ABTI | Joseph Riggio International

You are here: Home / Archives for General

Living Mythically

by Leave a Comment

Living Mythically … Taking Control Of Your Story

From the beginning of my professional practice I referred to what I do with clients as “a piece of work” and suggest to my clients do their work. There’s a bit of danger phrasing thing in this way, in that “work” is often heard and thought of as negative, something that’s hard or difficult, or as something in opposition to fun and play, something that’s not enjoyable. And, yet I think that to be a very small minded and limited point of view, that only applied to work you should never be doing in the first place.

My “work” is aiming my clients to live and perform in their lives mythically. By living mythically I mean taking control of their autobiographical narrative, or writing the scripts they live by, their own life story. There’s nothing I find more playful, enjoyable and worthwhile than doing this work, yet it can be challenging and sometimes downright daunting, and even then it remains completely playful, engaging and fun for me to do.

Establishing A New Profession …

Another way I speak of what I do professionally in my practice with clients is that I am a “Clinical Mythologist.” I guide my clients mythologically to discover the stories they have been living from, the story they are living, and the story they are living into. Once we uncover these stories we take it further to begin to take control of the narrative these stories create collectively … the continuity of past, present and future as a singular way of understanding who you are fundamentally. This is an “ontological/ aesthetic” way of knowing yourself … as a being experience life sensually, contained in the iconic, symbolic representations you form about yourself and your life. One way we do this is in the form of language, the language we use with and about ourselves, and the language we use to describe reality as we know it, including others and our relationships with them.

A “piece of work” then refers to uncovering an aspect of revealing the autobiographical narrative someone is living from, and the affect of that narrative in their life as a mythic form. Of course this also means we’re revealing them to themselves. The revelations we uncover are both ill-formed and well-formed.

Ill-Formed Or Well-Formed Personal Mythology?

Ill-formed myths are fundamentally distortions of reality, not real in some way. Ill-formed myths disconnect you from your life, especially in regard to your purpose, passion and power, and away from living playfully. The ill-formedness creates cognitive dissonance, meaning that when you are operating from ill-formedness what you experience doesn’t make sense, the pieces don’t fit and you cannot form a coherent narrative, or mythic form through time.

Ill-formedness in your personal mythology … the autobiographical narrative your living from that describes reality as you know it and the way you relate to it … leads to what I call mythological distress and ultimately mythological crisis … the story your living doesn’t fit you.

Eventually, an ill-formed personal mythology will lead to ill-formed behaviors, that cannot and will not create the outcomes you desired, or produce the life you intend to be living, the relationships you want to be having, the accomplishments you want to be realizing.

Well-formed myths on the other hand are those that match you intrinsically, the arise from deep within you, before any traumas or comprises of yourself were experienced or occurred. A well-formed personal mythology contains and describes reality as you know it to be as free of distortions as you are capable of achieving. This view of reality leads to coherence that led to a a natural sense of awe and wonder, and a way of being in the world that is playful, childlike but not childish.

Wellformedness in your personal mythology opens you to the possibility of living a life of joy and splendor, experiencing yourself and others in enchanted and enchanting ways … you begin to experience the epiphany or what it means to be fully human and fully alive … life becomes meaningful play, filled with purpose, passion and power without struggle, effort or compromise.

Taking Control Of Your Story, And Your Life

What I’ve found in working with thousands of clients individually, in groups and within organizations and institutions has been that doing the work of living mythologically requires simultaneously becoming aware of your autobiographical narrative and taking control of it. The way this happens begins with choosing to be the author of the scripts you are living from, and rejecting the scripts that others have imposed upon you … often without any conscious awareness that that has happened, or that the script you are running is not your own.

The “writing” of your story, and the scripts you run, rests on the ways in which you perceive and make sense of the experiences you have, the meaning you apply to those experiences, and the decisions you make that lead to the action you take … and, this of course leads to the outcomes your create, as well as those you don’t.

As one of the huge benefits of “doing your work” of uncovering, revealing and taking control of your personal mythology you’ll free yourself from the ways you found yourself stuck in the past … procrastinating, hesitating to act, acting poorly, running in circles and finding yourself trying everything and anything you can think of to move forward, and yet still finding your stuck either not moving or moving and winding up where you began.

I’ve worked often and intensely with clients helping them to get unstuck in many ways and places in their lives, including extremely often in the ways they relate to others in their personal and professional relationships. When you reset your personal mythology it frees you from conflict, resentment, envy, shame, guilt and all the other things that so many people struggle with … without ever needing to wade through the suffering of revisiting those emotional sinkholes.

I find another thing that comes up almost as often can be the way that you relate to your sense of discovering real purpose and meaning in your life and career. Knowing you personal mythology makes how what you do professionally evident to you, the meaning it has in your life, and in relation to others too. Passion come from knowing why you are doing what you do, regardless whether we’re talking about actions you take personally for yourself and with others, or professionally. One of the most powerful things this does for you will be a natural reset of your relationship with money … earning it, accumulating it, spending it and sharing it as well.

