Happy New-Bond-Film Weekend, everybody!

I just updated a key aspect of the Task BATL Trigram: The Diamond, also noted as V, for Values-driven. Here’s the updated description:

• DIAMOND Items: Values-driven items—related to personal goals, personal development, and the development of personal interests over time. Usually results are satisfying in the mid- to long-term. In the short term, organized or planned conscious effort may be needed. Examples: Purchase tickets and watch a new film by a favorite director; Finish first aid certification process; Schedule campground for this weekend; Practice the piano.

Why Change It?

For months I watched as my personal list of Diamond items seemed to want for attention. I’d have lots of Circle items on my list, lots of Square items, but the Diamond slots would remain empty, longer.

Diamond items were still important to me, but I recognized that the description and categorization rule might be off a bit.

Diamonds represent values, yet I noticed that I was pushing my values forward in many different ways than I had originally anticipated. These experiences often involved placing Diamond items in the Circle items list. The difference between the Diamond list and the Circle list seemed more like a difference between “work” and “fun,” which I didn’t like.

I realized I was also looking at my personal goals in ways that were less “me”, and in fact it was starting to get a bit painful to work on goals. Almost like I couldn’t recognize a good personal goal to save my life!

An A-ha Moment

In fact the answer was right under my nose: Values-related goals should often be directly linked with the kind of attention that is freely and happily given to personal interests on a daily basis. There should be no lack of energy in the Values system, as a result.

A lack of energy could hint at a lack of stable “connective tissue” between Circle and Diamond items, specifically in the contexts of time scope and interest-development.

This made a lot of sense given the way I’ve accomplished various outcomes personally in my own life, but it also made sense as I reviewed my experiences as a professional coach.

More About What’s Changed

So the new difference between Diamonds and Circles is in placing a bit less emphasis on the two Diamond areas of goals and personal development (developing “who I am” into “who I want to be”), and bringing Diamond items closer to our conscious energy center by directly involving personal interests (“what gives me energy”).

Both Circles and Diamond items can involve interests, but Circle items involve more temporary attention to those interests, treating the interests like a temporary sandbox to play in, for example. Diamond items involve a bit more conscious attention to “the state of a given interest,” and to the structured development of specific interests.

For this reason, I’ve added “the development of personal interests over time” to the list of Diamond-qualifiers.

The Method

Here is the basic method that I use for these items:

1. List or Review your interests
2. Find those that stand out as interesting
3. Identify a basic next step in exploring those interests
4. Complete the diamond items by taking those steps.

Some Examples

Examples of this kind of activity could include:

• Updating my list of favorite foods
• Making a logbook of my Old Time Radio hobby, including tracking episodes I enjoy
• Developing a way to keep track of my ongoing online formal education, to include Wikiversity courses
• Organizing my most-used stationery items so they’re more easily accessible (stationery hobby)
• Adding new entries to my list of interests (meta-interest)
• Checking off a to-do list item in my Fantasy Baseball III hobby (logs for hobbies or interests also have to-do lists)
• Adding more resource link URLs to my role playing game hobby’s character creation section. (logs also have external Resources)

All of this effort may be enjoyable, but its outcomes are also usually more appreciated over the mid- to long-term. It aims at supporting development of specific interests in the long term.

In that way it’s different from, say, listening to an Old Time Radio episode, or using a favorite stationery item, which are both activities that are more “about” the current context, usually.

Conclusion

As usual, there’s much more room for improvement and refinement. Eventually I’d like to reorganize Task BATL itself even more, and I have new modules to add.

But for now—I hope you enjoy the framework and it’s been a lot of fun working on it so far.

Filed in: Productivity /119/ | Goals /52/ | Interests /111/

I came across the Spartacus Educational website while doing some research on the whole JFK assassination thing, which is a sad but interesting topic (I had written “fun” topic here before, but it’s a pain to explain patiently how a sad thing can also be so deep that eventually it becomes fun to learn more about)

The site is quite extensive and interesting, and the author bio really made me think, “ah, this seems like an INTJ project.”

Regardless, I think it’s just fascinating that there is this well-considered set of dead witnesses.

Well, I’ll go one step further: SPECIFICALLY I think it’s interesting that one of them died from a “karate chop” to the throat.

