by Jack Skeen
Adults who can't control their temper and rage when things don't go their way.
Adults who make false statements regarding their accomplishments and achievements pretending to be who they are not.
Adults who overindulge in substances at the cost of having a productive and meaningful life.
Adults who refuse to take on adult responsibilities, requiring others to care for them rather than caring for themselves.
Four Critical Areas of Development
There are four fundamental developmental areas necessary for every human being to move toward thriving.
Gain independence. We all learn to please the important people in our lives in order to get along. It is natural to do so…and it works. We can get a long way by pleasing. But pleasing others by itself will never produce a mature and powerful life. One way to define independence is to think of it as not being concerned with pleasing others. This doesn't mean you are purposefully offensive or insensitive, but that you deeply believe that being yourself and expressing yourself is more important than fitting in to the expectations of the people around you. If you are not independent of the need to please others, your Circle will be limited by this need. Other manifestations of lacking independence are dependence on substances and comparing yourself to others. It is only when we grow past pleasing that we find our own voice and begin to claim our own lives. This is not an easy step. Many people fail to achieve it. Independence is where most people seem to get stuck. Quite frankly, unless this need to please is mastered, all other aspects of the Circle are somewhat irrelevant if your goal is finally to be free, happy, fulfilled, and leading a great life. We want to help you understand how to navigate past pleasing to find your power.
Independence is about taking 100 percent responsibility for your life and its outcomes. Independence is living with freedom from insecurity and self‐doubt. Signs of mastery of independence are knowing your own preferences and desires, speaking openly and candidly in all circumstances, and possessing your life with full confidence and clarity.
Independence should not be confused with separateness from others. Quite the opposite is true. When you have mastered independence you are able to fully experience the joy of others without the need to read their attitudes and wishes so as to fit into their expectations and needs. One of our favorite expressions from a colleague, Jim Dethmer, is “only when you can be you, and I can be me, can we be us.”
Embrace power. When we give up pleasing others as the source of our strength we are quite vulnerable and may feel as if we have neither the skills nor connections to ever amount to anything. However, it is only when we have given up pleasing that we are capable of finding our own source of strength, that which lies within each of us. We have each been given a gift, some special quality or skill that is designed to be our source of power and value in the world. We like to call this quality your “power.” We believe that all people have some unique power in them. Some of us have found that which makes us powerful and brilliant at a young age. Others of us know what our power is and have not yet had the courage to embrace it and make it the focus of their life. Still others have found their power but have not yet integrated it with fully developed Humility and Purpose. They come across like peacocks—more interested in showing off their plumes than in utilizing their giftedness for its best and highest good. Similarly, some of us become so frightened of the possibility of failing, we abandon our power because we know it will put us on a path that feels risky. It is easy to be ordinary. If you aim low, it is not difficult to hit your target. But, it is our belief that not one of us is intended to aim low. Quite to the contrary, we were given our special gift to aim very high even if doing so increases the risk of failure. Failure is often the sign of courage. It means we were willing to put our gifts to full use. We shouldn't be afraid of failure but of being unwilling to take big risks. It is only when we risk big that we attain things worthy of our life.
Finding your gift creates personal power. Reaching out for something special and testing your power and faith in yourself can be very challenging. Sometimes the people that surround you are eager to see you fail because your failure lessens the pressure on them to find their uniqueness. This is especially true of those who have not yet found their own power. They could be family members, friends, and loved ones. They don't necessarily mean harm. Your effective use of your power may strain the relationship and create an imbalance and insecurity in them. One sure way to know if someone is truly your friend and really cares about you is to notice the reaction you get when you're reaching for a dream or goal. If that person is supportive, you are fortunate to have that relationship. If that individual is not supportive, understand that negative energy is always driven by that person's need to feel secure. Regardless, it is critical for each of us to follow the best path for our lives. We must each find, and follow, the power we have been given and achieve the greatest fulfillment possible in each of our lives. Anything less will leave you feeling as if something important is missing from your life. It is our responsibility to find and use the great gifts we were given. Finding and accepting your power is critical to having a truly powerful and productive life.
Embody humility. When we find our true power, it is easy to fly too high. We can become so impressed with ourselves that it becomes difficult to see how to integrate our gifts with the needs of others. You may have met talented people who are so full of themselves that they have no room for anyone else. It is only when our power is seasoned with humility that it becomes optimally useful. Humility is simple to understand, yet is often misunderstood. Merriam‐Webster defines humility as “the quality or state of not thinking you are better than other people: the quality or state of being humble.” For the purpose of the Circle Blueprint we will define humility as having an accurate opinion of your talents, accomplishments, and limitations, while keeping them in perspective. Humility is eliminating your self‐focus to the point of forgetting yourself. Humility is achieved by expanding your Circle. The bigger your Circle becomes, the more concerns beyond yourself become important. These bigger concerns become the context for defining how you view yourself. Instead of your interests and needs being the sole focus of your attention, your expanded Circle populates your attention with a multitude of other concerns.