It’s also extremely interesting to observe how my clients experience a positive change in their health, physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually, when the take back control of their autobiographical narrative. When you choose to be the author of the stories of your life … what they are, what they mean, and how they organize you to experience your life as it unfolds and you move forward through it … everything becomes clear to you and you have choices about it all, including how those experiences affect your health and wellbeing.

You cannot not live in relation to your life’s story, the autobiographical narrative that shapes and forms you, your experiences, your relationships and the life you are living. Either you choose to take control of your personal mythology, the story you are living, or you are controlled by it.

What’s Next …

As I shared with you at the beginning I love “doing my work” … shaping the story I’m living and sharing my client’s stories, because by keeping my attention here I can help you “do your work” too, and become the author of your life. Let’s get together sometime and tell some stories, eh?

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Sarasota, Florida

P.S. – WHEN YOU’RE READY … you can always set up a time to arrange a complimentary call with me when you’re ready to begin again … YES, Joseph I’m Ready, let’s get together to explore my personal mythology and the life story I’m living.

P.P.S. – Get my book “Experiencing the Hero’s Journey” and go a bit deeper into the journey of your story by reading a bit about mine … in it I reveal the deep structure of ill-formedness, well-formedness and how to discover your own personal mythology and story.

Outlaw Thinking: Part 3

by 1 Comment

grok

grok/ɡräk/Learn to pronounceverbINFORMAL•US

  1. understand (something) intuitively or by empathy. “because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately”
    • empathize or communicate sympathetically; establish a rapport. “nestling earth couple would like to find water brothers to grok with in peace”

Grok/ˈɡrɒk/ is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment”, Heinlein’s concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that “the book’s major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term”.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok)

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”

It’s what I do … I grok.

I am a Master Grokker.

I grok professionally with and for others.

SO …

I , Joseph Riggio, grok the MythoSelf Process, and within that universe of understanding, the underlying developmental modeling principals that the building of worldviews, and the narratives that form and inform them, ultimately rests upon.

Now, if you’ll stick with me for a short bit longer I’ll get to how and why this may be of critical important to you too.

Hackers also grok, as in “I hack reality, because I grok it.”

The word was later woven into hacker culture, appearing in the earliest editions of the Jargon File from the early 80s, which was later edited and republished by famous programmer Eric S. Raymond under the title The New Hacker’s Dictionary.

Hackers Dictionary

The primary definition given there is consistent with Heinlein’s, but the more religious and mystical connotations have been dropped:

  1. To understand. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you “know” LISP is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary — but to say you “grok” LISP is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding experienced as a single brief flash.

Here’s an especially interesting bit for me:

When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity.

I am quite literally asserting that after thirty plus years of immersing myself in the work I do, i.e.: the MythoSelf Process, and all the bits and pieces that it contains and it built up from and in relation to, I grok this stuff like nobody’s business!

NOW onto why this is all important, maybe critical, for and to you …

I’ve been laying out a premise for what I’ve playfully been calling Outlaw Thinking in my last couple of posts.

The essence of the idea is that A) I think (and therefore communicate) differently … other than as folks normally associate what thinking is or how it should be done, i.e.: in a straight linear way, from point A to point B, as efficiently and directly as possible … and, B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

Okay here that is again …

B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

SIMPLY … I train people to grok their world, their work, their own lives, and the other folks they engage and interact with … and I also train folks to do this work I do with others, so they can help their clients grok too.

Now you have what you need to decide if this is important, or even critical, to where you find yourself in your life today.

If getting to this kind of thinking and communication in your life and work means something to you, you’re in the right place … YOU’VE FOUND IT!

OUTLAW THINKING REVISITED:

So what do I do again, and why is it important, or critical, for you:

Applying the MythoSelf Process model with my clients helps them to unwind sticky, or wicked, problems and situations in their lives, relationships, work and businesses.

“Grokking” the MythoSelf Process model gives me a kind of genius superpower … because it makes it obvious what level of thinking someone is operating from, and where the limitation in their cognitive process exists, and then points the way to resolve that so that my clients can literally upgrade their mind.

The “genius” in the model is available to anyone who groks it, and that’s ultimately the effect of working with someone deeply versed in the MythoSelf Process.

All perspectives, or worldviews, rest on narratives that describe what is real for the individual, or organization, that is living within and in relation to the narrative … the stories they tell about themselves, others and the world as we know it to be.

The MythoSelf Process model uncovers the existing narrative, as well as the “primal narrative” — the origin narrative that contains the uncorrupted and uncompromised form of the individual or organization, before any attempts where made to reshape them to fit into what society wants them to become.

The primal narrative is the pure mythic form of the individual or organization, and provides access to a teleological trajectory the pulls them into the most desirable future possible for them. In some models of transformational work this would be referred to as becoming authentic, or operating authentically.

The advantage of accessing the primal narrative, or mythic form, that working within the MythoSelf Process provides any user, is that decision making becomes unclouded, and action taking become virtually automatic in relation to creating the outcomes you intend … the effect is that taking effective action, and creating results, feels effortless.

Solving wicked problems is especially important to what we’re discussing here, what I’ve call Outlaw Thinking.

