A very valuable book for me was The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. I read it years ago, only once. And, really, I don’t remember a whole lot about it other than two things. First, that I enjoyed it immensely.
Secondly, that I learned about personal dramas. We all have them. They manifest themselves differently for different people, and almost always in troubling situations. For some people, they manifest as aloofness, for others, anger. Some panic and others want to immediately take control of everything. And there are others.
In a recent article and a video we looked at the concept of Default Settings; our natural responses or reactions to those uncomfortable situations. We saw the value of having our default setting on calm, even if that means we need to consciously change it.
But, what about dealing with the default settings of others. Actually, there are only three steps to successfully doing that.
- Learn to change your own default setting (six steps) if necessary.
- Notice and understand their default setting.
- Handle their default setting appropriately.
There’s a man named “Joe” who does some contract work for me. Great guy. Terrific guy. And, truly superb at his job. His only challenge — in my opinion — is his default setting. It’s usually on “I can’t.” In other words, when asked if a certain task can be done, he immediately (as in a nano-second) says that it can’t be done; that it’s impossible.
That’s just him. It’s the way he is…programmed. It takes nothing away from him being a great guy or the fact that he is excellent at what he does, or the fact that he has saved my rear end on numerous occasions.
Or, the fact that it is not at all impossible, and that he always comes through for me and eventually does the task, and very well at that! 🙂
Again, it’s just his default mode. And, rather than try and change him, I just work within that context. This is where step #3 (see above) comes into play.
How?
Let’s discuss that in the next article.
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Hi Bob,
I certainly agree that it makes sense to focus on the good in people and learn to work with their default setting.
As in the case of your contractor focus on the end result. If they get the job done in a way that works for you and hiccups along the way are just….hiccups 🙂
Thanks for sharing your insight.
RB
Ryan: Thank you, my friend. Much appreciated!