I will be thinking about that one for a while. So weird! Thus far I find that after a few hours it spins one’s head away from all the seriousness and quite a distance into “Wes Anderson film” territory.

Filed in: People /74/ | Interests /111/

I finished Si Dunn’s military service memoir, Dark Signals recently and really enjoyed it. I thought I’d share some detailed thoughts on the book here, as well as some lessons learned.

Books like this always pique my interest: A lesser-known author, writing an autobiographical account of service in a technical discipline, involving an interesting or tumultuous setting (he served as a radio operator on a US Navy destroyer during the Vietnam War).

After reading the first few pages I started to wonder…did an INTJ write this? I would certainly offer that the author’s account of himself and his experiences lights up my “INTJ personality type” and “Ni-Te Cognitive Function Stack” buttons. There were a lot of interesting markers, right down to clear examples of the INTJ’s preferred metaphorical-visual language system.

OH! And yes, it IS a pretty awesome coincidence that the author served in the USG and carried the given name “Si.” Si being one of the eight Jungian cognitive functions, related to tradition, duty, bringing the past forward, rote learning, etc. I have enough Navy relatives to know for a fact that if you go Navy, or any other branch of the service, you gotta get on the Si train. Just to get that out of the way!

In a Nutshell

If you don’t have much time to read this post, let me just say that if the book sounds interesting, definitely read it. It’s a great deal, it’s extremely informational, the author shares fascinating insights about both technology and the war, and doesn’t attempt to conceal the difficult spots in his journey.

Lessons

Below are some lessons I can share, that I picked up from the book. They are not so much the author’s lessons as written; rather, these are my own conclusions, derived as I reviewed what I read.

I could be completely off about these, so I simply offer them for consideration. It is not my purpose to put the author on trial or anything like that—I’m just going off my interpretation of the text.

1. Competence Can Become a Huge, Life-Altering Blind Spot

The author returned to this topic again and again—while in the service, his drive for competence was essentially and continually punished, beyond a very basic level.

So, how can you recognize that level? And what do you do beyond that level? I think this is a very important question for INTJs everywhere.

If you don’t recognize that level, you will rob yourself of the prized feelings of leverage, efficiency, and control.

And if you don’t know what to do beyond that level, you will likely suffer from difficult perceptions of a boring, depressing world. This is a huge part of life, and IMO to appreciate the non-competency-focused parts is to enable oneself to fully enjoy a life journey.

Certainly there were some interesting sideline experiences in the book, but this was a very prominent thread.

The author suffered again and again while carrying out his core psychological mission of competence in an environment that was hostile toward this issue. He was officially recognized for his competency mainly once, from what I could tell, during his entire period of service.

2. Emotions are an Early Warning System and Should be Given Persistent Attention

The author revealed a variety of emotionally-challenging situations, and eventually revealed some direct consequences of his role and actions in those situations.

I don’t think this is a spoiler, so I’ll share that at one point he hurled overboard one of his physical possessions, and got called out on it. (Gently called out, but still, I’m sure it was a very touchy moment)

One opportunity that I now recognize as an experienced coach, that I didn’t recognize when I was around the author’s service age, is the possibility of using one’s emotions as a constantly-available warning system, or a threat-registration system that deserves a place right on the daily console.

A lot of times there’s no warning. And sometimes the warning received is “you’re in imminent danger,” but sometimes the warning is more like a complex system of feelings, plus a, “you’re tired,” and over time you might find, like I did, that it’s smarter to begin to track the emotions and their complexes like a movie detective follows somebody’s car around.

In my case, tracking “you’re tired” helped me crack through the surface emotions and completely open up the depression riddle.

INTJs can too easily lose track of emotional threads over time, and the resurgence of those threads can cause a lot of pain and frustration. (It’s waste and inefficiency, pure and simple!)

So, returning to metaphor: Where did the car go? Where did it come from? There’s value in finding out the answers, but there’s also a lot of value in knowing not to give up on this process.

The author did seem to try some simple experiments with emotional support activities, but they didn’t seem to go too well in the end, and they weren’t exactly followed up as if they were a core aspect of improving his overall experience.

Can you stay with it over time, with a deft grasp, is a good question for INTJs regarding emotional questions.

