Motivational Adaptation Quotes

A young outcast will often feel that there is something wrong with himself, but as he gets older, grows more confident in who he is, he will adapt, he will begin to feel that there is something wrong with everyone else.

Look around you. Everything changes. Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing…changing. You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant.

And these are your reasons, my lord?" "Do you think I have others?" said Lord Vetinari. "My motives, as ever, are entirely transparent." Hughnon reflected that 'entirely transparent' meant either that you could see right through them or that you couldn't see them at all.

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got.

Suicide is a form of murder— premeditated murder. It isn’t something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes some getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. It’s important to cultivate detachment. One way to do this is to practice imagining yourself dead, or in the process of dying. If there’s a window, you must imagine your body falling out the window. If there’s a knife, you must imagine the knife piercing your skin. If there’s a train coming, you must imagine your torso flattened under its wheels. These exercises are necessary to achieving the proper distance. The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. Anything I thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark—why not kill myself? Missed the bus—better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie—maybe I shouldn’t kill myself. In reality, it was only part of myself I wanted to kill: the part that wanted to kill herself, that dragged me into the suicide debate and made every window, kitchen implement, and subway station a rehearsal for tragedy.

The difference between those who adapted and those who didn't, Gorton said, was a willingness to totally commit.

At times what you expect and what happens don’t match. The faster you accept and adapt to what happened & work towards creating what you believed, that what you expected gets created in a whole new way..!

The person passionate about what he or she is doing will outwork and outlast the guy motivated solely by making money.

Jedi are always assessing situations, actions and possibilities. Jedi don’t just think outside of the box with the help from the Force, they also adapt to situations outside of the box!

In the modern workplace, you gotta be a jack-of-all-trades. Mastering your career is all about being adaptable, versatile, and always learning.

As the season changes, we learn to adapt.

Learn to master your thoughts and watch closely what you deposit into your spirit. Speak over your life. Living in peace has transformative power.

A friend once asked me what qualities were needed for SAS. I would say to be self-motivated and resilient; to be calm, yet have the ability to smile when it is grim; to be unflappable, be able to react fast and to have an ‘improvise, adapt and overcome’ mentality.

What someone may lack in talent can be more than made up for in self-motivation, self-direction, and follow-through.

If you do your best, stay in the game, learn along the way, and adapt as best you can, life has an incredible way of filling in the details for you.

Factual knowledge is not always sufficient by itself to motivate an adaptive behavior. At times a symbolic belief system that departs from factual reality fares better.

Adaptability and innovation are the root of victory. Chaos and fear are the birth of defeat.

The skills that got you here today are not the same ones that will take you confidently into the future. Continue to learn and adapt.

If you accept the situation, you will find strength for strategic adaptation.

With deliberate practice, however, the goal is not just to reach your potential but to build it, to make things possible that were not possible before. This requires challenging homeostasis—getting out of your comfort zone—and forcing your brain or your body to adapt.

Don’t adapt to the world like the rest of the flock, but rather let the world adapt to you and your unique ways; given time, it will find a place of its own in this world.

Embrace change and practice flexibility. It will make you more agile in adapting to new people and situations.

Don’t make your life complicated. Adapt to every circumstance.

Wisdom is the awareness and acknowledgement of the gap between life as you perceive, project and wish it to be and life as it is - and being shrewd and able (moment to moment) to flow, shift, act, adapt or just be accordingly.

The world is full of uncertainty and the road you are traveling may be a bit scary at times, but don’t ever lose faith. Let go of the scary things that are holding you back and start noticing the great realities unfolding around you. Most of all, believe in yourself and never give up on what’s important to you! Life is always going to present you with unexpected changes. But if you keep an open mind, look for the goodness in every situation and are able to adapt in any of life’s misfortunes, you will always prevail.

We are always people that are in the making, constantly adapting to accommodate the roads we walk. As we learn, it changes us. As we go about our course, we grow, and prune everything around us; friends, beliefs, desires. Our past experiences plant the seeds needed for our future roads, with all its turns, speed, and treachery.

Social oppression is at work when the ways of others diminish who we are or stop us from pursuing our own goals. Often the most highly adaptive among us are the least aware of this process, and often they are socially the least successful and authentic—they have adapted into a predictable character and have lost their spontaneity and authenticity.

In situation, we must adapt, survive and strive.

Be flexible like trees; when the wind blows bend, but do not break.

The sky does not despair when a star falls; it makes room for a new one.

FATHER Fortunate Adaptable Tolerant Heroic Enterprising Reliable

It's better to change and adapt, than to complain and remain.

Improvements enable adapting to new situations.

The winning strategy is the one that successfully adapts to the changing circumstances of time, place, and person.

A positive attitude will empower you to be more resilient to proactively adapt to change.

If you want to succeed, you have to adapt to changes, not to memories.

Survival is for those who are flexible; they are smart enough to adapt and they never give up!

Vaillant concluded that we adapt best to life when we are aware of our own feelings and motives and can assess reality objectively.

Necessity is the mother of invention;Copying the original,improving,perfecting and innovating to make more adaptable to present;Plagraism with good motives, it will spread with good result. Franchising is a form of copying to make the business to run in its form. You don't want to be copy, put it in the bowl. Originality has its origin; it depends to your intention.

What are the adaptive benefits of ritual participation, if any? One potential function of rituals is the role they play in generating social glue and driving cooperation. This glue appears to come in two main varieties: a very strong adhesive that motivates extreme self-sacrifice in small bands when facing challenging collective action problems such as outgroup threat, and a less powerful but highly spreadable adhesive that motivates conformism in much larger ‘imagined’ communities (such as nations or world religions), where group survival depends on being able to amass and centralize resources gathered from widely distributed populations.

A father’s success does not depend upon his ability to work and provide, to guard and protect, or to lecture and discipline. A father’s success does not depend upon his ability to guide and govern, to instruct and demonstrate, or to remedy and repair. A father’s success does not depend upon his ability to understand and relate, to adapt and change, or to entertain and play. A father’s success does, however, greatly depend upon his ability to love and be loved.

An ambivert navigates the introvert/extrovert spectrum with ease since they do not fit directly into either category. Since neither label applies to them, they are social chameleons who adapt to their environment to maximize their interaction and optimize their results.

Your encounters will be more successful when you slow down, pay attention, and become more mindfully aware of the world around you. Heightening your awareness in your social, situational, contextual, orientational, and cultural scenarios will improve your agility as you adapt to new social settings.

sexual jealousy, once considered by psychologists to be pathological or a character defect, is in fact a supremely important emotion motivating mate-retention solutions. Adaptive in the evolutionary sense of leading to greater survival and reproductive success, of course, does not mean morally good.

