I enjoyed this article for several reasons. I have always assumed that the reason I behave with diplomacy in personal and business relationships is due to being a middle child. My older brother is Mr. Methodical, following the path he set out on, and following all of the rules. (The rules narrated by MSM.) My younger sister is more of a flamboyant free spirit type of person with fairly good instincts, but very little communication finesse.
The two of them have been at odds with each other since childhood, while I am their favorite sibling. (both of them)
Diplomacy is how I think I pull this off.
Those who have the skills of diplomacy usually have the skill of manipulation. In my case, I know I have the ability to manipulate, but I choose not to do it. To me, it is like cheating or herding sheep. If I cannot lead a horse to water, he can find it on his own when he is thirsty enough.
Well said, Robert. Just like you, I have chosen a life of goals and challenges. After college, I picked the hardest job I could find, landing jets on aircraft carriers, and then followed it with a career in technology as an aerospace exec. I’ll always remember getting in trouble in 7th grade and the coach took me aside and said, no matter how far you go in life, stay humble. Those words resonated with me and have kept me grounded.
Running a business and being in the building trades now for almost 40 years has forced myself to make the sometimes impossible possible. It took me many years and much experience to get to the point where I don’t lose sleep wracking my brain worrying how truckloads of wood will turn into a 5 bedroom 5 1/2 bath intricate house. Though I certainly have scaled back over the past couple of years, nearly every day I am forced to come up with solutions so customers get what they want. Over the years I have seen and heard of many builders that fell short of satisfactory building. My neighbor had given a contractor 15,000 dollars only to have the guy show up for two days never to return. No matter how standardized they try to make my trade every day streamlining solutions happen.
Most of the time simple solutions are the best but you can’t put a price on experience. I find the best way to get the best looking project built is to use your eyes, look at other similarly built projects and copy them maybe with improvements. From a fireplace with built ins around them, to a farmers porch to building a Victorian style home, the ability to take what you see, stand at a pair of saw horses and build what you had seen is somewhat of a priceless art. I’m honestly not sure if you would say that’s high-agency?
Profound and disturbing, not to mention timely. I am old and therefore I see life so differently than my youngers. I guess I could be defined as high agency, though it's difficult for me to play with labels, since they morph with each change of the decade. Right now I am flummoxed to witness this huge separation from the old ways of being motivated with integrity and honor at the helm. I admit I am overwhelmed. When I enter an alternate media news site that claims to be conservative, dedicated to telling the TRUTH and being diligent with fact checking, and then I see ads on the site that push not just a bad product but an out and out lie, a scam, further, using Elon Musk as though he was selling it...I have to wonder... is this just business nowadays? Is this the new normal. The new integrity?
Yes! I am old enough to remember the label - truth in advertising. What happened to that? If I were to see a lying/scammer ad using Dr. Malone's name promoting it I could let him know here. I am fully aware of what click bait is and how to avoid it. Frankly I don't click on most ads I see in online sites because I know how dishonest the advertising world is (and always has been all the way back to snake oil salesmen) but I find there is a line crossed when a site that claims to be conservative champions of the truth and yet they don't mind being paid by scammers to push lies to their readers/subscribers. I don't do social media but I think I feel a substack post coming on. LOL!
Even "normal" life (whatever that is) can involve challenges that are sufficiently difficult to overcome that only the "high agency" ("high functioning"?) beings succeed. Our moral boundaries are constantly being tested because so many are willing to violate theirs to "get it done."
A lot of very good people face ruined lives because they just can't figure this one out. I have come very close myself. To prevail on this planet requires not only plenty of training but a sort of spiritual tenacity that many just can't seem to summon up. To be able to help a person restore their ability to prevail in the face of adversity is perhaps one of the highest abilities. And to take advantage of such people is perhaps one of the lowest forms of bad behavior.
This kind of information is right up my alley, so to speak. I have encountered so many of the dysfunctional traits associated with these terms. It has been helpful to know these tendencies in order to stay somewhat free of entrapment. Cult-like followings are so easy to acquire and so hard to break the spell. This article will be helpful for many to be able to spot the subtle deviations of good qualities gone wrong. C.S. Lewis quote is so powerful, I may copy and put somewhere obvious to read and ponder.
Wonderful, thoughtful, humbling. Reminds me to pray for those with nobel goals and high agency as humans aren’t perfect, and that we should be compassionate of them who have risked so much even when at times they fail.
Imteresting discussion. Thank you for sharing. Surely you and DrJill are Goals oriented, High-Agency, Ethical leaders with integrity!
