Getting Around The Humans: Figuring Out Why People Do What They Do 3l9t

Getting Around the Humans

Figuring Out Why People Do What They Do

Duane Shoebridge

Copyright © 2017 Duane Shoebridge. Cover designed by Sam Wilson samwilsonanimator.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV® Text Edition: 2016

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

WestBow Press A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan 1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 www.westbowpress.com 1 (866) 928-1240

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7948-6 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-5127-7949-3 (hc) ISBN: 978-1-5127-7947-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017904047

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/12/2017

Contents

Introduction The Journey

Getting Around the Humans

We Three Countries

Country of Riches (Variety, Creativity, Pleasure)

Country of Wealth (Power, Control)

Country of Honor (Known and Approved, People)

Personal Assessment Worksheet

Priority of Desire

Navigating the Swarm

Riches Strategies

Wealth Strategies

Honor Strategies

Cheat Sheet

Works Cited

In Remembrance of Wade K. Wahl, PsyD October 16, 1956–June 14, 2003

Dr. Wahl was my college psychology professor at Northwestern College in St. Paul. He challenged our thinking by asking why there wasn’t a Biblical Psychological Model. Hopefully, this series will be the beginning of that dream.

Book 1: Getting Around the Humans This is a basic look at the core of who we are. It will help you understand motives and the basic why we do things. It can be applied to business, home, school, church, and life in general.

Book 2: Getting to Know the Humans This is an in-depth look at humans. We will see how the soul reacts to the different body types and spirit types. It will also be looking at learning styles, restorative centers, the will, mind, conscience, and many other parts of human personality.

Book 3: Managing the Humans This is the application of all that we have learned to this point. It will also introduce soul demotivators and in-depth look at the honor code. It will illustrate how we help ourselves and others reach our greatest potential.

Special thanks to my editor and nephew, Nathan, for your insights and wisdom. Mostly, thank you for believing in this project. You have been a great encouragement to me. As you know, the fact that this book is finished is proof there is a God and that He has incredible patience.

Introduction The Journey

When I was a student at North Western College, I was working on a dual bachelor of arts degree in Bible and psychology. In 1993, my psychology professor, Dr. Wahl, asked us in class, if we believed that we had a subconscious. We all raised our hands. He then asked why we believed it. It wasn’t proven. It wasn’t necessarily biblical. It was just one man’s opinion. He challenged us to think of what a biblical model would look like. Dr. Wahl didn’t have a model to give us, at least not that he shared at that time. But the challenge stuck in my soul. I’m a theory person. I like to dream of and formulate new things. However, putting those things into action is a weakness. So the initial excitement got stored away with all the other grand ideas of a young man. Time progressed, and I got married. I went back to school and got a computer networking degree to pay the bills. I got a job in a business where I could apply my psychology to technology and help people through the crisis of technology change. I implemented new technology and taught people how to use it, even though the process was fearful. Life happened, and it kept me busy. I took out the idea of finding a psychological model in the Bible from time to time but then stored it away again to work on life. In 2002, my wife told me that we were going to have our first baby. Something inside me went click. All those spinning gears in my head started to touch each other, and I began to move. The search for a biblical model of how we are made began that very night. I wish I could say that I stayed at the study until it was completed, but I can’t. God uses us as we are, and I am an artist. I am by nature creative and flighty. Looking back, I can see how God used that time to teach me a fuller dynamic to the basic structure that I initially learned. It started that night with an idea. I was going to do a complete word study on

every word associated with human personality: body, mind, soul, will, etc. Then, through their definitions, I would piece them together. Simple, right? The first hurdle I found was that many times these words were dropped in the English translations. For example, the term soul was often left out and replaced with a personal pronoun. It was an accurate enough translation, but a nuance of the word was lost. Sometimes words were improperly translated, like making soul and spirit interchangeable . To gain a complete list, I had to use web tools to get the Greek and Hebrew words and then look those words up in the Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible. This gave me a complete list. Tools on the web were very helpful in building the list. I only have a year and half of Greek and no Hebrew education, so I couldn’t study the source directly. However, with a trilinear Bible (Greek, Hebrew, and English together), I could put the proper word back into the English version and see context. After a year, I had most of the psychological structure built. However, writing became an issue. With ADHD, dyslexia, and a basic dislike of any writing outside of poetry and outlines, I decided to keep most of what I found to oral discussion and personal application. I tried to Dr. Wahl for his thoughts and guidance but found out he had recently died in a bicycle accident. I approached local Christian psychologists and pastors but found no one willing to work on a beginning concept. So I applied what I knew to my marriage, youth ministry, work relationships, church dynamics, and, eventually, to three very different children of mine. Since then, I started reading books on how to own and run a successful business —about one or two a month for a couple of years. I began to see the personality of the authors and why they were suggesting their ideas in the book. I also began to see which books would work for me and my personality type and which ones wouldn’t. What surprised me was that each theory fit into this new model. Even ideas that seemed at first contradictory fit together. I found holes where some models left out certain personality types. One such incident I brought up to a consultant who taught the DISC model. He agreed the hole was there and the author had later compensated for it in another way. In 2010, I started my own business. Part of the business was dedicated to bringing in the income, finding creative solutions for information workflow

problems. The second part of the business was training companies to solve human-interaction issues using the structure I found in the Bible. My documentation included outlines, graphs, and a few paragraphs here and there. I needed to get this information into a book. At one point, I hired a ghostwriter. I explained all I knew of the subject to her. It didn’t work as I expected. When I read it, I saw how she interpreted what I said through her filter. It was written well. Parts of her writing are still here. It just wasn’t the direction I wanted to take. But it was money well spent. I realized at that point that I needed to write it. There was no easy way out. I needed to write in a way that all the different personality filters would understand it in their own way. It’s like writing a book in English and trying to translate it to Spanish. If the author hires someone to translate it, then a miscommunication can happen. If the author translates it himself or herself, then miscommunication is less likely to occur. I had to explain and illustrate everything three different ways and keep it interesting. I started training companies free of charge and was letting them know a book was being built and their was helping me do that. I wrote many versions over the years, with many different titles. Most I wouldn’t read myself a second time. They were outline format and textbook-like in nature. I would toss them and start again. In 2011, my kids were in a 4-H play. When I watched it, something went click again. Yes, there is an actual click when I say that. I can feel it. I had an idea for my own play. It was a medley of every nursery rhyme that had the term old lady in it. I called it The Old Lady Medley. It was easy to write because most of the text was copy-and-paste from the Internet, with a few transition lines to tie them together. It was creative without a lot of writing. It was fun and a success. The perfect recipe for an addiction. The next two years, I wrote actual plays from beginning to end. That training helped me to write Getting Around the Humans. It is written in many areas like a play. I had to break the content into three books because it was just too much information at one time for most people. I am now looking forward to writing more. That’s how God took a drifting artist with ADHD and dyslexia to write a book. It has now been a fourteen-year journey and worth every step.

Getting Around the Humans

When my daughter, Ellie, was four years old, we enrolled her in bumblebee soccer. It’s a game in which a swarm of kids chase a defenseless soccer ball around a field. Every so often, a little foot would make with the ball, and the ball would go sailing in a random direction. The swarm would then swerve around to follow. Occasionally, the ball would actually tumble into a goal, and all the parents cheered. It didn’t matter if the kicker sent the ball through her team’s goal or the opponent’s. As long as it went through two poles, it was a success. One spring morning, I was sitting in the grass while watching Ellie, who was at the back of the swarm. She was following the little kids in front of her, seemingly unaware of where the ball even was. I tried to call out helpful hints, like, “Don’t follow the kids! Get to the ball!” as well as other sage advice. After calling out several more times she stopped chasing the swarm, turned around, and started walking directly toward me. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing since the swarm was moving in the opposite direction. When she got to where I was sitting, she cupped my cheeks in her hands and put her face inches from mine. At this distance, even a dad could tell this little lady was upset. She said, “Dad, I am trying to get around the humans!” She then turned and reed the swarm. After I stopped laughing, I realized what had just happened. I wasn’t being helpful. I thought I knew what was going on. I shouted out advice based on what I was seeing, but I wasn’t saying anything she could use. She was trying to get to the ball. She just didn’t know how to get around the humans. In my ignorance, I became one of the humans my little girl had to get around. Luckily, she handled the situation better than I did. Like Ellie, we all have goals that we are trying to reach. It would be nice if we could just run up the empty field and drive the ball through the goalposts. However, that is seldom the reality. What we usually find is a whole mess of humans standing in our way. When you are in the middle of the fray, life may seem like that game of

bumblebee soccer. But don’t worry. There is a pattern to the madness. There is always a reason behind the behavior of us humans. This book is geared to help you understand why we do what we do and to navigate the swarm!

Intro to Human Stuff

Humans are made with stuff. I know that’s not in terribly scientific , but you probably wouldn’t want to be reading this if it was. What stuff makes up humans? There are three different kinds of stuff: soul stuff (personality and personhood), physical stuff (soul’s physical input device), and spiritual stuff (soul’s spiritual input device). For now, however, we’re only going to be looking at the soul stuff, or soul for short. I can see the e-mails already: “Duane, it’s the human’s physical stuff that is in my way! Why should I care about the other stuff?” That’s a good point. Let’s consider it. When we talk about human behavior, we tend to ask two different questions. The first is, “What are they doing?” The second question is, “Why are they doing it?” When we look at only the physical, we can figure out what the humans around us are doing. This is the scientific method. Most books that categorize humans organize them by their behavior. For example, a book about business management styles will take one hundred managers, observe them, and then categorize them. Ta-da! A new tool to manage these pesky humans is born. But what about humans who behave in a way that leads to non-management positions? They will not be in the profile. Management may say, “Good, they aren’t made of the right stuff anyway.” But what if they could be great managers if we learned to see them properly? The same holds true for any kind of test group we pick, whether it be students, patients, or prisoners. When we take one hundred random humans and pick a task to study, we highlight some behaviors and overshadow others. This kind of analysis isn’t perfect, but it’s better than nothing. Let us ask a second question and see where it takes us. “Why are they behaving this way?” We could always ask them. The problem is that humans have a nasty habit of not knowing their motives or lying about them. The hard part is that

there isn’t a scientific way to get to the soul and study it. The scientific method works best with physical stuff and doesn’t work well with soul and spiritual stuff. Again, it’s better than nothing. Are our only options to use the scientific method or do nothing at all? No. There is a third option. Let’s turn to the manual on humans. The manufacturer was good enough to leave us a copy. If we can see how the design was intended, we can then make proper deductions and test them. The manual we’re testing here is called the Bible, and it will help us answer the why question. If we can answer, “Why do humans …” then it becomes easier to predict what humans will do. With that information, we can navigate the swarm and reach our goals, and perhaps get a few people on our team along the way.

Wonderfully Made

Have you ever wondered, “Who am I?” I’m sure you have. We all ask ourselves this question at some point in our lives. It’s one of those questions that, when answered, will also answer many other questions. For example, if I’m nothing but a cosmic accident, then other humans are just accidents as well, and there is no one to guide us. However, if I was made, then so are the humans who are in my way, and there is also a God to help us understand each other. So, who am I? Let’s break down the question. If you lost your finger in an accident, would you still be you? Well, of course. How about losing your arm or leg? How much could you lose and still be you? Some would say that you are your brain. The brain is the main computer that controls the biological machine that is our bodies. When the brain dies, you are no more. However, many acknowledge that we are more than just a biological machine and that we have souls that live on after death. “And as it is reserved to men once to die, and after this judgment” (Hebrews 9:27 TIB). What, then, is the soul? By acknowledging that there is an afterlife for the soul, we can make the conclusion that the soul is not part of the physical body. If we are aware, ing, feeling, and, in general, existing after our bodies die, then it must be distinct and separate from the body. The soul does use the body,

but the body is not necessary for the soul to exist. If the soul is not physical, then is it spiritual? Some people think the soul and spirit are interchangeable. However, the spirit is more like the body. As we mentioned earlier, it’s the tool the soul uses to interact with the spiritual world. Proverbs 20:7 (ESV) states, “The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the innermost parts of his being.” What are the innermost parts? Here we see that the spirit is the tool, so it cannot also be the subject. Therefore, unless it’s referring to the physical organs, the innermost parts must be the soul and its parts (heart, will, etc.). God interacts with our souls through our spirits. It’s like how my wife gets to know my soul by interacting with my physical body. She hears what I say and reads my body language to get to know my soul. In a similar way, God interacts with us through our spirits. Another reference to help us see this distinction is Hebrews 4:12 (TIB): “For the word of God … piercing as far as the dividing apart of both soul and spirit.” If one can divide the soul from the spirit, then they are not the same. So, what exactly, then, is the soul? If it isn’t physical or spiritual, then it must be distinct from the body and spirit and made of a different stuff. Genesis 2:7 (TIB) gives us another insight: “And Jehovah God formed the man from the ground, and blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man, became a living soul.” Adam became a living soul. The body existed first, but the form was not Adam. Only after the breath of life did Adam become. The picture is much like a man being placed inside a space suit. The suit is not the man, but the man can’t live in space without it. In this, behaviorists are right; our bodies are biological machines. But a machine isn’t all that we are. Our souls and spirits are also part of the equation; the soul uses the physical body and spirit to gather information and maintain relationships in their respective realms. If the soul is the seat of our personalities, then which traits of the soul are independent of the physical and spiritual?

Gut Check … When you think of your core being, what are the traits you think of? List a few here:

The Core Desires

In understanding the soul, Ecclesiastes 6:1–3 gives us a great start:

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it is great among men: A man to whom God has given riches, and wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires; yet God does not give him power to eat of it, but a stranger eats it. This is vanity; it is an evil disease. If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, and the days of his years are many, and his soul is not satisfied from the good, and also there is no burial for him, I say that a miscarriage is better off than he. (The Interlinear Bible, Sovereign Grace Publishers, emphasis added)

For the soul to lack nothing or to find health, we need to recognize and respond to our souls’ desires. This is contrary to the Freudian view, which places physical drives at the root of all behavior. Physical drives come from something lacking in the body, and once it is sated, the drive diminishes. For example, if someone is hungry, he will be driven to get food. If he can’t find it by legitimate means, then he will be driven to get it by illegitimate means. Therefore, if we satisfy everyone’s physical needs, then there will not be any social problems.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The physical needs are important. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, physical needs must be filled before one can fulfill higher needs. Is this entirely true? How is it, then, that some humans can starve themselves to death to make a political statement? Why also are some humans willing to live a celibate life for the sake of an ideal? In the space below, share an example of a time when you or someone you know denied yourself physically or emotionally for the sake of a higher desire.

Side note: if this is your second time through this book, you can see how Maslow categorized his desires.

Since the hierarchy of needs isn’t always true, we need to look elsewhere to help explain human behavior. Ecclesiastes points us not to the physical drives to receive fulfillment, but to the soul’s desires. These core desires are emotional. As we consider, “Why do those humans …” or more important, “Why do I … ” ing the emotional root will help us reach a logical conclusion.