3. People Want to Help, in Their Way

There were some clear-to-me, but non-obvious examples of people trying to help the author enjoy a smoother time. Based on the author’s descriptions, I believe you could probably look at some of these people and understand their system of doing/being, if you knew what to look for.

Some aspects that blocked the author from getting involved with these systems:

1. Subjective Contingency Thinking
2. A Subjective Mind for Skills-improvement
3. Subjective Idealism and Appeals to the Bigger Picture

But what’s really wrong with those? I mean, we love ‘em! These are a huuuuge part of being a systems thinker and a strategist!

Here’s what’s wrong with those: If you use them when everybody else around you expects you not to, and in a system in which being like everybody else is pretty much rewarded, you are getting in your own way.

So, it may seem like people don’t want to help, because they don’t appreciate your stuff. But in so many cases I’ve talked to those other people, because it’s part of my job, and they really do want to help.

It’s just they want to help in their way. To learn to appreciate that is like learning to appreciate a new food that you’ve never enjoyed before. Sure, I had to learn to enjoy plain, white rice by not pouring soy sauce all over it like a dummy. But now, there are few things I love more than a little bowl of plain white rice.

This is what I would call an advanced lesson for anybody, of any psychological type. I mentioned it in Some Lesser-known Rules for Life and I strongly believe this is a huge key to successful living and relating.

You gotta put those tools down and let other people lend you theirs, even if they feel awkward at first.

4. Being Clever Feels Like Cheating, Right Up Until it Saves Your Life

Si related a pretty funny episode in which he got clever and earned 4 hours of near-complete freedom during his early service period.

He closed this experience by relating that he thought it was really 8 hours, but in the end he outsmarted himself and would have had free time anyway, so it was really just 4 hours.

And…the end! That’s the end of the experience. It’s as if his takeaway was, “and I’ll never try that kind of thing again, because geez, I ONLY got 4 hours of extra free time.”

A lot of INTJs would look for a similar lesson, after being this tactical or opportunistic. They are caught up in systems of morality more than systems of contextual cleverness. So, instead of concluding, “next time DO be clever, but DON’T forget to check when you get liberty,” the conclusion is more like, “idiot, you thought you had it good, but don’t make that mistake again, nobody gets a free ride,” etc.

But: PEOPLE GET FREE RIDES ALL OF THE TIME, is a huge lesson.

And: CLEVER PEOPLE GET EVEN MORE FREE RIDES, is another one.

(Sure, I know a few INTJ-T types who, when spun out on unhealthy levels of attention to Se-Fi, could take advantage of the devil himself. But most of us—no way, the lesson is exactly what you’re running away from)

Anyway—this contextual creativity gets ignored just like the emotions, and the INTJ turns into a tortured martyr because now they’re back trying to single-handedly protest or turn the tides of the system, and—ughhhhhhh. Stress, frustration, repeat.

So if you join the Navy, or anything else, please be clever until you decide it’s cheating, and then, instead of stopping, figure out how to do it in a less-cheaty way. OK? Take care of yourself, be creative, watch more of your problems solve themselves.

Conclusion

It’s been fun to consider these lessons. There are many more in there, I’m sure.

Are you OK as you are, INTJs? Yes! But why do all that learning, if you don’t also appreciate the pure theory-meets-experiment thrill of changing core perspectives on life? Hmmm?

Sending warm greetings to all my readers! Have a great day.

Filed in: Control /110/ | Feeling /64/ | People /74/

It’s funny how these two are linked, for me anyway.

The more emotional I become, or perhaps the more stirred up or excited I become, the more causality finds its way into my thinking and writing.

I was just writing about my past self today, and I kept writing things like,

• The main reason for that was,
• This is because,
• This caused,

And when I re-read those sentences, a better replacement would be something like,

• An intriguing reason for that could be,
• This may have been connected to,
• We could say that this influenced

And I like thinking about this. It helps me to understand how many different ways of thinking about things there are, and many of them—certainly more than one “definite reason”—are very helpful.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Feeling /64/ | Thinking /70/

Anon writes,

What do you do when you can’t work on work? I know that the work needs to be done. My team discussed it and made plans for it. I am the one who has to do it, and I agreed to it. Also, it seems simple. But I am not doing it. I can’t. What do I do?

