GESTALTING AN ATTITUDE

Not only is there a meta structure to an attitude, but something wonderful and mysterious tends to happen with many attitudes—they arise from an emergent property which cannot be calculated by adding up all of the parts. Courage is like that. Starting with a primary state of fear or sense of danger, various beliefs, values, meta-programs, etc. come together in a certain mixture so that out of the mix, they combine in such a way that the result is courage. You could add together “fear plus responsibility plus vitality plus other resources” but that doesn’t explain the phenomenon of courage.

Because of the dynamic interaction of the various elements in the human system, something more than and different from them arises. In systems language, this an emergent property that arises from the mixtures. And emergent properties arise in physical as well as psychological systems. This makes reverse engineering impossible. We can’t start with the end and backtrack to all of the elements. Instead, we have to experiment. We have to add this quality, mix it up well, and see what happens. If not, then we try another element, add it and see what happens. This will play a significant role when it comes to coaching an attitude into existence.

When I researched wealth creation and then wrote Inside–Out Wealth (2010), two of the secrets are attitudes: seeing opportunities and seizing opportunities. These attitudes obviously lead to and help to generate certain skills by the same names. Both start with a context in which there could be, or may be “opportunities,” a context that others may view as boring, bothersome, tedious, etc. Others do not see what the person who can see as opportunities. Because this seeing is a mental perception, it is not done with the eyes, but the mind. So what elements do you need to generate that? Creativity, playfulness, mischievousness, upside-down thinking, thinking out of the box, asking weird questions, etc.?

The only way to find out is to identify a context where you do not immediately see an opportunity and then add one element and see what happens. Then try it with another. And another. Then add two or three together and see what happens. When you find that a certain combination of resourceful components mix together in such a way that you can suddenly see opportunities, you have probably stumbled upon the right mixture for you. Now try it out in other contexts and see if it transfers there.

Add hydrogen and oxygen together and you get something very different from each element on its own. You get water. And water behaves in ways that neither hydrogen and oxygen operate; it freezes at too low a certain temperature and becomes gas at too high a temperature. These are emergent properties that do not exist otherwise.

To generate the simple meta-state of joyful learning, what are the essential components that you

need to bring and mix together? The fascinating thing is that there can be dozens of formulas which will all produce the final result. First you create a foundation for learning—what does this mean? What goes into that state? For you, is it receptivity, curiosity, playing, focus, etc.? Then do you need to bring a belief that gives you a fun strategy? A value that identifies joyful benefits? A kinesthetic sensation of “wow?” An insight of “aha!”?

Sometimes we can create this attitude very quickly and very simply. “Think of something joyful ... Go there, be there now. See what you see when you see that joyful thing. ... Hear what you hear, notice the sounds and tones. Feel what you feel, notice your breath, posture, face, etc. Good. How much are you accessing the joy? Good. And now feel all of this about learning...” When this meta-stating works, you have made “learning” a member of the class of “joy.”

But this will not work in just that way for everyone. Some will need additional components in order to generate the gestalt state of experience of joyful learning. Do you have an attitude of joyful learning? Would you like to have that attitude? You now have a basic structure for how to set that up so that it becomes the attitude in the back of your mind which, in turn, will create a new style and orientation for you.