Three Characteristics of Desire

Before going into the core desires, I’d like to point out three aspects of desire from the Ecclesiastes age above. First, a desire needs to be filled. The soul needs to be provided with something to be satisfied. In the Ecclesiastes quote, it states, “God gives.” So, part of the process of meeting the needs of our desires is ive. Something needs to be given to us. Once we receive what is given to us, it fills us up and gives the soul the ability to express the desire. In fact, what is given to us doesn’t only enable us to express but also compels us to express that

desire. Think of it as the same relationship between the wind and a sailboat. The wind gives the sailboat not only the ability to move but also compels it to do so. Jeremiah is a great illustration of how the soul’s filling drives us to express our desires. In Jeremiah 1:5 (TIB), God states, “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you came out of the womb, I set you apart. I gave you as a prophet to the nations.” God built Jeremiah for a specific task. Then God gave Jeremiah the authority of prophet to the nations to fulfill that task. This is an awesome amount of authority. Authority is what fills our souls’ desire to alter our environment. How does Jeremiah respond to this authority? “Then I said, ‘I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name.’ But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in; and I could not prevail” (Jeremiah 20:9 TIB). Jeremiah had two choices. He could resist his soul’s desire and live an unfulfilled life, or he could act and satisfy his soul. Wouldn’t you like your employees, friends, and family to say similar things about you and your goals? “I love what I do so much,” or “I enjoy our relationship so much that I am willing to make sacrifices to keep it.” This is what happens when you touch and inspire humans at the soul level. When was a time that you felt a fire shut up in your bones? The second aspect of desires is that they need to be expressed. The expression is what you do with the energy of the filling. The man in Ecclesiastes had desires that were filled to the brim with great wealth, many years filled with good things, and a hundred children. So, what did he do with all this wealth? He spent or expressed it in a way that estranged his children and allowed his life’s work to be given to strangers. Therefore, he was to be pitied more than a stillborn child. He could have expressed his wealth in such a way that at least some of his children loved him. He could have built a business that could be sustained without him. It’s a sad story when a business dies when the founder is no longer involved. Another example is when a family falls apart when the kids leave home. Neither the business nor the family was built to last, and the legacy is lost.

As a leader in your home, work, and community, what are you building? Will it last? Is it fulfilling? A third characteristic of desire is that it is infinite. We were made to live forever and interact with an infinite God. Our desires were intended to drive us to learn and grow in that infinite relationship. Therefore, our desires will only be completely satisfied after eternity is over and infinity is complete. The fact that desires grow as you use them isn’t anything new or unique to this book. Douglas McGregor wrote a book in the 1960s called The Human Side of Enterprise. It’s been the scientific model for management training for decades. I like how he phrased it.

“Man is a wanting animal—as soon as one of his needs is satisfied, another appears in his place. This process is unending. It continues from birth to death. Man continuously puts forth effort—works, if you please—to satisfy his needs.”

How does knowing that your desires are infinitely growing make you feel?

The Crisis Cycle: The Battle Within

In this section, we will look at the crisis cycle: the why behind most of our behavior. Think of the crisis cycle as a machine that turns a spiral shaft, such as a drill bit. If it’s spinning up, it helps us to grow with a level of automation. We can also turn it to reverse and drive downward with the same automation just as easily. Just a note: When I mention crisis, it isn’t all the crises that happen in the day. Those are externally driven, like dealing with a flat tire on the way to work. This is an internal crisis. The crisis cycle is the process that forces the soul to grow and mature. It works

like this: Once a desire is filled, we can then properly express it. This satisfies the soul, and we are happy humans, at least for a time. After a while, the soul raises the bar and is no longer satisfied with the status quo. It is then in crisis until it can be filled at the new level. Once the soul obtains the goal, it raises the bar again, creating an endless crisis cycle spiraling upward. We normally define crisis as a bad thing. However, it just means that we are lacking something and need someone else’s help to get it. Since we are limited creatures living with an unlimited God, it’s the perfect tool for infinite growth. A great illustration of this is in Genesis chapter 2. God made Adam perfect. However, God only made one human. As God brought all the pairs of animals for Adam to name, Adam slowly began to realize that he was alone. He was then in crisis. At this point, there was no sin in the world, nothing evil. He was in crisis because he needed something that he couldn’t provide for himself. However, God provided for Adam’s need and made Eve. When Eve was introduced, Adam was overjoyed.

Crisis Cycle

The graph on the right shows the ideal growth of the soul. However, being the flawed humans that we are, we will often try to fill or express a desire in an improper manner, just like the man in Ecclesiastes. When this happens, there is no satisfaction for the soul. Being that this is an emotional process and not a logical process, the soul can panic and increase the wrong behavior. The train of thought is that more is better! But when the soul finds that more leads to increased dissatisfaction, our souls’ panic rises. In this way, a crisis cycle becomes a downward spiral until the soul hits rock bottom. Therefore, humans can nearly kill themselves with their behavior, all the while saying, “I’ve got to stop this!” We see this in alcoholics and drug addicts, as well as workaholics and the lazy. The point to is that logic can’t effectively reign in emotional panic. Only an opposing emotion or desire can counter fear. In the space below, describe a crisis cycle that you went through.

We Three Countries

“A man to whom God has given riches, and wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires.” (Ecclesiastes 6:1 TIB)

Desire Priorities from a Balanced View

The desires of the soul are separated into three categories by the age from Ecclesiastes: riches (variety and creativity), wealth (authority and control), and honor (being known and approved). These three desires each demand filling and expression. The struggle is to balance them in our lives. They act much like three neighboring countries with ill-defined borders. Each desire demands its own rights and privileges while ignoring the others. They each behave as if they are only one. In good times, the border issues between the three desires are manageable. However, when times are hard and the desires begin to conflict with one another, it creates an internal warfare. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your ions are at war within you?” (James 4:1 ESV) The desire that comes out on top of this warfare becomes your primary desire and forms your base personality. How you decide to handle that conflict from day to day shapes your character. In the next section, we will be looking at the cultural traits of each of the three desires. I will paint each in its extreme to help understand each trait. The best way to see these extremes in life is in children. Children lack the defense mechanisms and social graces of adults. They purely want! Thus, they tend to wall themselves into their chosen country and demonstrate its strengths and weaknesses. Also, here is a picture that gives a brief overview of the book.

Country of Riches (Variety, Creativity, Pleasure)

Humans who have a primary desire for riches live in their own private country. This country, as all countries, has its own language, customs, and traditions. Therefore, unless you live there, you will not understand their way of doing things. The converse is also true. The humans who live in the Country of Riches have a hard time understanding the other countries as well.

Desire Priorities from a Riches Perspective

All humans have a desire for riches. However, some have elevated their importance in life far above the other two desires. Refer to the illustration above. In the next few sections, we will look at the roots of those customs we mentioned earlier. As we put all the pieces together at the end of this chapter, many more of the why questions will be answered … at least for this culture.

Filled By:

Do you our illustration of the wind and the sailboat? The boat cannot control the wind, but it can still utilize it. Likewise, the filling is something that happens to you. Even though the wind both enables and compels the boat to move, the boat can be steered in any direction by the rudder and sail. It can even use the wind to sail against the wind. Again, the filling and desire relationship works in the same way. We have a desire for riches that must be filled so that we can express it. What do we mean by riches? Is it having a lot of different stuff to play with, like fancy motor boats, sleek cars, and exotic vacations? Yes, but not in the way you may think. It is not the object itself, that fills the desire. It is the newness or variety that fills. Variety adds color to life. Seeing something new and beautiful is pleasurable and joyful. It’s exciting and produces a WOW factor in life. For example, I’ve often worked with a kids’ group, and one of the things I’ve had to plan for them was the big trip. It’s the trip at the end of the year that everyone looks forward to. When I worked with kids from the city, they wanted to go camping. When I worked with kids from the country, they wanted to go to the big city mall. They desired something different from their normal environment. Variety is best defined as change outside of your control. Say you decide to go to an art museum. You can choose what exhibits to go to, but how beautiful or

repulsive the art is in the exhibit is outside of your control. Even if you liked the section, you’ll probably wander through the other areas to see if there’s something better. That’s why we go to the big city mall, go hiking, and buy the next smartphone or computer. We do it because we don’t know what we’ll face. We hope it will be glorious and fun, but it could be scary or disappointing. Either way, the risk was worth it.

Crisis Cycle

that in the crisis cycle, our souls’ desires are constantly seeking to be filled. The desire for riches can only be filled with variety. As we just saw, variety is risky. If you take the risk out of the variety, then you break the crisis cycle. You no longer spiral up, but stay in stasis or spiral down. For example, video games give you constant change without real risk of physical or emotional harm. No growth is required to get the next filling; all you need to do is a level or buy the next game. You get the pleasure of the filling without the work. It becomes a soul level drug. Why doesn’t everyone get addicted to pleasure this easily? Because humans have different primary desires, just as they have different cultural values. Humans in the Riches culture are willing to sacrifice honor (relationships) and wealth (power) to satisfy this desire for variety’s pleasure. Humans who value one of the other desires higher will tend not to wander down this path of pleasure as easily.

Expression

When the desire for riches is properly filled, it can then be expressed in creativity. This creativity will manifest in different ways, depending on your design. You may express your desire by writing, solving a complex problem, or planning home improvements. This desire for riches in your life propels you to express yourself in your social, spiritual, and personal life. When this expression and filling are in sync, then there is true satisfaction of the soul. If you’re thinking, “Is this my primary desire?” then consider your compulsions and motivations. When you are being driven to action, is it the act of creation? Do you get excited when you think someone else will be surprised by what you did or made? You can best see this in an artist whose compulsion to create drives him to a cabin in the woods to be alone for a few months to paint. Other people can create conflict and unnecessary distractions. The forest provides peace and

pleasure to the artist as well as a vast array of variety to draw inspiration. In this environment, creativity is easier to express. When you express your desires, it not only brings you joy but also helps you cleanse your soul. For example, the Riches culture looks down on arguing, and typically considers it a poison to the soul. As we will see in the next section, it hits their core fear. To get rid of that negative influence, one often goes to their chosen expression of their desire. Therefore, when a pianist is angry, he may pound out a song on the piano until he vents the anger from his system. Then the tune may change to fit his new emotional state.

Biblical Example

“And now our soul withers. There is nothing more than this manna before our eyes.” (Numbers 11:6 TIB)

God’s children were forced to wander forty years for their disobedience. They complained the most about missing the pleasures they once enjoyed in Egypt, even though they were slaves. Now that they were free, they found that every meal was the same: some variation of manna. Their souls were bored with it. They were grumbling because their souls yearned for variety, but they woke up to the same routine day after day. Their longing for the riches of Egypt and its variety of food became so strong a lure that walking back into slavery started to look like a wise and viable option for them. Can you imagine the cultural richness that could have been developed during that time? They were provided food daily. Their clothes never wore out. God himself protected them. This was the ultimate welfare state. They had the time and talent to create. However, their souls needed filling; the filling from the physical world was taken away to force them into a spiritual filling. However, they refused to turn to God, who could fill it. Without this filling, they couldn’t express their creativity.

Fear

For humans who hold variety as the highest desire, their most natural fear would be boredom. The more fulfilled they are, the more they can tolerate boredom. With that said, no matter how fulfilled a human from the Riches culture is, boredom will always be something they actively avoid. When given a task that is boring or no fun, the soul’s emotional response will be to avoid it. It doesn’t matter how much a human intellectually agrees that the task needs to happen, it just won’t be done quickly. The mind pushes forward, but the soul is pulling back, creating hesitancy that is often mislabeled as laziness. Laziness is the absence of effort. Hesitancy is the effort against fear. Another part of this desire is pleasure. If pleasure is threatened, it also creates fear. So, all things unpleasant will be ignored or minimalized. This develops the optimist. The benefit is that they don’t consider much of what would cause fear and inaction. This gives them the ability to see and achieve goals that would be not achievable otherwise. The drawback is that they often do not prepare well enough for the task. However, if the task has enough wow value, they will plow through to the goal regardless of any extra work. The humans who live in the Country of Riches receive great joy when they create or receive variety through effort or delayed gratification. They must struggle through their fear to gain a greater joy. Therefore, constantly redirecting these humans to that future joy will help them get through their fear. It’s a slow learning process, but over time, they can get through more and more boring tasks.

Personal Example

My son Ian loves to learn new things—at least until it’s time to practice. When he was four years old, he wanted to learn how to ride a two-wheeled bike without training wheels. I tried to discourage it because I knew he wouldn’t want

to follow through. But he was persistent, and I eventually agreed to teach him. I went out and took the training wheels off his bike. I then strapped on his helmet. He actually did much better than I thought. He didn’t want to quit until his second fall. I knew he wanted to learn, and something in me took a stand. I told him that we were going to practice every day until he learned to ride. He balked at the news. I know what you are thinking: a four-year-old on a two-wheeler is too young. Nevertheless, I didn’t want Ian to run away from everything for the rest of his life. After a week of crying, and practicing, and crying, it finally clicked. He started riding on his own. Since then, he hasn’t been off that bike unless he’s sleeping or eating. He found the greater joy through work. As a result, I have been able to encourage him to persevere through boring, stupid, and otherwise menial tasks to gain greater achievements. Whenever he wants to quit, I just remind him of his bike lessons and ask, “What if I never pushed you to practice, and you never learned to ride?” His answer is always, “Not good.” He then grudgingly works on his task.

Role

So, what career or task would you give a human if they hate mundane or repetitious work? Before you form too strong of an opinion, consider this: Is someone who is comfortable with doing mundane work ever going to seek a better way of doing things? It is this fear of the mundane that drives innovation. It is those who seek the variety, the artisans and inventors, who help give society beauty and newness. Other career choices include developers, designers, and writers. A second consideration is that Riches humans like to react to their environments, so they are also firefighters and troubleshooters. The family role is the peacekeeper. They hate the negative emotions and will work to minimize them. They will also try to maintain spontaneity and fun. When spontaneity causes the conflict, which will win out? That depends on the individual and family dynamics.

Complaint

When in a crisis, the complaint reflects the fear, “This is boring!” or “This is no fun!” When you hear these sentiments from a human in this country, you know you are touching a direct fear of his soul. The more vehement the expression becomes, the stronger the fear. When you ask your child to take out the trash and he always says, “Aw, Mom, that’s no fun!” you now know why. It’s also the reason why, when you ask an employee to do an unpleasant task, you hear sarcastically, “Oh great, what fun.”

Enlisting Help

When the soul is in crisis, it seeks to alleviate that crisis. One way to accomplish this is to bring in other people to help fill the need. The words the soul uses can give a hint as to what desire is in crisis. What would a person use when they are trying to enlist help to fulfill her desire of riches? It will be in of pleasure or gaining without work. “I want …” is a general concept. When you walk into a room and someone says, “I want you to leave,” you created an emotionally uncomfortable situation or interrupted a creative process for that human.

Conflict Resolution

When a soul fears negative emotion and avoids physical discomfort, it limits the tools available to deal with an irritating person. Talking about all that negative emotion is draining, and a fistfight will hurt, even if you win. The only thing left is avoidance.

Just forget it. The ive way of avoidance is to ignore it. Anything that is boring, unimportant, or unpleasant to think about is ignored here in the Country of Riches. It is a deliberate ignoring of the problems of life. When a human doesn’t think about something, it never gets into long-term memory. So, when you remind them of something unpleasant, you’ll get an honest answer: “I forgot.” An example of this tactic is the ostrich. Ostriches are known for sticking their heads in the sand to hide from trouble. A common phrase in a Riches culture is “What you can’t see can’t hurt you.”