4 Steps for Understanding Each Other 1. Identify your beliefs and core values; ask how they determine your behaviors and habits. 2. Realize with whom you are interacting and try to identify how their values are explaining their behavior. 3. Assume positive intent. 4. Seek ways to adapt your behavior to help bridge the cultural gap.

Yes I have done it all. Tested the shallow waters, swam through the dangerous tides, met strangers, seen friends turn strangers, taken risks to achieve my goals, persevered to out do myself each time, rose high, fell hard, learned to climb, learned to dream and in dreaming learned to relate to reality. I have earned respect, achieved things very young, believed in my potential, questioned it too but through it all I have never stopped to aspire. I am a human and I must adapt to the changing seasons, learn new skills and master them all. Now as I stand and look up, I see a heap of laurels yet to achieve and chest of mysteries yet to resolve. I am not one in the crowd. I'll forever be the one whom they could never be

The 9/11 attacks activated several of these group-related adaptations in my mind. The attacks turned me into a team player, with a powerful and unexpected urge to display my team’s flag and then do things to support the team, such as giving blood, donating money, and, yes, supporting the leader.31 And my response was tepid compared to the hundreds of Americans who got in their cars that afternoon and drove great distances to New York in the vain hope that they could help to dig survivors out of the wreckage, or the thousands of young people who volunteered for military service in the following weeks. Were these people acting on selfish motives, or groupish motives? The rally-round-the-flag reflex is just one example of a groupish mechanism.

Productivity -- real, self-driven productivity -- was one of the first entrepreneurial skills I learned. It served me well when I was on my own, and it has served me even better as an employee because it requires a kind of organization and self-motivation that employees aren't necessarily incentivized to cultivate. After all, if you are superproductive, all you'll get is more work to do, right?

Throughout our lives we are confronted with what seems like a never-ending task: trying to grasp the full scope of reality. As children, we adapt to circumstances by using the psychological defenses available to us. As we mature, we have to confront the defensive illusions we have constructed. If our psyches can tolerate the loss, we continue to let in more and more of human nature's reality: its dark and shadowy aspects, its limitations, and finally, recognition of the fragility of our brief sojourn on this planet. Psychological maturity involves the ongoing process of integrating into our conscious, everyday selves the full range of elements that make up the psyche inside us as well as those elements that make up the world that surrounds us. Inevitably what we must face is a mixture of our motives and deeds, and the similar paradox in others.

While motivation is what keeps us going when it would be easier to give up, resilience matches this drive with the ability to bounce back from adverse situations and adapt to cope better in the future. Having a clear “why” inspires us to look at obstacles flexibly when they stand in the path of our hopes. Defeatism isn’t an option for a motivated person, so if you’re serious about maximizing The Source and building a resilient brain it’s important to understand your own motivations.

The human mind is stimulated by change, motivated by meeting the challenge of novelty or threat or pleasure, rewarded with the sensations of being instrumental in altering environments, and will persevere in this as long as there is some degree of perceivable progress. People turn to knitting baby booties, doing crossword puzzles, collecting rare coins; they may even make an effort to understand E=mc2 or to study the genetic adaptations of cacti, but in all cases, they need to see some fruit of their labors.

Without taking into account the ways in which money has motivated oppression, we are missing an essential layer as to why so many powerful and influential entities, business owners, entrepreneurs, and moguls refuse to take on social justice: it’s just not cost effective to do so. And this legacy has continued and even adapted as some businesses have feigned a more populist message regarding representation of women. Regardless of how many times they can say “feminist!” in a product or ad, it’s the allegiance to money that has hindered progress.

Because much of the content of education is not cognitively natural, the process of mastering it may not always be easy and pleasant, notwithstanding the mantra that learning is fun. Children may be innately motivated to make friends, acquire status, hone motor skills, and explore the physical world, but they are not necessarily motivated to adapt their cognitive faculties to unnatural tasks like formal mathematics. A family, peer group, and culture that ascribe high status to school achievement may be needed to give a child the motive to persevere toward effortful feats of learning whose rewards are apparent only over the long term.

Happiness is an adaptation which, in times past, motivated us to seek that which was good for us. Our happiness-seeking circuitry, long evolved in situations where sugar, comfort, abundance, and safe thrills were rare, is now on overdrive, helping us find that which markets have made ubiquitous. So we need to reschool our happiness-seeking circuitry, train it to find and appreciate legitimately rare or valuable things. Sugar, comfort, abundance, and safe thrills are no longer legitimately rare or valuable. Love and relationship, and the time and space to exist in ways not dictated by external forces—these are increasingly rare, and have always been valuable.

Introverts typically . . . • Process information internally. It is normal for them to continuously contemplate, generate, circulate, evaluate, question, and conclude. • Are rejuvenated and energized by rest, relaxation, and down-time. • Need time to process and adapt to a new situation or setting, otherwise it is draining. • Tend to be practical, simple, and neutral in their clothing, furnishings, offices, and surroundings. • Choose their friends carefully and focus on quality, not quantity. They enjoy the company of people who have similar interests and intellect. • May resist change if they are not given enough notice to plan, prepare, and execute. Sudden change creates stress and overwhelm.

Imaginary Lives Imaginary Lives is a thought experiment I have adapted from two important career-change thinkers, Julia Cameron and John Williams, which aims to take your ideas a stage closer towards specific job options.55 It’s simple but potentially powerful. • Imagine five parallel universes, in each of which you could have a whole year off to pursue absolutely any career you desired. Now think of five different jobs you might want to try out in each of these universes. Be bold in your thinking, have fun with your ideas and your multiple selves. Your five choices might be food photographer, member of parliament, tai chi instructor, social entrepreneur running a youth education project, and wide-achieving Renaissance generalist. One person I know who did this activity – a documentary film maker who was having doubts about her career – listed massage therapist, sculptor, cellist, screen-play writer, and owner of her own bar on a tiny, old-fashioned Canarian island. Now come back down to earth and look hard at your five choices. Write down what it is about them that attracts you. Then look at them again, and think about this question: • How does each career measure up against the two motivations in the previous activity that you chose to prioritize in the future? If you decided, for instance, that you want a combination of making a difference and high status, check whether your five imaginary careers might provide them. The point is to help you think more deeply about exactly what you are looking for in a career, the kind of experiences that you truly desire.

