PUSHED BY DRIVES, PULLED BY MEANING

“Perception and meaning are contributions from the organism not from the environment ... The experience ... what it means ... is within your control to our extent that would surprise and delight you.” (Grinder & DeLozier, Turtles All the Way Down, p. 209)

“What is meaningful to us causes the heart to leap.” Wilson Colin (Biographer of Maslow)

Two quotations—two key thoughts. First, meaning comes from within; second, meaning causes the heart to leap. And actually these two thoughts are central to Neuro-Semantics. We could even say that provide a definition or description of Neuro-Semantics. What then is Neuro-Semantics? One short answer is that Neuro-Semantics is the embodiment of meaning. It is a discipline in which we focus on how to act on, perform, and make real the meanings that we value and live by, and those that we want to live by. And that’s because we all live by meaning. Without meaning (that is, meaningfulness) we cannot live. Truly living in the sense of thriving and flourishing requires a strong and robust sense of meaning.

Meaningfulness is also required for being effective in whatever you do. That is, to be effective in achieving any particular objective is a function of that objective holding rich meaning to you. In fact, we could call this the Neuro-Semantic formula for success— The E = MC2 of Neuro-Semantics

And what does E = MC2 refer to? Namely, Effectiveness = Meaning (Competency)2. So to get effectiveness in any given area, take your meanings and multiply them times your competencies (your developed) squared. Do that and you will pretty much be able to articulate your “effectiveness.”

Are you an effective coach, or trainer, or parent, or business manager, or entrepreneur? Well, let’s see.

1) What does it mean to you? And what else? And how much meaning do all of those meanings hold for you? And when you combine all of those, where would the meaningfulness level be from 0 to 10? And are there any meanings that detract from this? Any meanings that undermine the meaningfulness of your role and job?

2) What are your core competencies in manifesting your richest meanings in that area? Where would you gauge yourself on those competencies from 0 to 10? What are the core competencies that you need to be effective as a coach, trainer, parent, manager, or entrepreneur? What are the supplementary skills that are also required to move beyond the basics to really succeeding in that area? Where is your skill-level in those skills? Now imagine that you need to double all of those

skills (practice them for the 10,000 hours or ten-years required for expertise) and in comparison with that where are you?

3) Now multiple all of your meanings by your competencies. This should be a pretty good gauge for how far up the pathway of self-actualization you have moved as you have synergized meaning and performance.

Meaning here refers, of course, to the Axis of Meaning— which actually is “axes” because there are multiple axes. In the book, Neuro-Semantics: Actualizing Meaning & Performance I have identified numbers axes of meaning. There is the axis of the kinds of meanings, the qualities of meaning, and the numbers of meaning.

Competency, by contrast, refers to the Axis of Performance. And on this axis we have the 13 or more kinds of performances (competencies or skills) and quality of those competencies. These are the skills required to put into action, to embody, and to actualize what we conceptualize, believe, and understand. And perform we do— we plan, we talk, we embody, we act, we repeat, we practice, we create a discipline, and so on as we do lots of different things that enable us to “perform.”

My research and studies in Self-Actualization Psychology has led to several new formulations of the NLP model that we now call Neuro-Semantics. One of them is that self-actualization is the function of the synergy or synthesis of meaning and performance. Another is this: We are pushed by drives and pulled by meanings.

Pushed by drives refers to the fact of our embodiment. And the fact that we are embodied in the kind of bodies that we are, these bodies require numerous gratifications in order to be healthy, alert, energized, and fully functioning. And those requirements as “needs” (or necessities) are our drives. They drive us toward what is required for survival (food, water, oxygen, sleep, etc.), for safety (order, stability, control over one’s choices and responses, etc.), for love and affection (connection, bonding, relating, etc.), and for a sense of value or importance within a community of people. Pushed by these drives, we then have to learn to cope with effectively gratifying the need or else. “Or else” what? Or else we will become desperate for the need, create pseudo- and toxic substitutes for them, become pathological, and suffer all kinds of symptoms.

Pulled by meanings refers to the fact of our higher nature, a nature that transcends the animal nature and life in the jungle. Of this Maslow said that we have within us a drive for self-actualization and we now know that what pulls us there is our hunger for meaning. We are not only a meaning-making species, we are a meaning-dependent species. Without meaning we shrivel up and die. Without meaning we waste away and become diminished as human beings. Yet with meaning, we begin to unleash more and more potentials that are clamoring inside.

And Neuro-Semantics? Well, this is the model that informs us about how to work with the dynamics or drives that push us and the meanings that pull on us.