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Mapping Consciousness

Mapping Consciousness

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Thoughts on Werner Erhard’s EST, Richard Bandler’s NLP and Joseph Riggio’s MythoSelf Process Models

“A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” – Alfred Korzybski

This may be one of the most used, most misquoted, and most misunderstood comments driving multiple models of human cognition and behavior.

Maps, Territories and Models

The reason I say this about the Korzybski quote “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” is because it’s so often presented as, “A map is not the territory.” FULL STOP!

“A map is not the territory.” is a very different notion than “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” READ THEM BOTH CAREFULLY, AND NOTICE WHAT THEY ARE POINTING TO SPECIFICALLY.

I am a picky user of language, because language is our primary means of representing “what is”… i.e. the world, reality … and we act on our representations of “what is” NOT on “what is.”

Language is a composition of symbols in a syntax and grammar that give rise to semantic form, i.e.: meaning, or more accurately, the meaning we apply to the sequence of symbols in the language we use (see Saussure and his comments on signals and signifiers for more clarity). 

The semiotician, Umberto Eco, introduced a concept about text as potentially “open” versus “closed,” meaning that the texts are “fields of meaning” and not “strings of meaning.” This idea gives the semantic power (the ability to create and choose meaning) to the reader versus the author. Even when the author might clearly intend a meaning in an open text, it is the reader that confers it.

I believe that this is also true in verbal communication, i.e.: that the listener confers meaning, and not the speaker. 

Based on this observation the author and the speaker create fields of meaning from which their readers and listeners can confer the meaning they intend, without trying to close the system. 

To confer meaning in an open system the author or speaker need then to infer the meaning in the way they present the information they are representing, because the reader and listener will always interpret what is written or spoken and not simply absorb it “as is” unchanged. To do this requires a deep understanding of how the intended audience will transform what is presented as they interpret and incorporate it for themselves. There are some cases in theater and film that I can think of where the playwright or screenwriter has done this particularly well.

Presenting meaning in theater and film has the advantage of a four-dimensional format to express the intended meaning via physical expression and interaction with all that implies, happening through movement in space and time. The richness of the four-dimensional aspect of representation more closely simulates our lived experience than can be expressed in a two-dimensional format like text. Text however has the advantage of remaining more open, leaving more room to imply meaning without directly conferring it. Speaking can also remain more open in this way, with the advantage of simultaneously layering inferences in the non-verbal aspect between the speaker and listeners. 

Hypnotic protocol takes advantage of this open framework in speaking, and in the hands of a master writer in text as well. Inference resides at the heart of hypnotic protocol. By the precise and creative use of suggestion a pathway can be formed that provides the least resistance for the listener or reader to confer meaning. Many playwrights and screenwriters use hypnotic protocol to create the experience they want to confer to their audience, leaving less room for interpretation as the actors’ work unfolds the story being represented by them.

Let’s bring this back again now, with the fullness of what I’ve shared to the comment by Korzybski, “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” Maps seek to capture in representational form the structure of a territory, e.g.: a context or process, that allows the user to navigate and transverse the territory the map represents with a degree of confidence that they will successfully get from where they begin to where they intend to arrive.

The consideration of Korzybski’s comment then isn’t that maps aren’t what they represent, i.e.: “The map is not the territory.” but that maps are tools to navigate and transverse territories that when “correct” will be useful in doing so. Keeping this in mind we can move on to models which provide a similar if not the same function.

EST, NLP & the MythoSelf Process Models:

All three of these models, EST, NLP and the MythoSelf Process model, use the fundamental concept that Korzybski suggests in what may be the most famous quote coming from his own General Semantics model, i.e.: “A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”

Werner Erhard and EST:

In the case of EST, NLP, and the MythoSelf Process a model of reality, or more precisely, a model of how to conceive of reality and our interactions in it, is organized and presented. 

I am a huge fan of Werner Erhard’s work and his EST model. In that work, Werner points back to some of the fundamental notions of Martin Heidegger’s ontological and phenomenological philosophy, especially his considerations on “being.” To massively simplify that application portion of Werner’s model he points to the perceiver of a context as giving meaning to the context, literally bringing the context into being by conferring meaning. He takes this idea to an extreme in suggesting that by our “word” – literally our speaking into being – we bring contexts forth and can transform ourselves and the world we occupy by doing so. 

The inverse of this is also true of Werner’s work, that by not “being our word” we live in a state akin to an automaton simply responding to the context we encounter like “meat machines” moved around by the feelings aroused by the stimuli we experience. The process that functions to create the cause-and-effect response of the so-call meat machine is the “story” we are living inside of that we presume is real, when in fact it’s just the stories that have been conferred upon us, that we have now colluded with, and from there bring forth new stories that contain the same contexts as the stories we have incorporated. This process creates a never-ending loop of repeating the same story of our life over and over with little or no relief. 

By “speaking our word” we can bring new contexts into being, and transform the story into the one we desire wholeform. One of the flaws I perceive in the EST model is the suggesting that we lead from “being” and not “thinking” or “doing” … and, and yet there is not mechanism or process provided for creating our “word” and thereby transforming our “story” without the “thinking” required to do so. The EST model can be a very powerful to create transformation, but requires a devolution into solipsisim to function as it’s presented. 

If I take the EST model literally the Rene Descartes ontological catch phrase, “I think, therefore I am.” becomes “I think it, therefore it is.” Without too much stretching the EST model can viewed through Korzybski’s conception of maps, as a ontological distortion that might read, “The map IS the territory.” 

Richard Bandler and NLP

The NLP model starts in a very different place than the EST model. NLP begins with the idea that what we know as being real is really representation, and the process we use to create, manipulate and utilize our representations determines how well they will work for us in creating the outcomes we desire. 

Werner Erhard in the EST model suggests that transformation happens by speaking it into the world, ignoring the story of how we have known the world to be, and choosing a context that brings into being our intentions. This process, as I’ve presented it above, is known in EST circles as “being your word,” i.e.: because I say it is so it will be so. (NOTE: I love this idea, even as I see the flaws in it … flaws I see even when it works. Being personally driven in a phenomenologically empirical way to arrive at my own conceptions, the human cost of this method of living and bringing into being my intended outcomes is just too high for me to personally accept.)

In the NLP model as presented by Richard Bandler there is a cognitive process that begins and ends in representational forms of sensorial experience that are able to be intentionally modified and manipulated to create a better map of the world from the point of view of functional usefulness. The individual who perceives the world does so by the way they represent the world to themselves internally, as well as to the degree that they are able to observe the world as it is, i.e.: to align their internal representations in a way that accurately describes the external context as it is now. The step after being able to accurately represent the world as it is now, is to have the flexibility to represent the world as you’d like it to be, and to manipulate the way you internally represent your experiences to generate responses that bring about your desired outcomes. 

NLP also has a secondary application of being able to map the way others internally represent the world to themselves by calibrating their verbal and non-verbal expressions in communication. A significant part of the process of mapping the internal representations of any context, i.e.: past, present or future, is contained in the language use to express the context by the language user. 

Withing the NLP model you have multiple sub-models that are designed to make sense of the language patterns of the user, e.g.: the Meta-Model and Meta-Programs, and to use language interventions to modify these patterns to a more useful form, e.g.: reframing and hypnosis. In addition NLP users are trained to notice the non-verbal aspects in communication as well, for instance the representational system preferences of an individual in context, e.g.: visual vs auditory, or visual to auditory, or visual and auditory. Any combination and sequence of the sensory modalites can be present, and a skilled NLP user will be able to discern by tracking language usage and non-verbal patterns what these combination and sequences are as they communicate and calibrate what they are observing. 

In the NLP model this ability to calibrate the way contexts are represented internally, and to modify these representations allow the NLP user to transform their experience of the context, make new choices, and create the intended outcome with much greater facility. It is also possible to use these same skills in communicating with other to bring about intended outcomes with them as well.

Joseph Riggio and the MythoSelf Process Model

Joseph Riggio (me, in the third person) has designed the MythoSelf Process model drawing on and from both of the models presented above, the EST and NLP models. In addition there is a deep draw on and from Roye Fraser’s Generative Imprint model. 

The Generative Imprint model can be considered an applicaiton of the NLP model emphasizing the access to the excitatory bias and using wholeform communication to do that, and then leaping beyond the representation of reality within the framework of the excitatory bias to a deeper transcendent experience of being alive in a wellformed way that expresses as a pervasive sense of wellbeing and infinite possibilities. In Roye’s model this transcendent experience is the Generative Imprint and is held in “symbolic, iconic, representational form.”

