ABTI | Joseph Riggio International

Revisiting: Pathways to A High-Ticket Coaching Or Consulting Practice

Or … The Gravesian Way To Making A Great Living As A Coach/Consultant/Trainer …

Graves Business Model Venn Diagram JSR

 

Okay … the idea of the Venn Diagram showing this particular intersection isn’t mine, but the commentary around it is …

Let’s take a closer look together … shall we?

 

[NOTE: I originally wrote this as a post on my blog where I’ve been talking the Graves Model for years. This model identifies what most drives perceptual, decision-making and behavioral responses that people default to generally, all other things being equal. The fundamental point here is that unconscious values drive responses. When you can recognize how your values shape your responses, and the way values shape the responses that others make, you can make choices that serve you more powerfully in your business. It’s not so important to try to master the Graves Model, as to get the underlying values that form business decisions that shape a business’ outcomes.]

Most of the build your coaching business gurus will point you towards what I’m calling out as the Reflective Thinking/Graves Six position where you supposedly make money by pursuing your passion … e.g.: your Million Dollar Message B.S.

BUT … while you can indeed make money by overlapping What You’re Passionate About resides and where What Your Clients Want and Are Willing To Pay Handsomely To Get overlap … there ain’t no guarantee that’s gonna happen …

BECAUSE there’s no guarantee that what you’re passionate about … or your message, life story, insights, calling, whatever … is going to resonate with what customers and clients are willing to pay handsomely for today.

Now if you notice most of these “Gurus” are following the path that most of the  on-line business/marketing gurus will point you toward (and mostly follow themselves) … i.e.: the place where What You’re Good At and What Clients Want and Will Pay Handsomely For overlap. This is the Reactive Thinking/Graves Five position on the diagram, and you can indeed make loads of money when you follow this path to riches.

In other words, the Reflective Thinking/Graves Six Do What You Love Gurus seldom follow their own advice precisely, except when there’s a lucky accident and they are actually at the Integrative Thinking/Graves Seven position (think Oprah Winfrey).

I point to this position in the middle of the diagram where all three circles overlap … (BTW this is where the money you can earn is for all intents and purposes unlimited), so it all comes together for them.

Just to complete the outer positions, 90% of folks who have businesses that are actually jobs are stuck in the Reflexive Thinking/Graves Four position, where What You’re Good At and What You’re Passionate About overlap. (NOTE: This is Michael Gerber of “The E-Myth” fame refers to as the technician’s ‘entrepreneurial spasm’.)

OKAY, SO HERE’S THE “SKINNY” AS I LIKE TO SAY …

YOU HAVE TO DECIDE EXACTLY “WHY” YOU WANT TO RUN A COACHING/CONSULTING/TRAINING BUSINESS!!!

(Or, what you get from your coaching/consulting/training business will not necessarily be what you want or expect to get from it.)

What To Do About It …

(If You Really Want To Build A High-Ticket Practice)

A great majority of folks who are good at what they do, but ain’t making no money, are operating at a Reflexive Thinking/Graves Four position on this diagram. It’s simple and kind of stupid (I’ll explain why later on, give me a minute to get there …)

Most folks who are willing to do what it takes, are at a Reactive Thinking/Graves Five position on the diagram, and are building businesses that make money, sometimes tons of moolah, but they aren’t necessarily that happiest folks on the planet (in fact they are often the most anxious folks on the planet, always waiting for the house of cards they built to implode).

When you leap to the Reflective Thinking/Graves Six position you find that there’s a whole spectrum of success, from what is utter financial failure to super financial success and independent wealth. Yet, these folks are living in a dream expecting to live the dream, i.e.: doing well by doing good, regardless of the fact the reality is that most of the time they are more interested in what they want to do for themselves than helping out the world as a form of service or sacrifice.

Now that ain’t saying that folks who are operating out of the Reflective Thinking/Graves Six value set aren’t doing good work, it’s just that the reality is that most of the time that decision is based on what NLPers (folks trained in NLP/neurolinguistic programming) call Sorting By Self and Internal Reference. In other words they decide what’s most right by their own internal measure and not necessarily what would in fact most serve the world-at-large.

For example a whole lot of these folks drive expensive SUVs and many drive expensive sports cars, that ain’t doing a whole lot for the planet they claim to love, or being particularly respectful of the percentage of resources they use compared to the least privileged folks on the planet. And those in the coaching/consulting industry don’t stay local/buy local/work local either, because they are getting on planes to go to the conventions where their tribe meets up and when they’re not flying to meet their tribe they’re looking to hook up with some tribe in Fiji or Patagonia or the Himalayas on holiday.

Once again, I’m NOT condemning these folks … good on the if they’ve found a way to satisfy their deepest desires and making the dosh they need to pursue them fully. BUT, as I said this is as much a lucky coincidence as it is strategic planning, and even then this is NOT the path to sainthood regardless of how many Salutations to the Sun you’ve done, or how many hours you’ve spent meditating mindfully, or even if you’ve spent two years of your youth in the Peace Corps.

The main point for anyone who’s trying to build a high-ticket practice is to get that if you want to be on the path to success that is strategic, then you’ve really got to look at why you want this and how you expect to pull it off in the real world where no one cares about your intention …

That’s right … NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR INTENTION!

ALL FOLKS CARE ABOUT ARE WHAT THEY WANT AND,
HOW YOUR ACTIONS HELP THEM GET THAT … OR NOT!

(NOTE: There is an exception to this as well … when folks believe and expect that you will help them get what they want, even when that doesn’t turn out to be true after the fact.)

So think about it … WHY DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A HIGH-TICKET COACHING, CONSULTING OR TRAINING PRACTICE???

In other words answer these two question for yourself:

1. What do you expect to get from building a high-ticket coaching, consulting or training practice?

2. How will getting this satisfy your deeper desires and values beyond just making money (unless your at Reactive Thinking/Graves Five, just making money is not going to keep you happy).

Now going back a step …

If you both want to make money AND satisfy your deeper desires and values you’ll need to come to terms with a couple of things …

FIRST … you MUST satisfy the intention to serve your clients based on “What Your Clients Want and Will Pay You Handsomely For” … if you’re NOT starting here you are NOT operating strategically with regard to building a High-Ticket Practice.

AND … you MUST satisfy the intention to serve “What You’re Passionate About” as well.

Now, that may sound like I just recommended that you follow the Graves Six pathway to success, and that’s ALMOST correct, but as they say in the infomercial world … “WAIT THERE’S MORE!”

REMEMBER … there’s absolutely no guarantee that “What You’re Passionate About” and “What Your Client’s Want and Will Pay You Handsomely For” are aligned or will come together … if those two things aren’t also “What You’re Good At” too.

