The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

The line that I particularly laughed at and was saddened by is made by the male researcher, the husband whose very tendencies to ignore his partner were the impetus for this study:
But Fitzsimons said the results "suggest that reactance to significant others is so automatic that I can't possibly be expected to control it if I don't even know it's happening."

This is one of those things which, if I saw it in a movie, I'd laugh. It's happening in real life, though, and this is where humor becomes pathos. Here's why...

One of the things NextStage folks are trained to do is rapidly shift how they do themselves so that they can navigate through different cultures without being recognized as outsiders. I described this in Hat's Off to Things I Don't Like, part 2. Often learning to do this means investigating things about yourself you and others don't like then learning how to change them, something students and others have referenced more than once as "rewiring" themselves. Past participants in our trainings have written "... a phantasmagoric rollercoaster ride through our neural networks, showing us places we didn't know existed. And leaving us limp, giddy and exhilarated. ... push you to the wild fringe of your imagination and beyond. Race. Race. Race. Push your mind as far as it can go. MORE! We all wanted more." and "Taking a class with Carrabis is rather like having the top of your skull surgically removed, turned around backwards and reattached. It's like trying to tell someone all the things you always believed were true, then finding those things sound silly even to you."

So you'll forgive me if the male investigator, the husband of the co-author of this study, writes "...is so automatic that I can't possibly be expected to control it if I don't even know it's happening." and I respond poppycock! As one of my mentors taught me, the first step to changing a behavior is knowing that you're engaging in a behavior.

Oh, I'll really go out on a limb here because I'm writing this on a Sunday, listening to Cape Breton's Natalie MacMaster's "In My Hands" and it's reminding me of home, hard work and the joy of "getting there": When you are willing, you can do anything. When you are willing to take part in a community and the other(s) in the community are willing to take equal parts according to their ability and measure, you can do more than anything. This is love, both for yourself and others. Until you have it for yourself you'll never have it for others.

That my philosophy for a Sunday, anyway.

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.