The opposite of alienation is integration, a psychological sense of connection and wholeness.[1] People whose identities are integrated can see a through-line connecting the many selves they have been across various times and places. Every human being changes over time, of course, and alters their behavior depending on the situation or setting they’re in. There is no static “true self” that stops adapting and changing. To a masked Autistic person, this fact can be really disturbing, because we may lack a consistent “story” to tell ourselves about who we really are. Our personalities are just means to an end, externally motivated rather than driven by some internal force or desire. Someone with an integrated identity isn’t disturbed by change and variance, though, because they see a connection that endures across the many people they have been: core values that persist across their life span, and a narrative of personal growth that explains how they moved from the person they once were, to who they are today.[2]

We grossly overestimate the length of the effect of misfortune on our lives. You think that the loss of your fortune or current position will be devastating, but you are probably wrong. More likely, you will adapt to anything, as you probably did after past misfortunes. You may feel a sting, but it will not be as bad as you expect. This kind of misprediction may have a purpose: to motivate us to perform important acts (like buying new cars or getting rich) and to prevent us from taking certain unnecessary risks. And it is part of a more general problem: we humans are supposed to fool ourselves a little bit here and there. According to Trivers’s theory of self-deception, this is supposed to orient us favorably toward the future. But self-deception is not a desirable feature outside of its natural domain. It prevents us from taking some unnecessary risks—but we saw in Chapter 6 how it does not as readily cover a spate of modern risks that we do not fear because they are not vivid, such as investment risks, environmental dangers, or long-term security.

behaviors. Alcohol becomes more important because drinking it excessively tricks a primitive, unconscious part of our brain into believing it’s more critical to our survival than it actually is. The artificially high levels of dopamine that flood the brain when we ingest alcohol begin a cascade of other reactions and responses. The brain has a hedonic set point (a term coined by Dr. Kevin McCauley), which means that it both needs a certain amount of dopamine to register pleasure, and is programmed to downgrade levels of dopamine when we receive too much pleasure. Our bodies are constantly trying to find stasis, or balance, and the hedonic set point is an example of that. When high levels of dopamine are regularly released into the system from chronic use of alcohol, the dopamine is down-regulated (or balanced) by something called corticotropin-releasing factor, or CRF—a hormone that makes us feel anxious or stressed. If we flood our system with higher-than-normal levels of dopamine, we also flood our system with higher-than-normal levels of CRF, or anxiety. Over time, when our system is assaulted by surges of dopamine, our hedonic set point goes up (requiring more dopamine to feel good), and things that used to register as pleasurable (like warm hugs or our children’s laughter) don’t release enough dopamine to hit that raised baseline. To boot, activities that normally relieve stress, like a bath or a brisk walk, also lose their effectiveness. Alcohol becomes the quickest way our body learns to handle anxiety (which begets more anxiety because alcohol is a depressant, and the body reacts to it by releasing cortisol and adrenaline, which means the net effect of a glass of wine is more stress, not less). Our bodies are adaptive, and they adapt to an environment that expects the effects of alcohol. So here we are: we start using alcohol because it gives us more pleasure than sex and does more for stress management than chamomile tea. Over time it gets wrapped up in our survival response, so we are motivated to drink with the same force that motivates us to eat—only the force is stronger than the desire to eat because our midbrain, which ranks everything based on dopamine, thinks we need alcohol more than food. That seems like enough fuckery to contend with, but there’s more to the story.

As Frances had learned to do in times of uncertainty, she created a project over which she had total control and began writing a book “Dedicated to the memory of Irving Thalberg as a tribute to his vision and genius.” How to Write and Sell Film Stories was written for “serious students of film technique.” She filled the straightforward textbook with anecdotes from her films and others’ to convey the lessons on the development of plot, motivation, and characters she had learned with Thalberg. She had come to believe that because of increased censorship and the limited number of adaptable plays and novels, “eighty percent of the motion pictures produced will be soon be stories written exclusively for the screen” and the time was right for a book on original screenplays. The audience for the book was immediate; universities ordered copies before it was published and it quickly went into several printings. The book led to her taking on an advice column on screen writing for Cinema Progress, a serious educational film magazine published by the American Institute of Cinematography based at the University of Southern California. She opened her house to roundtable discussions with students and sponsored a scenario contest with the winners serving as studio “apprentices.

John Quincy Adams on Islam: “In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE…. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant…While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.” (Emphasis in the original)

Situation awareness means possessing an explorer mentality A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows positively where he is. When armies are face to face, the least accident in the ground, the smallest wood, may conceal part of the enemy army. The most experienced eye cannot be sure whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army or only three-fourths. It is by the mind’s eye, by the integration of all reasoning, by a kind of inspiration that the general sees, knows, and judges. ~Napoleon 5   In order to effectively gather the appropriate information as it’s unfolding we must possess the explorer mentality.  We must be able to recognize patterns of behavior. Then we must recognize that which is outside that normal pattern. Then, you take the initiative so we maintain control. Every call, every incident we respond to possesses novelty. Car stops, domestic violence calls, robberies, suspicious persons etc.  These individual types of incidents show similar patterns in many ways. For example, a car stopped normally pulls over to the side of the road when signaled to do so.  The officer when ready, approaches the operator, a conversation ensues, paperwork exchanges, and the pulled over car drives away. A domestic violence call has its own normal patterns; police arrive, separate involved parties, take statements and arrest aggressor and advise the victim of abuse prevention rights. We could go on like this for all the types of calls we handle as each type of incident on its own merits, does possess very similar patterns. Yet they always, and I mean always possess something different be it the location, the time of day, the person you are dealing with. Even if it’s the same person, location, time and day, the person you’re dealing who may now be in a different emotional state and his/her motives and intent may be very different. This breaks that normal expected pattern.  Hence, there is a need to always be open-minded, alert and aware, exploring for the signs and signals of positive or negative change in conditions. In his Small Wars journal article “Thinking and Acting like an Early Explorer” Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege (US Army Ret.) describes the explorer mentality:   While tactical and strategic thinking are fundamentally different, both kinds of thinking must take place in the explorer’s brain, but in separate compartments. To appreciate this, think of the metaphor of an early American explorer trying to cross a large expanse of unknown terrain long before the days of the modern conveniences. The explorer knows that somewhere to the west lies an ocean he wants to reach. He has only a sketch-map of a narrow corridor drawn by a previously unsuccessful explorer. He also knows that highly variable weather and frequent geologic activity can block mountain passes, flood rivers, and dry up desert water sources. He also knows that some native tribes are hostile to all strangers, some are friendly and others are fickle, but that warring and peace-making among them makes estimating their whereabouts and attitudes difficult.6