“Form” is a critical consideration in Roye’s model and work. He literally being from and ends what happens in the model by accessing the form of the Generative Imprint. Accessing the Generative Imprint aligns an individual with themselves in relation to their sense of place and possibility to the Universe or the Cosmos as it’s unfolding in real time. The experience of accessing the Generative Imprint brings the indvidual into a very hightened sense of being present through time, i.e.: their past, present and future, in a deeply aware, sensorial way.

I was a student of Roye’s in an intensive seven-year apprenticeship, becoming deeply immersed in the Generative Imprint model, how to access it and apply it for myself and with others. The main processes used to access and elicit the form of the Generative Imprint are based in the NLP model and it’s applicaitons.

After working closely with Roye and observing how he interacted with his clients over several thousands of hours in the training and clinical context with him there was no doubt regarding the intensity of his use of somatic form as well as semanitc form in his work. This observation led me to the first expression of what is now the MythoSelf Process model. The first unique distinction I brought to the MythoSelf Process model that moved it some distance away from the other three models I have been presenting and discussing is the primacy of the use of the body and tracking somatic from at the macro and micro levels of expression. 

Somatic Form in the MythoSelf Process Model

The main premise of the MythoSelf Process model has always been that the ontology of the individual is grounded somaticaly, i.e.: in the body. The somatic form gives rise to semantic form as sensorial experience is expressed in body sensations and responses. In the MythoSelf Process model we know reality as we experience it in sensorial form before there is any post-sensorial representation. 

This idea of pre-representational sensorial form drives all of the transformational interventions within the MythoSelf Process model that allow a user to access and modify their awareness of reality and being, as well as the reponses available to them to take action in the world creating their intended outcomes. 

In the MythoSelf Process model we hold a primary presumption that all of our experiences, including the realization of our intended outcomes, are a function of the action we take and choose not to/fail to take. The action we take are our behavioral responses, so if we desire anything in our lives, including the desire for it to be different in some way we need to modify our behavioral responses that keep the way we experience our lives as we do intact. 

Because we accept that we are ontologically grounded somatically, and our sensorial awareness drives our experience and way of knowing the world, we cannot change our behavior without first changing how we are in ourselves, i.e: somatically, and the way we experience the contexts we occupy sensorially. So within the MythoSelf Process model transformation becomes a soma-semantic function of shifting the sensorial filters we use and the way we sort and process the information we are experiencing and responding to in the action we take (or choose not to/fail to take).

This distinction of driving behavior sensorially, but shifting what and how we are perceiving in and about the contexts we occupy create a significant distinction in the MythoSelf Process model as a a priori model of behavioral change. Within the model we never seek to directly change behavior, instead we simply change the perceptions of reality we hold in the contexts we occupy, and those we intend to occupy, and allow our behaviors to follow form that way of perceiving ourselves and the context we are in or are moving towards. (NOTE: This process can be, and often is, applied to past contexts and events as we consider them too, leading to a reorganization of how we know the world about us and ourselvees in relation to it to be, including our relationships with others … past, present and future.)

The Use of Story in the MythoSelf Process Model

A final commnent on the MythoSelf Process model for this writing concerns the use of story, specifically autobiographical narrative, in creating and stablizing the awareness of ourselves in relation to a specific perceptual position we hold and operate from to create our intended outcomes. This idea that story contains and holds our awareness intact connects the MythoSelf Process to Werner’s EST, Bandler’s NLP and Fraser’s Generative Imprint models. A distinction in the applicaition of story in the MythoSelf Process model is that we hold story as “open” versus “closed” in the way Umberto Eco suggests is possible. In the MythoSelf Process model a facilitator working with a client will create a story-form that infers the possibilities of creating and experiencing the intended outcomes of the client. The story-form connects both the specific autobiographical narrative of the individual client to the “field of meaning” that is also suggested by other stories in mythic form that support the individual in remaining in choice regardless of the extant, empirical evidience that suggests a given path, allowing them to draw on a much wider and bigger range of human experience and possibilities than they could contain on their own.

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Sarasota, FL, 23 Aug 2022

Communication Mastery

Communication Mastery

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Thinking is Communication … Communication is Thinking

I was speaking with a client this morning and it came up again …

THINKING IS COMMUNICATION … COMMUNICATION IS THINKING

It’s an idea that’s plagued me for half a decade now. It’s remarkable how clearly this makes sense to me today … how obvious it is to me.

Every once in a while I like to revisit the essence of what I do and why I do it, with and for my clients … i.e.: what value I bring to the work I do and am paid for with and by clients.

Here’s my latest update on that consideration, as of this Sunday afternoon, as I sit contemplating it here on 21 August 2022.

Introduction and History:

But let’s go back thirty years or so when I was first coming into the world of NLP, and it was introduced to be as a human communication technology. At that time the idea was that NLP was a way of considering communication and its implications in human interaction. Alongside the idea or interpersonal communication, it was also presented to me that NLP was an intrapersonal human communication technology too.

In the world of NLP the way we process language (the “Linguistic” part of NLP, “Neurolinguistic Programming”) was the critical consideration, especially the nature of syntactical processing, or the sequencing of the internal representations we use to think. In NLP terms this is the V-A-K-O/G representational systems comprised of V-visual, A-auditory, K-kinesthetic, O-olfactory, and G-gustatory, also know as a 4-tuple, where O & G collapse into an overlaid, singular representational form.

Beyond the primacy of the representational systems processing, NLP also looks at linguistic processing, the nature of how language creates representations and meaning. So there are models within the NLP model that address how we process language, like the Meta-Model which looks at the processes of Generalizing, Distorting and Deleting information in linguistic representations, or Meta-Programs which look at how we preference and evaluate language on a continuum of opposites to make sense of and create meaning from linguistic representations.

Then I think forward from that early indoctrination in the NLP model to my years of studying with Roye Fraser, including his training me in the model of work he developed, the Generative Imprint model. The Generative Imprint model is a meta-application of the NLP model that uses a unique positive orientation based in the excitatory bias, using a wholeform structure of perception and communication.

As I think about the years of apprenticing with Roye what stands out most is his use of hypnotic language to create wholeform interactions. Roye’s use of language was exquisite and aimed at what he referred to as the “symbolic, iconic representation” of the Generative Imprint, or a way a person knew themselves to be whole and complete, where they experienced a pervasive sense of wellbeing. This was his forte, and his raison d’etre too.

In the early years of working with Roye I came up with my own application of the Generative Imprint model I called the Mythogenic Self Process (the “myth-making” self process), which I later modified and shortened to the MythoSelf Process. The naming of the MythoSelf Process for my model has remained consistent now for almost 25 years, although the model has been through many revisions and refinements.

It took many years for me to clarify the essence of these models, NLP, the Generative Imprint model and my own MythoSelf Process model. As I was doing this I continued to explore and study other models as well, some philosophic, some psychologic, some an overlay like phenomenology and phenomenography, some others like linguistic and mathematical models, and a deep dive into brain-, neuro- and cognitive- sciences..

However, only after I seriously dove into the exploration and study of cybernetic systems in modeling human cognition and communication was it that all the pieces began to come together. This was the beginning of a profound understanding of the structure of wholeform thinking and communication I had mastered, under Roye’s tutelage and with his intense mentoring.

The Development of SSCT | Sensory-Systems Control Theory

Once I got that deep cybernetic patterns of human perception and cognition I could clearly see the connections between sensorial awareness and symbolic representation that form the basis of what we refer to as thought, and from thought, mind.

It became obvious to me that we transform our direct sensory experiences into symbols of representation so rapidly that there is no temporal gap for all intents and purposes between the two, i.e.: sensations instantaneously are translated into symbols in our conscious cognitive experience. This process is so instantaneous and absolute that reality as we know it is comprised of the symbolic representations we derive from sensory experience, and not based on the actual sensory experience itself.

This led me to develop the theory of human cybernetic cognition that progresses from sensory experience to perception, from perception to sense-making, from sense-making to meaning-making, from meaning-making to decision-making, and from decision-making to action-taking (behavioral response). I refer to this sequential process as the “Ladder of Perception.”

Most of the Ladder of Perception occurs outside of conscious awareness in the feed-forward system from sensation to response. With training the cognitive processing from perception to decision-making can be made conscious in hindsight, looking back from action-taking/response through each of the preceding steps of the Ladder of Perception model.

With advanced training and diligent practice the processing of the steps of the Ladder of Perception can become available consciously as they are happening, and with further advanced training before they happen in the cognitive sequence. When the process that will happen in the cognitive sequence can be considered before it has occurred and created a feed-forward effect in the system adumbration of the unfolding situation becomes possible.

