Peter Sellers’ character Chauncey Gardner in the movie “Being There” said “there will be growth in the spring”.
While we anticipate the celebration of growth in the spring, let’s not forget the quiet, nurturing, reflective behaviors of winter that allow us to freeze ideas and thaw the best ones out for focused action in the spring.
Winter brings a time to honor the sometimes forgotten introverted part of our behaviors for without the quiet, nurturing, reflective behaviors of the introvert, the extroverted behaviors will surely burn out both the extrovert and introvert in the summer of the over extroverted behaviors of the personality. The end result is the much anticipated growth of the spring will be unsustainable.
Here are some thoughts that I have gleaned and added to what was originally inspired by Susan Cain’s TED Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html.
While we have gone from the Stone Age, to the Agricultural Age, to the Industrial Age, to the Information Age, we have been influenced away from a culture of character and values from the days of John A. Macdonald and George Washington.
The culture of character and values began to migrate to a culture of personality when people migrated from farms during the agricultural age to the cities and the industrial age where some people found they needed charisma and magnetism to stand out from everyone else by adapting and becoming more extroverted.
In the 70′s, the culture of personality became magnified by the self-help movement into more of a culture of extroverts while the characteristics and the values of the introvert were ignored and even seen as a weakness.
Along the way from character to personality, the true character-based self-actualized self got sidetracked adapting to the behaviors in the lower forms of unmet needs of worthiness, security, perfection, approval, power and control as Maslow explains in his 1950’s hierarchy of needs theory.
Adapting from your natural behavioral style to either an extroverted or introverted behavioral style can be a blessing if it is done consciously based on a person’s true values but unconsciously adapting to either an extroverted or introverted behavioral style runs the risk of triggering unresolved unmet needs and this can have a long-lasting and sometimes disastrous effect.
Getting one’s needs met is a foundational part of human development. Needs must be met. It is not an option and they must be met from within. As an adult, unmet needs cannot be met on a long-term basis through an outside person, possession or position. When needs are not met, the development of the true character-based self-actualized self slows down. Worse yet, if unmet needs are not met, the unmet needs will dominate values. The true self will be lost in the abyss of unmet-needs-driven negative beliefs and negative emotions that will dominate the true self’s characteristics, values, positive beliefs and positive feelings.
To motivate is based in need, desire or fear. Motivation is unsustainable because the false self, what is sometimes called the amygdala or emotional mind, will never let the true character-based self-actualized self believe it has or is enough. The false self doesn’t know what it needs or wants but it is always needing and wanting.
To inspire is to influence, move, or guide. Values are at the core of inspiration and unmet needs are at the core of motivation. Values are at the core of positive beliefs and positive emotions where, on the other hand, unmet needs are at the core of negative beliefs and negative emotions. This is the essence of the law of attraction; the law of attraction is absolute, we attract what we focus on.
To reawaken the culture of true character and values, we must remind ourselves that we are not human doings, we are human beings.
To be is to live ones values, to invest quiet time with the introverted part of the true self, to get quiet, to listen and to contemplate thoughts for future-focused extroverted action in the spring.
The definition of courage is being your true self by balancing your introverted and extroverted behaviors.
This article is offered as a learning experience as a result of my 40 years of experience of trying to adapt my introverted behavior to that of an extrovert throwing my true character-based self-actualized self out of balance in the process. I have come to the realization that I am an ambivert, a combination of both a strong introvert and an extrovert and that both behaviors must be honored individually to create balance. There is no such thing as a combination extrovert / introvert … one must take the time to honor both individually for sustainable long-lasting results.
Leading Advisor is my focus, my business and my passion. Living Your True Values – Curing The Unmet Needs Disease is my art. I continue to believe that Living Your True Values – Curing The Unmet Needs Disease is the missing link to fulfillment because if unmet needs are not understood, identified and met, unmet needs will dominate a person’s true values. They say that values are like turtles, they only come out when it is safe.
International Values and Behavioral Analyst, Business Coach, Speaker and Author
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