Because typically High-Ticket Clients almost always go to someone who is an expert, who does the best quality work, for what they want and expect to pay handsomely for as well. In other words, they seek out folks who are good at what they do as their primary criteria (even when they get it wrong because someone has created a reputation built on sand … probably a savvy Six BTW).

 

For BOTH YOU AND YOUR CLIENTS to be deeply satisfied you need to be in the Reactive Thinking/Graves Five zone for them … AND the Reflective Thinking/Graves Six zone for you!

And, in the world of this model Reactive Thinking/Graves Five and Reflective Thinking/Graves Six together equal Integrative Thinking/Graves Seven when it comes to building a High-Ticket Coaching, Consulting or Training Practice that satisfies BOTH YOU AND YOUR CLIENTS!

 

Summing It Up

Simply put, STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THE MAGICAL THINKING WORLD OF THE GET RICH QUICK BY DOING WHAT YOU LOVE Gurus!!!

While there’s nothing wrong with doing what you love … HECK I RECOMMEND IT … you aren’t going to have the chance to work with the High-Ticket clients you want, or to strategically satisfy your desire to make more money … or get filthy, stinking rich for that matter … if you don’t move out of the position you’re in to a position where you really do satisfy all the people in the equation BASED ON THEIR CRITERIA AND NOT YOURS ALONE.

As the wise men say, there are many paths to the top of mountain, but whether you get up there broken and defeated barely having survived, happily trekking with a merry band of sherpas and stopping for a week in basecamp before you turn around and head down never having seen the peak, or travel all the way in a luxury helicopter is up to you.

If you want to you can indeed have it, and knowing WHO you are, is at least as important as WHAT to do and HOW to do it … this is the world of Integrative Thinking/Graves Seven autonomy and success … and, here’s a little secret, when you are operating from WHO you are, you begin to gain unprecedented insight into WHO your clients are as well.

So if your guru isn’t starting there with you, i.e.: WHO you are, as the basis for designing the offers you build your HIGH TICKET Coaching/Consulting/Training business around, then at least remember this wise saying … CAVEAT EMPTOR (i.e.: buyer beware).

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process, Soma-Semantics and Generative Flow

P.S. – Leave a comment and let me know what you think  … if you’d like to get a little more clarity on your current identity and values in regard to your business, I can talk and walk you through where you are on the diagram today and help you make the move to the center of yourself in about 15 minutes . If you’d like to pursue it you can schedule a call here …

Schedule Your Short Complimentary 15 Minute Call with Me Here

Seeing Wholeness

The Key To Transformational Embodiment 

About 30 years ago I began searching for the universal ”skeleton key” to transformational change.

By the mid-1990s I had come to the conclusion that the ”key” to transformational change was part of what I began calling the somatic ground of being … embodiment … the foundation of ontological experience and awareness. This led to an approach using somatic interventions to instigate ontological transformation.

I remember sitting in the “Hypnotorium” with Roye at the front doing something with someone, a piece of profound transformational hypnosis.

This is very different from what many think of as hypnosis, i.e.: “You are getting sleepy … your eyes are getting heavy, tired, and they want to close … just let them close, NOW … going deeper into a deep, deep sense of relaxation … let yourself float down, even deeper, still …” and then some suggestions about stopping smoking or losing weight, or some other habit interruption and reframing.

It’s also obviously very different from stage hypnosis, (same script followed by), ”Now you will follow my suggestions … when I snap my fingers you will open your eyes, and when I mention the word “hypnosis” you will cluck like a chicken …” No, not anything like that at all.

Transformational hypnosis was … is … the art of shifting the ontological awareness you operate from about reality, what is real and how it is organized, and most importantly your place in relation to it.

Within the art of transformational hypnosis there is an intention not to change symptoms or behavior at the surface, but the structure of your perception at a deep and essential level, all the way down to the core of your sense of identity.

Now the way I was learning about how Roye worked was presented in what he referred to as “wholeform” … never truly broken down into steps to follow, but instead presented as a complete piece of work.

Someone would come in and present a life issue they were facing and within … a significant choice in a relationship maybe, or the need and desire to make a major change in their profession or lifestyle, it might be they were dealing with a major loss and were struggling with processing it fully, and as often it would have been someone who was simply stuck and yearning for a breakthrough to an imagined future that infuriatingly continued to elude them.

Roye would refer to whatever it was that the person presented as the ”presenting problem” and point out that it was simply the lens to a solution. The trick of course was to be able to elicit and discern the solution that had been obfuscated by the presenting problem and remained unavailable to the one presenting it.

So I would come, a couple or a few times a month, or even weekly, to sit in the Hypnotorium with Roye to learn the secrets of the deep art of transformational hypnosis. I have to admit that for months the entirety of it eluded me and all I could gather from what he was doing at the front of the room was bits and pieces of technique.

Maybe I would pick up a way of leading someone into an altered state with some bit of language. Or, I’d notice that Roye would alter his posture to be more like the person he was working with, and yet with all these bits and pieces I was gathering my skill remained mostly limited to working at best at the surface of things.

Then it happened …

I think maybe I was tired, or frustrated, but I’d given up trying to “get it” and I just sat there as Roye was doing a piece of work with someone and I saw the whole thing!

This wasn’t the process he was using, or what he was doing, it was what he was noticing about the person in front of him. They are the whole thing!

This is where the magic happens. I got that absolutely in that instant, as fleeting as it was and as difficult to recapture. By trying to “get it” … looking and listening for what it was, I remained unable to get the “whole thing” … the entirety of what happens moment to moment as you are with someone.

The “whole thing” is the entirety of how someone is organized in any given moment AND how they change moment to moment in an endlessly choreographed dance of dynamic movement.

This way of seeing became the essence of the work I do and teach in MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics models.

I proposed we have a fundamental, ontological state of being that is innate to us, because of the deep integration between the somatic and semantic structure of wholeform experience that treats the body-mind as an integrated singularity. This state of being always emerges in wholeform as a singularity all at once.

The wholeform ontological structure contains the entirety of the way we are within our bodies, how we use them, move within them and move through them, and the language forms that arise to inform us and others via the descriptions of the subjective experience we are having as we do.

One of the primary teaching distinctions of the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics is the art of Seeing Wholeness.

Yet Seeing Wholeness remains elusive, as it did for me for months of my early training with Roye, only becoming apparent in that first instance as a wholeform experience of undifferentiated wholeness that was the true essence of the person I saw for the first time that day.

 

Seeing The Wholeform Of Wholeness:

To see wholeness you cannot be looking for the pieces or the parts, as wholeness only exists in the wholeform.

This is what makes it so hard for folks to learn … the letting go of trying to see what they cannot yet discern for themselves.

