The player's questions

- One of my literary heroes is Carlos Castaneda he's an anthropologist who worked with a shaman in Mexico called Don Juan and one of the phrases of Don Juan is, the difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that for the ordinary man everything is a blessing or a curse. But for a warrior things are not good or bad, everything is a challenge. That's what I'm inviting you to do. To take the posture of the warrior the player. Everything is a challenge so whenever something is happening you can ask yourself, what challenge are you facing? The second question is did you contribute in any way to bring this about? Can you see any way that you could have done something different to avoid the situation or be better prepared to handle it? Oh you know that's a tough question the last thing people want to hear in that moment is like oh I have something to do with this? I mean imagine John saying hey wait a minute, I was targeted, I have nothing to do with this, and that is true. The behavior of this manager that he describes was not his doing but the way that behavior effected him, that effect was under his control. I'd like to play a scenario, and for this scenario. You have to imagine you're dressed exactly like you're dressed, namely you don't have a hat. 'Cause I'm going to say something crazy about your hat. But I'm not pretending you have a hat, you have no hat. So just imagine that I come and say John that green hat that you're wearing is absolutely awful. I mean only a person with no taste could wear such an ugly green hat. I mean you're smiling I'm trying to offend you, why are you smiling? - Because like you say, I know I'm not wearing a hat. - Exactly! - Yeah. - I can't hurt you, I mean can I hurt you talking about your green hat? - No, no. - Now if I say, I mean you're just a foreigner. - Oh yeah. - and I say it like that's an insult. - Yeah? - Can I hurt you? - No actually. - Yeah exactly, exactly because yeah I am. - I'm not just a foreigner, I am a foreigner. - I am a foreigner, so what? - But I'm not just one. - So I mean the just is this disparaging thing, just like the green hat. And although you know rationally it's not true, something is there but if you look at it from now you see it's crazy! I mean all sort of weird people out there and the only protection we have is our strength inside. Because we can't stop them from being who they are and sometimes they have positions of authority. The thought that there is something that is in him, that is wrong and could be targeted did make some sense and it's this sense that created the hook on which the insult could land, when he realized that he became a player. He realized oh I can unhook and if I unhook then there's nothing to catch. So, have you contributed in any way by doing or perhaps by not doing to bring this situation about, the third question is could you have done something different? Sometimes people say well I should have done, and I stop them and say no I'm not asking what you should have done. Should it's a victim word. Could is the player word. Players always ask what can I do? Should is associated with guilt, that's not player behavior, so could you have done something better? And most people would come up with several ideas and then the most important question. Can you do something now? One of the best stories I have about my career one of the first times I was teaching this it was a multi-part course, I'd teach this in November and there was a big guy who was in Texas, Plano. This big massive guy was sitting in the back of the room like yeah my manager told me to be there so I'm sitting here because I was told. Anyway we do all this and then we finish and then the next time we meet in January he comes, and before the session he says you know the stuff about the victim player? I'm like yeah. It works, 'cause I hadn't talked to my dad for 20 years and I spent 20 years thinking that he was supposed to call me and I did that stupid exercise that you gave us last time and I thought I could call him and I did call him. I had a conversation that ended up with us having dinner together on Christmas and talking about it and I wasted 20 years blaming him and waiting for him to call because he should have called. That's the story of the player. That's the attitude of saying yeah maybe the father did something horrible but it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters, what do you want to do now? So can you do something now? And the last question is what lesson can you learn from this? You see bad things happen and maybe you made a wrong choice but you paid an expensive price for it! Don't pay it again, learn the lesson! Because if you don't learn the lesson you're going to have to do it again and you're going to have to pay the price again! So the more expensive the lesson the more suffering, the more important it is to step back and say what can I learn from this so I don't do it again? Even if you can't solve anything of what happened, that is worth the price of admission, I mean that is gold, pure gold to refine the sorrow into a learning to distill the raw pain that happened in the original situation and distill something precious that will give you an idea of how to proceed. Give you a sense of direction that will avoid this pain in the future.