Remember high school? The most interesting young women seemed to prefer the guys who could take them or leave them. And the needy guys who were desperate to have them, who couldn’t live without them? The young women didn’t want anything to do with them.
As human beings, we’re not attracted to needy relationships. We don’t want to be involved with someone who needs us desperately. Needy feels creepy, which is why stalking is a crime.
The other person’s neediness takes a part of us away. It becomes a mechanism of control, and we don’t want to be controlled. We want to be free. That’s our very nature.
The neutral perspective allows the best possible outcome for both parties to emerge. There’s no forcing. And even though you’re always drawing attention back to the benefits of the direction you would prefer to see things go, you’re also open-minded. If the other side has a new idea about a different direction that you hadn’t thought of, you can shift right along with it. Smoothly, without resistance. Because you have no position to defend. You’re not attached to any particular outcome, except for the higher good.
That’s the power of hands-off neutrality.
Steps to hands-off success in your life
Three action steps to take after reading this chapter:
1. The next time you are negotiating with someone in the workplace, give yourself time in advance to enter the world of “neutral.”
2. Actually write down all the good things that might come from this negotiation not resulting in a “win” for you. Get comfortable with the “worst thing that can happen” so that you lose all sense of needing this to go a certain way.
3. Schedule three meetings with people in your organization with whom you have not had the easiest time talking (people you don’t like). Then have a no-agenda meeting with each of them in which your position on everything will be neutral. No position. You will be there to listen and learn and be taught by the greatest teachers you will ever have. The people you like are not your best teachers, and by valuing neutrality, you’ll learn this.
CHAPTER FOUR
USING FOCUS AND INTENTION
The universe always gives you more of what you are focusing on.
—Alan Cohen
I met with Kyle in his penthouse office overlooking Atlanta and encountered his litany of stressful thoughts about the future. Kyle thought they were legitimate concerns about the present.
“The list is endless,” he said. “I’ve got so much to do today that I sometimes feel like jumping out of this window.”
“That’s one option,” I said. “As long as you don’t do it while I’m sitting here. That would be my request of you. As your coach.”
“Well, what would you do?”
“I’d go on vacation.”
Kyle laughed bitterly. That was the last thing he could possibly do with all these crises coming up.
I said, “Kyle, will you do an exercise with me right now? I think it might help us sort this out.”
“Sure. Whatever.”
“Close your eyes and let your mind travel back in time to the last time you felt happy when you got out of bed. When was the last time you felt total peace inside, and started your day in a fully relaxed and happy way?”
Kyle took a while. Finally he said, with his eyes still closed, “My trip to Mazatlan. I remember waking up each morning with nothing to do. We didn’t plan much on that trip. We just woke up whenever we wanted and walked to the patio and looked out over the water. It was like being in heaven.”
“And so you did nothing?”
“Oh no! We did a lot of fun things. Our days were full. But it was funny that there was no stress. No real need to be anywhere. We just did whatever came to us.”
“So you did a lot.”
“Quite a lot and it was all fun.”
“Did you have lists of what to do?”
“No. We had ideas, even before we went there. But we just did things as they occurred to us. One thing at a time.”
“And so I think you’ve hit on it, Kyle.”
“What? Move to Mazatlan?”
“In a way.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said it. You gave yourself the answer.”
“What did I say?”
“You said you did one thing at a time.”
Using Focus and Intention
Kyle thought for a moment. Then he said, “Well that’s not possible around here.”
“Really? What were you doing before I came in?”
“I was finishing up the Bertoia Report. In fact, I sent it off as an attachment as you were walking in.”
“So that was the one thing you were doing?”
“Well, yeah.”