When you can adumbrate the situation you are experiencing, what will most likely happen based on what has happened and is happening is revealed and can be acted upon before it happens as it will if the system is allowed to continue unfolding on the path it is currently taking.

Adumbrating gives you the opening and opportunity to intervene in a system before the event you want to alter has occurred, reshaping the context and framework to allow a different and most desirable outcome to become possible than is possible in the way the current context and framework are organized and being held.

The SSCT | Sensory-System Control Theory is a model that suggests that behavior is shaped at the level of sensation, and by changing the nature of perception behavior can be shaped and will follow. When we can and do choose what and how we are perceiving in the contexts we engage in we can shape the behaviors we need to express that will create the outcomes we desire. Obversely we cannot shape behavior by trying to change our behavior directly, since all behavior is an outgrowth of perception, and if the perceptions remain unchanged our behaviors will always revert to those in alignment with our perceptions.

Sensorial Awareness as Symbolic Representation

Ultimately we want to be able to choose the outcomes we create by our behaviors, because while we cannot necessarily control the contexts we find ourselves in, we do have control over what and how we are perceiving within and in relation to the contexts that contain us.

When we choose our perceptual position we can then manifest and enact the behaviors most likely to produce the outcomes we desire. Choosing our perceptual position requires us to become aware of the symbolic representations we are responding to in the context. By noticing the symbolic forms we are responding to, we can choose to shift our perceptual position until we generate the symbolic form that will and does allow us to manifest and express the most useful behavior in regard to creating the most desirable outcome.

One of the most potent ways to shift the symbolic representation is to shift the filters we are using for our primary way of attending to what we’re experiencing at the sensorial level of awareness.

This can include changing the primary filter, say from visual to vestibular, or auditory to proprioceptive, as well as changing what we noticing for within a given representational system and how we’re noticing for that information sensorially prior to the transform from perception to sense-making (NOTE: in the MythoSelf Process model in addition to the V-A-K-O/G 4-tuple we extend it to a 7-tuple of primary representational systems, V-A-K-O-G- and Vs-vestibular and P-proprioceptive).

Then as we progress through the Ladder of Perception sequencing we can force the sorting pattern of information that would best support our manifestation and expression of the behavioral response most likely to create the outcome we desire. When we shift the filters and force the sorts in this way we begin to reset the processing pattern we use in relation to this situation and the creating the outcomes we desire. Within the MythoSelf Process model this is called “creative expression.”

Creative expression can be partially or fully realized, and is or is not, by the facility that you have with shifting the filters and forcing the sorts to create the behavioral manifestation and expression that most aligns with your ability to create the outcomes you desire. The more elegant the pattern of behavior, the more we can say that you are realizing the fullness of you most profound, potent and powerful creative expression.

When you a fully realizing your creative expression in the behaviors you manifest and express you are living in the most aligned way possible with your innate sense of self, and aligning with that in regard to your external performance. In this way you have begun to create the outcomes you desire by being most who you are, and reducing the friction and compromise in the system. Ultimately when you have refining this pattern and made it the default way you take action the system comes to rest, there is no urgency, stress, anxiety or conflict you experience in taking action in this way.

We can say that when the system is at rest, and you are expressing yourself in the most elegant way possible you are in a state of flow, or what we call your State of Perfection.

By applying the SSCT | Sensory-System Control Theory to notice what happens at the sensorial level of awareness, and in the translation to symbolic representation prior to taking action, we can refine the perceptual position to bring the system to rest.

When you have patterned in the requisite perception training to notice the perceptual position you are holding and its effect on the Ladder of Perception sequencing, and you are capable of choosing the position you adopt and hold to bring the system to rest, you are accessing the reference point of your State of Perfection.

Since the process requires you to attend to your sensorial awareness in a pre-representational way, it is useful to think of this as a somatic intention that occurs in direct sensorial experience had in the body-mind, before the translation to symbolic representation. Only after you have processed the sensorial experience somatically can you accurately identify the accuracy of the symbolic form to the sensorial reality. This transformation from sensation to symbol is a semantic transformation, turning direct sensorial experience into meanings that can ignite conscious decision-making leading to deliberate action-taking, i.e.: in response to an intentional outcome.

THINKING IS COMMUNICATION … COMMUNICATION IS THINKING

So we’ve now come full circle …

We are virtually always acting on the symbolic representations of reality we create from our sensorial experiences. The manipulation of symbolic representation is what we call thinking. Thinking in this way, as symbolic manipulation, operates as a communication process in terms of the use, interactions, applications, and manipulations of symbols, e.g.: words … i.e.: thinking is communication.

In addition to words, symbols can also be communicated in any sensory form we are capable of processing, e.g.: the modalities of the 7-tuple. We are capable of, and do, process symbolic form internally as intra-systemic cognition (processing of information that is self-generated – our own internal thoughts) and inter-systemic cognition (the processing of information that is externally present to us). We can also make a case for inter-subjective cognition as being processed in the space we share with others in simultaneity.

However, what I’ve come to treat as most significant is the communication process itself. I have seen that when you learn to communicate with an exquisite level of clarity and precision internally and inter-personally your ability to express elite levels of performance follows inevitably.

What I mean by elite levels of performance is the ability to consistently maximize positive consequences and minimize negative consequences in the manifestation of your desired outcomes. When you are expressing elite levels of performance, most typically from a flow state or your State of Perfection, you create the outcomes you desire with the minimal cost of time, energy, and resources, including your personal goodwill. We refer to this way of performing as “effortless” in the sense that you proceed through the process of perception, decision-making, action-taking, and adapting that cycle iteratively based on the feedback you get from taking action without any undue urgency, stress, anxiety or conflict.

From the outside looking in, the outcomes you produce when you are operating in alignment with your State of Perfection being and remaining intact appears effortless, and you experience it as being effortless as well, .

When you communicate with others you are expressing your thinking, and they experience your thinking as a process or their own thinking … i.e.: communication is thinking.

Therefore as I consider where I bring the highest value to my clients I realize over and over again it resides in the way I help them recognize the quality of their communication, with themselves and with others, and to refine it to higher levels of quality.

People who work with me begin to recognize the inconsistencies in their thinking and communication processes and begin to experience significant changes in their life as they improve their ability to think and communicate exquisitely.

If you’re serious about wanting to experience the state of flow, effortless performance and the kind of exquisite thinking and communication I’m referring to here let’s find a time to chat.

In the meantime I’d love to read your thoughts and open a channel to exchange our observations and considerations as you have them too.


Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Sarasota, FL

Outlaw Thinking: Part 3

Outlaw Thinking: Part 3

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grok

grok/ɡräk/Learn to pronounceverbINFORMAL•US

  1. understand (something) intuitively or by empathy. “because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately”
    • empathize or communicate sympathetically; establish a rapport. “nestling earth couple would like to find water brothers to grok with in peace”

Grok/ˈɡrɒk/ is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment”, Heinlein’s concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that “the book’s major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term”.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok)

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”

It’s what I do … I grok.

I am a Master Grokker.

I grok professionally with and for others.

SO …

I , Joseph Riggio, grok the MythoSelf Process, and within that universe of understanding, the underlying developmental modeling principals that the building of worldviews, and the narratives that form and inform them, ultimately rests upon.

Now, if you’ll stick with me for a short bit longer I’ll get to how and why this may be of critical important to you too.

Hackers also grok, as in “I hack reality, because I grok it.”

The word was later woven into hacker culture, appearing in the earliest editions of the Jargon File from the early 80s, which was later edited and republished by famous programmer Eric S. Raymond under the title The New Hacker’s Dictionary.

Hackers Dictionary

The primary definition given there is consistent with Heinlein’s, but the more religious and mystical connotations have been dropped:

  1. To understand. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you “know” LISP is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary — but to say you “grok” LISP is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding experienced as a single brief flash.

Here’s an especially interesting bit for me:

When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity.

I am quite literally asserting that after thirty plus years of immersing myself in the work I do, i.e.: the MythoSelf Process, and all the bits and pieces that it contains and it built up from and in relation to, I grok this stuff like nobody’s business!

NOW onto why this is all important, maybe critical, for and to you …

I’ve been laying out a premise for what I’ve playfully been calling Outlaw Thinking in my last couple of posts.

The essence of the idea is that A) I think (and therefore communicate) differently … other than as folks normally associate what thinking is or how it should be done, i.e.: in a straight linear way, from point A to point B, as efficiently and directly as possible … and, B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

Okay here that is again …

B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

SIMPLY … I train people to grok their world, their work, their own lives, and the other folks they engage and interact with … and I also train folks to do this work I do with others, so they can help their clients grok too.