Where I start to reflect is - on the character of transformational leaders, as they relate to the peoples from whom they receive support.
We have Trump and his MAGA peoples. I'm recently being offered post election MAGA wear and items. Will it be a cult? Where, for the future, does this fit in?
We have Kennedy and the MAHA people. Kennedy (to me) seems focused on his goals, anticipating support will materialize from peoples focused on the specific goals. His followers seem more focused on their causes. He is the person through whom to further their causes.
We have Levin and his Levinites. His overall goal seems to be keeping his troops informed and ready to rise to occasion for specific battles. He warns this will come to an end when he retires.
and
We have our much respected and appreciated Malone's educating and identifying opportunities to further worthwhile causes. You have colleagues, business associates, X - followers, SubStack followers, friends and more. In the last 4 years you've found some among them to have become defamers, competitors, perhaps even enemies. For yourselves and indeed for your supporters (followers), this part tis disappointing.
As a follower ( at least I), one hopes to have opportunities to further one's leaders' causes, contribute to the education offered, and sometimes contributing supplemental information and perspectives and offering some financial support. We care about our leaders as persons. We hope they care about us as their friends. Do we love them? Merriam Webster Love = affection based on admiration. For many - surely. As a follower, one hopes for positive reinforcements when justified. One hopes not to be rejected or summarily jettisoned.
Thus, we share your disappointment. On the other hand we fully appreciate your many successes and the many opportunities you have ahead. We hope to continue to be with you, furthering and supporting your goals.
Dear Dr Malone: I love your thoughtful analysis in your essays, podcasts and articles like in this one giving us such a depth of understanding into highly motivated, goal oriented and proactive people and both the traps they can fall into morally and those that can maintain their moral standards within their goals and be incredibly productive and ultimately work for the good of humanity like you and your wife!
As I read this essay again, I realized that I chose to not become "rich and famous". The opportunities were plenty, and I felt that the way there was laden with temptations that I would prefer to avoid. The same with street drug use. I knew I could sample some, but the hard drugs were automatically avoided, they were just too dangerous. I told my son the same caution as he grew up, and he recently told me that the warning has always stayed with him.
I remember the day I talked to him (one of many) I said, I know you will experiment with pot, but be careful, heroin and other hard drugs can be instantly addictive. You know I know what I'm talking about. I was very clear and emphatic. He got it...
While I have great respect for the Doctor, this reads to me like a lot of psychological Mumbo Jumbo. Kind of similar to a book a friend recommended to me and I am struggling to read, "Political Ponerology" by Andrew Lobaczewski.
Ponerology is a term the author invented that means the study of evil. Cutting through the very heavy jargon, he seems to be saying that while normal people may be induced to do bad things, it takes a really talented psychopath to screw up the world.
Unfortunately many psychopaths do have the ability to inspire brainless adulation, and unlike the Doctor, they use it to obtain huge amounts of power that they then abuse.
I try to live by the Golden Rule, but I find myself expecting others to behave in the same way, so I do get disappointed a lot. I don’t expect perfection in life, as I’m now taking my 70th trip around the sun and have no desire to do it all over again and I wouldn’t change much as I learned from every experience! I am very comfortable in my own skin, my beliefs and know my moral compass is headed in the right direction. I just wish I’d learned earlier in life to keep my opinions to myself sometimes! Let us continue to be thankful for all that God has given us.
Not a real big fan of psychology and their linguistic acrobatics. A lot of this sounds like what an old fart like me would call self confidence which in my experience is acquired by experience. Once you have it you can better assess the opinions of "experts" when discussing your ability to accomplish a desired result.
“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.” ― Winston S. Churchill
The Winston Churchill: Examples
"Germany's unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an independent exchange system from which the world-finance couldn't profit anymore. ...We butchered the wrong pig [Hitler]."
-Winston Churchill (The Second World War - Bern, 1960)
************
"The enemy is the German Reich and not Nazism, and those who still haven't understood this, haven't understood anything."
-- Churchill's chief counselor Robert Lord Vansittart (September 1940 to foreign minister Lord Halifax)
********
"The war wasn't only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn't want to."
- Winston Churchill to Truman (Fultun, USA March 1946)
I ran across a rather sad and silly quote from Mark Twain today: "Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." The Bible speaks a lot about the conscience, and it is not something of which to jest. Our conscience can become seared and thus ineffective. Or, it can be renewed and strenthened as a function of our relationship with God and His immutable nature. Can a non-believer have a healthy conscience? Yes, but not necessarily. This is a topic worthy of further inquiry. One who has a high-agency tendency would be well advised to cultivate and nurture a healthy conscience, and not to consider it as a barrier to be overcome.
“Assuming that Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-15 refer symbolically to Satan, Satan's sin was pride. Despite the fact that God had created Satan, and despite the fact that it was God who gave Satan the power and beauty he possessed, Satan wanted the glory and credit for himself. Satan did not want to worship God in response to the gifts God had given him. Instead, Satan wanted to be worshipped. Satan viewed himself as glorious instead of what he actually was: a reflection of God's glory. That is the sin of pride. Sinful pride is not recognizing that only God is worthy of worship because only God is able to accomplish things entirely in and of Himself. Only God is holy, beautiful, glorious, and powerful in and of Himself. Everything and everyone else relies on God. The most we are is evidence of the amazing creative power of God.”
”First Corinthians 4:7 summarizes this nicely: "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" Everything we have, we have received from God. Therefore, we should not act as if we have accomplished anything on our own. It is not wrong to feel good about something you have accomplished as long as you recognize, and admit, that you could not have accomplished it apart from God.”
If it is true, that God is all there is, then everything becomes lots clearer. There is not Satan separate and other than God ( the mistake of the prideful). There is not me on my own and God is out there somewhere far away, watching. There is me, gifted with free will inside the Divine. My choices determine my experiences. Let those who have eyes see… Matthew 13:9
The question comes to mind: WHY did God Almighty CREATE Satan - the Devil, to begin with? It would seem that mere human mortals - that God Almighty provided the gift of self determination - how completely different the history of "mankind" would be today
I enjoyed this article for several reasons. I have always assumed that the reason I behave with diplomacy in personal and business relationships is due to being a middle child. My older brother is Mr. Methodical, following the path he set out on, and following all of the rules. (The rules narrated by MSM.) My younger sister is more of a flamboyant free spirit type of person with fairly good instincts, but very little communication finesse.
The two of them have been at odds with each other since childhood, while I am their favorite sibling. (both of them)
Diplomacy is how I think I pull this off.
Those who have the skills of diplomacy usually have the skill of manipulation. In my case, I know I have the ability to manipulate, but I choose not to do it. To me, it is like cheating or herding sheep. If I cannot lead a horse to water, he can find it on his own when he is thirsty enough.
Well said, Robert. Just like you, I have chosen a life of goals and challenges. After college, I picked the hardest job I could find, landing jets on aircraft carriers, and then followed it with a career in technology as an aerospace exec. I’ll always remember getting in trouble in 7th grade and the coach took me aside and said, no matter how far you go in life, stay humble. Those words resonated with me and have kept me grounded.
Pilots don't usually like to be grounded. ;-)
Running a business and being in the building trades now for almost 40 years has forced myself to make the sometimes impossible possible. It took me many years and much experience to get to the point where I don’t lose sleep wracking my brain worrying how truckloads of wood will turn into a 5 bedroom 5 1/2 bath intricate house. Though I certainly have scaled back over the past couple of years, nearly every day I am forced to come up with solutions so customers get what they want. Over the years I have seen and heard of many builders that fell short of satisfactory building. My neighbor had given a contractor 15,000 dollars only to have the guy show up for two days never to return. No matter how standardized they try to make my trade every day streamlining solutions happen.
Most of the time simple solutions are the best but you can’t put a price on experience. I find the best way to get the best looking project built is to use your eyes, look at other similarly built projects and copy them maybe with improvements. From a fireplace with built ins around them, to a farmers porch to building a Victorian style home, the ability to take what you see, stand at a pair of saw horses and build what you had seen is somewhat of a priceless art. I’m honestly not sure if you would say that’s high-agency?
Profound and disturbing, not to mention timely. I am old and therefore I see life so differently than my youngers. I guess I could be defined as high agency, though it's difficult for me to play with labels, since they morph with each change of the decade. Right now I am flummoxed to witness this huge separation from the old ways of being motivated with integrity and honor at the helm. I admit I am overwhelmed. When I enter an alternate media news site that claims to be conservative, dedicated to telling the TRUTH and being diligent with fact checking, and then I see ads on the site that push not just a bad product but an out and out lie, a scam, further, using Elon Musk as though he was selling it...I have to wonder... is this just business nowadays? Is this the new normal. The new integrity?
And you notice, there is NO way to critique those ads. Here, we can say how it is for us but there the lies go unrefuted.
