the Mayan Scrolls, unearthed some years ago deep in the Koonya Valley. How ancient scrolls from a South American culture managed to find their way into the foot of Turkey, is not yet clear. But what is clear, is that even back then, two and a half thousand years ago, City Hall loomed large in the Life of the ordinary man!


“In the year 455 BC,” or so the story goes, “ a simple herder, herding a flock of motley goats along a well-worn path suddenly came upon a rock, which was so massive it blocked his easy passage. Sitting next to the rock was a Tax Collector, brewing java over an open flame. He looked up as the approach of the smelly herder blocked his sun, and smiled, gesturing at a small patch of flat mud to his side.

“Would you care to sip with me, old man?” he asked politely. The herder sighed, looked around to confirm that his goats had not wandered, and bowed gratefully, using his gnarled staff to lower his ancient bones to the ground.

The Tax Collector poured the rank black liquid into a small earthen cup, and offered it to his guest.“This is a fine aroma,” the herder commented, sniffing the wafting steam that rose from the small cup. He bowed his thanks, and sipped. The Tax Collector mimicked his guest, drawing in the vapor through well-used nostrils, then sipped gently at the rim of his cup. The sun, tired after its daylong journey across the cloud-flecked sky, sunk gratefully behind the mottled hills, casting long shadows across the track.

“You know,” the herder commented, in a wishful voice, “it is not fair and proper that the District Legionnaire collect a tithe from a poor working man, simply so that he may go around an obstruction, carefully placed by the Gods to test his mettle, and be on his way. It is simply not fair.”

The Tax Collector looked into the rheumy eyes of the old man, and smiled again, offering more java as he did so.

“You are not being taxed to pass the rock, old man,” he said gently, pouring the sweet black liquid into the herder’s cup, “an Act of the Gods is an Act of the Gods, and let no man place a value upon it.” The herder bent to his cup, thinking, then raised his head, one eyebrow cocking quizzingly.

“Then why a Tax Collector, even such a nice one as you, at this exact spot?” he asked. The Tax Collector laughed, carefully placing the boiling pot back on the fire, stoking it with a broken shoot of burnt bamboo.

“Old man, it should be obvious. If indeed the Gods went to all this trouble to create an impasse, why, then, we must honor Them with recognition, and celebrate Their mighty feat.” The herder shook his head, not understanding this explanation in the slightest. He slowly stood, his rickety frame unfolding itself like a rusted erector set.

“Then if you are not here to tax me, I will humbly thank you for your hospitality, and be on my way.” The Tax Collector smiled, and rose to look the herder in the eye. He placed one arm on his shoulder, in the style of greeting that was in vogue at the time, and placed his other hand palm up below his chin, fingers pointing at the other man’s heart.

“With my blessings, old man, with my blessings. Just as soon as you have paid for your tea!”

Like Death itself, some say, you cannot escape the Tax Man. And the Tax Man works for City Hall.

So what really is City hall? It’s no more than an Attitude, one formed from the process of conformity. We are all expected to conform to accepted norms within the society in which we live, or the Team or Group within which we work, and just like the difficulties you sometimes experienced growing up with your parents, as you mature and develop your Leadership ability you are sure to have the occasional brush with a City Hall like Attitudes or process.

It’s like falling rain. It’s great when it comes at the end of a long hot spell, but it’s a nuisance on top of a deluge that has flooded your yard. Affirmation by City Hall that you are a good and worthwhile citizen is a Life-enriching experience. A traffic ticket, parking notice, speeding fine, or code violation is simply the system reminding you that for the good of the


majority, rules have been agreed to, and you have transgressed these rules, to your detriment.

Now, understanding where real potential for Leadership can come from, and being a student of experiential learning, how hard a problem is that to overcome?

So you can fight City Hall, after all, as a Leader.

24 The Secrets of Animal Cunning in Orbit

One of the secrets of being a Leader is in knowing who you really are. In this respect, the humble Fox is an interesting study as far as animal cunning goes. And perhaps, even as a Leader.

The unlucky Fox, in the good days past, got to snug up against the skin of all the most beautiful women in the world. He or she was skinned and stretched into a pelt, then hand stitched into a warm coat, and worn not necessarily for comfort, but for show. They also got to be chased by the most expensive horses in the land, barked at by the most pedigreed dogs, and shot at by the inebriated and most proper of gentlemen.

Now this, mind you, was the unlucky Fox!

The lucky Fox missed out on all this sport and luxury, preferring to use his cunning and guile to eat well, and live long, but perhaps without all the excitement.

The principles of survival emulated by the Fox bear close examination, for how often do you see some poor person’s ego mounted on someone else’s horse, being displayed for all to see?

In fact, how often have you felt that your precious ego has been temporarily possessed or controlled by another person, and you’ve all but been powerless to stop it? Let’s look at the Fox, and see what lessons you can apply to your own Life, and the development of your Leadership ability.

For starters, the Fox has a very clear perspective of who and what he (she) is. He (she - he will do from now on, the point on sexual equality is either made by now, or never can be!) is a smallish four legged animal, with a big bushy tail, pointed nose, deep black eyes with sharp focus, excellent developed sense of smell, good reflexes, good burst of speed, and medium endurance.

Now never expect a Fox to tell you all this — they are what they are, well, because they are. And lacking any need to be something else, they always are what they appear to be. A Fox, pure and simple.

A Fox uses all his skills and instincts, to the fullest of his ability. He doesn’t shirk from a fight, but avoids them if he can. He has a highly developed sense of society, but is equally capable of surviving on his own. He only kills what he needs to eat, and is perfectly happy to share his conquests with other Foxes. He guards his young, sees to their development and survival, and accepts their growth and independence as a fact of Life.

They may never know that the title we have given them is “Fox”. However, their instincts are such, that from the day they are born, until the day they die, they act, think, hunt, eat, move, sleep, mate, and live, as a Fox is supposed to.

Why? Because that is how we see them acting, and it appears that they don’t know any different way to act. (Notice that it is the point of view of the observer that determines what we see and think, not what the observed thinks or feels). The Fox doesn’t stop to examine his role in Life, he just gets on and lives it. He doesn’t make anything special of what he does instinctively, he just does the same things over and over again, in the fiercely competitive world he lives in, learning from his mistakes, and fixating on those things that seem to work for him.

In Nature, like everything else, there is a natural order, and what the observer sees is the interaction of the various species within a given environment. It was

The Secrets of Animal Cunning in Orbit 24

the human need to quantify and qualify, to unravel the secrets of the Universe, which created the need to define and title, to understand and label, hence all things that look and act like a Fox are called “Fox”.

But what makes this work for us is an external observation, based on experiential learning. The poor Fox, lacking the ability to read, choose, and develop any sort of Leadership ability, has no option but to be a Fox. To be observed by us being a Fox, and consequently judged by us on how good a Fox he really is.

To the Fox, survival is his only reward. Starting and growing a whole lot of little Foxes is but a passing need, dictated by instinct, to protect the species labeled “Fox” from extinction. (Not that he knows this of course, he is only answering the call of nature). Concepts like heat, cold, wet or dry are but passing phases for one who lives in the hollowed-out tree stump, or carefully sculptured lair.

When one temporary home becomes untenable, for whatever reason, he simply moves on, and establishes another. Personal possessions are unnecessary, but staking out his “turf” is of prime importance. He demands and gets respect from other Foxes, until he is perceived as weak. Then he will either be killed, or left to die on his own. And just like us, Foxes don’t take anything with them when they die. Not that they would if they could.

In getting comfortable with this information, and so long as the Fox acts like our perception of a Fox, we become essentially happy, and our curiosity, for the time at least, is abated. We know all there is to know about the Fox, and nothing stands out as a puzzle or a threat. But should the Fox suddenly start acting like a Chicken, then all Hell will break loose!

“It can’t do that!” we rage, reaching for the nearest shotgun, Stress eating away at rational abilities.

“How dare it pretend to be a Chicken!” we shout, unleashing the Dogs of War.

Our fury knows no bounds, and our emotional levels rise to new heights. Simply because our perception of reality has been challenged, and by a dumb animal, no less!

The first secret of the Fox is a simple one.

You, as the observer, determine what your reality will be. It is as you see it, experience it, taste it, visualize it, and finally, internalize it.

If you want to be rich, and you believe that you will be rich, and act like you want to be rich, then you will become rich.

Now, you balked at a Fox trying to be a Chicken. A Fox is not gifted with wisdom, the ability to choose, project his ego, or the ability to develop as a Leader. A Fox is a Fox is a Fox.

But you can be anything you choose to be, whenever you choose to be it.

Want to be a politician? Easy. Want real wealth? Easy. Want fabulous success? Easy. Want to take control of your Life, and prosper? Easy. Want to be a Leader? Learn from the Fox.

“Animal cunning” is a metaphor you have heard often, and most times the person who uses this phrase does so with a wishful sound in their voice, as if they wanted this magical “animal cunning” for themselves, to use in some part of their lives.

“Animal cunning” is no more than basic instinct, one usually honed around a strong desire to survive, and a lot of practical application doing so. This is a primitive, but enormously powerful, motivating force, and if you examine it closely, it is no more than a statement about “self”. You must be preserved. You must be perpetuated. You must be honored. You must be recognized. You must be a pivotal force in your Universe. You must be in control.

So what is stopping you?


The Fox travels through Life instinctively, reacting to the forces of Nature. He is a moving, predetermined entity in a random environment, and how well he survives depends on how well and how quickly he adapts. He cannot control his environment, and is at the mercy of the natural order of things. (Every species has a natural enemy, designed by God to prevent one species dominating the world. A question of balance.)

You, however, have the ability to decide what you want for yourself, and manipulate your environment accordingly. You can choose to be anything you want to be, and become it, simply by initiating positive actions that take you toward your goal. You must have the desire to become what you want to be. A desire so strong you can taste it.

And because you can taste it, you can become utterly convinced that it is possible, no matter what anyone else may think or say. And the moment you convince yourself that your goal is true, it becomes your reality, and all you need do to make it happen is to make it happen.

The biggest single factor in determining your Leadership ability is your belief in what you do. And belief comes from the strength of your vision and commitment.

You can create reality — you are the observer — you are the one who determines what is what. If it is not real to you, then it is not real. But if it is real to you, then you can empower your vision with the strength of your belief and commitment and see your reality come true.

This is a mind power thing, and many good books have been written about it. But the essence of the understanding is that you recall the image of the Fox — in your mind, he can never be a Chicken, because you have predetermined what the characteristics of a Fox are. Change those determinations, change your perceptions, and you can change you beliefs. If you change your beliefs, then you can change reality.

And a Fox can become a Chicken.

And you can become anything in the world you want to be, any time you choose to.

Another attribute of the Fox is that he has a clearly defined comfort zone, out of which he rarely moves, if at all. Again, he is instinctively protecting himself from a harsh environment he has no control over, and very little understanding of, beyond his needs to survive, reproduce, and eat.

This comfort zone is like a barrier to the outside world, both protecting the Fox from unexpected surprises, and protecting the outside world from the Fox becoming a Chicken. If he ever does make the switch, then he moves us out of our comfort zone, threatening our perceptions and beliefs, as we have discovered earlier.

However, unlike the Fox, we can actively change the self-imposed limits of our comfort zone, considerably enhancing out ability to achieve the things in Life we hold so dear — wealth, prosperity, success and the ability to be a Leader.

First, you have to determine what and where the existing boundaries of your comfort zone are. This is easy, just ask yourself the following questions — What am I most afraid of? Success? Failure? Ignorance? Disability? Lack of stature? Poverty? Sickness? Relationships? Something else?

Your honest answers will provide a guide to where your current comfort zone is. Fear is an emotion, and easily soothed by understanding. True understanding removes barriers for you, whenever the understanding is applied in an honest way. Just like being scared of the dark is temporarily fixed by turning on a light.

Your fear of the dark hasn’t gone, just the dark.

You can also expand your comfort zone by a quick influx of knowledge. However, to gain any permanency in this expansion, you have to internalize


your new understanding, and make it a part of your truth. You have to taste knowledge, and let it infect you with its new ideas and creativity.

If you are afraid of success, as many People are (but don’t know it), then you will have an inbuilt resistance to achieving your goals. You’ve seen People like this, they always seem to shoot themselves in the foot just as they are about to achieve great things. “What a pity” we all say in sympathy, not realizing that some hidden inner subconscious force determined their downfall. This fear is more common that you would expect, the primary drive being a fear of being shown to be unworthy of any great achievement.

Now the Fox doesn’t have this problem. Not being the possessor of great intellect, he operates on instinct, and uses his senses to keep him out of trouble. But we humans constantly strive for things that are just out of our reach, many times without knowing the ramifications of what we are doing, blindly ignoring our instincts. We open ourselves up to massive doses of self-induced Stress, killing ourselves in the process.

This is the second great secret of the Fox

Tread carefully, and slowly, until you understand the dynamics of what it is you are striving to do. Sniff the winds of change, search out the mysteries of your environment, and use all your senses to determine your course of action. Consider all the options, and, if necessary, and practical, try the lot. The only limitation you have is the one you place on yourself.

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes, and learning from them. But be sure to make your mistakes in such a way that they don’t prove fatal!

For once you have decided on what you really want, and visualized it so strongly that it has become your truth, you must take the time to learn how best you can achieve you new ambition. Not instinctively, like the Fox, but purposefully, like a visionary with a magic dream. And in a manner and a fashion that is true to

your instincts, because you cannot change who you are, only what you may become.

We are each born with a bucket of ability, always available for us to dip into. The raw talents and intuitions can be honed and expanded, but the basic “I” can never be altered. You are who you are, and can never be someone else. But you can change what you do with your Life, and what you become in it.

Like the Fox, you will never get away with trying to be a Chicken.

But you can successfully emulate what the Chicken does, and benefit from the experience.

Foxes are often trapped by things that look and smell correct, but are fatally flawed. These “baits” come in many forms, the most common being the classic piece of poisoned meat, rich and succulent, enough to make the strongest jowls dribble with anticipation. Because the Fox is instinctive, he is all too readily taken by the external trappings of an easy, attractive meal. It is not until he has consumed his fill that the acid suddenly turns to bile, and his guts vomit the poison back up, in a last ditch attempt to save him.

Human history is riddled with metaphors that accurately describe this phenomenon — all the way back to the Trojan Horse. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” is a modern day equivalent. Thus the third secret is revealed. You get nothing for nothing. Beware of the easy solution, the quick fix, the promise of riches, the almost irresistible lure of instant fame and fortune.

The path to glory is booby-trapped with hundreds of “baits”, all poised to take the unwary, unthinking pilgrim, who confuses opportunity with ambition. Because it is your truth that you are attempting to give Life to — it is your vision of what you want to achieve for yourself — it is extremely unlikely that a ready made, instant, easy, immediate solution exists, that you can just step up and take without cost.


As the Swiss banking fraternity are oft to say, “In God’s plan for the Universe, it is unlikely that there is a sub-plan in which you get rich!”

You get in this Life what you pay for. The People you most respect are those that have achieved great things — they weren’t given them, they went out and got them with energy, vision, and great effort.

You must do the same.If the Fox wants to eat, he must hunt. If he wants to sleep soundly, he must build a lair. If he wants to survive, he must avoid his enemies. It’s only when he gets lazy, and takes an easy bait, that he gets himself into real trouble.

Trouble that can easily be fatal for a simple Fox.

As the Fox stretches out in the Sun, letting the warmth revitalize his tired muscles, his tongue lolls out one side of his mouth, and he pants, his black eyes roving the horizon. Every so often, he stops this, points his long snout at the sky, and sniffs the air. Even at rest, he is crucially aware of his environment, and those in it who would threaten him and his pack. He has many natural enemies, and just as many unnatural ones.

And like other dog-like animals, he uses his unique smell to wet down trees and shrubs, letting other Foxes know that this particular piece of turf is his, and that they should stay away.

Unfortunately, this specific odor is also his greatest weakness, because many of the predatory animals who rate Fox as their number #1 choice for dinner have a highly developed sense of smell, and easily locate their unfortunate prey by finding where he urinated, and track him to his lair.

This is the Fox’s biggest secret. He doesn’t understand (because no one has told him) how his enemies find him, but he soon realizes that unless he is ever vigilant, he will soon be the centerpiece in someone’s banquet. He is constantly on the alert,

never taking anything for granted, always wary of a new scent or odor, suspicious about anything that is out of place, and curious about anything that doesn’t look and smell right. He doesn’t rest on his laurels, and let others do the work for him.

So must you on your chosen path to becoming a Leader.

Always have an enquiring mind, always seek the truth in what you observe, never take anything for granted, and always be on the lookout for new understanding. In this way, the natural wisdom of the Fox can be yours, and where all he gets is survival as his reward, you will get the power of your vision, and the ability to make your dreams come true! You will become a true Leader, and your reach and influence with be great.

In the days of conquest ahead, always remember the cunning of the Fox, and his secrets, and what they can do for you. Never take anything for granted. Always make new knowledge and experience a part of your truth, empowering your intellect to the fullest. Be on the lookout for false symbols, and empty promises. And never, never, take a poisoned bait. Tread carefully, in small measures, at least until you fully understand the full ramifications of your actions.

And be what you are meant to be, not what others project you to be. Learn from their expectations, but profit from your considered opinion.

Realize that the world is full of promise and opportunity, just as it is full of black pits and snares. Think of the Fox often, and learn from his highly tuned instincts.

And become the true Leader you deserve to be.

25 The Secrets of Space in Orbit

Your intellect can wander through the heavens, occasionally peeking at a Star, or it can rocket through the Universe, latched onto the tail of a Comet. Your

The Secrets of Space in Orbit 25

first big step is overcoming the limitations of the speed of light!

What really is “intellect”? Is it how smart you are, or appear to be? Is it a measurement of your cleverness? Has it something to do with how witty you may be?

Yes, and no.

A close scrutiny of the word shows us that “intellect” is defined as comprehension, or ability to understand; ability to reason, or to discriminate; insight; intuition; perception; sensitivity. It is clearly a grab bag of many emotions, feelings, and character traits.

Your eyes are regarded as the window to your soul. They are also, along with your ears and your other senses, the doors to your intellect. Unfortunately, the outlets for your intellect are your mouth, and your body, or what you demonstrate physically in the way you do and say things. Your Behavior and attitudes that are observed by others.

The word “intellect” is usually associated with clever People, geniuses, or those much smarter than we are. In truth, we all have the same God given ability to develop our intellect, if only we choose to do so. And developing your intellect is a fundamental requirement of developing your maximum ability to be a Leader. The two go hand in hand, and you can’t have one without the other.

It is true that some People seem to have a greater mental capacity, or are able to learn things faster and easier, than others. It is also true that some People seem to develop their intellect better than others. But the fact remains that anyone can choose to develop their intellect, to whatever level you desire.

As always, it’s up to you!

Comprehension is simply your ability to understand things that you read, hear, or observe. How well you comprehend is determined by many factors, such as your present frame of reference, the accuracy of the

input, the state of your mental faculties, your desire to process the information, and your ability to filter what you learn into its component parts.

Your frame of reference is dependent on your experience, and your retained memory of things (mental models). If you’ve never read or heard about a small animal called a Fox before, then the first time you see one, you won’t know what it is. You will have no comprehension of what you should call it, or do with it. If you have heard of it before, but have forgotten what you learned, then you will still be confused, and uncertain. Two words that you know rob you of your Leadership ability — confusion, and uncertainty! And both lead to self-induced Stress.