Now you have what you need to decide if this is important, or even critical, to where you find yourself in your life today.

If getting to this kind of thinking and communication in your life and work means something to you, you’re in the right place … YOU’VE FOUND IT!

OUTLAW THINKING REVISITED:

So what do I do again, and why is it important, or critical, for you:

Applying the MythoSelf Process model with my clients helps them to unwind sticky, or wicked, problems and situations in their lives, relationships, work and businesses.

“Grokking” the MythoSelf Process model gives me a kind of genius superpower … because it makes it obvious what level of thinking someone is operating from, and where the limitation in their cognitive process exists, and then points the way to resolve that so that my clients can literally upgrade their mind.

The “genius” in the model is available to anyone who groks it, and that’s ultimately the effect of working with someone deeply versed in the MythoSelf Process.

All perspectives, or worldviews, rest on narratives that describe what is real for the individual, or organization, that is living within and in relation to the narrative … the stories they tell about themselves, others and the world as we know it to be.

The MythoSelf Process model uncovers the existing narrative, as well as the “primal narrative” — the origin narrative that contains the uncorrupted and uncompromised form of the individual or organization, before any attempts where made to reshape them to fit into what society wants them to become.

The primal narrative is the pure mythic form of the individual or organization, and provides access to a teleological trajectory the pulls them into the most desirable future possible for them. In some models of transformational work this would be referred to as becoming authentic, or operating authentically.

The advantage of accessing the primal narrative, or mythic form, that working within the MythoSelf Process provides any user, is that decision making becomes unclouded, and action taking become virtually automatic in relation to creating the outcomes you intend … the effect is that taking effective action, and creating results, feels effortless.

Solving wicked problems is especially important to what we’re discussing here, what I’ve call Outlaw Thinking.

The MythoSelf Process allows you to process complexity that gives rise to wicked problems, and develop effective strategies that unravel the complex issues that have tentacles in multiple directions, having multiple consequences that are overlapped, intertwined and potentially costly if you fail to resolve them, and when they are resolved well are highly rewarding.

Doing this requires operating from a different mind and elevating your performance in relation to the world we now live in today.

The deep challenges we face include:

  • A brain that evolved somewhere between 500,000 and 50,000 years ago, not in the complex and interrelated global world we now move in
  • Cultural learning and impositions designed hundreds of years ago, imposing explicit laws and implicit rules that order our lives today, that no longer effectively represent the world we are living in now

Only by upgrading your worldview, i.e.: effectively upgrading your mind, can you hope to effectively deal with the actual levels of complexity and circumstances we live in relation to on a daily basis today.

The MythoSelf Process is a method for working with someone who will guide you through the specific things you need to do to shift how you are experiencing yourself and your life, usually in relation to a specific situation or circumstance you are currently facing, that then generalized the upgraded pattern of thinking throughout your life.

Beyond the MythoSelf Process work with a facilitator or trainer of the Process, there is an opportunity to learn more about the foundational principals that form and inform the Process.

These principals used with the MythoSelf Process model are built on a developmental model of cognitive maturity, and will dramatically shift the way you think and the way you communicate (because quite literally communication is thinking — as you raise the level of your cognitive maturity communication, and language use in particular, become a controlling mechanism for thought).

If you’re ready to take the next steps in exploring how you can make this kind of leap in advancing yourself, your thinking and your communication have a look here now:

Mastering Cognitive Maturity

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Developer of A.C.T. | Adaptive Cognitive Training and the Cognitive Maturity Model

P.S.: If you’re interested in working with me in one of my small coaching groups or 1:1, there’s no need to wait any longer, reach out to me directly at: joseph@josephriggio.com, and we’ll come back to you about how to find out more about taking the next steps to do that …

Mission: OUTLAW THINKING! -Part 1

Mission: OUTLAW THINKING! -Part 1

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We are certainly living in interesting times … (the foundation)

The most obvious aspect of this seems to be the speed at which things are happening and changing, as well as the level of complexity we are forced to deal with in our daily lives … in our relationships, or work, our heath, in politics and the economy, and in terms of the cultural values that we are most familiar with that are we can no longer expect to remain “as is” or stable for very long.

Why is this important?

Putting it as simply as possible, the mind you are currently using to think with isn’t going to get you the outcomes it could have just ten years ago, and will likely be totally outdated before the next ten are over

We’re seeing signs of this everyday. Consider for a moment people who you know who made it through most or all of their working careers never using or needing to use a smart phone or computer, or even a “dumb” mobile phone for that matter. That is becoming harder to do with every passing year, and will likely be virtually impossible for a vast majority of people in the next ten years.

Professions where being computer savvy wasn’t even a consideration, for example for many craftsmen ten years ago, is now becoming a necessity from communicating with customers to ordering materials, in addition to dozens of other professional uses that show up day to day. These examples are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg however.

Imagine for a moment a roofer who simply needs to point a laser measuring device at the edge of a roof as he or she walks along the perimeter, and the AI software he or she is using doing all the calculations of materials and labor, preparing all the materials purchase orders, work schedules, and cost estimates for the customer by the time the contractor has “walked the building.”

Now imagine a year from then when the contractor simply responds with a drone “fly over” the customer’s home, has all the information taken care of, and the customer receives the project estimate in real time with the contractor. That’s all possible today.

These kinds of considerations change things at many levels, including what the “work” of a roofing contractor becomes, and whether roofing contractors even exist in the near future, or if the home owner simply uses the drone-based AI system to do what a contractor would do today running the project themselves via the integrated software systems connected to materials suppliers and labor pools from their computer or smart phone.

Once again, this is at least theoretically possible right now … let’s call it “Uber Workforce” for kicks, imagining that it wouldn’t be too difficult for Uber to expand it’s operation to provide this kind of service as a mobile phone app. This will become the “new normal” very soon … for many, much soon than they are prepared for or will like when it happens.

So the question becomes, how do you deal with this kind of fast changing world using your current sense of normal and the kind of thinking you’ve been conditioned to believe will suffice in getting the outcomes in a world that no longer conforms to what’s been normal for decades, and in many cases, centuries.?

I’m all about this mission now … i.e.: helping those who “GET IT” and are ready to update their thinking, to radically update what they think about thinking so they can upgrade and install a whole new mind.

And, I get for most folks that leads to a second question, how … how do I make the adjustments and update my mind so I can deal with what’s already happened, and what’s going to continue happening that will requires ways and types of thinking I don’t currently have access to, but will very quickly become the new normal?

I’ve literally been thinking about these questions and how to answer them for decades. I’ve been building models and working with individual and corporate clients internationally to train them to become more effective in they ways they think and communicate.

My clients know they can count on me to help them navigate complexity, the sticky and wicked problems they face and must deal with that exceed ordinary ways of thinking and approaching “problem solving” as most professionals, including most consultants, do it today.

The folks who hire me count on me to think outside the box, and to bring my “outlaw thinking” to the problems they face. In it’s simplest form I bring a counterintuitive approach that turns problems on their head, and I look at them through a lens of possibility making them into windows of opportunity.

More specifically I’m looking at my clients problems from a completely different, higher order of thinking and level of complexity then they are presently capable of themselves. At the higher orders of thinking, and levels of complexity, more information becomes available, and the patterns that connect various sources of information within the context become obvious, because you begin to deal with what’s in front of you and obvious, as well as the underlying and hidden interconnections.

When I take into account the higher order of thinking that’s possible what’s emergent in the systems I’m dealing with also becomes obvious to me. Once I’ve done the calculus to analyze the data in the system, both what’s evident and emergent, I am able to make higher quality decisions about what action to take. This includes calculating the potential positive and negative consequences of the action, and factoring it into best and worse case scenarios, and then preparing for either as the actual outcome.

This is a cybernetic process of thinking that is iterative, recursive and systemic, generating self-referencing and self-organizing update loops. Working this way is the basis of generative learning, and this is what I train my clients to do when they hire me, or attend training with me. I refer to this kind of modeling as “wholeform learning” where the entirety of system, including connections through space and time, is considered in the functional analysis leading to a strategy to be implemented and refined through time as more data emerges and becomes present.

Almost always the greatest complexity in the systems I deal with, and train my clients to deal with, involve others as actors and agents within them. These actors and agents bring agendas of their own, and the ability to recognize the interactivity of these agendas in creating the outcomes achieved, even when the agenda are competing or conflicting, is where a kind of generative magic emerges from approaching the resolution of problems and the realization of solutions in the way I train my clients to do.