Yes! I am old enough to remember the label - truth in advertising. What happened to that? If I were to see a lying/scammer ad using Dr. Malone's name promoting it I could let him know here. I am fully aware of what click bait is and how to avoid it. Frankly I don't click on most ads I see in online sites because I know how dishonest the advertising world is (and always has been all the way back to snake oil salesmen) but I find there is a line crossed when a site that claims to be conservative champions of the truth and yet they don't mind being paid by scammers to push lies to their readers/subscribers. I don't do social media but I think I feel a substack post coming on. LOL!
This is a very legitimate problem.
Even "normal" life (whatever that is) can involve challenges that are sufficiently difficult to overcome that only the "high agency" ("high functioning"?) beings succeed. Our moral boundaries are constantly being tested because so many are willing to violate theirs to "get it done."
A lot of very good people face ruined lives because they just can't figure this one out. I have come very close myself. To prevail on this planet requires not only plenty of training but a sort of spiritual tenacity that many just can't seem to summon up. To be able to help a person restore their ability to prevail in the face of adversity is perhaps one of the highest abilities. And to take advantage of such people is perhaps one of the lowest forms of bad behavior.
This kind of information is right up my alley, so to speak. I have encountered so many of the dysfunctional traits associated with these terms. It has been helpful to know these tendencies in order to stay somewhat free of entrapment. Cult-like followings are so easy to acquire and so hard to break the spell. This article will be helpful for many to be able to spot the subtle deviations of good qualities gone wrong. C.S. Lewis quote is so powerful, I may copy and put somewhere obvious to read and ponder.
Wonderful, thoughtful, humbling. Reminds me to pray for those with nobel goals and high agency as humans aren’t perfect, and that we should be compassionate of them who have risked so much even when at times they fail.
Imteresting discussion. Thank you for sharing. Surely you and DrJill are Goals oriented, High-Agency, Ethical leaders with integrity!
Where I start to reflect is - on the character of transformational leaders, as they relate to the peoples from whom they receive support.
We have Trump and his MAGA peoples. I'm recently being offered post election MAGA wear and items. Will it be a cult? Where, for the future, does this fit in?
We have Kennedy and the MAHA people. Kennedy (to me) seems focused on his goals, anticipating support will materialize from peoples focused on the specific goals. His followers seem more focused on their causes. He is the person through whom to further their causes.
We have Levin and his Levinites. His overall goal seems to be keeping his troops informed and ready to rise to occasion for specific battles. He warns this will come to an end when he retires.
and
We have our much respected and appreciated Malone's educating and identifying opportunities to further worthwhile causes. You have colleagues, business associates, X - followers, SubStack followers, friends and more. In the last 4 years you've found some among them to have become defamers, competitors, perhaps even enemies. For yourselves and indeed for your supporters (followers), this part tis disappointing.
As a follower ( at least I), one hopes to have opportunities to further one's leaders' causes, contribute to the education offered, and sometimes contributing supplemental information and perspectives and offering some financial support. We care about our leaders as persons. We hope they care about us as their friends. Do we love them? Merriam Webster Love = affection based on admiration. For many - surely. As a follower, one hopes for positive reinforcements when justified. One hopes not to be rejected or summarily jettisoned.
Thus, we share your disappointment. On the other hand we fully appreciate your many successes and the many opportunities you have ahead. We hope to continue to be with you, furthering and supporting your goals.
Dear Dr Malone: I love your thoughtful analysis in your essays, podcasts and articles like in this one giving us such a depth of understanding into highly motivated, goal oriented and proactive people and both the traps they can fall into morally and those that can maintain their moral standards within their goals and be incredibly productive and ultimately work for the good of humanity like you and your wife!
As I read this essay again, I realized that I chose to not become "rich and famous". The opportunities were plenty, and I felt that the way there was laden with temptations that I would prefer to avoid. The same with street drug use. I knew I could sample some, but the hard drugs were automatically avoided, they were just too dangerous. I told my son the same caution as he grew up, and he recently told me that the warning has always stayed with him.
Solid life advice for teenagers DD. Did / Doing the same with my three kids.
I remember the day I talked to him (one of many) I said, I know you will experiment with pot, but be careful, heroin and other hard drugs can be instantly addictive. You know I know what I'm talking about. I was very clear and emphatic. He got it...
While I have great respect for the Doctor, this reads to me like a lot of psychological Mumbo Jumbo. Kind of similar to a book a friend recommended to me and I am struggling to read, "Political Ponerology" by Andrew Lobaczewski.