It is possible to have a very wide, general-purpose frame of reference, simply by reading extensively, and staying in tune with your environment. Newspapers, magazines, books, Current Affairs programs, and computer-accessed data bases all offer a wealth of information, on literally any subject you choose to pursue. The greater your frame of reference, the greater will be your comprehension, and the greater will be the development of your Leadership ability. You don’t necessarily have to try to remember all that you review, just the “markers” so you can find the data when you need it.

It has often been said, that there is nothing more powerful than an informed person, able to share their knowledge with those around them. You will never hear this statement refuted by anyone who is really successful, but you may well hear it challenged by those who are not. Coincidentally, your ability to be a Leader will often be underwritten by the knowledge you can bring to the process at any one time.

The accuracy of what you absorb, will be dependent on two factors. The first, and most obvious, is the absolute truth of the information you are receiving. If you are reading, then the written word needs to be factual, or understood and stimulative. If you are watching TV, then the pictures need to be unbiased,


and honest in their construction. If you are listening, then what you hear needs to be unfettered with color and personality. And if you are feeling, then the sensory perception must match what the other object is really transmitting, and not offer confusing signals.

The second factor is a little more complex, and it’s all to do with you. When you are exposed to data, you tend to automatically filter what you see, hear, and feel, by what you expect, have experienced previously, or believe to be true. There’s nothing wrong with this process, in fact, it’s vital that you do apply these filters to everything, or you’d be swamped to the point of numbness by untold volumes of irrelevant data.

The issue is how true you are being in applying these filters. If you are limited by what you know, you deny yourself access to new knowledge. If you are prejudiced towards what is being Communicated (attitude formation) then you will color it with your negative attitude. And if you are applying the limit of what you have experienced previously, then you will prevent the synergistic process of stimulation from occurring, reducing the potential of the new experience adding to your reservoir of understanding.

All this is controlled by the state of your mental faculties, or how perceptive and receptive you are willing to be. Just as People only learn what they want to learn, and when they want to learn it, you will only be receptive to new knowledge when you want to be. Your receptiveness is directly related to your energy levels, your thirst for knowledge, and your desire to succeed, and how much you really want to become a Leader.

By looking at you, others can easily judge the state of your intellect. If you carry an easy smile, your eyes sparkle with truth and trust, and your body is alive with energy, then it is obvious that your intellect is comfortably maxing it to the limit. Just this persona grants you a serious measure of Leadership ability, before you even say or do anything, to either confirm the truth of the observation, or destroy it.

Confidence breeds its own success, and success walks in the shadow of intent.

To be receptive, you must be at Peace with yourself and your environment. Your energy must be centered in your Paradise, and you must be capable of accepting the new knowledge for what it is, not what you want it to be. Your attitude needs to be that of the observer, not the judge. You need to have the biggest ears in the world, and the willingness to use them. And you must be able to discern what it is you are really hearing, seeing, or feeling, not necessarily just what it appears to be.

The ability to process is vital to your growth as a whole person. Take a leaf out of the Ancient Scholar’s Book, and start with the two baskets. One for what is, and one for what might be. Actively apply your experience to the data, sifting through it for things that taste right. Examine them minutely, then swallow them into your consciousness.

That which you cannot use, don’t like the taste of, or don’t understand yet, tip into the second basket, to await their turn. Some will arise at a later date because of new information that allows them to become useful. Others will call you like a siren, demanding that you take the time and effort to understand them, and learn from them. The rest is better off left where it is, because your lifetime is finite, and not only do you not need to know everything in the world, you couldn’t if you tried!

Once you have accepted information, filter it into its component parts, storing all the bits in the different parts of your memory and experiential data banks, for future use. But above all else, grow to enjoy the process, because learning is a dynamic activity, one that has the ability to charge your ego with short-term stimulation, and flush your soul with the power of new truth. People who are truly alive learn something new every minute of every day, every day of their achievement-filled lives.

That’s why they are successful.


Knowledge is power. The more you know, the more power you will have. And it’s not just the ability to know things that is important. Knowledge protects you from attack, because if your have developed your intellect, you are less likely to be tricked, fooled, be taken in by a lie, or led down the dark path of deceit and evil. And this means that you are less likely to become Stressed by events or activities that stretch you outside your comfort zone.

Your ability to reason or discriminate is something that grows with your experience. In many ways, how well you reason something out, or apply your discriminatory process, controls the amount of time you need to absorb new learning. The faster you can reason, the more you can learn. The better you discriminate, the least amount of time you waste chasing ghosts.

There is a dark side to reason, and it can often lead to misunderstanding and frustration, and Stress. When someone tells you that what you are saying sounds “reasonable”, what they are really saying is that they either aren’t sure of what it is you have said, and they are considering it further, or that it hasn’t threatened them at any conscious or unconscious level. Unfortunately, we often hear this as acceptance of what we are striving to achieve, rather than as a request for more information.

You know that a “reasonable” person is not always the one you would trust with your life, or your future. Don’t know why, but the very reasonableness of “reasonable” seems to depower it, the moment the word is used to describe a person, rather than a process!

Insight, or the knowledge that comes from within you, as part of your truth, is what fuels your ability to be clever and shrewd. An insightful person is one who is regarded as being on the ball, quick to take advantage of opportunities, and one who generates a lot of respect for their ability to rapidly understand and Communicate well. This is the first of the attributes that is also influenced by your skill levels. The greater your personal skills, the more insight you can bring to bear on a problem. It’s almost like

having the roadmap in your head before you start your journey.

And the more insight you have available, the greater and more efficient is your ability to process. Understanding, learning, experience, wisdom and unfulfilled curiosity funnel stimulus towards your inner self, and as you become more efficient and more discriminatory in how you handle the influx of information, you empower your insight to work for you, autonomously. And you lessen the opportunity to self induce Stress.

Intuition is something quite different. When you think you know something, but you’re not sure why or how you know, you are exercising your intuitive ability. This is a “feeling” thing rather than a physical thing, and is very much up to the individual as to how much you have, and how often you can use it.

It takes great trust and belief in yourself to let your intuition guide you, because many times there is nothing to show but a vague “feeling” of uneasiness, or a warm glow of positive reassurance. Intuition is totally in the mind, and its usefulness is dependant on the state of your mental health, your inner stance, your energy levels, and your truth.

When you are powerful, your intuition will serve you well. When you are not, it will simply not be there, because intuition is generated by the positive side of your nature, and driven by your subconscious mind. You cannot dictate to it, you cannot call it up on demand, and you cannot force it to obey your will.

It is either there, or it is not, and the harder you try, the further away it will get. Conversely, the more you learn, the longer you study, the better your understanding becomes, the greater will be your intuitive abilities. The more at Peace you become with yourself, the harder you chase down your goals, and the more energetic you get at developing your Leadership ability, the better your intuition will serve you.

Perception is a many-edged sword within your personality. It involves your awareness, your


consciousness, your powers of observation, the depth and breadth of your vision, and your keenness to get in amongst the swimming pools of life. As you grow stronger and more aware, your perception heightens.

How aware you are goes all the way back to your desire and focus. If you want to achieve something hard enough, then you will generate the desire within you to motivate you to get the job done, and done well. As your desire increases in intensity, your awareness of all around you increases, erg for erg. In a sense, the more aware you become, the more perceptive you are, because awareness is the secondary building block (after desire) for achievement.

The observer in you, the voyager, the adventurer, the seeker of knowledge, will always strive to heighten your awareness. And as your awareness reaches its peak, so does your ability to absorb new understanding. The keener your awareness, the greater the quality of what you take in to be your truth.

Your state of consciousness, or your span of attention, is all to do with how well, and how long, you can concentrate on something. There are many different elements at work here, all the way from your physical fitness level, your inner stance, the level of your desire, the degree of your commitment, the perceived difficulty of the task, how well you have created your strategy, the simplicity of your tactics, and the amount of will-power you can allocate to achieving your goal.

You will learn what you want to learn, at a time when you most want to learn it. It is that simple. And your attention span, or consciousness, will exactly match your commitment to the task.

Your powers of observation wax and wane with your arousal levels. To observe is not just to “see”, it is also to think, internalize, compare, filter, judge, absorb, relate, accept and use wisely the information you are gathering from your senses. How well you can do this at any one time is dependant on all the other things you are trying to do.

There is a classic military situation that exactly fits this state of mind. It is called “Situational Awareness”, and it is the result of two factors — training and Stress management.

Way back at the start of the last century, aeroplanes were stately things flown by adventurous People. They were essentially simple devices, made from wood and fabric, and were so stable that some almost “flew” themselves. Just as many ended up as piles of burning rubble, as the more adventurous pilots attempted to push back the barriers of aeronautical knowledge, giving up their lives in the process.

The DH82 Tiger Moth, famous as a World War 2 trainer, is one such aircraft, and it flies sedately along at 85 knots. Once the pilot has mastered its peculiar quirks, he only has to watch three instruments to know where he is, and stay right side up, for as long as his fuel, or the call of the clear blue sky lasts.

The Tiger Moth holds its place in history not just for the valuable role it played in the Allied War effort, but in the fact that as aeroplanes go, it is a classic. Simple to fly, true to its pilots, and able to survive 70 years and longer on the strength of its unique character.

But the simplicity of the Tiger Moth evolved into the complexity of the legendary Spitfire and Hurricane, Mustang and Hell Cat, and the three primary instruments were replaced with switches, dials, radios, pumps, levers, and a multitude of complex procedures. Finally, jet-propelled coffins with tiny wings, ripped up the sky faster than the naked eye could follow.

Today, the lucky pilot of a jet fighter under combat conditions is faced with the awesome task of monitoring up to three hundred different instruments, switches and radios, fly his aircraft, watch his radar, monitor his threat receivers, find the enemy, keep track of his own People, and avoid flying into the ground while not getting lost, or getting disorientated at night or in bad weather. And all this must be done


while zooming around the sky at up to 1,450 nautical miles per hour!

During the evolution of the modern jet fighter, the military very quickly established the need to create an extensive training regime, where all the uncertainty could be removed from the demanding task of maximizing the pilot’s performance. They found that the sheer weight of what the average pilot was expected to do exceeded most People’s ability, without massive training.

By attending to every little detail, analyzing the human-factors requirements, and the ergonomics of the jet cockpit, they devised a series of procedures to handle each single activity. In effect, they broke down every action into its component parts, and prioritized every step.

They then trained the pilots until they could fly and fight by instinct, and recite the procedures off by heart. The pilots were bundled into ground-based simulators, where they practiced every manoeuvre under the pressure they could expect when flying in real conditions. This process removed ninety-five percent of the workload modern technology had forced on them, and allowed the pilot to focus on what is the most important thing in his life — staying in front of his speeding jet, and his enemy, and consequently, staying alive.

The pilot doesn’t have to watch three hundred instruments, he only has to scan them fleetingly, noticing only those that are outside normal limits. Because every aspect of flying the speeding aircraft is ingrained in his memory (both mind and muscle), he is freed up to keep his head outside the cockpit, scanning the skies for the bad guys.

The application of mental pressure, induced by the necessity of getting home alive, heightens his awareness and his powers of observation, which would be severely limited if he still had to mechanically watch everything, think about every little detail, and fly the aircraft at the same time.

Ask any jet pilot when he “sees” the best, when his awareness is at its highest, when his vision is the purest, and when his mind is full of clarity, and invariably he will give you one of two answers.

When he is threatened with a bogey on his tail, or when he is in a terminal area, amongst other aircraft, and about to land back on either his carrier or runway.

These are the two times of maximum arousal, and maximum Stress, when his survival is on the line, and a mistake could cost him more than just a slap on the wrist.

If he gets caught by a bad guy, he gets shot down. In a terminal area, fast jets congregate in large numbers, both landing and taking off, and the possibility of an aerial collision increases dramatically.

Any lapse in concentration, and any time his head is looking inside the cockpit at his dials and instruments, robs him of his ability to “see” outside. It could well cost him his life.

But what allows him to use his situational awareness to the fullest, is the incredible extent of his training. Everything is ingrained in his subconscious, to the point where he can do it literally in his sleep. All the pressure of the moment does, is focus his attention where he needs it the most — outside the cockpit, intently scanning the few million cubic meters of sky he is responsible for.

His “situational awareness” allows him to fly his complex aircraft without necessarily thinking about it, while he retains his ability to maximize his outward looking focus. In effect, this is a “super-human” performance, because without his training, the task would be almost impossible to achieve. While fully aroused, our pilot is not Stressed, operating in that narrow band of performance some call the “Zone”.

Likewise, if you break down your strategy into simple tactics, then analyze which actions can be “trained”


into your system, then you too, just like the fighter pilot, can enjoy a high level of situational awareness, and a minimum level of Stress. The more aroused you become about what it is that you are doing, the better your powers of observation will be. The more you “see”, the more you take in and understand, the greater the knowledge you gain.

And it is axiomatic that as you get better and better at the process of discovery, the greater will be your advantage, and the better prepared you will be to face uncertainty and confusion.

Sensitivity is a well-worn word, and one that, until just a few years ago, was very much out of fashion in the macho, male ego-dominated world. Yet true sensitivity is the one reliable precursor to great intellect. Just as you can never hope to attain your fullest Leadership ability without doing the real work, or achieve the maximum benefits of it without force multiplying, you can never achieve your intellectual potential without developing great sensitivity. This emotional awareness is what will put you in tune with your Universe, help you to find your harmony within your environment, and create the basis for your inner Peace, and consequently, your inner stance.

You can learn to be more sensitive, more considerate, more tolerant, more giving, but first you have to honestly assess, like watching the dial of a radio, where exactly your sensitivity is on a scale of 1 to 100.

Research over the past twenty years shows that the average “degree” of male sensitivity, when measured against 40 standard parameters, is slowly increasing from a mean “36” to a present mean of “46”. To be successful in your relationship with other People, you need to be at least in the high 60’s!

The one person you most admire in your life is probably the most sensitive person you know. Where would you place them on the scale? Now, where would you place yourself, compared to them?

Sensitivity has a lot to do with the little things in life. In fact, the smaller and more insignificant the task or thing appears, the greater the sensitivity required to acknowledge it, and honor it with your intellect. Most times, you relate your sensitivity to how you feel about someone, or how they have dealt with you. This emotional barometer has very little to do with real sensitivity, it is just an emotional spark in an otherwise dull day.

True sensitivity is a mindset, an all-encompassing attitude, a vital part of your bearing and your external stance, and persona. You can’t switch it on and off like a light bulb, you either have it, or you don’t. But just like wisdom allows you to properly exercise your Leadership ability, sensitivity allows you to truly develop your intellect to its fullest potential.

Again, you can’t have one without the other.

Sound travels around the world at approximately 720 miles per hour. (approximately 1,200 kilometers per hour). Light flashes around the Universe at approximately 186,000 miles every second. (That’s an astonishing 298,000 kilometers every second!)

When you talk, you speak at the speed of sound. When you think, you work at the speed of light. Consequently, energy used to think is 928,800 times better used, than the same amount of energy used to talk. Your mouth actually reduces your capacity to achieve things!

The synapse’s in your brain, the little electronic connections that link all the cells together — the dark places where all your memory, intellect, and motion controllers live — spark constantly at the speed of light — 186,000 miles every second. This means that you have an enormous intellectual capacity, one that has to be seen to be believed.

Research shows that most People, in their entire lifetime, only ever use 13% of their brain capacity. Yet the key to your very being is rooted in your cerebral cortex, which is the basis of the brain’s intellectual


capacity, the seat of learning and memory, and a centre for associative functions, for many sensory perceptions, and for many motor activities.

Simply put, it’s where the “real” you lives! And like any energy-dependent activity, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Your opportunity is limitless.

Develop your intellect, and you develop your mind. Develop your mind, and you develop your Leadership ability. Develop you Leadership ability, and you can achieve all the wealth, prosperity, and success you could ever want!

And now that you know what intellect is, what’s stopping you?

As one wise scholar once said, long before the knife of the surgeon first revealed the quivering grey mass that is central to our powers, “The heart is where the desire is, but the head is where the action is.”

So be like the ubiquitous Fox, use your head, and be a Leader!

26 The Fourth Pregnant Pause in Orbit

There is a moment in any Learning Journey when you reach the magic State of “Cessation of Ignorance”. Some call it the “Ah! Ha!” factor. Others think in terms of a light bulb illuminating, as they once did in cartoons of old.

It can be an epiphany, a paradigm shift in your Attitude, or just a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of your stomach.

But it happens, and, hopefully, it has happened to you many times in getting this far.

The simple truth about Leadership is that it is a feeling, an Attitude, an intent, not just a rational process. You may go through many processes in your efforts to be

a Leader, but when you have been successful, what will be left is FEELING!

The Thinkers and Directors amongst us shudder at this statement, desperately wanting physical proof — tangible evidence — that Peace has been made. As the Leader, you have to help them to find this “proof”, by illustrating the Change of State that you have managed.

Look to the “Two Profits”, encourage them to explore how they feel about what has been done, and get them to verbalize their feelings.

Just as Profit has many components, so does Peace.

Peace to you may be tranquillity, harmony, balance, optimism, and a sense of both well being and euphoria.

Peace to someone else may well be the absence of things — anxiety, hopelessness, terror, fear, Stress, or malice.

Either way, Peace is the absence of Stress in a Person or a process, and achieving this State will extend your Life, and improve the quality of it.

Remember that when you be a Leader for free up all the forces in the good Universe to work for you.

A balance between your Inner and Outer stance presents to your world a clam, engaging, and desirable Personality.

Your inner Peace will be reflected by all those around you as they try to mirror your achievement, and by helping them to be a Leader you will be doing them the greatest personal favor imaginable.

Just remember HOT, be ready to RACE, SMILE, and always BREATHE!

The Fourth Pregnant Pause in Orbit 26

27 Force Multiplication in Orbit

The concept of force-multiplication is as old as the hills, but it still seems to confuse a lot of very good People. Without it, you can never develop your Leadership ability to the max.

Imagine for one second that you are a Roman soldier in the time of Pompeii, standing in the desert heat, massive shield on one arm, and pointed lance proudly astride the other. Through the thin slits of your face-protecting helmet, a flurry of dust rising majestically on the far horizon briefly catches your eye.

Then, on the swirl of a welcome breeze, the faint pounding of horses’ hooves reaches you, and you start to wonder.

You’re wearing the very latest in soldiering gear — brass striped skirt-like armor, a brass chest plate, helmet, and leather boots with brass strappings. If you have to run, you’ll be weighed down by the very things that are supposed to protect you.

Intuitively, you know you’re no match for a soldier on horseback, but orders are orders, and you grit your teeth, gird your loins, and lean into your spear, ready to take the charge.

When the dust settles, the last shriek from a dying horse carrying the battlefield, smoke and the stink of death fill your nostrils, and shaking the hot, dry sand from your battle dress, you swear by all that’s Holy that the very next day you’ll take riding lessons, and hang the expense!

The reality is that which was supposed to most protect you, your brass armor, weighed you down, reduced your ability to move and run, limited your options, and dictated how you fought a superior, more mobile, enemy.

This is the exact same experience you will have every time you allow yourself to be limited by what you think you know.

Knowledge and experience are the two major building blocks in the development of your Leadership ability, but they can also be the cause of your downfall. The moment you assume something, you limit your potential, reduce your vision, filter your hearing, and dull your senses. You effectively pre-program your intellect to expect certain things, and automatically reject anything that doesn’t fit your preconceptions.

The three most useless things in life are the knowledge you leave behind you, the experience you casually pass by, and the wisdom you never develop.