To recognize the overt agendas that people bring is easy and most people can do that innately. Recognizing hidden agendas and the secondary gains that remain unspoken and largely unseen requires very specialized thinking. This means significantly upgrading the order of thinking you apply to the analysis of any system you’re operating within and/or in relation to, if you want to achieve your outcomes effectively and effortlessly.

I’ll be back again soon with Part 2 of this mission statement, if you’re ready to learn a bit more now check this out today:

Mastering Cognitive Maturity

(As always, feel free to leave me your comments below, I love reading them and responding too.)

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Developer of A.C.T. | Adaptive Cognitive Training and the Cognitive Maturity Model

P.S.: If you’re interested in working with me in one of my small coaching groups or 1:1 reach out to me directly at joseph@josephriggio.com and we’ll come back to you about how to find out more about taking the next steps to do that …

Changing Minds …

Changing Minds …

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Escaping The Matrix

“Remember … there is no spoon.”

(Author’s Note: This one is going to go deep fast, and then loop around a bit, all requiring some commitment, probably demanding a few readings, but I bet it will be worth many readings after you’ve read it once … ENJOY!)

Take A Walk With Me On The Wild Side of POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE

For thirty years I’ve been working with clients personally and professionally helping them become more:

  • Powerful in their lives, i.e.: able to take the action that leads to the results and outcomes they intend
  • Creative in how they approach thinking and decision-making, with an aim at helping them become more adaptable and artful in acting strategically
  • Influential in their interactions, becoming masterful at communicating authentically and persuasively to engage, enroll and empower others

This is ultimately about how you can develop deep personal mastery so you can create the life you want to be living … a life lived on your own terms, without compromise.

So if you’re ready walk with me for a bit and we’ll explore the journey I’ve take to where I am today in the work I do.

A Little Background:

In the early 1980s I began developing a model of thinking about thinking, or more specifically thinking about how to improve thinking, that I called “Transformational Applied Philosophy” … T.A.P.

I named what I was working on Transformational Applied Philosophy because I was focused on building a phenomenologically grounded model of transformational ontological change, designed around the work of a few philosophers I was reading deeply at the time.

The philosophers I was reading at the time included: Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel (post-kantian logic and phenomenology), Edmund Husserl (existential phenomenology), Arthur Schopenhauer (aesthetic existentialism), Martin Heidegger (existential ontology), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (embodied ontological existentialism), Ludwig Wittgenstein (metaphysics and analytic philosophy of language), and John Searle (analytic and linguistic philosophy/philosophy of mind).

Then I went on and found a few more philosophers who I added to the mix of my reading, social ontologists like Gilles Deleuze, a couple of the hermeneutic philosophers like Jurgen Habermas and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and those in the domain of philosphy of mind, neurophilosophy, cognition and embodiment like Patricia Churchland and, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.

All of that reading was significant because philosophy has been informing people about how to live their lives well, to find a path of authenticity and purpose. Reading philosophy can be challenging, it dense and sometimes very dry too. And, one thing literally leads to another … and another, and another … ad infinitum, until you’ve read the entire canon of Western Philosophy at least (which of course I haven’t, and neither has anyone I know of, but some professional philosophers sure seem to have read 90% of it!).

I still read philosophy actively, more of the later kind … philosophy of mind, cognitive science and neurophilosophy … and this forms a great deal of my background, and current focus, about how I think about thinking, and help others to think better … i.e.: with greater clarity and more precision, leading to a dramatic increase in the ability to think with passion and strategically.

My realization was that while approaching my work with clients philosophically had great and deep value, what I am aiming at required something more than what staying just in the domain of philosophy offers me and my clients.

Going Beyond The Basics

When I found them I fell in love with informal logic and embodiment. This was especially true as the embodiment movement led through the extended mind phase led by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s work (following Gregory Bateson), and evolved to an understanding enactivism/enactment, where the premise is that the mind exists in the interaction with the environment. Quite literally the environment, and the objects in it, the total context, is as much a part of the mind of the individual as the individual’s neural processing and physical/sensory experience.

So I began to look more and more into the domain of somatics and folks from F.M. Alexander to Moshe Feldenkrais to Thomas Hanna. That took me deep for many years, way into anatomy, physiology, and eventually into neuroscience too. But, because I was led there by an interest in the idea of undifferentiated body-mind singularity my focus for about five years centered on studying cerebellar response where movement predominates thinking, proprioception and vestibulation.

HEY, PLEASE STAY WITH ME … WE’RE GETTING THERE …

Somehow this stuff made sense to me as a set of intertwined connections linking and weaving it all together, especially when I began looking at it through the lens of narrative and mythology, and the structure of storytelling.

This phase of my work was deeply grounded in studying the work of Joseph Campbell, the renowned mythologist, and his “Hero’s Journey” model. There’s no way you can do this and avoid looking at the work of many other folks in related fields from psychology (e.g.: Carl Jung) to ethology (Konrad Lorenz) and anthropology (e.g.: Gregory Bateson), linking what I call the biological imperative with the creative imperative, leading to an aesthetic orientation.

Sometime in the late 1990s I was introduced to the work of Clare W. Graves, the developmental social pyschologist. Dr. Graves work impacted my thinking on many levels and shifted the framework of the model I been developing for almost ten years by that point. For the next ten years I would study the work of the post-autonomous, post-conventional developmentalists including Jane Loevinger, Susanne Cook-Greuter, and William Torbert.

OKAY, WE’RE THERE!!! (WELL ALMOST THIS TIME, REALLY …)

Mythological Expressions

By the early 1990s I’d begun referring to my model as “The Mythogenic Self Process” which became the “MythoSelf Process” by around 1994.

That was because of the impact of Joseph Campbell on my work. Adding up all the pieces led me to take a mythological turn, or what I think of equally as a narrative turn. I began to realize that our entire relationship to reality is structured like story, i.e.: in narrative or mythic form.

I’d moved well beyond the limited philosophical approach I’d begun thinking was the way to achieve significant transformational change with clients.

The way I approached transformation early on was based on a premise that the way we hold and process information in our brains as the manipulation of representations, both sensory memories and/or abstractions. That’s why I became (and to some extent remain) so fascinated with a philosophical approach. This approach has great validity when dealing with the cognitive process of making sense of and manipulating information, e.g.: language.

What was missing were the two elements that have become the signature pieces of the MythoSelf Process, sensorial cognition and dynamic movement. When I added these to using a narrative approach to uncovering the mythic form of the frame of reference that holds reality intact for an individual or organization, i.e.: the externalized temporally organized markers that are then internalized and acted upon, it all came together … finally!

(FWIW, I know this all very technical sounding, but I warned you up front this was going to take some commitment, but that it would be worth it, right? BTW, you can ask me about anything you want me to clarify in the comments section below.)

By 1999 I’d already begun training and certifying others to use the model and process I’d designed with great success.

For the next twenty years I’d continue to develop and refine the work I’d designed, and extended the reach of applications from sales and leadership training, to executive coaching, to team development, to intensive individual coaching, to mentoring coaches and consultants to use the model and process with client groups in virtually every specialization imaginable and with clients from eight to over eighty years of age.

What I had in hand was …

An aesthetically oriented, phenomenologically grounded and embodied model of transformational ontological changework that took into account developmental levels of awareness engaging the mythological form that supported the fundamental autobiographical narrative from which individuals and groups define reality as they know it to be in any given moment, operating it enactively.

WOW!!!

That’s surely a mouthful (and why I just refer to it simply as the MythoSelf Process model).

To get what it really is we’re dealing with all of that is actually essential. What makes this so strange to consider however is the typical orientation to reductionism, silos and linear thinking versus synthesis, integration and systemic thinking.

BUT … you can’t deal with dynamic complex systems, e.g.: human systems, without addressing the reality of that they are in fact dynamic complex systems!

The model of transformational changework I built, the MythoSelf Model, then is a model that shifts the fundamental way you perceive, think about and act in the world.

What’s at the center of the model is the shift in thinking from linear to systemic, and from fuzzy to precise. This requires a whole new way of using your brain than most people have ever experienced, one that is both more integrated and, far more embodied and wholeform than your education has ever made available for you to access.

Two other aspects of using your brain in this way is how embodied the experience becomes as you being thinking through and with body-based processing (somatically organized) as well as mentally-based processing (semantically organized) as an enfolded and entwined processing model of thought … and, how sensual and aesthetic this way of thinking is organized. When using the MythoSelf Process model as the basis of how you experience, perceive, process and act in the world aiming for beauty and elegance in form becomes a most sought for characteristic. Essentially this drives sensuality into decision making and performance (strategic action aimed at an intended outcome), making them beautiful as well.

