In Part One we saw there are two main emotions which drive our decisions; the desire for pleasure, and the avoidance of pain.
We ended by seeing that – depending upon the particular pleasure being sought or pain being avoided – the human ego can begin to play a rather large part.
Have you ever had experiences with negative, difficult people? Perhaps that nasty person at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, the indifferent teller at the bank, the prospect who’s listening to your sales presentation with a challenging stare on his face, the uncivil civil servant, your difficult boss, employees, many, many others?
While there can be various innocent and excusable reasons why someone is unhelpful, often, when they’re downright nasty or unaccommodating, it’s because they are flexing their muscles of power over another. And, they’re into power because it brings pleasure to their ego. Often because it’s the only power they have in their life. Sad, but too often true.
What about pain? I’m not talking about just physical pain. I’m talking about emotional pain.
What kind of pain would a person want to avoid?
How about the pain associated with getting fired? The feeling of pain that accompanies change or having the risk of taking initiative – especially when that’s not usually a requirement of that person’s job? What about the pain that comes with embarrassment? Looking bad – the pain of “loss of face?”
In much of this, the ego comes into play. You don’t want to look bad to others or feel badly about yourself, do you? Who does?
People interact with us in a certain way in order to gain pleasure or to avoid pain. Much of that centers on the ego. When you help them to feel good about themselves you’ll bring out the best in them and usually get the results you want.
In his 1956 classic, How to Have Confidence And Power In Dealing With People, Les Giblin wrote; “What counts is attaining personal satisfaction without trampling on the ego of the other person.”
I love his definition of “Human Relations.” According to Mr. Giblin, “It’s the science of dealing with people in such a way that your ego and their ego remains intact.
Yep, when it comes to Winning Without Intimidation, the ego (the other person’s) rules!
Honor them and their ego, genuinely and kindly – while helping them to avoid plain or get closer to pleasure – and you’ll be amazed at how simple and easy it is to bring them over to your side of the issue.
Oh, by the way, am I saying that the human ego, in and of itself, is a bad thing? Not at all. And, well discuss that in the next article.
<
Enjoy this post? Receive an update when our next post is published by entering your best email address below and clicking Get Updates.
So true Bob, well said.
It’s helpful to remember that we’re all the walking wounded in one way or another, each struggling with something, fighting some battle, succumbing to some insecurity and doing the best we can in any given moment every step of the way. Sometimes, people become so overwhelmed with life aspects they’re hiding from the world that they feel a need to hide and protect their vulnerability by any means possible. The disconnection you describe in your post often speaks to a coping or defensive mechanism for inner pain. And we’d all be fantastic Go-Givers if we could see through the ‘bad behaviour’ to the pain it flows from … and give the individual whatever they need to feel a little bit better about themselves. Great message!!
Great series, Bob. Hey, where’s Sally G? Sally, you had some interesting insights on this, too! By the way, I think one of the most important words you used in this post is the word “embarrassment.” I think that word and that experience is one of the most overlooked “pain” in the business world, and the most unnecessarily debilitating pain there is. How many great ideas have been held back for fear of embarrassment? How many times someone didn’t take a stand to stop a fight or correct someone’s mistake in a meeting? How many potentially ideal clients or potential advocates go un-called for fear of feeling less than stellar? The answer my friend, is ego in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind. (Bob Dylan… ish!). See what I did there -something a little silly. Am I embarrassed… not really. Ok maybe a little. Who cares! Have fun! Have a great week! Be a Go-Giver and focus on creating pleasure and gifts for other people and you’ll find yourself freer from caring about what people “think” about you and you’ll reap endless rewards from how people feel about you. That IS what JUST happened to me, and I feel great right now. Thanks for this forum.
Hi Jonathan, thank you for sharing with us. And I agree about SallyG…she ROCKS! Hey, I thought your Dylan reference was very cool. Certainly nothing to be embarrassed about. 🙂
Wow Jonathan – you’re wise, you’re fun and you even released a bit of your inner Hippie. Cool!!
Embarrassment is huge, the fear of looking stupid still holds me back from time to time – though I’m better now than I used to be. There are times though that even leaving a comment on someone else’s blog post can stop me dead. And even if I go through the effort of typing it out – I can take even longer to finally hit Submit.
I’m leading a Shame Resilience Read-Along on another site … and nothing is as debilitating as Shame. “Shame is all about fear. … Shame is about the fear of disconnection. … We are steeped in the fear of being ridiculed, diminished or seen as flawed. … afraid we’ve exposed or revealed a part of us that jeopardizes our connection and our worthiness of acceptance.” – I Thought It Was Just Me by Brene Brown-
So, in the interests of connection ~ I will see your Bob Dylan and throw in The Clash to exemplify my own fear of looking stupid … Oh boy I really wish I’d know – should I stay or should I go …
And for you Mr. Rock On Go-Giving Donut Monster … I leave you with The Platters ~ Only You, can make this world seem bright …
I agree with you totally. Please write more.