Front Cover

Table of Contents

Foreward

Chapter Four

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Fourteen

Back Cover

The Role of the Objective

If I were given a second chance, would the outcome have been any different? I believe not. In fact, I believe I probably had too many second chances, which would explain how she put up with me as long as she did. Consider first the question itself. What is a “second chance?” Is the problem behavior ever commented upon the first time? I suspect that for many people, annoying behaviors are allowed to continue completely unchecked. Until one day, a big explosion erupts. Upon which time the party guilty of the behavior immediately petitions for a second chance. After a little pleading and negotiating, these requests are often granted. Many little things and subtle, quirky habits usually follow this event until behavioral modifications result.

But what happens if the change doesn’t occur? What happens if the big explosion doesn’t result in the communication necessary to work out the quirky stuff? What if real nasty, deep down hurtful stuff is allowed to continue?

Imagine a coin stood up on its side. Suddenly, the coin is flicked with a finger sending it spinning like a top. With a second coin, the process is repeated and the two coins spin simultaneously. Left alone, the coin’s motion would ultimately come to a rest. If the two coins were to collide, surely the coins’ paths and motions would be altered.

We as people relate with other people like spinning coins. We get all revved up to conquer one another and without knowing it, we become wildly out of control. On our own, we may burn out and fizzle back to earth, regaining composure through the lessons we learned. But, all too often we don’t burn out on our own because of the interrelationships we share with other people. This is because people are usually less tolerant of other people’s behaviors than they are of their own. And, since we can become dependent on relationships with other people, the risk of losing the relationship becomes a motivator to change the intolerable behavior.

But what if change isn’t required for a relationship to continue? What if there is no risk of loss? In business, like in our personal relationships, we wait it out. We wait and wait and wait. All the while, we’re hoping for something to change. We hope our business partner changes. We hope our life partner changes. But, why would they? They have no motivation to change and don’t want to change. Like the coin, the person spins wildly out of control until acted upon by another - the “objective.”

The “objective” is without bias and serves to speak the truth, without risk of loss. In fact, from a proprietary sense, the “objective” enters the picture unselfishly and unconditionally, to speak the truth.

Many of the people I observed in the role of the “objective” had no knowledge that I was watching them. I sought out truths through answers to questions I feared. In my search for these answers, I needed to find the strength to handle my own reality; a reality where pain just wouldn’t go away. No quick fix was out there. Somehow I wanted to fear learning the truth. I complicated the process long enough until I just got sick and tired of lying to myself. I needed out of the hell I’d created. I needed the nightmare to end. Slowly, I stopped fighting the truths. I stopped talking and started listening. I stopped hurting and started caring. I stopped reading and started writing. I stopped teaching and started learning. I started paying attention and became prepared to learn to accept us.