Getting to "IT"

Hello again,

It's now tomorrow and the biggest key in getting something done is getting started. I said that I might not be writing daily, but I also said I'd be writing consistently and often. Knowing what I know, I know that the trick in building a muscle is using it ... and if there's going to be a significant output here it's going to be like building a muscle ... using this forum as a point of outreach and contact.

While it may be a little off-topic (re: Social Ontology) I want to spend just another minute or so of your time here ... on building the "muscles" you want to develop ... or better put the "muscle and skin memories" that will get you what you want as you move through your life. Many, many, many people I meet tell me about what they want ... then they do nothing about it (or at least nothing different from what they've done so far that hasn't gotten them that) or if they are especially ambitious they begin planning. Some of course endlessly realize that they need more input BEFORE they can begin so they read more books, buy more CDs and DVDs about it, attend training programs ... all in the attempt to ready themselves to begin. And they are continuously surprised at remaining stuck where they found themselves to begin with and find themselves now ... NO SURPRISE TO ME!

Yet this is definitively NOT the strategy that people who are successful use in moving themselves forward. (Someday ask me the answer Roye gave me to the question, "How does a leopard change it's spots?) What the most successful people I've met do is to begin ... regardless. Not foolishly ... but definitely courageously. Let me give you an example I'm close to ...

About six years or so ago a very bright, very talented, already accomplished young man attended an early MythoSelf(tm) Process training program Nancy and I were running in Leichester, England. He was a graduate, practicing physician who was trained as a plastic surgeon. At the time he was doing locum work, or temporary work filling in as needed in hospitals around the U.K. He was doing this because he wanted to find a way to leave medicine and to be studying NLP and hypnosis. He was studying with the two folks who sponsored Nancy and I for the program in Leichester and that's how I met him. Let's take a jump forward for the sake of brevity ...

It occurred to him that he wanted to learn the process I was using in the program he attended and made it his business to learn with me. He was tenacious in attending programs I ran, and learning from and with me. Fast forward again to the meat of this story and he's now learned a tremendous amount. He's used it consistently in his own life, and he's used it in working with others ... but what he wants is to be in front of the room and training this material himself. He's not yet ready ... this is of course completely different from being competent or able ... he's not ready is all. And, yet to his credit he realizes something magnificent ... he will never be ready ... until after he's done what he's not ready for. He realized that he had to get up in front of the room BEFORE HE WAS READY FOR IT so that he could get ready. This is true of all those who have developed exquisite skills ... they put themselves in the arena.

Have you ever seen early movies, or even better commercials that some well-known, well-respected actors appeared in? Typically they are not very good, some are joke, and others are just bloody awful. But, they are persistent if they are to make it. They do the most magical thing imaginable ... they show up! And this is what this young doctor began to do as well ... he was showing up, not just attending programs.

So here it is, he's in front of the room, and he's presenting ... first just a few minutes in the morning of a program opening up the day. Then a small piece about a topic he's prepared later on during the program. Eventually I'm asking him to do this or do that with me up front. Then he's presenting whole sections from the front of the room - getting better with every presentation. Finally, I ask him to cover for me while I step away. This is the big time ... up in front, all alone ... and having to find a way to make it work. Of course he does, and to some extent brilliantly. This is the realization of a magnificent idea ... a dream become manifest.

We could recognize that he'd already proven he could stay the course as he'd graduated from medical school. We could say that he's exceptionally bright. We could say a lot of things about him ... and yet none of these things is really unique. There are a lot of people who have learned to be disciplined in getting what they want, in a controlled arena, playing by the rules set up by others - e.g.: school, there are a lot of bright people around, there are lot of talented people around ... and there's a damned sight fewer than there are successful people doing exactly what they want to be doing because they set a path and stuck it out ... hacking their way through the jungle of both obstacles and opportunities as they showed up. Yet this particular young doctor did exactly that.

Of course those who know him know that I'm talking about Dr. David McDermott, MythoSelf(tm) Master Trainer. They also know that he's as good as I'm portraying him to be. They've seen him in front of the room, they sat with him during an exercise, they had his attention in a one-to-one format explaining and demonstrating this work and experienced what it's like to be opposite of him when he's doing his magnificent work. Yet what they may not realize is how many times he stepped up to the plate BEFORE HE WAS READY so that he could learn to be ready all the time.

What's interesting is that regardless of how many I tell this story, or how many times David tells this story ... there will be more people who remain waiting to be ready than get "IT" and begin. Yet this is exactly the strategy of success ... BEGIN.

