THE PHANTOM MENACE
Why are so many of us if not all of us experiencing our success being sabotaged from within? Clearly it’s something subconscious because I have absolutely no conscious desire to fail. I want to win, and I want to win BIG! I know exactly where I want to be and where I want to go. So why in certain situations have I screwed up for absolutely no logical reason?
What causes experienced penalty takers to miss penalties? It would be pretty handy to find out wouldn’t it? I would give us something of an edge. Well good news, I’m going to tell you. It’s not something I discovered personally, it’s been known and documented for thousands of years. It was never lost, it’s never been a secret, it’s never been suppressed or covered up, it’s just been plain ignored, possibly because you can’t measure it. That is one great oversight, one great flaw in Western business thinking and intellectual thinking in general – if we can’t measure it, it’s not important. This is plain wrong! Who makes a business successful? It’s people isn’t it? Can you measure human nature? Bizarrely, one man argued you can.
PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING
He was named Francis Galton and he invented PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING in the 19th Century. He was the first to propose that if we ask the right questions, do the right tests and measure the responses, we will know exactly how someone will perform. Unfortunately it’s not that simple! It’s also pretty rich coming from someone who had a nervous breakdown as a young man!
Yes you can get a general idea of someone’s aptitude and attitude, but if you think psychometric testing will tell you what someone will do when it comes down to it, you will soon find out that it’s not a very accurate science. As Gerald Ratner has taught us, great performers make gaffs! I’m sure Gerald would have passed every psychometric test going, but no one saw the business “clanger of clangers” coming did they? Least of all Mr. Ratner himself!
ONLY A SNAPSHOT
My other objection to the use of psychometric testing is that as well as being an unreliable measure, it is an unreliable snapshot of how that person was on that day. It takes no account whatsoever of someone’s potential. People change, they learn and grow, they are being constantly remoulded by their experience.
You are all not the person you were five years ago, and in five years the person you are now will be dead, there will be a new person with your memories but a different perspective.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
So then, if you can’t measure it, what is this X-Factor, this hidden phenomenon that is sabotaging us from within, undermining, overriding and negating every positive thinking strategy you’ve heard of? It has several names. In Buddhism and Taoism, it is called the Mind Monkey. Psychologist Sigmund Freud called it the ID – it can also be thought of as the elephant in the room, the “bull in the china shop”, the ghost in the machine, the gremlin in your morale. It is negative emotion.
Why are so many of us if not all of us experiencing our success being sabotaged from within? Clearly it’s something subconscious because I have absolutely no conscious desire to fail. I want to win, and I want to win BIG! I know exactly where I want to be and where I want to go. So why in certain situations have I screwed up for absolutely no logical reason?
What causes experienced penalty takers to miss penalties? It would be pretty handy to find out wouldn’t it? I would give us something of an edge. Well good news, I’m going to tell you. It’s not something I discovered personally, it’s been known and documented for thousands of years. It was never lost, it’s never been a secret, it’s never been suppressed or covered up, it’s just been plain ignored, possibly because you can’t measure it. That is one great oversight, one great flaw in Western business thinking and intellectual thinking in general – if we can’t measure it, it’s not important. This is plain wrong! Who makes a business successful? It’s people isn’t it? Can you measure human nature? Bizarrely, one man argued you can.
PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING
He was named Francis Galton and he invented PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING in the 19th Century. He was the first to propose that if we ask the right questions, do the right tests and measure the responses, we will know exactly how someone will perform. Unfortunately it’s not that simple! It’s also pretty rich coming from someone who had a nervous breakdown as a young man!
Yes you can get a general idea of someone’s aptitude and attitude, but if you think psychometric testing will tell you what someone will do when it comes down to it, you will soon find out that it’s not a very accurate science. As Gerald Ratner has taught us, great performers make gaffs! I’m sure Gerald would have passed every psychometric test going, but no one saw the business “clanger of clangers” coming did they? Least of all Mr. Ratner himself!
ONLY A SNAPSHOT
My other objection to the use of psychometric testing is that as well as being an unreliable measure, it is an unreliable snapshot of how that person was on that day. It takes no account whatsoever of someone’s potential. People change, they learn and grow, they are being constantly remoulded by their experience.
You are all not the person you were five years ago, and in five years the person you are now will be dead, there will be a new person with your memories but a different perspective.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
So then, if you can’t measure it, what is this X-Factor, this hidden phenomenon that is sabotaging us from within, undermining, overriding and negating every positive thinking strategy you’ve heard of? It has several names. In Buddhism and Taoism, it is called the Mind Monkey. Psychologist Sigmund Freud called it the ID – it can also be thought of as the elephant in the room, the “bull in the china shop”, the ghost in the machine, the gremlin in your morale. It is negative emotion.
MONSTERS FROM THE ID
Negative emotion, (fear, hate and anger) is a very basic very primal force that drives us all and it can override our most sincere beliefs, our strictest taboos, and our firm intentions. Nothing within you can overcome the monsters from the ID, these beasts from the subconscious. In fact they thrive on resistance and suppression. The more you try and pack down your darkest emotions into some deep dungeon within your mind, the greater the pressure, and suppress them hard enough for long enough and one dark day you will find them explosively released all over your life.
The monsters from the ID do not do logic, explanation, argument or containment. The only weapon you have against your emotion is another emotion, and I will show you how to wield that weapon in in the next part.
Negative emotion, (fear, hate and anger) is a very basic very primal force that drives us all and it can override our most sincere beliefs, our strictest taboos, and our firm intentions. Nothing within you can overcome the monsters from the ID, these beasts from the subconscious. In fact they thrive on resistance and suppression. The more you try and pack down your darkest emotions into some deep dungeon within your mind, the greater the pressure, and suppress them hard enough for long enough and one dark day you will find them explosively released all over your life.
The monsters from the ID do not do logic, explanation, argument or containment. The only weapon you have against your emotion is another emotion, and I will show you how to wield that weapon in in the next part.
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