Here’s a story I’ve been told but don’t remember:
When I was little, maybe around 2 or 3, I was in the dining room with my grandfather, who I loved better than life itself.
I started dragging a large chair around the dining room.
My grandfather told me to stop, I guess because the dragging was making noise and because the chair could topple and flatten 3-year-old Bejako.
But I didn’t stop. I kept dragging the chair around.
My grandfather again told me to stop.
I still didn’t.
So my grandfather gave me a light swat on the hand, not enough to hurt me, but enough to get my attention.
It worked. I let go of the chair. I started wailing instead. And in my childish fear and confusion, I turned to the only natural place of comfort, and that was back to my grandfather. I ran to him and hugged him and wailed away. My grandfather said later he felt so guilty that he wished for his hand, the one he had swatted me with, to dry up and fall off.
I’m reading a book now called, I’m OK — You’re OK. I’m reading it because:
I’ve learned the most about email marketing and copywriting from Ben Settle…
Ben frequently recommends a book called Start With No, by negotiation coach Jim Camp, which I’ve read a half dozen times…
Start With No is largely a rehash of ideas in a book called You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar, by sales trainer Dave Sandler, which I read for the first time earlier this year…
Sandler’s book and sales system are a mix of classic sales techniques, his own personal experimentation, and ideas coming from transactional analysis, specifically as described in the book I’m OK — You’re OK, by psychiatrist Thomas Harris.
(There’s value in working backwards like that.)
Here’s a passage in I’m OK — You’re OK that stuck out to me:
===
The predominant by-product of the frustrating, civilizing process is negative feelings. On the basis of these feelings the little person early concludes, “I’m not OK.” We call this comprehensive self-estimate the NOT OK, or the NOT OK Child. This permanent recording is the residue of having been a child. Any child. Even the child of kind, loving, well-meaning parents. It is the situation of childhood and not the intention of the parents which produces the problem.
===
Like I said, this stuck out to me. Because some people had happy, stable childhoods. But even those people have a reservoir of childhood memories that make them feel not OK today. And maybe those people wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Says Harris, nothing. That’s life.
On the other hand, other people had genuinely troubled or traumatizing childhoods. They might suspect their childhood left them somehow uniquely warped and deformed, and the fact they feel not OK today proves it. But that logic is wrong, says Harris, because again, we are all not OK.
“I’m not OK — You’re not OK” is not a very inspiring message. Fortunately, the above passage is not how the book ends. In fact it only comes in chapter two. After all, the book is titled I’m OK — You’re OK.
If you’d like to know how to get out of the impulsive, frustrating, and maybe painful web of childhood memories and patterns, at least according to Thomas Harris, you can check out I’m OK — You’re OK below, and maybe learn a thing or two about sales and negotiation and copywriting in the process: