The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it

by Henry Cloud

steps? framework? processes? time?

cognitive psych, life coaching, social psych

The damage from a lack of connection goes even deeper. It is not just what we can see on the outside. If you were to look at their brains on brain scans, as many researchers have done, you’ll see literal black holes, spaces where the neurons did not form, where neurological systems did not grow; the physical hard-wiring of their brains is incomplete.

correlation

Ask many people about their greatest accomplishments and challenges overcome, and you will find one thing in common: there was someone on the other end who made it possible.

your own performance is either improved or diminished by the other people in your scenario.

You don’t have a choice about whether or not others have power in your life. They do. But you do have a choice as to what kind of power others are going to have.

Whom you trust, whom you don’t, what you get from others, and how you deal with them will determine everything. You can’t master people, but you can become a master at choosing and dealing with people.

Our relationships help write the “code” of whom we become and are becoming. Relationships have power, for good and for bad. Good and bad “code,” and good and bad “energy.” They affect all three parts of the triangle of well-being: the physical, the interpersonal, and the psychological.

specific qualitative relational connectedness. Neuroscience has shown us that these kinds of relationships, even seemingly insignificant ones, greatly enhance performance and even help build, fuel, and sustain the physical connections hardwired in the brain.

If the relationships are positive, attuned, empathic, caring, supportive, and challenging, then they cause positive development in the brain and increase performance capacities. If they are not quality connections, they either cause nothing to happen when something should be happening, or bad things to be built into us when they shouldn’t be—“bugs,” such as an overreactive brain, distrust, squirrelly thinking, an inability to focus and attend, impulsivity, controlling behavior, sensitivity to failure, and other liabilities that interfere with our performance.

To get to the next level of performance, you certainly do have to think differently, but to think differently, you have to have a different mind, and your brain has to fire differently. To develop these differences in your mind and brain, the equipment in which thoughts and feelings and behaviors are embodied, you need to connect in ways that rewire you.

But getting better is not about just ‘willing’ better performance. It’s about becoming someone who performs better, and performs differently. It’s about changing the equipment.”

Whatever we hope to achieve, our success depends on relationships with others. Without the help of others or with negative dynamics from destructive others, we will usually fail. There is no standing still. We are either thriving in relational energy and growth or we are going backward, slowly or quickly.

If you want to find out where you are, just ask the people in your life who depend on you. Ask them if they feel needed, valued, listened to, and taken into your confidence. If they answer yes, then you are probably not stuck in Corner One.

In the simplest terms, a real connection is one in which you can be your whole self, the real, authentic you, a relationship to which you can bring your heart, mind, soul, and passion. Both parties to the relationship are wholly present, known, understood, and mutually invested. What each truly thinks, feels, believes, fears, and needs can be shared safely.

The concept of the true self versus the false self is an old construct in the field of psychology, meaning exactly what it says. The true self is who you really are, and the false self is the mask that we put on to protect ourselves.

Corner Four requires clarity in the expectations you have for each other, before it’s time to deliver on those expectations, and it also requires staying in touch along the way, at the necessary intervals. Clarity and consistency, monitoring and adjusting, lead to real performance increase.

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions,” as Ken Blanchard says.

The brain needs to know how it is doing in order to adjust and do better.

Corner One is getting no feedback at all. Corner Two is getting it without caring and probably without accuracy, as the other person always has a standard that is somehow unhelpful or unreachable. In Corner Three, anything but feel-good backslapping or flattery is off-limits. Only Corner Four provides both caring and reality in the form of usable, actionable information.

Research into brain circuitry shows that new capacities grow when we have to grapple with a problem ourselves instead of hearing someone tell us how to fix it or watching someone fix it for us. We remember about 10 to 20 percent of what we read or hear or see, but 80 percent of what we experience in such a learning process. When someone provides feedback that leaves us in shape to grapple with the problem ourselves, we learn.

Corner Four relationships don’t rescue us. They hold us responsible for our performance.

There is no freedom without responsibility, and that is generally taken only if there are consequences for not taking it. A standard without consequences is a fantasy, a wish, or a suggestion, not a standard.

Facing reality can be painful and difficult, but the consequences of not confronting it are always far worse.

If we’re doing something that’s not helpful to us or others, we need to know quickly—before it becomes a pattern.

We often filter current relationships through the cloudy lens of the past.

there are two ingredients essential for breaking out of the cycle of decline: new sources of energy and intelligence.