For most people to learn to see wholeness you must allow yourself to see it through the eyes of someone who can already see it, and see what they are seeing, not what you are looking for yourself.

This of course is a kind of trick you must learn for yourself, i.e.: to see through the eyes of another.

What you’re noticing for is the entirety of whatever you are present to, not the parts of the entirety. Of course the entirety includes you, since you are present as well.

Wholeness always includes whatever happens between you and what you are noticing, and it is there that the magic of the wholeform experience becomes most present … in the space between.

To put this another way, I always feel the wholeform experience before I can see it, but once I can feel it I can’t help but to see it as well.

What we call adumbration in the MythoSelf Process and Soma-Semantics training forms the basis for seeing wholeness … the ability to foresee what is emerging as it emerges, or even a microsecond or so before it is apparent in any ordinary sense of being able to see it.

As crazy making as this seems to see wholeness you must allow yourself to feel it coming before it’s there within yourself. Then you must allow yourself to stop looking for anything and just notice for everything, because when you are tracking for wholeness everything changes all at once.

When you are noticing for wholeness you do not only notice that someone has moved an arm or a leg, or that they smiled or frowned, or that their voice changed in someway such as increasing or decreasing in volume or pitch. You notice for the way they are now entirely different AND they moved an arm or a leg, or that they smiled or frowned, or that their voice changed in someway such as increasing or decreasing in volume or pitch.

By getting caught by the arm or a leg moving, or that they smiled or frowned, or that their voice changed in someway such as increasing or decreasing in volume or pitch, you lose the sense of the wholeform, and you lose any ability to see wholeness.

Wholeness flows.

Wholeness doesn’t exist in any moment and it does in every moment. It is the ability to see the grand pattern of change and transformation, and to notice for how that pattern organizes itself in alignment with some future, teleological wholeform possibility.

Using the information that is present by tracking the Soma-Semantic (whole)form you can then assist whomever you are working with to align themselves with that wholeform possibility as the possibility of choice. This then becomes the trajectory along which they propel themselves into their chosen future.

NOTE FOR MYTHOSELF PROCESS FACILITATORS AND TRAINERS:

When you can do this you are doing the MythoSelf Process, and only when you are doing this, doing anything else is something, but not the MythoSelf Process.

Merry Christmas 2018!

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., Parsippany, NJ
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process,a SomaSemantics and Generative Flow

Pathways To A High Ticket Coaching Or Consulting Practice

Or … The Gravesian Way To Making A Great Living As A Coach/Consultant/Trainer …

Graves Business Model Venn Diagram JSR

 

Okay … the idea of the Venn Diagram isn’t mine, but the commentary around it is …

Let’s take a closer look together … shall we?

 

Graves Business Model Venn Diagram JSR

Most of the “Build Your Coaching Business Gurus” will point you towards what I’m calling out as the “Graves Six” position where you supposedly make money by pursuing your passion … e.g.: “Your Million Dollar Message” B.S.

BUT … while you can indeed make money by overlapping “What You’re Passionate About” resides and where “What Your Clients Want and Are Willing To Pay Handsomely To Get” overlap … there ain’t no guarantee that’s gonna happen …

BECAUSE there’s no guarantee that what you’re passionate about … or your message, life story, insights, calling, whatever … is going to resonate with what customers and clients are willing to pay handsomely for today.

Now if you notice most of these “Gurus” are following the path that most of the “OnLine Business/Marketing Gurus” will point you toward (and mostly follow themselves) … i.e.: the place where “What You’re Good At” and “What Clients Want and Will Pay Handsomely For” overlap. This is the Graves Five position on the diagram, and you can indeed make loads of money when you follow this path to riches.

In other words, the Graves Six “Do What You Love Gurus” seldom follow their own advice precisely, except when there’s a lucky accident and they are actually at the Graves Seven position (think Oprah Winfrey)

I point to this position in the middle of the diagram where all three circles overlap … (BTW this is where the money you can earn is for all intents and purposes unlimited), so it all comes together for them.

Just to complete the outer positions, 90% of folks who have businesses that are actually jobs are stuck in the Graves Four position, where “What You’re Good At” and “What You’re Passionate About” overlap. (NOTE: This is Michael Gerber of “The E-Myth” fame refers to as the technician’s entrepreneurial spasm.)

 

OKAY, SO HERE’S THE “SKINNY” AS I LIKE TO SAY …

YOU HAVE TO DECIDE EXACTLY “WHY” YOU WANT TO RUN A COACHING/CONSULTING/TRAINING BUSINESS!!!

Or, what you get from it will not necessarily be what you want or expect.

What To Do About It …

(If You Really Want To Build A High-Ticket Practice)

A great majority of folks who are good at what they do, but they ain’t making no money, are operating at a Graves Four position on this diagram. Simple and kind of stupid (I’ll explain why later on, give me a minute to get there …)

Most folks who are willing to do what it takes, are at a Graves Five position on the diagram, and are building businesses that make money, sometimes “tons of moolah,” but they aren’t necessarily that happiest folks on the planet (in fact they are often the most anxious folks on the planet, always waiting for the house of cards they built to implode).

When you leap to the Graves Six position you find that there’s a whole spectrum of success, from what is utter financial failure to super financial success and independent wealth. Yet, these folks are living in a dream expecting to live “the dream,” i.e.: doing well by doing good, regardless of the fact the reality is that most of the time they are more interested in what they want to do for themselves than helping out the world as a form of service or sacrifice.

Now that ain’t saying that folks who are operating out of the Graves Six Value Set aren’t doing good work, it’s just that the reality is that most of the time that decision is based on what NLPers (folks trained in neurolinguistic programming, or NLP) call “Sorting By Self” and “Internal Reference.” In other words they decide what’s most “right” by their own internal measure and not necessarily what would in fact most serve the world-at-large.

For example a whole lot of these folks drive expensive SUVs and many drive expensive sports cars, that ain’t doing a whole lot for the planet they claim to love, or being particularly respectful of the percentage of resources they use compared to the least privileged folks on the planet. And those in the coaching/consulting industry don’t stay local/buy local/work local either, because they are getting on planes to go to the conventions where their “tribe” meets up and when they’re not flying to meet their “tribe” they’re looking to hook up with some tribe in Fiji or Patagonia or the Himalayas “on holiday.”

Once again, I’m NOT condemning these folks … good on the if they’ve found a way to satisfy their deepest desires and making the dosh they need to pursue them fully. BUT, as I said this is as much a lucky coincidence as it is strategic planning, and even then this is NOT the path to sainthood regardless of how many Salutations to the Sun you’ve done, or how many hours you’ve spent meditating mindfully, or even if you’ve spent two years of your youth in the Peace Corps.