Just smile and agree. If the ive avoidance fails due to a persistent irritant, active avoidance is used. This is to build emotional walls. People in the Country of Riches have learned that if you let angry humans think they’ve won, they’ll leave. Therefore, they quickly cave in against anger. Their apparent caving in is only superficial, however. Inside their souls, nothing has changed. The commitment to their paths is even stronger. They then construct strong internal walls to protect their emotions from future assaults.

Childish Humans

The desire for riches is the reason why compliant temperament exists. At some point after conception, the soul decides that variety or pleasure is more important than honor and control. Because the infant has little means to temper desire, the focus on this desire gets out of proportion. That is why some infants like to be ed around. They like the variety of new humans smiling at them. They want constant change and good times. When older, they will be the type to force events to be a party. With that being so, they also despise any discomfort. When we see this extreme in children, we think it’s normal and cute. When we see adults acting in this extreme, we call them childish because we expect other humans to temper their desire for a good time with work. In book 3 Managing the Humans, we’ll discuss ways to help them grow. Right now, it’s sufficient to

recognize and define the childish behavior. It will give you the ability to know how they will react, and you can adjust your plans so they don’t derail your goals. Avoid giving them more than one job at a time. Also, make sure that the execution of that job needs to happen immediately after the direction is given. Nothing beyond this is likely to happen. The more childish the human, the more extreme you need to take this action. Likewise, as the human matures, more tasks can be given with more time allowed.

Going for a Visit

When I was newly married, I brought my wife to a family reunion. On the way home, all she said was, “I understand now.” As we encounter players in the “Bumblebee Soccer” game of life, it would likewise be helpful to see their hometown. J.R.R. Tolkien absolutely nailed what a country would be like if everyone had the primary desire of riches when he created Hobbiton. If you have never read the book The Hobbit or watched the film, don’t worry, the following example will still make sense. Still, I suggest you do read or watch it at some point. It is a fantastic story. Let’s take a walk through Hobbiton, a small town in the Country of Riches. You approach the town on a winding dirt road. The residents formed the road from the constant use of the path of least resistance. It’s preferred to walk the extra steps on a longer road if it means avoiding a menial task on the way. A menial task is any work that isn’t creative enough to provide the WOW factor. Besides, the stump and the boulders look good there. You also can’t have straight paths on the hillside. It just doesn’t look right. As you enter the town, you notice the wildflowers are allowed to grow alongside the path, with vegetable gardens right behind. What vegetables are planted? Whatever the owner deemed most aesthetic for that spot. The residents maintain the gardens. Weeds would never do. What’s the difference between removing a boulder in the way of the road and extra weeding caused by wildflowers? The road is a public work; no one in town

really cares who made it, nor would it add to the beauty of the area to make it straight. Therefore, it would be a wasted effort to remove the stone and straighten the road. Whereas the garden, with the wildflowers next to it, is an individual’s expression of art that is viewed by the whole community. The extra weeding is repetitious, but not mundane because of the WOW factor it produces. When you see the homes, you notice that everything is done with a flare! You don’t just make a regular door in Hobbiton. Make it round! It may be inefficient and expensive to build, but it’s not about the door. It’s about the presentation and impressing those who look on it. Everything here is colorful and bright. It’s also very peaceful in Hobbiton. That is because the outward show of displeasure is a social taboo. As you walk past, you are greeted with a warm smile. However, when you continue past, you may get a glare, because who knows if you, a stranger, will disrupt the peace. Don’t worry. You’ll never hear the criticism. They will proclaim what they like about you! What is not preferred is not voiced, or they express it in a joke. That way if you are offended, then it was just a joke. If the Hobbit film had shown a Hobbiton marketplace, you would have seen the merchants smiling and joking. The bartering would consist of the offered price. If it was acceptable, then you’d hear a happy response of, “Deal,” and the exchange would be made. If it wasn’t acceptable, a pleasant, “Good morning,” would be given with a smile, and the two would separate. Arguing and haggling are forbidden for such negativity is rude, unproductive, and generally unpleasant. They have weeded out all fear and created a world of only benefits. They create art without critics and fun without consequences. What can top that? What can be better than what they have? Unfortunately, newness is now a threat. They stopped growing. They stalled the crisis cycle in that little town. This is when Gandalf, a wizard, comes to town. He needs someone with a specific skill set for his adventure. He goes to Bilbo’s house. Bilbo was chosen because, as a youth, he loved Gandalf’s fireworks. Gandalf was hoping that the love for amazement in Bilbo’s youth had not died out somewhere on the way. Gandalf tries a direct approach and says, “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure.”

Bilbo is frightened by the risk of adventure and tries to dismiss himself with a polite “Good morning.” Gandalf is briefly perturbed with the direct approach failing, but decides on another plan. “Easy,” you say! “Bilbo’s own desire is to be filled by variety, new places to go!” You would think, but they broke the crisis cycle. His desire to find joy in the new isn’t worth risking the current peace. Fun trumps variety. Gandalf will show Bilbo that the adventure is worth the risk. He allows the conversion to end and puts his plan in motion. Bilbo doesn’t hear from Gandalf for some time. Then one night, a dwarf comes to visit. Bilbo tries to turn him away, but since he can’t be direct and say no, his visitor stays. This same scenario plays out a total of twelve times that night, and Bilbo finds he has a party of dwarves in his home. They are eating his food, using his good dishes, and treating his furniture with what seems like reckless abandon. Bilbo is at his wit’s end when Gandalf knocks on the door. With Bilbo in the midst of his first encounter of uncontrolled change since his first experience with the fireworks as a child, Gandalf and the dwarves tell Bilbo all the gory details of the real adventure to follow. Bilbo is so overwhelmed that he calls it a night, leaves his guests, and goes to bed. In the morning, he wakes to a quiet home. The dishes are done, and his home is in perfect order. Bilbo has gone through a mini-adventure, and it worked out fine. Now everything is too quiet. It is the same as it always had been. It’s now … boring. Gandalf’s adventure doesn’t seem so bad now. All the gory details were probably exaggerated anyway. Even if they weren’t, seeing a dragon would be cool! Gandalf’s goal is becoming his goal. All his creativity is now working on how to accomplish it. He is minimalizing the threats he couldn’t control and finding solutions to the problem he could control. Bilbo quickly packs his bag and runs to catch up to the dwarves and Gandalf’s adventure.

To get a creative human on board with your adventure, to speak his language and stay positive and be encouraging. Anger and manipulation may get the instant behavior you want, but you lose his heart and ion for your cause. Get him to see that your goal is creative and new, or at least his role in it is creative with a result of a huge wow factor that will surprise others. If you do

have to point out a possible negative, state it in the third person and minimize it. For example, “We have to move that rock by tomorrow. They said it’s too big to move without a crane, but I’m sure you can figure out a way to deal with it. Won’t they be surprised to see it gone tomorrow?” Then sit back and see what can happen.

Gut Check:

• What would you like best if you had to live in Hobbiton? • What would you hate if you lived there? • Would you fit well there?

Country of Wealth (Power, Control)

Humans who have the primary desire of wealth will have a different language, custom, and tradition from the other countries. Everyone has the desire for wealth, but some humans put a much higher value on it, as seen in this illustration.

Desire Priorities from a Wealth Perspective

As we mentioned earlier, riches are the things that you buy or gain with your wealth. So, is wealth money? It could be, but not necessarily. For some humans, money is the riches that they collect. You have heard of elderly humans dying of simple diseases because they wouldn’t seek treatment. All the while, they had hoarded a million dollars in their mattresses. To them, their money had become riches that had to be protected. On the contrary, humans who invest their money in the market or in other humans are treating money as wealth. To them, money is only a means of gaining greater influence. So, what is wealth? Wealth is the ability to alter or control your environment. You go to work, clean your house, or complete a task, and you earn money, favors, or influence. So, the degree to which you can alter or control your environment is the level of wealth you have. Unlike the creative output of expressing our desire for riches for the sake of enjoyment, our desire for wealth is focused on becoming more productive and more powerful in the world around us. The desire for wealth brings industry to society. Since it resists outside change, it’s a stabilizing influence in the culture.

Filled By

The desire for wealth is filled by authority. Authority is the permission to act. It sets the boundaries of human action and interaction. Humans in the Country of Wealth are looking for more authority and greater understanding of the authority they have. There are two views on authority: a finite view and an infinite view. A finite view of authority considers authority as something that is limited and needs to be protected and hoarded. Individuals with this viewpoint are afraid that if they delegate, it will cause them to lose their authority. Since this hoarding of authority tends to limit a person’s productivity, the natural consequence is the loss of their position altogether. Consider a manager who is given the authority

over the people in her sales department to bring up the numbers. That manager has the option to take a finite point of view and take on many of the tasks personally and micromanage the rest of the team. This view will allow the manager to grow and excel. It’s also the easiest way to deal with other humans, but the team resources are largely left untapped. An infinite view of authority, on the other hand, views authority as something to be invested so that it may grow in worth. If a manager has an infinite point of view, it will allow her to portion out the authority to her team without diminishing her own level of authority. This delegating actually increases the working power of the team by accessing the entire team’s potential abilities.

Expression

When the desire for wealth is properly filled, it may be expressed as control or altering the environment. You might express it by keeping your desk or your closets orderly, making sure others help keep the workflow going, and adhering to details. Once we have gained authority, it gives us the power and boundaries to express the control over our environment. The farmer can best illustrate this. The farmer will purchase or rent a field to cultivate. This gives him the authority to work it. He works in the fields alone all day, changing the landscape, and making things grow that normally wouldn’t grow there. He controls as many details as possible to ensure a good harvest. He keeps his equipment in proper working order and has little patience for the nonsense of others.

For humans in the Country of Wealth, there is peace in order. It’s also how they purge their souls from the chaos of their day. Cleaning a room will calm them down after a stressful day. However, some humans have the tendency to try to control things outside of their scope of authority. When this happens, they start down a negative crisis cycle. They try to control more and more, and end up achieving less and less. Signs of this are becoming a workaholic and having persistent anxiety. However, when the desire is properly maintained, these humans can move mountains.

Biblical Example

Jesus gives us a great illustration of living within the boundaries of God-given authority. The entire fifth chapter of the book of John deals with Jesus’s authority. The church leaders had authority from God to teach and lead. They were servants of God to ister God’s estate. They took their jobs very seriously. However, they often overstepped their authority by creating rules as if they were the owners of the estate and not the servants. This is when Jesus stepped in. He broke their rules and ignored their authority in the areas that they overstepped. He changed the rules of conduct on their day of worship. He touched those who were untouchable because of their illness. He even had the audacity to forgive sins, which only God had the authority to do. The church leaders saw Jesus violating their authority, thus violating God’s authority as well. They often responded to Jesus’s actions by asking him, “By what authority are you behaving this way?” Jesus’s response was always, “I am the Son of God. I have the authority to do this.”

“In his defense Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at work to this very day, and I too am working.’” (John 5:17b NIV)

“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.” (John 5:30 NIV)

Jesus declared his authority and proved it by what he did. He received authority to heal, and he healed. He received the authority to judge, so he judged. So, if God will not act outside of his authority, how much more is that true for us? He has given us free will, which allows us to act outside our authority, but, when we do, our souls are left unsatisfied.

Fear

For humans who hold control as the highest desire, their natural fear is loss of control, which can often be due to unpredictable, outside influences. Children, the weather, or a flat tire on the way to work can all derail and upset the wealthdriven. They hate the storms of life because they upend every bit of order they have fought so hard to establish. Another aspect of this fear is that humans in the County of Wealth bear an inherit distrust of others. They seldom find someone worthy of trust because no two humans are exactly alike. If you must do everything yourself, then anxiety is the natural outcome. The world is simply too big and unpredictable to control. These humans will intellectually agree that they need to trust and share the load, but the emotions of the soul cause them to resist. How do you help people build trust in other humans? By teaching them to jump. During swimming lessons, kids are encouraged to jump into the instructor’s arms before they jump into water alone. How do kids learn to trust their instructor? They must jump. There are no shortcuts. Over time, they learn that different isn’t always bad. Trusting in someone different may not be preferable, but it’s better than anxiety. Before they can achieve the greater joy of independent swimming, they must push through their fear of trusting others.

Personal Example

The weekends in my house have always been considered guy time. My wife, Jackie, worked every weekend, and the whole house was the toy of my two sons and me. We ate lunch sitting on the floor, played LEGO bricks, wrestled, and did many other manly things. Then we would do a mad dash to clean up just before Jackie got home. When my little princess, Elianna, was born, it changed our weekend routine. Okay, it didn’t change that much. We still ate sitting on the floor and waited to clean until the last minute. However, we had a lady in the house: Lady Elianna. Elianna was a great sport. The boy knights had to kill the Daddy dragon who was holding the princess prisoner, among other great feats of strength. However, this is no ordinary lady. She has a will of iron. When she is upset, she has the most ear-piercing scream. Actually, it’s the same scream when she is sad, tired, wants attention, needs a diaper change, sick, teething, upset, or has a wild dog chewing off her right leg. She also has the stamina to maintain that scream for hours. One Saturday morning, Elianna was going through a bad teething spell. Jackie was at work, and I sent the boys downstairs to play. Elianna was screaming. I changed her, and she screamed. I gave her a Sippy. She simply threw it down and screamed. She had fluid pouring from her eyes, nose, and mouth in equal portions. When I picked her up, she wiggled to get free. When I set her down, she cried harder. I tried Tylenol and teething gel, and nothing seemed to work. I am normally a calm, patient person. However, the thought of diving out the living room window seemed more and more logical as the time wore on. I was working on the research for this book, so I decided to apply what I was learning. I went through the three desires of the soul. From my study, I knew that wealth was the desire to control or alter our environment. It’s this desire for control that makes Elianna strong-willed. I tried to reason out what was going on through that fourteen-month-old mind of hers. She was in pain. She had to control it. She had to make it stop. She was willing to throw away her Sippy, which she carried like a security blanket (riches). She was willing to push away her Daddy (honor). She had to get

control. Her lack of it was causing her to panic. So, I laid down on the kitchen floor. She walked over, laid her head on my chest, and cried. She walked away to cry alone. Then she came back to cry with me. I had given her control over our . It was a small thing, but it was enough to chase away the panic. As she calmed down, she spent more time with me. The other two desires that she had thrown down had to be restored. I spent time telling her that I loved her and I understood her pain, rebuilding the honor between us. I brought back the things that comforted her, and in a little while, the crisis was over.

Role

So, what career would a human who needs to control her domain undertake? ants, quality control managers, nurses, factory workers, and farmers are all careers typically held by wealth-driven humans needing their proactive mindset. They are given authority to control detailed procedures where repetitive compliance is essential to make the work flow smoothly. Their family role tends to preserve order and the status quo. This proves stability and consistency for the family. This stability provides an environment of growth. However, the growth may cause outside change. How they deal with that change will affect the stability they seek.

Complaint

The complaint always reflect the fear. In this case, the fear is the loss of control. When you hear, “I can’t,” or “Why is this happening to me?” from a human with a primary desire for wealth, you know you are touching a direct soul fear. The more vehement the expression becomes, the stronger their fear. If you ask your child to take out the trash, and she asks, “Why me?” you now

know why. It’s also the reason why that when you ask an employee to do an unpleasant task, you may hear a sarcastic, “I love being the go-to girl.”