In consequence of the inevitably scattered and fragmentary nature of our thinking, which has been mentioned, and of the mixing together of the most heterogeneous representations thus brought about and inherent even in the noblest human mind, we really possess only *half a consciousness*. With this we grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lighting. But what is to be expected generally from heads of which even the wisest is every night the playground of the strangest and most senseless dreams, and has to take up its meditations again on emerging from these dreams? Obviously a consciousness subject to such great limitations is little fitted to explore and fathom the riddle of the world; and to beings of a higher order, whose intellect did not have time as its form, and whose thinking therefore had true completeness and unity, such an endeavor would necessarily appear strange and pitiable. In fact, it is a wonder that we are not completely confused by the extremely heterogeneous mixture of fragments of representations and of ideas of every kind which are constantly crossing one another in our heads, but that we are always able to find our way again, and to adapt and adjust everything. Obviously there must exist a simple thread on which everything is arranged side by side: but what is this? Memory alone is not enough, since it has essential limitations of which I shall shortly speak; moreover, it is extremely imperfect and treacherous. The *logical ego*, or even the *transcendental synthetic unity of apperception*, are expressions and explanations that will not readily serve to make the matter comprehensible; on the contrary, it will occur to many that “Your wards are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder.” Kant’s proposition: “The *I think* must accompany all our representations ,” is insufficient; for the “I” is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret. What gives unity and sequence to consciousness, since by pervading all the representations of consciousness, it is its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, and therefore cannot be a representation. On the contrary, it must be the *prius* of consciousness, and the root of the tree of which consciousness is the fruit. This, I say, is the *will*; it alone is unalterable and absolutely identical, and has brought forth consciousness for its own ends. It is therefore the will that gives unity and holds all its representations and ideas together, accompanying them, as it were, like a continuous ground-bass. Without it the intellect would have no more unity of consciousness than has a mirror, in which now one thing now another presents itself in succession, or at most only as much as a convex mirror has, whose rays converge at an imaginary point behind its surface. But it is *the will* alone that is permanent and unchangeable in consciousness. It is the will that holds all ideas and representations together as means to its ends, tinges them with the colour of its character, its mood, and its interest, commands the attention, and holds the thread of motives in its hand. The influence of these motives ultimately puts into action memory and the association of ideas. Fundamentally it is the will that is spoken of whenever “I” occurs in a judgement. Therefore, the will is the true and ultimate point of unity of consciousness, and the bond of all its functions and acts. It does not, however, itself belong to the intellect, but is only its root, origin, and controller.

The world can be validly construed as a forum for action, as well as a place of things. We describe the world as a place of things, using the formal methods of science. The techniques of narrative, however – myth, literature, and drama – portray the world as a forum for action. The two forms of representation have been unnecessarily set at odds, because we have not yet formed a clear picture of their respective domains. The domain of the former is the 'objective world' – what is, from the perspective of intersubjective perception. The domain of the latter is 'the world of value' – what is and what should be, from the perspective of emotion and action. The world as forum for action is 'composed,' essentially, of three constituent elements, which tend to manifest themselves in typical patterns of metaphoric representation. First is unexplored territory – the Great Mother, nature, creative and destructive, source and final resting place of all determinate things. Second is explored territory – the Great Father, culture, protective and tyrannical, cumulative ancestral wisdom. Third is the process that mediates between unexplored and explored territory – the Divine Son, the archetypal individual, creative exploratory 'Word' and vengeful adversary. We are adapted to this 'world of divine characters,' much as the 'objective world.' The fact of this adaptation implies that the environment is in 'reality' a forum for action, as well as a place of things. Unprotected exposure to unexplored territory produces fear. The individual is protected from such fear as a consequence of 'ritual imitation of the Great Father' – as a consequence of the adoption of group identity, which restricts the meaning of things, and confers predictability on social interactions. When identification with the group is made absolute, however – when everything has to be controlled, when the unknown is no longer allowed to exist – the creative exploratory process that updates the group can no longer manifest itself. This 'restriction of adaptive capacity' dramatically increases the probability of social aggression and chaos. Rejection of the unknown is tantamount to 'identification with the devil,' the mythological counterpart and eternal adversary of the world-creating exploratory hero. Such rejection and identification is a consequence of Luciferian pride, which states: all that I know is all that is necessary to know. This pride is totalitarian assumption of omniscience – is adoption of 'God’s place' by 'reason' – is something that inevitably generates a state of personal and social being indistinguishable from hell. This hell develops because creative exploration – impossible, without (humble) acknowledgment of the unknown – constitutes the process that constructs and maintains the protective adaptive structure that gives life much of its acceptable meaning. 'Identification with the devil' amplifies the dangers inherent in group identification, which tends of its own accord towards pathological stultification. Loyalty to personal interest – subjective meaning – can serve as an antidote to the overwhelming temptation constantly posed by the possibility of denying anomaly. Personal interest – subjective meaning – reveals itself at the juncture of explored and unexplored territory, and is indicative of participation in the process that ensures continued healthy individual and societal adaptation. Loyalty to personal interest is equivalent to identification with the archetypal hero – the 'savior' – who upholds his association with the creative 'Word' in the face of death, and in spite of group pressure to conform. Identification with the hero serves to decrease the unbearable motivational valence of the unknown; furthermore, provides the individual with a standpoint that simultaneously transcends and maintains the group.

forgot about my huge goal. I focused on what I could control: what I did every day. After a little experimentation and a lot of thought, I settled on a process. Because the Internet never sleeps, here’s what I did every day: Write a new post. Without fail. No excuses. Build relationships. I contacted three people who tweeted my posts that day, choosing the three who seemed most influential, the most noteworthy, the most “something” (even if that “something” was just “thoughtful comment”). Then I sent an e-mail—not a tweet—and said thanks. My goal was to make a genuine connection. Build my network. I contacted one person who might be a great source for a future post. I aimed high: CEOs, founders, entrepreneur-celebrities . . . people with instant credibility and engaged followings. Many didn’t respond. But some did. And some have become friends and appear in this book. Add three more items to my “list of great headlines.” Headlines make or break posts: A great post with a terrible headline will not get read. So I worked hard to learn what worked for other people—and to adapt their techniques for my own use. Evaluate recent results. I looked at page views. I looked at shares and likes and tweets. I tried to figure out what readers responded to, what readers cared about. Writing for a big audience has little to do with pleasing yourself and everything to do with pleasing an audience, and the only way to know what worked was to know the audience. Ignore my editor. I liked my editor. But I didn’t want her input because she knew only what worked for columnists who were read by a maximum of 300,000 people each month. My goal was to triple that, which meant I needed to do things differently. We occasionally disagreed, and early on I lost some of those battles. Once my numbers started to climb, I won a lot more often, until eventually I was able to do my own thing. Sounds simple, right? In a way it was, because I followed a self-reinforcing process:

Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration. I would strictly deny that one's search or a meaning to his existence, or even his doubt of it, in every case is derived from, or results in, any disease. Existential frustration is neither pathological or pathogenic. A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. it may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient's existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development. Logotherapy regards its assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life. Inasmuch as logotherapy makes him aware of the hidden logos of his existence, it is an analytical process. To this extent, logotherapy resembles psychoanalysis. However, in logotherapy's attempt to make something conscious again it does not restrict its activity to instinctual facts within the individual's unconscious bu also cares for existential realities, such as the potential meaning of his existence to be fulfilled as well as his will to meaning. Any analysis, however, even when it refrains from including the noological dimension in its therapeutic process, tries to make the patient aware of what he actually longs for in the depth of his being. Logotherapy deviates from psychoanalysis insofar as it considers man a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts, or in merely reconciling the conflict claims of id, ego and supergo, or in the mere adaptation and adjustment to society and environment.

Students of the theory of ethics call only those acts "good" which are the expression of good impulses and refuse to acknowledge others as such. But society is on the whole guided by practical aims and does not bother about this distinction; it is satisfied if a man adapts his conduct and his actions to the precepts of civilization and asks little about his motives. We have heard that the outer compulsion which education and environment exercise upon a man brings about a further transformation of his impulse life for the good, the change from egotism to altruism. But this is not the necessary or regular effect of the outer compulsion. Education and environment have not only love premiums to offer but work with profit premiums of another sort, namely rewards and punishments. They can therefore bring it about that a person subject to their influence decides in favor of good conduct in the civilized sense without any ennobling of impulse or change from egotistic into altruistic inclinations. On the whole the consequence remains the same; only special circumstances will reveal whether the one person is always good because his impulses compel him to be so while another person is good only in so far as this civilized behavior is of advantage to his selfish purposes. But our superficial knowledge of the individual gives us no means of distinguishing the two cases, and we shall certainly be misled by our optimism into greatly over-estimating the number of people who have been transformed by civilization. Civilized society, which demands good conduct and does not bother about the impulse on which it is based, has thus won over a great many people to civilized obedience who do not thereby follow their own natures. Encouraged by this success, society has permitted itself to be misled into putting the ethical demands as high as possible, thereby forcing its members to move still further from their emotional dispositions. A continual emotional suppression is imposed upon them, the strain of which is indicated by the appearance of the most remarkable reactions and compensations. In the field of sexuality, where such suppression is most difficult to carry out, it results in reactions known as neurotic ailments. In other fields the pressure of civilization shows no pathological results but manifests itself in distorted characters and in the constant readiness of the inhibited impulses to enforce their gratification at any fitting opportunity.

There are two fundamentally different ways for the strong to bend down to the weak, for the rich to help the poor, for the more perfect life to help the “less perfect.” This action can be motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one’s own life and existence. All this unites into the clear awareness that one is rich enough to share one’s being and possessions. Love, sacrifice, help, the descent to the small and the weak, here spring from a spontaneous overflow of force, accompanied by bliss and deep inner calm. Compared to this natural readiness for love and sacrifice, all specific “egoism,” the concern for oneself and one’s interest, and even the instinct of “self-preservation” are signs of a blocked and weakened life. Life is essentially expansion, development, growth in plenitude, and not “self-preservation,” as a false doctrine has it. Development, expansion, and growth are not epiphenomena of mere preservative forces and cannot be reduced to the preservation of the “better adapted.” ... There is a form of sacrifice which is a free renunciation of one’s own vital abundance, a beautiful and natural overflow of one’s forces. Every living being has a natural instinct of sympathy for other living beings, which increases with their proximity and similarity to himself. Thus we sacrifice ourselves for beings with whom we feel united and solidary, in contrast to everything “dead.” This sacrificial impulse is by no means a later acquisition of life, derived from originally egoistic urges. It is an original component of life and precedes all those particular “aims” and “goals” which calculation, intelligence, and reflection impose upon it later. We have an urge to sacrifice before we ever know why, for what, and for whom! Jesus’ view of nature and life, which sometimes shines through his speeches and parables in fragments and hidden allusions, shows quite clearly that he understood this fact. When he tells us not to worry about eating and drinking, it is not because he is indifferent to life and its preservation, but because he sees also a vital weakness in all “worrying” about the next day, in all concentration on one’s own physical well-being. ... all voluntary concentration on one’s own bodily wellbeing, all worry and anxiety, hampers rather than furthers the creative force which instinctively and beneficently governs all life. ... This kind of indifference to the external means of life (food, clothing, etc.) is not a sign of indifference to life and its value, but rather of a profound and secret confidence in life’s own vigor and of an inner security from the mechanical accidents which may befall it. A gay, light, bold, knightly indifference to external circumstances, drawn from the depth of life itself—that is the feeling which inspires these words! Egoism and fear of death are signs of a declining, sick, and broken life. ... This attitude is completely different from that of recent modern realism in art and literature, the exposure of social misery, the description of little people, the wallowing in the morbid—a typical ressentiment phenomenon. Those people saw something bug-like in everything that lives, whereas Francis sees the holiness of “life” even in a bug.

All human development, according to Silvan Tompkins, is rooted in affect (feeling) dynamics because affects (feelings) are the primary innate biological motivator of human life. Our anger is the energy that gives us strength. The Incredible Hulk becomes the huge, powerful hulk when he needs the energy and power to take care of others. Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. As we discharge the energy over the losses relating to our basic needs, we can integrate the shock of those losses and adapt to reality. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the “healing feeling.” Fear releases an energy that warns us of danger to our basic needs. Fear is an energy leading to our discernment and wisdom.