The main point for anyone who’s trying to build a High-Ticket Coaching or Consulting Practice is to get that if you want to be on the path to success that IS strategic, then you’ve really got to look at WHY you want this and how you expect to pull it off in the real world where no one cares about your intention …

 

That’s right NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR INTENTION!

ALL FOLKS CARE ABOUT ARE WHAT THEY WANT AND HOW YOUR ACTIONS HELP THEM GET THAT OR NOT!

(NOTE: There is an exception to this as well … when folks believe and expect that you will help them get what they want, even when that doesn’t turn out to be true after the fact.)

 

So think about it … WHY DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A HIGH-TICKET COACHING OR CONSULTING PRACTICE???

In other words answer these two question for yourself:

1. What do you expect to get from building a high-ticket coaching or consulting practice?

2. How will getting this satisfy your deeper desires and values beyond JUST making money (unless your at Graves Five, JUST making money is NOT going to keep you happy).

Now going back a step …

If you both want to make money AND satisfy your deeper desires and values you’ll need to come to terms with a couple of things …

FIRST … you MUST satisfy the intention to serve your clients based on “What Your Clients Want and Will Pay You Handsomely For” … if you’re NOT starting here you are NOT operating strategically with regard to building a High-Ticket Practice.

AND … you MUST satisfy the intention to serve “What You’re Passionate About” as well.

Now, that may sound like I just recommended that you follow the Graves Six pathway to success, and that’s ALMOST correct, but as they say in the infomercial world … “WAIT THERE’S MORE!”

REMEMBER … there’s absolutely NO GUARANTEE that “What You’re Passionate About” and “What Your Client’s Want and Will Pay You Handsomely For” are aligned or will come together … if those two things aren’t also “What You’re Good At” too.

Because typically High-Ticket Clients almost always go to someone who is an expert, who does the best quality work, for what they want and expect to pay handsomely for as well. In other words, they seek out folks who are good at what they do as their primary criteria (even when they get it wrong because someone has created a reputation built on sand … probably a savvy Six BTW).

 

For BOTH YOU AND YOUR CLIENTS to be deeply satisfied you need to be in the Graves Five zone for them … AND the Graves Six zone for you!

And, in the world of this model Five and Six equal Seven when it comes to building a High-Ticket Coaching or Consulting Practice that satisfy BOTH YOU AND YOUR CLIENTS!

 

Summing It Up

Simply put STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THE MAGICAL THINKING WORLD OF THE GET RICH QUICK BY DOING WHAT YOU LOVE Gurus!!!

While there’s nothing wrong with doing what you love … HECK I RECOMMEND IT … BUT, DO IT BY MOVING TO “SEVEN” AND HAVE IT ALL BY SATISFYING ALL THE FOLKS IN THE EQUATION … you just aren’t going to have the chance to work with the High-Ticket clients you want, or to strategically satisfy your desire to make more money … or get filthy, stinking rich for that matter … if you don’t move out of the position your in to a position where you really do satisfy all the people in the equation BASED ON THIER CRITERIA AND NOT YOUR ALONE.

As the wise men say, there are many paths to the top of mountain, but whether you get up there broken and defeated barely having survived, happily trekking with a merry band of sherpas and stopping for a week in basecamp before you turn around and head down never having seen the peak, or travel all the way in a luxury helicopter is up to you.

If you want you can indeed have it … and, knowing “WHO” you are, is at least as important as “WHAT” to do and “HOW” to do it.

So if your “guru” isn’t starting by putting you at the center of it all then at least remember this wise saying, CAVEAT EMPTOR (“buyer beware”)

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

P.S. – Let me know what you think below …

P.P.S. – If you’d like to move to “SEVEN” start by getting a little more clarity on your current identity and values in regard to your business, I can talk and walk you through where you are on the diagram today and help you make the move to the center of yourself in about 15 minutes . If you’re like to purse it you can schedule a call by clicking on this link: Get Some Clarity w/Joseph

My comments on Social Ontology

[NOTE: Copied from http://blognostra.blogspot.in/2005/08/re-sv-mythoself-tm-my-comments-on.html … reposted here in full. Response on mythoself-tm@yahoogroups.com in response to the Social Ontology blog at www.blognostra.blogspot.com – simultaneously posted in both forums. – JSR]

Robert,

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more;

I must admit I don’t “get it” … a lot of words and little point. You the “master” of “simplicity” taking so many words to say so little. I appreciate that Najma loved it so it of course may just be me, but with absolute honesty I don’t get it … at least in relation to Social Ontology … or even the ordinary construction of logical connections.

First, as always with you, I accept that this is ultimately a trance-lation from Swedish into Swenglish … (pronounced either ‘swing-lish’ or ‘sweng-lish’ if you prefer, for those who want to know). I also accept that Najma may speak Swenglish better than I, and that may make a difference. Yet, the connection to Social Ontology, even with these exceptions escapes me.

I want to “get it” … I really do … I read and re-read what I perceive to be your rambling statements … some of which I really liked … individually … and still I must make great leaps of faith to make them connect … faith I have in droves … faith in this connections that are at best so tenuous … I don’t lack … I simply refuse to expend.

 

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
 – William Shakespeare


But, maybe, just maybe there is one ‘saving grace’ … the “bridge is just a bridge” part … maybe there you could have pulled it out of the fire of ill-formedness and illogic … you didn’t but …

Let me get to my more immediate point … (and then one more beyond that if you’ll allow me … of course I’ll be writing it, but only you can choose or not to read it) … (BTW is it helpful for me to segregate my comments aside by placing them aside in brackets … in this case indicated by parenthesis) … (I expect if you choose to reply you may go line by line, or paragraph by paragraph and delineate your response in that way … so I want to set it up so that you might use my structure of presentation to make an adequate analysis and rebuttal … let me know if this works for you.) …

My immediate point is that what you write about in your “Comments on Social Ontology” have little to do with Social Ontology. I do recognize that you are disturbed when I elucidate a point with what you consider to be extravagant language, when you believe I could use simple words that would suffice just as well. In part (have spent considerable time in Denmark) this may be an issue of speaking a language based in Old Norse and using lots of “imports” … like German, English and French words … where words are not presently available in the native tongue. Svenska (Swedish for those of us speaking English) is a language that originated in Northern Germany and was imported into Sweden becoming what is sometimes called Old Norse before continuing its evolution into modern Swedish. Discounting “new” compound words that are actually words created to express an idea by combining two or more simple words – similar to the German tradition of compounding words – the language is “vocabulary poor” compared to a language like English, English being one of the worlds richest languages in terms of vocabulary.