I’m sorry to hear about this situation, Anon. But I’m glad you brought it up, because this happens to a lot of us when we get buried.

Personally I know I’ve experienced this on projects in the past. Part of the problem, IMO, is that the intuition can make the issue seem so vague that it’s almost ethereal, and maybe even scary. It is immediately more like a mystery, and it can even seem like there’s no reason for it at all.

However, it’s worth considering that maybe other perspectives and methods can help, aside from this future-outcomes intuition. So when this kind of thing comes up I hope you will start to look deeper into the reasons.

I know it can also be painful to start to dig deeper, as if to contradict one’s own ego-attached Ni functionality, but I think it’s usually only painful when it’s a new situation, or it’s not your normal thing.

Here are some examples and possible solutions. Does it seem to fit any of these?

• I don’t see it getting done, in the future, in my intuition
  • Example Case There is a blocker that you haven’t identified yet.
  • Possible Solution Ask your intuition, what is blocking this? Can it be worked around for now?
  • Example Case There is no longer enough time or energy (your energy) to do this.
  • Possible Solution Identify a minimum level of energy needed to show that you have started the work, but it seems to require more time or effort. (Estimate this if possible)
• The deal has changed
  • Example Case There were unforeseen details that have come up.
  • Possible Solution Identify the specific details, identify that this is a change in scope, and discuss it ASAP.
• The situation is no longer equitable
  • Example Case I am not being properly recognized for my role and work so far. I’ve done too much, for too little.
  • Possible Solution Find a way to recognize yourself. You may need to use more Si for this, spending time on your recall function. For example, “just to recap where we started, and how far we have come, this project started as a humble chair, but now it is a floating pool recliner made out of special materials.” And so on.
• I have lost my bearings and don’t know where I am at in the project.
  • Example Case There are 36 sub-projects and I have spent five hours on just one of them today.
  • Possible Solution Rest, immediately. Eventually, bring your mind around to listing aspects of the project. After some time has passed, organize the listed aspects. Then, present these listed aspects as part of your work outcome for today.
• There is a bigger issue here that I’m not acknowledging.
  • Example Case I already told my boss I’m not doing this kind of project anymore, and I agreed to this, but I shouldn’t have.
  • Possible Solution As painful as it may be, it is time to think about a way to bring it up, again. If you do the work, maybe that shows that you’re not as sure as you said you were. So it works against you to do the work. Maybe you do some, maybe none. But the lines of communication should probably be opened up.
• There is something else I need to do right now.
  • Example Case My intuition tells me to work on another project for a while. But this one’s more important?
  • Possible Solution Try to work on the other project for a little while, even as a simple way to build up task momentum.

I hope some of those are helpful, Anon. The intuition is weird that way—a lot of times there’s a specific reason for the feeling, but it doesn’t really feel like that initially.

Filed in: Productivity /119/ | Intuition /62/ | Careers /40/ | Procrastination /23/

As I work to catalog my various interests—the list is getting close to 800 but why does that number seem so small??—I keep coming to this weird thought.

Some of those interests are more disturbing AND more reliably interesting than others. Interesting in the sense that I keep coming back to them, so they must be “reliably interesting” or I wouldn’t do that.

Disturbing stuff that symbolizes disturbing stuff, is often very interesting to me.

From this I can derive the thought-model that I have got some more work to do on myself.

Just kidding, that sentence was a bit tongue in cheek. And not really such a great thought model.

What I was GOING to say, is: I can derive the thought-model that there are reliable anti-patterns which emerge in my life that are worth giving specific, long-term attention.

Let’s take the Soviet Union, for Example

Yes, let’s take the Soviet Union for example.

I once spent 30 years in a Soviet Prison. I was about to write a book bearing this title.

Both of these statements are true.

The first statement, metaphorically VERY true, in some way I couldn’t penetrate at the time. (If you spend a lot of time tracking your intuition, you know what I mean here)

The second statement, literally also very true. I had it in me to write this book. Rationally it made no sense, but I’m not rational; even Jung would agree and neither one of us would find this by itself to be any kind of big problem.

The more I wrote and pondered about the Soviet Union, the more I realized that yet again, here’s yet another archetype of extremes in which one puts aside one’s personal pleasure to advance the cause of the group in a rather primitive, mechanistic way.