Storytelling & Narrative Communication As A Control System

Way back when … virtually at the same time I began this journey from my study of the philosophers I’ve already mentioned, I also was beginning to read in the field of cybernetics, and cybernetic control systems based in communication.

I felt from the start that there was a direct correlation between what I was reading in cybernetic theory and the work I wanted to master in helping individuals and organizations make transformational changes. What I couldn’t put together was the mathematical orientation of many of the cybernetic thinkers I was studying at the time and how to apply them directly to helping people make the changes they desired.

The idea of systems that provided and operated on feedback made perfect sense, yet the mechanism of how to apply this directly with my clients eluded me for many years. It took the connection between mythological form/narrative and developmental theory to make sense of it as I now have and apply in my work with clients.

While the idea of a primary cybernetically organized mechanism to assist clients to make change made perfect sense, the specific methodology was a bit trickier to fully explicate and define.

When I brought together all of the systemic work I had been doing with individuals and organizations, as well as the mechanism of mythological form/narrative applied within a developmentally organized approach, it all became very clear that what I knew was working could be codified.

Stories are intrinsically cybernetic in the sense that they are self-contained systems. In stories language “controls” the movement of the narrative in terms of content, space as place, and temporality.

Where someone perceives themselves in space and time relative to the content in consideration determines what the content represents to and for them, and what’s possible as a result.

Narrative structure is based in organizing temporally, and placing actors and agents in relation to one another relatively in space, i.e.: who’s affected by the events that happen and how, where the events are happening, as well as when the events happen, are all part of narrative structure.

Organizing the stories we tell ourselves and others, as well as the stories others tell … especially those they tell about us … are all part of the mythic form of our life that organizes who we know ourselves to be in relation to reality as we know it to be.

Therefore the most powerful skill we can possess may be our ability to design, craft and tell potent stories … in storytelling we contain POWER | CREATIVITY | INFLUENCE simultaneously. When we tell stories intentionally, to ourselves or others, we shape and reshape reality as we know it, and in regard to how we relate to it.

Transformational storytelling sits at the heart and soul of the MythoSelf Process model. Storytelling is the essential and central skill that allows someone to create a future possibility that doesn’t exist for them as they are today. Using stories also opens up the possibility of shifting away from those things that limit an individual or organization.

I’ve designed the MythoSelf Process to allow facilitators of the Process to help clients make significant shifts towards what they want, as they simultaneously reset their relationship to what had been limiting them in the past, using narrative form as a means of updating their personal mythology.

Using a wholeform approach that takes into account sensorial and dynamic movement processing, as well as content driven sense-making, meaning-making and decision-making, defines the MythoSelf Process more than just a narrative or storytelling methodology as they are normally approached.

The MythoSelf Process creates a new wholeform reality by blending somatic and semantic modeling within a narrative, storytelling process that resets the temporal and spatial relationship of a client to the future-based position they intend to achieve.

Holding The Space For Clients Until They Can Hold It For Themselves

The new wholeform reality created by combining somatic and semantic modeling using a narrative, storytelling approach shifts the filters of perception and the sorting patterns that lead to sense-making, meaning-making and decision-making that precede taking action that produced the results that lead to achieving outcomes.

Only when an individual’s or organization’s filters and sorting patterns are fully organized and aligned with the outcome that’s intended, will the trajectory of action create the results needed to achieve the outcome that’s desired.

By shifting the filters and sorting patterns to align with a newly intended future, the individual or organization shifts the way they are paying attention, what they notice for, and how they notice for it, as well as what it means, needed to create that future intended outcome. This amounts to stepping into and living a new story that forecasts and leads to a new emergent reality.

Like this, what to do becomes obvious, even when it requires significant work to accomplish. In this way, operating from within the new story structure, moving towards the new emergent reality becomes effortless … regardless of how challenging it may be to do what’s necessary.

As the agent of change, “I” was the primary mechanism I had been seeking, and the specific way I could organize myself in relation to my clients to assist them in bringing about the change they sought when they engaged me became instantly clear as well (although it’s taken me another ten years to document and codify it fully).

There are two aspects to applying the MythoSelf Process in the way I have been building up to and describing … first by establishing the stories that need to be told and re-told, and second by holding a position in relation to your client that demands they operate from the position they’ll be in when they achieve their outcome. Doing this requires understanding all the “science” part of what I’ve been laying out here, as well as the “art” of knowing how to step into and adopt the position of choice.

In this way bits and pieces of what your clients need to be aware of starts becoming obvious to them. As the become aware of what they need, they simultaneously become more able to hold the position they need for themselves where noticing in this way is automatic and natural for them (without needing you to provide the structure and stimulus to prompt them to hold this position).

Over time the new position, actually a new reality for them, becomes how they are without effort or trying, it’s quite literally who they become (with your help of course, until you don’t need to help anymore).

This is a radical departure from how most processes, approaches, methodologies and models of transformational change operate. In virtually every other way of prompting transformational change it’s what the change artist does with or to the client that makes the difference. In the MythoSelf Process model the way you are as you do what you do with or to the client is what makes all the difference.

“Holding the position” is a cybernetic process, and personal communication … including the art of storytelling … is the ultimate control function in the system.

Stories form the mechanism to provide the intervention, or interventions, required to shift the system so the individual can find a way to permanently occupy the new position of choice, opening the pathway to a new possibility, a new future, beyond what would have been possible before resetting the system to the new position created in the relationship between the client and the facilitator.

In the end becoming that person, the one who can hold the position necessary makes it all worthwhile to have done all the reading, study and the thousands of hours of client work required to know how to discover what to do and how to do it, and then to do it.

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process

Sarasota, FL

P.S.: – If you would like to discuss the MythoSelf Process more, either as a coach or consultant … or, with the intention of exploring how experiencing the MythoSelf Work might help you personally … let’s talk, set up a complimentary consultation at your convenience: Schedule Time To Talk With Joseph Now

The State of the Practice: ABTI | Joseph Riggio International

The State of the Practice: ABTI | Joseph Riggio International

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Entering A New Decade – 2020 Update

Howdy …   Here’s a little sandwich I’m building for those of you who have some interest in working with me professionally at some point, as well as those who have worked with me in the past or are working with me now. NOTE: This meal is for anyone who’s been paying attention, and wants to kick ass, take names and get on with having YOUR life … 

First the bottom slice of bread, that the rest of our meal together today will be built up from … (we’ll add condiments later on):

Okay let’s start with some self revelation … it’s my 6th decade here on Planet Earth, or Gaia as some folks prefer to think of her (yes, I think she’s a she because she is fertile and fecund). That little tidbit ain’t so meaningful by itself, but very few little tidbits are meaningful outside of context, so let’s add some context. This is all about where I’ve been (very little actually about that) and where I’m aiming (almost everything else here is about that) as a professional expert advisor, mentor, coach, consultant and trainer. So now little juicy tidbits won’t be here about my personal life behind closed doors (sorry if you might have wanted or even expected that from me … maybe another time, with photos). Of course all this is only meaningful to the extent that you care, and more to the point — in the way it may impact or effect you personally. So I’m aiming this update at those folks who have worked with me before and who’s life/business I’ve impacted, those who are working with me now and are hoping for a positive impact and effect in the work we’re doing together, and also to those who may consider working with me in the future as well.

Now that we’ve covered the preamble and framing stuff let’s go to the meat of cheese of it all …

