Thinking about Self-Confidence
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© November 1, 2015
NOTE:
These pages have had excerpts of my new
book, SELF-CONFIDENCE: The Elusive Key to Health & Happiness.
It will soon appear in the Kindle
Library of www.amazon.com. This is an exchange with one the readers of
these excerpts. My responses are in bold
and red.
It is understandable when we
encounter ideas or concepts inconsistent with the way we see things to
challenge their validity. This is
healthy and to be applauded. Few of us,
however, are aware of how ingrained our programming is, or how resolutely we
defend it, seldom questioning its relevance to our lives and experiences.
I have made it my career to challenge
such assertions in our dominant corporate existence. Self-Confidence is but one of them.
JRF
Writer Writes (WW) I've
been thinking about the idea of self-confidence, as it pertains to your book.
My conclusion is, the
'cognitive' audience you want to reach is a large group of rationalists who
feel conflicted - who are not necessarily confirmed rationalists. They are
'doubters', looking for answers, open to new ideas. The confirmed rationalist
is unreachable. In that sense, it is 'hope' you're offering to the doubting
group, to those who feel there is something missing.
Peripatetic Philosopher (PP) I am
not asking or even suggesting that rationalists with cognitive biases give them
up, as that is a moot point when it comes to biases. I am simply asking
them to invite the other side of their minds to the party as complement to the
cognitive, which is the intuitive.
(WW) In that sense, you
defeat yourself at the outset by presenting your hopeful message in strictly
rational language.
(PP) Either you are misreading me
from your perspective, or I am not clear as to my intentions. I am not in
a combat zone between rationalists and non-rationalists, which quite frankly is
impossible to be.
(WW) Let us move on to the
Fisher Paradigm©™. This represents to
me a latent power we all possess, principally by opening
our minds to the possibility of its presence, then why confuse matters by
dismantling it and presenting it in parts.
(PP) Yes, it is a latent power we
all possess. And I am not dismantling
either this latent power with the Fisher Paradigm©™ or presenting it in parts.
What I am doing is presenting its
three spheres as profiles of an integrated reality possessed by everyone, while
using this device as a straw man to show what all of us do quite naturally, but
mainly unconsciously, therefore, without exercising it as a conscious tool.
The Fisher Paradigm©™ is integral,
not separate and therefore not divisive. It is not about power. It
is not about influence. It is not about winning friends and influencing
people. It is about awareness of the working of our prehensile mind.
It is therefore a manifestation of the
reptilian brain that has been our protective shield since the time of the
Cro-Magnon man. As I have attempted to illustrate, although briefly in this
book, it is the protection that we all have and all experience when we are
uncomfortable around certain people or in the climate of pressing danger.
I have always asked the question,
"why?" When you ask such a question, you notice things that you
first took for granted without thinking, that is, the individual's personality
and why he is acting that particular way.
Then there is the setting or the environment of his circumstances. Listen with your whole body as it is
telegraphing vital information to your brain as mundane as your comfort level,
or as critical as your survival.
The person, himself, his total
presence tells you who he is versus who he purports to be. That is, by his use of words, syntax, his posture,
even the quality of his skin, hands, fingernails, ye s, take all of these
things in, and then you have a fix on him, not to exploit but to understand him
in the context of how he consciously sees and intends to project himself. From this, you determine his level of
authenticity.
Alas, the context and character of
our face, alone, even with plastic surgery, fails to hide our essential self as
it is a roadmap of our life to that moment.
Given this insight I have often moved
boldly forward as if I could see into this person’s heart as some of the
stories in this book indicate. I know
someone who was conned out of a great deal of money because he didn't make this
assessment, and yet he is -- in his own words -- an extreme rationalist. Extremes
of any kind are also extremely vulnerable to deception.
(WW) The Fisher
Paradigm©™ is a simple thing, isn't it? So why do you have to complicate
it?
(PP) With all due respect, it is you
who complicates it by apparently reading conflict and complexity into this
paradigm.
(WW) I think your
approach ought to be to challenge people to discover this, to test this on
their own.