IOW, I wasn’t really putting my own interests first and it was slowly killing me. I put this 2 and 2 together and made 4 by observing the circumstances in which this interest raised itself—the circumstances were always this sort of thing: I’m sacrificing myself for what I subjectively feel is some greater cause, and it’s kind of harmful and bad for me, and not that healthy, and it probably needs to stop.

So the inner picture-painter started to paint SOVIET IMAGERY all over the walls, possibly mocking me.

(Did anyone ever suggest that our subconscious processes would occasionally try to mock us? I think that’s a fun and kind of charming and often accurate little irritation of a thought model)

And one day I realized I had spent 30 years in Soviet prison. Then I realized the doors were open; I could have left at any time.

Why I didn’t leave

I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know that I needed to.

I just. Didn’t. Know.

It’s this weird binary situation—either you know the signals that bubble up from within, or you don’t. It’s stunning now to think about it: What if I had missed that damn boat?

Do you see Jordan Peterson collecting Soviet memorabilia? I see a Ni-dom who has spent their last Ni-dime on self-sacrifice for the greater good. I really admit that I do see that. It’s troubling in a lot of ways. I see a lot of us Ni-doms who get into this issue with boundaries, we give way too much of ourselves away.

Personally, with every day that this symbolism comes up for me, I am running experiments because I am directly concerned that if I don’t, my health is at risk. Based on past experiences.

Each experiment is really stupid and innocent. It starts with this thought—“I don’t know what I would do outside of prison. Maybe let’s head off that way and see what happens.”

I must admit that, connected to this Soviet imagery, connected to this prison, is the core concept of,

I don’t know what I like, or who I am, or what interests me.

I don’t even know that I enjoy the freedom, or what it means to enjoy it.

But so far, I seem healthier, the more I seek it. Moving away from prison is more healthy.

Going back in is VERY interesting and deep as well. But, now more than ever, troublingly so.

It’s much the same with many other interests.

You’d think this winding internal development was pretty jacked up,

Or at least, I would have, in my past-shoes,

but I’ve coached INTJ…millionaires?

“No…keep going up,”

OK—zillionaires, whatever—who are JUST starting to struggle with this question, and they are very, very worried. The economic robot side is frantically searching for some connection with a possibly-withered self. Which we all intuitively understand, rich or poor, at a cultural level we get it—this is some kind of energy source of which we’ve deprived ourselves.

Filed in: Therapeutic Practice /144/ | Energy /120/

Waking-Up-Early-Framework.md

Why I haven’t updated this one: I don’t really wake up early anymore if I can help it. In the past I’ve done a lot of early-wake-up experiments. The most entertaining one involved a soviet cosmonaut supplement and karate kata and lots of laughter. But overall I do really well if I can sleep on cycle and my logs show that hitting 9 hours is like gold to me. It’s hard to go to sleep early. So I don’t get up early so much.

When I do get up early, usually unintentionally, I do really like that it’s easy to spend literal hours journaling my way through a bunch of fun, interesting, and productive activity. This usually ends up being really rewarding, and it helps me get back to sleep, too.

But the proper sleep is more worth it, in my experience.

I do have a variant of this framework called “Waking-Up-Early-for-Work-Framework” and this one developed into a really helpful system with various aspects that support an early workday.

LinkedIn-Framework.md

LinkedIn is probably dead last on my list of interesting ways to network, or whatever I’m supposed to be doing there.

I am pretty sure I’ll go to my grave never having used, or needed, LinkedIn very much.

There is a helpful reminder in the framework though: Always review and update your privacy settings BEFORE making profile adjustments. I think this is a good rule of thumb when coming back to just about any social network after a while.

INTJ-Competition-Model.md

I forgot about this one. It contains an interesting idea of how INTJs will often transform a competitive mindset into a form of dependency-debt. I may revisit this one later.