Being humble isn't being greater than you are, nor is it being less than you are. It is being what is true and real about you. If you pretend that you are less than you are by holding back on your gifts and power, you demonstrate a false or pseudo‐humility. While this may sometimes be the path of least resistance and the easiest way to get along in your circumstance, you are misrepresenting the truth about you. You are meant to bring your gifts and power to the game of life every moment of every day. On the other hand, when you pretend to be more than you are to impress others or to make yourself look important, you have wandered out of humility in the opposite direction. You have actually sold out your true value in order to pretend to be someone you are not. Those who have mastered humility know how to live between those extremes.
Those who have mastered humility have gained the skill of forgetting themselves to focus on how they can best bring their true gifts and power to those around them. Thriving requires coming to experience your life as one with others and the world around you. Later in the book we will discuss paths to humility that intertwine with our humanity. We hope to demonstrate that humility combined with your experience of your full power is a gift for the entire world to enjoy.
Pursue purpose. When we gain independence, find our power, and carry our power with true humility, there remains one more developmental task on the pathway toward greatness. Until we see our lives from the highest point of view, we are limited in understanding our true value. We are all limited by what we see. If we only see a part of the vastness of the world around us, our impact will be limited by our view. But when we see from the highest vantage point, we can see everything. It is from here we will discover our true sense of purpo
se. Finding your purpose gives you the clarity to know how to be your very best self, to live an extraordinary life. We believe the pathway to purpose is the cultivation of spirituality. Spirituality can mean many things to many people. For us it means rising above the material. There is much in life that is material. We work to make money that we need to buy food, clothing, housing, and all manner of other necessary things. We save money to secure our future. We spend a great deal of time and effort providing for our material needs both now and in the future. But, we believe life is much more than the material world. When we move beyond the material world, we begin to appreciate the source of such things as love, nobility, goodness, beauty, and kindness. It is only when we are comfortable with the world of spirit and can see our lives in the context of that world that we are able to truly discover our greatest calling and purpose.
We invite you into that discovery because we believe it is absolutely critical for you to discover who you were meant to be.
Each of these developmental steps is necessary to have a truly rich life Circle. Even though it might appear that some can be skipped, in truth they cannot. There are many examples of people who seemed to have very rich lives that one day collapsed in despair and pain because one or more of these necessary elements had not been mastered.
Chapter 4
Balancing the Circle
Jorge Munoz arrived in America as an illegal immigrant in the early '80s. He became a citizen in 1987. One evening as he left a bar he noticed all the destitute and illegal day laborers and the flame in his heart was lit. He found out that most of the men sleep under a bridge or in the Elmhurst Hospital's emergency room and skimped on meals in order to send money to their loved ones at home. Since then, he has been cooking enough food to feed dozens of day laborers in Queens, which he delivers at the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and 73rd Street in Jackson Heights every evening at 11:30. Jorge delivers the warm, cooked meals in rain, snow, thunder and lightning. He estimates that he has served food to more than 70,000 people since 2004. The whole operation is financed from the $600 he receives weekly for driving a school bus and whatever he secures in donations. On August 4, 2010, Jorge was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Barack Obama.
—Gerber (2013)
We believe Jorge Munoz is a great man. He may not be the wealthiest man on earth nor someone about whom a biography will be written. But his life is amazingly satisfying and rewarding. He sees life differently than do ordinary people. Even though he is not by any means a rich man, he doesn't obsess about his need for more money. He sees his money as a “trust,” a resource given to him to invest in the world around him. He is not surviving his life. He is thriving. He is not spending his time just hanging out, getting by or vegetating in front of the television. Every day is filled with meaning and purpose. He sees himself as a rich man with an abundance to share. He doesn't see himself as better than others. The homeless men he feeds are his brothers, his friends. His life is good and strong. He has a big and balanced life Circle.
Not everyone has done as good a job with their life Circle as has Jorge. Many people's life Circles are quite small and imbalanced.
This quote by Marianne Williamson provides guidance as to where we lose our balance. Let's take a closer look at her words.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us…. Your playing small does not serve the world…. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking.
Williamson suggests that many of us are “playing small.” We are surviving our lives. Our big vision for our lives is to get the next paycheck, pay off the next bill, avoid getting fired. We haven't dared to imagine that we are amazingly talented. We haven't been willing to consider our light and what we might bring to the world. Is she not right? Is it not true that you have many more moments when you live in fear than in dreams of doing great things? Do you not focus more on your weaknesses than on your strengths? Is this not playing small? It is only when we are willing to come out of the darkness and to dream a big dream that we will create a big and balanced life Circle.