Now being “poor” in terms of vocabulary (or “rich” as the case may be) has it pros and cons (as do most things with alternates, or options attached to them – i.e.: a “this/that” framework or framing structure … the essential basis of choice and the decision-making process that follows from it). [Do you notice the cognitive linking and logical chaining? … Do you perceive it’s enhanced by the choice to use bracketing to segment out distinct tangential but separate ideas? … Do you notice that even though I’ve wandered greatly in my response to you, somehow the ideas seem to flow and remain connected? … Have you been able to track how exactly, with precision and specificity  I manage this “trick” of presentation? … just curious …]

Nothing can come of nothing.
 – William Shakespeare

So back to Swenglish … the pro proposition of a “vocabulary poor”  language is that you must use the limited vocabulary to express even the most complex ideas … and sometimes the words themselves don’t actually exist to do this … SO THE CONCEPT MUST BE MADE BY INFERENCE … i.e.: the listener/reader must generate the meaning from the words expressed for themselves. This is an interesting form that generates a specific cognitive approach. The sender and the receiver in the communication “assume” active participation, that the “message” won’t be contained completely in the content of the “expression” of the message, but in the “interpretation” of the message. This particular cognitive structuring regarding communication creates a kind of “short-hand” in communication and leads to a preference for directness, simplicity and brevity. For an insight into the expression of this cognitive structure look at the design ethos of Scandinavia (hear I reference the swath of land ranging from Norway in the west and Finland in the east, all at a latitude north of Germany for all intents and purposes). The Scandinavian design ethos is also one of simplicity, purity that emphasizes clean lines, little decorative extravagance and very direct (some would not hesitate to say “elegant” – myself included) solutions. What you may find “missing” is the “playfulness” and “joy” found in more “extravagant” design – which lead us to …

The con proposition in a “vocabulary poor” language (Swedish compared to English in this particular case) is that somethings are in fact inferred and not expressed. The speaker/writer “intends” a message BUT it is up to the listener/reader to extract it. It is ultimately imprecise in terms of expressing more abstract considerations. Compare the art of Scandinavia pre-WWII with the art now being generated when a large majority of Scandinavians are learning to speak a second language (most typically German or English) and expanding the range of their vocabulary richness. If you want what I’d consider to be the most obvious representation of the Scandinavian ethos that arises from the cognitive structure I’m pointing to follow the “humor.” In most of Scandinavia humor is based in sarcasm. This is itself based in cynicism and irony which of course would work well within the structures I’ve indicated are most present in the cognitive structure driven by a “vocabulary poor” language. By example I give you the comparison between Existentialist philosophers Kierkegaard and Sartre (French being a much more “vocabulary rich” language in comparison to Swedish). It leads to a particular kind of purity in thought, but with little extravagance … what someone raised in a “vocabulary rich” language and the associated cognitive structure might perceive as morose.

Those of you familiar with  Edmund Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf and their propositions regarding the influence of language (specifically the specifically the “native” and “crib” languages of an individual) will understand the significance that the native language of a speaker may have on their cognitive structure and the preferences associated with it (the theory that Sapir and Whorf developed is known as the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” by linguists and cognitive scientists). I am a “believer” in the premise of their propositions regarding the influence of language on the development AND APPLICATION of the cognitive structure of an individual. For those of you who want and/or prefer it more simply … the language you use (as a native speaker) will directly influence the way in which you think. In fact this idea would more accurately along begin to represent what I’m driving at then all of what you’ve written Robert. To say it succinctly and directly I’ll actually put it to Edmund Sapir in his own words:

“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached… We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.” (Sapir, 1958 [1929], p. 69)

This is the whole point of what I’m driving at … it’s called Social Ontology … and the creation of a social reality, while what you write about is almost virtually all about a subjective reality (vs. the the inter-subjective position I write about). You are an individualist while I myself more and more find myself becoming a collectivist with a strong individualist consideration. Your entire post is about how an “individual” perceives the world apart from others and then acts upon this perception for all intent and purpose ignoring the impact and influence they have both upon and most importantly from others. That in fact a bridge is only a bridge because we say so … other wise it’s just a structure spanning some gap made of something. When does a fallen tree become a “bridge” or is the answer never? This is my point is unpacking the structure of the structure of how we get to thinking what we think. The fact that the Universe may be infinite is only significant in relation to something else … attached to the cognitive consideration of how space and our relationship with impacts and interacts with our decision-making process for arguments sake. Yet you present this a a poetic “Truth” … when what I am striving for and emphasizing in my work around Social Reality is the presentation of the distinctions between “Truth” (upper-case “T” to indicate some ultimate, inviolate, metaphysical Truth) vs. “truth” (lower-case “t” to indicate something believed to be so by an individual or group based on some empirical evidence they agree to share). The same applies to the distinctions I’m making regarding “Reality” and “reality.”

So while I don’t object to your writing I object to you referring to it as “Comments on Social Reality” and by inference associating that back to what I’ve written about … and the inclusive inferences in what you’ve written about that writing.

The ultimate expression of what I’d like to see is that you express what you are expressing in a way that is intelligible to those who are reading it with regard to the subject you suggest it is in reference to, in this case Social Ontology. And to use your own criteria of “simplicity” as the measure of worth and validity to do so with the extensive suggestion of inference. Do so directly. Say what you mean and want others to “get” from what you are offering. Do this if only within the overall structure of what you say otherwise. BUT … DAMN IT … DO IT!!!

I understand as well as any “staking out a position” … and I understand as well as any staking out that position by standing on the shoulders of giants who’ve come before. I’ve stated well and full that my work, the entire body of my work rests on the enormous foundation of the work I learned with Roye Fraser and most especially his work called the Generative Imprint™ and the Function Mode™ models. Stating anything less would be at the least crude/rude and at the most plagiarism (the most deadly of sins amongst academics and scholars …). However, it is also essential to note that my work resides on a foundation supported and enhanced by the work of Grinder and Bandler called Neurolinguistic Programming or NLP – and my position in regard to these developers is one of ultimate respect, even when I am in disagreement with them. Their work “allows” for my work to exist in the way that it does. Could I have reproduced this work independently … possibly … would I have, unlikely. So to dismantle this work without regard for how it finds its way so deeply into my own is not just disrespectful but duplicitous and deceitful in the extreme … as would be the disregard, dis-acknowledgement or dismantling of the work of so, so many others … including but in no way limited to Joseph Campbell, Sigmund Freud, Edward Hall, Clare Graves, Konrad Lorenz, John Searle … and on and on and on …

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
 – William Shakespeare

So let’s move on, shall we … towards an end to this particular rebuttal and reframe. The comments you make have little to nothing to do with Social Ontology and in fact are more poetry than exposition (when the perfect word is available it would be sacrilegious not to glory in its use …don’t you think). The comments you make if they are explanatory or pragmatic in any way are more about the nature of individual perception and expression, or as Bandler and Grinder exposed us to about thirty years ago – subjective experience. This is so much more the domain of phenomenology (as I have clearly expressed on my blog at: http://blognostra.blogspot.com in the earlier postings positioning my take on Social Ontology) then on anything resembling the inquiry I am making into inter-subjective experience (under the rubric, Social Ontology). Further I am taking a particular tack as I move on towards the inclusion and impact of language and specifically communication in the structure and form of Social Ontology as it relates to the construction of social reality.