(PP) Yes, the person needs to
discover this for himself. This is the
definition of learning. By reading the
stories and commentaries, it is the reader who will see if they have any
validity to him.
(WW) But why give it a
structure and ask people to understand its inner workings. It's unexplainable
isn't it?
(PP) No, quite the contrary, it is
very understandable if people think of their own lives, think of puzzling or
contradictory moments, and how they happen to survive those moments.
Often, we think it is luck when it
is the unconscious -- the reptilian brain -- surfacing as if an angel on our
shoulder telling us this is not right, this is not good, this is not what it
seems, this is not for me.
(WW) It strikes me that
your book, above all, is a testimonial.
(PP) I can see where you would get
that idea. All my writing comes out of my empirical experience and I
write about that experience with the hypothesis that what I have experienced
equally is in your experience as well, but not necessarily at the conscious
level. I have trained myself to be conscious of invasions into it.
To wit, we are programmed to ignore
what is not obvious. When we are upset,
to take a happiness pill. The
pharmaceutical and behavioral science industries depend on that for their
survival. These industries monitor, manage
and manipulate our feelings as if we have no active role in the process.
We have been conned into believing
we are inscrutable to ourselves and only experts can ferret through the
recesses of our minds to find the key to our health and happiness.
Over the course of the last century,
experimental psychologists came to treat individuals like laboratory rats
tracking people’s behavior amassing behavioral data for businesses to exploit
and for economists to justify their analytics.
Consequently, the fault line between psychology and economics has
dissolved.
People have been complicit in this
charade by enthusiastically diffusing what makes them happy on smart watches,
fit-bits, Facebook and Twitter. We are
no longer in control, but we can be.
(WW) So you insist. True,
trusting and following your intuition has worked for you. There are numerous illustrations and examples
on how it has worked for you in this book. That is you. That is not me.
(PP) By the nature of the
formulation of this response, it implies that it will not or cannot or does not
apply equally to you. I think it does.
(WW) You're telling your
personal stories, but are your experiences likely to resonate with present day
conflicted rationalists; 'doubters'?
(PP) Obviously, that is something
that I do not know as I am not the most successful person at developing
connections with readers today. Apparently, I am not telling them what
they want to hear, that they are behaving like animals in the control of the
puppet master, the psychologist, the economist, the advertiser and politician.
Does that mean I should desist, or
that I should water down my approach? I don't think so. The teacher
arrives when the student is ready, and sometimes that doesn't happen in the
span of one's lifetime. I don't have any problem with that.
(WW) Possibly, you
don’t, but really, you're still shooting in the dark.
(PP) I prefer to see myself shooting
in the light.
(WW) You hope
they will with this self-confidence assessment, but you aren't sure.
(PP) I'm not sure but hope is the
wrong word. I wonder if people will have the courage to penetrate their cognitive
biases and marry the two sides of their minds to a common insight.
We talk so much about democracy when
it is all but gone. Nowhere is it less
apparent than in individual democracy with the self. In our corporate capitalistic society there
is no room for democracy, only for enforced harmony.
Science has been an unwitting
accomplice in this process. The tools of
scientific and economic analyses have penetrated deeply into our collective psyches
and emotional lives, leaving us as bystanders.
Instead of finding happiness and in control of our lives, what has been
instituted is the pathology of normalcy with its accompanying depression,
anxiety, bitterness and isolation.
(WW) This is your
message. My thought is you have to speak
to your audience... meet them where they are now, not where you are, or were.
To make a connection, you have to know them.
(PP) Conventional wisdom would agree
with you. I should get on my soapbox and
play the role of the guru, which I am not.
I am an ordinary man who has had an ordinary life making it his business
to understand what I have just explained.
My problem is that I know my
audience only too well, and I won't reduce my approach to that audience as a
gimmick or some bit of sensationalism to get its attention.
This audience will connect with me when
it is ready and not before. I just want my books and my ideas to be out
there when readiness is apparent. By the
accident of my birth, in this era of the Internet, that is possible. My only responsibility is to see that my
books get written.
(WW) As you explained it
to me, your 'Fisher Paradigm©™' is fundamentally a hidden source of human
"power". Yes? Without
question, the attraction of this power to individuals is just that;
"power".
