Contents
Step 24: We must learn to say: “The responsibility is always mine”
The 88 rungs of happy people
In this chapter of “The 88 Steps of Happy People” I explain the importance of assuming and accepting blame
This Step is the application of the previous one, and part of the sentence that its title describes: “The responsibility is always mine”. Whether you are a parent, as a boss, as a teacher, as a reference for someone, adopt that phrase in your mind and include it in your vocabulary.
Why?
Because it has a very special power. Its power lies in turning an accusatory communication into a conciliatory communication, and this is something of immense value. Now you will see why. All people have three brains: the impulsive, the rational and the emotional. Of the three, the most dangerous is the impulsive one, also known as the reptilian brain. It is responsible for the most basic instincts of the human being, and therefore it is also the most important for survival. He is willing to protect us no matter what happens, and to achieve his goal he does not mind doing whatever it takes at any price. If you imagine the adrenaline rush and the protective instinct that run through the hunter’s body during prehistoric times when seeing a lion approach his cave and threaten his family ready to confront him, you are imagining the reptilian brain in action. Is it protective? Yes. Is it unpleasant?
Much.
Now comes the important question. Of the three brains, which do you think is the one that the accusatory language activates? It is indeed the reptilian brain. Every time a person feels accused, they translate that accusation into an attack. And what does someone do when they feel attacked? Fend. And what do defense mechanisms produce? Feeling of protection. And who is ultimately responsible for our protection? The reptilian brain.
Conclusion: accusing someone is activating your most basic instinct and fierce. Therefore, if you do not want to see the most unpleasant part of the human being, simply do not activate his reptilian brain.
How to avoid it: “The responsibility is always mine.” Every time you use that phrase, the message you are giving to your interlocutor, especially if you have some kind of ascendant on him, is this: I am not a threat to you, and therefore you do not have to activate your defense mechanisms against me . And what happens as a consequence? That by not activating his impulsive brain, his defenses are not activated either. And what happens when there are no barriers? It converts into a permeable person. And what is the advantage of this? That permeability is the number one condition to promote learning. There can only be learning where there is permeability.
Conclusion? If you want to have a real impact on an interlocutor, don’t blame him, blame yourself. (Take the word “blame” as rhetoric, since no one is really “guilty” of anything.)
I remember it was July, and it might have been Tuesday. It was a very important conference for me and all the attendees were going to receive my first two books, both in a small package with some additional details that the organizers had for them. Preparations prior to a conference are always considerable, but given the important level of the event, this time the levels of
Stress was high and the hustle was very high. The members of our team ran from one place to another finalizing details; and in the midst of that commotion I gave them an instruction. If you know my first book, The 88 Steps of Success, you know that this book is red. If you know my second book, The Intelligence of Success, you know that it is blue (mostly). My request was that the package with the red book carry a red bow. And the package with the blue book, take a blue one. Simple, right? When the attendees received their gifts, they received them exactly the other way around. [That wasn’t the only mistake. There were more, and more jugs.]
I could not believe it. My reptilian brain was begging me for fury. My (desire for) Inner Success asked me to control it. Which one won?
The day after the event, I gathered the whole team together and told them: “What I asked for was not done and my conclusion is that … the fault is mine.” They all looked at me with facial expressions that although they did not speak, they said more or less this: «It is true that he told us. How could we not have remembered! And yet, on top of that, he blames himself… [remorse] ». “If there was a way to give that instruction more clearly,” I continued, “… with a greater number of repetitions, putting it in writing, following up… if that path existed and I did not take it, then the responsibility is mine. So I have decided to improve. And I know that if I improve, you will too ».
How was the effect of me choosing the most difficult position instead of the easiest? It was devastating… for the better.
Here are my two takeaways from this story:
First. If I had unleashed with them the fury that my reptilian brain asked of me, I would have been liberated. They would have been sunk, since …
And second. When your obsession is to make the «culture of yes» reign … The important thing is not who the culprits are, but what the solutions are.
# 88StepsPeopleHappy
“The blows of the hammer are only remembered by the nail”
@Angel