What I am intending to unpack and make explicit (I personally much prefer the languaging of David Bohm here, “unfolding”) is the nature of the impact and influence of the social constructs of reality on the individual – who often perceive themselves as having their “own” experience when I propose they are most clearly not.

What I am proposing is that the individual, regardless of whom they may be, is having a social experience – even when they are alone. That all of the experience of the “individual” is in fact a social experience and it is perceived individually. So to unfold that point further … the individual has a social experience through an individual perception, or an inter-subjective experience that is perceived subjectively. This is a defining point in my argument (argument as in philosophical argument or proposition put forth in discourse).

The significance I am further bringing to this argument is one of application, that the inter-subjective experience of the individual is the basis of the reality they experience act upon (as well as from). That the inter-subjective experience is the basis of all action and behavior and that this action and behavior is premised in the inter-subjective frame that they reside within. Then further that this frame is constructed in part, albeit in large part, by the structuring of the shared communication of those who participate in it; and in some unique and specific cases most especially by their shared agreements.

[Now a quick aside – how are your comments in any way related to that discussion and argument? … Back to our main program …]

These agreements are largely, if not wholly (Don’cha ya’ just love that ambiguity?) contained in language. This gives rise to the latest direction I’ve taken which is to point towards the impact and influence others who “get” this level of Social Ontology and the structuring of social reality can have on those who don’t “get” that this is the basis of their reality and decision-making process. This is called alternately propaganda, persuasion and influence to name the most prevalent forms of the application. When it’s applied in a mass communication medium it can and does shift the basis of culture and the collective decision-making process engaged in by the individuals who populate that culture (and/or society). This is the realm of Politics (upper-case “P” vs. lower-case “p” which would alternatively apply to the interactions among individuals at a level below that of the “society-at-large” or in the modern sense “Government”).

So my intention is to “set my people free” … what’s yours???

Not wine … men intoxicate themselves; Not vice … men entice themselves.
 – William Shakespeare

Best regards … until we meat again,

Joseph Riggio

Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf™ Process
http://www.mythoself.com

“Kick ass, take names” – Matt Furey (http://www.mattfurey.com)

On 12/8/05 05:43, “Robert” <robert@svensknlp.nu> wrote:

 

Reality, ongoing and working with and without constructing or not within any boundary.
It’s just made up, right in your mind anyway, right?

I was reminded about Milton Erickson in his ways he pursued I guess so many altered states and tested along his journey ways to shift between.
What he found or what he did with that skill and knowledge isn’t for me to say since I never met him.

There are some nice passages in the books about him some about reality and what it is and how to expand on that.

I was reminded earlier this week, that people are often very judgemental about new things, either it be a particular methodology or a particular view or whatever they judge it’s never about exploring new avenues.

The beach is filled with sand, each sand particle is in itself made up by even smaller stuff and in that smaller stuff there is even smaller stuff and then “again” you know and you guessed even smaller stuff!
If I didn’t know better, I bet it would end up empty?

And you guessed right, it does!

It becomes so empty in fact it’s so large it is called space. In relation to that space the sand particle seems large even as a universe some say. Which btw is infinite, that’s how large and small the universe is, it is contained in one single word, infinite, and that if you ask me is pretty neat.
Instead of using complex math describing the universe, we simply accept it is, infinite.

Then some people tries to describe the universe, and many get mad doing so since the universe is so big, remember I did say “infinite” and those scientist cant contain the whole universe in their heads at all. It gets to big, since the brain isn’t infinite but the imagination absolutely is.

Reality is such subtle thing, I worked with realties my whole life, my own and others, its many ways to slice an apple, the description started with NLP gave humanity a way to cut down the apples and oranges to a more down to earth examples where the descriptions could be better describing the reality ongoing and in NLP they named it “a model”.
They found out, its turtles all the way down, and then again another turtle all the way down, an infinite way to say, how big is the universe really?

Infinite of course!

If there is one thing that is clear, sound and felt as it is the one thing, maybe it isn’t and then again maybe it is not that, maybe I should look elsewhere?
Epistemology, the study of how we map cognitively the minds processes and adjusted with the NLP applications by mapping that with the NLP models have brought us truly Jedi Mind powers where we can sway and opinion with just a gesture and a smile and a word…as easy anchored and fired away.

Then a few Jedi’s said, this isn’t the way, we want power, and more of it.
They are known as powerful wizards and never explain what they do and wink and say, come here and become one of power since it is all unconscious ruled and controlled.
They even use waste powers as hypnosis in ways people never before have seen.

Then there was this voice in the crowd, what about just explaining what is going on, take away all the mystery and just plainly explain what it is?
The first night an attempt on his life was made. That power he wielded shined so brightly and was feared by the power wielders as the mightiest power of all and they all missed it.

Truth is what it is, reality for some and a misconception for others, but again, into the unknown we cast our self, and I just never really got it, how can it be unknown if we know it is unknown?
It is as so many argue it is in relation to what is known, the boundary, a string of ideas where your mind just knows this is this, and nothing else it can be, unless you learn NLP or such systems to create a diversion so your mind can hide contemplating that a bridge is a bridge and then it isn’t a bridge but stones and then even other materials in that and then…even more.

Then a few wise men said, just accept it, it is a bridge, then move on to the other side.

The other side?

Yea, while your thinking about the bridge and its reality, this side is crashing down into the sea…so..move it..

Fear is a great ruler of men.
Take away fear and the bridge even if it collapses only offers us the chance of swimming or learning to swim.
Which some would argue and rightly so that seems a tad late to do so.

I saw Dr Phil doing his “get real” workshops where he scare people and even before they end up in the workshop since they are confronting the fears about things like the bridges that collapses even before they do?

That’s the beauty of our minds we can in advance know what things are to be before we even are doing the activity at all!
Doing that into the level of a model where your model is as accurate as the reality it’s applied to is a rare ability, some might argue it is about then creating the reality in your head and I think they are right.
Is the model the reality it is applied to or is the model just a description of what is currently believed to be reality?
It seems it will be a tiny difference, subtle but that level of interaction between our senses and the thing out there as described very well using the epistemology and any further attempt to explain such difference will be just further models about what is infinite.