Ponerology is a term the author invented that means the study of evil. Cutting through the very heavy jargon, he seems to be saying that while normal people may be induced to do bad things, it takes a really talented psychopath to screw up the world.
Unfortunately many psychopaths do have the ability to inspire brainless adulation, and unlike the Doctor, they use it to obtain huge amounts of power that they then abuse.
I try to live by the Golden Rule, but I find myself expecting others to behave in the same way, so I do get disappointed a lot. I don’t expect perfection in life, as I’m now taking my 70th trip around the sun and have no desire to do it all over again and I wouldn’t change much as I learned from every experience! I am very comfortable in my own skin, my beliefs and know my moral compass is headed in the right direction. I just wish I’d learned earlier in life to keep my opinions to myself sometimes! Let us continue to be thankful for all that God has given us.
Not a real big fan of psychology and their linguistic acrobatics. A lot of this sounds like what an old fart like me would call self confidence which in my experience is acquired by experience. Once you have it you can better assess the opinions of "experts" when discussing your ability to accomplish a desired result.
“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.” ― Winston S. Churchill
The Winston Churchill: Examples
"Germany's unforgivable crime before WW2 was its attempt to loosen its economy out of the world trade system and to build up an independent exchange system from which the world-finance couldn't profit anymore. ...We butchered the wrong pig [Hitler]."
-Winston Churchill (The Second World War - Bern, 1960)
************
"The enemy is the German Reich and not Nazism, and those who still haven't understood this, haven't understood anything."
-- Churchill's chief counselor Robert Lord Vansittart (September 1940 to foreign minister Lord Halifax)
********
"The war wasn't only about abolishing fascism, but to conquer sales markets. We could have, if we had intended so, prevented this war from breaking out without doing one shot, but we didn't want to."
- Winston Churchill to Truman (Fultun, USA March 1946)
I ran across a rather sad and silly quote from Mark Twain today: "Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." The Bible speaks a lot about the conscience, and it is not something of which to jest. Our conscience can become seared and thus ineffective. Or, it can be renewed and strenthened as a function of our relationship with God and His immutable nature. Can a non-believer have a healthy conscience? Yes, but not necessarily. This is a topic worthy of further inquiry. One who has a high-agency tendency would be well advised to cultivate and nurture a healthy conscience, and not to consider it as a barrier to be overcome.
I learned from and am adding this important, imho, piece of the puzzle.
"Why is pride a sin?"
https://www.gotquestions.blog/pride-sin.html
“Assuming that Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-15 refer symbolically to Satan, Satan's sin was pride. Despite the fact that God had created Satan, and despite the fact that it was God who gave Satan the power and beauty he possessed, Satan wanted the glory and credit for himself. Satan did not want to worship God in response to the gifts God had given him. Instead, Satan wanted to be worshipped. Satan viewed himself as glorious instead of what he actually was: a reflection of God's glory. That is the sin of pride. Sinful pride is not recognizing that only God is worthy of worship because only God is able to accomplish things entirely in and of Himself. Only God is holy, beautiful, glorious, and powerful in and of Himself. Everything and everyone else relies on God. The most we are is evidence of the amazing creative power of God.”
”First Corinthians 4:7 summarizes this nicely: "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" Everything we have, we have received from God. Therefore, we should not act as if we have accomplished anything on our own. It is not wrong to feel good about something you have accomplished as long as you recognize, and admit, that you could not have accomplished it apart from God.”
If it is true, that God is all there is, then everything becomes lots clearer. There is not Satan separate and other than God ( the mistake of the prideful). There is not me on my own and God is out there somewhere far away, watching. There is me, gifted with free will inside the Divine. My choices determine my experiences. Let those who have eyes see… Matthew 13:9
1. If God knew that Satan would rebel, why did He create him?
https://www.gotquestions.org/if-God-knew.html
2. Did God create Satan?
https://www.gotquestions.org/did-God-create-Satan.html
The question comes to mind: WHY did God Almighty CREATE Satan - the Devil, to begin with? It would seem that mere human mortals - that God Almighty provided the gift of self determination - how completely different the history of "mankind" would be today
1. If God knew that Satan would rebel, why did He create him?
https://www.gotquestions.org/if-God-knew.html
2. Did God create Satan?
https://www.gotquestions.org/did-God-create-Satan.html
3. Why did God allow Satan and the demons to sin?
https://www.gotquestions.org/angels-sin.html