Enlist Help

What would humans use when they trying to enlist help from someone else to fulfill their desire of wealth? It will be in of wanting to change the environment to gain—or regain—control. A human from the Wealth culture will often say, “I need …” as in, “I need you to take out the garbage,” or “I need you to do a better job of filling out your paperwork properly.” As you walk into a room and hear, “I need you to leave,” you know you have interrupted a control process.

Conflict Resolution

When a soul fears the influence of outside forces invading its territory, avoidance is not an option. If you avoid the conflict, it may undo the changes you so carefully made. If you get physical, that is also uncontrollable. What then are your options? Dams and logjams. The ive defense is to build fortifications. Humans in the Country of Wealth are a tenacious bunch when it comes to repetition. One stick on top of the other, year after year. It is amazing what they can build when they put their minds to it. Of course, that also applies to interhuman conflicts. A schedule can be built so intricately that not a hint of a threat can seep into it. I knew one such human who had written out a schedule for three months. Anything new had to wait three months to be allowed ittance, but by then it simply went away or wasn’t all that new anymore. It works much like a beaver’s dam. Beavers carefully lay sticks to make watertight walls. These walls keep out the water from the living quarters inside

of the dam. They are also able to keep out the predators. The only way in is through a secret door. The only way to know where that is located is to be a beaver. When you’re up against a beaver’s dam, stop trying to get in. Trying to get in uninvited makes you a predator and thus unwelcome, even if you do find the secret door. The best way to get into a beaver’s dam is to be a beaver. Hang around outside and look industrious, building your own dam. Eventually, you’ll be invited in. Even if you are not of the Wealth culture, you are building something. It’s just a matter of doing your projects by their . Roar! When the ive defenses fail, they will often take a more active role and roar. Lions roar to scare their prey. When the prey hears the roar, they run in the opposite direction. The trick is that the lion that roars isn’t the one that kills the prey. It’s the quiet lions on the other side that does the harm. When the prey tries to get away, they run right into the ambush. The humans in the Country of Wealth use the same trick. They roar. They will yell, scream, use a hard tone, or whatever vocal threat it takes to make you turn and run. Don’t be fooled. Like the lion that roars, it’s all a show. They turn their anger on and off as easily as a carpenter picks up and sets down his hammer.

Childish Humans

To help understand this desire better, we can look at human children. The Wealth culture child will be considered to have a strong-willed temperament. At some point, the human soul decided that controlling its environment is more important than pleasure or relationships. The hallmark of a strong-willed child is the temper tantrum. Most kids will try a tantrum, but a strong-willed child will persist in the tantrum until he gets his way. The discomfort he may feel in punishment is irrelevant at the time. The threat of losing a relationship is also irrelevant. The only thing that matters is getting his own way. This extreme is the second definition of childishness in adults; we expect other humans to temper their desire for the good of others.

Going for a Visit

Visiting a hometown of a human from the Wealth culture is a little harder to illustrate. There are plenty of examples, but they are usually the bad guys. J.R.R. Tolkien used this model to form the Orc Empire. The Nazi rule of World War II was a real-life example. The 1997 movie Gattaca showed what the world would look like if we tried to control our genes. The reason they are negative is that they all take a finite authority view: everyone trying to control everything. However, I want to show the positive side of the Wealth culture by discussing the infinite authority view: a place were humans are willing to share the authority with others and the community benefits. Let us take a stroll through such a town. The walk to town is a smooth trip. The townsfolk took the top of the hill and strategically moved it to the bottom. Then they built a straight road on this solid base with cobblestone paving. Each stone is perfectly set so that no weed can find a path to the surface. The road is reliable and consistent, even during storms. At the edge of town, a toll station houses the road engineer. A fee for the use of the road is a small token to keep your horse and cart safe in the rain. After the toll is paid, you enter a town of straight roads and well-structured buildings. It is not long before you find something peculiar. The buildings are all the same. Well, not all the same, but eerily similar. There are two main designs, maybe three. This is because all were done by the same few builders. This is the logical end of the culture. Trust is a valuable commodity. Builders who did the best work were looked to for the next construction project. Therefore, each builder refined his skill in one design to make it efficient and well made. Over time, the lesser builders went out of business. Now there are only two master builders. They only have one design each, but they are built very well. The boulevard is covered by a well-manicured lawn free of weeds. There are also no flowers or trees, for they are inefficient and create more work for the farms next door. All jobs have been specialized so that each citizen can properly focus on his own tasks. Distractions and uncontrollable events are managed through these specialized careers: road builders, carpenters, doctors, and government officials, to name a few.

This is the first town on our tour with a government. The Country of Riches didn’t need a government. The residents avoided conflict. The problems were ignored or adapted to through creativity. In the Country of Wealth, conflicts were dealt with head on. Since everything must be controlled, each citizen was willing to fight for his or her decisions. No matter how big or small the choice was. The decision was made. Therefore, it needed to be defended at all cost. It is from this constant conflict that the necessity of a specialized career of government is formed. A block down the road, you see the first signs of the marketplace, or should I say hear the first signs. You first hear a low buzz of voices, punctuated with random shouts. Upon entering the market, the odd noise begins to make more sense. The buzz was from the swarm of shoppers busily going form booth to booth, asking questions, comparing products, and in general looking for exactly what they want. After they find their prize, they begin to barter with the merchant to work down the price as low as possible. The bartering produces the random shouts. “That’s highway robbery!” is an old saying and is only used in the market. Because of the good roads and specialized police force, true highway robbery is extremely rare here. However, they say it in a loud, angry tone, with eyebrows furrowed. The merchant lowers the price a few cents, and the shopper smiles, and they shake hands. Then he invites the merchant and his wife over to dinner that evening. You soon realize that anger is just another tool they use to control the world around them. This small town in the Country of Wealth may seem perfect. Everyone knows their own authority and tasks. They also know everyone else’s role and whom they can trust. They like it that way: no surprises. They have grown complacent, just like Hobbiton. Suppose Gandalf, the wizard, had stopped here instead of Hobbiton. He needs someone with the skillset from here for an adventure. He goes right to Freda’s office. Freda was chosen because of her great organizational skills. Gandalf had hired her father to manage his fireworks warehouse here in town. Freda has also accomplished much. She has been the city clerk for twenty years. Freda has organized every birth certificate, death certificate, and every certificate in between (which are many). Ask her for any document and she could find it in minutes. Gandalf was hoping that her love to expand her authority hadn’t died somewhere on the way.

Gandalf tries the direct approach and says, “I am looking for someone to share in an adventure. After we take the Lonely Mountain, I need someone to organize a new kingdom.” You would think she would jump at the chance for a promotion. Instead she responds curtly, “No thank you. Have a good morning.” Gandalf is startled at her refusal. He pushes a little harder, and she yells, “Are you insane? You’ll get me fired if anyone thinks I’m planning on leaving.” Realizing his mistake, Gandalf apologizes and leaves. If at this point, Gandalf had brought in a party of dwarves, Freda would have just called the police and had them arrested. Therefore, the next day, Gandalf makes an appointment at the clerk’s office. He was a little perturbed at the time, for it was the day after tomorrow, but it could not be helped. Two days later, Gandalf the fireworks maker walks into the clerk’s office. Freda looks up and frowns. She wonders what kind of bad day this is going to be. Gandalf says, “I need to build a new warehouse and need documentation for a potential partner. Bring me every document I have filed with this office.” Relieved that he isn’t adding to the foolishness of his previous visit, she goes to get the documents. Freda soon returns with a large box of scrolls. Then the junior clerk comes in with another box. Finally, two more helpers bring in several more boxes. Gandalf asks, “What is the oldest building permit you have on record?” Opening a scroll, Freda responds slowly, “It’s five hundred and twenty-two years old.” Gandalf frowns. “You only have recent history then,” he observes. “The clerk’s office has only been here four hundred years.” Freda defends. Gandalf smiles. “This town has had clerks at its heart since its beginning. So how many building projects have I accomplished?” “Seventeen requests,” she replies. “How many building projects did I fail to complete?” Gandalf continues.

“None,” Freda replies. “How many foreclosures or business defaults?” he presses. “None.” Freda is reviewing the documents with greater interest. “By the way …” Gandalf continues. “I will need the birth certificate of the current dwarf king and the death certificate of his father.” Freda looks at Gandalf in shock. “But that’s not part of my jurisdiction.” “That’s right. You’re a small-town clerk.” Gandalf sighs. “I’ll have to look elsewhere for a royal clerk.” He walks to the door. “Thank you for your help, Freda. I will miss your skills in this next building project.” Freda is stunned. She looks around the office. She asks the junior clerk to return the boxes. Before the junior clerk completes his task, Freda realizes she has been settling for less. She’s now eager for a promotion. She writes a letter of resignation and puts the junior clerk in charge. She doesn’t know all the steps between here and the end of the project, but she trusts that Gandalf does. She trusts in his planning. As Freda runs to catch up, she starts to work out her own plan to organize a kingdom. To get an organizer on board your project, to speak her language and be ready to demonstrate your ability to complete the task. You may get the instant behavior you want by other means, but you will lose her heart and ion for your cause. Get her to see that your goal is possible, or at least that you have a reasonable plan. You don’t need to reveal the whole plan if you can convince her of your planning skills and track record. If you must point out part of the plan, state just the first goal. Otherwise, she will be overwhelmed by trying to figure out too many details. For example, “We have to move that rock by tomorrow. I need you to come up with an inventory of tools on hand.” Then sit back and see what can happen.

Gut Check …

• What would you like best if you had to live here? • What would you hate if you lived here? • Would you fit well here?

Country of Honor (Known and Approved, People)

Differences between the Desires

The third desire is for honor. The individual with a primary desire for honor lives in a very different country than the other humans. It is as far removed from the other two as they are from each other. Humans in the Riches and Wealth countries are typically individually minded—other humans are peripheral to them. For humans in the Country of Honor, the surrounding humans are their primary concern.

Desire Priorities from Honor Perspective

What is honor? Honor is being known by other humans and accepted or loved for who we are, per an honor code. The honor code is the guide that governs human interaction within a culture. Our laws, customs, and religion make up our honor code. If we are accepted and approved in a way that violates our honor code, it isn’t satisfying to our souls. An example would be the class clown. These humans use humor to control the relationships around them. In their honor code, getting others to laugh at them and receive the class clown title is a mark of honor. It affirms their control and position in the community. If you do not affirm this title, the individual will assume you are dishonoring her. If you keep all the variables the same and put a studious human as the class clown the results are opposite from the example above. For a studious human, achievement is honored. She considers it a dishonor when her peers laugh at her. The intent of her peers doesn’t matter. They could have thought the comment funny and are laughing with her. She puts on a brave face, but the dishonor remains. As you can see in this example, understanding the other human’s honor code is very important as you are seeking to motivate her. In summary, the Riches country is the simplest structure; they import or harvest the natural resource of variety and export creativity. It doesn’t have to involve other humans. The Wealth country is a little more complex because the natural resource of authority that it imports must come from someone else. The Honor culture is the most complex of the three. It has two resources to collect. They must be both known and approved. If they have one without the other, the desired product can’t be made. The only way these resources can be purchased is with vulnerability. To be known, you must first trust others without knowing if it will pay off. The other difficulty is their quality control expert, the honor code. As individuals with a primary desire for honor reveal themselves, they are known and accepted by their peers. If the acceptance they receive is for the wrong reasons, then quality control throws it out, and the soul is not satisfied.

In the relationship between the honor code and peers, a conflict may surface. One will be valued as more important and elevated above the other. We will take a deeper look at this in the following sections.

Filled By

What fills the desire for honor? Being known and approved, or being affirmed and loved as we are. This affirmation comes from social acceptance and/or the honor code. If filling is sought from others, it can come by a reward in competition or the affirmation of a group or individual. Even a simple smile or a few words of praise mean a lot to the humans in the Country of Honor. The honor code itself may also become a filling agent. The honor code may be held in such high esteem that the human is willing to walk away from loved ones if the code requires it. Think of a soldier guided by his honor code. He is willing to give up pleasure and personal power for the sake of protecting his family or upholding the code. In addition, the police officer who puts her life on the line to protect the streets, often without appreciation, is another great example.

Expression

When the desire for honor is properly filled, it can be expressed in honorable acts of kindness and sacrifice. When one sacrifices for the group, it naturally strengthens the whole group. A great example of this is when there is a new kid in school. The new kid is generally ostracized from the group until he has been properly judged. However, sometimes one kid in the group who is strong enough to be vulnerable risks his own reputation and sits down next to the new kid at lunch. Before the meal is over, the table is full, and new friends are made. When there is discord in the Honor culture, these acts of heroism help wash out

the negativity from the soul. When a human from the Honor culture is fired, he may go out and volunteer, do the dishes for his wife, or start plans to build his own business. Positive expressions of the desire strengthen the soul.

In the crisis cycle, once we’ve gained a level of honor, it will no longer satisfy us after a period of time. We then seek to accomplish greater acts of honor. We see this in a man providing for his family. He is praised for providing a living for them. He thinks, “If this is good, then more is better.” He works harder and longer to make more. In balance, this is a good thing. It brings families out of poverty. It also may provide extra revenue to help others, which stabilizes a community. On the other hand, if he falls into a negative crisis cycle, then he may end up neglecting his family and losing them.

Biblical Example

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:1-11 NIV)

In the Bible, the woman caught in the act of adultery is a beautiful example of her desire for honor being fulfilled in Christ. This woman, a prostitute, would have been punished by society for her behavior. Even so, it is likely that she found some sort of physical acceptance in the arms of those who used her. When caught, she was dragged through town and flung on the ground at Jesus’s feet. As was scriptural justice for her crime, she was expecting to be stoned to death. Instead, Jesus looked at her and truly saw who she was, sins and all, and showed her mercy. He defended her from her accs while never once condoning her sin. Jesus perfectly honored her dignity while never compromising the honor code.

Fear

For a human who holds honor as the highest desire, what would be his natural fear? It would depend on which of the two extremes—being accepted or focusing on the honor code— best fit her character. For a human focused on being accepted by peers to the exclusion of everything else, a fear would be arguments or other conflict within the group. Disagreements are glossed over and confrontation is strongly discouraged. A confrontational human is often seen as an enemy. For humans focusing on the honor code to the exclusion of everything else, the fear is those who disagree with the honor code. They consider it a personal insult. They view the dissenter a cancer that needs to be removed. These two views are extreme ends of the spectrum. Most humans in this country fall in between these extremes and defend both the group and honor code. This means that they distrust the dissenter and confronter. Unless they properly work relationships through this fear, they will never reach greater joy of deeper relationships.

Personal Example

My younger son, Will, re names—it’s very important to him. I when he was four and we took him to my older son’s soccer game. I brought him to a nearby playground. As he approached the playground, he saw a little girl who was already playing there. He immediately walked up to her and introduced himself., “Hi! My name is Will. What’s yours?” In a short time, he had a new friend. We left for a time, but when we came back, he immediately reconnected with her and addressed her by name. He genuinely cared about her. He hasn’t changed to this day. I am genuinely impressed at the level to which he connects with others and at the speed at which he does it! I used to be offended when salesmen called me buddy. I always attributed it to a sales tactic. However, after seeing Will develop such quick bonds of friendship, I realized that honorfocused humans honestly believe that a person they just met is a buddy or best friend.

