There can be no friendship without confidence,and no confidence without integrity
As we look back and survey the terrain to determine where
we've been and where
we are in relationship to where we're going, we clearly
see that we could not have gotten where we are without coming the way we came. There aren't any other roads; there aren't any shortcuts. There's no way to
parachute into this terrain.
The landscape ahead is covered with the fragments of broken relationships
of people who have tried.
They've tried to jump into effective relationships without the maturity, the strength of character, to maintain
them.
But you just can't do it; you simply have to travel the road. You can't be successful with other
people if you haven't
paid the price of
success with yourself.
A few years ago when I was giving a seminar on the Oregon coast, a man came up to me and said,
"You know, Stephen,
I really
don't
enjoy coming to these seminars."
He had my attention.
"Look at everyone
else here," he continued.
"Look at this beautiful coastline and the sea out there and all that's happening. All I can do is sit and worry about the grilling
I'm going to get from my wife
tonight on the phone.
"She gives me the third degree every time I'm away.
Where did I eat breakfast? Who else was there? Was I in meetings all morning? When did we stop for lunch? What did I do during lunch? How
did I spend the afternoon? What did I do for entertainment in the evening? Who was with me? What
did we
talk about?
"And what she really wants to know, but never quite asks, is who she can call to verify everything I tell her. She just nags me and questions everything I do whenever
I'm away. It's taken the bloom out of
this whole experience. I
really don't enjoy it
at all."
He did look pretty miserable. We talked
for a
while, and then he
made a very interesting
comment.
"I guess she knows all the questions to ask," he said a little
sheepishly. "It was at a seminar like this
that I met her when
I was
married to someone else!"
I considered the implications of his comment
and then said, "You're kind of into 'quick fix,' aren't
you?"
"What do you mean?" he replied.
"Well, you'd like to take a screwdriver and just open up your wife's head and rewire that attitude of hers
really fast, wouldn't you?"
"Sure, I'd like her to change," he exclaimed.
"I don't think it's right for her to constantly
grill me like she does."
"My friend,"
I said, "you
can't talk your way out
of problems you behave yourself into."
We're dealing with a very dramatic and very fundamental Paradigm
Shift here. You may try to
lubricate your social interactions with personality
techniques and skills, but in the process, you may
truncate the vital character base.
You can't have the fruits without the roots. It's the principle of sequencing: Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Self-mastery
and self-discipline are the
foundation of good relationships with others.
Some people say that you have to like yourself before you can like others. I think that idea has merit, but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery
over yourself, it's very
hard to like yourself,
except in some short-term, psych-up, superficial
way.
Real self-respect comes from dominion over self, from true independence. And that's the focus of Habits 1, 2, and 3. Independence is an achievement. Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make. Unless we are willing to achieve real independence, it's foolish to try to develop
human-relations skills. We might try. We might even have some degree of success when the sun is
shining. But when the difficult times come -- and they will -- we won't have the foundation to keep things together.
The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what
we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human-relations techniques (the
personality ethic) rather than from our own inner
core (the character
ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won't be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective
interdependence.
The techniques and skills that really make a difference in human interaction are the ones that almost naturally flow from a truly independent character.
So the place to begin building any relationship is inside
ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character. As we become independent --
proactive, centered
in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity -- we then can choose to become interdependent -- capable of
building rich, enduring, highly productive
relationships with other people.
As we look at the terrain ahead, we see that we're entering a whole new dimension. Interdependence opens up worlds of possibilities for deep, rich, meaningful
associations, for geometrically increased productivity, for serving, for contributing, for learning, for growing. But it is also where we feel the greatest pain, the greatest frustration, the greatest roadblocks
to happiness and success. And we're very aware of that
pain because it is acute.
We can often live for years with the chronic
pain of our lack of vision, leadership or management in our personal lives. We feel vaguely uneasy and uncomfortable and occasionally take steps to ease the
pain, at least for a time. But the
pain is chronic, we get used
to it,
we learn
to live
with it.
But when we have problems
in our interactions with other people,
we're very aware of acute pain -- it's often intense, and we want it to
go away.
That's when we try to treat the symptoms with quick fixes and techniques -- the band-aids of the personality ethic.
We don't understand that the acute pain is an outgrowth of the deeper, chronic
problem. And until we stop treating
the symptoms and start treating the problem, our efforts will
only bring counterproductive results. We will only be successful at obscuring the chronic pain even more.