The twelve management principles of IBM are: Principle #1 - The purpose and mission should be set clearly. Additionally noble and fair objective should be set. Principle #2 – Goals should be specific and when the targets are set, employees should be notified. Principle #3 – Your heart should always be full with strong and persistent passionate desire. Principle #4 – You should be the one who strives for the most. The tasks that you set should be reasonable, and you should work hard on completion. Principle #5 – Costs should be minimized and profit should be maximized. The profit should not be chased but the inflows and the outflows should be controlled. Principle #6 – Top management should be the one to set pricing strategy. They need to find the perfect balance between profitability and happy customers. Principle #7 – The business management requires strong will. Principle #8 - The manager should have corresponding mentality. Principle #9 – Every challenge should be faced with courage. Each challenge should be resolved in fair way. Principle #10 – Creativity should always be present. New stop to innovate and improve, otherwise you will not be able to compete in today’s tough world. Principle #11 – Never forget to be a human. You need to be kind, fair and sincere. Principle #12 – Never lose your hope. Be positive, happy, cheerful and keep your hopes alive. Deciding which way you want your company to go is essential for ensuring success. You can follow IBM’s example, or adapt these principles to fit your situation. I always recommend that you ensure that every employee knows your principles. Employees will feel more confident, secure and motivated if they start working in a company that knows what it wants, where it will be in 10 years, what should be done in order to reach the specific/or set goals, etc. Once you have your principles it is important that you follow them as well. Leading from the front is the best way to inspire those around you.

Lamin Sanneh, a Christian scholar converted from his Islamic roots in the Gambia, West Africa, now teaches at Yale University. His book Translating the Message: the Missionary Impact on Culture offers an answer to the question: Do missionaries destroy indigenous cultures?' In spite of the fact that missionaries might have come with mixed motives and even superiority complexes, they translated the Bible into indigenous languages and adapted and contextualized its message to local cultures. Sanneh observes that by translating the Bible into vernacular languages, Christian missionaries actually helped to preserve cultures and languages. According to Sanneh, rather than serving as a tool for Western cultural domination, the translation efforts of European and North American missionaries provoked: (1) vernacular revitalization: the preservation of specific cultures by preserving their language; (2) religious change: people were attracted to Christianity and a "God who speaks my language" over Islam, which is fundamentally not translatable; and (3) social transformation: the dignity associated with God speaking indigenous languages revitalized societies and laid the foundation for the eventual ousting of colonial powers.2

We survived life by adaptation to the changing situation.

Kemmer is not always played by pairs. Pairing seems to be the commonest custom, but in the kemmerhouses of towns and cities, groups may form and intercourse take place promiscuously among the males and females of the group. The furthest extreme from this practice is the custom of vowing kemmering (Karh. oskyommer), which is to all intents and purposes monogamous marriage. It has no legal status, but socially and ethically is an ancient and vigorous institution. The whole structure of the Karhidish Clan-Hearths and Domains is indubitably based upon the institution of monogamous marriage. I am not sure of divorce rules in general; here in Osnoriner there is divorce, but no remarriage after either divorce or the partner’s death: one can only vow kemmering once. Descent of course is reckoned, all over Gethen, from the mother, the “parent in the flesh” (Karh. amha). Incest is permitted, with various restrictions, between siblings, even the full siblings of a vowed-kemmering pair. Siblings are not however allowed to vow kemmering, nor keep kemmering after the birth of a child to one of the pair. Incest between generations is strictly forbidden (In Karhide/Orgoreyn; but is said to be permitted among the tribesmen of Perunter, the Antarctic Continent. This may be slander.). What else have I learned for certain? That seems to sum it up. There is one feature of this anomalous arrangement that might have adaptive value. Since coitus takes place only during the period of fertility, the chance of conception is high, as with all mammals that have an estrous cycle. In harsh conditions where infant mortality is great, a race survival value may be indicated. At present neither infant mortality nor the birthrate runs high in the civilized areas of Gethen. Tinibossol estimates a population of not over 100 million on the Three Continents, and considers it to have been stable for at least a millennium. Ritual and ethical absention and the use of contraceptive drugs seem to have played the major part in maintaining this stability. There are aspects of ambisexuality that we have only glimpsed or guessed at, and which we may never grasp entirely. The kemmer phenomenon fascinates all of us Investigators, of course. It fascinates us, but it rules the Gethenians, dominates them. The structure of their societies, the management of their industry, agriculture, commerce, the size of their settlements, the subjects of their stories, everything is shaped to fit the somer-kemmer cycle. Everybody has his holiday once a month; no one, whatever his position, is obliged or forced to work when in kemmer. No one is barred from the kemmerhouse, however poor or strange. Everything gives way before the recurring torment and festivity of passion. This is easy for us to understand. What is very hard for us to understand is that, four-fifths of the time, these people are not sexually motivated at all. Room is made for sex, plenty of room; but a room, as it were, apart. The society of Gethen, in its daily functioning and in its continuity, is without sex. Consider:

Evolved to Run Walking long distances is fundamental to being a hunter-gatherer, but people sometimes have to run. One powerful motivation is to sprint to a tree or some other refuge when being chased by a predator. Although you only have to run faster than the next fellow when a lion chases you, bipedal humans are comparatively slow. The world’s fastest humans can run at 37 kilometers (23 miles) per hour for about ten to twenty seconds, whereas an average lion can run at least twice as fast for approximately four minutes. Like us, early Homo must have been pathetic sprinters whose terrified dashes were too often ineffective. However, there is plentiful evidence that by the time of H. erectus our ancestors had evolved exceptional abilities to run long distances at moderate speeds in hot conditions. The adaptations underlying these abilities helped transform the human body in crucial ways and explain why humans, even amateur athletes, are among the best long-distance runners in the mammalian world. Today, humans run long distances to stay fit, commute, or just have fun, but the struggle to get meat underlies the origins of endurance running. To appreciate this inference, try to imagine what it was like for the first humans to hunt or scavenge 2 million years ago. Most carnivores kill using a combination of speed and strength. Large predators, such as lions and leopards, either chase or pounce on their prey and then dispatch it with lethal force. These dangerous carnivores can run as fast as 70 kilometers (43 miles) per hour, and they have terrifying natural weapons: daggerlike fangs, razor-sharp claws, and heavy paws to help them maim and kill. Hunters

Vaillant’s study and numerous others on happiness, success, failure, and motivation all confirm the same thing: health comes first, happiness is love and connection, and success requires adaptability. To be “happy-well,” we must tame the imbalanced tiger in us and instead embrace our inner, balanced dolphin.

No matter what happens in your life, keep an open heart and mind with a gentle smile. It's the true beauty of the heart.

Thus the ideal worker matches the traditional profile of the enthusiastic virtuoso: an individual who is versatile and rootless, inventive and adaptable; who self-motivates and works long hours, tapping internal and external resources;

You don’t need to fight situation. You must only adjust, adapt and advance.

Adapting to a unique market requires innovation, surviving the market pressures requires good business acumen.

Motivational Sweet Spots Maximum Attainability (Small Wins): It’s desirable to succeed in your pursuits, whatever they are.

Motivated thought: “I can definitely do that.