You must have the outlook and awareness of an observer, sensitive to all around you. You must be the seeker of knowledge, and you must constantly empower your intellect with new stimulus.

Thus went the foot soldier in favor of the horseman.

The realization that the body armor was indeed necessary to prevent the arrow or the lance from easily penetrating your skin, drove you onto the back of a horse, so that you could regain your mobility. No sooner had you done this than a new challenge appeared on the horizon, one that effortlessly seemed to be able to cope with your new found power.

Enter the charioteer.

Not one man, but two. And anything up to six horses, frothing at the mouth, powering their stylish cart around at frightening speeds. And, seemingly, almost magically, these two charioteers had the killing ability of ten men.

They moved faster than anyone else on the battlefield, they protected each other from blind-side attacks, they used their horses and carts as shields, battering rams, and (horse-powered) steam rollers. And the blades they attached to their wheels carved the legs out from under the hapless foot soldiers thrown casually into their path.

Force Multiplication in Orbit 27

Still only two men, but with enhancement of their synergist abilities, able to fight like ten.

The advent of technology saw spears and swords give way to bows and arrows, which in time were replaced (thanks to the Chinese) by bombs and bullets. An arrow is simply a flying spear, which is propelled further than a man can physically throw — a kind of force-multiplication effect that allows the “range”, or killing area — to expand.

The bullet is just a faster, better, smaller arrow, that again extended the distance between the soldier and his target.

A thousand years later and we see the motor car breed the tank and armored fighting vehicles of all shapes and sizes, the balloon giving way to the aeroplane, which motored along on pistons until they were eventually replaced with jets.

The creed of Technology — further, faster, higher! — ruled then just as it does today.

Now, the “Roman” soldier who stands in that same desert carries more personal firepower than did 1,000 whole Legions of ancient Romans. That’s over one million men, all those years ago, easily replaced by a single foot soldier today.

This is just one aspect of force-multiplication, taken to the limits of modern technology, as we currently apply it to armed warfare.

Let one man do what 1,00,000 used to do, but with a better chance of survival. Interestingly, he stills relies on his “chariot” to get around the battlefield, which comes in many forms, from the humble motorcycle all the way up to the exotic helicopter, or more recently, electronically “invisible” stealth aircraft..

But even with all this technology, the modern soldier is still limited by his personal reach. He can only hit what he or his weapons system can see; he can only see as far as the equipment he has will allow him to; and he will only last as long as the rations

he carries, until he is resupplied. While his capacity to do his job has been enhanced many hundreds of times by modern technology, he is still dependant on others to multiply his personal force, and his sphere of influence.

Modern man (or woman), is in exactly the same position. No matter how well equipped you are, how much you think you know, how developed your intellect, or how much you have achieved, you will always be limited by the extent of your personal reach. You need other People to multiply your Leadership ability, so you can do things that would normally be beyond your personal limit.

Take the ancient Roman foot soldier and put him in a chariot, and he can wage war on a much wider front, faster, and more refreshed. Give the modern soldier expert intelligence about his enemy, fly him to his killing-zone by helicopter, and resupply him often with material and water, and you effectively extend his reach to wherever you need him to be. Within, of course, the limits of what a single man can achieve in a given period of time.

But give him one more man (or woman) to work with, and suddenly you have an effective force many times greater than just the two People.

Like the charioteer of old, where the two Romans in the cart were able to fight like ten men, coordinating their activities with deadly effect.

The combined skill is always greater than the two individual skills, because the synergy between two People has a force-multiplying effect.

Our modern soldier is superbly equipped, but until he is joined by another, he is but one person. The moment he is force-multiplied, he becomes many People.

Take the element of “Time”. While one man sleeps, the other guards. Being able to keep watch during a sleep period gives the soldier a far greater selection of locations to work from. He can comfortably stay hidden closer to the enemy than he would be able


to if he were on his own. And having someone guard your back gives you the opportunity to rest and relax, something you would be loath to do on your own.

With two People, you can see twice as much, but at the same time. You can cover ten times the same amount of area, just by spreading yourself apart. You give yourself many, many more options, because the second opinion helps sharpen up your decision making process, and you get a different perspective on a far broader range of subjects.

And then there’s the radical advantage you get by suddenly having access to a range of skills that are very different to your own. The other person may well do many of the same things you do, but chances are, he does them completely differently. This gives you a chance to learn by observation, and assess the potential for changing your habits or attitude.

Now many of you will be positive in your own minds that you don’t need anyone’s help to achieve your life objectives. You look at your role models, and you see strong, resolute People who stand on their own two feet, and take the whole world on straight from the shoulder, no quarter asked or given.

The very essence of their Leadership ability seems to be their individuality, their self-containment, and their self-sufficiency. What you don’t see are the legions of support People that stand behind and beside every successful one of them.

People who blend into the background, scurrying around like the army they are, multiplying their leaders’ Leadership ability thousands of times over.

The legendary “secretary” who’s smarter than her boss.

The magic “switchboard” person who’s winning ways make People want to ring you.

The super efficient “personal assistant” who really knows more about the business than the Chairperson does. A husband, wife, lover or carer, who’s silent support is the keystone to your success.

And all the millions of different personalities whose paths we cross, drawing a little from each, without ever realizing it.

All this is, in effect, force-multiplication.

It’s one thing to use force-multiplication, but quite another to understand and utilize its potential.

And it involves using all the very best of your People skills, because just as you can’t get something for nothing, when you take, you must give back tenfold. The People you relate to and use as an extension of your Leadership ability must always be achieving what they want in life to best give you the benefit of their experience.

If they’re not happy, satisfied, motivated, calm, centered, receptive, and giving, then you will never achieve either their potential or your own. In many ways, one of the most bewildering things about working with People is the sheer amount of energy they often seem willing to freely give you in the achievement of your endeavor.

Just as a smile is infectious, and almost impossible to ignore, an air of dedication, the stance of confidence, and the power of a positive attitude do more to motivate People than currency of any kind. People like to be around success, and all the trappings of success. They like to see achievement, both theirs and yours.

And they like to see the worth of their efforts, and be able to judge how they are going relative to what they want to achieve for themselves.

They like to be at Peace with their world, and all around it.

When you choose to use a person as a force-multiplier for your Leadership ability, you are accepting not only one of the great challenges in life, but one of the greatest responsibilities you could ever assume.

You know that Leadership ability comes from purity. Purity comes from inner stance, integrity, intellect, and wisdom.


Thus it is impossible to “use” a person as an extension of yourself in any way but a positive one, and one that is beneficial to both you and the other person. If you try to gain from them selfishly, you will quickly destroy the very thing that you are trying to achieve, for the Universe is very unforgiving, and like all true things, you get back not what you sow, but many times more.

Sow good, harvest a-plenty. Sow bad, reap a famine, and Life condensing Stress.

Because the learning process is so open-ended, and the intellect so dependent on new energy from discovery and experience, you need to constantly be receptive to everything everyone does around you. In the first pages of this book, the phrase “it’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s different” was used in relation to how you should view what others do.

This is a key concept, because developing the ability to allow others the right to do things their way, say things their way, and think things their way, is a tolerance not usually found in most People. In fact, the exact opposite is usually true. All too often we selfishly, and wrongly, limit the potential of those around us with preconceptions derived from our own experience or knowledge. We are not receptive to new thoughts and ideas, and we do not welcome input from others that is at odds with what we already feel comfortable with.

In allowing ourselves the luxury of swanning through life with our eyes, ears, and minds so forcefully closed, we deny ourselves the opportunity to learn new things, consider new probabilities, and smell the fresh, powerful scent of heart-quickening stimulation.

So how do you go about making force-multiplication a reality?

It’s as easy as granting an interview with your “Self”. Settle back, get comfortable, and let the taste buds of your mind consider this conversation:

Self - “Well, then, what is it that you really want out of life?” You think about this question for a while, rolling all the possibilities around in your mind, seeking them for the right flavor, like you would sample a series of fine wines. Finally, you decide.

You - “I want to be healthy. I want to be successful. And I want to make friends, enjoy life, and have all the things I need to do it with. And I want to be a Leader.”

Self - “I see. Well then, how are you going to do this great thing?” Again, you pause to consider your options, remembering all the different books you have read on the subject, and all the things you have observed in others who seem to have achieved great things with their lives.

You - “I’m going to open my mind to all sorts of different stimulus, I’m going to learn new things, and I’m going to do the things I think are important to me.”

Self - “Excellent. Now you have some focus, and some commitment. Your willingness to open up your mind is an exciting possibility — frankly, I’ve been more than just a little bored with your attitude of late, and I look forward to being refreshed with new input. Now, not wishing to be pedantic, but how exactly do you intend to go about this personal development program you’re so interested in?” You pause for the third time, pleased with the compliment paid to you by Self, and encouraged by his (or her) reinforcement of your new found goals and ambition.

How exactly will you go about this project? Good question. Then you have a flash of inspiration, and as if the flood gates of Time have opened up in your mind, you see as clear as the melodious peel of a Church bell the exact starting place for your life quest.

You - “Why, I’m going to use my greatest asset — you — me — my Self — and I’m going to achieve what I set out to do,” You shout, excitement and enthusiasm bubbling over.


Self - “Well now, that’s all very well. But tell me, what’s in it for me? Why should I help You?”

You’re stunned. You never expected this Attitude, or this question, from your Self. You just assumed that when the time came, your Self would be there for You, ready to do whatever it took for You to achieve your life goals. What to do?

Well, what to do is very much up to you. How you answer this question is about all that you can expect from someone else, were you to ask them to dedicate their lives to your success. And in truth, why should they?

This, then, is the crucial, pivotal consideration in achieving the benefits of force-multiplication, and being able to draw on the experience and knowledge of others to help you in your life quest, of becoming a Leader.

What’s in it for them, and what are you going to do for them, to help them achieve what they desire out of life, so that in turn their efforts can help you?

The moment you intuit this, you cement your relationship with your “Self”, allowing both sides of your persona to power up, creating the spark that will ignite your intellect, stimulate your mind, and galvanize your attitude towards your ultimate success.

We are all born with an inbuilt sense of “right” and “wrong” — sometimes it’s called our “Moral Compass”. As we go through life, we taste both sides of the possibilities, and generally fall into a happy accommodation between the two. Most People enjoy the fruits of “right” most of the time. A few enjoy the superlative fruits of “right” all the time. In being true to yourself, and extending this “truism” to others, you are building the foundations upon which a relationship can be constructed.

And a relationship can only ever be as strong and powerful as the foundations upon which it is built.

Get the basics right — understand what others around you want — and you will soon find that no task is too hard, no question too difficult, and no effort ever spared on your behalf. Just the framing of your life quest in terms that others can easily understand and identify with, will provide you with the majority of your relational foundations.

Solid, empathetic foundations that will allow a bridge to be built, a two-way street between your personality and the personality of the other person or persons.

Now personality means character, identity, ego, individuality, nature, spirit, and soul, so it’s a lot more than just the outside shell of the person you are hoping to relate to.

Personality is a many faceted, complex grab-bag of opportunities, all of which demand their own share of attention and stimulus. No one person is a mono-dimensional personality. You need to always be aware that as many divergent forces are working on the intellect of the ones you hope to influence, as there are working on your intellect. And about the same quantity of energy, if not more, needs to be applied to their correct application.

The “People” element is the single most important aspect of the development of your Leadership ability. You can’t ever hope to achieve great things with your Life until you can easily, repetitively, and consistently build lasting, worthwhile relationships with the People around you.

And no one will ever do something for you for your reasons. They will only ever do them for their reasons. So everything you want to achieve through the force-multiplication process of using other People must always be couched in their terms, not yours.

And that means that you have to take the time and effort to clearly establish exactly what it is that they wish to achieve for themselves, and how you can help them to achieve it!


Technology in itself will only ever let you be more efficient. Just like the bullet is no more than a faster moving, smaller version of the spear, technology merely lets you go faster, further, higher. It can help you to condense the learning process, expedite the execution process, and remove much of the mechanical drudgery from everyday life.

The advent of the computer seemed to promise great leaps in ability and process, but in reality, all it has done is give us a greater reach — a better ability to discover things, and do things by remote control. Understanding still has to be acquired by hard work, and even the fastest, biggest, most expensive computer system in the world is useless unless it is programmed by a human being to do something.

And in many, many situations, the computer has had a pronounced negative affect on the human race. It has taken away a lot of our humanity, and a lot of our drive to achieve things for ourselves. We are only just starting to realize the enormous pitfalls of growing entire generations of information-hungry children on unfiltered, raw television images. Many of the basic skills like reading, arithmetic, and mental process are being subjugated by the desire to push buttons.

Educationists are horrified at the trend towards the “30 second grab” — where knowledge and opinion are only palpable if they come in half a minute, synopsized or paraphrased chunks of dehumanized data.

As with everything in a living, dynamic Universe, eventually a balance will be struck with Technology, and mankind will move on to the next order of development. And who knows, it may well be a computer-based, television screen led advance to the Stars!

But Technology in itself does not make you smarter — you still have to do the work to understand all the information Technology now provides. It will not make you successful — you still have to actually do something with your God-given abilities before you will ever achieve anything. And it will not make

you rich — you still have to control it, program it, oil it, and finally, understand it, to ever hope to cope with all the possibilities opened up by the intelligent application of Technology.

It is but a tool, albeit a very powerful and exciting one, that is there to do your bidding. It is an important relationship, but a replaceable one — Technology is there to do your bidding, not you to do it’s.

If by magic, every machine in the Universe ceased operation at 5PM today, after the ensuing chaos settled down, the Human Race would pick itself up, and start all over again, and quickly find a new, different Technology to help advance the development of Mankind.

It may well be vegetable-based, or micro-organic. It may even be a single-cell structure, but believe it as you believe in yourself, it will take precious little real time for the innovators, the scholars, the doers amongst us, to get us all started again.

Perhaps you may be one of them?

After all, it’s a very simple concept.

Your real ability to be a Leader lies in understanding how to multiply your abilities thousands of times over, by understanding and using the help of those around you, every day of your life.

Real Leadership ability comes from dreaming the possibilities, then making them come true, by dint of hard work and the intelligent use of your intellect. And the intellect, energy, and passion of others around you.

Now how hard is that?


28 Your Abilities in Orbit

If there are two characteristics that set the really successful person apart from everyone else, they are “Stickability”, and “Reliability”. Without them, you have nothing but the empty promise of your potential.

Nothing stands out more sharply than an unfulfilled promise. Nothing hurts more than someone you love and respect demonstrating unreliability. And nothing, but nothing, is more frustrating, than someone who quits before the final siren has sounded. Yet, in today’s modern environment of computers and high-tech whiz-bang technology, excuses are manufactured by the millions, often at the expense of the simple effort it would take to get a favorable conclusion, just by doing what you said you would do.

Loss of face is to be avoided at all costs, and accountability is a thing of the past, as no one cares to assume responsibility for their actions. It’s as if we can no longer be blamed for our shortcomings, because of the fear of the potential negative influence it may have on us. The social scientist is King, and all men shall be average, and therefore equal, no matter the real difference in their God-given talents, or in their attitudes.

Take a recent “serious” War that graced our news media. Post Gulf War (1992) research indicated strongly that the average man in the street believed that Sadam Hussein actually won at America’s expense, simply because the Allied war machine stopped short of razing Baghdad, and bombing Hussein into ashes. In a little less than 100 hours of ground-based warfare (that followed the famous 100 days or aerial bombardment), the brilliant American-led Allied Armies routed the enemy on every front but one — the Public Relations table.

“One day short!” has been the catch cry in the years since official hostilities ceased, and the political future of all involved has been essentially negated by what most People believe to be a lack of will on behalf of the President to “see things through” to the bitter end. Even today, a full decade after the last shot was

fired, aircraft still bomb and rocket emplacements in and around the “no-fly” zones on a regular basis.

History tells us that the call was probably a correct one, as the only thing to come out of a continued action would have been a continuation of the massacre of the Iraq troops and civilians, by a vastly better equipped, and some say, unnecessarily superior force.

But most of us firmly believe that President George Bush lacked the “Stickability” to see the War through to the bitter end. He had the guts to start the conflict, to enlist the help of European and Arab nations, to eventually free an oil-stained Kuwait, while protecting a tense Israel. But when the time came to finish the job, and “take out” Hussein once and for all, he hesitated, and called a halt.

A humane, politically and morally correct decision by many People’s lights.

But his credibility has suffered ever since, and his Presidency has been somewhat harshly judged by History because of it.

And his failure to be re-elected as the President of the United States was in no small way a direct result of this negative perception held by many of his fellow countrymen. Even now that his son has been elevated to the highest office in the land, and has Colin Powel serving in his cabinet, many believe that the Gulf War could have been finished once and for all.

This driver was so strong that in all probability, the second Gulf War that recently led to the capture of the “Baghdad Fox” was in no small way motivated by America determining that they had to “make amends” for the perceived previous “loss”.

When you fail to see something through to its conclusion, you, too, are judged harshly. If not by yourself, then by others around you. The pity of it is, that in today’s essentially “soft” social environment, the very People who are losing their respect for you,

Your Abilities in Orbit 28

will be the very same ones who offer you a range of excuses to choose from!

This very human trait has been addressed by the study of Human Dynamics, particularly as it is applied to Sports Science and elite performance.

The concept that has evolved is called “Overloading”, and is essentially very simple. For example, if you are a golfer, and have difficulty tuning your different muscles to perform at the same peak level for the four days of a major event, then you are encouraged to create a training program where you do in one day what you would normally do in five.

In effect, you “overload” your normal system with a vastly increased demand, building up your ability to deliver endurance and consistency.

To a champion golfer, this means walking 25,000 meters, (or completing the equivalent aerobic and anaerobic exercise), and hitting 350 to 500 golf balls. This is done day in, and day out, until the golfer can hit his one hundredth shot with the same degree of consistency and control at the end of a 1,000 meter sprint, as he hit his first shot of the day with.

By training the body’s systems to cope with dramatically much more than will be required under competition conditions, the whole process of completing one professional round becomes many times easier. But does this “overloading” help the golfer to “stick” at it, even when things are not going well for him?

Yes, and no.

In the first instance, performance on demand is a very different requirement to practicing in your own time, and under your own dictated conditions. Perfect practice makes perfect, and in the case of a would-be-champion golfer, once he has the skills, the very best practice is match practice, where he is exposed to the many variables of a real match. Variables such as climate, altitude, the course, the

actions of his fellow competitors, and the pressure that he allows to be brought to bear on himself.

But there is a growing body of evidence that the golfer who trains by overloading is not only physically more capable, but mentally more capable. And it is well established now that the mental health, or difference in mental attitude, is all that separates the top fifty golfers in the world on any one day. So if our player knows in his heart and soul that he can hit the ball well no matter how pressured he may be, then there is a very good chance that he will do so.

The negative aspect of this process is that is overlooks the prime ingredient necessary for true “stickability” — commitment, no matter what. Doing what you say you will do. A golfer is committed to finishing, no matter how embarrassing his score, simply by walking out onto the golf course. Custom dictates it.

You, in your daily lives, are not so bound.

You can elect to practice your life skills by using the science of Overloading, and you will definitely enhance your intellect, your wisdom, and increase your Leadership ability. But without commitment, you will always be able to find an acceptable excuse for not completing things that you start, and you will lack true “Stickability”.

Commitment means your ability to execute, affirm, devote, contract, pledge, and entrust your body, mind and soul to the appointed task. Commitment means your ability to see something through no matter what the outcome might be, no matter how hard it becomes, and you do what you say you will do.

