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From the Desk of...
THE NEXT CHAPTERS
OUTLINING A NEW FUTURE
A book is just one story.
Many stories are worth telling besides just that one and not just my own.
Lifelong automotive enthusiast born neurodivergent with autoimmune issues and raised in a dysfunctional upper middle class home by adopted parents in the tiny south eastern Washington town with a funny name. Destined for a desk job of mediocrity when the parent's bankruptcy changed the prospects for the future.
Forced out of education and the accustomed lifestyle while recovering from a botched gastric bypass a once 400lbs teenager was just beginning a decade long metamorphosis that was beyond losing pounds but also the mental weight of the hidden emotional abuse that occurs in many modern families. The kind that erodes lives into eating disorders, substance abuse,
workaholism and other forms of addiction before depression, homelessness or even thoughts of ending it all. A commonality so many don't realize exists in their suffering. The biggest illusion is seeing the cover up to other’s painful moments thinking no one else understands how you feel. The story proves that those don’t have to be the ends of so many people’s stories, it can be the beginning of all new chapters in life.
The same similarity that creates life cycles of broken human connections when that is the very thing that is needed according to scientific studies. The need to connect meant spiraling off into the worlds of men who were lost in their own ugly worldviews, the worlds they would make filled with chaos through the decisions believed to be forced by external events would be the lessons that were hardest to learn about life. Abusive relationships were the extended education of how identity motivates the individual for the good or bad beyond the psychology classes from college. The daily schooling in manipulation tactics weaponized to control the brain, subduing it into believing in an altered version of reality until one isn’t sure what’s real anymore.
But it is one's choice when faced with the actual reality of what they’re experiencing, if they’re going to find any value in what they went through. It’s said that it’s often the worst of times that are our best teachers but that’s only if you’re willing to believe that otherwise you won’t go looking for the next tools to your success from your failures. Self reflection sounds so simple but why can it be so difficult to do? The answers to this question and a whole lot more can be found in science and maybe even a bit of philosophy.
The changes insides reflect outward. For me it was much more than a change in physical appearance, it wasn't the pounds around my waist that was weighing me down all those years. The pounds came off but the feelings didn't change.
It changes all on it’s own, you don’t seem to notice it much. Not long after you crack open a few books about how human beings work you find yourself seeing the themes and concepts jumping out at you during the daily grind from the books. The knowledge adapts itself into your logic as you decipher situations and meaning. Helps to see angles you didn’t before. It may just be the opportunity you didn’t know was there. Being someone else's victim doesn't mean having to think like one. There's a lot of stigma that can often come with admitting such life experience but can't deny where some of my most helpful skills in life came from that experience. No car deal I ever did was harder than negotiations of perspectives with an unstable man full of self loathing. No bully is scarier than the one who has your life under his control. It feels like everything hinges on his mood swing.
As confining as human trafficking with life on a digital leash can be, there were moments reaching the most incredible happiness. You may wonder how this is possible, but it may make sense when you understand that you cannot know what boundaries are on happiness until you've tested the limits of sadness and suffering. Gratitude is a powerful force. Something you can rely on anytime. And you can use it to build that values in you life anytime, if you're going to sell something you might as well sell the most positive parts of your bad stories to yourself before you forget lessons you can learn. You might be surprised what becomes helpful.
Listening, for instance, is a skill. Not many are good at it. But you can be and use it for next level communication or even as the means to undercover deception. Something I learned during Communication in Business Class was if there is conflict and you see contempt on a person's face—a crease in the brow, eye rolling, or a flared nostril with a twitch in the upper lip—you’re have struck a nerve. This would later become a useful survival observation when dealing with an abuser but also at the job he forced me to work, a car dealership.
A good negotiator is willing to do the homework—to put in far more pre-negotiation time planning, strategizing, and analyzing than his opponents will know. The real work of a negotiation takes place before anyone comes to the table. It meant spending time learning what really mattered to each individual. I can tell you it's not really any different talking to a regional rep that could set you up with a sponsorship deal.
Work in marketing analysis has this strange side effect of revealing some of the oddest research in human behavior trends and preferences. You see how ideas area almost like cold that gets passed around until most of a town has come down with it. As our environments construct our social norms it can define our future with these ideas. Some have lost sight that it isn't representative of the entire world around us. Helps to widen the perspective and you can do this by simply learning more about the world you live in, starting now. The information is around you everywhere, everyday if you'll just take a moment to notice what's been there the whole time.
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