It’s significant that after living on her ample bosom I can happily report that Mother Earth has treated my particularly well, and I am both well satisfied and well positioned to continue with sojourn here for a while longer (Trans.- basically I’m in great health, good spirits and prepared to leap forward from the base of learning and experience I’ve accumulated in the past six decades). For about three of my six decades I’ve been working at learning and applying stuff about the human condition to various and sundry aspects of creating an extraordinary life. Some folks say I’ve gotten pretty good at it too. Here’s a short list of some of the sundry things I’ve put my attention on over the years:
  • Teaching NLP and communication skills
  • Learning and using Roye Fraser’s ‘Generative Imprint’ model working with folks and help them discover, access and sustain what it’s like for them to be at their best, and operate from there consistently
  • Working with individual clients and some small groups to provide personal interventions around issues like health and wellbeing, personal and professional relationships, career and business issues … doing what now today might be called coaching, but I still prefer the term I learned with Roye, “doing a piece of work”
  • Architecting and designing the MythoSelf Process model, originally called the Mythogenic Self Process, as an aesthetic model of embodied ontology using somasemantic interventions
  • Developing ways to integrate the NLP model and Roye’s model together building customized sales and leadership development training solutions for business/professional clients
  • Designing positively organized strategic solutions for my business/professional clients and assisting them to integrate and implement them
  • Training, certifying and licensing folks, who were interested and committed, to facilitate and train the MythoSelf Process, the model of work I’ve been at since 1990
  • Developing and delivering online training programs built around the MythoSelf Process model, and integrating that with other things, like business development and communication skills.
  • Training and mentoring coaches and consultants in building their business and deepening their skills
  • Working with high achieving individual clients on personal as well as professional issues like their relationships, business transitions, legacy …
So you can see I’ve been busy … and growing. But, as I’ve noticed is so often the case, as people get older the circle closes, and they return to their roots. So it is for me. My love is the MythoSelf Process work, and helping people to develop the fundamental life perspective it fosters … what is best called having a “possibility mindset” … seeing the world through a lens of opportunistic thinking and linking that to taking action. Now this is a remarkably simplistic way of referring to what I do with people, but it gives us a place to begin and orient from as I go a little deeper. What’s required to access and sustain a possibility mindset is a new perspective about life, and that perspective is that it’s always working, even when it may seem from a particular place and stance that it is not.
A simple example of having a possibility mindset is the idea that all endings are also new beginnings.
It’s also about recognizing the possibilities or opportunities that abound in the present moment. So, in part it’s also about developing a specific kind of intuition to notice for what is present but unseen, including the emergent future possibilities — something I refer to as adumbration, or the art of foreseeing the immediate future that’s unfolding in this moment. I can go on, but the work is complex, deep and profound in so many ways, all of which enhance and create a robust richness in living one’s life, both on own’s own and with others (now you can see why I so love doing this work). What this means is that I’ll be rolling up a lot of what I’ve done and have been doing, some of it that I’ll only be doing in the future with partners I have built significant relationships with who are peers and colleagues in delivering what I think of as some of the best training, consulting and coaching programs on the planet, but other than that it will disappear from my personal portfolio of work. The work that will happen only in conjunction with my partners will be everything I’ve done before (as well as stuff I haven’t) that doesn’t specifically fit into what’s below. I guess the question then becomes — what will I be focused on moving forward … Simple …

  • One to one, and small group work, with high achieving individuals (and those who are truly aspiring to be high achieving themselves) … i.e.: doing a piece of work

    This is all about personal and professional interventions to develop the kind of intuitions that make living one’s life on one’s own terms effortless, Getting Unstuck, Breaking Through and Creating Results to put it another way — this is all about resolving the ways in which you get in your own way, and freeing yourself to see the world in ways you haven’t before or yet, to open you to the vast range of possibilities to have your life work as you wish and desire … on your own and with others, personally and professionally

  • A major shift to delivering Relationship Coaching and Training as a central theme of what’s coming — for folks who’ve been there and done that, and who are ready to build a relationship that fulfills them completely — what’s intended to be the “Last Chapter” … where you get to live “happily ever after …”

    I’ve been around long enough to know that we are embedded in our relationships, especially those that involve those we love — this work is about resolving what gets in the way of having the kind of relationship that happens in RomComs, Hallmark channel programming and romance novels (especially those with the steamy bedroom and beach scenes) — I’ve been aiming at this work actually for years, and I’ve done a lot of it, and now it will become a major focus on where I’m placing my time and attention on live programs going forward … if you’re on board, get ready for the ride of your life, because that’s the only one you’ll know after you’ve experienced what’s in store for you here

  • Running and delivering MythoSelf Process Training and Certification Programs internationally

    I’ll be running a limited number of MythoSelf Process programs for individuals internationally throughout the upcoming year with folks certified by me to deliver them, and turning over this part of the MythoSelf Process training to them more and more over the next two years (so if you’ve ever wanted to attend a MSE | MythoSelf Experience with me do it this year) … this is at the heart of the work I love, and part of what this means is that I’ll be focused on running and delivering certification programs, and for those who are interested and skilled offering licensing to run MythoSelf training themselves.

  • Working with Coaches, Consultants and Expert Advisors as a mentor and advisor to them

    I’ve been around a long time now and I have something to share with those folks who are interested in what I’ve gathered about this work — this is highly specialized work … and I intend for it to be very intensive and intimate work as well … for a very target group of folks, but where it’s a fit there’s a lot we’ll be doing together — business building, skills development, client insights …
And, that’s all folks! Now you have the meat and the cheese (the work I’ll be doing with others, as well as a ton of what I intend to give away for free … a new podcast (or two), live video feeds, my ongoing writing (in some new places too) … we can call the condiments, okay?). If you want the short summary … it’s all gonna be MythoSelf … MythoSelf all the way through and through (the exception being some of the work I do with my partners) … no matter how it’s dressed up, and all the other stuff falling away like a snake shedding it’s skin and revealing itself anew.

So to place the other slice of bread …

(the one that closes a proper sandwich, so you can pick it up and eat it with your hands, not that finicky, prissy shit of using a fork and knife, cutting away little bits to place in your dainty little mouth … my stuff is intended to take big old bites out of … this is stuff that will nourish your soul, as well as improve your life): Look for some major changes in what I’m putting out in 2020 and beyond, as well as where you’ll find it … and some of the changes will be significant too. I’m going to hand off or shut down a number of my FB groups, to focus much more on consolidating what I’m saying and to whom. I’ll have some new places and ways of sharing what I’ve consolidated as parts of a singular message (can you guess what that is … ding, ding, ding right on! … all MythoSelf Process based stuff … stories, applications, examples … all of it). I’ll be sending out a few emails shortly to invite anyone who’s interested to a few new things I’m setting up, so keep your eyes peeled (and if you’re currently in a program with me, watch especially carefully as we update everything there too … especially for you folks). Thanks for listening 😉 Joseph Riggio, Ph.D. Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics December 29, 2019 (the end of an era) PS – If you’re excited by any of this and want to discuss what’s coming up and how you might work with me, join a program or find out more before we come out with our major release of the new era information you can schedule a call with me here: Talk with Joseph  
The Really Big Ones …

The Really Big Ones …

by ·

Important Decisions …

You only make a few really important decisions in your whole life, the ones that are life changing.

Most people think they make important decisions every year, or month, or week … or even every day. Some really self obsessed folks think they make really important decisions every hour!

The reality is that most decisions have a very limited half-life, i.e.: the amount of time that decision lingers until you can make another decision that changes whatever happened as a result of the previous decision.

The simple reality is that virtually all decisions have a half-life of some kind, meaning they can be changed or even completely reversed as though they never happened at all.

Even getting a tattoo isn’t a permanent decision, but for now removing a finger would be, although even that decision leaves you with prosthetic options.

So when you think about it the only really big decisions, the important ones, are the ones that ripple out in space and time, affecting you in ways that are hard to comprehend completely when you make them. 

These decisions almost always have an affect beyond you and where you are standing in the moment. These kinds of decisions affect others, and usually your relationships with them. They may even affect dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions or billions of people, depending on who you are and the position you occupy when you’re making them.

But for most of us, the really big decisions, the most important ones linger most of all in our own lives, and we need to have a way to understand what they will mean to use before we commit to them.

I know a bit about making these kinds of decisions, because I have lived in the unique space of not only making my own … some remarkably successful ones and others that still linger in my life in ways that force me to relive them with some degree of regret, but I digress … I have also been privy to the decision making of clients whom I’ve stood beside when they were making some of the really big, important decisions in their lives.

Very few folks have the privilege of standing alongside someone as they make a truly critical, crucial decision in their life, and have that person turn to them and ask for advice or an opinion, one that is likely to have some weight in the decision that’s about to be made … possibly one that will change the course of a life. Yet, I have stood there, next to someone more than once, who was about to make what felt to them a life and death decision, and in a few cases was just that. And, in a few cases sometimes making that decision for more than just themselves.

I don’t think there is any more sobering experience I’ve had than those times someone has turned to me in a critical moment about making a crucial decision in their life, one that would change the course of their life and possibly the lives of many others, and asked for my advice or opinion knowing that they’d consider almost as valuable as their own personal counsel.

What You Must Know Before Making A Really Big, Important Decision:

What I’ve learned from standing in that unique space next to someone is that all decisions have consequences that extend beyond the moment you are making them in the here and now.

When you are making really big, important decisions you need to know they will have lingering consequences, and you cannot know all of them when you are making the decision.

This means you will have to learn to accept the risk of making really big, important decisions and the consequences they bring, even the unknown and unexpected consequences of the decision, or be at the mercy of having those decisions made for you by default.

The really big, important decisions don’t go away, they don’t fade and become meaningless in your life. Even when you refuse to make a big and important decision it will linger, and it will grown the stench of a rotting corpse, becoming more foul and difficult to deal with as you wait.