Commitment comes from personal discipline — and a heavy desire to be a winner, and a Leader, and not a loser.

At the end of the day, the winner is the only person that doesn’t have an excuse. Winners don’t need them. Even when they lose by other People’s


standards, winners still smile, secure in their internalized knowledge that they did their very best under the prevailing circumstances, and that they stuck it out to the bitter end. They did what they said they would do.

In their minds, they did everything possible to deliver on their promise, to utilize their skills to the fullest. They did not quit when the going got tough, and they did not take the easy option — make or accept an excuse for their failure to win.

They had the mind and the commitment of a genuine Leader.

One of the greatest “minds” to ever live, Albert Einstein, who is still rated as probably the greatest genius of the twentieth century, often said “I am wrong nearly ninety seven percent of the time. It is but the quality of the correct three percent that allows me to do my work, which I judge to be, off times significant”.

Ninety seven percent of the time wrong, and only three percent of the time right.

What’s your batting average? Better than Albert’s?

What it comes down to is this. If you are going to be a winner, in every sense of the word, then you have to allow yourself to fail at least ninety seven percent of the time. And like all good batters, to get your average up, you have to be at the plate, bat in hand, thousands of times more than those around you, if you are to succeed at what you want to do with your life.

Every good salesman knows that success is all to do with numbers — you call 1,000 prospects, you get 100 responses. From those 100 People you get 10 interviews. Of those 10 prospects you finally get to work your magic on, you will sell four. If you need to sell eight People a week, then you need to start with 2,000 prospects!

Here comes the science of Overloading.

By doing many, many more things, and allowing yourself to fail just like Albert, you will build up your life experience faster, the quality of what you learn from life will be better, and you will be right more often than anyone else simply because you are wrong more often! And when you finally believe that you can see anything through, no matter how tough, even to a bitter end, then you will discover how easy it is to have real “stickability”, one of the two most important ingredients in your ultimate success.

Stickability is an attitude, one that is based on knowing what you can do, and what you want to do. Often, you will attempt things that you know you can’t probably do. How else are you to learn the necessary things for you to develop your potential? The key factor is that you stick with it, no matter how much it hurts, right up until some conclusion has been reached, right or wrong.

If it’s wrong, then regroup, retire, and consider what you have experienced, learn from your mistakes, and move on. Anything you don’t understand can be temporarily discarded into one of the two baskets, to await your attention in the future.

If it turns out right, then you will have expanded your potential, empowered your intellect, and cemented the relationship between your ego and your skills, moving the two into closer proximity.

It’s interesting to discover just where the saying, “to the bitter end”, came from. It will give you heart in your journey, and fire your soul with determination.

In the days of the great sailing vessels, powered by the trade winds, the only reliable way to stop was often as simple as chucking a huge anchor over the bow, and letting massive quantities of chain and rope run out. Eventually, when the anchor took hold, the ship was stopped in its tracks. The skill of a Captain and his crew was judged by the timeliness of this action, and many a wooden wharf around the world bore testimony to a poor sense of timing!


The chain attached to the anchor was always spliced to a “rode”, a massive hemp rope, which terminated in what was known as a “bitter end”. It got this name because of the wax that was used to fuse the spliced loop into itself, at the point where the hemp terminated. When the sailor doing the splicing pulled the various strands taut, sometimes using his teeth, the taste of the wax was less than joyous, hence the name “bitter end”.

If a vessel ran its anchor, chain and rode out to the “bitter end”, and didn’t achieve its objective, the ensuing crash was usually spectacular, and well worth the effort of clambering down to the jetty to watch the boats dock.

But you can see where the saying came from — the crew had run out everything they had, right to “the bitter end”, and still failed in their quest. Better to get there and fail, than to fail and still have rode with its “bitter end” in the chain locker!

Now, everyone likes to be liked. You like your peers and friends to respect you, pay attention to you, and think highly of you and your skills. That’s why you promise them so much — you not only want them to be impressed with what you are going to achieve, you want to hold onto their attention, using your promises of great performance to bind them to you. You want them to see you as a Leader.

This is a very human, sometimes socially necessary, trait.

But it can also be the single most destructive habit you can ever develop.

Because the very first time you fail to deliver on one of your promises, you start the cancer of doubt growing in the minds of the very People you most want to impress. Do it again, and you lose that most valuable, bankable, irreplaceable quality called “credibility” — Trust — the ability to be taken at your word. You will still be loved, you will still be liked, but you will not be believed, or taken seriously.

And if you lose your credibility, it is almost impossible to get it back, and a deep lurking suspicion often prevents your most ardent believer from actually committing to your promise — because it is often too personally painful for them when you fail to deliver.

They would rather not be hurt again by your failure, than believe you when you say that you will do something.

If your peers, or those around you with whom you share your life, lose their belief in your ability to carry through on your promises, they end up losing respect for you — the very thing you were trying to generate with your promise in the first place! And they lose Trust.

When you make a commitment, you must do so in the clear knowledge that circumstances might intervene and change your ability to deliver. You must take into account every conceivable possibility, and closely examine how you will deal with each and every one of them. If you genuinely believe that you can deliver, that you have got all the angles covered, then you can offer an unconditional commitment.

But beware!

It is better to offer a conditional statement, and deliver on the promise, than it is to make the promise, and not deliver.

In simple terms, most People would rather you be totally honest with them, and tell them the absolute truth, even if it is hurtful or aggravating, than you tell them something that delivers false hope.

In many instances, when you promise something to somebody, it starts a chain of events based on mutual dependency. Your promise becomes the first link in a long chain of probable events, involving many other, mostly unknown, People. In a sense, your promise of performance is passed on like a baton in a relay race, perfumed and shaped by the different personalities whose hands it passes through.


You fail, and it’s like a row of dominos collapsing. Everybody in the link is let down, and made to look foolish by your failure — which they will have no hesitation in passing back to you. Everyone else will condemn you, blaming you for their inability to perform. Their failure will be seen as believing in you — but your failure will be seen as a non-performance.

Do this once, and you might get a second chance. But do it twice, and your credibility will be reduced to a polite “yeah, sure,” at the very best.

All you need to do to understand this phenomenon is to place yourself in a similar situation, and imagine that someone you respect and believe in has made a firm promise to you. On the strength of what you have been promised, you have in turn made a promise to someone else, and you eagerly await for the first promise to be executed.

Then boom! No delivery, and you’re left standing your ground pointing over your shoulder at the original promiser, feeling hurt and let down. Who do you blame? Do you allow those to whom you promised, to blame you for the failure of the first party?

No.

Which brings us back to the concept of a conditional promise.

When you are relying on other People to do something before you can execute on your promises, you must make it clear that you cannot deliver until this is done. You cannot assume responsibility for events that are outside your control. It is not only stupid and counter-productive to do so, it is unreal, and unworthy of an aware intellect. And it always leads to Stress, in you and in others.

The second great ‘ability you must develop is dependability. There are many aspects to this one word — reliable, sure, accountable, honorable, reputable, secure, solid, trusted, upstanding, dedicated, devoted, faithful, loyal, resolute, true, and authoritative.

The crux of the argument is as simple as this.

Just as you need to be able to trust and rely on other People for the full potential of you Leadership ability to become a reality, so do they need to be able to depend and rely on you.

Again, like so much in life, dependability is an attitude of mind, and as such, is totally controllable by you.

When People depend on you, they are seeking your strength, your wisdom, your compassion, and your intellect. You credibility is at its highest when People depend on you the most. Dependability is a quality that goes beyond mere execution of your normal responsibilities, and the very act of being dependable breeds its own confidence and success.

Positive People attract other positive People, because People group themselves by their attitudes. If you have the attitude of a loser, then you will accumulate negative, down, lost People to your cause.

If you are positive, only the best will turn up, force-multiplying your Leadership ability. Because energy flows downwards, to get some from the People around you requires that you be highly charged to start with. The negative side of dependency is that if you become dependant on others, you are sacrificing your power to someone else. So you must be the dependable one, the person to whom others look for guidance and stimulation.

If you are accountable for your actions, you are taking responsibility for your Life, and you will make of it what you choose. Being accountable means that you need no excuses for failure, and you seek no refuge in self-delusion or public succor. When you stand up, and allow yourself to be identified, you are summoning all the power of others to you, by the very process of taking control of events, and not becoming a victim of them.


People who avoid responsibility, avoid accountability, and need excuses to explain away their failure, are weak and transparent, and lack credibility and respect. You don’t like People like this, so why would you expect someone else to like and respect you, if you demonstrated these attributes?

In essence, the difference between a victim and a victor is the tiniest slip in attitude. If you take control, assume the responsibility, stand firm and tall, and orchestrate events around your persona, then the very process of being accountable will empower your intellect.

But if you whimper around, duck the flying accusations, and point the finger at everyone else, you will suffer whatever fate others determine for you. Being a victim is letting everyone else dominate you, control you, and absorb all your energy for their purposes. If you allow this, you are no more than as the fool who fishes at the empty well.

And in the mocking laughter of others, or worse, in the condescending care of a handful of excuses, you will see yourself for what you really are — a lost persona, out of control, and no control, no power, lots of Stress.

Great loyalty demands great strength, for often the process of being loyal to a person or a cause forces you to transcend your own common sense. You will often do for others that which you would never contemplate doing for yourself. But loyalty is a great attribute, one that is admired long after the event has passed into history. Respect is a many faceted dimension, and loyalty forms the very core of what respect is generated from. The loyal People in your life stand beside you no matter what — and when your time comes, you must do no less.

Being authoritative is like walking on the edge of a razor blade. On side is fame and fortune, the other, ridicule and distress. Because authority is an assumed poise, one that comes with wisdom and respect. You cannot hope to motivate and prosper with a group

of other People unless you have the authority to act. They must give you their permission to take control, and trust you in the execution of that control.

You must give them permission to be critical of your authority, so that you don’t overstep your bounds.

The Military have developed authority to a fine art — for a military machine to function, obedience must be immediate and total, or precious lives could be lost by indecision and confusion. A highly structured command process is implemented, with clear and precise lines of Communication, layers of responsibility, and ultimately, limits on each individual’s authority.

This system can only work while every person agrees to abide by the standing orders. Something which individuals, civilians like us, are most unlikely to do.

For us to be able to use our authority, or take an authoritative stance, we must have the voluntary respect and compliance of those around us, or we end up like Captain Blight, adrift on the high seas of mutiny, in a leaking boat of discontent.

Authority should never been confused with strength of purpose, or desire to succeed. True authority comes from knowledge and experience, and leadership qualities that all owe their existence to a positive attitude.

If you are perceived as having “dependability”, and you also demonstrate “stickability”, and you always make good on your promises, then you will find that those around you automatically give you all the authority you crave or require.

The power of the abilities is awesome, just like the potential of your Leadership ability. All it takes is your total commitment to make it all work, and doing what you say you will do.

Leadership, and Economic Management.


29 Politicians, Priests, and Lawyers in Orbit

The school bully was someone you always hated, and probably never quite managed to cope with. Even now, there are those amongst us who use their superior education to terrorize those less informed than themselves.

The concept of the “Specialist” is as old as mankind. Five thousand years ago, in feudal times, it was the Sage, the Mystic, and the Religious Man who controlled our destiny, with mumbo-jumbo and vague threats that could never be proven. Discipline was maintained by fear, and little or no true respect, other than that afforded to the person because of their exalted position, was forthcoming.

The spirit of the average man was dominated by superstition and fear, and the so- called Wise Men took great advantage of this, working their earth magic to protect their status.

The loudest voice, the most informed opinion, and the person who could scare the hapless ordinary man on demand ruled the earth. These People eventually ensconced themselves behind the various seats of power, and used the Kings and Queens, the Clan Leaders and the Village Chiefs, the Emperors and the Dictators as their means of gaining respectability, and as their protectors and promulgators.

A King had awesome power over life and death, and the Mystic or Sage had absolute power over the King. Challenge the Mystic, and you challenged the King, and all he stood for.

The Law, as such, was the King’s Law, and very much framed to represent and protect the Sage or Mystic who “advised” the King. Rules were framed (as they are today) to advantage the King and his family, and all of humanity was seen as the fodder and the breadbasket for the King’s every desire.

What was explainable, was the doing of Man. What was unexplainable, was the doing of God (or one of the many hundreds of different Gods thought to be controlling the destiny of the world in those early times).

But the King’s Law was the politic form that governed the average life, and the politics of the King were taken as those of the immediate area, or of the land, depending on his area of influence.

Slowly, through the centuries, the King’s Law took on a new perspective, and like a triple-headed snake, split into three mutually compatible components, representing the vested interests of three very different types of personality predominant in those times.

The King’s Law, Political Law, and Religious Law evolved from the necessity of Kings having to meet, fight, and enjoin with each other. This cross-culturalization of Law and Religion led to many conflicts, as did the vast difference in perceived politics from area to area.

A veritable multitude of discordant Religious Sects grew up like an outbreak of measles, all over the known world during this phase, spreading the corner stones of what would become the five major, dominant forces — Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam and Judaism. Each one believed that they were the “one” true Religion, and all the others based on heretical beliefs. In time, even these five were to be split into shards of differing cultures, as strong men fought to retain the essence of their beliefs, while even stronger men fought to change them.

Interestingly, even today, the greatest conflicts still revolve around perceived religious differences.

While never officially separated as we know them to be today, the parallel development of Law, Religion, and Politics were all used for the same general purpose — the unashamed domination of the masses, by the born-noble, and the educated and literate few. The Religious Sects saw their role in life as gaining as many converts as possible, to swell their ranks to a size that gave them influence

Politicians, Priests and Lawyers in Orbit 29

in the corridors of power. The larger they were, the more likely they were able to influence the politics of the day. The stronger their King became, the more likely that their vested interests would be spread throughout the known world.

It was no so much a fight for souls, as a fight for seats!

Many Kings found great advantage in assuming the mantle of these Religious Sects, as it increased their power and their influence far beyond their traditional boundaries, allowing them to dabble in the politics of another King’s domain. It also gave them the ability to fuel emotional hatred of the foe, by positioning the chosen “enemy” as non believers and a threat to their Religion.

History books are filled with the stories of their conquests, wars, and the spread of these cultures by force. Empires came and went, and domination became a fact of everyday life. But the simple truth is that Religion was the focus of conquest for many hundreds of centuries, and the political systems that developed in various cultures owe their existence to the power of the Religious convert.

You only have to read a newspaper now to see that, in this respect, nothing has changed in over seven thousand years! There are at present two hundred and seven wars or areas of embattlement around the globe, and all but two of them involve differences in Religion. Today, the greatest empires to survive this bitter History are those controlled by the Holy Roman See, the children of Mohammad, and the students of Confucius.

How this came about, is a matter for Historians, but a quick look into the past will show you that the Chinese Han emperor, Wu Ti, in 136 BC, actually adopted Confucianism as the model for his civil service, and committed the future development of China to the principles of this religion. This situation continued for over 2,000 years. China was the first country to adopt a single religion, and make it part of

the persona of the general populace by Law. Others followed, but never on the single scale that China managed to achieve.

For example, during the second century AD, Japan adopted the “Bushido Code” or Code of the Warrior, from the Shinto-Buddhist religion as their focus, and eighteen hundred years later effectively changed the modern world as we know it today, even though their system was partially polluted by the importation of Christianity during the eighteenth century.

The Church of Rome, while not only being the wealthiest single entity on the globe, was also the greatest exponent of exporting both culture and Religion all over the world. Even today, the Roman Catholic Church boasts a significant presence in every country in the world, and still manages to dominate its subjects with fourth century Church Laws.

The Roman Age ushered in the first real signs of the assertion of Law as a supposed force of God, and of course “true” Religion also started to rear its ugly head around that time. Roman Law was the Law of the Senate, an august body of informed People, who were dominated by the emperor, many of whom became dictators. The concept was a simple one, the emperor was the divine messenger of the Gods, who were many, and conveniently different enough to allow him total control over every facet of Roman existence.

And as mankind evolved in this classic era, the continuing fight for supremacy and the Mind of Man started in earnest, as education and literacy spread their tentacles beyond the shallow edges of the Temples and the Government.

Back then, the Temples, which were considered the centre of civilized life, were the repository for the wealthy, the educated, the literate, those that could read and write, and those that could count. Those that could not, held these structures and the People in them in awe, and accepted the mantle of subservience as a matter of fact.


This “civil service” was very much an instrument of the government, the seat of all power, and formed the third level of political influence, as it does to this day.

Predictably, a scribe who kept the books of account was viewed as vastly more important than one who just wrote letters and documents. Even then, keeping an accurate account of who had paid their tithes and levies, and who had not, was a crucial activity. What no one foresaw was the rapid escalation in the power of the men who kept these books of account, and the tragic human consequences that would evolve, as a direct result.

Wars and conquests needed to be funded, and Kings and Emperors alike, liked to live well. That takes money, and as no King or Emperor actually worked at anything other than being “divine”, the masses were taxed heavily to support their lifestyle. When a man could give no food, property, or money, he was impressed into the ranks of the Legions as a common soldier.

If they couldn’t take your wealth, they took your blood!

And take it they did (and still do) in vast quantities. With no protective system other than distance from the throne, whole families were decimated, generation by generation, for causes little understood, and rarely achieved. And still the accountants of old marked up their columns, using red ink to show a deficit, which, in a terrible way, is symbolic of the blood that was (and still is) spilt in making up any shortfall in the Government’s demands.

Very few, if any, questions were asked about this system, as it evolved from within the centre of the political power base, and was taken for granted. The Religious Sects, once they had struck an accommodation with a particular King or Emperor, were virtually powerless to change this system, even if they had wanted to, for to interfere was to risk losing their influence, and their assumed power over the People they dominated.

Thus the tripartite relationship between Religion, Law, and Accounting developed, each mutually dependent on the other for their survival within the political arena.

The talented People who made this system work were very arrogant, and very privileged. They enjoyed better food, better wine, the use of slaves and navvies, lived in better houses, and commanded salaries many hundreds of times greater than the common man could ever hope to achieve.

They were isolated from the pragmatic realities of the day, given that they were responsible for keeping the wheels of privilege and advantage turning smoothly. If they saw poverty and depression, it was passed off as the fault of the common People, for choosing to live such a squalid life. If they saw fervor and discontent, the squashed it like they would kill a cockroach.

Skills were passed from Father to Son, and family dynasties grew up like mushrooms in a wet field. As each “profession” achieved critical mass, they formed Guilds and Societies to propagate their vested interests. Getting into one of these professions from outside the families was almost impossible, marriage being the most popular of the few real alternatives.

Long lines of singular thinking, honed through centuries of Stress and fighting for survival evolved, generally speaking, into the four dominant professions we see today — The Accountant, The Lawyer, The Priest, and The Politician.

Interestingly, in the Western world, a recent survey of Politicians from sixty countries showed that an amazing eighty nine percent of all Politicians are either Lawyers or Accountants before they take up politics! So it’s not all that hard to see why history seems to repeat itself so often.

As in days of old, once again these Professions are looking after their own vested interests, and making sure that their dynasty survives.


If this seems a harsh judgment, then consider the following.

Accepting that the Politicians are on top of the pile, and given that the Government rules the roost, who is it that determines the size of the Government — the number of Politicians, the number of Government Departments, the number of Civil Servants, and the number of support personnel?

The Politicians do.

Who determines what privileges, rights and payments the Government servants will receive?

The Politicians.

Who determines what the Law of the Land will be — how many Statutes, how many Acts of Parliament or Congress will be promulgated, and how many decrees will be issued?