A secondary revelation came against my belief that some humans are just better at ing names. It was my excuse for years: “I just can’t names well.” Will amazed me with his ability to the names of people he’s met. I thought he was just gifted in that area. That is until I saw him playing by himself. He was sitting in a corner of the living room, rehearsing names and relationships he had made. He was spending time on this gift. I realized it wasn’t necessarily easier for him, but that it was important enough to practice.

Role

Humans in the Country of Honor fulfill roles as relationship builders and protectors. These roles include counselors, salespeople, police, and military personnel. These are all examples of individuals who follow the honor code and will let go of their own power, authority, riches, and even personal relationships to sync up with their honor code. They are the defenders and relationship builders in society. Those in the family role are the defenders of the rules and relationships. They are the glue of the family. They will sacrifice everything to keep everyone together. Keeping that balance between relationships and rules will always be the struggle. Go too far one direction or the other and they stop being the glue that holds things together and become a wedge that splits it apart.

Complaint

The complaint always reflects the fear. When the honor code is being violated, you’ll hear words like, “It’s not fair.” When acceptance is the issue, a human may use words such as “Nobody likes me.” When we hear these kinds of words, you know you are touching his soul’s primary fear. The complaint may reflect his perceived threat to the honor code and/or his personal honor. The more vehement the expression becomes, the stronger his fear.

When you ask your child to take out the trash and he says, “Aw, Mom, it’s not fair! I did it last time,” you now know why. It’s also the reason why, when you ask an employee to do an unpleasant task, they may ask, “Why are you singling me out?”

Enlist Help

What , then, would a human use when trying to enlist help from other humans to fulfill the desire of honor? It will be of wanting to gain affirmation and recognition for the work he does or who she is in the team. The honor-driven human will often say, “I am … we,” as in, “I am interested in how we can work together,” or, “I am concerned that we are not communicating.” If you walk into a room and hear, “I would like to help you, but we generally knock first,” you know you have violated the honor code.

Conflict Resolution

Of the three countries, the Humans in the Country of Honor will go to the physical conflict resolution quicker than the other two. Why is that so? One theory is that they depend on other humans to a much greater extent. The Riches and Wealth Culture mostly defend their own territory. The Honor Culture has to defend their territory as well as others. Since you can’t be everywhere at once, threats must be dealt with quickly. Another theory given by a friend from the Honor country is that conflict threatens the relationship. If that conflict isn’t dealt with quickly, it may lead to disapproval by peers. The physical resolution is the quickest way to solve the conflict. With that being said, let us look at two nonphysical conflict resolution methods popular in this culture. Location, location, location. It’s not always the type of defense you build that matters but where you build it. The eagle’s defense is its nest. Of

course, most birds have nests, but the eagle will find the highest place possible to build it. It’s not a great fortification. It is just in a spot that predators can’t reach. It’s a ive defense like the beaver’s dam. Some in the Country of Honor also build their homes in high places: the top of the honor code. The honor code is embraced so fully that it keeps away anyone not willing to climb to that height. This is the typical management culture of most businesses. The honor code of the business is ultimate. Their coworkers are also their friends. The lines between work and family are blurred. So, working for the company isn’t just a job but also a way of life. Those who don’t want to live in that environment aren’t promoted into that nest. Those who pose a threat to that way of life are considered predators, and the eagle shoos them away from the nest. When you encounter an eagle in its nest and need to reach it, never attack the honor code. Negative comments, jokes, or otherwise belittling the honor code is an all-out attack on the individual who holds it. The honor code is your best tool to reach him, even if you don’t believe in it. The important thing is that the human who is in your way holds it as an authority in his life. Ask questions and come alongside as a friend. “I thought you believed … However, I feel it’s violated when you … What do you think?” Band of brothers. As strongly as some humans hold to the honor code, others hold to their peers. Whenever their actions are questioned, it is blocked with, “Well everyone I’ve talked to says …” You are now not just confronting an individual but the whole community. It’s like the active defense of meerkats. When a meerkat colony feels threatened, they band together and act vicious. To a predator many times their size, they look like a multiheaded hydra. This confuses and scares away the enemy. When confronted by a community defense, it important to that you are still dealing with one little meerkat. So present your case to the individual, bringing him back to “What do you think?” Use your sources loosely but often, to show how large your community is. He most likely will not be won over by facts but on your representation of the community benefits.

Childish Humans

The infant humans in the Honor culture have the temperament called slow-towarm-up-to. There is always tension around new humans, the debate of “I really want to be your friend, but will you accept me?” Therefore, they are tentative at first, until they know that you are safe. As they grow up, humans in the Honor culture develop confidence, giving them the ability to reach out to new humans. If that overt shyness carries over into adulthood, we consider that childish.

Going for a Visit

Once again, we can turn to J.R.R. Tolkien for a beautiful example of a Country of Honor: the dwarves. I am sure Tolkien borrowed heavily from the Viking (Norseman) culture to build his world for the dwarves in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series. Like Vikings and their longhouses, the dwarves had magnificent caverns. In a Viking longhouse, generations of the same family lived together in one large room. It was a communal living arrangement to the extreme. You worked, ate, and slept in the same room with all your family relations. The strongest or oldest man governed it. He gave out societal roles as a reward or punishment depending on whether a member’s actions brought honor or dishonor to the family. For example, being the gardener may have been a punishment for a warrior’s poor performance in war, rather than someone having any talent in gardening. Whatever the leader deemed to be the family goal became everyone’s goal. Let’s go visit the dwarves. On the way to the home of the dwarves, the road suddenly ends. There is no warning. The woods and road just stop, and a rock face is there with a beautiful door painted on it. The sign above the door says, “Speak friend and enter.” Before the town or its citizens can be seen, the intent of friendship must be declared. After the word friend is spoken, the magical sentry deems it an honest confession and the door opens to an antechamber. On the far side of the chamber is a tunnel we need to take. Before we proceed, do not think of tunnels and

caverns in the traditional sense. These are not coalmines. The walls are carved and polished smooth with a master’s touch. Ornate carvings are etched into the walls and ceiling, telling of the valiant history of the clan. Pride emanates from every surface. The tunnel at the back of the antechamber leads to other tunnels, which are the roads of this country. These tunnels twist, turn, and share illogical junctions with other tunnels. The tunnels connect many small caverns to one another. The smallest caverns are still the size of a town. These belong to familial groups within the clan, just like the longhouse of the Vikings. The tunnels are so chaotic because each family head decided to build his own home where he deemed fit. One family leader liked the crystal in one area. Another family leader preferred warmer depths rather than the aesthetics. These decisions were rarely based on convenience or long-term planning. So, the roads or connecting tunnels were forced in after the fact, leading to a spider web of tunnels that one had to memorize from repetition. The goal of this clan is mining. They mine for gold, silver, precious stones, or most precious of all, mythril (a magic metal). They have been mining here for generations and have dug deep. This is their clan’s cave. Every man, woman, and child is willing to mine it and die defending it. Anyone who doesn’t share this ion is killed, exiled, or made a farmer. Plants and animals don’t do well underground. There is a safe canyon in the mountain range outside that is set aside for ranching and farming. The goal of the clan is mining, and its pride is what can be gained through mining. Those who can’t mine are assigned the lowly tasks of society. Therefore, the farming tasks fall to the weaker dwarves, children, and criminals. There is more in the mountain than the family caverns. Follow the maze of tunnels properly and they will open up to the great hall. This area is designed to house tens of thousands of dwarves at one time. It is the national version of the longhouse. This is the home of one clan of dwarves the size of a small nation. The great hall is where politics, commerce, and other social events take place. It’s designed so that the king can speak and everyone in the hall can hear him. The market in the great hall isn’t filled with wares and haggling merchants. The family leaders meet and share their stories on the mining project. “My son found a diamond twice the size of your head. The king wants it for a special carving on

his throne.” You may also hear, “Have you heard what that crazy cousin of ours is planning?” When all the catching up is complete, the deal is struck. “By the way, I have three carts of potatoes for you if you have some meat to trade.” After a little chitchat and negotiating, they shake hands and the deal is done. In a similar cavern under the Lonely Mountain, the great hall is silent. A great and evil dragon has come, killed most of the residents, and forced those who have survived to flee. The dragon has taken up residence in the great hall. This is Gandalf’s journey. He needs to slay the dragon. It’s a threat in the coming war. Before he can enlist a hobbit or a clerk, he must convince a king. Actually, the king doesn’t see himself as a king, only a prince: Thorin by name. After the battle with the dragon, Thorin’s father engaged the clan in another war with Orcs. Thorin’s father is now missing in action. Thorin has been chasing every rumor and lead, trying to find him ever since. He has to find the king. His code of honor compels him to use all his time and resources, including the lives that follow him, to complete the task. In this single-minded devotion, he is driving his people into the ground. Gandalf needs Thorin and his people to slay the dragon. Gandalf finds Thorin sitting in tavern. Even though Gandalf has been looking for him a long time, he just walks up and starts small talk as if it were a chance encounter. Through the small talk, Gandalf gets Thorin to reveal his goal. Thorin also probes Gandalf about a conversation he had with Thorin’s father before he went missing. This is the opportunity Gandalf was waiting for. “I said it was time to rally the dwarves, slay the dragon, and take back the Lonely Mountain.” Then looking sternly at Thorin he says, “Take back your homeland.” The message is simple, not many words. It is wrapped in pride and honor. Take back what was stolen. This is your home and you need to defend it. Your father is gone. You need to become a king and lead. Thorin doesn’t jump onboard right away. He has a few objections. However, Gandalf is ready. The most important is the proof that his current mission—to find his father—can’t succeed at this time. There are hired assassins coming for him. Staying on his own is no longer an option for Thorin. He needs an army. He needs his people. Thorin is now ready to listen. Gandalf’s journey has begun.

Gut Check …

• What would you like best if you had to live here? • What would you hate if you lived here? • Would you fit well here?

Personal Assessment Worksheet

Let’s take a few minutes to see which country you currently reside in. This isn’t a comprehensive personality test, but it will help get you thinking. I would rather you not be locked into a test that gives you an answer for two main reasons: availability and change. Availability. The first reason is availability. When you are dealing with humans in any given day, you won’t be able to stop what you are doing and give them a personality test. “Excuse me, Sam, before we get too deep here, will you please fill out this one-hundred-question test?” Of course not; that isn’t realistic. What is possible is to collect information in conversation to find out more about who they are. One of my favorite subjects is talking about a new computer, phone, or another gadget. The quick rate of change in technology seems to polarize humans and reveals a lot about core fears and desires. Humans from the Country of Riches love the change and dwell on all the new features. Humans from the Country of Wealth hate the change, and they will rant on the unnecessary inconveniences. “Technology doesn’t do what you tell it to!” Humans from the Country of Honor will be in between and talk about how they use it to maintain relationships. Change. The second reason is that humans change! If you don’t like who you are, you can change. If you like who you are, you may change anyway. Recognizing and guiding this change will be covered in the third book. Suffice it to say, if you pigeonhole humans in the category of last year’s test, then you’ll miss their amazing growth. Let’s do a gut check. Take ten points and divide them into the three countries in the ratio of your priorities. Consider the score below …

Riches: 3 Wealth: 1

Honor: 6

This score reflects a human who values honor twice as much as riches and has almost no value of wealth. This could be an example of a fun-loving salesman who spends more time at the golf course than the office. He probably gets more commissions because of his ability to relate to customers in a casual atmosphere. It also may reflect a family who plays together, whether it’s sports or board games. Relationships and fun are the focus.

Gut Check … How do you feel about yourself? Place your personal gut check score in the space below.

Riches: Wealth: Honor:

Priority of Desire

Primary Desire. The country with the highest score is your primary desire. This is your strength, the area in life that you have spent the most time cultivating. Since your first days, you have tested your boundaries and pushed your limits. Through trial and error, you have seen what your primary desire can give you and cost you. Since you know the laws of your emotional country, it has become common sense to you and its other citizens. For example, a riches-focused human knows that if you want a different result, you must try something new. This is common sense to him. However, for the human with a primary desire of wealth, change is avoided and therefore not common sense. Change would be anything but common. A wealth-focused human tends to work with his hands, and his common sense revolves in that area. The honor-focused human specializes in relationships and duty: “Of course I’ll take one for team. That’s common sense.” Secondary Desire. The secondary desire is your weakness. You are aware of the benefits of that culture, and you work at developing those skills. However, only leftover time from the primary desire is dedicated to it. Since you are working in a strange culture, you tend to fall into the weakness of that culture more readily. The key is that you are aware when you have fallen into a weakness in hindsight or when confronted. Tertiary Desire. The tertiary desire is your blind spot. Little time and attention has been spent here so the strengths and weaknesses of the culture are unknown. The difference between this and secondary desire is that you are totally unaware that you have fallen into a weakness and often can’t see it when someone points it out. Take Thomas Edison, for example. He was probably a human strong in wealth and riches and almost no honor. He had strong creative skills of the riches and strong task skills of the wealth. However, he was willing to sacrifice family time and work long hours and weeks. Spending time with others on a social level probably never hit his radar.

When I was first developing this study, I thought I was a human in the Country of Honor. It was what I wanted myself to be. However, as I watched my life and asked some tough questions, I came to realize a more accurate picture. I am a primary desire riches with a secondary of honor.

Gut Check … Do not be afraid to adjust your perspective. You will be changing your answers often as you learn more about yourself. Without looking back at your past answer, rethink your soul values. Place your personal gut check score in the fields below.

Riches: Wealth: Honor:

Categorize your desires from your Gut Check above in the spaces below. If you are having problems deciding where you fit, think of it in the negative view. If you are in a conflict, what are you first willing to give up: pleasure, power, or people? What you would give up first is your tertiary desire and so on. It would be interesting to hear how your friends would answer this question about you.

Primary Desire: Secondary Desire: Tertiary Desire:

In the form, write down the names of the humans who you interact with (parents,

spouse, kids, coworkers, etc.) and try to figure out the countries in which they live. In other words, what are their primary desires? As you were willing to adjust your own score over time, allow the same for them. This will help you practice applying the concepts that we have been learning.

Name

Riches

Wealth

Honor

Navigating the Swarm

We are all part of the bumblebee soccer game of life. We’re trying to reach our goals and win the game. However, most of the time, we’re just trying to get around the humans. Sometimes the hardest human to get around is ourselves. Now that we can see the battle within ourselves and others, we can discuss the solutions. We all have the three desires of riches, wealth, and honor. Those desires are always working to expand their sphere of influence, which is the offensive strategy. This strategy is the expression of the desire: to express creativity, to control, or to do acts of honor. We are also working to protect ourselves from fear: the defensive strategy. They try to protect themselves from boredom, outside change, and rejection, as we discussed in the fear and conflict resolution sections. When you see the different defensive strategies, you can now predict what a human will do. Instead of just chasing the ball, you can bring some of the humans onto your team and get around the others. If the human is on your life team and you cannot walk away, or think there is hope, there are steps to help motivate her. Free tip: When you get around humans, they tend to keep coming back and you must keep getting around them. It is better to get them on your team whenever possible. Let’s do some drills. Everyone from the Riches culture step out onto the field. The rest of you humans can have a seat until it is your turn. Better yet, listen in and learn your opponent’s strategy!