(PP) Now, that is where I differ with
you. I am not enamored of the words "power" or "influence"
or "empowerment," as these words have become essentially meaningless.
I prefer a word you used earlier, "discovery," and that is a
singular individualistic undertaking.
(WW) Not to change the
subject, but I'm sure you know who Robert Greene is,
(PP) I have no idea who he is.
I looked him up on the Internet, and I don't doubt that his books are
well read.
(WW) They are, indeed,
well read. They also show how cynical
and manipulative his world is.
(PP) I know some see me as a
pessimist, and yes, some see me as cynical, but I'm quite sure anyone who has
read me does not see me as manipulative. I abhor manipulators, as you
know doubt have noticed in this book I call them "chameleons."
(WW) Back to
Greene. His '48 Laws of Power' strikes
me as a book with the exact opposite message of your Fisher Paradigm©™.
(PP) I suspect from what you have
said about his books that this is possibly true.
(WW) Greene's message is
'power' through the careful manipulation of circumstances and people. Your
message is about "power" too, but it is a hopeful, altruistic
vision.
(PP) Again, it is not about power,
but it is about getting in touch with both sides of your mind, which will
trigger, given the Fisher Paradigm©™, intuitive insight.
(WW) That's how you can
position yourself, your book. Those who want 'power', but reject Greene's cynical
world will find your message both palatable and liberating.
(PP) Once again, I am not advocating
my approach at the expense of another author. Nor am I interested in piggybacking
-- even negatively -- on the premise of another’s assessment of the opportunity
and the nature of the times. I am cultivating a very small patch from my
own experience and insight, which is presented as an alternative to readers.
(WW) I must confess at
this point calling the essence of this work the Fisher Paradigm©™ is also a problem
for me.
(PP) That is quite apparent and
quite honest as well as all right.
(WW) Quite frankly, it
makes it a closed space by suggesting that you own it,
(PP) That may be a perception but
not the intent. It is a unique approach and in that sense "I own
it" as I have owned many other possible spaces -- I prefer ideas -- as
they have come out of my head and no one else's.
(WW) You’re saying that
because you have discovered it. Well, for me, it is so close to
mysticism,
(PP) Yes, I am saying that because I
discovered the Fisher Paradigm©™, quite by accident, as I allude to that fact
in my writing.
Simple as it is, and widely
applicable as it has proven to be, it is certainly not mystical.
That said my definition of mysticism
is that which we do not understand in the context of our own minds and
thinking.
Spirituality is quite another thing.
Spirituality is the recognition that there is a world beyond the material world
that drives us, leads us, controls us, and sustains us that we know exists but
don't know quite what to make of it.
Consequently, we let religion decide
what it means and why the spiritual is important. I have read too deeply
into the origins of the early Christian Church to realize early Christians were
as mystified (your word) as we are as to our spiritual nature or its hold on us
vis-a-vis the material world.
(WW) Spirituality, and that whole
idea, including the Holy Ghost and superstition, the way I understand these
things, is that they are certainly not new. So, if they are not new, and if they
have been known for thousands of years, what’s the point?
(PP) Certainly, not being new is not
the point. Not being new is not even relevant.
We are reaching the point of
realizing that the "Holy Ghost" and all the other artifacts of
Christianity are inventions, inventions that were deemed necessary over the centuries.
Now, we have reached the point where
it is possible to get inside spirituality, and use it for our own purposes, and
not be amazed or frightened by it.
(WW) Then what is really
novel about your approach?
(PP) Nothing! That is the
point. I am simply pointing out the obvious.
(WW) As I said, I feel
you are offering a personal testimonial of its existence,
(PP) I find that sad that that is
all you have gotten out of this. I respect that your comment is
genuine, as is your struggle to understand my intentions.
(WW) More than anything
else in the case relating it to self-confidence, I see you just taking the long
way around. You want to help people re-activate a latent human power,
(PP) No, no. no! I want them
to get in touch with themselves in the most intimate way and then they will be
able to "read" and "understand" others in ways they never
knew they could before. They will better understand themselves, not for
leverage, but for peace and tranquility, for health and happiness.