The Politicians.

And who are the only People qualified, and therefore allowed by Law, to interpret these Laws of the Land for the ordinary folk?

The Lawyers and the Accountants.

Who determines what the Tax rate will be — and what will be paid for, and by whom, and who is exempt, and who is not, and how much the Country will owe, and what the balance of payments (and therefore our standard of living) will be?

The Politicians.

And who is qualified, and therefore the only People allowed by Law to interpret these high-order money matters for us simple People?

The Accountants.

And who, in every level of social endeavor, has the final say as to how and when our souls will or will not be saved, for our eventual trip to eternity?

The Priests.

Every session of Parliament, every sitting of Congress, every conclave of the Law Courts, is opened with a prayer, seeking wisdom and justice. Every Government building is blessed and sanctified, so that those that work in it may do so without fear of ghosts, or evil spirits. Even in today’s high-tech environment, the trilogy of power is firmly held by the Lawyers, Accountants, and Priests, who support the entire political system, and the Politicians within it.

Is it reasonable for the average man to feel (and this is well documented by volumes and volumes of independent research) that he is utterly powerless to change this situation?

And is it reasonable for someone to go from the cradle to the grave, never feeling in control of their own lives, or their destiny? Simply because they have a Government that is dedicated to its own survival, at the expense of the ordinary man?

What does any of this have to do with someone seeking the path to developing their Leadership ability?

Everything, and nothing.

For there is much to learn from the Politicians, Lawyers, Priests and Accountants, and their mysterious, sometimes dubious, ways.

Like the lessons of the Fox, it is not necessarily wrong that they should take advantage of their situation, it is often the way in which they do it that is of prime importance to us.

No one liked the school bully, because he took advantage of your immaturity, your lack of awareness, your lack of physical development, and your lack of self-esteem. He embarrassed you. He dominated


you simply by terrorizing you into submission, mostly by what he threatened to do to you, rarely by what he actually did to you.

He used your ignorance and fear as a weapon, subjugating your will, and trampling your spirit. He left you feeling confused and empty, but somehow dependant. The very process he put you through so lowered your self esteem, he actually created a mild form of dependency in your mind, almost as if you weren’t worth much if he wasn’t bothering to bully you.

This phenomenon has been seen many times in recent years, in victims of highjackings and kidnappings. The victims seem to bond with their abductors, generating strong feelings of comradeship, even though they are often faced with losing their lives in the process! It is believed that the fear level gets so high during these tragic escapades, that when a person realizes that they may survive, their gratitude towards their terrorist captors is overwhelming, and creating the relationship that is perceived as dependency.

And it is this dependency that you, as a truth seeker and Leader, must come to grips with. Just like in school days, it is your ignorance and your fear of the unknown that will hold you hostage, and allow you be dominated by a Lawyer, Priest, Accountant, or Politician.

Let’s take them one by one.

A good Lawyer is someone who knows where to find the Law, not necessarily one who practices it.

But every text, case study, judgment, proclamation, judgment and verdict is always written in a language that is only interpretable by “one who knows”. In this way, the Law Profession is able to propagate itself. By what it does, and how it does it, it guarantees its very own survival.

The majority of Western Law is based on precedence, or that which has gone on, and been adjudged, before.

In dealing with a situation that requires a Lawyer, you must understand the vested interest. It is not with you, or with your particular case. It is about keeping the Profession in the good light it thinks it presently enjoys, and in keeping you in the dark for as long as is acceptable.

Much to do with Lawyers is about “opinion”, and all too often opinions differ with every new personality involved in the process. Television has made a science out of the presentation of Law, and the truth is, unfortunately, the performance is almost always more important than the facts.

Short cases earn small fees. Lawyers are paid by the hour, by the phone call, by the diary entry, by the meeting, and by the opening of a book. Win, lose, or draw, you pay. And in all but the very simplest of cases, you will have very little to judge your progress by, or the quality of the service you are receiving, or the value of your investment.

In the first instance, the very best way to deal with this situation is not to have to involve Lawyers at all! But sometimes, this is not practical, or in your best interests. If you have to use a Lawyer, then you have to have control over the process. You must document your case, your questions, your opinions, and your objectives. You must get the Lawyer to resolve your issue only along the lines of your brief. And you must learn to approach the Lawyer as an equal, and meet them on common ground.

They don’t understand the concept of customer service, and they are scared by anything that appears to be outside their immediate area of control. For you to control them, you must be in control of yourself, and your situation. You must have the facts, and expectations that are reasonable. And you must always ask for reference material from similar cases, so that you can better understand your true position.

You must never be in a position of dependency, where they are in control of your future. To do that, is to allow the school bully to bluff you yet again.


Dealing with a Priest is different. Here you are in an excellent position to meet them on equal terms, because every Religion has its own guide book — The Bible, the Koran, and such like. Your opinion is worth the intensity of your study. Whatever you put into learning about your chosen (or inherited) Religion, will only further your cause, and enlighten your life. Spiritual health is every bit as important as physical and mental health. Some say more so.

Knowledge is power. Understanding is power. Fear is banished by knowledge and understanding. You only fear what you don’t know, so open the pages, and soak up the context of your relationship with your God.

Priests acknowledge and respect People who know their own minds, are secure in their own beliefs, and take the time and energy to learn what is important to them. Of all the Professions, they are the most in tune with the common man, but they still have a time honored tradition of siding with the King to protect their Sect, when push comes to shove.

Again, understand the vested interest. It is most unlikely that you will ever be a real threat to a Priest or his Church, but should you be, you can expect the wrath of the most devastating political and military machine on earth to descend on your head with all the force of Heaven and Hell.

After all, that’s the business they are in.

Many of today’s Accountants should still be kept in their temples, counting dinars and goats teeth. Few, if any, ever contribute to the welfare of mankind, or push the boundaries of knowledge beyond their own limited horizon. They are often referred to as “bean counters”, and judging by many that you meet, this would appear to be a perfectly adequate description.

Yet today is the era of the Accountant, as the world scrambles for the magic savior called “the bottom line”. People and loyalty are seconded to the all

important dollar, as company after company sheds staff in an effort to return profits.

It was the Accountants who developed the skills necessary to purchase companies, sell off their assets for more than their cost price, sack all their staff, then close them down, taking the ensuing loss into account, to the direct benefit of their next wealth-generating scheme. It was the very same Accountants who decided that farmers should be thrown off their land, and their properties sold out from under them, reducing generations of love and toil to a single red entry in a dusty book of Life.

Unfortunately, with the Tax Act — the gigantic mishmash of numerical numb nuts that it is — you need an Accountant to make sure you have complied with the most recent interpretation. So, once again, you find yourself in the position where if you are not properly prepared, and in control, you will be dependant on someone that does not have your best interests as his vested interest.Prepare, and prepare well. Leave nothing to chance. Document everything, and follow the Law to the absolute letter. Take a long-term view, and plan for the future, and be sure that the commercial or personal advice you receive is something that you can live with morally, ethically, and most importantly, spiritually.

Cutting corners with money destroys People. Money in itself is not real wealth. It is what you do with it that gives you wealth and happiness. Money is just little bits of paper, plastic, and metal that you trade to others for goods and services. Money is but a way of measuring your progress and worth by other’s standards.

The happiest man you will ever meet will have very little money, but much wealth. He will be wealthy with love, wealthy with companionship, and wealthy with health and success. And his smile will be infectious. He is the true Leader.


The Accountant mentality, unfortunately, is what often drives us to pursue money at all costs. To become greedy, addicted, and selfish. The need to have it, see it, touch it, and been seen to have it, can become overpowering influences in our lives.

But there is one attribute of the Accountant that gives us hope for our future as a united People. And that is their ability to cope with a dichotomous situation that baffles many, and we should learn from it.

You see, in accounting terms, a debit or a credit can be posted to either side of the ledger, depending on its category. This means, in very simple terms, that something that is to be deducted from a sum, can have a positive value. In your perspective, then, it is possible to be going through a negative experience, but with a positive outcome.

Who said accounting was easy to understand?

But what you must understand about Accountants is that, by profession, they are literal, numerate, and often pedantic. They tend to live in the bottom left hand quadrant of the grid — Low Involvement, Rational Behavior. They will not usually share your great vision, your energy, or your wonder at all things possible. They like certainty, money in the bank, and creativity limited to selecting the correct restaurant for lunch.

Understand this, and they can never put you in a position where you might become dependant on them, to the detriment of your Leadership ability.

And power is what Politicians are all about. Lots and lots of it. But not the type of power you seek.

Politicians crave dominance, position, authority, and influence, at the expense of the common man.

Politicians have taken the art of compromise to a high-order science, in their frantic race to manipulate everything around them.

And Politicians have single-handedly destroyed the concept of representation and fairness in the community, in their ruthless pursuit of Irresistible force. They speak like Gods, act like Gods, condescend like Gods, and command like Gods. They live in isolation, happy to be segmented from the reality of normal life, and their sole contribution to the welfare of their constituents is that they always claim to be pushing their cause.

It is often said that we, the People, get the Politicians we deserve. If that is true, then we are surely being punished for the sins of our fathers. But the reality is, that many of today’s Politicians were good People before they were corrupted by the system.

Now, companies don’t do things, People do. Parliaments are huge buildings, which are dormant and hollow until People give them life with their presence. So what is it that goes so tragically wrong in the corridors of power?

Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

Power — force, authority, control, influence, leverage, prestige, command, rule, might, and mastery — is like a drug. The wielders of power become addicted to what they have, and they don’t want to let it go. It is the greatest ego trip in the world, sitting on top of a huge pile of humanity, deciding how they will live, and how they will die. It is the very same force that the Kings of old used so poorly. And Politicians, like the Kings and Emperors before them, have no greater God-given gift or ability to deal with this than you do.

Remember, most Politicians are Lawyers and Accountants before they become Politicians. And you now understand a little about both those Professions. So it is logical to assume that many of the characteristics of the Lawyer and the Accountant are present in the Politician.

Language used like a subterfuge, to disguise what is really going on. Proceedings always under the


privilege of Parliament or Congress, so the ordinary person has no legal redress against what might be said. Self-appointed committees of review, whose reports are tabled, then consigned into the dusty tombs of the archives. Statutes of limitation on what is revealed to the public, and when it might be. All in all, what we have is close to the perfect form of self control, and self containment.

If you aren’t part of the system, then you don’t “need to know”. And unless you are prepared to marry a Politician’s son or daughter, there’s almost no way in for the ordinary person. Just like the privileged families from the Temples of old, in classic times.

We have all seen a grown, mature man, literally turn grey in four short years, under the weight of responsibility that goes with the top job in the land. But grey hair doesn’t necessarily mean wisdom, and often it is the Stress and pressure caused by ignorance and confusion, and the perception that they are really not in control, that ages them, not the job. That, and the pressure to compromise almost everything they believe in, often the very things that got them elected in the first place.

Understand this, and you will get a beneficial perspective on the development of your Leadership ability. Without it, should you succeed in your Life quest, you will quickly dissipate your real power, without ever knowing how or why you did so, and then your quest will have been for nothing.

Be a Leader with the Accountants, Lawyers, Priests and Politicians, on your way to perfecting your ability as a Leader. They need all the help they can get!

30 Yes and No in Orbit

Sometimes is seems that your problems are so great and so many, the sheer weight of them threatens to swamp you. To be a Leader, what you need is a sure fire way to deal with them, even with your eyes closed.

As you move along your chosen path, you have to make millions and millions of decisions. Rational, and sometimes, irrational Behavior, determines the how, what, when, and why’s of our Life, as we exercise our God-given power that we are all born with, to choose our destiny. Some decisions come hard, and some are made easily, almost automatically, and some of the time you are not even aware of having made them.

But the ones that stand us up, and back us into a corner, are the demons you have to learn to cope with, if you are to fully realize your ability as a Leader.

Indecision kills, action thrills.

Like a blocked artery that denies the heart precious blood, when you choke on a hard or difficult decision, you deny your intellect the energy it needs to resolve the issue for you.

And the amazing thing is, the very split second you consciously or unconsciously decided to do something, the paralyzing block is removed, the weight of the world lifts from your shoulders, and you feel free!In achieving a goal, or objective, just as in resolving a problem, or making a decision, there is always an apparent barrier. Sometimes it’s a little one, and of no real consequence. And sometimes it’s so apparently huge, it threatens to overwhelm you before you can resolve it.

But apparent barriers are always emotional, never rational. Apparent barriers are things you concoct in your heart and your mind, like dubious pictures from a fright show. And because you believe in them so much, you empower them, making them seem real, and giving them a life they don’t deserve.

These apparent barriers always, but always, are the result of a practical problem. But it is the sheer strength of your emotional reaction to these practical problems that is the barrier you have to deal with — not the practical problem itself. Practical

Yes and No in Orbit 30

problems are always resolved practically. Emotional problems need recognition, and attitudinal change, for them to be overcome.

Remember the two baskets of knowledge used by the scholars of old? One held all that was understood about the known world, and the other held all that was fear, superstition, magic, acts of the devil, and things just too plain confusing to understand. This second basket is the one that tended to draw scholars to it, like a flame draws a moth. Sheer curiosity, man’s thirst for knowledge, and the wonderment of the unexplained fired the imagination, and fuelled the seekers of truth and wisdom to the point where they willingly risked death by all manner of painful methods, just to hold, for a fleeting second, the power of discovery in their hands.

One by one, they peeled back the many layers of the onion, revealing the secrets of the Universe that we now take so much for granted.

Many, many times, they were faced with seemingly impossible situations, simply because they were confronted with something that was beyond their experience. They had no frame of reference for what they were observing or experiencing. To get it, they had to try things, experiment, and test the water, as it were. And gradually, as they learned from experience, they built up a body of knowledge that allowed them to move deeper and deeper into the realm of the unknown.

Their experience was essentially a solitary one, as they lacked computers, satellites, telephones, newspapers, magazines, mail, or any other form of mass Communication, to share their discoveries, and learn from the mistakes and successes of others. What they learned, and lived to talk about, tended to stay within the immediate district, at least for a few hundred years or so. Many scholars could be working on the same problem, all within two hundred leagues, and never know about each other. They had to face down their own demons on their own, and hope that at the end of it all, they would still be alive to move on to the next challenging, unsolved mystery.

Then, as now, resistance forced change.

Something that needed explaining, resisted the will of man, forced man to change his attitude towards the situation, to go about solving the apparent problem. Not to do so was to risk being swallowed by the demons of fear and ignorance!

They soon discovered that fear was directly proportional to lack of knowledge. The more they learned about something, the less fearful it became. The more they understood the forces of the Universe, the more unlikely they were to be spooked when something inexplicable occurred. As their reference base grew, so did their ability to deal with the unknown.

Today, in the opening stages of the twentieth first century, fear is still the precursor of ignorance. It is what you don’t know or understand that creates the emotional barrier that robs your intellect of its power.

The practical situation, the cause of the emotional barrier, because it is not well understood, causes you to resist — and you fear the situation all the more for its apparent overwhelming potential — “How the hell can I ever do (understand, cope with) that!” Emotionally, you boil over to the point that you convince yourself that what you believe is true, and a seemingly unshakable, apparent barrier solidifies to the point of paralysis.

What to do?

Solving problems is essentially easy. Just like the scholars of old, you have to recognize the two baskets, and apportion your analysis of the problem to each of them. What you know, can safely reside in one, what you do not know must be firmly placed in the second. The moment you do this, you have removed a major portion of the resistance that faces you, because you have started a process that will eventually allow you to solve the problem, no matter what it is, or how big it may seem.


Once what you don’t understand is clearly in the second basket, you can decide how to attack it. What do you need to know, learn, establish, find out, or further analyze, to move the contents into the other basket, the one that holds what you are comfortable with? While this may seem to be a very holistic way of going about making decisions, it is actually quite practical, and logical.

Like the scholars of old, all you are doing is breaking the apparent problem down into small, easily coped-with component parts, each of a size that you can easily and rapidly deal with. You are being quintessentially pragmatic and logical in your approach, winding your emotions back to a level where you can maximize your stimulation, or arousal, positively, rather than let it freeze your intellect with fear.

Since the advent of the writing instrument, listing down all you know about something has been a recognized method for opening up a solution to a problem. Likewise, if you describe in the fullest detail what you think the problem is, then list everything you can think of alongside it, you will often find that a solution, or many solutions, suddenly appear in your mind, each one every bit as strong and believable as your first apparent emotional barrier was.

And as wise man once said, “A problem well defined, is half solved”.

Of course, not all problems need to be attacked with the fullest force of your intellect. Problems, like ant bites, come in many sizes, and many intensities of potential pain. And surprisingly enough, thousands of these problems often seem to solve themselves, given the time to do so.

This introduces a critical aspect of making a decision.

Timeliness.

You already know that pressure (Stress) is a force that you apply to yourself, or, through your attitude, allow others to place on you. Pressure (Stress) goes hand

in hand with emotional paralysis, and is a by-product, or an instigator, of fear. But a lack of perceived time within which to solve your problem will apply more pressure to you than any lack of knowledge, because the human existence, unlike any other on earth, is dominated by time.

You never have enough of it. It is always passing you by. And as every year goes past, it seems that it goes by faster.

But “time”, or an apparent lack of it, is not the enemy. It is simply the focusing mechanism that allows us to achieve things we would not normally be able to do. It is no more a threat than ignorance, and in many ways is vastly more beneficial to your process than any other consideration. “Time” forces you to plan your attack on your problem, prioritize your actions, and set deadlines for your achievement. Without time, you could wander aimlessly through your problem, never feeling the need to reach a conclusion, and move on to the next objective, and fritter away the most precious of all life’s commodities.

In every Organization where there is never enough time to execute something the way it should be, it always turns out that, as if by magic, there’s suddenly enough time to do it twice!

“Time” is no more or no less than what you do with it. You control “time”, not “time” controls you. “Time” just is, continuously, a constantly moving part of the space-time continuum. We just happen to count it, that’s all.

What you do and achieve in your “time” is what counts, not how much time passes, or is left to you. Just as the process of learning is where the value comes from, not the actual knowledge acquired, so is it that your use of time is what determines your level of Leadership ability.

And how well you make your decisions will be reflected in how much time you have at your disposal. The faster you make your decisions, and the greater


the quality of them, the more time you will have for your quest. It is axiomatic that just when you need time the most, there isn’t any, and when you have heaps of it, you can’t think of anything to do!

Yet, if you carefully observe your personal role-model, or someone you respect as being successful with their life, it is a safe bet to say that he or she always seems to have all the time in the world for anything they choose to do. And, perhaps, they always seem to do things effortlessly, as if working to some secret plan or agenda. It’s almost as if they are so in control of their “time”, that it does their every bidding.

What you observe is true. They are in control of their “time”, and it is doing their bidding.

Decisions that seem to make themselves without any conscious effort, are worthy of close examination. For a decision to be made, you need to have the necessary frame of reference; the knowledge; the ability to perceive the real issue; and the desire to overcome any perceived barrier that your emotions may have erected.

To achieve all these aspects without conscious effort would suggest that you always were capable of making this particular decision, but just didn’t see the need to do it at that time. Yet another example of timeliness.

If you don’t have to do something right now, then don’t.

If you don’t have to make a particular decision right now, at this specific point in time, then don’t. Not because it’s not necessary, but because there may be nothing to be gained from it, at this time. Often, not understanding this point is what accelerates the apparent pressure you feel, associated with the decision you think you have to make.