The MythoSelf Process allows you to process complexity that gives rise to wicked problems, and develop effective strategies that unravel the complex issues that have tentacles in multiple directions, having multiple consequences that are overlapped, intertwined and potentially costly if you fail to resolve them, and when they are resolved well are highly rewarding.

Doing this requires operating from a different mind and elevating your performance in relation to the world we now live in today.

The deep challenges we face include:

  • A brain that evolved somewhere between 500,000 and 50,000 years ago, not in the complex and interrelated global world we now move in
  • Cultural learning and impositions designed hundreds of years ago, imposing explicit laws and implicit rules that order our lives today, that no longer effectively represent the world we are living in now

Only by upgrading your worldview, i.e.: effectively upgrading your mind, can you hope to effectively deal with the actual levels of complexity and circumstances we live in relation to on a daily basis today.

The MythoSelf Process is a method for working with someone who will guide you through the specific things you need to do to shift how you are experiencing yourself and your life, usually in relation to a specific situation or circumstance you are currently facing, that then generalized the upgraded pattern of thinking throughout your life.

Beyond the MythoSelf Process work with a facilitator or trainer of the Process, there is an opportunity to learn more about the foundational principals that form and inform the Process.

These principals used with the MythoSelf Process model are built on a developmental model of cognitive maturity, and will dramatically shift the way you think and the way you communicate (because quite literally communication is thinking — as you raise the level of your cognitive maturity communication, and language use in particular, become a controlling mechanism for thought).

If you’re ready to take the next steps in exploring how you can make this kind of leap in advancing yourself, your thinking and your communication have a look here now:

Mastering Cognitive Maturity

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Developer of A.C.T. | Adaptive Cognitive Training and the Cognitive Maturity Model

P.S.: If you’re interested in working with me in one of my small coaching groups or 1:1, there’s no need to wait any longer, reach out to me directly at: joseph@josephriggio.com, and we’ll come back to you about how to find out more about taking the next steps to do that …

Mission: OUTLAW THINKING! -Part 1

by Leave a Comment

We are certainly living in interesting times … (the foundation)

The most obvious aspect of this seems to be the speed at which things are happening and changing, as well as the level of complexity we are forced to deal with in our daily lives … in our relationships, or work, our heath, in politics and the economy, and in terms of the cultural values that we are most familiar with that are we can no longer expect to remain “as is” or stable for very long.

Why is this important?

Putting it as simply as possible, the mind you are currently using to think with isn’t going to get you the outcomes it could have just ten years ago, and will likely be totally outdated before the next ten are over

We’re seeing signs of this everyday. Consider for a moment people who you know who made it through most or all of their working careers never using or needing to use a smart phone or computer, or even a “dumb” mobile phone for that matter. That is becoming harder to do with every passing year, and will likely be virtually impossible for a vast majority of people in the next ten years.

Professions where being computer savvy wasn’t even a consideration, for example for many craftsmen ten years ago, is now becoming a necessity from communicating with customers to ordering materials, in addition to dozens of other professional uses that show up day to day. These examples are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg however.

Imagine for a moment a roofer who simply needs to point a laser measuring device at the edge of a roof as he or she walks along the perimeter, and the AI software he or she is using doing all the calculations of materials and labor, preparing all the materials purchase orders, work schedules, and cost estimates for the customer by the time the contractor has “walked the building.”

Now imagine a year from then when the contractor simply responds with a drone “fly over” the customer’s home, has all the information taken care of, and the customer receives the project estimate in real time with the contractor. That’s all possible today.

These kinds of considerations change things at many levels, including what the “work” of a roofing contractor becomes, and whether roofing contractors even exist in the near future, or if the home owner simply uses the drone-based AI system to do what a contractor would do today running the project themselves via the integrated software systems connected to materials suppliers and labor pools from their computer or smart phone.

Once again, this is at least theoretically possible right now … let’s call it “Uber Workforce” for kicks, imagining that it wouldn’t be too difficult for Uber to expand it’s operation to provide this kind of service as a mobile phone app. This will become the “new normal” very soon … for many, much soon than they are prepared for or will like when it happens.

So the question becomes, how do you deal with this kind of fast changing world using your current sense of normal and the kind of thinking you’ve been conditioned to believe will suffice in getting the outcomes in a world that no longer conforms to what’s been normal for decades, and in many cases, centuries.?

I’m all about this mission now … i.e.: helping those who “GET IT” and are ready to update their thinking, to radically update what they think about thinking so they can upgrade and install a whole new mind.

And, I get for most folks that leads to a second question, how … how do I make the adjustments and update my mind so I can deal with what’s already happened, and what’s going to continue happening that will requires ways and types of thinking I don’t currently have access to, but will very quickly become the new normal?

I’ve literally been thinking about these questions and how to answer them for decades. I’ve been building models and working with individual and corporate clients internationally to train them to become more effective in they ways they think and communicate.

My clients know they can count on me to help them navigate complexity, the sticky and wicked problems they face and must deal with that exceed ordinary ways of thinking and approaching “problem solving” as most professionals, including most consultants, do it today.

The folks who hire me count on me to think outside the box, and to bring my “outlaw thinking” to the problems they face. In it’s simplest form I bring a counterintuitive approach that turns problems on their head, and I look at them through a lens of possibility making them into windows of opportunity.

More specifically I’m looking at my clients problems from a completely different, higher order of thinking and level of complexity then they are presently capable of themselves. At the higher orders of thinking, and levels of complexity, more information becomes available, and the patterns that connect various sources of information within the context become obvious, because you begin to deal with what’s in front of you and obvious, as well as the underlying and hidden interconnections.

When I take into account the higher order of thinking that’s possible what’s emergent in the systems I’m dealing with also becomes obvious to me. Once I’ve done the calculus to analyze the data in the system, both what’s evident and emergent, I am able to make higher quality decisions about what action to take. This includes calculating the potential positive and negative consequences of the action, and factoring it into best and worse case scenarios, and then preparing for either as the actual outcome.

This is a cybernetic process of thinking that is iterative, recursive and systemic, generating self-referencing and self-organizing update loops. Working this way is the basis of generative learning, and this is what I train my clients to do when they hire me, or attend training with me. I refer to this kind of modeling as “wholeform learning” where the entirety of system, including connections through space and time, is considered in the functional analysis leading to a strategy to be implemented and refined through time as more data emerges and becomes present.

Almost always the greatest complexity in the systems I deal with, and train my clients to deal with, involve others as actors and agents within them. These actors and agents bring agendas of their own, and the ability to recognize the interactivity of these agendas in creating the outcomes achieved, even when the agenda are competing or conflicting, is where a kind of generative magic emerges from approaching the resolution of problems and the realization of solutions in the way I train my clients to do.

To recognize the overt agendas that people bring is easy and most people can do that innately. Recognizing hidden agendas and the secondary gains that remain unspoken and largely unseen requires very specialized thinking. This means significantly upgrading the order of thinking you apply to the analysis of any system you’re operating within and/or in relation to, if you want to achieve your outcomes effectively and effortlessly.

I’ll be back again soon with Part 2 of this mission statement, if you’re ready to learn a bit more now check this out today:

Mastering Cognitive Maturity

(As always, feel free to leave me your comments below, I love reading them and responding too.)

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Developer of A.C.T. | Adaptive Cognitive Training and the Cognitive Maturity Model

P.S.: If you’re interested in working with me in one of my small coaching groups or 1:1 reach out to me directly at joseph@josephriggio.com and we’ll come back to you about how to find out more about taking the next steps to do that …

Changing Minds …

by 1 Comment

Escaping The Matrix

“Remember … there is no spoon.”

(Author’s Note: This one is going to go deep fast, and then loop around a bit, all requiring some commitment, probably demanding a few readings, but I bet it will be worth many readings after you’ve read it once … ENJOY!)

Take A Walk With Me On The Wild Side of POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE

For thirty years I’ve been working with clients personally and professionally helping them become more:

  • Powerful in their lives, i.e.: able to take the action that leads to the results and outcomes they intend
  • Creative in how they approach thinking and decision-making, with an aim at helping them become more adaptable and artful in acting strategically
  • Influential in their interactions, becoming masterful at communicating authentically and persuasively to engage, enroll and empower others

This is ultimately about how you can develop deep personal mastery so you can create the life you want to be living … a life lived on your own terms, without compromise.

So if you’re ready walk with me for a bit and we’ll explore the journey I’ve take to where I am today in the work I do.

A Little Background:

In the early 1980s I began developing a model of thinking about thinking, or more specifically thinking about how to improve thinking, that I called “Transformational Applied Philosophy” … T.A.P.

I named what I was working on Transformational Applied Philosophy because I was focused on building a phenomenologically grounded model of transformational ontological change, designed around the work of a few philosophers I was reading deeply at the time.

The philosophers I was reading at the time included: Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel (post-kantian logic and phenomenology), Edmund Husserl (existential phenomenology), Arthur Schopenhauer (aesthetic existentialism), Martin Heidegger (existential ontology), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (embodied ontological existentialism), Ludwig Wittgenstein (metaphysics and analytic philosophy of language), and John Searle (analytic and linguistic philosophy/philosophy of mind).

Then I went on and found a few more philosophers who I added to the mix of my reading, social ontologists like Gilles Deleuze, a couple of the hermeneutic philosophers like Jurgen Habermas and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and those in the domain of philosphy of mind, neurophilosophy, cognition and embodiment like Patricia Churchland and, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

All of that reading was significant because philosophy has been informing people about how to live their lives well, to find a path of authenticity and purpose. Reading philosophy can be challenging, it dense and sometimes very dry too. And, one thing literally leads to another … and another, and another … ad infinitum, until you’ve read the entire canon of Western Philosophy at least (which of course I haven’t, and neither has anyone I know of, but some professional philosophers sure seem to have read 90% of it!).

I still read philosophy actively, more of the later kind … philosophy of mind, cognitive science and neurophilosophy … and this forms a great deal of my background, and current focus, about how I think about thinking, and help others to think better … i.e.: with greater clarity and more precision, leading to a dramatic increase in the ability to think with passion and strategically.

My realization was that while approaching my work with clients philosophically had great and deep value, what I am aiming at required something more than what staying just in the domain of philosophy offers me and my clients.

Going Beyond The Basics

When I found them I fell in love with informal logic and embodiment. This was especially true as the embodiment movement led through the extended mind phase led by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s work (following Gregory Bateson), and evolved to an understanding enactivism/enactment, where the premise is that the mind exists in the interaction with the environment. Quite literally the environment, and the objects in it, the total context, is as much a part of the mind of the individual as the individual’s neural processing and physical/sensory experience.

So I began to look more and more into the domain of somatics and folks from F.M. Alexander to Moshe Feldenkrais to Thomas Hanna. That took me deep for many years, way into anatomy, physiology, and eventually into neuroscience too. But, because I was led there by an interest in the idea of undifferentiated body-mind singularity my focus for about five years centered on studying cerebellar response where movement predominates thinking, proprioception and vestibulation.

HEY, PLEASE STAY WITH ME … WE’RE GETTING THERE …

Somehow this stuff made sense to me as a set of intertwined connections linking and weaving it all together, especially when I began looking at it through the lens of narrative and mythology, and the structure of storytelling.

This phase of my work was deeply grounded in studying the work of Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythologist, and his “Hero’s Journey” model. There’s no way you can do this and avoid looking at the work of many other folks in related fields from psychology (e.g.: Carl Jung) to ethology (Konrad Lorenz) and anthropology (e.g.: Gregory Bateson), linking what I call the biological imperative with the creative imperative, leading to an aesthetic orientation.

Sometime in the late 1990s I was introduced to the work of Clare W. Graves, the developmental social pyschologist. Dr. Graves work impacted my thinking on many levels and shifted the framework of the model I been developing for almost ten years by that point. For the next ten years I would study the work of the post-autonomous, post-conventional developmentalists including Jane Loevinger, Susanne Cook-Greuter, and William Torbert.

OKAY, WE’RE THERE!!! (WELL ALMOST THIS TIME, REALLY …)

Mythological Expressions

By the early 1990s I’d begun referring to my model as “The Mythogenic Self Process” which became the “MythoSelf Process” by around 1994.

That was because of the impact of Joseph Campbell on my work. Adding up all the pieces led me to take a mythological turn, or what I think of equally as a narrative turn. I began to realize that our entire relationship to reality is structured like story, i.e.: in narrative or mythic form.

I’d moved well beyond the limited philosophical approach I’d begun thinking was the way to achieve significant transformational change with clients.

The way I approached transformation early on was based on a premise that the way we hold and process information in our brains as the manipulation of representations, both sensory memories and/or abstractions. That’s why I became (and to some extent remain) so fascinated with a philosophical approach. This approach has great validity when dealing with the cognitive process of making sense of and manipulating information, e.g.: language.

What was missing were the two elements that have become the signature pieces of the MythoSelf Process, sensorial cognition and dynamic movement. When I added these to using a narrative approach to uncovering the mythic form of the frame of reference that holds reality intact for an individual or organization, i.e.: the externalized temporally organized markers that are then internalized and acted upon, it all came together … finally!

(FWIW, I know this all very technical sounding, but I warned you up front this was going to take some commitment, but that it would be worth it, right? BTW, you can ask me about anything you want me to clarify in the comments section below.)

By 1999 I’d already begun training and certifying others to use the model and process I’d designed with great success.

For the next twenty years I’d continue to develop and refine the work I’d designed, and extended the reach of applications from sales and leadership training, to executive coaching, to team development, to intensive individual coaching, to mentoring coaches and consultants to use the model and process with client groups in virtually every specialization imaginable and with clients from eight to over eighty years of age.

What I had in hand was …

An aesthetically oriented, phenomenologically grounded and embodied model of transformational ontological changework that took into account developmental levels of awareness engaging the mythological form that supported the fundamental autobiographical narrative from which individuals and groups define reality as they know it to be in any given moment, operating it enactively.

WOW!!!

That’s surely a mouthful (and why I just refer to it simply as the MythoSelf Process model).

To get what it really is we’re dealing with all of that is actually essential. What makes this so strange to consider however is the typical orientation to reductionism, silos and linear thinking versus synthesis, integration and systemic thinking.

BUT … you can’t deal with dynamic complex systems, e.g.: human systems, without addressing the reality of that they are in fact dynamic complex systems!

The model of transformational changework I built, the MythoSelf Model, then is a model that shifts the fundamental way you perceive, think about and act in the world.

What’s at the center of the model is the shift in thinking from linear to systemic, and from fuzzy to precise. This requires a whole new way of using your brain than most people have ever experienced, one that is both more integrated and, far more embodied and wholeform than your education has ever made available for you to access.

Two other aspects of using your brain in this way is how embodied the experience becomes as you being thinking through and with body-based processing (somatically organized) as well as mentally-based processing (semantically organized) as an enfolded and entwined processing model of thought … and, how sensual and aesthetic this way of thinking is organized. When using the MythoSelf Process model as the basis of how you experience, perceive, process and act in the world aiming for beauty and elegance in form becomes a most sought for characteristic. Essentially this drives sensuality into decision making and performance (strategic action aimed at an intended outcome), making them beautiful as well.

Storytelling & Narrative Communication As A Control System

Way back when … virtually at the same time I began this journey from my study of the philosophers I’ve already mentioned, I also was beginning to read in the field of cybernetics, and cybernetic control systems based in communication.

I felt from the start that there was a direct correlation between what I was reading in cybernetic theory and the work I wanted to master in helping individuals and organizations make transformational changes. What I couldn’t put together was the mathematical orientation of many of the cybernetic thinkers I was studying at the time and how to apply them directly to helping people make the changes they desired.

The idea of systems that provided and operated on feedback made perfect sense, yet the mechanism of how to apply this directly with my clients eluded me for many years. It took the connection between mythological form/narrative and developmental theory to make sense of it as I now have and apply in my work with clients.

While the idea of a primary cybernetically organized mechanism to assist clients to make change made perfect sense, the specific methodology was a bit trickier to fully explicate and define.

When I brought together all of the systemic work I had been doing with individuals and organizations, as well as the mechanism of mythological form/narrative applied within a developmentally organized approach, it all became very clear that what I knew was working could be codified.

Stories are intrinsically cybernetic in the sense that they are self-contained systems. In stories language “controls” the movement of the narrative in terms of content, space as place, and temporality.

Where someone perceives themselves in space and time relative to the content in consideration determines what the content represents to and for them, and what’s possible as a result.

Narrative structure is based in organizing temporally, and placing actors and agents in relation to one another relatively in space, i.e.: who’s affected by the events that happen and how, where the events are happening, as well as when the events happen, are all part of narrative structure.

Organizing the stories we tell ourselves and others, as well as the stories others tell … especially those they tell about us … are all part of the mythic form of our life that organizes who we know ourselves to be in relation to reality as we know it to be.

Therefore the most powerful skill we can possess may be our ability to design, craft and tell potent stories … in storytelling we contain POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE simultaneously. When we tell stories intentionally, to ourselves or others, we shape and reshape reality as we know it, and in regard to how we relate to it.

Transformational storytelling sits at the heart and soul of the MythoSelf Process model. Storytelling is the essential and central skill that allows someone to create a future possibility that doesn’t exist for them as they are today. Using stories also opens up the possibility of shifting away from those things that limit an individual or organization.

I’ve designed the MythoSelf Process to allow facilitators of the Process to help clients make significant shifts towards what they want, as they simultaneously reset their relationship to what had been limiting them in the past, using narrative form as a means of updating their personal mythology.

Using a wholeform approach that takes into account sensorial and dynamic movement processing, as well as content driven sense-making, meaning-making and decision-making, defines the MythoSelf Process more than just a narrative or storytelling methodology as they are normally approached.

The MythoSelf Process creates a new wholeform reality by blending somatic and semantic modeling within a narrative, storytelling process that resets the temporal and spatial relationship of a client to the future-based position they intend to achieve.

Holding The Space For Clients Until They Can Hold It For Themselves

The new wholeform reality created by combining somatic and semantic modeling using a narrative, storytelling approach shifts the filters of perception and the sorting patterns that lead to sense-making, meaning-making and decision-making that precede taking action that produced the results that lead to achieving outcomes.

Only when an individual’s or organization’s filters and sorting patterns are fully organized and aligned with the outcome that’s intended, will the trajectory of action create the results needed to achieve the outcome that’s desired.

By shifting the filters and sorting patterns to align with a newly intended future, the individual or organization shifts the way they are paying attention, what they notice for, and how they notice for it, as well as what it means, needed to create that future intended outcome. This amounts to stepping into and living a new story that forecasts and leads to a new emergent reality.

Like this, what to do becomes obvious, even when it requires significant work to accomplish. In this way, operating from within the new story structure, moving towards the new emergent reality becomes effortless … regardless of how challenging it may be to do what’s necessary.

As the agent of change, “I” was the primary mechanism I had been seeking, and the specific way I could organize myself in relation to my clients to assist them in bringing about the change they sought when they engaged me became instantly clear as well (although it’s taken me another ten years to document and codify it fully).

There are two aspects to applying the MythoSelf Process in the way I have been building up to and describing … first by establishing the stories that need to be told and re-told, and second by holding a position in relation to your client that demands they operate from the position they’ll be in when they achieve their outcome. Doing this requires understanding all the “science” part of what I’ve been laying out here, as well as the “art” of knowing how to step into and adopt the position of choice.

In this way bits and pieces of what your clients need to be aware of starts becoming obvious to them. As the become aware of what they need, they simultaneously become more able to hold the position they need for themselves where noticing in this way is automatic and natural for them (without needing you to provide the structure and stimulus to prompt them to hold this position).

Over time the new position, actually a new reality for them, becomes how they are without effort or trying, it’s quite literally who they become (with your help of course, until you don’t need to help anymore).

This is a radical departure from how most processes, approaches, methodologies and models of transformational change operate. In virtually every other way of prompting transformational change it’s what the change artist does with or to the client that makes the difference. In the MythoSelf Process model the way you are as you do what you do with or to the client is what makes all the difference.

“Holding the position” is a cybernetic process, and personal communication … including the art of storytelling … is the ultimate control function in the system.

Stories form the mechanism to provide the intervention, or interventions, required to shift the system so the individual can find a way to permanently occupy the new position of choice, opening the pathway to a new possibility, a new future, beyond what would have been possible before resetting the system to the new position created in the relationship between the client and the facilitator.

In the end becoming that person, the one who can hold the position necessary makes it all worthwhile to have done all the reading, study and the thousands of hours of client work required to know how to discover what to do and how to do it, and then to do it.

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process

Sarasota, FL

P.S.: – If you would like to discuss the MythoSelf Process more, either as a coach or consultant … or, with the intention of exploring how experiencing the MythoSelf Work might help you personally … let’s talk, set up a complimentary consultation at your convenience: Schedule Time To Talk With Joseph Now

The State of the Practice: ABTI | Joseph Riggio International

by 1 Comment

Entering A New Decade – 2020 Update

Howdy …

 

Here’s a little sandwich I’m building for those of you who have some interest in working with me professionally at some point, as well as those who have worked with me in the past or are working with me now.

NOTE: This meal is for anyone who’s been paying attention, and wants to kick ass, take names and get on with having YOUR life … 

First the bottom slice of bread, that the rest of our meal together today will be built up from …
(we’ll add condiments later on):

Okay let’s start with some self revelation … it’s my 6th decade here on Planet Earth, or Gaia as some folks prefer to think of her (yes, I think she’s a she because she is fertile and fecund).

That little tidbit ain’t so meaningful by itself, but very few little tidbits are meaningful outside of context, so let’s add some context.

This is all about where I’ve been (very little actually about that) and where I’m aiming (almost everything else here is about that) as a professional expert advisor, mentor, coach, consultant and trainer.

So now little juicy tidbits won’t be here about my personal life behind closed doors (sorry if you might have wanted or even expected that from me … maybe another time, with photos).

Of course all this is only meaningful to the extent that you care, and more to the point — in the way it may impact or effect you personally.

So I’m aiming this update at those folks who have worked with me before and who’s life/business I’ve impacted, those who are working with me now and are hoping for a positive impact and effect in the work we’re doing together, and also to those who may consider working with me in the future as well.

Now that we’ve covered the preamble and framing stuff let’s go to the meat of cheese of it all …

It’s significant that after living on her ample bosom I can happily report that Mother Earth has treated my particularly well, and I am both well satisfied and well positioned to continue with sojourn here for a while longer (Trans.- basically I’m in great health, good spirits and prepared to leap forward from the base of learning and experience I’ve accumulated in the past six decades).

For about three of my six decades I’ve been working at learning and applying stuff about the human condition to various and sundry aspects of creating an extraordinary life. Some folks say I’ve gotten pretty good at it too.

Here’s a short list of some of the sundry things I’ve put my attention on over the years:

  • Teaching NLP and communication skills
  • Learning and using Roye Fraser’s ‘Generative Imprint’ model working with folks and help them discover, access and sustain what it’s like for them to be at their best, and operate from there consistently
  • Working with individual clients and some small groups to provide personal interventions around issues like health and wellbeing, personal and professional relationships, career and business issues … doing what now today might be called coaching, but I still prefer the term I learned with Roye, “doing a piece of work”
  • Architecting and designing the MythoSelf Process model, originally called the Mythogenic Self Process, as an aesthetic model of embodied ontology using somasemantic interventions
  • Developing ways to integrate the NLP model and Roye’s model together building customized sales and leadership development training solutions for business/professional clients
  • Designing positively organized strategic solutions for my business/professional clients and assisting them to integrate and implement them
  • Training, certifying and licensing folks, who were interested and committed, to facilitate and train the MythoSelf Process, the model of work I’ve been at since 1990
  • Developing and delivering online training programs built around the MythoSelf Process model, and integrating that with other things, like business development and communication skills.
  • Training and mentoring coaches and consultants in building their business and deepening their skills
  • Working with high achieving individual clients on personal as well as professional issues like their relationships, business transitions, legacy …

So you can see I’ve been busy … and growing.

But, as I’ve noticed is so often the case, as people get older the circle closes, and they return to their roots. So it is for me.

My love is the MythoSelf Process work, and helping people to develop the fundamental life perspective it fosters … what is best called having a “possibility mindset” … seeing the world through a lens of opportunistic thinking and linking that to taking action.

Now this is a remarkably simplistic way of referring to what I do with people, but it gives us a place to begin and orient from as I go a little deeper.

What’s required to access and sustain a possibility mindset is a new perspective about life, and that perspective is that it’s always working, even when it may seem from a particular place and stance that it is not.

A simple example of having a possibility mindset is the idea that all endings are also new beginnings.

It’s also about recognizing the possibilities or opportunities that abound in the present moment.