Major-Forz-Notes.md

This is like my own version of G.I. Joe. World-building stuff. Some characters on the team:

• Major Danni Forz (ISTJ, USA), specialist in Covert Action, Logistics and Accelerated Response Planning. Former Special Operative in US Army
• Scylon (IRAN), a ninja stealth operative. ISFP. A charismatic when in disguise. Enjoys meditation. Formerly addicted to The Hard Stuff.
• ERICA (USA), a robot with AI knowledge-bank capabilities. First developed in 1983, and under constant development since.
• Boilerplate (USA), a brute of a man. Just a huge muscle & heavy weapons guy. Epic white beard. ESTP.
• Enrique Iglesias Machado (AKA Match, USA). Private investigator inspired by Fletch. ESFP
• Brusselsprout (CA): Failed INTJ, useful all around, good impartial advice, fails at hard tasks, but too nice to eject from the team.
  • This character was submitted to me by an INTJ friend from Canada who’s an occasional blog reader. Hi Alex!

I haven’t updated this one lately because it’s become really long, story-driven, and deep. It needs more attention than it did at the start. So it’s harder to casually dive in than it used to be.

I have some ideas though, for developing it further.

Fun-With-HTML.md

I work with HTML so much that even just the name of this one is depressing now. Plus it has a bunch of weirdly excited lines inside like “Make a start page!”

(Which, I admit I’m planning another one right now. I like building and updating those.)

Amusement-Park-Visit-Framework.md

COVID, man. It’s been way too long.

But I have developed this “LEGO Guy” philosophy where I try to alter my perspective a bit when I visit amusement parks. It works well for me and it’s much more fun that way.

Public-Speaking-Framework.md

God, I don’t miss this at ALL.

I estimate that a single public speaking engagement costs me at least 1200 extra calories in stress eating. That’s kind of where I left it.

Maybe later this changes and I just stop giving a f*** about whatever I’m telling people in public, and how I’m saying things, but for now I care way too much.

I’ve probably given hundreds of speeches and public addresses at this point.

Depressingly, most of them were to members of the cult into which I was born.

F*** me, man.

Tracker-Music-MOD-and-XM-Framework.md

This one lights a flame within my soul. I have to get back to this, it was such a big part of my kidhood. No good reason to be away. Though I did write a script to play a bunch of these on my local QMMP install, recently.

Filed in: Essays /52/ | Interests /111/

I’m adding Xiaomanyc (Arieh Smith) to my INTJ Youtuber buttons-light-up list:

Link: White Guy Speaks Multiple African Languages in Market, Locals Stunned

From his About Me blurb:

Video producer with 3M+ fans on YouTube and ~1M in China
Featured in and collaborated with major Asian media news outlets (SCMP, World Journal, 三立新聞, China Media Group, Hubei Television, and many more)
Experienced software engineer and financial analyst

Read that last line…you all feel me here right? This is an INTJ bio move, it’s just how we think, we create these writeups that are designed to impress, but also to provide broad cover for the INTJ as a contingency.

You know, lest you think he’s just a Youtuber, or whatever.

(If anything we need to be careful about being way too extra)

If you haven’t already checked them out, his videos are fun to watch and if you wanted to see another INTJ extroverting themselves, there you go.

Some other things I’ve noticed:

• There’s a lot of pure showmanship at work in the videos. I think you could also say he’s adept at playing the magician archetype. Look at this thing, not at that one. He builds on the element of surprise and the human tendency to be stunned when surprised. (Showmanship is also part of the INTJ’s intellectual toolkit.)
• He sets up and kind of arranges conversations like an INTJ would, angling for maximum energy-leverage in conversations.
• You can tell that the convos work better with some types of people and not so well with others. Though there aren’t a lot of those specimens to examine, they’re in there. Personality dynamics always transcend culture.
• He’s doing a great job and I think it’s a good sign for any of you who are also looking to communicate with the outside world with a channel of your own, or whatever else it may be.

Filed in: People /74/ | Careers /40/

Thanks to all those who have reached out about coaching recently.

In recent months/years I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to schedule all the coaching I could handle. I learned a lot from many of you, including many who started out as blog readers.

As a result, for the time being, I’m not able to take on new clients. I do wish it could be otherwise.