Just as you can’t do someone else’s work for them, you can’t make their decisions for them. Just as they can’t make yours. Help and advise, yes. Act as a

sounding board for your ideas, absolutely. But do the work for you, never.

Imagine a very long railway line, stretching far into the depths of your imagination. Visualize lots of branch lines, each setting off in a different direction, via their own set of points. Somewhere down the track, most, but not all, of these branch lines come back to the main line, blending into the original track. Thus we have a picture of a long, finite route, with many different ways to get to the conclusion. Some will be direct, others circuitous, still others demanding a back-track, as they end abruptly in a dead-end.

Your life quest is to reach the end of the track, with as few diversions as possible. Because each branch line sends you off into unknown territory, for an unknown quantity of energy and time, you must never be in a position where you end up on a line that you didn’t intend.

This is what the decision making process is like. If you are focused, and prepared, have a broad base of understanding, and consequently a wide frame of reference, you won’t be switched off to an unwanted sidetrack by unforeseen events. But you will always be free to choose your own route, and go off and explore the mysteries of life whenever you choose to, in whichever direction best suits your purpose.

And you will always seem to have all the time in the world to do it in.

The very process of being prepared, focused, and informed, gives you the freedom to selectively choose which route you will take to reach the end of the track, and what time frame you will do it in. At all times, you are in control, steadily sampling the fruits of life, enjoying the limitless expansion knowledge and experience provides, fuelled by your vision and your Leadership ability.

The unconscious decision is a very important one, because it is being made by that part of you which knows you best. The deep well of your soul has an


inescapable imprint of your destiny, and will do all that it can to see that your triumph in your quest. The biggest single problem is that all too often, you consciously interfere in its activity, and try to take over the process, and force the issue.

It’s just like grabbing a handful of mercury, that mysterious liquid metal that finds its way into all sorts of useful devices. The tighter you squeeze, the more that falls out. The gentler you cradle it, the longer you can control it.

Reality, perception, experience, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding all fuel the inner self, the unconscious side of the mind. Just as you are the sum total of all your experience, so is your intellect the sum total of all that you are. To really reach its peak, and motivate you efficiently, it must be freed up to operate on its own, free from interference, filtering, and presumption.

You can construct any reality you wish, and believe it to be the truth. Believe it hard enough, and it will become the truth, because you will make it happen that way, consciously and unconsciously. Such is the power of your mind. The greatest power you will ever develop is your ability to visualize events and objectives, with a clarity that makes them become a reality for you.

Just as you manufacture an emotional barrier because of a perceived practical problem, so can you manufacture a solution to the problem, simply by letting your mind work on it, unfettered by your assumptions or your fears. The biggest, strongest, most physically perfect human being is still only as powerful as his (or her) intellect allows him to be. The power you hold within you is your key to the Universe.

Intuition is often though of as the Voice of God. We know it as a hunch, an instinct, a premonition, a sense or awareness, a feeling, or a subconscious direction from our intellect. Many times, you cannot adequately explain where your hunch of feeling came from, or what prompted it in the first place. And the more you chase it, the further it seems to go away. It

is, because it is, and that concept in itself is a difficult one for a modern person to sometimes cope with.

Out with those two baskets of knowledge again!.

But whatever it may be in reality, your intuition is fuelled by your overall experience. Instinctively, you always do what seems right to you, without thinking about it. Your persona determines your inner stance, and your inner stance frees up your intellect to work for you, unconsciously. This is what intuition really is.

It is your unconscious mind telling you, as firmly as it can while you are awake, what it thinks you should do, or what it thinks the correct course of action should be.

A recurring point that has been made in various ways during this brief look into “time”, is your ability to integrate several different attitudes and practicalities into a frame of reference, making it all that much the easier for your decision-making ability to be empowered. There is one, magical, four-letter word that utterly sums this process up — it is, in fact, a literal truth, and you now know how rare they are!

The word is “PLAN”.


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Go back to the railway in your mind, and view it as if from a helicopter. Suddenly you can see all the branch lines that end in disaster. The most interesting of the possibilities that you wish to experience on your life path suddenly become clear to you, and as


you land the helicopter, a plan forms in your mind, a simple order of potential experience.

In other words, you selectively decide which branch lines you will go down, and in what order. You eliminate all the branch lines you don’t need, condensing the task into a finite, easier to manage, process. The basis of your plan is a series of decisions that shapes your reality — you have decided where you will go, and when.

Now, should something untoward happen, you have a frame of reference against which you can judge the necessity to change your plan, instead of being in the fickle, calloused hands of chance.

A Life plan can be as simple as one strong, vibrant, dedicated picture in your mind, and of what it is that you most want to be. Believe in it enough, empower it, and it will come true. You will become what you see yourself as.

Millions of excellent words have been committed to this subject, and they are all worth pursuing.A Life plan can be as complex as a blow-by-blow outline of what you intend to achieve for yourself, detailed to such an extent that you have an outline for every day!

Irrespective of the size, or the content, it is your belief in the plan that will make it work, not the plan itself. However, the distinct advantage of having a plan is that decisions will be much easier for you to make, because you will have a powerful frame of reference against which you can judge what it is you need to do.

Planning is a process of assembling facts and fancies into a usable form, with a time application. Because it is a process, you learn and gain great value from it. The plan that results in this process is like anything else in this world, it is only of value if it is executed. Like your abilities, a plan in itself is worth nothing until you do something with it.

Another aspect of the decision making process is a phenomenon called “expectation”. When you make decisions, you create an expectation of something being achieved, or implemented. Your intellect is fuelled by the possibilities of something being done, from which you will derive either a practical or emotional benefit. Expectation runs the highest when the chances of success are the strongest.

But the opposite is also true, whenever you let yourself become blocked by an emotional barrier, and crippled by your inability to make a decision. The pressure that you take upon yourself mounts, warps your vision, pollutes your mind, robs your intellect of its ability to solve the issue, and you start to worry about the consequences. Your inactivity, and the probable consequences of the decision merge into one amorphous mass of concern, adding even more pressure.

Thus a vicious cycle is created, usually far greater in apparent scope and worth than is the original decision. Sadly, experience shows that better than 98% of everything you actively worry about under these strenuous circumstances never comes true, so it would seem to be a tragic waste of your talents to let yourself get into this situation.

The added disaster of this negative situation is that in spending your Life-time worrying needlessly about the 98% that never happens, you miss the glory of the 2% that does!

One soothing thought — if you genuinely reach a point where it seems impossible that you can resolve a decision, try creating a simulation of the problem, and experiment with different solutions. In this way, before you commit to a particular line of thinking or direction, you can taste a whole world of possibilities, just by playing the “what-if?” game. There are many examples of this type of thinking being applied professionally all over the world, usually described as “modelling” or “scenario planning”.


The very next time you are faced with this situation, and it does indeed seem to be a seemingly impossible decision to make, create your simulation. And then sleep on it. You may well find, that as the first golden rays of the new day fight their way into your consciousness, the decision has made itself, or possibly rearranged itself into a different shape — one that is more approachable, and easier to deal with.

The Consequences of Good Decisions

• Better utilization of Resources• Greater Productivity• Job Enhancement• Performance Enhancement• Greater Security• Greater Client Satisfaction• Create a Demand for Profitable Management• Generates a Positive Environment

The key to decision-making is doing something, making something happen. Always. It’s that simple.Think like a Leader, and take the first step!

31 The Common Mind in Orbit

People tend to group themselves by their Attitudes. Just like gravity, whose irresistible force keeps us all in our rightful place, Attitude tends to determine the kind of People we mix with.

In 1969 mankind broke free of the shackles of gravity and two unique men stood on the moon. They were still affected by it, but only one sixth as forcefully as they have experienced just days before back home on planet Earth. The event will long be remembered for Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind...” speech, as it should be. But on that day, over thirty years ago, this one extraordinary event linked billions of People from all countries, races, and religions, via the television screen, and the radio speaker.

One single human event linked every mind, with one common desire. To see the first steps to the Stars etched into the dust bowl known as “The Sea of Tranquility”.

Every shop-front that had a TV set drew huge crowds of expectant watchers. Companies and boardrooms around the world stopped in their tracks, and listened and watched as the first true space explorers raised the silver grey dust of the Moon, leaving rippled footsteps as a permanent record of their achievement.

A single, imaginative, unbelievably challenging act of man banished the cares and differences of the whole world, for approximately 47 minutes.

What drew all these vastly different cultures together in awe was the magic of the conquest of space. The fact that a man was standing on the moon, something that was in plain sight most nights, so tantalizing close, yet so far away, and that they were seeing it live, as it happened (albeit a few seconds late, due to the route the transmissions had to take to get back to Earth, and the distance between the Earth and the moon), snapped into sharp focus the possibilities yet to be explored.

In a sense, all the comic books, and all the fantasy and fiction books came to life in one glorious moment of discovery, and the golden age of science fiction became the shimmering age of science fact.

For most of us, the possibilities of travelling freely in space will remain but a dream, sometimes satisfied by either a virtual reality experience, a good movie, or a better book. But for others, the ones living in or in training for life aboard the International Space Station, these early, somewhat clumsy steps will lead to voyages to the Stars, and the ever patient Galaxies beyond.

Mankind and space belong together, just as our ancestors belonged to the sea. For true discovery always involves a journey of uncertainty, with seemingly miserable practicable rewards, but exciting and stimulating intellectual ones.

The Common Mind in Orbit 31

While what the first steps of space exploration achieved will quickly pass into history, as our knowledge expands, the feeling that they generated is something you can discover every day of your life. That great sense of accomplishment, of having taken part (no matter how small, insignificant or remote) in something so vast and imaginative, something that is very much out of the ordinary scope of your daily existence.

The feeling is huge, it can well up tears in your eyes, and it can choke you with emotion. And if it is based on a vertical experience, it will empower you to greater things.

A close examination of this phenomenon shows us that the positive structure of accomplishment generates huge energy quanta, which is always reflected in your attitude, and thus in your inner and outer stance. Other People see this in you, and either are attracted to you, or repelled by you, depending on their attitude.

From early school days, you know that positives (+ve) repel each other, as do negatives (-ve), just like the poles of a magnet. Unlike poles attract. This is the exact opposite with attitude, or inner stance, where positive attracts positive, and negative attracts either negative, or nothing. Unlike attitudes usually settle uncomfortably somewhere in the straightjackets of conformity or compromise.

The expansionist inclination of the mind is responsible for this, as intellect is both fuelled and empowered by fertilization, stimulation, association, intangibles, perspectives, conceptions, mystery and magic, all of which are best encountered in strong relationships with other People. Every place you go, there is always one person who is highly visible, and has a large group of People surrounding them, while another person, far less intrusive, haunts the shadows, with a smaller but more intense audience.

The former is the “legend in his own lifetime” style of achiever, who usually draws shallow, easily swayed People to him, who fuels his ego, but never his

intellect. His (or her) role is to feed off the power of others, sucking your self-esteem and self-worth from you, to prove his assumed superiority. The smarter they are, the dumber you appear to be, for there can only ever be one hero in their sphere of influence.

The other achiever, the one who unassumingly finds themselves ensconced in an interesting group, tends to be the more serious of us, constantly challenging the precepts and norms of society, always seeking stimulation for his intellect. The People who surround him (or her) are there to learn, and to teach, and to share, and to grow in each other’s presence.

When you experience a meeting or close encounter with a “legend” you are left breathless, but empty. You go away with a vague feeling of uneasiness, as if you left something behind, but you can’t remember what.

You did.

You left behind some of your self-respect, because the shallowness and vacuousness of the encounter caused you to mentally (if not verbally) diminish the worth and outer stance of the focus of your attention, the “legend”. And in losing respect for someone, you forfeit a small measure of respect for yourself.

The contrary is true of the second person. Because you are there to share, to learn, and to be stimulated, you come away with a warm, positive feeling that you have grown in both personal stature and intellect.

It isn’t just personal contacts that can fuel this enormously powerful feeling in you. Paintings, books, films, stories, poetry, meditation, visualization, experimentation, simulation, and commitment all have the power to juice your intellect.

And all this is driven by one clear picture — the picture you have of yourself, of who you are, and what you stand for. It is the clarity of this picture that draws others to you, in direct contradiction of the laws of physics.


If this wasn’t so, then the biggest puzzle of the Universe would have no foundation — the fact that, in many cases, two People who seem to be diametrically opposed as personalities, get together in a close relationship. A union that, when viewed from the outside, seems an impossible one.

Yet these relationships exist, and in the majority, not the minority.

The dynamics at work are easy to visualize — what is linking these People together is a common, shared, mutually enjoyable attitude, that may well not be reflected in their personalities when viewed as singletons. In essence, what is attracting the other person is the invisible, internalized, unchangeable “you”, which lurks deep in the soul of every person.

It has been said that true love is the ability to care, feel and do something for someone else at the expense of yourself. If this is true, then true understanding is the ability to feel, hear, and comprehend someone else at the expense of your own belief system and ego. Understanding that it’s not necessarily right, it’s not necessarily wrong, it’s just different!

In other words, by your attitude, you allow the other person to be who and what they think they are, without challenge, or fear of failure.

The greatest gift you ever give another person is permission to speak. The next greatest gift is the permission to fail. And the overriding greatest gift is to allow them to be themselves, in an environment that is conducive to their growth as a person.

Respect and love are often confused as being the same thing, and it is easy to see where these two intense feelings can cross over and merge. But respect, even out of love, is something you earn, usually by performance. When you respect someone, you are, in effect, saying that you would consider seriously anything they had to say. Or you may be referring to their achievements, which you are marvelling at in contrast to your own.

Love is very different. Love is an all consuming, passionate, totally encompassing feeling that is so strong you could literally kill for it. (And sadly, many do.) Love is what drives common men to great heights, and great men to their collective knees. Doing something for someone else, freely, unreservedly, and with all your heart and soul is the most powerful thing you can ever achieve as an individual.

True Love.

But true love requires great distance, and distance requires confidence, trust, respect, and perspective. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” is an old adage, not well understood. But those of you who have really experienced true love will understand the totality of this most powerful feeling, and what it means to be able to physically leave the People concerned for long periods of time.

Love is the one true, great, vertical and horizontal experience, right after belief in yourself. Because for you to be able to love someone with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might, you must first truly love yourself, unreservedly, and unashamedly.

And that is not an easy thing to do.

If you start with respect, then you start with the building blocks of a good relationship. If you start in awe, then you will flounder on the inevitable ego that is predominant in such a situation.

And awe is not respect, and respect is not necessarily a powerful, or even correct motivation, to do something. Respect should be born out of observation and regard of facts, not speculation or rumor. All too often we find ourselves being led down the path of frivolous, time-wasting, energy-sapping emotional stimulus, which has no foundation in truth. Only to find that at the end of it all, we are left empty, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and emotionally drained.

When you stand in awe of someone, you are giving them some of your power. You are allowing, simply by your deferential attitude, your energy to


flow towards them. You also weaken your ability to observe and learn from them. Your vision is colored by your expectations, and you filter your input by what you condition yourself to believe.

The first man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, was not ten feet tall; he didn’t have a multitude of degrees and honors; and he didn’t have super-human ability. What he did have was a burning desire to achieve his goal — to be the first man to stand on the Moon — and he did the work that was demanded of him at that time to achieve that objective better than anyone else on the Apollo Program.

He was also quite short, as all good spacemen are, because for every one pound of weight you throw into space, you need 10,000 pounds of fuel.

Even today, the debate rages around the fringes of the space program, as to whether or not it is all worthwhile; could the money be better used on poverty programs, and with the Earth in such a mess, why bother with space anyway?

Every explorer, every inventor, every single person engaged on a quest for the past five thousand years has suffered the same mind-numbing challenge. How to prove that the advancement of knowledge is worth the effort and drama that is always associated with a radical change in our attitude.

But when you come right down to it, it is always a single person who achieves this seemingly Herculean feat — and in the short space of a single day, the newest conquest to challenge your perceptions passes into familiarity, and we start the process all over again. Within the span of another day, chances are you will not even remember what it was that so perturbed you about the “new” information you had to cope with, just hours previously.

Your mind is infinitely expandable, as is your capacity to learn new things. It is your attitude that determines the what, when, how, and why of what you choose to learn, and what you do with it. It is also your attitude that attracts or repels other People. You’ve

heard this before — your outer stance is controlled and dominated by your inner stance — and if you hold some measure of uncomfortableness deep inside the well of your soul, then it can’t help but be reflected in your external projection to the outside world.

Just as your body quickly reflects what you eat — eat well, look well, feel well — so does your external stance reflect what you are thinking — look good, feel good, do good.

When someone is attracted to you, while they “see” all the external signs, they “feel” all the inner signs.

And if there is too great a perceived difference between the observation and the feeling, then it is unlikely that they will willingly enter your sphere of influence. They will be immune to your Peacemaking overtures. Even if you project the very best possible picture imaginable, they will still sniff out the truth — because the ability to feel something that is right comes from within our intellect, and is heightened by our experience and our knowledge.

Instinctively you always know when something is right, just as you instinctively know when something is wrong. It takes a conscious effort to override your feelings, and do the opposite of what you know to be the correct thing. The same is true of your ability to sense when someone is telling you a truth. If it doesn’t “feel” right, you have to fight very hard to accept what is being said.

The bottom line, then, is that you will always attract the type of person that you are most in tune with, mentally, and spiritually. The depth of that attraction will depend on many things — just as its longevity will be dependant on many things. Clearly, then, you must become aware of who you really are, and who you really want to be.

This awareness will drive your inner stance, and focus your endeavors into those areas that are the most important to you. And once your inner self is “true”, you will attract everyone of a like attitude. The possibilities, potentially, are limitless.


In Australia, there is a phenomena called “mateship”, that has been the point of much speculation and research. Initially, it was viewed as a peculiarly male attitude, very much involved with drinking, gambling, swearing, and chasing after women. It’s public origins go all the way back to the Boer War, where the first Australian contingent of soldiers, ill-prepared and poorly trained, found themselves in conditions that, at first experience, appeared to be more deadly than the Boers!

“Mateship” was a simple process — to survive, everyone had to help everyone else. And with the great Australian tendency for improvisation, these farmers and clerks soon found that together there was very little they couldn’t accomplish.

Today, the informal rules of “mateship” allow you to mix and drink with like-minded People, and never discover their names! It allows you to offer your help freely, willingly, and cheerfully, no matter the task, and walk away with no more than a casual “thanks mate” in return.

The very essence of “mateship” is that you will do for someone else something you would probably not do for yourself.

And it is the attitude of “mateship” that draws People together, not the rewards, emotionally, or physically.

“Mateship” assumes that you are friendly, interested, willing to share, and just as willing to participate. You can be a “mate” but not necessarily a friend. Alternatively, you can be a “best” friend, yet still be a good “mate”. It is very much in the eye of the beholder.

When you get right down to it, there’s a lot to be said about “mateship” and its assumed values.

The next time you see someone smiling, and feel yourself irresistibly drawn towards them, remember this.

It is your inner self that is attractive to them, and it is your like-mindedness that will quickly jump the barriers of ignorance, race, color, creed, or timing.

Be the Leader. Attract other Leaders to you. Now.

32 Little Acts of Kindness in Orbit

You may have noticed earlier a “shouted” statement “COURTESY IS CONTAGIOUS”. And it is. It’s another form of Kindness, and an emotionally powerful tool to use as a Leader.

Courtesy is contagious because whenever we are the recipitants of a courtesy, we are moved emotionally to such an extent that we either feel obligated or guilty, depending on our circumstances.