Then when we can just plainly sit down, eat an apple and look at the waves bathing us into the serenity of life.
Take a sand particle, identify with it in such a way it’s a whole reality of the universe being infinite, and that is just a model about the universe and how you as an observer affects it.

Consciousness allow us great things, what are you going to do today?

Let’s move along, the bridge is closing down.

Where do you want to go?

If there is no fear, life then unfolds, rightly so some would argue.

Infinite

Your best

/Robert
www.riggiomodel.biz <http://www.riggiomodel.biz/>
Kicking asses anywhere and bruising egos all over the world and still sitting there enjoying life.
(Also known as a green small guy by some)
Hey, somehow Lucas got his ideas, why not small green guys from outer space?
Space, a 5 year mission to explore.

 

Freedom is just another word …

Plugboard-eniac4 175px

 

… and Freeing Your Mind is where to start!

 

When I think about “freedom” I think about something that goes beyond place and time.

For instance most folks think of freedom as:

The ability to do what they want, when they want, where they want, whenever they want … or something like that from my observations.

But, that presupposes something that is very typically missing more often than not … the fundamental ability to have a choice in the first place.

Ah, but there’s the rub …

To begin with to have a choice you must first be free of preconceived notions and knee-jerk responses, and so few of us are even a little bit free of those bits of installed mind programs.

From the very beginning, maybe even in the womb, we are being programmed with what to like or dislike, what is good or bad, what to desire or reject … and on and on. Yet we think the things we choose are our preferences most of the time, and not just pre-conditioned responses.

If only that were true …

I’m not here to tell you that your full of it … but I am here to tell you that you are full of pre-conceived notions and knee-jerk responses you think are choices and preferences. Heck, even the way you just responded to reading that last sentence probably falls into the category of pre-conceived notions and knee-jerk response.

 

Your “brain” ain’t your “mind” … at least not in the way I use those terms.

An easy analogy to use in making my point would be the distinction between “hardware” and “software” in a computing system.

The “hardware” part is analogous to the brain part in humans, the wetware that runs the “software” part.

This would include things like the brain and the central nervous system, and also things like the sense organs and the parts that comprise them as well, e.g.: your eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.

When thinking about the wetware connected to and part of the brain system as I’m using that terminology here the “hardware” mechanisms that provide the input and throughput for the compound senses like balance and proprioception are also part and parcel of what I’m referring to as wetware.

Then you have the “software” that runs on the “hardware,” which in the case of the human brain may be a configuration of the “hardware” itself.

The particular patterns of connections in the brain may be what comprise the programs we run, like the plugboards in early computers . In order to run an instruction set on these early computers wires would have to be physically rerouted to the appropriate connections on a plugboard with dozens or hundreds of fixed, pre-programmed microcircuits (see the image attached to this post above – Programming the ENIAC – Columbia University).

When the plugboard had the wires connected in a particular pattern the particular instruction set associated with that pattern would run, and only that instruction set. If you wanted to run a different calculation, based on a different instruction set, you would have to physically remove the wires from the plugs that linked the pre-programmed microcircuits in the existing order they were in to do it. Then you would have to re-route the wiring to the new configuration that provided the instruction set you now intended to run.

In many ways the human brain seems to be organized much like the early computers were with their pre-programmed microcircuits. Except in the case of the humans the preprogrammed microcircuits are the distinct patterns of neuron firing across the synapses that comprise the wetware of the brain.

The patterns of neural firing in the human brain are preprogrammed by virtue of familiarity. In the cognitive sciences we say that synapses that fire together wire together, meaning that the pattern of use determines the ease of recreating that pattern again.

The more a particular synaptic pattern fires the more it becomes myelinized. Myelin is the fatty sheathing that surrounds healthy nerves and facilitates the transmission of nervous impulses along their pathways. The better a nerve is myelinized the more easily, efficiently and effectively it seems that impulses are able to flow through it.

Nerves also seem to become more myelinized through repetitive use, i.e.: the more a particular pattern is used the more it becomes grooved in as the preferred pathway taken in response to a particular stimulus or category of stimuli. This allows us to build very rapid responses to common action scenarios when exposed to familiar stimuli or a category of stimuli, for example:

There is a particular way you tie your shoes, right lace over left lace first, or visa-versa. Doing it any other way feels unfamiliar and awkward.  Yet, tying your shoe laces the way it’s been programmed is so familiar and comfortable it has likely become second nature, and you can probably do it at a pre-conscious level, while attending to something else on a more conscious level. 

Wizard of Oz Scarecrow - MorgueFile-IMG_3130 175px Your choices aren’t only limited to the way you tie your shoes … and we’re not in Kansas anymore! 

So following the logic of the pre-programmed brain patterns we can begin to discuss, “What is the mind?” 

In some ways I think it would be fair to consider the “mind” the patterns of neural connections in the “wetware” that we use in thinking consciously, pre-consciously, sub-consciously and trans-consciously.

These patters of wetware connections at one level are what thought is as we understand it today. However, there seems to be more to mind though than just the wetware connections, because we retain an ability to override the preferred patterns grooved into the wetware and do creative, impulsive, spontaneous and original things.

This ability to create unique responses is grounded in the brain (or the total configuration of the wetware in the body-at-large), and at the same time it exceeds the patterns previously organized in the wetware configuration and familiar within it.

Every time you respond as you have “without thinking” you are NOT expressing freedom or choice,  you are expressing a pre-conceived notion or knee-jerk response grooved into the patterns in your wetware … like a pattern in the way the wires are configured in the plugboard of the ENIAC at any given time. In this way you are literally only capable of running the particular instruction set associated with that configuration in response to the presenting stimulus – you aren’t “thinking” you’re just following the actions associated with that instruction set.

Have a choice, or being free, requires you have options when acting in relation to any presenting stimulus.  

So freedom isn’t being able to do what you want, when you want, where you want, whenever you want … unless you have a choice about doing it at all!

 

“FREEDOM” is a Mind Game … but you have to first take control of your brain to have access to your mind.

This is something I learned early on in my NLP days … to use a quote from Richard Bandler, one of the co-developers of NLP:

Brains aren’t designed to get results; they go in directions. If you know how the brain works you can set your own directions. If you don’t, then someone else will. – Richard Bandler (http://www.azquotes.com/quote/703363)

In Richard’s book, Using Your Brain For a Change: Neuro-Linguistic Programming says he’s going to give the reader “a manual for running the brain” and in my opinion gets at least part of the way there in his descriptions, instructions and examples.

One of the things that’s interesting to me about “Using Your Brain For a Change” is that Richard never really talks about the hardware as wetware as I have above. Instead of getting into the whole discussion about neural patterns as they operate at a physical level Richard spends all his time discussing our representations of reality, i.e.: how the patterns we make about the world and ourselves are organized.