Some Tippos

Since this seems like an appropriate time to offer some quick tips for those of you who are out looking for a coach, here they are:

1. Time spent with a coach always beats time spent reading about them. Be sure to get appointments scheduled ASAP so you can understand what the coach is like, from your own perspective. This is one of those areas where subjectivity and subjective experience is a very important factor.
2. Please try to meet with more than one coach if you can. I think 3-5 is a good number to “try out” within the first months or years if you’re in it for long-term development, but I suppose if you get a really good one that you like, it’s OK to stick with them.
3. Personality differences apply. A lot of coaches are way too gentle for some of the INTJs I’ve met. INTJs are often really intense, and in many cases come off like they don’t really need a coach.
4. At the same time, some other coaches will seem too harsh, or too orderly, or too demanding. This usually has a lot to do with their own personality dynamics. (For example, in terms of personality, a Px-Perceiver coach at mid-life can seem like they are leaning really hard into Jx-type practices.)
5. A well-trained coach should have no problem walking you through some examples of the ethical guidelines they follow. They should be able to tell you how and when and why they underwent ethics training for their given coaching specialty.
6. Finally, please take the opportunity to consider becoming a coach yourself. Think about all the things you have learned by becoming that thing—it’s a great way to learn and grow.

Have a great day everybody! —Marc

Filed in: Coaching /27/ | Goals /52/

“…that I’m somebody else now.”

I have to say I massively identify with those lyrics…

_Daði Freyr – Somebody Else Now

In my past life, I knew that I needed change, like:

• I wanted to pursue personal growth
• I wanted to learn to find my way in the world
• I wanted to learn to relate, to communicate, to help…

…so all these things would require change, of course.

But.

I never thought about OTHER things that would change. I never thought that maybe I ought to leave the organization, and start this new life—which it very much is—

and recognize that I had been a member of a cult. Born right into it.

(Oh and made the jokes about drinking the kool-aid while drinking kool-aid at cult functions. I did that too.)

Embarrassing yes, but slowly becoming a point of pride, which I think is natural and positive under the circumstances.

The Secret Bank Accounts of Ex-cult People

I mean, it’s hard to say this, but us ex-cult types do have this weird, perverse secret:

We can bring the best parts of the cult forward.

Yep, cults have their best parts, their most-effective parts, and those parts are just as grounded in human psych as any good self-help book.

You notice this, as an ex-cult member; you notice that other, non-cult people think that everything you had was bad, or wrong, or whatever.

Some of them invite you over to commiserate. They want to talk about how unfortunately, contextually dumb you were, and how smart they are, and welcome to TEAM SMART, it’s great, you can think for yourself, make decisions for yourself!

This kind of conversation is really cringe, and it definitely happens.

Aaaand…nope—the cult stuff was not even close to all-bad, or all-wrong. And yes, the ex-cult member emerges with some good things they can bring forward.

(I know this may be uncomfortable to read, but I believe it’s also the kind of acknowledgement that saves people from cults. And from going back to cults. If cults have to be cast as 100% bad, a caricature of themselves, guess what—those people aren’t going to want to leave, because their intuition will tell them they won’t feel accepted in this new cult-of-unwashed-humanity anyway.)

Plus past wounds, and the insights they reveal about us, can help us prepare for future battles.

One may have to trace the wound, trace the trajectory of the weapon, identify the one who wielded it, analyze them. Who knew that wound-analysis could be such a fascinating activity?

And additionally, it’s a healing activity, in proportion to the quality of analysis.

“Do you get them? The messages?”

(The above is not a quote from The Bourne Identity)

Still, these days, I’m messaged and guilt-tripped by—some friends, some family, some strangers—who don’t see themselves in the needing-change boat. Far from it.

They send me messages quoting passages of scripture, or quoting someone who thinks of themselves as a prophet.

They warn me that I’m now a representative of the forces of evil.

But then, just as awkwardly, they tell me how GREAT I am. And that they love me. lmao. Yeah, sorry, I don’t need any of that.

(Universal cult truth seems to have this strange tendency to stick to either end of any given dichotomy; never the middle, never both ends, etc.)

Like any reformed debater, I sometimes find myself striking back—well, a moment of silence for those stung by Marc’s clever repartee! Aha. But mostly I have to set those boundaries generally and vaguely and let’s not do this again please, and that’s that.

What a weird new life. Just in the last five years, it’s been a really new development for me.

My journey to become a coach brought me so many of the tools I would use to recognize that something better was out there.

And yeah, definitely better.

“There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind, I promise you—you’ll be fine…”

What else will change in the future? This question is so much more significant to me now.

Filed in: Thinking /70/ | Essays /52/