The most successful and fulfilled people I know share three common traits:

  1. First a kind of paradoxical one … they make all the decisions they can immediately and don’t make any decision that they aren’t ready to make until the waiting for that decision is full
  2. They include the counsel of another or others in their most important decision-making, and
  3. They own whatever decisions they make completely, especially when they don’t turn out well 

All three of these are present at all times for the really big, important decisions that the most successful and fulfilled people I know make for themselves and others, because often these folks are making decisions that deeply impact the lives of others as well as their own.

What’s most curious to me though is how most less successful and fulfilled people do exactly the opposite …

  1. They rush into decisions that could have waited and that they are in no position to make, while waiting on the decisions that need to be made and that they can make in the moment …
  2. They often or even always make their biggest and most important decisions based solely on their own counsel, neither thinking nor knowing how to engage another in helping them work through them, or not having someone in their life they can and do trust to stand in that space with and for them …. and
  3. They refuse to own the decisions they make or the consequences that come with them, always looking to blame someone else for what happened and what went wrong after the fact, it’s never their fault in their own minds, so they never get to learn from their mistakes and are doomed to making the same ones over and over again.

Now you might be reading these lists and wondering why they are so different … opposite from one another in fact.

My experience suggest that the most successful and fulfilled folks accept that life is uncertain and full of risk. They know that some risks can be avoided or mediated, and others are meaningless despite being present. These folks also know that those risks that cannot be avoided, mediated and are of great importance must be faced despite the fear they feel, and the do just that … they face what must be done directly and then they act, but only when they can and must, with the advice of trusted counsel, and the accept whatever will happen as a result of their own making.

The less successful and fulfilled people act from fear to relieve themselves of it, never really having learned to stand in it and accept that some things must be faced and cannot be avoided or mediated. They let their fear force them to make decisions they are incapable of making from how they are and where they stand in the moment, they insist on making them on their own or despite counsel otherwise from others, and in no way do they accept the full weight and responsibility of making their own decisions, because they feel forced into them by their fear and look to find a scapegoat they can blame for whatever tragic outcomes may come as a result of their own faulty approach.

I’ve seen dozens of examples of both … extremely successful and fulfilled folks who make truly high-quality decisions, and much less successful or fulfilled people who cannot seem to get out of their own way to make even moderately big or important decisions well.

 

What Are The Really Big and Important Decisions You’re Likely To Make?

Okay, I’m not going to give you a list, instead I’m going to give you principles you can use to make your own list.

The first principle is this:

  • Any decision you make that has lingering consequences through space and time that cannot be reversed immediately after you make it and take action on it is a big and really important decision.

Decisions of this kind include many critical health choices that you may find yourself forced to make in a moment of crisis, including who you choose to assist you and what options you take to address the crisis, whether your own or for another. Any decision that would alter the course of your life, or the life of another irrevocably is a big, important decision such as the decision to have a child, to give up a child or, to foster or adopt a child. From the first moment after you make these decisions and act upon them they immediately build momentum and compound to become big and important decisions in your life and that of others. There are also decisions to not do something that is time critical that are big and important decisions, like taking action to prevent harm to yourself or another, from something as simple as putting on a seat belt, or deciding not to drive in a severe storm if you don’t absolutely have to for something even more critical than avoiding a situation you don’t need to be in that puts you and others at risk. Make all these decisions with great care, and with the advice and input of counsel whenever you can.

These kinds of decisions also include any decision you make to harm yourself or another with grave consequence, for example anything that would cause the loss of a limb, an organ or a life. This could be from intentional self inflicted trauma, or unintentionally inflicted trauma like driving while drunk and permanently injuring yourself or another. These decisions also include setting down any path that leads to an escalation of events that cause this kind of trauma, from something as simple as not getting enough exercise or eating poorly, to taking drugs that lead to a crippling addiction, or engaging in activities with others that result in inevitable and devastating consequences like gambling beyond your means and building inescapable debt with people that must be paid, or following urges like sexual desire to places that can only end in grief for yourself and those you indulge yourself with as well. Avoid decisions of this kind at all costs if you are able.

The second principle is:

  • Any decision that requires you to make extraordinary effort to remove yourself from, change the outcome or direction of where it’s going, or how it will affect others after you make it is a big and important decision too.

Okay so we’re probably not talking about life and death here, so we a little removed from that intensity of risk and the decision making associated with it. However, these decisions do have lingering consequences and need to be made with utmost care whenever possible. An example of this kind of decision is entering into any kind of committed contract … from marriage to a professional engagement where you’ve pledged something from your time to a specific outcome you must produce or suffer the consequences if you fail to do what you’ve committed to and promised. It might also be a decision not to do something that would set you up for failure that you can avoid by saying no now. As with any big and important decision you’ll make, these kinds of decisions often require more than just simple counsel, but often professional counsel from experts like an attorney or accountant who can see the long term ramifications of your decision in way you could not on your own.

It might also be a professional decision regarding a business you own or run where you really do need the counsel of others with greater expertise and more qualified than you to make the proper decision. And, minimally you’ll want to have a trusted adviser, a personal “consigliere” of sorts in your corner for these kinds of decisions. This person can assist you in thinking through your decision, and while whatever decision you make will be your own, and as such you must own it completely, your consigliere can not only help you consider it in ways you might not on your own or from a view you that you wouldn’t take on your own, they may also be useful or even instrumental in carrying it out, or presenting it on your behalf as you spokesperson. This last bit is a masterful ‘trick’ of many elite performers creating a means of later modifying what has been said with a grace not otherwise possible.

The third and final principle for now is this one:

  • Almost all truly big and important decisions involve other people, usually people who hold a significant place in your life.

When it comes down to it the really big and most important things in your life will be about the people you care for, care about and love.

This is a key distinction about big and important decisions, it’s almost always about the people in your life.

Who you marry, the way you raise your children, the friends you make and keep company with, who you hire or work for, or work with … all these kinds of decisions involve other people. They can be and often are big, important decisions.

The think to know and remember about these decisions are that you are building a bank or good will or ill will, and you will do both in your lifetime. There is no pleasing everyone, and any attempt to do so will cause more harm than good, so get over trying. You want to know yourself and trust yourself to know when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no’ to others regardless of how they will feel in the moment.

The ability to know when to say ‘yes’ and when to say ‘no’ to another person is a critical life skill you must develop if you want to live a successful and fulfilled life.

Saying ‘no’ as soon as possible is the surest way to minimize bad feelings and any ill will you will create with others. In fact becoming know as someone who says ‘no’ often and quickly gives you a tremendous freedom to do so, and makes those times when you say ‘yes’ far more meaningful.

Saying ‘yes’ is a commitment of yourself to another, and if you want to live a successful and fulfilled life you must practice living your commitments, the promises you make to others. No one hears the promise made to them by another as a casual comment, they will always take your promises seriously, until you prove to them that they cannot … then they will never take your promises seriously again. So better to say ‘no’ now, than to promise something you find later you cannot or will not follow through with and deliver.

As with all other big and important decisions the decisions in your life involving other people are often, if not always, made better by the trusted counsel of another. We are too charged around others to see them fully for who and what they are, and there is no guarantee that in this case two heads will truly be any better than one, but it does raise your odds of getting it right and your chance to make the best decision more likely.

This is especially true when the decisions involving someone is for you highly emotionally charged … either positively or negatively, love and hate are not often the best ground for making the best decisions. Yet, regardless of the counsel of others you must especially be willing to own your decisions made on the ground of love or hate.

Tread this ground with the utmost respect and humility, for here you will look back and see the biggest and most important decisions of your life.

The bank you make in the space of your relationships with others is the one you will draw from more and more as your own life force and will dwindles. You will find that you want to sit quietly with a trusted friend you’ve invested much with rather than move on to the next thing to do, the next great accomplishment in your life, when this time comes for you. Yet, will find yourself drinking alone, staring at an empty chair if you are not making these investments into the bank of life and relationships now. In these times of your life family and friends will be seen as your greatest treasure, so fill the treasure chest now with what’s most meaningful and not the trinkets many believe to be the stuff of great fortune.

As always I am humbled to have walked in this space with others who have and do trust me as one of their trusted advisers whom they look to for counsel when life shows up with these really big and important decisions, and for a few I have had the honor of standing alongside them as their personal consigliere when life showed up most critically, this is an almost unimaginable responsibility and privilege. Yet, as I scan the heavens and look to my own future, I see that these seeds I have sown have born the greatest fruit and my treasure chest is full, thank you for allowing me such grace …

Buona Fortuna and Abundanza,

Joseph