So, in part it’s also about developing a specific kind of intuition to notice for what is present but unseen, including the emergent future possibilities — something I refer to as adumbration, or the art of foreseeing the immediate future that’s unfolding in this moment.

I can go on, but the work is complex, deep and profound in so many ways, all of which enhance and create a robust richness in living one’s life, both on own’s own and with others (now you can see why I so love doing this work).

What this means is that I’ll be rolling up a lot of what I’ve done and have been doing, some of it that I’ll only be doing in the future with partners I have built significant relationships with who are peers and colleagues in delivering what I think of as some of the best training, consulting and coaching programs on the planet, but other than that it will disappear from my personal portfolio of work.

The work that will happen only in conjunction with my partners will be everything I’ve done before (as well as stuff I haven’t) that doesn’t specifically fit into what’s below.

I guess the question then becomes — what will I be focused on moving forward …

Simple …

  • One to one, and small group work, with high achieving individuals (and those who are truly aspiring to be high achieving themselves) … i.e.: doing a piece of work

    This is all about personal and professional interventions to develop the kind of intuitions that make living one’s life on one’s own terms effortless, Getting Unstuck, Breaking Through and Creating Results to put it another way — this is all about resolving the ways in which you get in your own way, and freeing yourself to see the world in ways you haven’t before or yet, to open you to the vast range of possibilities to have your life work as you wish and desire … on your own and with others, personally and professionally

  • A major shift to delivering Relationship Coaching and Training as a central theme of what’s coming — for folks who’ve been there and done that, and who are ready to build a relationship that fulfills them completely — what’s intended to be the “Last Chapter” … where you get to live “happily ever after …”

    I’ve been around long enough to know that we are embedded in our relationships, especially those that involve those we love — this work is about resolving what gets in the way of having the kind of relationship that happens in RomComs, Hallmark channel programming and romance novels (especially those with the steamy bedroom and beach scenes) — I’ve been aiming at this work actually for years, and I’ve done a lot of it, and now it will become a major focus on where I’m placing my time and attention on live programs going forward … if you’re on board, get ready for the ride of your life, because that’s the only one you’ll know after you’ve experienced what’s in store for you here

  • Running and delivering MythoSelf Process Training and Certification Programs internationally

    I’ll be running a limited number of MythoSelf Process programs for individuals internationally throughout the upcoming year with folks certified by me to deliver them, and turning over this part of the MythoSelf Process training to them more and more over the next two years (so if you’ve ever wanted to attend a MSE | MythoSelf Experience with me do it this year) … this is at the heart of the work I love, and part of what this means is that I’ll be focused on running and delivering certification programs, and for those who are interested and skilled offering licensing to run MythoSelf training themselves.

  • Working with Coaches, Consultants and Expert Advisors as a mentor and advisor to them

    I’ve been around a long time now and I have something to share with those folks who are interested in what I’ve gathered about this work — this is highly specialized work … and I intend for it to be very intensive and intimate work as well … for a very target group of folks, but where it’s a fit there’s a lot we’ll be doing together — business building, skills development, client insights …

And, that’s all folks!

Now you have the meat and the cheese (the work I’ll be doing with others, as well as a ton of what I intend to give away for free … a new podcast (or two), live video feeds, my ongoing writing (in some new places too) … we can call the condiments, okay?).

If you want the short summary … it’s all gonna be MythoSelf … MythoSelf all the way through and through (the exception being some of the work I do with my partners) … no matter how it’s dressed up, and all the other stuff falling away like a snake shedding it’s skin and revealing itself anew.

So to place the other slice of bread …

(the one that closes a proper sandwich, so you can pick it up and eat it with your hands, not that finicky, prissy shit of using a fork and knife, cutting away little bits to place in your dainty little mouth … my stuff is intended to take big old bites out of … this is stuff that will nourish your soul, as well as improve your life):

Look for some major changes in what I’m putting out in 2020 and beyond, as well as where you’ll find it … and some of the changes will be significant too.

I’m going to hand off or shut down a number of my FB groups, to focus much more on consolidating what I’m saying and to whom.

I’ll have some new places and ways of sharing what I’ve consolidated as parts of a singular message (can you guess what that is … ding, ding, ding right on! … all MythoSelf Process based stuff … stories, applications, examples … all of it).

I’ll be sending out a few emails shortly to invite anyone who’s interested to a few new things I’m setting up, so keep your eyes peeled (and if you’re currently in a program with me, watch especially carefully as we update everything there too … especially for you folks).

Thanks for listening 😉

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics
December 29, 2019 (the end of an era)

PS – If you’re excited by any of this and want to discuss what’s coming up and how you might work with me, join a program or find out more before we come out with our major release of the new era information you can schedule a call with me here: Talk with Joseph

 

Watch videos from MythoSelf Process training including the Thursday MythoSelf Nights running now::

"MYTHOSELF RESOURCES"

Watch videos from the SHAPING REALITY | COGNITIVE MATURITY masterclass series running now::

"SHAPING REALITY"

Get Started NOW Download Joseph's SPECIAL REPORT Here::

"GETTING UNSTUCK"