Best regards,

Joseph

Mind as well ... SOCIAL ONTOLOGY 101

Howdy all,

It's been more than six months since I've blogged ... it feels like a confession to say this ... however it's true.

The reason has been I haven't felt strongly enough about something to write about it regularly on this blog ... BUT NOW!

Those of you who give a damn will find that I'm going to being laying out here a new platform for the work that I do and the foundational basis (and bias) for it. This will be an ongoing series of explorations on the idea of "social ontology" and some explorations of evidence for it in the larger sense of society as well. I won't promise a daily blog, but a consistent outpouring. Of course it will be interesting to see your comments as well. So let's begin this blog of ours ...

Those of you who subscribe to my elist on Yahoo Groups for the MythoSelf(tm) Process work I do (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythoself-tm/) will find I've begun this discussion on Social Ontology there. In some ways this is a continuation of that discussion, but more accurately this is a new beginning of that discussion.

A couple of fair questions to begin with might be:

1. What is Social Ontology?
2. Why is any discussion of Social Ontology important to me?

So why don't we begin here, with the first question - "What is Social Ontology?" The most honest answer would be "I don't know." However, what I have found to be true is that in order to have a discussion or better yet a dialogue we have to have some agreement about what we talking about. That in essence begins to define what social ontology might be - a shared/collective agreement about what something means and for all intents and purposes "is." As we operate in our shared collective social environment we create meaning together. This meaning as we perceive it to be is our reality - and we co-create it collectively. That's as good a definition of social ontology as we need to begin with. As we continue we'll deepen this definition and the understanding that it brings to our discussion.

For now, let's move onto the second question - "Why is any discussion of Social Ontology important to me?" Here, not only do I not know the answer, there may not be "an" answer - but there might be several million answers depending on who's answering the question or whom it's being answered in regard to. Instead of attempting to answer a question that I have no answer for let me do something else and propose a reason for you to stick around in this discussion, and even possibly raise it to the level of dialogue. What about the idea that the only reality you have is a social reality, i.e.: the only thing you can experience is a social ontology? If that were in fact true would it give you enough of a reason to stick around for a bit?

Well my entire premise is based on that premise - the only reality you have is a social one. While I don't in any way discount a reality that exists a priori to our social reality what I am suggesting is that we have no way to access that one (should it exist). Our experience of "reality" whatever it is comes to us by way of our sensorial experience, both perceived and imagined. Further our social experience is grounded in our somatic processes – our physiology and it’s expressions.

The “kicker� here is that our somatic experience is in part formed before we’re born by our experience in the womb. Our mother’s movement, rhythms, vocalizations … all contribute to our somatic experience in vitro. Of course our mother’s chemical expressions and ingestions also affect our in vitro experience, again creating somatic experience for us. So before we even enter the world as infants separate from our mothers we have somatic imprints that begin to define us.

Then of course immediately upon our births we continue the process of having our somatic experience imprinted by contact with our primary caregivers. Regardless of who it is that feeds, clothes and cleans us there is a pattern or patterns to the way they do this. These patterns become imprinted upon us as well. The layering of somatic experience continues to grow as we become sensitized to and aware of the responses we get from our own expressions. How others respond to us BEFORE WE ARE CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF IT determine the pattern of expressions we begin to use to create those responses … the imprinting continues.

None of this will be surprising to any of my readers or students of the MythoSelf™ Process. The idea that we are imprinted with patterns of expression and response from before birth is intrinsic to the model I use. What’s interesting isn’t that, that’s been described in some way by almost every explanation of human behavior in the last hundred years, it's that the way the model I propose addresses this consideration is not simply historical but more to the point largely teleological. The question is how are our expectations about what hasn’t happened yet creating our expressions that in turn create what hasn’t happened yet?

Where I intend to take this discussion is towards describing how social ontology can explain and contribute to our ability to create the reality we experience, especially the one that hasn’t happened yet.

This is my answer to question number two, “Why is any discussion of Social Ontology important to me?� Because “getting it’ – what social ontology is and how it impact your life – will allow you greater opportunity and control over the creation of the reality that hasn’t happened yet, and your experience of it. By the way, as far as I’m concerned the reality that hasn’t happened yet is the only reality you can experience, but that’s for our next installment … maybe.

For now what I’d love is for a few things to happen … 1. I’d love to know if you’re interested enough to stick around, 2. I’d love to know what you think about the ideas I’m presenting, 3. I’d love to know what you’d like to see discussed here in this exploration, and 4. I’d love to know what question you have or comments you’d like to make about this whole topic and the way I’m proposing going about it.

Until we meet to create reality again ….

Joseph