Riches Strategies

When you are a Riches player, your biggest enemy is distraction. You, by nature, want to be distracted. Whether it’s an entertaining new thing or avoidance of the unpleasant, distraction will keep you from your goal. Therefore, as you meet the other players, , they are not toys! They are not there for your amusement. Keep focused on the goal. The first opponent we will encounter will be another Riches player. Do not fall into the trap that he will be on your team because he is like you. You want to WOW the world, and so does he, but he will focus on achieving his own goals. To get him on your team, you should see if your goals are compatible and if this player is a good teammate. If your goals are truly compatible, resist discussing how you will benefit each other. Ask yourself, “Is this a focused or distracted player?” Riches players talk a good game, but following through is another story. Is this human in a positive or negative crisis cycle? Is he advancing toward his goal or just talking about it? One way to tell is to find out how he spends his free time. When no one is telling him what to do, is he creating something or wasting time?

Incompatible Goals and a Distracted Riches Player

Meeting a distracted human from the Riches culture who has incompatible goals isn’t a real threat to your own goals. The fact that the goals are different means that you will, by default, apply the ostrich defense. You will listen to his goals. At least until he takes a breath. Then you will try to wow him with your goals. He will apply the same defense. Since neither showed interest in the other’s goals, the conversation is forgotten by dinnertime. Since the other human is a distracted player, he will not act to advance his goal. Therefore, there is little risk that his goals will ever interfere with yours.

Compatible Goals, but Distracted Riches Player

So now, here is a player who seems like he is going for the same goal as you. This energetic human seems like a soulmate. However, there doesn’t seem to be any real accomplishments or movement in his life. Run. Run away! Distracted humans want the pleasure of big dreams but refuse to do the work to make them a reality. Humans like this are hoping that you will accomplish the dream for them. If the dream becomes a reality, they take the credit, even if they have done nothing to advance it. A dream without ambition is an anchor. It will keep you fixed to ground and slow down the team. The best defense is the ostrich defense. Be polite and listen. Then forget everything they said, and keep going for your goal.

Incompatible Goals, but a Motivated Riches Player

When you come across a Riches human who is motivated and has a goal that is not compatible with yours, you should go counter culture. As we discussed earlier, when you face incompatible goals, you employ the ostrich defense. You can’t do that here. You have to engage that player as seriously as a firefighter engages a forest fire. I know that most from the Riches culture do not understand why I just gave that warning. It’s part of the cultural blind spot. The culture believes everything is good and helpful because the intention is good and helpful. It doesn’t understand the ripple effect. The ripple effect just means that every action causes a reaction. The details that are overlooked bump into other details. Then those details bounce off others. Before you know it, you have to deal with a forest fire of conflicting ideas. It’s the reason why the other two cultures cringe when you talk about your goals.

A good way to deal with the ripple effect is not to employ a defensive play but an offensive play. Engage in the dream. Ask about the goals in detail. Find out who they want to help or wow with their goals. If there is any overlap with your list, then that is where the fire will start. The goal is to start a small fire before you roll out your master plan. That will give you time to make any needed adjustments. Offer that both of you go and share your goals with the human who is affected by both of your plans. This is usually at the desk of an innocent, hardworking human from the Wealth culture. Why the Wealth culture? I don’t know. Murphy’s Law I suppose. Maybe it’s because they are good at seeing the details bouncing around from the ripple effect. They are also particular about their details being bumped into. When the two of you go and share your dreams of helping this poor human, you will be prepared. Because two seconds after you’re done, the roaring will commence. We will go through roaring training in a few pages and learn to use it as an advantage. Suffice it to say, you have sprung a trap early and can for it. If it works, it will strengthen your position.

Compatible Goals and a Motivated Riches Player

When you encounter a Riches player who has compatible goal and is motivated, you have found a potential partner or a strong competitor. To help get this human on your team, go offensive! Talk about a new, bigger wow goal that is only possible because the two of you are now working together. State this new goal in such a way that you achieve both goals. For example, when they made the first panoramic camera, it required both a camera maker and filmmaker to coordinate their efforts. If you decide not to team up, this is a strong competitor. Wish this human well and start building your team. The best team wins. Teambuilding is covered more thoroughly in book 3, Managing the Humans. A good start is to practice what you are learning on your home field. How do you feel about the training so far? You better take a deep breath because

now it gets hard. So far, you’ve dealt mostly with positive, emotional humans— dreamers like yourself. Now we are facing players from the Wealth culture. They like to roar. Hey, don’t leave the field! It won’t be as bad as you think.

Roaring Lions and Non-Authority

When you face a human from the Wealth culture, the details. Those pesky things that keep bumping into each other. I know you can’t see them, but they are there. Whenever you share a sentence, you unleash a dozen new details. Details make lions roar. Not all details are bad, but the ones that affect them are. However, since you can’t see the details, it’s safer to assume that anything you say will upset them. With that being said, try to stick to the part of the wow that pertains to her. Also, if you present that part of the wow as a petition for her help or advice first, it will temper the roaring. In addition, whatever ion you show in presenting your goal, she must overcome in roaring. So, if you present an idea with a ion level of 6, she’ll roar back with a ion level of 7 or 8. So dial back the enthusiasm to a 2 or 3. When you hear the roar, don’t run; stand your ground. Employ the armadillo defense and protect your emotions. However, modify the barrier around your heart. The barrier should act more like earplugs that muffle than a brick wall. The roaring isn’t personal; it’s her fear. You scared her. This is just drama to get to you abandon your goal. Think of it as an artisan at work. This way you can protect yourself as you listen to her concern. When she can roar no more, speak kindly but firmly. Let her know you heard her concern. (Sometimes a lion can be on a negative crisis cycle and is panicking or being abusive. At this point, a strong roar will stop the behavior. Roar, stop the behavior, and then get help.) If after all of this, the lion will not trust you as an authority, then you don’t want her on your team. , you don’t need to be an authority over her, just over the details that you will be changing in her world. As a double check, a good question to ask is, “Do I have the authority?” If you do, then go around her. If you must go against this lion, then do the following.

Over-present how you are addressing her fear. Give a lion a dozen documents a day for month if you must (lions like reports). Show that you heard her and addressed her concern. It’s never a good thing to ignore someone’s fear, even an opponent’s fear. The fear is there for a reason. Perhaps, if you stay focused, one day you will become an authority for her.

Roaring Lions and Authority

Why do all this work for a lion? Isn’t it easier just to do it yourself? It depends. If you want a small wow factor, then yes, you can do it on your own. The bigger and more diverse the team becomes, then the bigger the WOW factor will be. the details. You hate them. Lions love them. If you have a lion who will manage the details for the benefit of the project and will roar at anyone who stands in the way, WOW! You were able to convince a lion to be on your team. She sees you as an authority in your area. She should never be roaring at you, right? Wrong. Lions roar. It’s part of their nature. Let them roar in reasonable amounts and understand who they are. Understanding breeds patience.

Beavers and Non-Authority

When you interact with humans from the Wealth culture, roaring isn’t the only defense you’ll face. Those the lion couldn’t scare away, the beavers will wall off. You’ll see this as overpacked schedules and obscure rules or procedures that only seem to apply when it has to do with your goal. Watch them, see how they handle authority, and use it as tool.

Beavers’ Rules of Authority 1. They have authority over their calendar to make an appointment. 2. If the appointment furthers their goal, it has authority over them. 3. When the appointment is no longer beneficial, they have authority and will change it. 4. The new appointment will then have authority over them.

I know what you are thinking: “This is insane! They always had the authority to change the appointment.” I agree, but when dealing with a beaver, you have to deal with it. Her goal is to control her world. She builds a dam made of many conflicting appointments, rules, and other time-consumers to accomplish that goal. When you need to change the beaver’s world, she can’t stop what she is doing. She is under the authority of the dam she created. She is protected. However, when she needs to adjust the system, she will easily break every rule that was used to stop you. Don’t bother confronting her on it. There will always be some obscure reason why it didn’t apply to her. To get around this human, get invited in. Being invited into a beaver’s dam is a lot of work. The main thing to is never share a WOW goal. If you try to impress the beaver with a wow, you don’t look like a beaver; you look like a predator. Share your daily tasks. List the problems you overcame. What did you do that day? Then when you need her to change her world, you can ask beaver to beaver. If after all of this, the beaver still will not follow your authority, then you do not want her on you team. At this point, you must pull authority and blow up the dam. If you are a boss or parent, you could have done this at the beginning. However, once you blow up the dam, getting the beaver to want to help you is gone. You won the war, but lost the heart.

Beavers and Authority

The good news is that you can get beavers on your team. If you show them that you are a trustworthy authority, then they make their dam out of your rules and goals. In a sense, you become an honorary beaver. The beaver builds the dam around you and your goals. It will help you keep focused by walling off distractions. (Protect the authority relationship at all cost. Once you lose the position of authority in his eyes, it is almost impossible to gain it back. You can win the beaver back, but it will take a lot of time and an incredible amount of work.) Notice that I gave examples of the crisis cycles for the Riches players but not for the Wealth players. That is because their signs are harder to read. It’s the difference between a hard worker and a workaholic or a concern and anxiety. The solution is in how they deal with authority. A human from the Wealth culture who is in a negative crisis cycle will never accept your authority. This is a much easier sign to read as you are running toward the goal.

Eagles and the Legalist

Two down and one to go: the Honor culture. I know you’re tired, but stay on the practice field a little longer. We have warmed up with the riches. It was the easiest because it is familiar. The Wealth culture was alien, but the rules are simple. The Honor culture will be much harder to master. In some ways, it appears to be similar, but don’t be fooled. The rules are very different. For eagles, the honor code is as important to them as the wow factor is to you. It is the highest point that they know: noble and safe. It’s the highest tree where they have built their nest, their home. They are interested in your WOW goal as long as it does not threaten or diminish the honor code.

Rules for sharing the WOW goal with an eagle: 1. You are not an eagle, so don’t pretend to be. 2. Do not compare the WOW goal to the honor code. 3. No conversation should last longer than 10 minutes. o Minutes 1 to 5: Warm up. o Minutes 5 to 7: Present WOW o Minutes 7 to 9: Allow for response o Minute 10: Formal farewell

Eagles play well with others. So be who you are. You bring creativity, beauty, and invention. You solve problems and rescue people. Eagles like those things. It’s just a matter of priority. For you, these things are an end to themselves. For eagles, they are only decorations on a self, while the honor code is the home. That is OK. It’s actually a complement. They are willing to bring in an alien object because they like the WOW. Just don’t overdo it. Warm up: Eagles are like old cars. In the olden days, you had to start your car and let it run for five minutes before you used it on cold winter mornings. If you didn’t, it would stall. Eagles are similar. Their warm-up is small talk. Subjects of conversation tend to be about family, activities with friends, or politics at work. Did you notice the theme? It’s interpersonal relationships. I know this is very difficult. Relationships are not part of the WOW goal. The WOW goal is about you creating something wonderful, thus creating awe in others. That’s not the same thing as relationships. If you cannot master the warm-up, then their interest in your WOW will stall. When a human from the Honor culture starts to talk about relationships, you naturally employ the ostrich defense. The conversion is labeled “interesting but irrelevant.” You like the human, but there is a physical habit of not ing such data. You have to change that habit. Like any habit, it will be difficult to break. Practice ing personal details and reciting them back.

When you talk about your goals and dreams, you have two minutes. I know you could talk all day on the subject, but this is just a painting on his wall, and not his home. If you can’t say what you need in two minutes, then don’t say anything. If you do, the eagle will lose interest and fly away. Learning to express your point in two minutes has a side benefit. It will help you understand your WOW goal even better. You will have to be creative to find the right words. Words carry power. As you refine the words to express your goal, you refine the beauty of the goal. Allow other people to talk. Always end your two minutes with a question. Then do not talk again until the eagle asks you a question. If he does, then keep your answer to two minutes. Always be the one to end the conversation when it’s your turn to talk. If the eagle is interested, then he will ask questions and lengthen the conversation. This will give him an honorable way to get out. It isn’t you. Eagles tend to have many short and efficient conversations in a short period. Some eagles, however, are legalists. They will not allow any behavior outside the honor code, even if it is not your honor code! In their minds, the honor code is so important that every human should be subject to it. Even if the legalists are defending your honor code, you don’t want them on your team. They have lost the human factor in their thinking. Eventually you will step out of their interpretation of the honor code and turn on you. If you have to hang around a legalist, do not minimalize the honor code, which is instinctive. Instead, elevate the value of relationships. Even better, if possible, show how the honor code values relationships and your goal.

Eagles and the Honor Guard

Eagles who value relationships are the Honor Guard. Don’t get me wrong: they still value the honor code above the relationship. The honor code becomes a means of protecting others and not subduing others. The Apostle Paul is a great example of the difference between a legalist and an Honor Guard. When Paul was young, his name was Saul. His honor code was the Jewish

Scriptures. They were extremely important to him. So much so, that he memorized the entire scripture by the time he was sixteen years old. That is like someone memorizing the entire Old Testament before they could drive. The honor code was the means of physical freedom from Rome and spiritual life. No one could deviate from it. He was so dedicated that he was willing to torture and kill any Jew who accepted the teaching of Jesus. They were a threat to the honor code. Saul was a legalist. When God thumped Saul on the head, spiritually speaking, he changed. Saul changed his name to Paul. He also changed his priorities. He was no longer willing to kill others to protect the honor code. Instead, he gave of himself to help others come to the honor code. He was willing to be whipped so others could hear the honor code. He was willing to die so others could understand the honor code. People were no longer his enemies; they were his mission. Paul became an Honor Guard. When you are building a team, don’t waste time with the legalist. Find those who are on the Honor Guard. Does the salesperson only think of the commission or is there a true heart for the customer? Is the teacher puffing up herself or lifting up the students?

Meerkats as Minions

In the Honor culture, there are two different focuses. The first was the focus on the honor code, as we addressed the eagle in the previous section. The second focus is on the community. When other humans are more important than the honor code, you are entering the world of the meerkats. Meerkats are social creatures and will band together to form one united front. So, when you talk with a meerkat, you never talk to just one, but the whole community. Therefore, there are rules to follow. The rules are the same as when talking with an eagle, with one exception. Meerkats can talk longer. You can have an hour-long conversation with a meerkat a lot easier than with an eagle. This does not mean that meerkats will listen to you for an hour! You must still follow the rules of a conversation. You can talk for two minutes, and then you

need to let them talk. Also, if you disagree, don’t criticize the community. State your community’s benefits, even if you’re a community of one. Win them over with positive statements. In this way, they are a lot like the Riches culture. It’s the same strategy, but for different reasons. Meerkats are wonderful to have on your team. They can tie you into a community of people and all the benefits that come with it. However, you need to watch out for the minion. Minions will agree to anything to get you to like them. They have chosen no direction for themselves. They will say yes to anything you ask. It will appear that you won this meerkat over to you community. They are willing to share all the secrets of the previous community. This may be a big benefit to you in the short term. The danger is that they will also leave your community just as easily and share your secrets. As a rule of thumb, whatever effort it took you get a minion on your team will be the same effort it takes to get them to abandon your team.