You’re lurching along in a long line of semi-stalled traffic, getting more and more frustrated as time slips by. The Person in front of you stops, and lets someone else in from a side street. Suddenly two other cars accelerate and slip into the gap behind the car that has been let in, and you really start to vent your anger! How dare they! How rude!

Picture yourself in the car that has been let in to the continuous stream of cars, how do you feel? Fantastic, grateful, obligated to show the same courtesy as soon as you can, so that you can demonstrate to the courteous driver that you too, have what it takes.

How do you feel if you are the driver of one of the two extra cars that slipped in and took advantage of the situation? Fantastic, relieved at last at being on the main road, but guilty as Hell and hoping that the original courteous driver didn’t get a look at your face!

Now, the facts are that the traffic was moving so slowly that a few cars one way or the other would have made no difference to your travel time at all. This is true of most situations where there are a number of preordained physical or infrastructure limitations.

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The road can only hold so many cars — they can only move at the speed allowed by the density and flow control of the road — and most if not all of the critical Performance elements will always be out of your control.

But Attitudinally, you have an expectation that you should be able to move at the rate that you desire, to suit your specific purpose, and in your particular manner.

Why?

Because you have preprogrammed yourself to leave at a certain time, arrive at a certain time, and behave in a certain manner, and when you suddenly are thrown into a situation not of your making, you have to Change Manage your Attitudes and expectations. And you don’t naturally like to do this.

If you are to become the Leader that you can be, you have to discover the secrets of the Fighter Pilot, secrets that keep them alive under the most Stressful and harrowing circumstances imaginable. People shooting bullets and missiles at them, while they are flying around at thousands of kilometers an hour.

Fighter Pilots are taught all about a phenomenon called “Situational Awareness”. This is the ability to sense and see all that is going on around them, while at the same time they are managing and monitoring three hundred different dials, systems, and switches. The key is Training, Learned Response, Attitude, Awareness, Stress Management, Communication, Personality Style, and Group Dynamics.

Sound familiar?

The path to Situational Awareness is a simple set of “Rules” that have been developed and refined by Fighter Pilots all over the world, since the days of Baron Von Richoven — The Red Baron — who was legitimately the first aerial assassin to be recognized as a Ace by all sides.

The rules have evolved over time, and taken on the mantle of Literal Truths, and they sound like this:

In any aerial battle, watch your “six” — the guy that gets behind you is the one that is going to kill you.

Always honor the threat — if you don’t , then you will get killed by something that you saw as a threat and did nothing about.

When the fight is one on many, ignore everyone else other than the guy in your “six”. If you don’t successfully deal with him first, the others won’t matter as they watch your death spiral.When the fight is many on many, ignore everyone else except the guy in your “six”, or your flight mates will also watch your death spiral.

Run from a knife fight, but charge a gun. In fighter terms, this translates into the exact opposite — get away from a missile, but get in close to use your guns.

If it’s one on one, someone’s going to die.

The fight is not over until the other guy is no longer able to kill you.

These rules help keep Fighter Pilots alive and well, but they also have great application for the Leader.

Every Stressful situation is a potential or actual conflict — a conflict of emotions, a conflict of attitudes, a conflict of beliefs, a conflict between perception and reality, or a conflict of circumstance. As a Leader, you have to be able to identify the situation as it presents, and intuit the reality and manage the perceptions.

Little Acts of Kindness can be your missiles, or your guns, helping you to break through the pattern of negative behavior that threatens the Lifetime and quality of Life of all involved.

If you remember the discussion on Profit, you will recall that the absolute first priority of most People


was to be recognized within their environment as making a meaningful contribution, and having that contribution acknowledged. This is a strong indicator of a possible first step in breaking a negative behavior pattern — acknowledge (in their terms) — each of the protagonists. Get a dialogue going where you recognize the individual nature of the People concerned, and find a Little Act of Kindness that you can easily apply. Communication is the heart and soul of all relationships, and if you can’t get a Communication going, then you have nothing to work with.

Leadership is all to do with Facilitation, Mediation, and Communication, so we need to unlock these secrets so we can utilize the “Rules” of Situational Awareness to maximum advantage.

Mediation is defined thus — “Form a connecting link between, or intervene between, two persons (or more) for the purpose of reconciling them to a commonly agreed idea, perception, or principle.”

What this means in reality is that you have to build a “Consensual Bridge” between the opposing Attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, or Behaviors of two or more conflicting sides.

Mediation is all about CONFLICT RESOLUTION — Leadership — left brain verses right brain — reality verses perception — passion verses calm, fact verses fiction, and it is the single hardest thing to do as a Leader.

Mediation is always about a measure of coercion — controlling of a voluntary agent or action by force — and it is always about one side “winning” at the expense of the other. The trick is get a process where the amount one side might win by is acceptable to the other Party.

The reason is simple. Irrespective of whether or not the initial conflict is about a physical thing “Attitude object” or an Ideal, Concept, Vision, or Belief, the

conflict is always expressed in Emotional terms. Rational foundation perhaps, but emotional expression locked up in conflict ridden Communication.

The “Triangles of Conflict” Model can help you understand how to create a process for building a Consensual Bridge.

The Triangle of Conflict


Literal Truth VestedInterest

CreativeInsight

The three aspects of the Triangle are worth a closer look.

By Vested Interest we mean who has the most to lose, who will lose the most, who has the most power, or who is in the strongest position. This is a self-centered view, but when you understand where the Vested Interest in your Mediation process really sits, you are well on the way to understanding how to create your Strategy — your Consensual Bridge.

The Literal Truth is just that, but it is a very important part of the equation. Is there a level to which you cannot go? Can you define the situation in such a way that it is literal in both its content and meaning? Is some other party, or process, that has not been taken into account, but will be affected by any outcome? Here you strip away all the emotional camouflage, and get right down to the single thought or element of the conflict that is the potentially the “driver” for the Consensual Bridge.

Creative Insight is the “Ah! Ha! Factor — that little gem of an idea you come up with to create the paradigm shift in Attitude you need to manage to Mediate the issue successfully. This is where all your skill as a


Leader pays off for you, and invariably, it is this insight that makes all the difference in the process.

As an example, if you had to Mediate an argument between the Owners and Managers of an Organization, the Vested Interest value may be “Owners”, Literal Truth value “Managers”, and Creative Insight value “Staff”. In other words, in any conflict between Owners and Managers, the staff are going to suffer or be impacted on in some way, so to Mediate this conflict you may have to discover what levels of staff activity will be acceptable, so that the Managers can satisfy the demands of the Owners.

Think about what might describe the three values in a conflict where a Parent and a Child might be involved.

In every situation, these three factors are in play, and need to be moderated. If you can see your way clear to getting the red ball into the centre of the Triangle, you will have created a process where both sides will walk away satisfied that neither side won at the excessive expense of the other — a successful Mediation.

If you remember what happens when you get Stressed — your ability to think and reason is degraded, as the blood floods down to your major, large muscle groups, in response to the instinctive “Flight or Flight” syndrome — then you will quickly understand why it is so hard to resolve and conflict in an emotional environment.

People simply are not thinking clearly. They are not expressing themselves clearly, or concisely. Their emotions get in the way of their ability to reason and in turn be reasonable.

Look at the process of conflict in the terms of what we have discussed in getting to this point:

When you threaten “Ego” or “Self-image” or “perceived image” you challenge the “raging bull” head-on. And when you attempt to Mediate a

conflict you are stepping right into the heart of the conflict zone and challenging exactly that, and the result is even more Stress that the original process is likely to have manifested.

Stress kills. Managing Stress is what you are all about as a Leader.

Stress is a primitive response to a perceived threat of attack. Adrenaline surges, blood pressure rises, heart rate increases, neck hairs bristle, blood flow is diverted from internal organs to muscles.

In Psychological Terms, this is known as the “Fight or Flight” Syndrome, and is a Primary Motivational Response derived from the Survival Instinct.

In this heightened State the ability to perform tasks is degraded, mental facilities are limited, perspective changes, Behavior changes, and individual potential is significantly reduced toward the instinctive end of the performance scale.

As the Self-induced effects of Stress increase, our ability to act decreases.

In even simpler terms, you suffer loss of control.

If you remember, we discovered that the conscious “Mind” perceives Language, Words, and Symbols; the unconscious “Mind” interprets and generates your perception of Pictures and Abstract Images; and the subconscious “Mind” is where your imagination resides — ideas are generated, and where your power of visualization comes from.

Interestingly, the Mind does not distinguish between “real” and “imagined” information, and the primary cause of Self-induced Stress is the difference between your perception (your reality) and the actual reality (what is really going on around you.)

In any Mediation it is not Company verses Company, or Corporation verses Organization. It is very much Person verses Person.


Your role as the Leader — Mediator — is to build a consensual bridge between the conflicting parties in such a way that the Stress levels are reduced, and that the emotional temperature is lowered to the point where constructive, empathetic, and reasonable Communication can take place.

A real world definition of Mediation looks something like this — “A process of Facilitation where the Parties in conflict come to a Point of Acceptance where their Perception is that neither Party has gained unnecessarily at the expense of the other”.

Interestingly, this is another example of where the absence of something becomes the primary Motive — in this case, a one-sided perception of excessive reward.

There are five “rules” that we have found to be exceptionally helpful in developing a Mediation process:

Keep your “Ego” out of it. As the Leader, the Mediator, it is your job to build the consensual bridge, not become recognized for your Performance.

Do your homework on both sides. Until you completely understand all the issues, both real and imagined, you cannot hope to provide the bridge that will be required to get the Parties into a genuine Communication.

Have no “Opinion” — It is not your role to be right or wrong, you must be objective and perceived to be empathetic to both sides, with no perception of a forgone conclusion as to the outcome.

Keep the picture of the “Triangle of Conflict” Model handy, and continually ask yourself where the Vested Interest is, what the Literal Truth might be, and what the Creative Insight might be that creates the bridge.

Focus on a minimal loss Strategy as you get to the conclusion, and make sure that the perceptions on both sides is that one side did not prosper at the other sides expense excessively.

Another excellent concept is to look for the opportunity to afford Little Acts of Kindness to the Parties involved during the process.

Most People are not naturally malicious or vindictive. Conflict usually arises when the situation gets out of hand, either because of the size of the issue, or the strength of the emotions being displayed by one or both Parties, and a point is crossed where neither can recover from their stated position without external stimulus.

A Little Act of Kindness cuts right through the negative emotional State and forces the Recipient to adjust their Attitude. You upset their emotional perception, and you rupture their hardened Attitudes, threatening their beliefs.

Remember that maximum Performance occurs in the narrow band where maximum Arousal matches minimum Stress — so you need to get the Parties into the “good” area of Arousal, and out of the “bad” area of Stress.


Maximum performance occurs in the narrow band where maximum Arousal matches minimum Stress

Arou

sal

Stress

Performance

Max Performance Index – PI

As the self-induced effects of stressincrease, our ability to act decreases

The crucial element in any Performance is an understanding of Communication, and the role of Feedback. As the Leader, you must provide excellent Feedback to all concerned, at every stage of the process. In many ways, this will be how you will ultimately judged by the conflicting Parties, not by the


Mediated outcome. They will always see the outcome as something that they achieved — but the Process will linger in their minds are be related to you.

The quality of the Feedback that you generate will directly reflect the quality of your Mediation process.

Some very real home truths about Mediation:• People do things for their reasons, not yours. • People are unlikely to be motivated by your needs

and desires.• People learn only what they want to learn.• People learn only when they want to learn.• People naturally resist change. • People naturally regress to their prior “State” or

Comfort Zone.• People will always move towards the line of least

resistance.• People will always attempt to find their balance

within a Group.• The attitudes and motivation of the Group can

affect the individual.• If the Group is tightly focused, then the individual will

be drawn towards the common attitude — right, or wrong.

The majority of motivators are mental stimulants (Emotional) not practical achievements (Rational). Remember this in your Mediated process. The conflict may well be about a physical or practical object or issue, but it will be argued and settled in emotional terms. If at the end of the day, it doesn’t “feel” right, you will not get your outcome.

Another great secret is in understanding the Personality of the Persons your are Mediating. If you understand the Personality Styles involved, you can use the “ROE” for Communicating with those Persons, and get their Stress levels down to manageable levels. You can also help each party “see” the differences in each other, and facilitate their Communication skills in the process.

High Involvement

Rat

iona

l

Em

otio

nal

Low Involvement


Director Socialiser

Thinker Relator

The Director Personality is Rational - High Involvement (top left hand quadrant of the Grid)

1. In the Communication, is the thinking, presentation, and attitude compatible with the importance of the action?


3. Does it provide enough food for thought?

4. Are the points made in the Communication logical and cogent?

5. Are the specifics, benefits or reasons-why real and important?

The Socializer Personality is Emotional - High Involvement (top right hand side of the quadrant)






5. Does it express the right personality values?

6. Does it play on the right sense (of the five senses) in the right way?

The Thinker Personality is Logical - Low Involvement (bottom left hand quadrant)


2. Does it make one point inescapably clear?

3. Does the Communication demonstrate or prove its one point irresistibly, and irrefutably?

The Relator Personality is Emotional - Low Involvement (bottom right hand quadrant)




In creating any Mediation process there are three questions that will help you formulate your consensual bridge.

1. What is the model of the perfect Outcome? If you can get a clear picture in your mind of what this is, you will be able to backwards model a process to deliver it. This becomes your Strategy. However, do not fall in love with this picture, because it is your picture, and not necessarily that of those in conflict. You must always be prepared to modify your picture in line with the changing needs of the process.

2. What will be the effect on both sides? Try and anticipate how each side might take to this picture, and model their responses. This will help

you sharpen your Communication processes, using your knowledge of Group Dynamics, Motivation, and Personality. By anticipating probable responses, you can be ready to help the Parties across the bridge.

3. What is the process that will allow the model (your picture) to become a reality? In effect, this becomes your Tactics, those Performance elements that you will use to make your Strategy a reality.

It’s simply a question of “Balance” — remember our real world definition of Mediation — “a process of Facilitation where the Parties in Conflict come to a Point of Acceptance where their Perception is that neither Party has gained unnecessarily at the expense of the other.”

Communication is the heart and soul of any Mediation Process, and as much time, effort and energy has to go into it as goes into the planning aspects of the Mediation Process itself. Little Acts of Kindness can break the ice in a Mediated process faster than any speeding bullet.

If you truly Communicate with the Parties, and empower them, then any Strategic Mediation Plan you implement will succeed.

Mediation is defined as “Form a connecting link between, or intervene between, two persons (or more) for the purpose of reconciling them to a commonly agreed idea, perception, or principle.” In other words, build the consensual bridge across which the Parties can cross to reach an agreement that both can accept from their own perspective, without one side winning at the perceived excessive expense of the other.

Keep it HOT no matter what. Get People to BREATHE and RELAX. Remember to SMILE and be ready to RACE. And discover the incredible power with Little Acts of Kindness in Leadership.


33 The Personality Grid in Orbit

Throughout this Book, we have been using a visual Model, which we have called the “Personality Grid. In its rawest State, it is a Model for illustrating various Interactions, like Personality Styles, Learning Styles, etc.

High Involvement

Rat

iona

l

Em

otio

nal

Low Involvement


The Doer The VisualLearner

The Thinker The KinaestheticLearner

The original Grid was the product of some very clever thinking, and was developed by FCB International (New York), as a means to plot consumer preferences and product attributes. Research showed that products could be “plotted” by their Consumer appeal, and that certain product categories “lived” in certain parts of the Grid. Communication Rules similar to the ones we have used were developed, and from this some truly great Advertising was produced.

Since then, we have invested thousands of hours applying the Grid principles to Personality, Performance, Learning, Leadership, Change Management, Economic Management, and Communication.

The red and blue sectors mirror the Mind — left brain Rational (or Logical), right brain Emotional. The Involvement relationship is combined to create a four-part Grid, on which we can “plot” aspects of Performance, Personality, Behavior, Dynamics, Communication, and many other attributes of Attitude. It is a stunningly simple tool, which will encourage you to visualize many of the concepts and secrets discussed in this book.

As a Leader, knowing how to simplify the pictures you use to try to Communicate to others will become the cornerstone of your success. Use the Grid to your advantage, play around with it, and see where it may take you.

34 The Final Pregnant Pause in Orbit

One of the most Stressful areas a Leader will encounter is that of Cooperation verses Competition, and Technology. Somehow, as we have developed over the years, we have lost our way when trying to understand how these very necessary drivers can operate in harmony. As the world moves more and more towards a literal use of the “One” and “Zero” precept, the “click and go” mentality, it seems that we struggle with everything that might fall between these two start and finish values.

In Organizational terms, this is a precursor to massive Stress, unhappiness, and loss of productivity.

The paradigm of the holistic Organization needs to be seen in the light of its natural and un-natural boundaries — and there are at least two dimensions we must consider if we are to be a Leader.

The physical walls of the infrastructure that create the space within which both cooperative and competitive Behavior abounds; and

The metaphysical walls of the culture and Attitudinal space within which such Behavior is either rewarded and reinforced, or disciplined and discouraged.

Remember the parable “You get for what you pay?” Well, Behavior, good or bad, rewarded, repeats!

Un-natural boundaries occur where the Organizational culture (Behavior) clashes with the external standards of either the community or the operational segment within which the Organization’s prime activities take place.

The Personality Grid in Orbit 33

Now, we know that Attitude and Behavior stem from beliefs (subjective) — and that the stronger the emotional context that supports these beliefs, the harder it will be to ameliorate unacceptable Behavior.

Where does this leave cooperation and competition?

Inconsistencies and lack of data in any performance requirement leads to failure (less than the desired achievement state).

But the reality is that unless the physical and metaphysical “walls” are in harmony — the inside and the outside — and holistically, the organization is in turn harmonized within its immediate community or operational segment, failure is the only predictable outcome.

Just like if your “Inner” stance is at odds with your “Outer” Stance (observed Behavior) you become Stressed, Organizations that get out of sync exhibit all the same Stressful symptoms.

If you accept this as a reasonable observation, then you could equally hypothesis that for any maximum to be achieved in any competitive situation, the maximum value of cooperation is a prerequisite.

The corollary of this extrapolation is thus: if you have total literal cooperation, in any organistic system, without some element of competition you have nothing better than stasis — or homeostasis if you are only looking at the psychological value.

This leads to the conclusion that you can’t have excellence in competition performance, without excellence in cooperation performance; likewise, excellence in cooperation performance is untenable without excellence in competition performance.

You must have competition to engender the performance paradigms necessary for “motion”!

“Without resistance, there can be no Change!”

(Dr. Peter Hubbard)

Research into literally thousands of Organizations suggests that it is the “middle” activities that actually give the “upper” levels the necessary permissions to do the things that they must do to make the Organization function profitably.

In understanding this belief about the “middle” giving the “top” permission to perform in most organizations, our view is that the dynamics that directly enable this “middle-up” flow are as follows:

• Organizational culture - permission to learn, speak, listen, and fail positively to success.

• Management understanding - of the true requirements of delegated responsibility via empowerment and overt support.

• True multi-directional Communication with genuine feedback loops to closure of issues, and the ability to seek self-worth.

• And motivation. Internalized, and held as a strong belief picture by everyone concerned. The stronger the picture, the more positive is the outcome.

So perhaps it all comes down to shared Vision and Goals, driven by the personal need to succeed for your own reasons!

But as a Leader, you already knew that, didn’t you?Technology is a different kettle of fish.

What follows is sometimes called “The Lament of the Zero”:

First there was GOD,Who labored for six days,And then created MAN.