In particular the discussion of how we organize our representations of reality in this book by Richard Bandler are focused on what he refers to as “submodalities” … unique distinctions about the elements of perception that determine  how we make sense of what we perceive and what meaning we attach to those perceptions.

The submodalities of perception are organized into configurations, i.e.: “submodality configurations” that are more significant than any individual submodality standing apart from the pattern of the configuration as a whole.

Submodality configurations are comprised of two aspects that are equally important:

The Semantics of Submodalities: these are the way in which the particular submodality of perception is present in the representation of reality as it is known to you, e.g.: the unique color of someone’s eyes as you recall it and where you “see” that image in your mind’s eye, as well as the brightness, angle of view, distance from you and the way you hold the totality of the representation in regard to the visual image … as a photograph or video for instance.

The Syntax of Submodalities: this is the order or sequence in which the submodality configuration that forms your perception of reality is represented and attended to by you, e.g.: you can notice first the visual submodalities and then the auditory submodalities, or you might notice them in wholeform all at the same time as you would were they occurring in real time, and you might also notice the unique pattern of the submodality in stages as well, first noticing the color, then the brightness, then the angle and so on … and by virtue of the order or sequence the submodality configuration take on a logic unique to the syntax you use.

What Richard explores and examines in his work is both the semantics and syntax of “subjective experience” and how we can alter that for ourselves.

There is a powerful perceptual logic in the semantics and syntax of submodalities, and what’s unique to this logic to me is that it is non-linguistic, and therefore can be held and experienced in wholeform, i.e.: beyond the limits of language.

While language is always digital, with one element … a word, a sentence, a paragraph … distinct from the one before it and the one after, indeed from all other words, sentences and paragraphs, and by it’s very nature needing to be experienced separately from them, life occurs in wholeform, i.e.: all at a time, simultaneously.

Language is also always ordered sequentially and linearly, once more separating it from the experience of life, where many things can and do happen in simultaneity.

Submodalities are a kind of a bridge between the direct sensory experience of wholeform life as it happens and our processing of our conscious experience of life as what happened. They (submodalities) are magical, like the Old Norse runes, they are the elements from which we can conjure our subjective experience as we see fit.

“I, master of the runes conceal here runes of power. Incessantly plagued by maleficence, doomed to insidious death is he who breaks this monument. I prophesy destruction.” – Björketorp Runestone, 6th C. Sweden

Or one more, suggesting a runic use benevolently capable of giving life to the dead …

I know a twelfth one if I see,
up in a tree,
a dangling corpse in a noose,
I can so carve and colour the runes,
that the man walks
And talks with me.

– Odin

Hávamál, Codex Regius 13 C.

 

The relationship between Subjective Experience … Freedom … and Choice/Choosing

Until we have access to how we are choosing what we are responding to and how we respond to it, we have little or no choice … and, without the option to choose we have no freedom.

Now here’s a critical distinction … we may not always be able to choose “what is” or the elements we are experiencing in our reality, but we always have options about what we choose to make of what we’re experiencing.

How we make sense of things and what we allow them to mean to us is always in our control … when we are able to access the process we use to make sense of and make meaning from the presenting stimulus of our subjective experience. 

In this way, even when we are “objectively wrong” we get to choose our own experiences, and from there what and how we choose to respond to as it appears to us.

Here’s another Richard Bandler quote to tie things together:

The greatest personal limitation is to be found not in the things you want to do and can’t, but in the things you’ve never considered doing. – Richard Bandler (http://www.azquotes.com/quote/703366)

This is the essence of freedom (and mind) as far as I’ve concerned … i.e.: being about to choose what isn’t and hasn’t yet been.

Someone in prison who gets this idea fully can choose “FREEDOM” while doing the time of their sentence. Someone being beaten can choose to make it means something other than the loss of control of their experience.

Regardless, of the circumstance or situation if you can choose what something means to you, you can be free.

One of my favorite scenes of all time is from the 2006 James Bond movie  “Casino Royale”  with Daniel Craig, playing Bond. He’s being tortured by the criminal mastermind, Le Chiffre, played by the actor Mads Mikklesen. He’s in great pain and likely to be killed imminently in this particular scene:

Bond: I’ve got a little itch … down there. Would you mind? No! No! No! No. To the right. To the right. To the right!

Le Chiffre: You are a funny man, Mr. Bond.

Bond: (Laughing) Yeah! Yes, yes, yes. Now the whole world’s gonna know that you died scratching my balls.

Now that’s having control of one’s “subjective experience” and choosing in the most dire of circumstances!!!

 

In the end it ain’t what you can or can’t do … or be … it’s the choices you make with what you’ve got.

In the follow up to the scene from “Casino Royale” above Bond is next seen recuperating from his trauma in a hospital accompanied by his paramour in the film, Vesper, played by Eva Green. They are on a lawn and he is clearly weak and debilitated after his ordeal.

Vesper: Hello.

Bond: Hello.

Vesper: You all right? I can’t resist waking you. Every time I do, you look at me as if you haven’t seen me in years.

Bond: It makes me feel reborn.

Vesper: If you’d just been born …wouldn’t you be naked?

Bond: You have me there.

Vesper: You can have me anywhere.

Bond: I can?

Vesper: Yeah. Here, there, anywhere you like.

The scene continues a bit further in the dialogue …

Vesper: You know, James …I just want you to know that if all that was left of you … was your smile and your little finger … you’d still be more of a man than anyone I’ve ever met.

Bond: That’s because you know what I can do with my little finger.

Vesper: I have no idea.

Bond: But you’re aching to find out.

Vesper: You’re not going to let me in there, are you? You’ve got your armor back on. That’s that.

Bond: I have no armor left. You’ve stripped it from me. Whatever is left of me …whatever I am … I’m yours.

There’s something particularly remarkable in these two scenes to me.

There’s something particularly powerful about the nature of having control over one’s self, including the ability to let go … to be fully present to “what is” as well as one’s self and what one wishes to be experiencing in the moment, regardless of what the evidence is that is presenting itself in that moment.

I’d even argue that in terms of mythic form, in this moment captured by these actors, Bond is everyman and Vesper is everywoman … the ideal of the anima/animus as the blended being becoming whole and complete. Wonderful!

The conclusion I reach is that FREEDOM is more a powerful and potent force than PERFORMANCE.

Even though I make much of my living, and devote much of my life’s work to assisting others with mastery in terms of performance, i.e.: linking intention to action in terms of the results and outcomes they achieve, freedom is the real treasure … i.e.: having what you want as you want what you have.

Buona Fortuna & Abundanza,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.

New Hope, PA

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