[3 min read]
Strategic Intelligence Questions
- What must you do next to change so that the world around you will be forced to change also in the way that you desire?
- How will you make sure that you do not seek the recognition of others, but just keep completely focused on enjoying your process or journey?
- How will you make sure that your mind is completely focused on enjoying your process or journey and not any results?
- Who do you have a horizontal relationship with that is sufficient for you to never need to seek recognition?
- What larger community can you represent or contribute towards?
- What interpersonal relationships do you have to free yourself from in an unconventional way in order to live with more freedom?
- How can you continue to reject the idea of competing, and winning and losing so that it is easy to correct and change yourself?
Key Strategic Extracts from ‘The Courage to be Disliked’
‘Well, in other words, if I change, the world will change (p. 263).’
‘No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike you, as long as you do not lose sight of the guiding star of ‘I contribute to others’, you will not lose your way, and you can do whatever you like (p. 262).’
‘So, cast away the life-lie, and fearlessly shine a bright spotlight on here and now (p. 258).’
‘Lifestyle is about here and now, and is something that one can change of one’s own volition. The life of the past that looks like a straight line only appears that way to you as a result of your making ceaseless resolutions to not change (p. 255).’
‘However, if the goal is mountain climbing itself, and not just getting to the top, one could say it is energeial. In this case, in the end it doesn’t matter whether one makes it to the mountaintop or not (p. 252).’
‘It is even said that to truly understand Adlerian psychology and apply it to actually changing one’s way of living, one needs ‘half the number of years one has lived’. In other words, if you were to start studying it at the age of forty, it would take another twenty years, until you turned sixty (p. 226).’
‘From an Adlerian psychology point of view, the answer is simple. First of all, build a horizontal relationship between yourself and another person. One is enough (p. 197).’
‘Because giving praise is a judgment that is passed by a person of ability onto a person without ability…. When receiving praise becomes ones’s goal, one is choosing a way of living that is in line with another person’s system of values (p. 186).’
‘Adlerian psychology refutes all manner of vertical relationships, and proposes that all interpersonal relationships be horizontal relationships (p. 180).’
‘Yes, of course. Do not cling to the small community right in front of you. There will always be more ‘you and I’, and more ‘everyone’, and larger communities that exist (p. 176).’
‘One needs to think not What will this person give me? but, rather, What can I give to this person? That is a commitment to the community (p. 170).’
‘When there are two people, society emerges in their presence, and community emerges there too. To gain an understanding of the community feeling that Adler speaks of, it is advisable to use ‘you and I’ as the starting point (p. 163).’
‘… forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance; while people who get too close end up not even being able to speak to each other, it is not good to get too far apart, either (p. 158).’
‘There is a cost incurred when one wants to exercise one’s freedom. And the cost of freedom in interpersonal relationships is that one is disliked by other people (p. 144).’
‘Unless one is unconcerned by other people’s judgments, has no fear of being disliked by other people, and pays the cost that one might never be recognised, one will never be able to follow through in one’s own way of living (p. 145).’
‘As I have stated repeatedly, in Adlerian psychology, we think that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. In other words, we seek release from interpersonal relationships. We seek to be free from interpersonal relationships (p. 143).’
‘To live one’s life trying to gauge other people’s feelings and being worried about how they look at you…. it is a very unfree way to live (p. 139).’
‘Desire for Recognition Makes You Unfree (p. 137).’
‘… the bonds in our interpersonal relationships – are not to be unravelled by conventional methods, but must be severed by some completely new approach (p. 133).’
‘If, for example, the main point of your job turns out to be satisfying other people’s expectations, then that job is going to be very hard on you (p. 118).’
‘There is no need to be recognised by others. Actually, one must not seek recognition. This point cannot be overstated (p. 113).’
‘From the standpoint of teleology, we choose our lives and our lifestyles ourselves. We have the power to do that (p. 103).’
‘But Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart (p. 96).’
‘If you change, those around you will change too. They will have no choice but to change. Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others (p. 95).’
‘It’s only when we take away the lenses of competition and winning and losing that we can begin to correct and change ourselves (p. 90).’
‘No, I withdrew from places that are preoccupied with winning and losing. When one is trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way (p. 73).’
‘Adler points out, no one is capable of putting up with having feelings of inferiority for a long period of time…. staying in that condition is too heavy to endure forever (p. 63).’
‘My feelings about my height were all subjective feelings of inferiority, which arose entirely through my comparing myself to others. That is to say, in my interpersonal relationships (p. 55).’
‘Oh, but being alone isn’t what makes you feel lonely. Loneliness is having other people and society and community around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them. To feel lonely, we need other people (p. 50).’
‘If you were to ask around for people who say they like themselves, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’d puff their chest with pride and say, ‘Yes, I like myself’ (p. 25).’
‘Instead, you’ve got to focus on what you can make of your equipment (p. 26).’
‘… Dale Carnegie…. How to Win Friends and Influence People… referred to [Alfred] Adler… (p. 4).’
‘The influence of Adler’s thinking is clearly present… in Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, much of the content closely resembles Adler’s ideas (p. 5).’
#involgize