Meerkats as Participants

A meerkat will usually put the community above the honor code. This isn’t always bad. In a negative crisis cycle, like the minion, this is a disaster waiting to happen. In a positive crisis cycle, it keeps us human. The Riches and Wealth cultures tend to push away other humans and treat them more as objects. The Honor culture puts the value back into others. However, eagles tend to subjugate others. Only the meerkats truly protect the value of other humans. A meerkat will say, “I may not like you, but you are part of my community, and I will die to protect you, even from the honor code.” A meerkat in a positive crisis cycle will see herself as a participant in the community. Each human will have a different role, but the value of each human is the same.

Wealth Strategies

All Riches players can take a seat and relax for a while. However, pay attention to the training of the other players as you may be able to glean some additional insights. All Wealth culture players, take the field. , these are other humans and not tools! They have goals of their own. Those goals may help you or hinder you. However, the trick is to get them to want to help you and for them to do it their own way. This is not about changing them to get things done your way.

Rules of Conversation in Riches Culture

1. Show interest in their topic. 2. Show that you are on their side when making a critique. 3. Ask questions only in the areas that interest you. 4. When you have to end the conversation, apologize.

For of the Riches culture, their idea holds personal value. Even though you may not be interested in the topics they share, show interest anyway because you care about them as fellow humans. If you think their goal is stupid, silly, or unreasonable, then you think they are stupid, silly, or unreasonable for wanting to achieve that goal. It would be like someone saying you are neurotic for keeping lists or worrying about the details. The details are important, and you draw worth from managing them. Likewise, the Riches players draw worth from their WOW goal.

If you let humans from the Riches culture talk long enough, they will likely end up saying something that you see as impossible or even dangerous to your own goals. When this occurs, ask a probing question like this: “That sounds interesting, but I don’t understand how you could …” In this way, you shine a light on a detail they could not see and are now willing to look at. The thing to about asking questions is that you must focus the Riches player’s attention. He will your questions and forever keep you informed on them. He will tend to keep you over-informed on the topic, so be wise with your questioning. If you do not get regular updates, then you lost his heart, and he is in defense mode. You must fight to get it back if you want any say in his goals. Riches players don’t know how to end a conversation on their own. Talking with you is a pleasure. They do not want the conversation to end. They may also think that by ending the conversation, they will be hurting your feelings. So, sometimes you will need to help them out. Apologize for ending the conversation and then give them a task that relates to their goal and your goal. “Sorry, Fred, I have to get back to work, but could you do me a favor? What would happen if Sally had to do twice the work because of this change? That would be no fun for her. How could you help her out? Thank you, and please keep me posted.” He is now distracted from the conversation to the task. He is also putting his energy into preventing his goal from hurting your goal.

Incompatible Goals and a Distracted Riches Player

You have worked hard toward your goal. You worked out the plan in detail months or even years ago. Everything is going well. Then a player steps onto the field and stands between you and your goal. This is bumblebee soccer at its finest. You realize it’s a Riches culture player in the first few minutes. He starts to share the strangest things. Ramblings of contradictory ideas and goals pour out of him. If he tries to do some of the things he’s talking about, it will mess up a lot of hard work. You should be proactive and stop this now. However …

Do not roar!

You are facing a skittish creature. It doesn’t matter if this human uses the ostrich defense or the armadillo defense; the result will be the same if you use negative comments. If you come down on him or totally dam him out, he will go underground. If he goes underground, you cannot see what he is doing. Your beautifully cultured garden will look healthy from up top, but when harvest arrives, you will find all the produce eaten from below. I know you want to roar, but if you value your goal, do not! Instead of using a defense strategy, go on the offense. This allows you to gain more authority and control of your environment. In this situation, you must listen. If you simply listen and ask questions, a Riches player will tell you everything he knows. He may not share anything negative, however. Either he can’t see his idea’s shortcomings or has already ed for them. To find out whether he knows these shortcomings or not, figure out what he has accomplished already. If there isn’t a track record of accomplishments, then you can just listen and smile. This is just idle talk, and it will not interfere with your plans. The problem is, you will never know when this human will begin acting out his idea. That is why you want to be known as a listener. He will broadcast the first step he takes, and you will be one of the first to know. At that point, this human becomes a threat to your goal, and we will deal with this shortly.

Compatible Goals, but a Distracted Riches Player

Humans from the Riches culture bring beauty and creative solutions to your team. You really like what this human has to offer. The problem is that this human is good at talking a good game. On the bench, he boasts of what he can do on the field. However, when he gets in the game, his attention is focused somewhere else.

In general, you do not want a distracted player on your team. He is a splintered reed. He may look reliable, but when you try to lean on him, he will splinter and hurt you. If you don’t have a choice and this distracted human has to be on your team, here are a few helpful tips. First, protect your heart. This human may never change. He will never be as reliable as a human from your culture. Accept that. Next, never tell him that. Always remind a distracted Riches culture human about the main goal, and then give him one small goal to achieve at a time. Do not give this human a list of anything to do. This will minimalize the damage if he does not follow through. Roaring may help get that one task done, but it will kill the relationship and exacerbate the overall problem.

Incompatible Goals and a Motivated Riches Player

Here is the threat we discussed earlier. We have a Riches player with a goal that is incompatible with your own. You know he has the means and determination to accomplish it. Do not roar. Be ionate. State your concerns. Do not roar. Instead, use the rules of conversation and offensive strategies. For example, this human wants to put a swimming pool in the backyard, and you need a vegetable garden. The yard is small, so both goals can’t exist at the same time. Here is one tactic:

• Lay out both goals on paper. • Clearly show the conflict. • State that you do not know the solution. • Ask if there is there a solution. • Repeat the process with the proposed solution.

A motivated Riches player will invariably find a solution. The trick is to help both goals exist together. Each goal may even improve. Either way, your goal will change some. If you just keep complaining until you get your way, you’ll be seen as a roadblock that has to be gotten around. At that point, your opinion no longer matters to him. Both goals stated above can exist together. With hydroponics and vertical gardens, the garden needs less land. Also, there is less weeding! However, the swimming pool will have a wider deck for a vertical garden, so it may need to be a smaller pool. Here is the win-win. The pool now has a living privacy fence! This is a greater WOW than just a simple pool. You now have a garden with far less weeding and help without having to ask. If the Riches player now sees the garden as artwork, then he will invest his time freely into it. This is possible because you chose not to roar and instead worked through your fear of something different. If this player has a goal that still needs to be stopped, then use the authority given to you or request to get the authority to stop it. At this point, roaring will work but only for the moment. He will go underground and may or may not try another means of achieving his goal. If he does, you will not know about it unless you rebuild the relationship.

Compatible Goals and a Motivated Riches Player

It isn’t too hard to get a motivated Riches player on your team. All you need to do is get excited about the goal and show you are invested in it. If your goal can be made better through working out incompatible goals, how much more can be achieved when you have the same goal? The problem you can encounter is achieving too great of a goal too fast. For example, if you are leading a small team and make a financial mistake, it will cost, say, one thousand dollars. If you make that same mistake as a large team, then it may cost one million dollars. I am not saying you should stop everything whenever you get worried. Plan small goals and evaluate them as you progress to your final objective. That is your

strength, and the Riches player’s blind spot. Let’s use the swimming pool example from earlier. Let’s say, however, that this time you both want the pool. Because you have a small yard, the pool becomes a giant lap pool that encircles the house. There will be a bridge over it in the front so that you can get the car into the garage. That is an impressive goal. It will add value to the house and make your friends green with envy. You worked out the details, and it is a possible goal. However, the alarm goes off in your head because neither of you have ever maintained a pool. Since your partner cannot see a detail if you balanced it on his nose, you come up with a small goal on the way to the large goal. The small goal turns out to be an in-ground hot tub. The tub will connect into the pool system later. Now you have a year to learn what it takes to take care of the pool. The cost of any mistake is now much smaller.

Roaring Lions and Non-Authority

Whew! You worked hard in that first part of the training. The Riches culture is chaotic for you. Now we will be practicing in the Wealth culture for a while to give you a break. Go ahead and roar. You are now among other lions. They understand and appreciate the sound of a good roar. You have a problem; voice it and work through it. The issue here is a question of authority. Which of you has the authority to control the issues in your relationship? As you know, once a lion assumes authority in an area, she will assume that she will always have that authority. Even if the authority is taken away for a good reason, in a lion’s heart, that authority remains. The reason I say this is because desire is eternal. It always wants to grow. It compels us to grow. But that in a negative crisis cycle, it can also compel us toward destructive paths as well. Roaring does not show a disregard for authority, but rather it conveys discontent with something. You should discern if the roaring is trying to resolve an issue

with the team or just promoting himself. If he does not respect your authority, get him off your team quickly.

Roaring Lions and Authority

You are now in heaven. You found a detailed-oriented human. Together, you are going to be able to get a lot done. If she is on a different team, she will be a strong competitor. To get a Wealth player on your team, you must show her how she can act freely within the bounds of authority you give her. that it must be equal to or greater than previously attained authority. For example, if a human is used to being a manager, do not bring her in to enter data and expect her to stay there for more than a year. Alternatively, if this human is your student and is used to selfdirected classes, expect her to think of herself as a co-teacher. Work with that expectation or risk breaking the team. The danger with any two or more people working together who are too much alike is group think. In other words, everyone naturally thinks the same way, so everyone agrees with one another. No outside thought gets into the decisionmaking process. This makes for comfortable decisions and sets you up for stagnation and a negative crisis cycle, with no one to help get you out.

Beavers and Non-Authority

Just between us on the field …. I know that those in the Wealth culture both roar and build dams. Each human here is both a beaver and a lion. However, each human tends to one or the other more often. So, beavers do roar, but they build better dams. Likewise, lions do build dams but roar more. In the previous two sections, the beavers had to lean more to their confronting skills than normal. In the next two sections, the lions will have to sharpen their

strategy skills. If you cannot get a beaver to accept you as an authority willingly, then you don’t want them on your team. They may be good workers and good humans, but if the authority isn’t there, then you will be fighting against that dam at every turn. If that beaver has to be on your team, then roar when you need to. Just keep working on the one thing she is willing to accept from you.

Beavers and Authority

As we mentioned in the Riches training, beavers build complex dams of conflicting goals and over-budgeted time management. The only way through the maze is to be invited in or by tearing apart the dam. Before we go total lion on them and blow away the dam, let us try a less confrontational strategy. The dam exists for protection and production. It is a way for the beaver to defend against predators and distractions and complete the task at hand. You want to let the dam remain, but you don’t want it to interfere with your goals either. You need to show beavers that your goals are worth adopting. Their dam creates extra baggage that they must deal with. Be patient. Give them time to find the excuse to rearrange their structure that was used to stop you a few minutes before. When a beaver believes that her place on the team is legitimate and valuable, then she will restructure the dam to accommodate you. If a beaver accepts one task with you as an authority, then the process has begun. As you prove yourself to be a trustworthy authority, she will accept more from you. When you get a beaver on your team, these tips. Allow the beaver to grow at her own rate. It is exciting to find a hard worker who can get done what you want. The natural reflex for you is to keep dumping more responsibilities upon her. Since she honors the authority, she will be reluctant to say anything. That is until she becomes burned out and goes postal. Then she will roar, but it is usually too late. Make sure that the beavers under your authority have the freedom to vent periodically. Another danger zone is areas of authority. Inside her dam, the beaver is queen.

Don’t violate that space unless absolutely necessary. You brought her on your team because you trusted her, so work within that trust. If she was put on your team and is there to stay, then work on building the trust in limited areas of authority.

Eagles and the Legalist

The relationship between the Wealth and Honor cultures is the most written about relationship. In business, most people in management are from the Honor culture, and the istration department under them is typically from the Wealth culture. What if we reverse the roles? What about a beaver who is the chief financial officer who has to deal with an out-of-control honor-focused sales department? There is less available. Eagles are much like the armadillos. When you roar, they will both withdraw emotionally and protect themselves from your roaring. They may behave differently depending on what your roar is directed at. Eagles focus on the honor code, so if your roar is respectfully in defense of the honor code, then it will be tolerated to great degree. If you roar against the honor code, they will retreat to their nest to defend it. It may look like the eagle listened to you and went on his way to take action. What he actually did was quite different. The eagle flew back to his nest in the honor code. Then he looked around to see if you damaged it. He is hoping you will go away and never come back. If you persist in attacking the honor code, the eagle will attack you. Eagles do not roar. If they did, you would be happy. A good roaring match, and the problem’s solved. , the Honor culture is more likely to take physical action. They will demote or fire you if you are an employee, lower your grade if you are a student, or some other action within their honor code to get you to leave or stop. Therefore, if you were let go and it came out of the blue, then ask yourself, “How long have I been roaring about this?” Let’s get to practice. You’re on the field and you face an eagle, and you want him on your team. First, you should examine his honor code. His honor code is

his first authority, and you are the second. If his honor code conflicts with your goals, then don’t bring him on your team. He has split loyalties. If the eagle’s honor code and your goals are in line, and he is willing to accept your authority, then you have a promising candidate. What you should consider next is if he is on a positive or negative crisis cycle. An eagle on a negative crisis cycle is a legalist. The legalist is using the honor code improperly. He is using the honor code for personal fulfillment. When the legalist feels inadequate, he turns to enforcing the honor code on others to feel better. This is not the type of human to put on your team. Eventually, you will do something that will violate the honor code. He will use that violation to justify any behavior.

Eagle and the Honor Guard

A healthy eagle will be the Honor Guard. Think of the ideal police officer. He puts his life on the line to protect the innocent from the bad guys. He is strong in his defense and is gentle with the weak. If you are unsure if someone is a legalist or on the Honor Guard, watch him interact with those who do not directly benefit him. Did he justify not tipping a waitress for a silly offense? Does he treat office secretaries as his personal servants? You get the idea. If someone from one of the other cultures is not noble, it’s not a warning sign. That’s largely because it’s not a direct aspect of his culture. An ignoble action is more likely an innocent oversight. In the Honor culture, however, being noble is a key aspect of his identity. This is something that cannot be hidden for long. It will speak volumes about the human you are watching.

Meerkats as Minions

As we are practicing with humans from different cultures, I want to remind you that these subgroups are defense strategies. The difference between the strategies is whether they are active or ive in nature. The eagle defense is ive. After listening to you, they’ll fly away, and you cannot be sure of the interaction’s results. On the flip side, meerkats are active. They don’t roar, but they do bark. The bark is not as threatening as a roar. It will, however, call in more and more meerkats until you are overwhelmed. It’s easy to know where you stand with meerkats. When a meerkat says something like, “Everyone I’ve talked to says …” He just barked. He is calling in reinforcements because he sees you as a threat. The best way to get meerkats on your team is to hang out with them. Not posing any threat, you are just being there. This is like the armadillo, but the armadillo will avoid all negativity and just want fun. Meerkats just hang out and aim for being content. The time you spend hanging with them is time spent forming the relationship. Then when you are alarmed at something, they will instinctively be alarmed as well. It is like getting to know a beaver, but meerkats are not as judgmental. You do not have to pretend to be a meerkat; just don’t pose a threat, and you can be accepted. Meerkats are wonderful to have on your team. They are well-connected and bring a wealth of opportunities to the team. Just be wary of meerkats who act like minions. Minions are yes men. They have given up their own identities to the group entirely. They readily accept your authority, which feels good. However, they will just as readily abandon you when something better or more threatening comes along. One sign of a minion is a meerkat that doesn’t bark. You want a meerkat to bark. Barking meerkats are defending their clan. That is a good thing. If you can win a meerkat over, his barking will protect you as well.

