Latest Success Problem: “Out of Money”
The media has been abuzz with the recent financial crisis which came crashing down on Wall Street and the financial industry, necessitating government bailout. Amidst the blame and finger pointing—and overall stupidity of the matter—what has been overlooked is that we have another classical symptom of a national success problem. Among other problems banks and financial institutions overextended themselves including making bad loans ending up with a liquidity problem—temporarily “out of money.” If you’re rich and you run out of money, you’ve punished yourself (as winners of lotteries and suddenly wealthy athletes are prone to do). You’ve come undone.
Clearly we had a major financial crisis on our hands but there was more to the story than meets the eye. We heard virtually nothing from the media about the underlying financial strength of the country: the U.S. economy’s GDP was up 4.3% for the first two quarters—despite year long corporate financial stress market. Without going through numerous indicators still showing U.S. economic power perhaps the best indicator was that in the middle of the crisis Warren Buffet poured billions of dollars into buying a major stake in the down trodden financial investment business. Although he showed confidence in the face of difficulty as good leaders can do, the media (a type of leader) continued gloom and doom.
Did the sensationalistic media magnify the situation—for reasons of their own including political persuasion? Syndicated columnist Debra Sanders (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/08) observed, “an unrelenting Democratic campaign to talk this economy down… Democrats can’t win without trashing the economy.” Certain financial analysts felt the media had contributed to an atmosphere of panic for some time.
Is it possible the elite media could be unconsciously attacking their own country? The “blink mind” opens up the possibilities of all kinds of hidden self-sabotaging behavior and inspires us to take an entirely new look at success. At the very moment we think we’re taking strides forward we can be sowing the seeds of our own failure.
Clearly our financial leaders’ surface minds deceived them and undermined our nation’s best interests, costing us billions of dollars. Many of the congressional leaders who tried to solve the problem were in fact contributors to the fiasco, active players who were all behind the financial steamroller they helped create until it scaled the top of the hill, ran out of gas and rolled back down upon us.
More later on this financial crisis when we look closer at how financial leaders repeatedly violated the laws of success. It hadn’t been that long since the S and L crisis of the 1980’s, but again we didn’t learn from history and repeated the financial self-sabotage. Yet, the immediate crisis which suddenly erupted did show us just how fast we could fall as a nation.
Failure to take our Best Shot
America’s recent success problems with energy and finance reminds me of the story of boxer Gerry Cooney in his long anticipated “dream come true” battle for the heavyweight championship of the world on June 11, 1982, at Caesars Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas. A huge, raw-boned, left-handed slugger with a thunderous left hook, Cooney landed this awesome punch in the second round of the fight against reigning champion Larry Holmes. As Cooney put it, “I felt his backbone” with the shattering blow. At that crucial moment, out of nowhere Cooney suddenly changed his game plan and only hope of winning. He had long resented being called “a slugger” instead of a fine, crafty boxer so he decided at that moment he would prove what a craftsman he was and never again threw his left hook. It was only a matter of time until he went down to defeat in the 13th round when his manager called a halt to the bloodbath.
The success lesson: for God and country’s sake throw your best punch. Viewed through the success lens, we will discover many places America is simply not taking its best shot.
The Leader Who Can Win
The individual who can spot a success retreat is the individual who can prolong his or her success. The same goes for a nation. If enough individuals understand this, they can prevent a nation from slipping. They can halt the downward death spiral.
In my next article I will explore further how this fear of success is being played out on a national scene. This is the explanation the media is overlooking, although many are correctly pointing out that America’s future lies in the balance. We are at a particularly crucial success moment in our history, and we are on the verge of selecting our leader. Leaders, particularly presidents of the United States, wield phenomenal power. Yet leaders are fully capable of making poor choices. From Aristotle on, observers have noted how key leaders making foolish choices inflict their pain on the community-at-large. On the other hand, great leaders can not only inspire us, they can make wise choices which determine a nation’s success or failure. Witness Winston Churchill’s or Franklin Roosevelt’s dramatic leadership during the uncertainty of World War II when they confronted a powerful enemy bent on destroying them. Don’t forget, however, that just prior to Churchill it was a weak British leader, Neville Chamberlain, who, doing his dead level best, nevertheless led his nation to the very brink of disaster.
This is why it’s extremely important to understand the dynamics of success when we are putting this country in the hands of a man who will become the most powerful individual in the world. For sure, some can manage that huge success and some cannot. Some at that point can take their best shot, and some like Gerry Cooney the boxer simply cannot. Whichever candidate who knows how to win in the presidential sense—the one who best uses wisdom, decision-making and power—is the man for the job. Clearly, we are extremely vulnerable to whichever candidate we choose. The rules of success should greatly clarify which man knows how to win and which man is prone to choking on success thus leading the country in unhealthy directions.
Evaluating Leaders
Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times (7/19/08) recently noted about how convenient it would be if we could evaluate leaders’ weaknesses ahead of time. The good news is that indeed a leader’s deeper intelligence not only reads him like a book but tries to warn us about his weaknesses. In fact, at the very moment a leader is doing everything in his conscious power to get elected, his unconscious mind—his “blink mind”—can warn us not to vote for him and why. In my research as a psychiatrist and forensic profiler, I have seen the power of this deeper mind up close and personal for 30 years. I have witnessed children unknowingly trying to guide their parents toward correcting them, patients in therapy trying to guide themselves in the exact opposite direction from their conscious mind, criminals confessing unconsciously because they have a soul in their unconscious no matter how hardened they might be on the surface. It should come as no surprise that a presidential candidate utilizing his unconscious “blink mind” could unconsciously guide us away from himself—if he understood that now was not the time for him to be president, that his election really wasn’t in the country’s best interest.
We will see if either candidate tries to steer us in another direction. One thing is for sure, deep down both candidates know precisely whether they’re up to handling the enormous success, the phenomenal power that comes with the job. Of course, both men are consciously telling us they can do the job—but we want to see if their “blink mind” has spoken.
Another syndicated columnist, George Will (circa, 2006) has suggested that America put its best minds to work on solving its problems. With the advent of the deeper intelligence into our consciousness, we would indeed be foolish not to use this brilliant, incredibly honest advisor on behalf of our country—particularly in terms of understanding success reluctance, the laws of success (they do exist), and the implied advice from the “blink mind” of candidates warning us of their weaknesses. To do any less would to refuse to take our best shot as voters. Stay tuned.