Motivation has been falling out of favor in habit circles, but that’s because rigid goals offer only one form of it. Now that we have three distinct motivators

Motivation has been falling out of favor in habit circles, but that’s because rigid goals offer only one form of it. Now that we have three distinct motivators—attainability, respectability, and value—we can find motivation in almost any situation.

Motivation drives us to take action. When pursuing a goal or trying to develop good habits, you ideally want to create situations in which your motivation to make progress

When we come into the world, we have the innate tendencies, motivations, and goals that make up nature's effect, anticipating to some extent the general conditions of our life, but then nurture's effect takes over to adapt us to the actual conditions on the ground.

Sometimes, the superstitions show the mysterious and specific ways to search, investigate, and realize the negative and positive results. I do not dig into the detail of the subject; however, in short, to define the concerns that I felt and feel yet. As criminals sell the drugs, to cause the health problems to innocent people; similarly, such criminals can adapt the various directions, to damage the humanity since many of us suffer from prostate and other cancer, which one may never consider that it is a natural consequence. One can always think that it became a victim of the criminals, who succeeded to victimize others. During the discussion with one of the urologists, whom I am under treatment, I expressed my concerns, referring to the examples as the Japanese scientist Minoru Shirota, created the mixture of skimmed milk with bacterium Lactobacillus casei Shirota, as Yakult, which develops health; conversely, one may prepare the beads of Helicobacter pylori, as homeopathy medicine that can cause cancer bacteria. The scientists should investigate such a matter, which is natural and unnatural since the world is under the criminals, and the evil-minded people, who can adopt such ways. It may seem as, an illusion; however, it can be the reality? Is it possible that criminals and spy agencies can pass on and transmit the cancerous cells in any form, to their opponents or cancerous medical manufacturers can involve, for selling and financial benefits upon the human sufferings? As far as one can realize, yes, it is possible, according to an illusion theory that, I have stated above insight of this passage. However, further study, investigation, and research should be on its way, for the concrete and significant outcome of that since the money-mongers can adopt all routes for their greediness and criminal motives, with the calibration of medical professionals.

Something untoward was happening to middle-class American women, an undercurrent of i change was seeping through heir ideas about duties and obligations as mothers, eroding their desire to conform to madonna-like models of unconditional devotion to the young child to adapt a more managerial concept of mother as coordinator and motivator of her child's activities and interests.

The topic of motivation often comes up when dealing with the issue of follow-through on plans. Many adults with ADHD may aspire to achieve a goal (e.g., exercise) or get through an unavoidable obligation (e.g., exam, paying bills), but fall prey to an apparent lack of motivation, despite their best intentions. This situation reminds us of a quote attributed to the late fitness expert, Jack LaLanne, who at the age of 93 was quoted as saying, “I’m feeling great and I still have sex almost every day. Almost on Monday, almost on Tuesday . . .” Returning to the executive dysfunction view of ADHD, motivation is defined as the ability to generate an emotion about a task that promotes follow-through in the absence of immediate reward or consequence (and often in the face of some degree of discomfort in the short-term). Said differently, motivation is the ability to make yourself “feel like” doing the task when there is no pressing reason to do so. Thus, you will have to find a way to make yourself feel like exercising before you achieve the results you desire or feel like studying for a midterm exam that is still several days away. You “know” logically that these are good ideas, but it is negative feelings (including boredom) or lack of feelings about a task that undercut your attempts to get started. In fact, one of the common thinking errors exhibited by adults with ADHD when procrastinating is the magnification of emotional discomfort associated with starting a task usually coupled with a minimization of the positive feelings associated with it. Adults with ADHD experience the double whammy of having greater difficulty generating positive emotions (i.e., motivation) needed to get engaged in tasks and greater difficulty inhibiting the allure of more immediate distractions, including those that provide an escape from discomfort. In fairness, from a developmental standpoint, adults with ADHD have often experienced more than their fair share of frustrations and setbacks with regard to many important aspects of their lives. Hence, our experience has been that various life responsibilities and duties have become associated with a degree of stress and little perceived reward, which magnifies the motivational challenges already faced by ADHD adults. We have adopted the metaphor of food poisoning to illustrate how one’s learning history due to ADHD creates barriers to the pursuit of valued personal goals. Food poisoning involves ingesting some sort of tainted food. It is an adaptive response that your brain and digestive system notice the presence of a toxin in the body and react with feelings of nausea and rapid expulsion of said toxin through diarrhea, vomiting, or both. Even after you have fully recuperated and have figured out that you had food poisoning, the next time you encounter that same food item, even before it reaches your lips, the sight and smell of the food will reactivate protective feelings of nausea due to the previous association of the stimulus (i.e., the food) with illness and discomfort. You can make all the intellectual arguments about your safety, and obtain assurances that the food is untainted, but your body will have this initial aversive reaction, regardless. It takes progressive exposure to untainted morsels of the food (sometimes mixing it in with “safe” food, in extreme cases) in order to break the food poisoning association. Similarly, in the course of your efforts to establish and maintain good habits for managing ADHD, you will encounter some tasks that elicit discomfort despite knowing the value of the task at hand. Therefore, it is essential to be able to manufacture motivation, just enough of it, in order to be able to shift out of avoidance and to take a “taste” of the task that you are delaying.

The personalities we have evolved to perceive have been around, in predictable form, and in typical, hierarchical configurations, forever, for all intents and purposes. They have been male or female, for example, for a billion years. That’s a long time. The division of life into its twin sexes occurred before the evolution of multi-cellular animals. It was in a still-respectable one-fifth of that time that mammals, who take extensive care of their young, emerged. Thus, the category of “parent” and/or “child” has been around for 200 million years. That’s longer than birds have existed. That’s longer than flowers have grown. It’s not a billion years, but it’s still a very long time. It’s plenty long enough for male and female and parent and child to serve as vital and fundamental parts of the environment to which we have adapted. This means that male and female and parent and child are categories, for us—natural categories, deeply embedded in our perceptual, emotional and motivational structures.