Meerkats as Participants

You are on the field, and you find a meerkat who takes his role in the community seriously. However, he also has his own identity and is confident in it. He is

willing to defend the clan and, at the same time, willing to let in others who are not threatening. He is a participant. How do you get him on your team? Find a common cause. You need to find a cause he believes in that you can agree with. Then him in it. You don’t have to be a card-carrying member. When he barks about an issue, you should in with your roar. In effect, you are helping him defend the clan. When you have built the relationship, then you can introduce your goal in casual conversation and see how he reacts. Whether he accepts you or not has more to do with your relationship with him than with any other factor. Do not roar to change his mind because roaring at a meerkat makes you the enemy. Go against your instincts and shrug off the rejection and wait for another opportunity. Meerkats may also pose a threat to your goals. If you roar at him, then he is more likely to pull in help from his clan. Instead, form a good beaver’s dam around your entire team. The classic example of this is the salesperson who wants to speak to the business owner. However, he has to get past the secretary first. The secretaries that build the best dams will generally make the most money.

Honor Strategies

Wealth culture players can take a seat, and Honor culture players come out to the practice field. I see that you are confident in yourselves. You have a natural instinct for interacting with people, and you have seen the other two cultures practice. Despite this, I am hoping to show you something you didn’t fully realize before. The first thing to is that other players are humans! People are not just a means to your personal affirmation. Everyone has a different way of doing things and a different set of values. It’s all right! This does not devalue you, as differences bring diversity to your team.

Riches Players

Just like the first two practices, the first players we will encounter are the humans from the Riches culture. Like the other practices, I will not refer to them by their animal avatar, because on the outside, they are too alike. Their real difference is internal, and it can be hard to recognize. The Ostrich will forget the conflict and still like you. The Armadillo won’t forget, and will start building walls between you. Rather than trying to figure out the defense, it is easier to see is if they are in a positive or negative Crisis Cycle. Is she wasting time just dwelling on dreams or is she trying to make her dreams a reality? Do not associate dreamers with failures. A dreamer alone will not make a dedicated attempt. A Riches player who keeps attempting despite her failures will someday succeed no matter how impossible you think the goal. A dreamer putting forth effort can be a valuable teammate or a difficult opponent. Humans from the Riches culture are like you in that they value peace. If you keep this in mind, it will help you understand them. The greatest difference between your cultures is your interpersonal skills. Their skills tend to fall in the

range from nil to none. That is because they seek to avoid conflict, as you do. The Riches culture just takes it to a greater extreme. It is because of this extreme that they didn’t learn interpersonal skills. They need you to be gracious with them. By being gracious, you can easily deflect or inspire a Riches player.

Incompatible Goals and a Distracted Riches Player

As I have mentioned before, you don’t want distracted humans on your team. If you are hiring employees or gathering volunteers, then you do not want them on your team at any level. Distracted players will cost you money, even if they’re just volunteers. A distracted human with different goals will cost you your sanity. I know this is common sense to most of you in the Honor culture, but volunteers are hard to find, and someone may be tempted. To that human, we all give a universal plea: “Don’t do it!” What do you do when you have no choice? What if this is your child or someone you can’t fire? I want to encourage you in this. You are better equipped to help her grow than anyone else. It is your relationship and your expectations that will encourage her to change. Use your humor and come alongside her. If you do it well, she will laugh with you when corrected. More important, she may even learn. Use your skill with relationships to change a life. It will take time and tons of grace, but it is possible.

Compatible Goals but a Distracted Riches Player

Facing distracted humans is hard because of their inertia. It is easier to steer a moving car, and it’s the same with humans. The advice is the same as it was with the previous player. If someone says he has the same goals as you, what good is it if he refuses to move? So, when you talk a player who sounds like a good fit, always check to see what he has accomplished.

Incompatible Goals and a Motivated Riches Player

Here comes the hard part. You found a great Riches player that is motivated. He has a track record, and you need his skills. Before bringing him on, make sure his goals are compatible with yours. If his goals conflict with yours, then do not bring him on your team. No matter how well you frame your goals or how good you are at motivating people, you will become a distraction to him. What makes him good at what he does is his drive to fulfill his own vision. His goals will inspire him more than yours can. If you don’t have a say if he’s on your team, then encourage him. Keep the ion for your project alive, and help him build his own team so he can move on sooner.

Compatible Goals and a Motivated Riches Player

When you have a Riches player on your team that is both motivated and focused on your goal, it’s a great energy boost for your team. But like energy drinks, too much at once can hinder efficiency. This is where the grace comes in. You will need to help this Riches player categorize goals into what is possible and what is possible now. This is because the individuals from the Riches culture rely on their strong imaginations. (This is covered more in Getting to Know the Humans.) They can see themselves doing anything! What they often can’t see are all the steps it takes to get there. It’s best to point them to an earlier, simpler goal to complete before rushing on to finish the final objective. For example, you had friend who went to a circus and saw a tight ropewalker. Today, he asks if you could help him string a rope between two buildings. If you tell him he can’t tight rope between two buildings, he’ll just ignore you and try it anyway because he can see himself doing it. A better approach would be to say, “That sounds cool. Let’s tie a rope between bumpers of our cars and try that first. I’ll buy dinner when you can reach twenty feet.”

There will be one of two results when real life comes crashing in. Either he will decide that his repeated falls and aching bruises are not worth it or the WOW factor will drive him to practice enough to walk between the two buildings one day.

Wealth Players

Roaring Lions and Non-Authority

Lions are great to have on your team, but your relationships with them can become tenuous. It’s sort of like having a real lion for a pet. It’s a great deterrent for someone wanting to break into your home, but at what point does the lion own you? It is all about authority. A lion roars to scare opposition. She is trying to show a greater authority than what is actually owned so that the opposition backs down. Then she continues to roar to make sure that opponents never try to threaten her again. It is initially just bluster, and she knows it. The problem is, if no one roars back, then she begins to believe that she does have the authority. If you are not willing to learn to roar, then do not hire a lion. If you hired a lion when you thought you were hiring a beaver, then let her go sooner than later. If you are willing to roar, test her acceptance of your authority in the area that applies to your team. If she is not willing to accept you, then she needs to leave the team. What happens when you can’t fire her? You need to roar. The Riches culture is better at protecting their hearts from constant roaring. However, with strong ties to people, this will be more difficult for you. Roar at the right time and then rebuild the relationship when the situation has calmed down. What do I mean by roaring? Raised or angry voices are a part of it, but there is more to it. Roaring is when someone states what she is feeling about a position at the moment regardless of how it will make the other humans feel. Then she

defends that position.

Rules for roaring: 1. You can roar in any tone, volume, or language. 2. Put a physical consequence at the level of decision. 3. If there is any roaring back, then you need to stand your ground and carry out the physical consequence.

These rules vary with different circumstances, personality types, and religious beliefs. There are many books on proper roaring at work, with politics, etc. I want to hit the basics to keep the authority intact in this relationship. The first point I want to make is that roaring is not always yelling. There are times when yelling is appropriate and times when it is not. The goal is to develop a style that complements who you want to be. Lions have no issue with yelling or speaking ionately. Using higher decibels, however, does not equate to more ion. Find a tone you are comfortable with using. I suggest three different tones.

1. Conversational tone 2. “I’m listening but you are on dangerous ground” tone 3. “The conversation is over” tone

It’s not the tone or volume that scares people. It’s the action that is associated with it. Kids are not scared of Mom yelling. They fear the discipline that comes after the yelling. When the conversation is no longer beneficial, state your conclusion in the

second tone. If the lion chooses to roar more, then end it. You end it by using the third tone and stating a physical consequence if violated. This sets authority in the debate. If the lion chooses to challenge your authority by continuing to roar, you must carry out the consequence. If you back down after that point, you have surrendered your authority to her. The last lion standing is king. After you have lost authority in this way, it is extremely difficult to get it back.

Roaring Lions and Authority

You learned to roar and brought a lion on your team. Congratulations! Lions are good at defending areas of your goal. For example, you need to get information from the insurance company. The insurance company hired a beaver to prevent you from getting your information with a huge dam. Hand the phone to your lion. They will get the information today and will keep the information coming day-in and day-out. She gets to roar, and you get your information. Everyone is happy.

Beavers and Non-Authority

Beavers and lions are not interchangeable on your team. Yes, they are both taskoriented, but that’s where their similarities end. Beavers don’t like open conflict. They will defend their territory when threatened. However, constant open conflict will burn them out. They prefer repetitive tasks with set boundaries and minimum interaction with humans. It’s easy to see when a lion is trying to assume your authority. However, it is more difficult to see when a beaver has stopped respecting your authority. It isn’t going to be a power grab. It’s usually a slow transition of outgrowing your authority.

If the discontent has gone on a long time, then it will be harder to heal. If it is caught early, then increasing the beaver’s authority can heal the relationship.

Beavers and Authority

Desires are infinite. They will grow. If you do not increase a beaver’s authority at the proper rate, then they will rebel against it in one way or another. Asg authority is a difficult balance. If you give too much authority, it becomes overwhelming. For example, you may leave your five-year-old child home alone overnight. That is too much authority, and she may become overwhelmed. On the other extreme, not giving enough authority will cause rebellion, like micromanaging your eighteen-year-old daughter’s day. That will cause rebellion in her. She has earned a certain level authority in her life by that time. She will lose trust in you by not receiving what she thinks is due. She may then seek a better source of authority. This concept works the same way in business, in school, with friends, or with volunteer staff. Authority should be grown at the rate of the individual. What is that rate? You will have to work that one out day by day.

Eagles and the Legalist

I know there are both an eagle and a meerkat in every human from the Honor culture. The eagle is the ive defense, and the meerkat is the active defense. Like the other two cultures, it is a matter of percentages. The legalist is someone who has dropped the value of humans to almost zero. Since the honor code is all that he has left, he needs to secure his position. He is always looking for ways to gain a higher position. Because people do not matter, he has no qualms about taking down your reputation politically, professionally, or personally. Because you tend to recruit friends, you are at risk. For the sake of the

friendship, you might overlook some of these faults. The legalist can be part of the greater community, but be careful when building your team. Look for the warning signs mentioned in the previous sections.

Eagles and the Honor Guard

The Honor Guard highly values the honor code. However, he also values people. He understands that the honor code is there to protect the other humans. It’s awesome to have the Honor Guard on your team. He is personable and selfsacrificing. The danger here is like the conflicting WOW goals of the Riches culture or the conflicting authority of the Wealth culture. If you have different honor codes, then there is a built-in conflict. Meerkats will have a little more flexibility with minor conflicts, but eagles are more inflexible. This constant rub will cause conflicts that will continuously build over time. The problem here is that the honor code is a far more complex concept than authority or WOW goals. I will be breaking down the honor code in detail in the third book. Until then, suffice it to say, have good, long conversations with your prospective teammate. Lay out your goals in detail. Specify the means and morals of your project. Also, ask questions on different scenarios to see his response. The closer the confidant you are seeking, then the longer the conversation will be. By having this conversation up front before starting your project, you will save yourself a great deal of time in the long run.

Meerkats as Minions

If the legalist is one extreme of the honor spectrum, then the minions are on the other end. Minions hold no value for the honor code and gain all their self-worth from other humans. This is not an authority issue. They have abandoned the concept of authority. This is purely a reaction to fear. Their only source of

identity comes from the humans in their community. Therefore, when the community is threatened, they gauge which side is stronger and assign allegiances accordingly. The true danger of a minion is not that you lose him in a conflict. The danger is that there are humans who do not know he is a minion and will follow him on the way out. The Riches counterpart (distracted player) slows down progress. The Wealth counterpart (no authority) causes quarrels. The minion could rip your team in half. The hard part for the Honor culture is the discussion of problems within the team. They want to protect the team and minimize problems. So, bringing up problems seems counterintuitive. However, having open and honest discussions brings healing to the team if you take action on those discussions. If you do act, it will build trust and will help protect you from a minion split. In addition, minions will always go with the strongest side, no matter how silly it sounds. It takes a little detective work to figure out the integrity of your team.

Meerkats as Participants

Minions are a mere shadow of their healthy counterpart, the meerkat as a participant. When a meerkat is truly participating on the team, there is an exponential effect. Meerkats bring in more meerkats. The social network feeds on itself and can grow like wildfire. This is what pyramid sales schemes use to grow: meerkats getting other meerkats to buy and sell. The best business to capitalize on the meerkats is Wal-Mart. In Jim Collins’s book Built to Last, he describes Sam Walton’s strategy of getting and keeping employees. It boils down to establishing an environment where meerkats thrive, but everyone else is uncomfortable. That way there is an automatic filter of personality types you do not want. Meerkats are not just sales people. They are humans who connect to other humans. They are the connective tissue in the body of society. Placing one in your team in the right position is important. Keep him in front of people and keep paperwork to a minimum.

Conclusion

Thank you for practicing with me. I appreciate our time together. Keep exploring the humans around you. Use the Cheat Sheet in the appendix and see how many places you find these traits and motives. You’ll find them in your friends, family, movies, books, pets, and even in yourself. Key points to :

• ing the emotional root will help us reach a logical conclusion. • When you get around humans, they tend to keep coming back, and you must keep getting around them. It is better to get them on your team whenever possible. • Humans are people too. The human you are dealing has prioritized his desires differently than you. That is natural and good. Work with his strengths and accept his weakness. He has to do the same for you. • the crisis cycle. It will help you grow or push you down. Take good care of it. • Most important: desires are infinite. They need to be fed for eternity. The only eternal source is Jesus. Let him feed your desires so that you may not be lacking anything your soul desires.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about humans and how this has helped you understand all those pesky humans around you. Grace and peace be with you.

Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet Riches (Pleasure, Creativity) Fed By: Variety Expressed: Creativity Fear: Boredom, repetition Role: (Reactive) It, designer, troubleshooter, first responder Enlist Help: “I want …” Complaint: “… is boring,” or “ … is no fun.” Conflict: Avoidance Common Sense: Troubleshooting, theoretical

Wealth (Power, Control) Fed By: Authority Expressed: Controlling environment Fear: Outside change (loss of control) Role: (Proactive) istration, farmer Enlist Help: “I need …” Complaint: “Why me?” or “ … to me.”

Conflict: Verbal confrontation Common Sense: Physical, hands-on situations

Honor (People, Being Known and Approved) Fed By: Being known and approved Expressed: Follow the honor code, doing honorable things Fear: Being known and disapproved, rejection Role: (Relational) Sales, police, military Enlist Help: “I am …” Complaint: “… is not fair” Conflict: Physical confrontation Common Sense: Relational, rules application

Works Cited

TIB: Jay P. Green, Sr. (1985). The Interlinear Bible (Greek, Hebrew, English). Sovereign Grace Publishers. ESV: English Standard Version. biblehub.com. NIV: New International Version. biblehub.com. Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, 2006)