Know the Difference Between Principle and Privilege

The news is full of stories this week about conflict.  And whether it’s conflict that gets successfully navigated, like the National Football League lockout, or it’s conflict that shows little hope of getting resolved, like in Congress, the differences between how people are approaching the conflict are being shown in stark relief.

The eventual resolution of the N.F.L. lockout demonstrates what happens when two parties come together in good faith, realize that their common interests are best served by working together, and then put their principles on the table.  In reality, actual “principles” are few in number, but are the best indicators of where each party is starting from.  Once both sides understand the others’ core principles, it’s fairly easy to identify places where compromise is possible, where each side can give up a little privilege, and a conflict can get resolved.

Congress is another story.  We lost track a long time ago of what each Party was actually trying to establish as their core principle in the debt ceiling debate; in the end, what became apparent to most observers was that the most important thing to each side was the preservation of the privilege of getting elected again in two years. When both sides end up fighting over the same privilege without regard to principle, you get the ugly spectacle that Washington D.C. is best know for.

In your own life, you will run in to conflict–there’s no way to avoid it.  That’s why it’s so important to know who you are (Chapter One), because then you know what your principles are.  Once you can establish the ground that you’re willing to fight over, then it becomes easier to look for the areas of privilege that are negotiable, and over which you can come to mature resolution.  And that resolution will allow you to move forward towards your Perfect Life in a timely fashion.

The Gurus of Get It

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Challenge: Stress Yourself

We’ve all grown up with the idiom that “Adversity creates Character.”

But we actually subscribe to a slight variation on that.  We tend to believe more that “Adversity Reveals Character.”

Who you are and what you are made of come out in stark relief when the chips are really down.  Anybody can maintain their cool and be personable when everything is going your way, but it’s a far harder task to keep your cool in the face of difficulties.

But you can train yourself to deal with adversity.  How?  By inflicting it on yourself in controlled, limited doses. No, we’re not suggesting that you suddenly put a large sum of money in a precarious position, just to see how you handle it.  Rather, we suggest something that’s a little more transitory but still demands an investment of character.  So pick a tall mountain and climb it, enter a long race and finish it, or volunteer to take on an extra load of work for a short time.

Really, anything you do that pushes your limits either physically or emotionally will give you a glimpse into how you deal with such situations.  And that a useful piece of self-knowledge, indeed!

The Gurus of Get It

 

Case Study in Our Philosophy

Several weeks back we challenged you to simply “Ask” for what you want, rather than hope that somebody would read your mind and provide it for you.  Today’s news provides a beautiful example of what can happen when you do just that:

Sgt. Scott Moore, of the 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines in Musa Qala, Afghanistan, last week set up a YouTube page and posted a video asking the “Friends With Benefits” star [Mila Kunis] to accompany him to the Marine Corps Ball on November 18th in Greenville, North Carolina.

“Hi Mila, I just want to take a moment out of my day to invite you to the Marine Corps Ball with yours truly,” the uniformed sergeant said from his digs in Afghanistan. “So take a second to think about it and get back to me. All right, bye now.”

And when FOX411 asked Kunis about the invitation over the weekend, her “Benefits” co-star, Justin Timberlake, assured Moore he was going to make it happen.

“Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? You need to do it for your country,” Timberlake asked Kunis . . .

Kunis nodded.

“I’ll do it,” she confirmed.

It’s not realistic, we suppose, to expect everybody to react with the grace and class of Ms. Kunis; but, then again, how could you know this without asking? 

The Gurus of Get It

Challenge: Self-Control

Repeat after me:

“Just for today, I am going to decide what my mood is, what my attitude is, what my intensity level is, and what my sense of purpose is.  Nothing and nobody is going to derail my sense of what this day holds for me.”

Now go live that.

Follow-up challenge: do it again tomorrow!

The Gurus of Get It!