Williamson writes, “We are all meant to shine, as children do.” We agree. We all shined as children. We believed we could be and do anything. We had big dreams. We had hope. We thought we were amazing and invincible. But, somewhere along the way, we lost some of our innocence and faith in ourselves and in life. Perhaps you got bad grades in some subject you didn't like. Or, you were given feedback that you were stupid or not able to achieve. And you believed what you were told and forgot how amazing you truly are. You began to lower your expectations and to settle for a life that was simply okay.
Now, as an adult, you find your life is just that: okay. It isn't great. It isn't powerful. It isn't extraordinary. And, you make it acceptable by reminding yourself that you are like most of the people you know. But, until now, you did not know about Jorge. If he can live an extraordinary life, why can't you? Recognizing the need for balancing seems clear. The question is what do we balance?
The Problem of an Unbalanced Circle
While there is clearly a developmental movement through the four key elements of the Circle Blueprint, it is also critically important that they be brought into a proper balance. When one or more are developed at the expense of the others, a potentially wonderful life will be distorted and will fall short of reaching its potential. An unbalanced Circle becomes another shape all together—imagine an oval when two positions of the Circle take precedent or a crescent moon where full sections are not developed. The Circle might even become a shape possessing a series of indents as if we were drawing a cloud, or it could have a large protrusion as if we were drawing a dialog box from a comic strip. The lack of balance can come in many forms, and so it is important that we balance all aspects.
Power without humility results in hubris. Unfortunately, we are all too familiar with stories of seemingly very successful executives in some of the biggest corporations in our country (e.g., Kenneth Lay of Enron) who became so attached to their success that they bent the rules, only to find their companies destroyed and themselves behind bars.
Purpose without an understanding of power leads to grand dreams and plans without any effective ability to bring them to life. Being a dreamer is a wonderful thing. But, it only becomes useful when it is harnessed to our unique gifts.
Humility without power and purpose leads to the false conclusion that you are ordinary and have nothing special to contribute to the world. You may be a decent person, but you will miss the reason you have been put on the earth. You won't begin to understand how to shine.
Without independence, it is impossible to find or to grow power, humility, and purpose. Your Circle will be so constricted as to severely limit any further development. This is often the source of bitterness and pettiness in people. They are too afraid of displeasing others to be themselves and they bitterly envy those whose independence has provided them with the opportunity for real power and significance.
As you can see in Figure 4.1, the independence and power elements of the Circle Blueprint are more fully developed while the humility and purpose elements are underdeveloped. An individual with such a Circle—let's call her Nancy—will have given up pleasing and learned and mastered her power. We imagine she comes across as skilled, self‐confident, and driven to succeed. She might be striving to rise through the ranks of the company and to be included on the executive team. Or, she might be an aspiring writer who plans to write the next best‐selling novel. But, she has not mastered humility. In fact, it is the least well‐developed of her four key Circle elements. Hence, when you are around this young and talented woman you will find that she talks almost exclusively about herself. She loves telling you (and everyone she knows) about her dreams for her success and how she will use the money she makes as she reaches her goals. You might find that all of her dreams for the future are self‐indulgent. She plans to buy a home at the beach and a new sports car. She plans to leverage her notoriety and break into a new (an
d she thinks better) social circles. As she drones on and on, you may find yourself wishing for a way to end the conversation and get away from this woman. She isn't connecting with you. In fact, she shows no interest in you whatsoever. This is the telling sign of someone who has not yet mastered humility. People like Nancy don't see anyone but themselves. And you might notice from her dreams that her purpose element is lacking as well. She has no higher purpose in which she wants to invest. Her success is for her alone to enjoy. She doesn't begin to understand that her gifts are meant to be invested for the good of the world and not just for her own pleasure. Over time, she may become aware of a shallowness and emptiness in her life. These are the symptoms of her imbalanced Circle. Many of us have Circles that are either too small or too out of balance to do justice to the life we were meant to have. As a result, we either have given up dreaming for our lives or have dreams that are woefully inadequate. We spend our lives worried about pleasing our boss, our spouse, our neighbors and friends; we change our behavior and conversations to fit our changing contexts just as a chameleon changes colors to fit its surroundings. We either don't have any idea what our power might be or are too fearful of making a change to invest in that gift that would bring our full power and potential to the world. Or we think either too little of ourselves to be of any use to others or far too much of ourselves to even notice those around us.
Figure 4.1 Unbalanced Circle
To be sure, Jorge Munoz is not the only person who has built a truly meaningful life. It is for all of us. It is for you. Regardless of your current situation, you have the chance to open your eyes to new potential, new opportunities to be a bigger person, someone whose life is tuned in, aware, alive, and vibrant. Jorge drew his Circle around the hungry and homeless day laborers in Queens. He saw an opportunity and wanted to make a difference.