Life is your journey, choosing to live it to fullness is your choice. You may ask why it's hard to live, I may answer because it should be like this, that’s a general response. However, what you should know is that there is no joy in getting things that easily… working hard to achieve it will make difference. There are multiple paths in front of you and you must choose, you may get lost, you may get tired, you may get overwhelmed, you may doubt that’s not the right path for me and then the truth starts to reveal itself, everything begins and ends with you … yes, it's you… It is you who can control it, who can defeat the challenges it's you the author of your reality it's you the dreamer it's you the believer it's you the wiser it is you who prove that you are unique… your mindset and your thoughts must harmonize to create your story, to illustrate your dream to make your unique print because you are different and you never want to be a copy… it's not easy to change or to adapt but you have that flame inside you, that the light that will guide you in the worse and the best... Dare to dream ...Tick Tock… Time...That’s another story…

Life is your journey, choosing to live it to fullness is your choice. You may ask why it's hard to live I may answer because it should be like this that’s a general response. However, what you should know is that there is no joy in getting things that easily… working hard to achieve it will make difference. There are multiple paths in front of you and you must choose, you may get lost, you may get tired, you may get overwhelmed, you may doubt that’s not the right path for me and then the truth starts to reveal itself, everything begins and ends with you … yes, it's you… It is you who can control it, who can defeat the challenges it's you the author of your reality it's you the dreamer it's you the believer it's you the wiser it is you who prove that you are unique… your mindset and your thoughts must harmonize to create your story, to illustrate your dream to make your unique print because you are different and you never want to be a copy… it's not easy to change or to adapt but you have that flame inside you, that the light that will guide you in the worse and the best... Tick Tock… Time...That’s another story…

Conservatives, whose political motive is generally mere human altruism, and whose tightest point of natural agreement is an abstract, ill-defined ideal which has no clear recipe for implementation, is generally stated as vaguely as possible so as to attract the largest possible headcount, and exhibits patterns of error perfectly adapted to deflect the respect of the intelligent, cannot conceivably compete on any level playing field with the self-coordinating progressive movement, which has no ideals at all—being defined only by the willingness to swallow some drop, teaspoon, quart or vat of epistemic ordure, as a ticket to hop on the big bandwagon, inhale the party line and join the winning team.​

The type of neurotic trends which form depend upon both temperament and environmental factors. Some adapt to an unfavorable upbringing by detaching from life and other people. Others develop a neurotic need for approval and affection. Neurotic trends, however, are complex and individual and therefore defy rigid conceptualization. But when our behavior is unconsciously motivated by them we tend to develop symptoms in due time. If we are not afflicted with phobias, depression, compulsions, severe apathy, co-dependency, addictions, or extreme indecision, we may become plagued by an inner emptiness or feel as if there is a vital element missing in our life. Rather than focusing on the outward manifestation of our symptoms, however, Horney advises us to fixate on their underlying source – that being, the neurotic trends we developed as a means to cope with life.

In his searing work Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, philosopher David Livingstone Smith explains how this occurs: We are innately biased against outsiders. This bias is seized upon and manipulated by indoctrination and propaganda to motivate men and women to slaughter one another. This is done by inducing men to regard their enemies as subhuman creatures, which overrides their natural, biological inhibitions against killing. So dehumanization has the specific function of unleashing aggression in war. This is a cultural process, not a biological one, but it has to ride piggyback on biological adaptations in order to be effective.9,10

While their personalities may differ from person to person, the commonality is that with a narcissistic parent: their needs and wants always come first, above anyone else in the household. As a result of this experience, their children will often become codependent as they learn to adapt. Rather than the parent bearing the responsibility of the children’s emotional needs, the child will have to learn to bear the responsibility of the parent’s emotional needs. In these relationships, the narcissistic parent will feel entitled, and the child will likely feel unentitled, or as though they don’t deserve to have anything. The child will feel the need to sacrifice and deny their own feelings and needs to meet those of the parents. Unless the child also develops a narcissistic personality disorder, in which case both the parent and child will use each other to establish their own superiority. Children of narcissistic parents learn that they should not trust nor value themselves, and they often grow up alienated from who they truly are. They may feel like they have to prove themselves so that they can win the narcissistic parent’s approval but may lack the motivation to pursue their own wants and goals when they are not externally imposed. In other words, they will have difficulty feeling motivated by their own wants and desires and will rely on others telling them what they should want and desire in order for them to go out and achieve it. While

5 Tips for Mirroring Others 1. Body language. When they smile, you smile. When they lean back in their chair, you lean back in your chair. When they cross their legs or fold their arms, you do the same. 2. Vocabulary or specific words. Notice their language and the words they choose and use—their keywords, expressions, expletives, or phrases. 3. Communication style. People receive, process, and deliver information in different ways. Notice whether someone is results driven or relaxed, emotional or pragmatic, talkative or observant. Recognizing their style will enable you to adapt your style to theirs to build rapport and improve communication. 4. Vocal style. a. Speech rate—If they are talking fast, you talk fast. If they are talking slowly, you talk slowly. Consider rhythm, pace, and tempo. b. Volume—If they are speaking quietly and softly, match their volume. c. Tone—Mirror their emotion, tone, and pitch. You can even seek to mirror their grammar and dialect, as long as it is discreet and respectful.

In her book, Ask Outrageously! my friend Linda Swindling suggests to “Mimic the body language of the most powerful people you know. They stand up straight, make appropriate eye contact, and use gestures to convey their points. Look at their feet. Usually they are placed about shoulder-width apart. They have an open stance. They smile and nod when they agree.” Begin paying attention to the poise, postures, and gestures of the people whom you admire and respect the most. How do they carry themselves to project excellence? Adapting their behaviors may serve you well to enhance and improve your body language.

What does a solid, comfortable, impressive handshake look and feel like? To deliver a great handshake . . . • Extend your right hand out vertically at a comfortable waist level toward the person you are meeting. • Connect hands with web to web contact made between the thumb and index finger. • Be intentional and appropriate by showing mutual respect and teamwork. • Gently squeeze firmly enough to be confident, yet lightly enough to be gracious. Shake a few times for good measure. • Discreetly rotate your wrist so that your hand is slightly on top of theirs when you want to subconsciously convey self-assurance. • Make eye contact and smile to show sincerity. Throw in an acknowledging head nod for good measure. Avoiding eye contact may be interpreted that you are not attentive or have something to hide. • Introduce yourself and when they share their name, repeat it back to them to help you remember it. “It is nice to meet you John.” • When in doubt, mirror their handshake to adapt to what makes them feel comfortable. Customize accordingly to the gender, age, position, personality, and culture of the person you are meeting.

When you begin conversations with confidence and listen attentively, you will become more flexible and adaptable in most any situation.

11 Tips for Building Rapport 1. Adapt to the other person’s energy level. 2. Assume rapport. 3. Be open and friendly. 4. Exude warmth and approachability. 5. Find common ground or mutual agreement. 6. Keep your commitments and always follow through. 7. Make eye contact. 8. Soften your voice, your smile, and your eye contact to convey openness and interest. 9. Match and mirror a person’s gestures and body language. 10. Pay attention. 11. Validate the other person by asking questions and showing sincere interest in their answers.