MAN created chaos,And took unto himselfThe power of personality

The Final Pregnant Pause in Orbit 34

And individuality,And disharmony, and disorder.

And then MANCreated TECHNOLOGY.

TECHNOLOGY promised so much.Freedom. Organization. Wealth.Connectivity. Communication.Speed. Systems. Simplicity. Control.And delivered differing amounts of each,But mostly TECHNOLOGY created even more Chaos,And was soon found to be wanting.

So Man declared that he had MASTERED TECHNOLOGY,And would MAKE IT DO HIS BIDDING!

Just a soon as he could get the BUGS out!

There is no doubt that Technology is a major cause of Stress in human beings. As a Leader, you must realize this, and move at every opportunity to actively reduce the Stress that is killing the People around you.

Start by getting the effected People to step back from their task orientation, and think about what it is they are really trying to achieve. Stop the “click and go” mentality in its mouse tracks, and get People thinking about what it is they are really trying to achieve. Is it doable using the Technology involved? Is there a better way to do it? Are they, in fact, trying to do the right thing in the first place?

Are you trying to make the “business” process fit the technology map, rather than designing the technology map to fit the business process?

Look at the following Process map, and examine what really should be the determinant of the value activity.

“White Sheet” BPR Model


Compliance Issues

What we must do

Discretionary Issues

What it would be nice to do

Best Practice Issues

What we should do

WHO

What do we doHow do we do it

What do they doHow do they do it

What should be done that isn’t being doneWho should do it

What might changeHow will we support that changeWhat are the consequences of the change

Sometimes just writing down the “What do we do” statement clarifies an enormous amount of confusion. And the moment you start to analyze “How we do it” all sorts of amazing pictures start to appear.

“What do they do” is related to any natural competition you may have for your process — and there is always competition — either internal or external. The constant search by Management for “Best Practice” solutions — doing more with less — almost guarantee that someone in every Organization is looking outside for a way to reduce the overhead, while lifting the apparent productivity.

Distraction Model


Client

IndirectCompetition

DirectCompetition

Service


Internal competition is insidious — you don’t always appreciate it for what it is. Competition often stems from an Organization’s desire to increase Profit delivery at the expense of systems or People.

And where internal competition can really get out of hand is if the technology developers and worshippers are inside the organization that is trying to make the business work.

We have previously discussed that fact that Language can be a damming influence on any Communication, and technology is a master as obscuring simplicity with jargon and indecipherable code. Many people get confused with the bites and bytes, refresh rate, storage capacity, REM and RAM, and LAN and WAN.

What you need to do is STOP the confusion, and define clearly what it is you are trying to achieve, and map it as a continuous process, from start to finish.

Business Positioning Model


WHOCustomerGroups

HOWTechnologies &

Processes Employed

WHATFunctions

Performance

Examination of the Whole Environment—Modifications that make it work better, productivity; access; systems; technology;

communication; service sustainability

Do not let technology bamboozle you into accepting changes to process or business rules because they have something that they like — it’s as good as driving on the wrong side of the road. You may well get to your destination, but in all probability you will be dead before you realize it!

This Business Process Review Model shows you how to manage this in a People orientated manner, something the Leader always needs to consider.

The Leader understands that when an Organization gets Stressed because of lack of Profit, or other pressures, the thinking sometimes resembles that of an individual under Stress — it is reactive, rather than considered. It is panicked, emotional, and lacking in rational, cognitive values.

Competition and Cooperation, like Technology, are a permanent part of our Lives, and we need to understand them and manage their attributes and effects, to minimize the self-induced Stress that they can cause.

This is the primary role of the Leader.

One other thing — if you understand where Competition and Cooperation sit in the decision process, you can relieve a lot of potential Stress.

You need competition to grow, and you need cooperation to force multiply your efforts in Leadership.

It is always a question of balance, and consistency.

Is the business need consistent with the business objective?

Is the business process consistent with the Client need?

Is the business process consistent with the People process?

Is the technology solution consistent with the business objective

Is the technology process consistent with the business process?

Is there fear in the decision process?

Is there blame in the decision process?

Is there a balance between acceptance and credit in the process?

Is there Trust at the heart of the process?


Emotional Positioning


TRUST

Rejection

CreditBlame

Acceptance

Trust as we have said previously, is at the Heart of every human activity. People naturally strive for Acceptance, love Credit, hate Rejection, and loath being Blamed.

Unfortunately, this is the essence of any decision process, and is what motivates most People in how they make their decisions.

Directors take great risks, like Socializes, but hate being blamed for anything.

Thinkers and Relators are naturally risk-adverse.

Leadership is not always easy, but if you concentrate on Cooperation at the expense of Competition, you will be successful!

35 Winning with Orbit

At the end of the day, the “Winner” is the only Person without an excuse.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Person beat out all comers, stood on the dais as the Gold Medal victor, or was hailed as the all-conquering hero.

What it means is that the winner was the Person who did their personal best under the prevailing circumstances.

No cop outs.

No excuses.

No prevarication, blaming, assignment of blame, or self-destructive negative rationalization for lack of Performance or effort.

Just front up, tried as hard as they could, established their best ever Performance, and won!

This is a very different picture to the one that most people would hold in their minds about victory and winning.

Victory is supposed to be “win-win-win” or even worse, “kill-kill-kill!”

You know about Attitude formation. You know about Emotion, and Communication. You have just discovered a lot about Competition and Cooperation. You understand that being competitive is part of our basic Instinct to survive. What we are really talking about here is the level to which we compete, the degree of Emotion we expend in the competitive process, and the management of our Feelings and Attitudes involved in the competitive process.

There are two great fears most People have in any competitive or Performance orientated process — Fear of failure, and Fear of Success.

And by far and away the most feared of the two fears is Fear of Success!

People fear that when successful, they will be challenged as to their right, or their process, in becoming successful. They fear that they might be “exposed” by some self-perceived weakness in either their character, or their performance. This fear can lead to great Stress, and all the accompanying debilitating psychological and physiological behaviors we have discussed previously

Fear of Failure is just as strong an Emotion, and just as irrational. If you are afraid to fail, the real issue is that you may never even try to succeed.

You must always try, and your Personal best is the best you can do.

Winning with Orbit 35

If you do your personal best, then you have no excuses.

You are the winner.

Leadership is all about doing your best. Every time, time after time.

No matter how you are judged by others, no matter what standard they may use, if you believe that you have tried your hardest, worked your smartest, and done your personal best to achieve your objective, then you have won something more precious than any external accolade.

Inner Peace, and the knowledge that you did your best, under whatever the prevailing circumstances may have been.

You truly are a Leader!

36 The Flight of the Bumble Bee into Orbit

The humble Bumble Bee, even at the start of the third millennium, is still an aeronautical enigma. Its body is still too big, it weights too much, and its wings are too small, for it to be able to fly. And we can prove it!

Any Scientist worth their salt will explain to you in diagrams, formula, and frantic sketches exactly why it is impossible for the Bumble Bee to fly. They will convince you that the lift/drag, thrust/weight ratios are all wrong, and that either the wings have to have a surface area four times larger that they are, or the body has to be half its apparent mass, for the Bubble Bee to make it up into the air under its own power.

Yet every single day, gazillions of Bumble Bees roar around the Planet defying gravity, logic, aeronautical engineering principles, and, seemingly, the Laws of Physics.

How do they do it?

There are as many theories about the flight of the Bumble Bee as there are Bumble Bees!

But one concept is universally accepted as the “prime” linking theory — and that is that the humble Bumble Bee, unencumbered with doubts about their ability to fly, and apparently not in the least bit interested in the science of flight, just do it!

They fly. Around and around, from flower to flower, day after day, buzzing away as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

Truly a grand example of Mind Over everything that does Matter!

Well, you can be like the humble Bumble Bee, zapping around the Planet doing all the things you want to do, Leadership, and helping other People to do all the things they want to do with you.

All you have to do it get your Mind Over everything that does Matter, and like the Bumble Bee, you too will fly!

Against all the odds, against all the advice of friends and family, against seemingly impossible resistance from the Universe itself. You will be a Leader.

The last 100 years have finished just as they as they started — with wars being fought all over the Planet. In the early part of the last century, we had the Boxer Rebellion, Britain invading Tibet, the US at war with the Philippines, the Boer War in South Africa, the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Mexican Revolution, and Korea was being annexed by Japan.

Then we had the “big one”– World War One. Millions killed or crippled, a whole generation literally wiped off the face of the earth. This was billed in its day as “the War to end all Wars”.

But it didn’t.We soon followed it with the Spanish Civil War, World

The Flight of the Bumble Bee into Orbit 36

War Two, then the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Not to mention serious aggression in places like Palestine, Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, just to mention a few.

In terms of weaponry, we started the last century with the Lee Enfield .303 single shot bolt-action repeating rifle, water cooled machine guns, and your basic collection of exploding devices such as dynamite, hand-grenades, rockets, mines, and artillery propelled shells.

We could then kill each other quite effectively over a range of about 2,000 yards.

In the 1990’s we have seen Wars fought with incredible ferocity on practically every continent, from the Persian Gulf, through Europe, again right into Asia and the Pacific, including northern Africa.

But now, we can kill each other incredibly efficiently over the span of continents, tens of thousands of miles, with pinpoint accuracy. Who can ever forget the grainy black and white video of a smart bomb flying right through a window of a building during the Gulf War? Or a precision guided munitions tracking a truck on a bridge, and literally turning at right angles to fly right in through the driver’s window!

We have at our disposal hydrogen bombs, smart bombs, standoff guided precision bombs, laser beams, and every type of exploding device imaginable. We have created the most potent destruction devices known to Man — even, if rumor is to be believed, a “Planet Buster” capable of destroying the Moon.

When you try to dispassionately view the incredible carnage that was surely the bloodiest century in the history of mankind, you struggle with a gripping question.

What was the greatest development in weapons during the last 100 years?

Was it the “A” Bomb that effectively ended World War 2? The jet bomber? Global Positioning Systems delivering unbelievable accuracy over thousands of

miles? The TV camera that lets us see first hand the destruction of these mighty weapons? Rocket and missiles that fly at five times the speed of sound? Radar that lets you see into fog and clouds, and deep into the night? Satellites that peer through the sky seeing everything?

No. It’s the Human Mind. For what the Mind can conceive, Man can do! And every single physical and metaphysical thing outside Nature has been created by the Mind of a man or a woman.

Why wars are still being fought at all in this so call enlightened age is for others to ponder and comment on. We simply need to understand the tremendous force that is unleashed every time someone concentrates their Mind on the job at hand — be it making something go bang! in the night, or putting a footprint in the dusty regolith of another Planet. Or Leadership.

The single critical difference between Mankind and any other type of life form is our innate ability to visualize something that does not yet exist, and bend the forces of nature towards making it a reality.

If you trace the history of Space Flight (and you will find little snippets of this fascinating history here, because in these snippets you will find the secret to the flight of the Bumble Bee) you begin to get an understanding of the enormous power of the human mind.

The Mind is where it all starts and finishes, and when you come to believe this you unleash your own massive potential, to do what you most want to do.

Be a Leader.

This is what we call “The Bumble Bee Factor”. Doing the seemingly impossible, with the sheer power of your intellect and desire, by getting your Mind Over everything that does Matter!

You can, literally help anyone do what they want to do.


You can, literally, be anyone and anything you want to be.

You can achieve anything you put you Mind to.

You can Be a Leader!

360 BCA hollow model of a pigeon

suspended by a string over a flame is made to move by steam

issuing from small exhaust ports

(described by Aulus Gellius inNoctes Atticae (Attic Nights).

In centuries to come, this would be recognized as the first recorded use of a Reaction Engine — the very first “jet” engine. Interestingly, man’s first tentative step towards conquering Space was a device that used no moving parts, and the simplest elements of nature — wood, fire and water!

How did someone create the picture of the pigeon flying around propelled by steam? How did the person visualize something that had never happened before, never been seen by anyone, never been described in a story or a fable?

Where did the knowledge come from that enabled him to put the two main parts of the puzzle together — the “vessel” with its exhaust ports, and the “propulsion” created by heating the contained water to create jets of steam?

We can only assume that curiosity created a strong Motivation that was probably fuelled by casual observation. A steaming pot or kettle would transmit the idea of a propelling force being able to be created with steam. The pressure observed in the steam caused by a restricted opening would suggest a means of creating focused energy to move the desired object.

The model of the pigeon probably came about because our intrepid inventor saw the bird fly, and he was trying to duplicate that feat using the simple means at his disposal.

Or perhaps, he selected the model of a bird because at that time, it never occurred to him that anything other than birds flew!

Whatever, the Bumble Bee Factor was well and truly at work.

It would be over two thousand years before another inventor-scientist, Sir Isaac Newton would describe and theorize the Three Laws of Motion — one of which surely described what made our little pigeon fly on its string — action, reaction — so in hindsight, this was truly a remarkable feat in its time.

Yet History is littered with examples of People inventing and creating things that they had absolutely no “theoretical” knowledge of — all they understood was that when they did “A” with “B” and added “C” something happened — hopefully, the outcome that they had envisioned in their Minds! The mental picture of an event that they made come true.

First, they created an image in their Minds of what they wanted to make happen, and then they worked and worked until it did. They made their “Mind Picture” a reality, mostly without ever understanding the Science involved!

And right up until the middle of the last century, they didn’t have the foggiest idea of how they were literally achieving the impossible!

There are three generally accepted “Mind” functions (that we have discussed earlier) that make up what we call our Intellect and our Personality.

The Conscious Mind, where we process thoughts and icons, recognize speech and language, and manipulate things like simple pattern recognition.


The Unconscious Mind where we process images and pictures, and give vivid detail to the icons and language patterns we process in our Conscious Mind. This is also where our cognitive ability is thought to come from.

And our Subconscious Mind, where we create our dreams, illusions, visions, and fantasies. These images are the real “drivers” for us, because it is now understood that the clarity and detail of the mental pictures that reside in your Subconscious Mind are what motivate and drive you to perform.

As an example, elite athletes train and train until their autonomic nervous system can reproduce their desired performance without the athlete even consciously thinking about it! They create pictures of Performance and expectation in their Unconscious Mind, and at Game Time, let their instincts take over.

This is one of the great examples of The Bumble Bee Factor — how to get your Mind “preprogrammed” to enable you to do what you want to do — easily, sustainably, and successfully.

AD 62Hero, a Greek resident of Alexandria,

invents the “Aeolipile”. This clever device is a hollow sphere with canted nozzles, which spins on pivots by the

reaction of steam jets. It looks a lot like a metal ball with two teapot spouts

welded on opposite sides. The ball was held between two legs, over a fire,

which in turn heated the water in the ball turning it into steam.

This is the second recorded use of a Reaction Engine, and interestingly, here we see force being used to move an object that is not normally expected to move. A piece of genuine lateral thought, exploring the possibility of motion using, again, simple elements.

Hero also contributed to the early understanding of mechanics, hydraulics, mathematics, and optics. If

you ever have the desire to learn about true genius before its time, read up on Hero!

In a sense, he was one of the first People to develop some of the concepts that would later lead others to prove that a Bumble Bee couldn’t possibly fly!

What’s so important about the discovery of the Reaction Engine is the very fact that jet propulsion as we know it today, in planes, rockets, and space ships like the Space Shuttle uses exactly the same principle. So does every bullet fired from every gun.

You could say that our ability to kill each other so efficiently over such vast distances is all due to a couple of People playing around with steam propulsion!

The critical issue is that they both developed a Mind Picture of what they wanted to achieve — and then bent Nature to their will, and did it!

How would you do it? Visualize a ball with two spouts on opposite sides, each pointing in the opposite direction.

How would you get the water in? How would you boil the water? How would you suspend the ball? What would your “Aeolipile” look like? How would it work? What else could you get it to do? Could you use it as a source of power to drive a vehicle of some sort?

Draw your version on a piece of paper, and work out how you would make one out of the bits and pieces you have lying around your home or office.

Remember that the first time this was done was over one thousand, nine hundred and thirty eight years ago!

So what’s stopping you, now?

When you want to do something different, or difficult, first get a clear picture in your Mind of what it looks like as a successfully completed task or venture.


The clearer this Mind picture, the easier it will be for you to succeed.

And the stronger your emotional attachment to the idea, the greater its chance of success.

Picture yourself implementing the principles of Leadership — with everyone around you. Fall in love with the idea. Get really emotionally attached to it. Make it come true!

Motivationalists often say that you should cut out a picture of the car or the house that you most want, and look at it every day. This then becomes a source of your Motivation to work hard to achieve your goals.

But what you really need to do is internalize this picture, so that you see yourself driving in the car, living in the house, swimming in the pool.

The critical factor is that it is your Mind Picture — what you most desire — that you build up. So much so, that your Mind preprograms you to achieve your goal.

Then your Mind takes over and helps you make your Mind Picture your reality.

The sleek red BMW seemed to merge with the road as it roared around the tight corner, huge gouts of flame and smoke boiling up from either side. The front of the BMW pushed out of the billowing debris cloud, seeming immune to the incessant chatter of the 20mm cannon being fired at it from the black helicopter just inches from its roof.

As both vehicles literally flew down the mountain side, one hugging the road like a leech, the other so close to the fleeing car that its shadow merged in the flickering sunlight, like two giant beetles mating, the blonde in the passenger seat casually turned to the driver, a wry smile creasing her bright purple lips.

What did you say you name was?” she asked casually, just as the car lurched suddenly, one wheel shooting out over the edge of the crumbling road. She looked down at the valley floor below, very, very far below,

and just as she was about to point out their plight, and the car lurched back the other way, throwing her against the driver.

He grinned boyishly, running one well-manicured hand through his jet-black wavy hair.

“Bond. James Bond,” he replied, wrestling the screaming BMW around another hairpin corner, just as another missile explodes right in their faces!

What happens next has been the subject of over 50 books and films, for over three decades, as James Bond in his many incarnations has strutted his stuff — always against incredible odds, and always in the direst of circumstances.

Very different actors, from Sean Connery to Woody Allen have played the famous character first created by Ian Fleming. But all the Bonds had two things in common — three if you count the pretty women that flocked in and out of their adventures.

They all had amazing technology to save them in tight situations, in the form of special gadgets. Watches that became bombs, acted as direction finders, and even as miniature cameras. Cars that flew, floated, dived, all loaded with missiles, rockets, jet engines and ejector seats. Fountain pens that did everything from squirt out poisonous gas to actually writing on paper!

The second thing the Bond characters had in common was a behavioral trait we call “Attitude”. You could immediately tell who was in command, who was in control, and who would enjoy the upper hand, no matter how desperate the situation.

“Bond, James Bond”, has become synonymous with positive, witty, in-your-face Attitude that was both threatening and comforting at the same time.

The humble Bumble Bee doesn’t read books, go to the movies, or, as far as we can tell, use any gadgets


to get through a tough day in the garden. But they do have Attitude, and lots of it.

An Attitude that allows them to do the impossible — fly when they should be crashing to the ground!

If you ever have the opportunity to watch a Bumble Bee at work, notice how other Bumble Bees don’t fly onto each other’s flowers as they collect pollen. Whenever one does get too close, you can hear an increase in the frequency of the Bumble Bee’s wings, sending out a clear message to others to “keep their distance”.

Not only do they mock the Laws of physics, but also they Communicate with their tiny wings, letting the entire world know exactly what their Attitude is to being encroached on.

If the Bumble Bee can do it — so can you.

Go now, and be a Leader. With everyone. For everyone. For yourself.

Put yourself, your Service, well and truly into Orbit!