They will not be intimidated by condescension,
or by bullies or know-it-alls, but will see that the nakedness of others is
showing. Therefore, they will be able to deal with others more
effectively and positively.
(WW) Are you not
substituting something with as much baggage as 'confidence' or
'self-confidence'?
(PP) Wow! Confidence and
self-confidence is baggage!
(WW) Let's face it.
'Self-confidence' is psychological talk.
(PP) Yes, and I am a trained
psychologist of the industrial kind.
(WW) But psychology is
anti-spiritual and inner-directed.
(PP) It can be but it doesn't have
to be. This is not so in any of my books, articles, seminars, speeches or
missives on the web.
As long as we are mystified by the
spiritual, we will treat it as mystical, or so remote from our comprehension
that it will be beyond our purview and therefore of use or value to us.
We are not one dimensional beings
however stubbornly we insist to act as such.
(WW) Your concept of a
suppressed almost spiritual 'human potential' is anything but.
(PP) “Human potential" is
another concept that has no meaning to me, mainly, because it makes the
spiritual a mechanism when it is simply an integral part of who and what we
are. We don't have to do "work" to be spiritual. We only
have to remind the head it also has a heart.
(WW) What people really
will like, what you are offering, is something direct and simple.
(PP) Yes, it is pretty hard to get
simpler than the Fisher Paradigm©™, however much we persist in making the
simple, complex.
(WW) You are saying
'open your mind to the possibilities' of something totally opposite to
'rational' thinking. Great! Now, if people do so, and they like what it does
for them, you have to realize, they no longer fit into our obsessively rational
industrial society; a corporatized world,
(PP) Of course, they won't. The shift will not be radical, but tectonic. Jeremy Bentham’s was advocating “pain and
pleasure” 250 years ago, then a hundred years ago along came Freud with his “pleasure
principle.”
We have all but abandoned the
philosophical notions of “rights, obligations and duties,” which in turn has
found us abandoning democracy and self-responsibility.
So, it will be difficult for people to
go against their own cognitive dissonance to entertain the possibility that
they are living in a dying system. Therefore, they go along to get along,
until they no longer can.
(WW) Our corporate
world, that you often disparage, is a world where everything is concrete and
quantifiable. So you must include in the book some practical suggestions for
people to tap into their intuitive powers,
(PP) I think I do, as the book is
replete with such suggestions. Then,
too, there is the self-test that should prove interesting to readers in that
regard.
(WW) Don’t you see that people are forced to
manage a shallow, excessively rational world that constantly strives to limit
them? Can’t you see that your ideas may
open them to experience personal crises?
(PP) Counterintuitively, I say
"good" if that causes them to rethink where they are, who they are
and where they are going.
(WW) How would you have
them do that?
(PP) If they have the courage, and I
think many do, they will find the way, and it will be their way, not my
way.
(WW) That is what your
book can do for people as I see it. But I prefer parables to personal, drawn
out stories myself.
(PP) Then write a book of parables!
I tell stories that is my approach. If they do not resonate, I am
sorry. That is my style.
Now, I don't suggest this facetiously,
that is, for you to write a book. Doing what you are doing here is what a
writer does when he writes a book. He gets inside words and ideas, and
yes, inside himself, to see what surfaces, and why. If it resonates with
others, fine. If it doesn't, it has not been wasted effort for he now
understands better this peculiar person that he happens to be. No writer no matter how learned and
sophisticated gets beyond the pale of his personal template.
(WW) If that is true, that
is the big challenge I would say; to activate imaginations, succinctly. If it
isn't practical and almost immediately actionable, people will tune out
quickly. It has to apply to them.
(PP) Only they can determine that.
I cannot.
Whew, I'm tired
now. Thinking is hard
work.
(PP) This has been good for you.
I cannot take you to where you cannot go. You know that. I
know that. And that is all right.
I am at the stage of my life when the distillate of a life of reflection,
contemplation, and discovery are either at their greatest or lowest as others
may choose to see. Never be afraid of your mind. It is the Holy Grail.
Thank you for your serious reflection.
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